Sentinels: Lion Heart

Someone else might think it a sign of his innocence, that hurt. She found it less than convincing. The most dangerous were those whose hearts went dark because they felt justified…felt the world owed them something.

But when she curled up on the daybed in the cool night air beside the open window—when she wrapped herself in an old quilt that smelled faintly of Joe Ryan’s natural scent and vibrated even more faintly with his trace—she couldn’t help but regret her convictions.

Up on that mountain, they had run together. They had worked together. They had created a partnership where, for isolated moments, it hadn’t mattered who she was or why she was here, or who he was and what he’d done. Even after he’d turned away from her, he hadn’t gone far—only to the top of the spring, where he’d basked, eyes half-closed, immersing himself.

There, while she felt nothing more than the distressing tingle of amulets, Joe Ryan sat at the top of the world and sifted vast natural flows of power.

Even thinking about it, here in the casita with only a single dim light to disturb the night, she shivered slightly—and she couldn’t blame it on the cold this time. He not only felt those waves, not only rode them…he could, in subtle ways, manage them. Manipulate them.

The good a man like that might have done the Sentinels…might have done the world…

And the harm he might yet do, with those soulbruised eyes hiding the secrets of his inner world.

Lyn shivered again.

She threw aside the quilt, dumped the coffee down the sink and stalked to her tidy little backpack purse to grab her cell phone.

Brevis regional, she knew, would be waiting.

More specifically, Nick Carter—adjutant to the brevis regional counsel—would be waiting. Not that the brevis consul—a man named Dane Berger who’d become just a little too reclusive these past several years—was ever inclined to make day-to-day phone calls and communications, but sometimes Lyn got the impression—

No. Pondering her suspicions that Nick Carter now silently ran Southwest brevis regional was not the thing to do right now. He had an uncanny knack for plucking unspoken thoughts from her—and everyone else’s—head.

So for a long moment, while the cell phone warmed in her hand, Lyn thought of what she’d learned on the mountain that day. The confirmed presence of Fabron Gausto—no doubt completely bypassing the will of his septs prince. And he still had his sept posse, loyal in spite of his spectacular failure in Tucson. Didn’t have any choice at this point, Lyn imagined—no other Core sept would take them in.

She’d found more there, while Joe Ryan sat on the top of the world and absorbed the power flows. She’d found the disgusting trace of discharged amulets—powerful amulets, and a number of them. And Ryan, once they’d gone human again, had allowed that there was a ripple in the power flowing through that area, but couldn’t suggest its cause or meaning.

Unlike Ryan, she reported as expected. And that meant flipping the cell phone open and hitting the autodial that went straight to Nick Carter’s direct line.

“Carter,” he said, with noises in the background that made her believe he was at home—baying and carrying on, most boisterous.

“Is blood being shed?” she asked, amused, before stopping to think.

“Lyn,” he said, after a pause in which he’d obviously sorted out her voice. “Hounds and their toys…” Then his voice changed, hitting a businesslike note. “You’re in place?”

“I’m in his guest cabin.”

“He invited you?” Surprise there, enough to make Lyn wonder. “Does he know—?”

“That I’m not exactly his advocate? He picked up on that right away.” A flush of regret took her by surprise. Even full of suspicions and deep-seated determination to clear out the dark Sentinels, she’d seen a hint of something other than jaded resignation on Ryan’s face. Something that might have even been hurt, quickly covered.

So he’s wounded to be under suspicion again. Doesn’t mean he’s innocent.

“Lyn,” Nick said, and she could hear the hesitation in his voice and envision it in his pale green eyes. He was a wild one, that Nick Carter, a wolf wrapped in civility and manners, hoarfrost hair neatly trimmed, a lean, coiled power in his movements. Lyn suspected that his constrained manner was the only way he kept himself from startling people with his quickness, with the glimpse of the untamed showing through.

She’d never had a problem with keeping the ocelot tucked away—keeping that aspect of herself well behaved, covered with a tidy veneer of what society expected. She didn’t lean on her Sentinel nature, as did some; she didn’t need to. She was tenacious; she clung to lessons learned young. And she damned well knew what that hesitation of Nick’s meant. “You knew who I was when you sent me here,” she said. “I’ll get the job done, Nick.”

“I’m not concerned about your dedication,” he said dryly. He must have gone through a door; the noise of the dogs abruptly diminished. “Nor your ability. So don’t even go there.”

“What then? I’ve hardly had a chance to get started.”

“Your focus,” he said bluntly. “We need answers—whether or not they fit your personal mission.”

