Jaguar Night Read Online Free PDF Page B

towering desert landscape. Gold and black rosettes, a claw…a whisker. No more. Because the brevis regional consul had delayed backup with scrying and warding and—
    Whatever. Too late.
    They’d be too late for Meghan, too.
    Your brother? The thought had a light touch, gentle…and unfamiliar.
    Hearthstone bruised shoulder and spine as his body jerked uncontrollably against it, twisting so tightly he couldn’t find room to breathe. The world dimmed even further, and still he recoiled inwardly in the alarm of no longer being alone. His lips drew back in a snarl and his whiskers quivered, and even blinded by pain and his body’s jerking dance, his slapping paw found its target, claws clogged with dirt and blood but still able to pierce skin.
    He hadn’t expected to feel the pain of it, sharp and wounding; he froze. Only for an instant, and then the poisons took him away, the world fading away to thinnothingness. He barely felt the light touch on his head, around his muzzle—confident fingers lifting that frozen snarl and smearing his gums with a paste imbued with the feather-touch of incantations.
    As fast as that, the rigor eased, his long and powerful body sagging back to dirt and hearthstone. And when the world darkened, it was as if he fell into himself, deeply into himself…back into the life of his beating heart and panting lungs and even that deep growl of feeble protest stuck in his throat.
    And then, somewhere along the way, he fell into her. Meghan. Slip-sliding from one thought to another, from his to hers and back again. Through it all echoed his anguished backdrop of warning— Atrum Core…Atrum Core…’ ware. Meghan, Atrum Core…
    They’d come back if they knew she was here. They’d come back if they thought she’d become involved…if they thought she’d shed her noncombatant’s role to join the Sentinels outright.
    If they thought, as he’d thought, that she could help to find the Liber Nex.
    ’Ware, Meghan…
    And then he lost himself to darkness, to sweet scents and blessed lassitude and the enfolding blanket of determination that he would not, after all, lose himself to the Core.
    And Meghan followed him down to the darkness.
    You shouldn’t go…don’t go —! Sweet little girl voice, gone reedy and thin with desperation, the recognition of futility.
    The world skipped around memory turned into reality. Long coltish legs crossed on the bed, covers over her head…herbs pungent in their pinched little piles, arrayed directly on the sheets around her bare legs. Breathe deep. Take them in, like Mama says. Transform them. Empower them. They didn’t quite have meaning, those words, but by God she tried. She built wards and she built warnings and she built safety.
    Or she thought she did.
    But she felt it happen. She felt the death…the loss. Mama! Don’t go, Mama! Don’t —
    A whisper of goodbye, a scant caress of love—
    You said there’d be help! You said there’d be a jaguar! You said —
    Gone.
    Scattered herbs, sheets damp from sobbing, heart broken forever. Little girl betrayed. By the—
    Jaguar.
    Older brother. Strong, golden, black rosettes rippling with the movement of bone and muscle beneath. Jared, who could do anything. Jared, confident in running point for the Sentinels, in assessing a situation, in doing what had to be done until the entire team arrived. Jared, steeped deep in Sentinel lore, Sentinel responsibility…utter faith in teammates.
    Jared. Brother, father and mother in one package, enough years between them to make it work. Enough years before them to anticipate working together. Sentinels.
    “Sure, it’s dangerous—it’s the damned Liber Nex, Dolan. But I won’t be alone. Working point, yeah, butthe team will be there. Making sure we’re clear without drawing attention our way.”
    Jared.
    Not coming back.
    What do you mean, he didn’t make it? What do you mean, you weren’t there in time? What do you mean, he’s —
    Dead.
    No jaguar. No Sentinels.