Sentinels: Lion Heart

by Doranna Durgin

  Chapter 8

  S he’d given him space. Time spent perusing exhibits she didn’t quite see, except to realize, again, how seriously he took the many-faceted nature of the mountain.

  For someone who had only been here a couple of years, he’d certainly become invested.

  Then again, what else did he have? His sister had died, she knew that much from the file—his half sister, who’d been his only remaining family. His partner had died. He’d sold his business when he’d been reassigned, pulled from the area in which he’d grown up. He’d been a person of interest to the Henderson police in Dean Seacrest’s death, gone cold case for lack of evidence…a situation very much echoed within the Sentinels. And now here he was. What else did he have, indeed?

  Did you get in too deep, Ryan? Want too much?

  By the time she’d worked through those thoughts, he’d composed himself, turning back to her with nothing more than a faint gleam of blood at the base of one nostril, the lines of his face subtly harsher than normal…as though he still held himself together by dint of will alone. He said, “I know what you think of me. But do you really think I’d do that to myself?”

  She shook her head. “Not on purpose.”

  His jaw hardened…and he simply turned away, heading for the main atrium of the small museum—and the exit.

  “Check it out, then,” he said. “I don’t think it’s anything but a practice piece—they tried to draw on the Elden connection—but you won’t want to take my word on it. I’ll wait outside.”

  “Wait,” she said, caught by surprise at his abrupt departure. “That’s it? That’s all there is to see—?”

  He barely hesitated, glancing over his shoulder. “There’s plenty more to look at. I’m just not sure you’ll actually see it. Either way, you know where it is.”

  Okay then. She wasn’t in the mood to argue…and frankly, they needed to get out of this place. But she said, “I’ll be a few minutes,” because she wanted a better feel of that artifact—something she hadn’t dared do while he was in the room, in case it stirred currents of power that he couldn’t handle.

  She moved in on it cautiously, her nose wrinkling, her eyes tearing as the stench of the trace became more intense. Amulets, for certain. Something of Fabron Gausto—not surprising. But the traces led nowhere; they felt like an experiment failed, or not yet completed. They posed no danger—except to a Sentinel named Joe Ryan. She’d recognize it if she came upon it again.

  Still, she hesitated; her hand hovered above the knapped obsidian. For certain she’d be e-mailing Nick at the soonest opportunity, asking for a consult with one of the brevis amulet experts. Note to self: Make sure we have one on the team.

  In the end, she withdrew her hand without touching the projectile. Satisfying her curiosity wasn’t worth the risk…and she didn’t have the expertise to glean anything meaningful from the touch in the first place. So she curled her fingers back into her hand, did a once-over of herself to make sure she hadn’t become too disheveled during her encounter with the cougar, and strode for the exit in his footsteps.

  She found him chatting with the short, sturdy woman cashier who’d taken their money. Her copper skin tone, round face and strongly bow-shaped lips were features fast becoming familiar to Lyn, here in northern Arizona so close to the reservations. But what she noticed most was the woman’s quiet ease with Ryan. There he stood, pretty much recovered from his encounter with the tainted projectile, once more radiating that understated but definite confidence that came with strength and power, and this woman accepted it and let it flow around her.

  The realization startled Lyn…made her face the fact that she, too, could have handled Ryan’s presence in this way, instead of taking it into herself…instead of reacting to him.

  Couldn’t she have?

  The woman was saying, “Your cold sounds better. You shouldn’t have been here last week…you weren’t listening to yourself very well.”

  “I’m a guy,” Ryan said, and grinned. “We’re not supposed to have listening skills, are we?”

  The woman responded with a mischievous grin. “Not that I’ve noticed. But I’m glad you’re feeling better. Will you be at the ride later?”

  “The Save the Peaks ride coming in from Gray Mountain? I’ll be around. Not sure you’ll see me, though.”