“You’re the one who thought he’d gone dark in the first place!” she blurted out, too surprised to be circumspect.

“And I still do. But even so, I need someone who can look for what’s actually there, and not for what you want to be there.”

For a long breath, she couldn’t say anything. She walked up to the casita’s large window, looking through the darkness at the house beside her, and the drop of the mountain beyond that. No blinding nighttime lighting for this property—nothing to interfere with the rich scatter of stars overhead. Only the most muted of lights from the second-floor loft area to indicate Ryan was still in there at all.

If he was. She didn’t think for a moment that her presence would stop him from ranging out. She should be keeping track of him, not losing herself in this conversation, familiar dismay lumping in the pit of her stomach. “You went digging,” she said. “That part of my background is supposed to be off the record.”

“Your brother—”

“Has nothing to do with this!” Except—“No, I take it back. He opened my eyes. He taught me important lessons. And do you really want this phone call to be about me? Because I don’t.”

“Do you have news already?”

“Don’t sound so surprised.” Her turn to be dry. “We went to the top of the world today, as it happens.” And she summarized their ascent and discovery of the trace. “But it could have been a throwaway.” A gift to make her think he was cooperating. “If so, he lost nothing of real value by revealing that spot…I couldn’t track them from there. Something about what they’d done with the amulets obliterated all but those first traces.”

But even as Nick absorbed her words, she realized the things she’d left out—the way Ryan had reacted to her flawed shielding technique, the way he’d reacted to the power surges…how in some odd way, they seemed to hurt and not help him. Things she’d usually report and wasn’t quite certain why she hadn’t.

Because I’m not sure yet. Not sure what she was seeing, or if she’d really even seen those things at all. She needed more time…

But Nick, knowing none of it, was still thinking of the words she had said. “So the Core is there. Then it’s not likely Ryan is doing this on his own. Too much coincidence, for them to show up along with the power surges, even with Ryan’s trace clinging to them.”

“He was surprised about that, by the way,” she observed. “It struck me as completely genuine. Which doesn’t mean he isn’t involved—only that he didn’t know his trace would show up, and didn’t recognize it when it did.” But that wasn’t the only thing that had surprised him this day, and she had to add, “He said he hadn’t heard from brevis regional regarding the Core’s suspected presence here.”

“Not quite the same as claiming he didn’t know they were there.” His voice was dark and certain.

She wouldn’t, she realized, want this man on her trail. “He also says he never got a message asking him to expedite that late report.”

They both sat on a beat of silence, and then she said, “I think you need to follow up on it, Nick.”

Surprise, there. “You believe him?”

“I think,” she said carefully, “that we should be ready to counter that claim if it isn’t true.”

He made a noise she couldn’t quite interpret. “You know,” he said, startling her with the same words she’d only just thought about him, “I wouldn’t want you on my trail.” But she heard the grin in his voice, and he added, “I’ll look into it. And you—be careful. I can have a full team out there within two hours, day or night—it’s not your job to confront the Core, or even to corner Ryan. Just get us close enough so we can get the drop on them.”

Right. That had been the point all along—coming in with a team too soon would tip off the Core, and spook Ryan into dropping whatever he was up to.

Supposing he still could. Lyn couldn’t help but wonder if he even had control any longer—if he’d choose to continue with a process that was affecting him as this one obviously did.

On the other hand, maybe he’d been telling the truth. Maybe he had gotten a bug, and it was messing with his Sentinel skills. It happened.

“Anything else going on?” Nick asked her, interrupting what she suddenly realized had become a long silence.

“No,” she said. “Sorry. Just thinking through it all. Same team, do you think?”

“You make the progression sound like a foregone conclusion.” His voice still held amusement. “Some of the same people, if it comes to that. I doubt I can tear Dolan away from Encontrados and Megan…she might be a natural with those wards, but she’s not ready for the field.”

Lyn wouldn’t expect it; it hadn’t been long enough since Dolan, the Southwest’s rogue Sentinel, had found Megan, bringing her back to the Sentinel fold after so many erroneous years of neglect. “And Dolan?” she asked. “Did he ever come in?”

“You mean did you talk him out of his grudges long enough to see that we need him?” Nick let out a breath. “He came in. If I had to guess, I’d say he’s thinking about it. Not for too long, I hope. I need Sentinels I can count on.”

Lyn heard what those words really meant. I need Sentinels who will stand with me when things get rough around here.

“I’ll be there,” she reminded him. For as much as she hunted those gone dark, she could well recognize a man leading the way for those who didn’t.

