Jaguar Night (10 page)

She glared at him. “Then there’s obviously only one thing to do. You have to move. Away.
Far
away.”

“What I have to do,” he told her, forcing his voice into temperate understanding, “is deal with this new probe. It’s not like the other. That one was looking around…this one is looking for trouble.”

“Here?” She straightened, dropping her arms. “My people are in danger?”

He gave a short nod. “Probably. Hard to tell exactly what something like this is set to do until it does it.”

“Then deal with it! You didn’t like my way of doing things—
you
do it.”

“Your way of doing things would be just fine at the moment,” he told her, looking back into his mind’s eye, finding the probe and its slow, slow process through the wards—wards that recognized it as the danger it was, and wouldn’t let it pass so quietly as the first probe. “Except this particular grody spot would flare back on you and quite possibly burn you out.”

She rubbed the arm that had been injured. “Burn me out,” she repeated flatly.

He glanced at her, pulling himself from ward vision. “Yes,” he said. “Might just be those skills your mother gave you that you think no one else notices. Might be your whole mind.”

She merely stared, as though she didn’t believe him. Or more likely, couldn’t take it in. “Then fix it,” she finally said. “Whatever it takes.
Fix it.”

“Funny you should put it that way.” He took a step
toward her; she took an equal step back.
“Whatever it takes.
Because the problem is, those herbs of yours haven’t left me alone yet. So I
can’t
fix it. Not alone.”

Her eyes flared wide a moment, but quickly narrowed down. He was coming to know that look—the distrust. The wariness. But when he took another step forward, she held her ground.
The strength.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do it alone. I need your—”
Strength.

A moment passed, during which she scrutinized his features with such intensity that he began to wonder just what she saw—what she
could
see. Finally, quietly, she said, “You’re serious. If I want to keep this place safe…”

She let her words trail off, but he knew well enough what she meant, and he nodded. “Soon,” he said. “There’ll be a point at which I can’t make this work even with your help.”

She took a deep breath; she squared shoulders lean from work, feminine in line. Strongly drawn collarbones, graceful neck, that dark nut-brown hair spilling over her nape—he almost reached for her, almost ran his knuckles along those lines. But he caught himself, and—oblivious of his impulse—she nodded. “Okay. We fix it together.”

Chapter 8

W
e fix it together.

As if it were that simple. Meghan shuddered, down deep inside where she hoped Dolan couldn’t see it but pretty much expected he could. She’d known for days that her only chance to deal with this situation, to protect the ranch and her friends, was to keep her head. To avoid getting sucked up in the emotions that swirled around matters of her mother’s death—or the emotions that swirled around Dolan.

If you could call them that. Emotions. Meghan herself was no longer sure what they were, these physical reactions, swelling up from within as though some force had crooked its finger and her body responded. It made her feel as though she were an outsider with no control over those responses, no say in their development. As if Dolan himself were irrelevant, as if she hadn’t felt the
soul of him that night, and learned that all her preconceived notions about him were wrong.

Except some part of her wondered if any of it would be happening at all had not the seeds of it been there before their blood had mingled with her herbs and incantations.

Not that it mattered. She had no intention of being controlled by incantations or Sentinel ways. She had her life—one they’d left her alone to manage in a mundane world after her mother had died for one of their causes. She had her chosen family. She’d do what she had to, to protect them…but that didn’t mean she’d hand herself over to be a piece in some cosmic game.

Dolan still watched her. He’d given her thoughts time to cycle around…and now she saw the flash of impatience in his eyes that said they’d run out of time. “What you do,” he said, “is find the thing, just the way you did before you came running in here. Don’t worry about taking me to it…I’ll be there. It’s your strength I need, not the know-how.”

“Just leave me enough to finish chores,” she said, and added enough of a direct look to tell him she was only half kidding.
Don’t drain me dry.
Not when she still had to keep an eye on this place. And then she closed her eyes and tipped her head back and took herself to the place she’d last seen the new invader. She found it almost immediately, closer to the ranch than before—but Dolan, she didn’t even see coming. Stealthy, a presence padding softly over these ethereal hunting grounds, he found her with such quick, efficient silence that she felt only that sudden snap of connection, the intense internal humming that took her even on this level.

She fought to stabilize herself; she thought she heard
him, in the physical world, hiss between clenched teeth. And then he swept her up in such sudden strength that she left the physical behind altogether. Strength and assurance and intent…except it all tasted just a tiny bit like…

Me.

But abruptly there was no
me
in this place, no
Meghan
and no
Dolan.
His experienced vision took her wide, where the world consisted of smooth earth tones and overlapping wards and a huge panoramic perception that offered no room for feet grounded against good hard earth or the warm afternoon air in expanding lungs, or the smell of sun-heated cedar and juniper, sharp and cutting. Just muffled, enclosing earth tones and wards—and there, over there, the evil of the thing that had brought them here this way.

Dolan’s control brought them closer, weaving effortlessly through wards that recognized Meghan and allowed them passage—coming so close to the malevolent danger that Meghan voiced a wordless protest, digging in nonphysical heels until he somehow gave her a little yank. A reminder.
This is what we’re here for. I know what I’m doing.

But Meghan didn’t. She didn’t, and it scared her, and she struggled against him anyway—hard enough so his concentration wavered and the danger
looked
at them somehow, its prickly edges freezing as it stopped its progress to assess this new, uncoordinated presence.

Trust, Meghan.

Had he really said that? Had he said it out loud to her, to her insignificant body in the insignificant ranch house in the insignificant world? Or had he just thought it…?

Or maybe it had been her, convincing herself.

Trust.

She thought of him that night, so vulnerable—but trusting her to do right by him, pulling back claws that had been meant to rip her arm off…giving himself up to her.

All right, then.