  “Right. The mysterious Joe Ryan.” She nodded with overt faux solemnity that didn’t last, then leaned down behind her admissions stanchion to come up with a tissue. “By the way, Mr. Mysterious, you’ve got a nosebleed thing going on there.” She nodded at him rather than gesturing, a quick point with her chin.

  He made a casual face, as if the circumstances behind that nosebleed hadn’t torn at him from the inside out. Just an embarrassed-guy face, aw shoot and shucky darn. But he took the tissue and obediently dabbed it to his nose, and it was then that Lyn realized he’d noticed her approach long before, that he’d slightly angled his body to include her, should she ever decide to move into the conversation.

  “This your lady friend, then?” The attendant fixed him with a disapproving look. “There’s no way you can take someone through here so fast, not without making her eyes spin around in her head.”

  “Other obligations,” Ryan said cheerfully, as if he and Lyn hadn’t just been talking about guilt and fate and consequences. “I just wanted to make sure she saw enough of it to want to come back.”

  The woman nodded. “That’s a good plan, then. It meets with my approval.”

  Ryan placed his hand over his heart as if he was faint with relief. “See you next time, then,” he said, and led the way back out into the heat of the parking lot.

  Overhead, the clouds had built into low-hanging rumblers, reminding her again of their altitude. A gusty breeze kicked someone’s litter across the parking lot, all the more incongruous for its place amongst scattered pine needles and cones. She stopped to eye him. “Other obligations?”

  He shrugged. “None. Just an exit line.”

  Her mind went straight to the practical. “Actually, I need to fill the rental with gas. And do you have Internet access at your house? Cable or wireless?”

  “Cable,” he said. “Plenty of room on the router for you to plug in. And if you turn toward town when we leave, five minutes down the road there’s a gas station.”

  “Great,” she said, knowing her voice didn’t sound it. Too unsettled by it all…unable to just put it behind her, as Ryan seemed to have done.

  Then again, he had more practice.

  The gas station also sold snow cones. Good chipped ice, just the right amount of flavor. Lyn parked the car off to the side after it was gassed up, taking advantage of a niche of shade beside the convenience store. Out in the sun the heat had beat fiercely on them, but here in the shade, flavored ice sliding down her throat, the day somehow seemed like luxury. Across from her, one arm hanging lazily off the roof of the car, Ryan looked utterly at home. A twitch of his shoulder there, a faint tilt of his head here…she realized, suddenly, that his cougar ears would be swiveling, his whiskers tipping and flexing. That he was, even in this quiet moment, following the patterns of power in this place.

  Had it been only yesterday that she’d ridden a wave of disrupted power at the top of the Skyride with the sudden flash of fear that it might well be too late to fix the deeply disrupted mountain? That the Peaks would erupt again, this time with much more than mere magma?

  If it wasn’t too late, it soon would be. Nick hadn’t said it; Ryan hadn’t said it. But she’d heard the concern in Nick’s voice…seen the look on Ryan’s face. Watched his concentration now.

  “If they’re here,” she said of those who’d made the trace at the top of the world, “where are they staying? A hotel? A B & B? A tourist trap? Or do they have someone in place here, a private residence?”

  “You’re welcome to search my place,” he murmured, eyes half-lidded.

  She bit her lip on a flare of annoyance. “Look,” she said, and she took hers
elf around to the other side of the car, looking up into the strong lines of his face—noticing for the first time that he set his jaw just the slightest bit crooked when he hit this level of concentration, “even if you are in on this, you have to see it’s gotten out of control. It’s like you said…you wouldn’t do this to yourself. I don’t think you would do it to this mountain, either. So—”

  He stopped her short by the reaching for her without looking, his hand cupping the side of her face. It startled her into silence, and then into gathering protest, but something about his eyes—gone from half-lidded to truly narrowed—and about the stiffened nature of his shoulders, the sudden hitch in his breathing as though someone had hit him but not terribly hard…

  “What?” she asked, afraid she already knew the answer. If he was riding the power…if he’d found something else…

  His hand tightened against her cheek. His head lifted, cocked slightly, face tense—a cougar blind to outer sight, listening to inner sight. Foreboding prickled along her spine, flattened her mouth.

