Kodiak Chained

by Doranna Durgin

  Hurt? Hell, yes, he hurt. He looked down at himself, saw nothing but his own hairy chest and worse-for-wear jeans.

  “Your back,” she said. “We need to— No! Don’t—”

  He’d found it, running his hand over his back, his ribs—a shard of wood where it didn’t begin to belong, dammit, and how the hell had that happened, anyway? His fingers scrabbled over it, got a grip—

  “Don’t!” Mariska cried.

  The wood yanked free with a sucking sound and a flood of warmth and a bolt of shredding pain that knocked him to his knees. His lungs burned for air and his torso seized up—but when he finally drew breath it came with a bitter, coppery taste.

  “Dammit, Ruger!” Mariska turned on him, grabbing at the bag she still carried and throwing it down beside him. She plucked the wooden shrapnel from his unresisting fingers and held it up in front of him, pine stained dark and so much longer than expected, the point of it as sharp as any spear. “Here,” she said urgently. “This is what you just pulled out, and now you’re bleeding like the proverbial pig.”

  Well, hell.

  She grabbed his jaw with strong fingers and turned his head to look directly at her, crouching to eye level. “Look at me, dammit! What did this thing do to you? What are we up against?” She held it to her side, approximating position and angle. “Ruger! Don’t make me hit you.”

  Shock. Of course he was in shock. And his brain wasn’t working and his body was torn and his mouth was full of blood—

  She hit him.

  He bared his teeth at her, swaying on his knees. “Liver,” he said hoarsely. “Bleeds like hell. Hepatic artery? Wouldn’t survive that. Diaphragm. Lung—” He proved that one by doubling over with a sudden hack of a cough that sprayed blood everywhere.

  “The shirt,” she said, tossing the wood aside and grabbing at the gear bag. “I need to stop the bleeding—”

  “Not where you can get to it,” he told her faintly, and sweat flushed anew across his forehead, between his shoulder blades. “Mariska...I think...”

  She swore resoundingly and dropped the bag. “That’s our cave,” she told him, jabbing a finger at the fallen tree and the hollow where the roots had torn from earth. “Me and you. Get your ass in there before you pass out, because you’re too damned big to carry.”

  “Too late,” he said, and knew only that she was there to catch him when he fell.

  * * *

  ::Ruger.::

  It was very far away, that voice.

  ::Ruger. Get back here.::

  Too far away, really.

  ::Ruger Bear, get your ass back here!::

  His eyes cracked open of their own volition. He showed her his teeth, putting a little growl beneath it. The display had no effect whatsoever, as he expected. That’s why you let yourself do it.

  Understanding came with unexpected clarity in his dully confused state. With no one else had he ever been able to release the underlying nature of the bear, simply because no one else would have taken it in stride.

  Mariska only said, “Yeah, grrr. Now haul yourself awake and get to work.”

  He lay on his side in cool shadow, surrounded by earthy scents—dirt and dampness and the strong, sappy scent of pine. The root disk loomed above them, sharply angled and closing them in. “How—?” he asked, no less befuddled than before.

  “I didn’t drag you, if that’s what you mean.” Her comforting hand on his shoulder belied the matter-of-fact nature of her words. “Let’s just say I encouraged you along.”

  He scowled, lacking energy as it was. “You poked me.”

  “You’ll never know, will you? Now, you ready to work? We’ve got things to do.” But still her hand was gentle, caressing him minutely before she reached to brush dirt off his face and lightly scrape her fingers through the hair over his ear.

  “Sludge—” He caught his breath on a sudden shard of pain, fighting a cough—unable to hold it, as short on air as he was. The coughing took him over and he rolled into it, curling around himself and coincidentally around Mariska. He barely felt her hold him close, or her hands stroking along his back, firm and comforting and...

  Possessive.

  Possessive. He liked that. He liked the warmth of it, the comfort of it, the—

  “Ruger!”

  “Ah, hell,” he muttered, floundering back to the surface again. “Sludge,” he said again, on a gasp. And, “Wrong side. Help me turn.”

