“What did you
expect?
” she muttered, out loud this time, as she gave the elevator call button an unnecessarily savage punch. The little plastic cover made a faint cracking noise.
Well, hell.
She needed the activity, anyway. She’d take the stairs.
“You smell like Ruger.” The voice came so close, so unexpected, that Mariska startled away from the elevator.
Jet.
Of course. Only wolf-borne Jet could take a Sentinel unaware. Not that Mariska had been at her best, so full of introspection and unexpected emotions. She put on her calmest face, casting Jet a glance. “Is that polite?”
Jet paused to think about it, wild whisky eyes beneath black hair, feral features unbothered by the implied criticism. “Is it
not
polite?”
A little off balance all over again, Mariska said, “It’s private.”
“
Private
is a thing that others can’t perceive,” Jet pointed out. “The scent of Ruger is an obvious thing.”
“You’re supposed to pretend,” Mariska muttered, taking a step for the stairs, uncertain how this woman fit into the hierarchy of Southwest Brevis—other than being more wolf than anyone, other than providing invaluable insight to the Core...other than being Nick’s chosen.
“Pretend what?” Jet tilted her head slightly; her posture changed, ever so subtly, and Mariska froze, seeing the threat behind it.
Mariska knew the rules about taking her bear here in the hallways of brevis. She wasn’t so sure about Jet.
“Pretend you weren’t lovers?” Jet asked, with no apparent self-consciousness at all. “Pretend you didn’t share that part of yourself with him, before you came in here this morning to hurt him so?”
“I’m doing what I think is best,” Mariska said, irritation rising. She hadn’t understood, until she’d seen that look in Ruger’s eyes, that her presence would do more than annoy him. That it would undermine him—and it would do so in front of his team. But her reasons for doing it? Still sound. Still important. “For both brevis and Ruger.”
“And for you.”
Mariska felt her eyes narrow. “You were right at the head of the line when they handed out
blunt,
weren’t you?”
“I don’t know what that means,” Jet said. “And I don’t think it matters. The thing that matters is how Ruger looked when he saw you in Nick’s office.”
“Don’t tell me you think he should be working this without protection.” Righteous indignation lent a snap to her voice. “Maks just barely survived what he fought up there—
Maks,
your own best bodyguard. Ruger is a
healer.
Just because he’s a bear doesn’t mean he should go up there alone.”
“Pack is best,” Jet said, agreeing so readily that it took Mariska by surprise. “But you didn’t have to hurt him to do this, and you did. How does that make you the best person to watch his back?”
“I—” Mariska’s certainty fled, leaving her floundering and frustrated. “I’m only doing my job.”
Jet looked at her with something akin to scorn. The sting of it tightened Mariska’s throat in a combination of familiar bitterness and old despair.
“Pack,”
Jet said, “is everything. Until you come from that place, you cannot do your job at all.”
“That’s not fair,” Mariska muttered—but she did it to Jet’s retreating back, seeing in her tall, lithe form everything that she wasn’t; seeing in her graceful movement everything she had wanted to be.
No,
she told herself. What she wanted to be was seen for herself, accepted for herself, valued for herself...given the chance to prove herself.
She’d thought this was it. She’d thought Ruger might understand; she’d thought she could be of important value to this team.
But now she’d seen that look on Ruger’s face; she’d heard his fierce need to support his friends and his beleaguered brevis...she understood that she’d taken that chance from him.
And now she’d watched them discuss things she’d only before read about. Now she’d seen the grim expression in Ian Scott’s eyes when he spoke of the amulets, and the concern on Sandy’s face. She’d seen them all trying to be matter-of-fact about circumstances that were so obviously grave, and she’d seen them reacting to a seer’s visions that she’d so readily shrugged off after reading about Katie Maddox’s lightweight history.
Mariska looked at Jet’s retreating form, and for the second time that morning, swallowed back the fear that she’d been terribly, terribly wrong.
* * *
Ruger tossed his gear in the back of his assigned short-bed pickup truck, grateful that brevis motor pool hadn’t tried to cram him into the hybrid BMW SUV that had put that brief, slightly manic grin on Ian’s face.