  His eyes snapped open—still not seeing. He growled, a noise she felt more than heard. She didn’t wait for it—she flung her shields up. He recoiled from that but only slightly, his attention still entirely elsewhere—until quite suddenly he was back, sharply focused on the gas station, the convenience store, the intersection.

  A second roll of power came through. Lights within the store sparked and went dark; a woman cried out in surprise as her car engine, instead of starting, exploded into smoke and sparks and grinding failure. The gas pumps seized; a motorcycle cruised to a dead-engine stop.

  And there at the intersection, an oblivious woman, baby in her arms, elementary school daughter at her side, stepped out into the crosswalk—even as the cross-traffic light sputtered, flickered through its phases, and settled on green.

  Green both ways.

  A third wave, and bracing himself wasn’t enough; she saw his knees start to go. “Shield yourself, dammit!” She wanted to shout it, but managed to keep her voice low—and still he didn’t do it. And then she saw what he’d anticipated, the cross-traffic car heading straight for the family—the girl skipping with her small hand twined around her mother’s belt loop, the mother laughing at something she’d said, adjusting the baby’s blanket.

  Ryan made a hiss of sound—it might have been his breath through his teeth as that third wave rolled on past, it might have been warning. Lyn gasped in surprise at the new shift of power washing over her—gasped in the realization that it came not from the mountain, but from right beside her. Targeted, precise…it growled into the intersection, smooth and dangerous as it flowed around Lyn’s shields. Lights flickered and died, drivers hesitated…and the single car at the focus of that push quite abruptly…died. No engine, no power…

  Lyn wondered if the driver would ever realize he hadn’t coasted to a stop, but rocked in place with the force of the additional interference.

  And then she realized what he’d done.

  What he’d been able to do.

  What no one at brevis had even guessed had been within his reach.

  And she saw what it took out of him. He flicked a wry look at her, wrung out and leaning against the car for real, somehow keeping his feet, with that fourth wave of disgruntled mountain power sweeping down to—

  He’s got no shields.

  He’d deliberately left himself open to deal with the repercussions of that wild power—and there was no way he’d pull shields together now. Not after that.

  So she did what she really didn’t want to do. She reached for the calm she’d created around herself; she drew in a deep breath and as she exhaled, she expanded her awareness—carefully in this charged atmosphere, gently…enveloping him. Drawing him in.

  And, oh yeah…here it comes….

  The overwhelming sense of Ryan. The textures and layers and intensity, washing through her and into places she’d never intended but had known wouldn’t evade this connection. Not under these circumstances and not, she was coming to realize, with this man. The swell of sensation—the pounding of her heart, the way her inner awareness felt too large for her body—felt unexpectedly sweet, and brought an equally unexpected longing.

  He straightened, no longer distracted, looking only at her. Dusky hazel eyes widened; something within her contracted in response, far too intimate. She gave a faint gasp of surprise and suddenly he was right there, expression gone feral—as though she was his to take, and the moment loomed inevitable.

  Her response came so quickly, so freely, she felt like two different people—one of whom welcomed him and the other of whom stood frozen as he pulled her against him, her feet barely touching the ground now, their faces so very close, their mouths so very close…

  “Ryan,” she managed—nothing more than a choked whisper, a struggle against the forces swirling around and through them. A tiny cry in the wild.

  His eyes widened even farther, ever so briefly—and then he closed them, giving his head a hard little shake, taking a sharp, deep breath and holding it an instant before he let it go. His hands slowly released her arms, easing her down from her toes. He turned away—elbows against the car, the heels of his hands rubbing his eyes—obviously still trying to find control.