“I know,” he said. “But we’ll need…”

“More,” she finished for him, and couldn’t help a fleeting acknowledgment that Ryan’s strength, his solidity—his depth, even—could have made him valuable to Nick. Could have.

“And Lyn,” Nick said, his voice hitting a warning note, “keep in mind that there’s a third possibility when it comes to the things Ryan said he never heard from us. Because he could be telling the truth, and still be dark. There’s more than one tangle in play here.”

“Got it covered,” she told him. “Untangling trails is what I do.”

Chapter 6

Joe prowled in from the early morning sunshine on the roof, stretching hugely. He flicked his ears, resigning himself to the end of solitude.

Not that he’d found much solace in the night. Not with the echoes of the faintly twisted power from the top of the world still churning through his body…not with everything he’d learned the day before still tumbling through his mind. For it was clear now—while he’d been thick and slow with that cold, his territory had been invaded.

And the people who should have had his back now blamed him. This woman—the tightly wound tracker with precision in her movement and precision in her features—she blamed him, too. Had come to find proof, but made up her mind before she even got here.

The feel of what she’d done to him—unwittingly, unknowingly—out there on the mountain…it, too, had followed him through the night, tingling along awakened nerves to leave him restless and wakeful. Even the solace of the roof had not lured him into better-late-than-never sleep.

But it meant he was awake when Lyn Maines left the casita for an early-morning walk around the house, stretching her legs and yawning, her hair tumbled loose around her face and her neat travel outfit from the day before replaced by crop cargo pants and some sort of shirred top that had made him want to lean closer for a better look.

He hadn’t done it. He knew better than to provide any movement for her eye to latch on to. Only after she returned to the casita did he pad down from the roof, hopping lightly to the second-story porch and through the warded sliding-glass door…from there, straight to unclothed human form and then straight to the shower, the casual habits of a man who lived alone in a wild spot of land.

When he finally emerged onto the front porch, jeans and a loose-weave pullover blotting up the leftover dampness, he found her sitting on the porch bench seat, her hair now drawn back into a tidy clip. She looked up at him with a wary expectation, and he said, “Breakfast?”

And that was how she ended up cooking in his kitchen. Not because he couldn’t—he’d already started the coffee and gathered bacon, eggs and appropriate pans—but because she seemed so uncomfortable just sitting there that he asked if she’d rather. And that left him free to deal with the paws batting at the lower cabinets, where the little black shorthair waited.

“Because I haven’t fed you in a week, maybe two,” he murmured, hitting the pantry up for cat kibble. They were indoor cats, other than the escape artist of a brown tabby; special wards contained them when he left the upstairs door open a crack so the cougar could return. But this little black shorthair still managed to find trouble. This morning, rather than eating, she fussed and shook her front paw with a frantic need.

Lyn looked up from the bacon as she repositioned it in the pan. “Is she okay?”

As if this little scene was truly a domestically cozy moment, with two companionable people sharing a good-morning breakfast, the paper turned to the comics section and the scent of frying cholesterol in the air. Right.

He scooped the little cat up and murmured sweet nothings in her ear until she purred and barely noticed as he deftly rolled a particularly nasty goat’s head sticker out from between the pads. “She’s fine,” he said, rubbing lightly at that spot just between her eyes. “It must have come in on my shoe.”

“I hate those things,” Lyn said, vehemently enough to take him by surprise—to amuse him. She’d actually let something of herself peek out that time. And though she withdrew almost immediately, her eyes lingered on his fingers as they stroked the sleek black head and crumpled back delicate shell-pink ears to make the black cat purr.

“As it happens,” Joe said, a murmur to fool the cat into thinking he was talking to her, and indeed she purred more loudly in response, “I actually like my bacon a little burned.”

Lyn’s eyes widened; her nostrils flared slightly, taking in the same sharp odor he’d already noticed. Her lips formed a silent curse, and she whirled to tend to the fry pan.

Joe smiled at the cat, bringing that purring creature up so they could briefly butt faces. Distractable, Lyn was—focused in, and therefore not aware of the larger world. He’d already seen some of that up on the mountain, and could well understand why she didn’t work without a partner.

It did surprise him that brevis would have sent her without one. They trusted him to some extent, then—albeit probably only to maintain his supposed cover. And whatever they thought of him, he wouldn’t let her down. Not this dark-eyed ocelot with her fierce drive to clean up the Sentinels, not even if she didn’t realize they were on the same side.

Damned if he was going to let the Core get away with messing with this mountain.

