Sentinels: Leopard Enchanted

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His.

“Not a morning person?” she asked, draping the towel over one shoulder. Her hair was mussed in a way he wished he’d done, her cheeks flushed with the shower and her eyes bright with...amusement?

He realized he’d frozen in that ready-to-pounce yet totally hungover fashion, and looked down at himself. Wearing his boxers, tangled in her sheets, thoroughly unable to get his thoughts together. Nothing to do but shrug. “Generally I’m an everything person,” he said. “Clearly that doesn’t apply to today.” With effort, he clambered out of the bed, straightening himself joint by joint, and reached for the tea. Irish black, oh, thank you.

The first sip finished waking him. When he lifted his head and caught a glimpse of the bathrobe hitting the floor, he went beyond awake and straight to alert. Attentive.

Ana reached into a drawer to extract a bra—faintly pink, like her nails, an underwire thing that would support the beauty he’d seen the night before. Modest in size but perfectly shaped, just ready for his hand or mouth. She gave a meaningful glance at his groin, where the boxers hid nothing. “I’d wondered if I wore you out, but I’m not sure that’s possible.”

“Not when I’m with you,” he said, somewhat fervently. Another Sentinel blessing, that recovery time—but he couldn’t talk to her about Sentinels. Only the think tank aspect of his work.

“Leftovers from whatever got into you last night, then,” she suggested, stepping into panties with faint pink stripes.

Oh, hell. Yes. Exactly so. And not just him. No one had been feeling quite right at the retreat when he’d left. Ian floundered, caught completely behind in his own thoughts. Thoughts he would normally have worked on in pieces through the night, rising to wakefulness long enough to chew on them and then, if he was lucky, falling back to sleep. Either way, awakening in the morning with his thoughts spread out before him, ready for the day.

Not this day.

“I’ve got to go,” he said, gulping half the remaining tea in one swallow and setting the mug aside. His pants must be here somewhere, right? “I need to check on Fernie. And the others.”

She cocked her head, a stretchy bit of ribbed camisole in hand and her expression gone careful. Very, very careful. “Is this you running away?”

Because of course, he could call the retreat. Or he could assume that a house full of adults could manage minor illness without panic. She had no way of knowing that these particular adults were, like him, not used to managing illness at all. Or that anyone with even modestly strong blood did better with a Sentinel healer than they ever would with the average urgent care clinic.

“This is me taking care of my people,” he assured her, spotting the neat stack of his shirt and pants where she’d smoothed and folded them. He scooped them up, pulling them on in record time—and then stopped to regard her, scrubbing one hand through his thoroughly disheveled hair, across the scrape of his beard.

She’d tugged the camisole into place and now looked back at him with evident doubt, and he had to face the brutal truth of his off-balance morning. “Yeah,” he said. “I can use some space while I’m at it. But not because I’m running away. Because...”

Because I wasn’t expecting this. To be affected.

Oh, face it. To be reeling in the wake of her.

She’d put on a mask—the same face she’d worn when he’d first seen her. Unapproachable. Distant.

And, he now understood, self-protective.

She held her ground when he stepped up to her, and when he put a finger under her chin—lifting it slightly so the bruises along her jaw were beyond evident, and careful of them—careful of her. Biting back on fury to see them and knowing he’d find out what they were about when all was said and done, but that this moment wasn’t the right one.

“Because,” he said, “sometimes when you follow the feeling, you get far more than you ever expected. And if you want to do right by that, it takes a little space.”

Something in that stiff expression eased, allowing him back in. “Yes,” she said. “Okay. I can see that. I guess I can even feel some of it, this morning.” She caught his gaze, held it—a hint of honey in the brown of her eye. “Just promise this—when it’s time for you to walk away from us, be straight with me. Tell me you’re going. Don’t leave me wondering. Don’t leave me hopeful.”

