Jaguar Night (14 page)

He’s back.

Why ever Dolan had left, he was back. Behind her, crouched in the greening brittlebush and creosote, and still the jaguar.

Meghan didn’t have to turn around to know it. Or to know his intent an instant before it became obvious. He’d started this, and now he’d help her finish it. He flowed out from the darkness, dappled black on black, and Meghan knew the instant that Anica spotted him, the instant Jenny stiffened in fear.

Dolan didn’t make her wait long. Ready for it this time, she narrowed her eyes against the flickering, blueheat lightning of his change, trying to see past it to the nature of the change itself, and failing. And when Dolan stood before her, she said coolly, “Making decisions for
others again, I see. Couldn’t just let me sort this out, could you?”

“We don’t have time for it.” He looked at Anica. “The remaining sheep aren’t far from here—they’re in that little clearing against the hill.”

She looked him up and down, then did it again. And then, eyes narrowing, blurted, “Where the hell do your clothes come from?”

Meghan laughed. Not a lot of humor there, but…enough. She’d once demanded the same thing of her mother. But while her mother had explained about organic materials and the changes the original Vigilia had made to themselves, Dolan barely acknowledged the question. “All part of the package,” he said, and reached out to pull Jenny to her feet. “How’s your ankle?”

She snatched her hand back from his. “Don’t even try to pretend we’re going to have a normal conversation!” she cried—and then stopped to consider. “It’s…better. It’s not normal, but…it’s
better.”

Dolan gave her space, putting out a hand to Meghan in turn. Meghan glared at it, undecided, and he inclined his head slightly. “Go ahead, then.”
You tell them.

Still in her head, then. Fine. Then he knew she was tired of being pushed around. By him, by the Core, by circumstances. “My mother,” she said bluntly, standing on her own so he offered his hand to Anica instead, “was a coyote.”

“Oh, hell,” Anica muttered. But she took Dolan’s hand and came to her feet beside Meghan.

“There are others like her. Like Dolan. They’re called the Sentinels, and they take the form of…coyotes. Jaguars. Other big cats, other carnivores…”

“Sometimes herd animals,” Dolan said. “But not often.”

“Yeah,” said Anica, still muttering. “Because it wouldn’t be sexy to turn into a cow.”

Dolan coughed and turned away, but Meghan easily saw the glint of amusement in his eye.

“Are they the ones who did this?” Jenny demanded, indicating the ranch with a swooping gesture. “Your Sentinels?”

That turned him serious fast enough. “We don’t wield those kinds of powers,” he said. “We build wards; we shape existing power to influence natural processes. Some of us shepherd the earth’s power while we’re at it.”

“Healing,” she murmured, and looked down at her ankle—and then over at Meghan. “And you. Do you…all this time, have you been a…” She couldn’t seem to bring herself to say it.

“No,” Meghan said sharply. “I knew of the Sentinels through my mother. But she died for them, and they
let
her.” She glanced at Dolan as his gaze went hooded, and without thinking about it, she privately added,
Not your brother. They let him die, too. I know that now.

His eyes widened briefly; he looked away, his jaw clenched. Caught up in his own grief from that day. And—she felt it from him—gratitude.

“And if the Sentinels didn’t do
this
—” Anica copied Jenny’s wide gesture “—then who did? Someone sure as hell
wields those kinds of powers.”

“There’s always a bad guy,” Meghan said, darkly bitter. “The same people who killed my mother. They’re called the Atrum Core. They want something that my mother was hiding.”

“The lost Ark of the Covenant.” Anica looked at Dolan. “But you’re no Indiana Jones.”

Meghan felt his quick flicker of annoyance. She could have told him that her friend was only protecting herself; that she hid her fear with sharpness. But Meghan thought he might just deserve to be on the receiving end of that sharpness. Too arrogant, by far…just like the Sentinels, whether he liked it or not. Too used to playing games with other people’s lives.

He gave her a startled look; guilt spiked through her. She hadn’t meant for him to perceive that from her. But…she gave the thoughts another look and discovered she stood behind them.

Jenny looked as though she might just faint. “Just how long has this been going on? Just how many of you are there…?”

“Not so many that we can spare any of us,” Dolan told her. “We’ve been fighting them ever since two brothers of different fathers in Rome-occupied Britain squared off against each other. Over two thousand years.”