  “But—”

  “Mari.” It was all the argument he had left in him, gasping out on not nearly enough air.

  She stopped arguing, delaying only long enough to grab a remnant of his shirt from the gear bag and hold it to his side as he turned, protecting it from the hard, sand-clay dirt. It left her kneeling at his back, her hands familiar on his body—one resting on his hip, one on his arm. “Better?”

  He couldn’t quite catch his breath against the tearing pain of movement, the outraged reaction to the pressure against the wound. But he sent her an affirmative anyway. ::Better.:: It would be; he was already breathing easier, even as his blood soaked into the dirt.

  Not even a Sentinel healed fast enough to offset an injury of this magnitude—the shock, the blood loss. He knew it, and he thought she might know it, too.

  She might well have been reading his mind. “Sludge isn’t going to be enough.”

  “Not enough,” he agreed, and the words came in gulps of air. “Change of plan. Head to high ground. Get a signal. Get Annorah. Or Maks.”

  “Think again.” But she had no argument in her voice, only regret. When he drew breath to respond, she closed her hand over his arm, staying him. “I hear you, Ruger Bear. But it’s not an option. Before the Core blew you up, they got me. There’s not much left of me.”

  ::The amulet working,:: he realized, remembering how drained she’d looked when they’d met up in the woods.

  “We still have to go after the bastards,” she said. “You need to go after them. You drew them out—we know pretty much where that entrance is, no matter that they obscured it. So we need to be enough of a problem to buy time. It might not be soon enough for Ian and Sandy, but if Forakkes is ready to launch that new working of his on Sentinels, every moment we can buy brevis is critical.”

  He didn’t have words for that; he had only sorrow and assent, and he knew she’d heard him by the way her hand tightened over his hip—and by the way she leaned over to plant a kiss on his cheek.

  When she would have retreated, he snagged her hand—needing to see her face, her eyes. There was no snap in those eyes—they were merely huge and dark and sad. Resigned.

  She used a scrap of his shirt to dab around the blood at his mouth and chin, and then she did just what he’d hoped, bending over his shoulder to take his face and kiss him with a firm possessiveness.

  “Perfect,” he told her, as she drew away again.

  “Perfect is a good healing,” she told him. “Not with any damned sludge, either. The real thing. The same work that’s had healers talking in all the brevis regions—like what you did for Joe Ryan in Flagstaff before that ambush.”

  ::I’m not that healer any longer,:: he said, mustering the energy to feel annoyance that she would even say it, even if he couldn’t muster spoken words.

  “You’re not that man any longer.” She settled down behind his shoulders and briefly rested her forehead on his arm, the only sign she’d given of her own struggle. “Don’t you get it yet? You don’t need to be. Quit trying to do it all at once, and let me help.”

  ::You don’t understand.:: A new wave of pain shuddered through his torso. ::Talk fast,:: he told her dimly, when he could. ::I can’t...can’t—::

  She talked fast. “I know you can take care of yourself, Ruger, and I know that makes you invaluable in the field, but you never should have been asked to handle healing and protection at the same time. There should always be someone to watch your back—always.” He snarled a panting denial, absurdly weak as it was; she ignored it. “That’s why
I wanted to come on this assignment and that’s what I’m here for now. Think about it! You can’t do both at once, not truly. And now that you were hurt so badly, how could you begin to let go of protecting yourself enough to let the healing happen?”

  The words hit him like a blow, leaving him without words.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and she sounded unutterably weary. “You can hate me for saying it if you like, as long as you live—”

  He barely managed the words. “You’re right.”

  “I... What?”

  ::You’re right.::

  He’d been hurt in Flagstaff—hurt badly. Deep down, he’d never let go of that fact. It had infused him with determination—never let it happen again. And the only way to do that was to throw all his energy—subconscious or not—into making sure it didn’t.

  How, then, was he supposed to put any of that energy into healing? Or even into getting past his own defenses? ::You’re right...::

  Her breath caught; it sounded like a sob of relief. “Then let me help.”