The cat made an abrupt decision to be done with purring and face-butting, possibly inspired by the clatter of eggs being dished out. Lyn moved assertively in the unfamiliar kitchen, looking right at home as she finished up the meal.

“Juice?” he asked her, heading for the refrigerator to do at least that much.

She glanced at him, flicking the gas burner off. “Milk?” she said, a hopeful note in her voice.

“Sure, plenty of it.” He poured her a serving, set it on the marble counter with a decided clink of glass on stone, and went back for his favorite mix of tropical juices.

As his hand closed around the carton, it hit.

Not a bad one, just sudden—his hand spasmed around flimsy cardboard…for an instant he lost awareness, swamped in the harsh atonal power, a slow, thick ooze filling his lungs so his vision grayed and prickles of pain and weakness raked him from inside.

Lyn pushed in beside him, prying the carton from his hand, muttering a curse. But by then Joe had control—or at least partial control—pushing away the power so he could fumble for shields.

But Lyn had no hesitation, and no fumbling. She reached for that same centered place she’d created up at Snowbowl—he felt it build around them, gliding into place like a balm. And then his head snapped up and he sucked in his breath, because she’d gone that one step further—done that which breezed through him from within, caressing those very nerves that had been scraped with pain only a moment earlier. The contrast shocked him, wobbling his knees, and he snatched at the edge of the sink for support. In her smudge-lined eyes he saw reflected shock; she stiffened, jerking slightly. And then she narrowed her eyes, and the connection slammed closed.

He lost his knees entirely, falling back against the cabinets beneath the sink, breath grunting from his body and mixed up with an inarticulate, involuntary noise of protest.

That, too, startled her—she looked as though she wanted to skitter away, putting distance between them. But she stood straight and still, and after a moment she let out a long sigh of breath.

“Well, damn,” Joe grumbled, trying to ignore the incredible emptiness she’d left behind. There was no graceful way up from here, jammed back against the cabinets with his bare feet propped too close and his knees askew at chin level. “No offense, but whatever you’re doing…I think it needs practice.”

“I could say the same for you,” she responded tersely—but she stepped forward to brace herself and extend a hand. A small hand, but he didn’t make the mistake of supposing it lacked strength. She was, after all, Sentinel.

He took the hand and he took the strength she loaned him, and soon enough he was back on his feet, looking down at her again. He said, “Shielding…not my best thing.”

“No,” she agreed.

That stung a little. “Hey—it’s my job to keep track of what’s going on around here. You think I can do that if I fling up shields at every opportunity? When I was in Nevada, Dean—” He stopped. He didn’t want to talk about Dean Seacrest with her. He didn’t even want to bring it up. Not knowing she thought him guilty of Dean’s death.

Well, hell, maybe he was. But not in the way they thought. So he cleared his throat and said, “I was in better practice then.” Back when he hadn’t been isolated, when he’d had more cause to shield, and more tightly defined duties. Now it was all his, a lightly populated area considered so stable that one Sentinel could handle it.

At least, one Sentinel of Joe’s skills. Because, let’s face it, there weren’t many. And he had plenty of reason to rue it these days, when it seemed brevis consul and his posse had decided they couldn’t quite trust what a man of such skills could—or would—do. Even when they didn’t know it all.

But Lyn’s brows had quirked up. “That makes sense,” she said. “Although you should put in some practice.”

He couldn’t help but hope as he settled back against the edge of the sink. “So now you believe me?” That he’d have reason to shield, that he was as much a victim of what was happening here as anyone.

She gave him the driest of expressions; the hope died. “I’m riding a line,” she told him, blunt as she had been when she first approached him in the woods below. “For all I know, you started this thing and now it’s out of hand—or the Core went their own way and left you hanging.”

“Whoa.” He couldn’t help it; he shook off the words—physically, literally. “That’s a hell of a way to go through life. Thinking like that.” He thought about it; still didn’t like it. “I’ll stick with my way, thanks. But you’re right about the practice. I’ll get to work on that.” As if they’d been discussing the weather, he turned back to his partially crunched carton of juice and unscrewed the little plastic cap on the side. “Hope you like your eggs cold. I think that’s how we’re going to get them.”

“Eggs cold, bacon burned. Just as it should be.” She said it with such deadpan perfection that he jerked around to look at her and caught the barest glimpse of a smile tweaking the corner of her mouth as she turned away to take the plates to the small round table in the tree-dappled sunlight of the breakfast nook.

His answering grin came in spite of himself. Because whether he liked it or not, whether she knew it or not, his heart was right out there for her to see, as it had always been.

It was just a matter of how hard she crunched it before she was through.

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