office, reorienting to the elevator and the quietly classy earth tones of the hallway. No, she shouldn’t have lingered at all. Not when her hearing was as acute as any Sentinel’s.
Apparently, she’d somehow fooled herself into hoping that Ruger would understand.
Silly bear that she was.
It had all made sense when she’d spoken to Nick about the assignment, twelve hours before she’d even gotten close to Ruger. No doubt she should have said something when she’d found him at the park… but the moment had been so perfect, the opportunity so rare, the man so engaging…
Well, so be it. She’d take the elevator down to the gear room to augment her own minimalist duffel—a couple of high-power stun guns, a collapsible baton, a blackjack… everything it took to manage Atrum Core goons without leaving bodies behind.
When it came time to leave bodies, she had only to call on her bear.
Not that the Core played fair. They carried guns and they carried amulets, and they pretended they were only protecting the world from Sentinels run amok with their own prowess—the connection to the earth that had given their druid ancestors the ability to shift form, and then further specialties besides. Healers, like Ruger. Trackers and warding specialists and earth power wranglers.
Mariska had none of that. She was strong and able, a powerhouse packed into a curvy little body. And she continued in the tradition that had started two thousand years earlier, when that first shape-shifting druid had faced his fratricidal half-Roman brother—a man who had then founded his Atrum Core clan, so intent on stealing power and influence that they’d only helped shape the Sentinels into what they were today—strong, confident protectors.
What did you expect from me? The thought held a bitterness she’d felt more and more often in recent days. Take a bear shifter, train her in that tradition, keep her just a little bit bored and a whole lot eager, and then turn her loose in front of opportunity?
“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