The anger bubbled up again on her behalf. “Someone, somewhere, has done very badly by you.” He rested his hands on her shoulders. “Look, I may not always know what I’m doing. I might mess up. But I’ll do it honestly. And we’ll figure this out. By which I mean—” and he couldn’t help but grin as he bent to kiss her “—this.”

Her mouth was just as soft as it had been the night before, just as responsive. And so was he, immediately slipping into a possessive, claiming frame of mind, the strength of which only swelled once he noticed it.

She put a hand on his chest—not pushing, but enough to remind him what they’d been about. What he’d been about. When he pulled back, she’d regained the hint of a smile he’d already learned to look for. “Okay,” she said. “Check in with your mother ship. And today, the museum.”

“Come at noon and I’ll feed you first.” Ian held her chin a moment longer, bringing his thumb up to run along her lower lip where it shone damp with the attention he’d just given it.

Feed you, and find out who put their hands on you, and make sure it never happens again.

But first he had to make sure his people were all right.

* * *

Hollender Lerche found himself annoyingly aware of intrusion. He barely needed to glance at his office doorway to know that David Budian hesitated—no, hovered, in a most irritating way—outside his domain. But glance he did, looking up from the two receiver amulets on the otherwise empty desk, his very attention a demand for explanation.

This day, Budian dressed in natty slacks and short-sleeved dress shirt, a touring cap on his head and glasses he didn’t need over his nose. From this Lerche surmised that the man intended to again trail Ana Dikau. It was a precaution made necessary because she had only recently invoked the second amulet—and it, unlike the first, remained silent.

Not that the first had provided any useful information—although the primary working was as successful as they could have hoped, and the occupants of the house had definitely sickened.

Unfortunately, Ian Scott didn’t seem to be one of them.

Budian asked, “Anything?”

“Not of import,” Lerche told him. “The feeble-blooded Sentinels at the retreat are sickening, but Scott didn’t spend the night there.” Anger flickered to life at Ana’s defiance—her delay in invoking the second amulet, her whorish behavior with the Sentinel.

“So my man reported,” Budian said. “Scott left her rental a few moments ago—she wore him out, no doubt about that. I’ll pick her up if she leaves—or let you know if he returns. I’ve also planted a tracker on his motorcycle.” He took a breath on new words, hesitating there.

“What is it?” Lerche snapped.

Budian found the necessary mix of cautious respect. “Her face,” he said. “She came outside to say her goodbyes, and the bruises were visible. I must counsel caution when it comes to disciplining her, no matter that she deserves it.”

The anger flickered higher. “She should take better care with her makeup.”

“Agreed. But these Sentinels are notoriously possessive—that’s been the problem with them all along, hasn’t it? Possessive of the earth, possessive of whatever they deem to be theirs. It will complicate our task if this one goes looking for whoever left those bruises.”

“She knows better than to talk. And she heals more quickly than most.” Not that she knew it, or had any understanding of the taint her blood carried. She puzzled over her lack of acceptance within the Core ranks, but that was her problem. Lerche shook his head. “She is mine to discipline as necessary. But I’ll take your words into consideration.”

“Thank you,” Budian said, as well he might. “I’ll keep you apprised.”

Lerche nodded in dismissal, turning his attention back to the spy amulets. One still offered a mutter of occasional conversation and clattering kitchen noises, and the other briefly provided a muffled and unidentified sound.

Ana Dikau was a problem. Had always been a problem. Too eager for acceptance, never seeing that she wasn’t worthy, never understanding why—and yet constantly defying even the simplest edict. Never understanding that how little her value to him, she was still his.

She’d slept with the Sentinel.

Anger surged—and then slowly ebbed into satisfaction.

After all, she had invoked the amulet. She was spending time with Scott. He might sicken first, but ultimately she faced death right along with him. And she had no idea it would come at her own hand.