“One of the brothers had a druidic father,” Meghan said, her words coming from the stories her mother had told her, suddenly more real than they’d ever seemed. “The other had a Roman father. And the Druid’s son could take the form of a fierce wild boar…”

“But the Roman’s son had only the limited amuletbased powers he learned to steal from others.” Dolan nodded. “In the end, the Druid swore to protect the world from his Roman brother—to hold vigil. Vigilia, they were called—but in recent times we’ve just translated it to Sentinel.”

“And the Atrum Core?” Anica asked. Her sharpness
was fading; she looked smaller than she had. Finally overwhelmed beyond what any attitude could cover.

“We named them,” he admitted. “Over the years. We didn’t expect them to like it, but they took it for their own.”

“Dark core,” Meghan said. “Fits them. I wonder if they see the irony.”

“What irony?” But Jenny’s question came warily…fully aware now that the answers might not be reassuring.

Meghan could well understand that. “The Roman claimed to gather power only to keep the Druid in line. Even human, the man was stronger and quicker than everyone else. And although no one had yet developed ward craft, he could perceive the potential energies. The Roman saw that as a threat…but in the end, it was his own craft that evolved to threaten innocents.”

Anica snorted. “I can’t believe they’d want you to tell us any of this. Your Sentinels. Or even the Atrum Core.” She said those words with distaste, the same way she might pick up a dead mouse. However shaken she’d been, she was already bouncing back. Tough, that Anica. Meghan felt a prickle of pride for her friend—and one of guilt. Maybe she should have said something sooner after all.

Dolan looked away, off into the hills. “If they’d kept their timetable, it wouldn’t have come to this.” But she felt his stab of guilt join hers, and she prodded it—and suddenly she knew. He wasn’t supposed to have come. He’d done it anyway, counting on the team’s imminent arrival. And he’d stirred up the unexpected…and now their backup was delayed.

Now they were on their own.

He gave her a quick, startled look—she knew he’d felt her presence, her invasiveness. And though suddenly she didn’t feel quite as welcome—as if he’d tried to close doors against her—she knew she could stay there, so close as to have been joined, if she wanted.

But she’d seen enough. Enough to back away, emotionally dizzy—still throbbing with the awareness of him and the recent touch of his hand, and yet…so many reasons for fury. For resentment.

If you choose to look at it that way.

She wasn’t the only one who knew how to intrude, it seemed.

But Dolan turned back to Anica. “The Sentinels are fairly regulated…we have a brevis regional structure, plenty of red tape and hoops to jump through. But the regional Core septs are family-run; their
drozhars
—princes—have more freedom…and more power. The local
drozhar
is a man named Fabron Gausto.” He stopped, his jaw working on emotion. “Let’s just say I’m acquainted with him. And the only way we’re going to get through this is if we work together…not if we’re wasting energy just figuring it out.”

Jenny turned on him with unprecedented bitterness. Jenny, who so keenly felt the loss of any animal, along with their fears and pains. “If you weren’t here, there’d be nothing to
get through.
Luka wouldn’t be gone, the sheep wouldn’t be gone, half this ranch wouldn’t be scorched and burned—”

A flare of matching resentment took Meghan, resonating in her. Her nostrils flared at the acrid scent of charred flesh and wood; her hands tingled from the herbs she’d applied to Jenny’s ankle.

And Dolan took a deep breath, looking directly at Meghan. His voice sounded rough…exhausted. “Yeah,” he said. “Maybe you’re right.”

Jenny startled; she hadn’t expected agreement. Meghan took her arm, just as startled—and unaccountably moved. Unaccountably
proud.
The resentment faded away. And she realized out loud, “Once the Core moved into this area looking for the manuscript, they would have found me. They’d have come for us anyway. Maybe not this night, maybe not this way…” She looked to Dolan, a dare of a glance—no platitudes, no patronizing reassurance.

He didn’t give them. He said, “Probably so.” But he didn’t meet her gaze, even knowing she could see clearly in the darkness now. He looked off to the mountain slope rising behind the ranch and he said, “The thing is, now they know I’m still alive. And the Core’s local
drozhar
—” He stopped, glanced back at Meghan and shrugged. “He’s not going to let that stand. They’ll be back.”