  He wasn’t sure how. Or he thought it should make sense, and he just couldn’t think it through.

  “It’s okay,” she said, resting the side of her head against his shoulder, leaning against the breadth of his back—small and solid, full of curves and strength both. “I’m covering you. That’s all you have to know right now. And all you have to do is let go of that responsibility and be the healer. I know it’s not easy to heal yourself, but you can save yourself. I believe that. Do you?”

  His breath caught; he struggled with a new stab of pain. There goes the lung. Collapsing.

  “Ruger. Be the healer!” She poked him, hard, up high on his shoulder. He snarled reflexively and gasped in the wake of it—and she didn’t let up. She poked him again. “Get off your metaphysical ass and do something about this!”

  ::Don’t—::

  “Then make me stop.” Damned if she didn’t poke him again, sending hot shards down his side.

  He sent her a silent snarl this time, barely managing it through the tangle of fog and pain.

  She didn’t know what she was asking...she couldn’t. She’d never tried to absorb her own pain, feeling it double as it wrenched through both healer and body. She’d never tried to think through that onslaught, or to direct delicate energies.

  But she was still right.

  He reached for his healer’s calm, floundering through the chaos of pain to assess and target his own needs. Too big...too much... Teeth clenched, breath panting hard, just barely aware of her at all—just knowing that she was there, and that she stroked and petted him, her lips on his skin in a comforting flutter. His side burned, his blood flowed, his breath ached in his lungs...it slammed into him from the healing side and escalated until he writhed against it—and then her strong hands held him down.

  But when he reached for the healing, he found only sludge. And when he pushed at the sludge, the pain grayed around the edges, the world grayed around the edges...

  She did more than poke him. She hit him. She hit him hard, a punch to the shoulder that jarred him loose from the sludge and sent him whirling back into the pain. He cried out with it, as angry as he was hurting, even knowing she’d just kept him from slipping right away into the gray.

  “Stop it!” she snapped, and hit him again. “Screw the sludge! I’m here, Ruger, and I’m doing the watching. Now let go and be the healer!”

  The world tumbled away.

  He had no idea if she touched him; he had no idea if he cried out as he plunged back into that doubled agony. He had no sense of the ground beneath him, the roots above them, the distant presence of Core corruption... He knew only the pure clarity of pain and the sharply defined kaleidoscope of energies surrounding him.

  He plucked at the energy, spinning it like wool and sending it spearing along the lethal flow of life from injured vessels. He found the wounded lung and infused it with a spongy pale essence; he found torn flesh and soothed it, soaking it with soft encouragement. He found the body as a whole—drained and exhausted—and nourished it with clear, cool sustenance.

  And, quite suddenly, he found himself looking back out on the world. He looked up to the roots dangling above them, on his back with the fingers of one hand digging into dirt and the other hand clenched around Mariska’s so tightly that it felt crushed in his own.

  His side ached ferociously, but...he breathed. His heart pounded a galloping rhythm...but one that slowed, one that beat steadily and not erratically.

  “Are you back?” Mariska whispered. “Did you do it?” She brought their hands up to rest her cheek against the back of his, leaving his skin damp. Tears.

  “I’m back,” he said, and tugged her back down, pulling her to him until she understood come all the way and stretched out right on top of him where he held her close and closer yet, until her tears no longer ran down his neck. He smoothed a hand over her hair as she lifted her head to meet his gaze from those close quarters, her face smudged, her cheeks full of high color, her eyes still gleaming. “I’m back,” he said again.

  She kissed him, full of feeling, and then rested her head on his chest for long moments in which they did no more than breathe together, his chest rising steadily beneath her. Long moments in which he did nothing more than absorb the feel of her—her breasts pressing into his torso, the line of her ribs and the softness of her waist and the definition of her hips. He stroked her back, down her spine and over her tight round bottom. “Thank you.”

  And then he rolled over to his side, lowering her to the ground so their legs tangled and he propped on one shoulder over her. Hell, that hurt. But it was only pain.

