Kodiak Chained (31 page)

Ciobaka lay between the roots of a pine, the perfect shaded hollow for a nap. He lifted his head on her approach—and though he probably didn’t mean to do it, the tip of his tail wagged, too.

“Do you need anything?” she asked him—though she’d dumped a fresh raw turkey into the yard the night before, and figured him to be fed for a couple of days. Jet had put a big metal mixing bowl in the shade of the porch for her own water supply, and now it served Ciobaka.

He didn’t so much as flick an ear at her. He had no voice at all any longer—no whining, no barking, not even a snarl behind the expressive curl of his lip—but she’d had no trouble understanding him so far. Especially when it came to the very salient point that he would not voluntarily leave Ruger. She understood the feeling.

Too bad she was a Colorado bear.

The other cabin sat empty of Sentinels but full of equipment and still serving as a nominal sleeping base. Ian wouldn’t be back even if he recovered as quickly and fully as expected; he had his hands full with the amulet stash. Sandy had asked for a teaching assignment once she went active again, and Harrison was still at the site with the new team, directing the action with vigor and a new confidence.

She and Ruger had been left in peace—and now Mariska had a conversation to face.

She returned to the cabin to find Ruger back on the bed, poking at his newly recovered bag of healing tricks. Packets of herbs sat beside him, along with several empty vials. She gave him a wary look. “You’re not making more of that restorative, are you?”

“Yes,” he said, and with some satisfaction. “That’s exactly what I’m doing. Want some?”

“No,” she said, without hesitation or regret. Not that she needed any such thing—he’d left her flush with health back when he’d healed them both at the fallen tree, and sleep had done the rest. But then, she didn’t expect her mouth to keep moving. “What I want—” she started, before she got herself stopped.

Ruger looked up, his fingers closing over a pinch of herbs.

Well, hell. Go for it, then.
“What I
want,
” she said, “is to transfer to Southwest Brevis. Nick asked me.”

He put the herbs aside.

“What I
want,
” she said, “is to stay here with you. I want to know there’s always someone at your back, and I want it to be me.”

He stilled, holding her gaze with such intensity that it took all her courage to continue. “What I
want,
” she said, “is to butt heads with you until we’re both wrinkled old little Sentinels with blunted fangs and a million grandchildren, and to sleep beside you and fall into that dip your great big body makes in the bed, and to always have my hands on that great big body while I’m at it.”

Ruger eyed her so long that her heart beat triple-time in her chest—doubting herself, doubting that
stubborn,
this time, was enough to do the trick. Doubting whether he’d done more than embrace the fleeting moments of their time together, just as he’d told her he intended from the start.

No matter what he’d said in that second bunker. No matter that he’d used the word
love.

But Ruger spread his arms, and the doubt fled. She threw herself over him, scattering herb packets, and then—because he’d made her wait—she bit his shoulder.

He only laughed and pulled her in for a heated kiss, the tang of toothpaste on his mouth and his hands swiftly finding skin under her shirt. He tugged the hem of it upward and she slipped her arms free, breaking from him only at the last moment when he pulled it over her head, as well. By then her hands had found the fly of his jeans, and he joined her, working the buttons free until she could get her hands on him. More than that—until she could shed her soft sleep pants and settle right down over him, making them both gasp with the suddenness of it.

Then she pulled his hands away from her breasts and slammed them down on either side of his head, holding them there. “You called me bossy once,” she said, and nuzzled not-quite-gently at the side of neck.

“I...might have,” he said, through enough of a guttering breath the words were hard to understand. Sensations tingled at her, a faint skittering of familiar energies flowing just under her skin, pooling in every sensitive area and flowing outward.

“You called me pushy.” She held him down with hips and hands, and gave him a little squeeze from within, nibbling the words along his jaw—reveling as he stiffened in response, recognizing the flood of sensuous delight as what she did to him, what she alone had ever done to him.

“Don’t...know what...I was thinking,” he managed, if barely.

“Too late for that.” She caught his mouth and took it over, letting herself get lost in the sensation of his lips moving against hers, his body straining upward as she held him still, the friction of crisp hair against her breasts and the tight sensation of being filled with both his body and his energies.

When she broke away he would have followed, but she hadn’t released his wrists—she held them yet as she bit her way down his neck and chest, firmly enough so he’d have to work to break free, not so firmly that either of them thought she could hold him if he truly wanted to. She licked a flat nipple and then bit that, too. A shudder ran through him, triggering delicious sparks of heat between them; he made a sound of protest, trying to reach for her—and subsiding when she didn’t relent.

She closed her eyes to revel in what she’d brought out between them, allowing herself the faintest sob of pleasure. And she moved sooo slowly, so infinitesimally, remembering how he’d responded to the sensation on the ridge. His head fell back and he sucked in air, letting it out on a long groan. “Mari—”

“Shh,” she told him. “I’m being pushy. I’m getting my way. And I’m liking it.” She rocked over him, just enough to feel the movement—feel the rising tension in him as he swelled within her, his thighs trembling and his hips reaching for her. She closed her eyes, focusing on the thrill of his response—the building pleasure of the subtle friction, the dance of gathering sensation and the awareness that energies spiraled between them, just outside the edge of any control at all.

He made a despairing noise, touched with laughter.
“Mari—”

“Shh,” she told him again, loving his strength beneath her, the strain of his body and his willingness to play with her. She gave him inches of movement now, enough to up the ante without quite giving way to it. “I
like
being pushy.”