Almost immediately, the malevolence lost interest. Just as quickly, Dolan moved them in closer. While she fought with everything she had to keep from recoiling in horror, he
reached out
to it…he
tickled
it—a great, ephemeral cat, playing with its prey. The dark spot rippled in response, and, drifting alongside, Dolan reached out again. She couldn’t have said how he was doing it, or considered attempting it herself. But she saw, then, that the ripple effect had changed the thing’s course.

So gently it didn’t even recognize their presence, Dolan manipulated the invader until it became completely disoriented—and when he slowly backed them away, the thing was headed out of the little sphere of web lines and shifting energies that was, in another world, a small ranch called Encontrados.

Suddenly exhausted, Meghan receded abruptly from this world with its new intensities and feelings and vision, plunging endlessly back through bottomless darkness—and finally slamming home into her body, staggered and dazed and taking some moments to realize she wasn’t where she’d left herself.

She wasn’t standing aside. She wasn’t
separate.

She was, in fact, standing behind Dolan—standing up against Dolan, with her cheek centered between his clean-cut shoulders and his scent tickling her nose and her arms around his waist, resting there as though they belonged, hands clasping her wrists and forearms
somehow already familiar with the hard lines of a muscled torso. She stiffened and would have pulled away, had his hands not landed on hers and firmly trapped her there.

And then the second wave of sensation hit, the hum of things crescendoing up to vibrate in her bones, drawing warmth along her spine, tightening the skin over her entire body. She tensed; her hands clenched against him even as his fingers tightened down on hers. Abruptly, he released her; abruptly, he pivoted within her arms, facing her with a fierce and hungry expression.

She had only an instant to realize it, and then suddenly they weren’t two people, they were one being—one being in a frenzy of kissing and clawing at clothes and pressing up against each other, form molding into form and melting into a quicksilver warmth, fingers clutching at hair, lips bruising at each other until Meghan’s legs built up into a quiver, her body building into something not yet explored. Her hands skimmed down his back as one leg twined around both of his, the entirety of her being urging
closer, oh, please, closer
as he gasped into her mouth.

As unexpectedly as anything else, her single grounded leg gave way beneath her, bringing them both tumbling down onto the age-worn wood floor. One of his hands cradled her head, saving it from impact; the other lay flat against her stomach, fingers twitching. And though his breath came fast and his pupils were black and huge in those deepest of blue eyes, something in his expression had caught a hint of sanity.

Meghan felt nothing of sanity in herself. Horrified at what she’d done, what she’d become, she was simultaneously
bereft to be separate of him again. At first she could only watch him come back to himself, stages of awareness seeping back into his face, around his eyes. And perhaps the same was happening to her, for in a moment, his hand big and warm on her stomach, she was able to say,
“What
—” and then
“What
—
?”
again.

Dolan gave his head a sharp shake. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t realize. I—”

“Still want you,” she whispered, a completion of her own thoughts as well as his.

He deliberately drew back. Not far, not so far that she couldn’t still feel the warmth of him, hovering over her, but just far enough to finalize the moment. “Damn,
yes.”
He made sure she supported herself on her elbows, released her head and her stomach, and drew a hand across his face.

“But it wasn’t
my
decision,” she realized out loud. “It wasn’t yours, either. It was…”

“Whatever you created three nights ago,” he agreed.

She felt her own scowl; she scooted back a little, putting enough space between them so she could sit and stand and brush herself off. “I make my own decisions when it comes to this.”

He stood beside her, just that suddenly—fluid movement, a reminder of what he could be when he had his strength. His expression had gone rueful, but he nodded. “As do I.”

But he caught her eye again, and stepped close without breaking his gaze; when she looked up, she was startled to realize how closely they hovered over another kiss. But he didn’t dip his head down; she didn’t stretch up. He said, “As it happens, I’ve made that decision. I’m
just waiting for yours.” He touched her bruised lips, the gentlest of caresses—one that sent her bones to singing all over again, pulling up such a response that she knew it was more than just the herbs and blood and unwitting connection she’d created, she
knew…

Then he stepped aside so she could leave.

Chapter 9

D
olan stared at the ceiling, his preternatural night vision turning it into a swirl of textured paint that no pure human could see.
What the hell did I do that for?

He’d moved aside—and she’d walked out. Squared her shoulders, set her jaw and walked out of the room. He hadn’t seen her since. Oh, he’d
heard
her—outside, finishing chores and bidding her friends good-night after they’d tossed out evening hay to the various creatures of Encontrados. And he’d heard her come back inside, moving quietly through the darkened house until the faintest glow of light from the hall told him she’d turned on her bedroom light. Brushed her teeth…rustled through a change of clothes…

The light had gone out, and now Dolan stared at the ceiling, his body awash with so many aches he couldn’t even separate them from one another—aside from that
which came through loud and clear. The
want.
The
want
so strong he could barely stop himself from rolling out of this small bed and easing down the hall to Meghan’s bedroom. The overwhelming awareness of her presence…

What little thinking he’d been doing, stopped.

He clenched his jaw; he breathed through his nose and out his mouth. He reminded himself that he was a Sentinel; that he had training and strength and thirteen years of field experience. He reminded himself why he was there…what was at stake. That the Core no doubt still lurked—that they no doubt already realized this latest probe had failed.

Meghan.
He took another deep breath, let it go. Had there been no potential between them other than the incantation washing through their bodies, it would have been enough. Had he not wanted her from the moment he’d confronted her at the round pen, all spark and anger and defiance, wrapped around Sentinel skills so sweet and untried that even then they’d called to him, it would have been enough.

But he
had
wanted her.
Had
been drawn to her. Had found himself lingering around the ranch longer than reason or common sense or his mission allowed. And when the Core had taken him down…