Grateful, too, that after they’d dumped their gear into the pickup, his two amulet flunkies had trailed Ian over to that vehicle, along with Sandra and Jet. At least, he was grateful until he did the math, and jerked his head up to see Mariska hoisting her own gear into the back of the truck...with no seats left in the BMW.
“Yeahhh,” he said. And, “No. Trade out with Sandy.”
Mariska cast a meaningful glance over her shoulder to where Ian had already put the car in gear and peeled out—too quickly—into Tucson’s rising midday traffic. “I was hoping we could talk.”
“I was hoping we wouldn’t,” Ruger told her, yanking the door open and adjusting the driver’s seat back as far as it would go without even trying to get in first.
“Don’t you think we should?” She stood solidly in the other doorway, the sun glinting so brightly off her dark hair as to be painful, nothing even hinting of hesitance in her manner. Lady bear, and everything about her was still just what he wanted. His body knew it, his brain knew it, his heart knew it, and damn, it made him mad.
So close...
“Look,” he said. “I get it. You went for what you wanted with brevis. You went for what you wanted last night. It turns out to be different from what I wanted, but I don’t guess that’s your fault. But it also turns out I don’t trust you because of how you went about it, and
that
would be your fault. Don’t expect me to feel any differently about it. And don’t expect me to play nice so you can pretend it’s all fine. You wanted to ride with me? Let me know how that works out for you.” He climbed into the truck and slammed the door closed, making final adjustments to the seat.
When he reached for the seat belt, she was right there beside him already, tucking her small personal backpack off to the side, flipping the air vents the way she wanted them. “It’s not like that.”
He snorted, with no effort to make it kind. “It’s exactly like that.” The motor started smoothly, and he reached for the radio.
She turned it off.
“Ah, hell,” Ruger said in disgust, and put the truck into gear. “Awkward silence it is.”
“Look,” she said, and she sounded exasperated. Exasperated, but trying to moderate it. “I did what I did, and it’s done. But I didn’t mean to mess with you.”
He snorted again. “What did you mean, then?”
“I just wanted—”
“I got that part,” he said. “You
wanted.
”
“So did you!” she said, temper rising in a sudden spurt—her nostrils flared, the color rising on the angle of her cheek, coming through the tone of her skin. “You
wanted
several times, as I recall, and it seemed to me you were happy enough with what you got!”
Ruger sat in silence a moment, his foot on the brake, his body twisting to check behind the truck before he backed up. He regarded her steadily, his heart beating stupidly hard, his chest tightened up with equally stupid hurt. He said, “I did. And I was. And I somehow managed not to sacrifice you along the way.”
Her eyes widened; her mouth flattened, and he suspected she bit the inside of her lip. After a long moment, she said quietly, “None of that means I’m not right for this job.”
“It
means
I don’t trust you.” He pulled out into traffic a lot more steadily than Ian had, heading for Route 77 northwest out of Tucson. “And that means you can’t do the job.”
“Sure as hell is going to make it harder,” she muttered, crossing her arms over her seat belt, looking away. “Maybe you’re just a big dumb bear after all.”
He slanted a quick scowl at her, keeping his attention on the road. Even Sentinel reflexes were good for just so much in city traffic. “How exactly do you figure that?”
“I
figure,
” she said, “that it’s in your best interests to be a team player. I
figure
it’s in your best interests to work with me so I can watch your back.”
“That’s your mistake.” Ruger braked for a light, and took advantage of the moment to look over at her—catching her by surprise, and catching, too, the faint hint of misery on her face—right before her mouth firmed up and her eyes hardened, and she met his gaze straight on. He didn’t soften his tone in the least, letting the words come out distinctly, hitting each one and watching the impact of them in her expression. “Because I don’t need anyone to
watch my back
at all.”
This time, when he switched the radio on, she left it.
* * *
Mariska climbed out of the truck to take a deep breath of pine-scented air, looking out over the achingly clear skies of Arizona high country. Their accommodations—a cluster of seasonal tourist cabins twenty minutes out from the tiny town of Pine Bluff—sat nestled against a rugged hillside, and Sitgreaves National Forest spread out before them. Mariska’s bear stretched within her, eager to sink claws to earth.
The SUV had arrived some moments before, its occupants spilling out over a minimalist parking zone of hard dirt, natural cinders and pine needles spread everywhere. Sandy already stood to the south of the cabins, her posture too erect to be casual, her face lifted slightly to the sky, her eyes closed.
