It had, though, and that was why, as irritation won out over relief, she summoned a flip smile she knew would piss him off, and said, “Hey, welcome back. Did you miss me?”
That was a laugh, of course, because he’d always made it his business never to miss anyone.
CHAPTER TWO
Sven had braced himself to see Cara, thinking through what he wanted to say to her… but as he stared down at her now, caught between the desire to haul her into his arms and the nearly overwhelming urge to shake her until her damn fool teeth rattled, he was floundering because they were way the fuck off his script.
He had planned on getting her in private and talking to her—really talking to her, for the first time in years. He sure as shit hadn’t been prepared to show up just as the alarms went nuts, and to get out to the ball court just in time to see her trying to outrun some godsdamned hellbeast—a demon inside Skywatch, for fuck’s sake!—armed with a jammed MAC-10 and more guts than common sense. He hadn’t been braced to find himself planted on top of her as he’d pulled the magic necessary to take the creature down. And he sure as shit wasn’t ready to be this close to her while his pulse thudded off rhythm with those urges, along with knowledge that he’d just come damn close to losing her.
He rolled off of her, stood, and hauled her to her feet, though the distance didn’t do nearly enough to cool him off. His rehearsed scene had started something along the lines of, I know this is a couple of decades too late, but I owe you an apology.… Instead, he found himself leaning down to roar, “What in the hell were you thinking? You nearly got yourself killed!”
Mac moved to his side, ruff bristling, but then subsided and settled to his haunches with his eyes fixed on Cara. Friend, he sent in the thought-glyphs that were his main way of communicating. Missed friend. But that wasn’t enough to cool the fury riding high in Sven’s blood. Mac existed in the moment—the demon was gone now; he was happy to see Cara now; he was hungry now. Humans, though, had to deal with the past-present-future stuff. That meant that when Sven looked at her, he didn’t see a petite woman with a striking white forelock and exotic deep brown eyes, wearing curve-hugging black pants, an edgy black jacket, and an air of, You and what army? Well, yeah, he saw that. But he also saw the girl she’d been.
He saw her at ten, galloping bareback on her fat spotted pony, with her hair streaming out behind her like a white-striped black banner.
He saw her at fifteen, returning to the ranch battered and bloody, cradling a broken wrist and defending the chestnut filly who had tossed her, seeming unaware that his heart had stopped at the sight of her injuries.
He saw her at seventeen, propositioning him in the back barn with the sweetly inexpert kiss he’d never forgotten, saw her eyes fill when he turned her down and rode away, not knowing it was one of the hardest things he’d ever done.
He saw her at twenty-one, when she tracked him down in a crappy one-room apartment to drag him to Skywatch, overriding his protests with three words: “You owe me.” And he sure as shit had owed her. He’d broken her heart that day in the barn, and he hadn’t done it gently, because he’d been feeling none too gentle himself.
He saw her a few months later, when he told her to leave Skywatch, claiming that she didn’t fit in and he didn’t need her, trying to make the break a clean one for both their sakes, because those not-so-gentle feelings had come back like gangbusters, only to come up against roles, rituals, and the end of the damned world.
He saw her at twenty-three, when she had come back to Skywatch to lead the rebel winikin, looking confident, capable, dead sexy, and nothing like the girl she had been, yet somehow exactly like that girl.
He saw her just now, facing down a hellhound with no armor, no shield, and no backup. And because unlike Mac he could imagine the future, he also saw what would have happened if he hadn’t gotten there when he did. It wasn’t tough to picture—gods knew he’d seen plenty of bodies over the past six months. And he’d be damned if he added hers to the list.
Her eyes narrowed. “Back off, Nightkeeper. I was just doing my job.”
“It’s not your job to get yourself killed,” he grated, then leaned in closer to make his point, putting them nose-to-nose. He could feel the soft warmth coming off her skin, smell the faintest hint of flowers and spice turned sharp by the scents of battle. And he was all too aware of the magic riding high in his bloodstream, making him want to do things he had long ago filed under Bad Idea. Gritting his teeth and willing the images away, he ground out, “The winikin can’t afford to lose their leader.”
She scowled. “I know what I’m doing.”
“Bullshit. If Mac and I hadn’t just rolled in when your mayday came through—”
“One of the others would’ve saved my ass,” she interrupted. “And there’s no way I was going to hide behind the shield and watch Zane and Lora die.”
“Zane. Right.” If he’d had fur it would’ve bristled. “Any reason he didn’t send you and Lora ahead and cover you?”
“Because I ordered him to get his ass moving, and it wasn’t like we had time to stand around and rock-paper-scissors it.”
“Sven!” Dez called. “Get over here.”
Growling under his breath, Sven looked to where the other Nightkeepers were gathered beside the charred, smoking pyre, no doubt in the first stages of a “what the hell were those things, and how the fuck did they get inside Skywatch?” conversation. “We need five minutes,” he called.
“No, we don’t.” Cara took a big step back, creating a gap between them that felt far greater than a few feet of space.
“We’re not finished.”
“Oh, yes, we are.” She held up a hand. “Look, we had a deal. You do your thing and I do mine, and we leave the past in the past. Remember?”
Yeah, he remembered, all right. It had sounded good at the time, back when she’d first returned to Skywatch and they had been trying to find a way to coexist without things getting personal. Now, though, he wanted to get personal, to a degree. He needed to make things right—or at least own up to what he’d done wrong. The past six months had changed him, he hoped for the better.
He exhaled through his nose. “Look, Cara, I—”
“Something’s wrong,” she interrupted, attention fixed on the others, where there was a sudden flurry of activity, a few shouts. “Come on.” She was in motion before he could call her back, beelining for where JT was suddenly faced off opposite Carlos, both of them red faced and furious.
Sven cursed and strode after her, knowing she was right. Duty called. And wasn’t that a bitch?
As Cara headed toward the others, she was too aware of Sven walking beside her, Mac dogtrotting at his heels. The two moved alike, making her think of wide-open spaces and the kind of freedom she was suddenly dying for, because she was raw from the funeral, shaky from the attack, and churned up over Sven’s unexpected return, which could spell trouble. The rebel members of the winikin mistrusted her old connection to the coyote mage, thinking it put her closer to the traditionalists or, worse, the Nightkeepers themselves. That meant she needed to watch not just her own step, but their perceptions, as well.
Sure enough, as she drew nearer, a couple of the rebels shot her dark looks that accused her of fraternizing. Or maybe the accusation was inside her, coming from the heat that was still vibrating through her body, singing a familiar inner refrain of, He’s back, he’s back, he’s back, just as it had when she was younger. Back then she’d thought each time he came home that he’d finally be ready to settle down, stick around, be there for the people who needed him.