style="font-size:15px;"> Her heart clenched, much as her body had clenched only moments earlier. “An always night,” she whispered. No matter tomorrow.
Eventually they got past the foyer. Not before Ruger spread his shirt on the rough textured paint of the half wall, set her on it, and provided what she’d clearly wanted the first time—the chance to fondle and stroke.
He’d meant for things to go slower, then—a chance to admire the sturdy bones of her, to marvel that he hadn’t worried about crushing her or frightening her, and the certainty that she’d been able to brace herself against that wall no matter how he pounded into her. A chance to run his hands over full hips and full breasts and her curvy, flat and tight waist, and to marvel at her perfect proportions. Not tall, not long and lean and slender, not any of the things that so many men ogled.
But all the things that Ruger ogled.
And it didn’t go slow at all.
So eventually they made it past the foyer… but only as far as the sprawling couch, where they finally fell asleep. She, sated and lightly snoring… he, completely smitten.
But when he woke in the morning, covered only by a soft cotton blanket that had slipped down far enough to threaten modesty, the light streamed in the windows of the airy Southwest home and Mariska the lady bear was gone.
Chapter 2
That she’d left didn’t surprise Ruger. She was on assignment today; she’d only ever asked for the night. She, like all of his kind, was clearly wont to an independent nature, not needy on the morning after.
Besides, she’d left him out some tea makings and a protein shake.
Ruger didn’t bother to head for home—a tidy little trailer in the foothills of the Catalinas. He dug out the little overnighter kit from his truck’s half-cab storage, brushed his teeth, and helped himself to a quick shower, relieved at the neutral scents of her soap and shampoo.
But the shower did nothing to clear his head; his senses reeled in the aftermath of Mariska—and in the surreal but inescapable fact that he was about to report for field duty without his healing skills. He stared at the lightly fogged mirror and felt as though he saw someone who had been, not someone who was. Strong in body once more, a man more big than beefy or hulking, a man with strength in arms and torso and defined muscle all the way down to the towel that draped his hips.
But still only part of what he’d been.
He tugged on his shirt, stepped into his pants, grabbed the protein shake, and headed out to the truck with the heat of the early morning soaking into his shoulders. Thinking changes and forward as he started up the truck. Maybe that was why he pulled into the barbershop when he saw it. When he stepped out, his hair was only a smidge more crisp around the edges—but his bared cheeks sensed the slightest breeze, and that untanned skin tingled in the sun.
As if facing the world without a beard for the first time in his adult life would distract him from things still missing.
He still had his knowledge. His herbs and creams and brews. But those would no longer be infused with the healing energies—and they hadn’t ever been the reason for his demand in the field.
Not to mention that brevis liked a healer who could look after himself. Counted on Ruger to do so, instead of using their depleted manpower. Until Flagstaff, when he’d walked into that Atrum Core ambush just like the rest of his team. Then when Core D’oíche had hit not so long afterward, he hadn’t been there to help the wounded.
So damned many wounded.
But he shouldn’t be thinking about that now. Now was about forward. First stop, Brevis HQ, where he’d join the briefing on his new assignment in Arizona’s high timber region, following up on whatever Maks Altán had uncovered.
Brevis itself hid in a deceptive handful of stories on the edge of Old Town Tucson, where the building foundation dug down deep into caliche to hide invisible subterranean floors below. Apartments and offices and meeting rooms above; medical, the amulet lab and so much of their archived history below. A complete and tidy headquarters for a race of earth-bound sentinels unknown to the world at large.
Ruger parked the pickup in his assigned slot and headed for the high conference room outside Nick Carter’s corner office—a room draped with local plantings and replete with the astringent scents of the desert. Ruger pretty much knew what he’d find there—the vast window, the carpet thick underneath and the conference table holding a bottomless pot of herbal tea. Businesslike and still welcoming.
He’d find Carter and possibly Jet, the wolf who’d discovered her human side through Atrum Core experiments, as well as the other members of his team—all new to him, he suspected. He was ready for that.
He wasn’t ready to open the big wood door and find Mariska sitting at that table, her expression more of a wince than a welcome, her eyes widening slightly at the sight of his newly shaved face.
He might not have known she’d be on his team, but…
She’d known. He could see it on her face. She’d known, and she hadn’t said anything. And he couldn’t think of any reason why not.
At least, not any good reason.
He gave her a wary nod, yanking out a chair at the end of the table—the one he always took, not because of any stupid alpha game, but because in a room of men made big by their Sentinel nature, Ruger stood the largest… and took the most leg room while he was at it.
Nick sat at his desk, two computer monitors in play and a stack of folders threatening to slide over the edge. Annorah leaned over to scoop them up and deposit them in the middle of the table, shoving one in Mariska’s direction and another at Ian Scott, the amulet specialist who’d briefly worked with Maks in Pine Bluff. One to Ruger, and one to a woman Ruger didn’t know—a wards or shielding specialist, most likely.
Ian flipped his folder open and began an immediate doodle in the margin—impatient with such meetings as ever. Sardonic in nature, his snow leopard showing strongly in his pale hair, striking eyes, and the flow of his movement—at least, when he wasn’t acting like an overcaffeinated cat. “If we’re all up to speed on this,” he said, “let’s skip to the good part.”
Ruger made a subliminal grumbling noise that the others nonetheless perceived very well, his normally amiable nature tangled by his reaction not to Mariska’s presence, but to her guarded expression.
“Not everyone comes at this from the inside,” Nick said mildly, ignoring Ruger’s mood and responding to Ian. As alpha as they came, that Nick Carter—full of wolf and full of innate pack understanding. But an alpha didn’t need to posture or dominate… an alpha just was. That mild voice meant plenty.
Ian sighed and flipped his pencil against the table a few times. “Okay, sure,” he said, sitting back. “What’ve we got, then?”
“Mariska, I am Jet.” The whisky voice belonged to the woman with whisky eyes, Nick’s fiercely beloved Jet. As usual, she hovered by the window, restless and graceful. As usual, she tended the social necessities first. More wolf than any of them, Nick included—wolf born and human made, escaped from the Core, bereft of her pack, and now forever with Nick. “I’ll be scouting wide.”
Ian