  “It’s okay,” she said, her voice low. Trying to convince herself. “It’s the shields. I can’t drop them, not yet. I wish there was another way—” Shielding someone else…it wasn’t anything for which she’d been trained. And though she’d done it now and then, it had never had these results.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, even as she fought the impulse to step closer to him again, to change the thrum of interlocking powers into the thrum of interlocking flesh.

  What am I even thinking?

  He lifted his hands just enough to throw her a sideways glance; his voice came ragged. “It is what it is.”

  “I—what?” He’d said that as if those feelings were real. Not created by circumstances, but real. She took a step back, alarmed beyond all reasonable measure at the thought.

  “Relax,” he said dryly. “I can deal with it.” He pushed off the car, looking weary—looking wary, as though her reaction had dealt him a blow harder than anything the mountain had thrown at him.

  Regret assailed her. Her alarmed expression, the reactive body language…it must have felt like a slap in the face.

  Because you really did want him. Right here, right now. And the thought that anything so strong, so overwhelming, could be anything but induced…

  Not with this man. Not with a Sentinel gone dark.

  A Sentinel who just left himself wide open in order to save four people.

  But that didn’t mean he hadn’t gotten himself into this. That he hadn’t overestimated himself and underestimated the Core…or just plain been betrayed by them. Because troubled men could otherwise mean well…could even be admirable.

  And a troubled man could damn well drag her down into the dark with him, if she let him.

  Chapter 9

  J oe settled into the passenger seat of the little car, which had not nearly enough leg room. His head tipped back against the headrest, eyes closed. No one in the gas station corner had even noticed the too-close-for-comfort exchange; they’d been completely engaged with the action at the intersection and the sputtering, flailing electrical systems all around them. Murmurs of electrical failure and was there an earthquake and terrorism! bespoke their inability to recognize the power surge. And so Joe had climbed into the car and Lyn eased in beside him and started the little Focus, pulling smoothly but swiftly out of the gas station and back onto Fort Valley Road. Back toward home.

  Yeah, you can handle this, boy-o. The increasing waves of power; their increasing effect on him. The suspicion that today wasn’t the first time he’d have to choose between protecting himself and managing that power…or that Lyn might not be quite as prompt to share her shields again.

  They still hummed around him…hummed through him. Like subsonics, too lo
w to hear but still effective, keeping the hair on his arms just a little bit raised, and the hair at the back of his neck a little more so, and other parts of him just way too—

  Down, boy-o, he told himself. And yet the feel of it all was strangely comfortable, too.

  “Things were out of control,” Lyn said, as if they’d been having a conversation. She was flushed beneath those smudgy eyes. “People don’t understand, but if we get more surges like that…” She shook her head. “I’ve got to get to the bottom of this. I need that Internet access…I have some checking to do.”

  “On me,” he said. When she didn’t answer, he said, “Wouldn’t it make more sense to ferret out the Core? If they’re here, they’re still doing whatever they came to do. They need to be stopped.” He shrugged, flipping the car’s dash vent so it blew directly on his face. “If you don’t happen to nail me in the process, you can always come for me afterward.”

  “No,” she said, and the word had a panicky edge to it. Her hands tightened on the steering wheel; her gaze remained resolutely on the road. After a moment, she said, “You’re my backup. I need to know just how far to trust you when I’m going after them.”

  He grinned, shook his head. Not that it didn’t sting…it always stung. Downright hurt, even. But at least she didn’t favor him with the sideways glances and words gone unspoken. Nope, she’d just come right out with it. “All right,” he said, as if they weren’t actually talking about him. “You need Internet access. Not a big deal. There’s a room downstairs where you can work, if you can convince the cats you need the chair. And—?”

  “And we need to figure out where Gausto is staying.”

  “There’s not much out this way,” Joe observed. Such practical talk, thankfully, subdued his reactions to the shielding. To her.

  “The other side of town?”

  He pondered it. “Direct access to Elden Pueblo…I’m surprised they didn’t try to pull that artifact stunt there.” But that thought stopped him, and he half turned in the small space, looking at her. “You know, there’s nothing to say they didn’t.”