Already setting the wards.
Ian’s people had scattered across the grounds surrounding the two neighboring cabins, their expressions full of focus.
Not that there would likely be amulets seeded anywhere nearby when they’d only just arrived, but Mariska understood well enough that familiarizing themselves with the taste and energies of the area would make it possible to locate amulets should they be placed later—especially if they were of the new crop of silent amulets.
Ruger, too, disembarked from the truck, standing much as Mariska had—scenting the air, visibly longing to indulge in his bear. Yesterday she’d seen him as tall and burly; she’d loved the curl of his hair, so obviously only tamed by the cut, and she’d loved the rugged nature of his beard. It had been all too easy to imagine the vigorous nature of their bodies joining...and it was all too easy to remember it now.
But today she saw beyond the first impression, and realized how much of it was just that—an impression, driven by his very nature. Today she saw the masculine beauty of a body that was large and strong, but not overbuilt; today she saw that the beard had hidden the lean features of his face, long dimples carved into his cheeks, a jaw that was strong without going wide, and pale brown eyes shadowed by dark and expressive eyebrows.
She realized her palms had gone damp, and surreptitiously wiped them along her thighs.
Jet came out of the cabin in front of the truck, wearing nothing but a long T-shirt and a necklace of braided leather and gleaming metal. Her bare feet moved soundlessly over the ground, and she stopped before Mariska. “This is our cabin,” she said. “You, and me, and Ruger.” She glanced at the second cabin. “The others will stay together so they can talk amulet things.”
Mariska winced inwardly—but of course she’d be housed with the man she was here to guard. “Thanks,” she said. “Going out already?”
“To run,” Jet said with such longing that Mariska felt an immediate sympathy. It was one thing to keep her bear at bay when she’d grown up doing so, when she hadn’t even taken the bear until she was twelve. It was another to be born wolf and linger as human. Jet added, “And I want to check this land.”
“Are those—” Mariska stopped herself from reaching to touch the metal-thick, satin disks with chunky edges that looked like a gift, but also looked like “—dog tags?”
Jet laughed. “Wolf tags,” she said. “You can wear your special clothes and have them change with you. I run without.”
Ian joined them from the other cabin, looking satisfied with the housing and satisfied with the inspection. “So you play pet, if someone comes on you?”
“Not pet,” Jet said, and bared her teeth.
Ian laughed and held up a defensive hand. “
We
know that, darlin’,” he said. “But try not to scare the natives, okay?”
“They won’t see me,” she assured him, and headed for the woods.
“Ready to take a look around?” Ian asked Mariska. “We’re meeting Maks in half an hour.”
Mariska looked over the hood of the truck to Ruger, who had come out of his reverie to head for the back of the truck. “Go ahead,” he said, grabbing the first three bags and easily slinging them from the truck. “It’s more important for you to check the place out. I’ll do my own recon when I get the chance.”
She heard nothing in his voice but matter-of-fact practicality, but she winced a little inside anyway. And then, as Ruger’s shoulders filled the doorway, she wondered how they would both possibly fit into the same cabin, no matter how large it was.
* * *
Jet ran the woods. She ran as wolf, stretching her legs and lowering her head into the pure glory of it. Indulging in the hot, dry scent of the towering pines in the afternoon sun, the breeze ruffling her black fur...the silence in her head.
So full of talk, the humans. So full of thinking they knew what they wanted, and then not being happy when those things happened.
Her tongue lolled out in a ridiculous pant; she pulled herself down to a trot, scrambling up the loose scuff of a rocky outcrop to circle behind and above the cabins. No wise wolf wore herself out on indulgences when she needed to stay sharp against the enemy. Always in the form of man, that enemy—once because she had been wolf, and now because she called the Sentinels her pack.
It was to her relief that Ian had asked her to stay here at the cabins while they went off to meet Maks Altán at the place where he now lived and to follow him into the forest to Forakkes’ bunker. Not just to stay, but to learn the area in all its scents and sounds and lay of the land so she might be alert to any hint of incursion by the Atrum Core. “We’ll be working hard and fast,” he’d said. “When we come to ground, we’ll need to know it’s safe.”