* * *

“Aspirin, yes. Ibuprofen or acetaminophen, no.” Ruger’s deep voice rumbled over Ian’s phone. Southwest Brevis’s skilled, no-nonsense healer was a man who took the bear in his other form—bigger than most, rumblier than most. “Keep ’em drinking—and put a drop of lemon oil in their water. Not the stuff under the sink for the furniture.”

“Not the furniture polish,” Ian repeated, amused in spite of the circumstances. He rounded the breakfast bar where he’d been taking notes, and opened Fernie’s remedy cabinet.

“You’d be surprised,” Ruger muttered. “Look, every once in a while something like this comes along—it sweeps through a bunch of us and goes on its way, showing up mainly in the light-bloods. Stick with common sense, and in a few days it’ll be history. Besides, it’ll take your mind off those silent amulets.”

“Does everyone know I’ve been sent up here to turn my brain off?”

Ruger made a rumbling noise of amusement. “Who do you suppose talked to Nick about prying you out of that laboratory for a while, little leopard?”

Ian made his own throat noise, and it wasn’t amusement.

Ruger laughed outright. “Never mind. We’ll talk about that later. Meanwhile, you’re not affected by this thing?”

Ian hesitated, thinking of the previous evening, not quite ready to admit vulnerability when he’d spent so much effort of late telling everyone he was fine, dammit. But then he’d hesitated too long, so he shrugged as he reached into the cabinet for the lemon oil. “Last night,” he said, tapping the little bottle against the counter in a clinking percussive accompaniment. “Helluva headache. Today, a little...yeah, hungover. Nothing more.”

“Sounds about right,” Ruger said. “Take the aspirin. Drink the fluids. Don’t get in over your head with activities.”

Ian snorted. “Now you sound like Fernie.”

“And,” Ruger said as if Ian hadn’t spoken, “call me if things don’t get better over the next day.”

Ian heard the serious note behind that directive. “Got it.”

“In fact, just call me. Tomorrow. I want to know how this thing is going, in case you’re not the only ones.” When Ian hesitated again, Ruger offered no leeway. “You’re not up there to get distracted by your work. Call me.”

Ian didn’t quite mean to mutter, “It’s not work that’s distracting me.”

Ruger laughed again. “Well, then,” he said. “Tell her hello, and look no further for the source of your little virus.”

“I only met her two days ago,” Ian grumbled. “Hardly even that.”

“That’s all it takes, with the right virus.” Ruger sounded altogether too cheerful. “It happens, you know. Even with us.” He gave Ian a quick list of other remedies they might find useful and that Fernie was likely to have on hand, including a recent batch of Ruger’s own tonic. “But don’t pull that one out unless things are getting bad. You’ll have the whole house bouncing off the walls. Of course,” he added, humor back in his voice, “you do that as a matter of course, so who’s to tell the difference.”

“Ha,” Ian said. “And ha.” And managed to mutter a promise to make that update call before he hung up.

But when he turned to face the kitchen, he couldn’t be quite as sanguine as Ruger—a man who had good reason to be cheerful, with his love Mariska newly pregnant. Another reason not to draw him up here. Mariska was also bear, small and fierce, and floundering a little in her new role as pending mother.

But Ian had arrived to find the place cluttered with an unprecedented number of dishes and no other evidence of the other retreat residents. A quick look around had revealed them all to be sleeping, and he’d left them that way, choosing to clean up and call Ruger before he disturbed Fernie.

Now he brewed her a quick cup of her favorite soother tea and added the lemon to it...and then hesitated and made one for himself, gulping an aspirin before he rummaged up one of yesterday’s muffins to add to her tray.

Unlike Ian’s room—a bedroom off the back of this quirky, open air home with its half-basement warren of little rooms and its common spaces—Fernie lived in a tiny little casita attached to the home but separate of it, just barely within the enclosed courtyard. Her own tiny kitchen, bathroom and bedroom—and a place into which Ian had never ventured, because it was quite obviously Fernie’s territory. Full of Southwest color and wrought iron and photos of a family grown and scattered across three brevis regions.