His groan came in earnest, his wrists tensing beneath her hands with restraint, his breath delightfully ragged; the bed dented as his heels pushed into the mattress. She gave him more movement but not enough, feeling the sudden flood of warmth that meant she was close to release, the quiver in her low belly and thighs—in that instant she forgot about moving with any kind of finesse.

Ruger broke. He wrenched free of her hands, leaving her braced on either side of his head as he grabbed her hips and slammed them down, taking himself deep,
deep
—she cried out and so did he, a ragged shout that burst out again and again until they reached for one another, reached for sensation and energy and
being
—breaking through the
Ruger
and
Mari
of it so he suddenly flooded through her in every possible way, and the building heat centered not just at their physical connection but stormed through every bone, every muscle. Fiery sparks took over her mind’s eye and then paled out altogether as the rest of her exploded, a wash of pleasure so intense she lost track of which of them felt it.

She would have collapsed against him then, but the energies held them both in an echoing thrall, his groans against her lingering sobs for breath, a trembling series of aftershocks—until the energy suddenly bloomed hot and full and ecstatic again, entirely unexpected. She cried out in the surprise of it as he gasped, astonished, in her ear—holding her tightly, grinding upward with a groan that sounded as if it had been wrung from the depths of him.

Then
she fell against him, damp with sweat and tears and limp with sweet, ebbing warmth.

He closed his arms around her, rolling them until he pressed her back into the mattress and freed himself to plant lingering kisses around her face.

“Mmm,” she said eventually. “We should do that again sometime, you think?”

He stilled, even while his breathing still ran ragged, brushing against her ear; he nuzzled her, licking the rim of that ear in a most thoughtful way, offering one last thrust that was more about claiming her than it was about starting anything. He said, his words sounding like a careful choice, “I’m not sure that particular thing is something we can do again soon.”

She felt the frisson of alarm he’d so obviously been trying to spare her. “Why? Are you okay?”

He stilled her with a kiss. “I’m fine. And so are you. In fact, you could say...you’ve been healed of something. In a manner of speaking.” He shifted away until he could slide his hand between them—until it rested low on her belly. “Me, too. It wasn’t intentional—”

She put her hand over his.
“Healed,”
she said, not knowing it had been necessary—thinking of that last surge of sensation, that sudden warmth—and suddenly understanding. “My protections?”
Their
protections. The very personal warding every capable Sentinel learned, and learned early; the reason their culture was so physically expressive, so physically giving—the reason young Sentinels were so carefully planned. “You healed me of— And you, too?” No conception protections...that amazing, final burst of pleasure, wrung from them both—and still faintly throbbing between them. “Then...that last...
moment...
when we...was that what I think it was? Did we—?”

“Ohh, yes we did.” He stroked a hand between her hip bones, resting on the toned muscle under tender skin. “Mariska Bear,” he said. “Meet Baby Bear.”

The joy of it staggered her, grown hot and fierce and protective in an instant.

“
Our
baby bear,” she said, and pulled him back to her, the happy tears of it all running from the corners of her eyes and into her hair. ::We aren’t alone.::

Ruger bit her neck. ::We won’t ever be alone again.::

* * * * *

Sentinels Mythos
Glossary

Long ago and far away, in Roman/Gaulish days, one woman had a tumultuous life—she fell in love with a druid, by whom she had a son; the man was killed by Romans, and she was subsequently taken into the household of a Roman, who also fathered a son on her. The druid’s son turned out to be a man of many talents, including the occasional ability to shape-shift, albeit at great cost. (His alter-shape was a wild boar.) The woman’s younger son, who considered himself superior in all ways, had none of these earthly powers, and went hunting other ways to be impressive, acquire power. He justified his various activities by claiming he needed to protect the area from his brother, who had too much power to go unchecked...but in the end, it was his brother’s family who grew into the Vigilia, now known as the Sentinels, while the younger son founded what turned into the vile Atrum Core.

Sentinels:
An organization of power-linked individuals whose driving purpose is to protect and nurture the earth—as befitting their druid origins—while also keeping watch on the activities of the Atrum Core.

Vigilia:
The original Latin name for the Sentinels, discarded in recent centuries under Western influence.

Brevis Regional:
HQ for each of the Sentinel regions.

Consul:
The leader of each brevis region.

Adjutant:
The consul’s executive officer.

Aeternus contego:
The strongest possible ward, tied to the life force of the one who sets it and broken only at that person’s death. In
Jaguar Night,
Meghan Lawrence places one of these on Fabron Gausto, reflecting any workings he performs back on himself.

Vigilia adveho:
A Sentinel mental long-distance call for help.

Monitio:
A warning call.

Nexus:
The Sentinel who acts as a central point of power control—such as for communications, wards or power manipulation.

Atrum Core:
An ethnic group founded by and sired by the Roman’s son, their basic goal is to acquire power in as many forms as possible, none of which is natively their own; they claim to monitor and control the “nefarious” activities of the Sentinels.

Amulets:
The process through which the Core inflicts its workings of power on others, having gathered and stored (and sometimes stolen) the power from other sources.

Drozhar:
The Atrum Core regional prince.

Septs Prince:
The Atrum Core prince of princes.

Septs Posse:
A
drozhar
’s favored sycophants; can be relied on to do the dirty work.

Sceleratus vis:
Ancient forbidden workings based on power drawn from blood, once used by the Atrum Core.

Workings:
Workings of power, assembled and triggered via amulets.