  In deep healing, he could mend a cut; he could resolve a moderate wound. But he couldn’t take a body that had been deeply rent and do anything more than stop it from dying. He could stop it from bleeding and kick-start it to recovery, but not fix it. At least, not in one session. And over the centuries, they’d learned it was better that way—that support was better than brute physical change, even change for the better.

  Mariska drew a deep breath beneath him. “We’re not done yet, are we?”

  “Not by far. We still have to find that entrance. We still have to stop Forakkes. And we still have to save Ian.” He kissed her, as gently and thoroughly as she’d just done to him—not an arousing kiss, as much as his body responded to her. More of a statement—of intent and feeling.

  They’d talk about how hard she’d hit him later.

  “Can you stand watch for just a moment longer?” he asked. “Because my guess is that much as you’ve not said it, you’re as done as I was.”

  He was surprised to see her lower lip tremble; she bit it as if that would stop her emotion, and then gave up. “God, Ruger—it hurts. Everywhere. Please make it stop.”

  “Watch for me,” he said, and slipped into being the healer again.

  * * *

  Tarras was dead. Broken and dead and dumped in a corner along with Yovan.

  Ciobaka hadn’t liked Tarras. He hadn’t considered him a dominant and he hadn’t felt obliged to listen to him, only resentful of the artificial circumstances that made it necessary.

  But he had known Tarras. And he had been aware that the man’s presence was an intricate part of the balance in Ehwoord’s pack.

  Ciobaka hadn’t thought that he liked Tarras. But already he missed him.

  Ehwoord still raged, hours later. He’d gotten little work done with his amulets this day, and he blamed the dead men. Then he blamed the three men still alive for their shooting and their wasted grenades. He blamed the Sentinels for being so tenacious, for interfering with Core business.

  He did not blame himself.

  Ciobaka knew only that the Core itself was the biggest pack he could imagine, and he had the sense that Ehwoord’s business wasn’t in fact necessarily Core business. This he had learned because no one ever paid attention to his swiveling ears, and they spoke without reservation in his presence.

  He
curled up in his back corner to give his venison ribs a thoughtful chew, his hindquarters resting casually on top of the key Tarras had dropped. Maybe Ehwoord would send him out to hunt down the Sentinels.

  He could do that.

  “Find them,” Ehwoord raged, flinging the thing that wasn’t really a mouse anymore at the man named Doro. Doro’s hand twitched as if he might catch the not-mouse, but he knew better. He stood stiffly still as it bounced off his hard chest.

  He didn’t know enough not to say, “They must be wounded, sir. We had them right in our sights only moments before impact. They can’t threaten your work now.”

  Ehwoord’s fury extinguished to hard, cold intensity—that which Ciobaka feared most of all. “Then you know nothing of Sentinels at all.”

  Doro’s fear-sweat reached Ciobaka’s nose. Ciobaka chewed on his ribs, crunching off a chunk of meat and bone in a display of great relish. Pretending he didn’t notice things weren’t right anymore, pretending he didn’t care.

  Pretending he hadn’t learned so much these past few days.

  Ehwoord brushed off the front of his immaculate black lab coat, all his anger gone. Just like that. Ciobaka had seen that, too—how as Ehwoord strangely grew less lined and less gray, his moods grew more volatile.

  I am only a dog. I am only chewing.

  “Never mind,” Ehwoord said. “Of course you don’t understand what I’m doing here. How could you? But understand this—those Sentinels are a threat to us until they’re dead. And I don’t want them dead until I have a chance to test my new working on them. It will save us weeks of remote field experiments, and it means we can abandon this compromised facility in short order.”

  That much, Doro certainly understood. None of the men wanted to be here anymore. Ciobaka quietly reached out to caress a thumbed paw-hand down the nearest bar.

  “Now, if you would...go find them.” Ehwoord’s voice rose to a dangerous pitch, then just as abruptly dropped back to normal. “On your way out, please find the box with Ciobaka’s amulets. It’s time to accelerate my protocol.”