But he’d stood in the doorway, and that’s what he did now—knocking on the door until he heard the rustle of sheets and a sound of quiet dismay through a window that habitually remained cracked during the cold nights and warming days.

“It’s me, Fernie,” he said, cracking the door open. “I brought some tea. And one of your muffins. And I’ve talked to Ruger. So that means either I come in there with this tea or you come out, because...you know. Ruger said.”

“Come in,” she said, her voice a little ragged but perfectly alert. And then, practically before he’d crossed the threshold, “How are you? What about the others?”

He entered the bedroom bearing the tray like an offering, relieved to see that although he’d clearly woken her, her gaze was sharp enough and her expression alert. “I haven’t checked yet. I’m triaging, and you’re the important one.”

“And you?” she said, tucking the covers around her plump waist so he could settle the tray into place. Her graying hair hung over her shoulder in a long, simple braid, and age had settled into her plain, welcoming features overnight. “You didn’t look good last night, and you don’t look good now—and of all of us, you must stay well.”

“I’m—” He started to say he was fine, but didn’t finish. He wasn’t. The headache had returned, settling in behind his eyes. “Ruger says this should pass quickly—just some atypical virus. He didn’t sound concerned. I took notes about the remedies that might help.”

She’d taken a sip of her tea, and nodded. “The lemon is always good. But I need to know that you heard me. We’re counting on you.”

A stab of pain caught him behind one eye, and he winced, rubbing it. Fernie didn’t fail to note it. “And if this isn’t just some virus?”

He stared at her as if he’d suddenly forgotten how to think. Maybe he had.

“Ian,” she said, buttering her muffin with quick, impatient movement, “I’ve been managing this retreat since my Manny passed. He had no Sentinel blood at all, you know. So I know what a virus looks like, and I also know what it looks like when we light-bloods get hit with one. You think this would be the first time?”

Ian pulled her robe off the back of a wooden chair and draped it over her footboard so he could flip the chair around and straddle it. “And this doesn’t look right to you?”

She lifted one shoulder, sipping tea. “It doesn’t look familiar. Even here, we don’t take things for granted.”

He thought about the working he’d felt at the overlook, the mere ripple of corruption in the air. It hadn’t been a thing of significance—a passive detection spell, unless he missed his mark, and he wasn’t that far off his game. And members of the Core were everywhere, just as the Sentinels were. Clustered, yes, but always with plenty of individuals moving freely between.

“I see I’ve got you considering it, at least.”

“I’ll take a look around,” he said, tapping absently on the back of the chair. Slowly, to reflect the speed of his thoughts. “Once I’ve checked on the rest of us.”

“Leave that to me.” She pushed a strand of graying hair from her face. “I feel much better. If the others are anything like me, they simply went to bed last night and decided against getting up. It’s more of a tiresome thing than anything else.”

Ian rubbed the spot between his eyes. “Damned headache,” he said. But the aspirin must have been kicking in, because it seemed to be easing. “Okay. I’ll check outside. If I find anything...well, I don’t have my gear, but we can improvise. A kitchen isn’t so much different from a lab, when all is said and done.” He gave her a meaningful look. “But you’ll call me if you need help.”

“If it makes you feel better about going out there, then, yes.” She reached for another piece of the muffin. “But you, Ian—I hope you felt well enough to enjoy your time with Ana yesterday evening.”

He grinned. “Now you’re just prying,” he said, standing back from the chair. “Let’s just say I felt better when I was with her. And,” he added, before she could ask, “she’s coming over around lunchtime.”

“Because if this is a virus, she’s been well and exposed to it.” Fernie looked decidedly better now, that twinkle back in her eye.

“Now you are prying,” Ian said. He put the chair back where it had been and bent over to kiss her cheek, ignoring her surprise. “You’re right. We won’t take it for granted. I’ll check in after I take a quick look around, and then go back out for a second sweep.”