Chapter 13

T
hey rounded up the sheep, housing them in two horse stalls. Dolan dragged the dead animal away, far into the woods, and left it for the coyotes and vultures. In the background he heard Meghan calling for Luka until her voice broke, and when he returned he convinced the women that Jenny and Anica should stay at the ranch house—the only fully warded structure left on the property. They brought in Jenny’s dog, who distrusted the smell of them all—not just the smoke, but the biting, bitter smell of the flame devil itself.

Anica took the couch, Jenny the guest bed…and Dolan pulled off his boots and jeans in Meghan’s room, scrubbed his face, hands and arms in her bathroom and eased into the bed beside her sleeping form. Tonight, in here, they were safe. The rest of the ranch…not so much.

But if Meghan had guessed, she hadn’t protested…
she might well have picked up from him the terrible danger of manipulating wards when exhausted to this extent. And the Core would need time to recover from the night’s work as well. Whoever had created amulets for the probes and flame devil—the remnants of which would be just inside the boundaries somewhere—that person would need rest, too.

Come the following days, they’d repair and reinforce the wards as they repaired the ranch. And Dolan would call brevis regional and pry that team away from Tucson, whatever it took. And then somewhere in there, they’d find the manuscript.

He couldn’t allow himself even a moment’s doubt.

Meghan lay on her side, sheets slipping away from the strong, refined line of her shoulder, smoothed into the dip of her waist, tightened over the curve of her hip. He rested his hand there, tucking himself up against her; the tight muscles of her bottom spooned in against him, caressing him. The hum of her proximity, the warmth of her body, the trust in her murmur as she recognized his presence, turned into him slightly, and fell back into deep sleep…more than enough to arouse him. But not fiercely; not as it had been before. Comfortable and satisfying and enough just to be what it was—an exhausted man holding his lover through what remained of the night.

Dolan woke to weight settling on his legs, shifting up to his hips, offering a sweet swell of pleasure. Not quite awake enough for understanding, he nonetheless did what any sane man would do—he pushed into it, a groan rumbling from his throat and then a gasp as the pleasure pulled at him, tight and demanding.

Meghan.
Daylight and morning and Meghan, helping herself.

She sat on him, her hands traveling the planes of his torso, her own sensations reverberating along his very receptive nerves. Clean and ginger-mint spicy, her skin still damp on his, her body still unexplored. He opened his eyes to find her watching him, still clothed in the clinging tank sleep shirt, but minus any bottoms whatsoever. A sharp jolt of heat wrung a gasp from him, loud and unrestrained.

She leaned over him. “Shh. Hear them?”

He did now. Bumping around the kitchen—cabinets opening and closing, the screen door opening with what was meant to be quiet, someone’s footsteps on the porch. Jenny and Anica—and still Meghan moved, so he clenched his teeth on another groan and lifted his hips, trembling as she trembled. Through those clenched teeth, he managed, “Are you sure?”
Sure about this?
He’d felt her turmoil clearly enough the evening before, her fast-shifting emotions. And no wonder, given the events of the past few days. His sudden presence in her life…the sudden precipitation of their entwined nature.

She gave a short laugh. He felt it through her body, even though she hadn’t taken him in yet; air slipped through his teeth in a hiss of
want.
She was ready enough, all heat and softness; she tortured them both with her gentle movement even as she finally answered his question. “No,” she said. “Yes.”
I hate you, I love you, I want you gone, I can’t live without you.
“I don’t even know you!”

His fingers clutched the sheets. “You do,” he said.
No one has
this
without knowing.

“Maybe I do,” she murmured, and raised herself, hovering over taking him in. Hovering…

The sheet tore beneath his fingers.

Meghan gave a short, breathless laugh and eased down over him. He arched up to meet her, his head tipping back, his neck tight and straining. He faintly heard the screen door close, the sound of running footsteps; Jenny’s call to her dog. The house was theirs.

Meghan whispered, “Go for it.”

And he did.

“Still certain?” he asked of her as he emerged from her bathroom—an obvious modernization in this old house, full of saltillo tile and southwestern mosaics. Towel over his shoulder, jeans not yet buttoned all the way up—he got a start when she turned from her jewelry box, still fastening the back of a tiny onyx earring, to let her gaze linger on his body. Dressed in work jeans with a flat narrow belt still hanging open and another tank top—this one with Encontrados printed across the front—she watched him with an expression that in no way matched her practical appearance. He felt himself grow hard, and he growled, “There’s only one place things will go if you give me that look.”