“That’s what they’re calling her, you know.”

“Allen? Bobcat? More like man-eating tiger, you ask me.”

“Nah, your cousin. ‘She-wolf of the Cheyenne.’”

Manny snorts. “Well, I guess it’s better to have a she-wolf chew your ass to shreds than just anybody. She’s not gonna like it that we brought the old man back…”

“Sounds like cold comfort to me.” Andrews hauls left on the steering wheel, and brings the truck to a juddering halt in front of Callaghan’s fence. “Now what?”

Manny hands him the wire-cutters. “Clip the fence. Get on the road. And drive like hell.”

*

It’s well past midnight when Kirsten, bone weary and with a headache that has increased its level exponentially, enters the house. Her usual greeter is conspicuously absent, and she makes her way through the kitchen quietly until she stands in the doorway to the living room. The rhythmic thump-thump of Asimov’s tail gives his location immediately, and as she steps closer, she can see his sparkling eyes from atop the human hip he is using for a pillow.

Stepping around the couch, her vision is filled with the sight of Dakota half-curled on her side, facing the fire and fast asleep. Her crooked arm supports her head as her hip supports Asi’s. Her chest rises and falls in a slow, easy and silent rhythm. Her flannel overshirt lies draped over one arm of the couch, leaving her in her black tank and jeans.

Kirsten’s eyes travel with true pleasure over the sweeping curves of her bronzed and muscled body, taking in each facet as if seeing it for the first time. Her own body warms and flushes, her exhaustion quite suddenly a thing of the past as a new, and seldom felt energy flows through her on eagle’s wings. Asi watches her curiously, but doesn’t move from his self-appointed perch. Kirsten circles around him, quiet as a wraith, and slowly lowers herself to the ground by Dakota’s head. The Vet’s face is obscured by the thick fall of her hair, which shines like silk in the light of the cheerily crackling fire, beckoning Kirsten silently to run her fingers through its inky mass.

She heeds the summons, barely daring to breathe as her fingers, not quite steady, tentatively brush against the silken strands. When Dakota’s breathing remains deep and easy, Kirsten, emboldened, brushes the thick locks away from her face with a slightly firmer touch, smiling as the Koda’s flawless profile is slowly revealed. Her skin is burnished copper, unlined and fairly glowing with vitality. Her lashes, long and dusky, rest softly on her cheek, creating tiny crescent moon shadows on the soft flesh beneath.

Whining softly, Asi tickles her with his cold, wet nose, and she giggles softly, lifting her hand from Koda’s hair and pushing him away. Looking affronted in a way that only German Shepards can, he nonetheless settles, resting his head back on his human pillow.

When Kirsten turns back, she finds herself swallowed whole in eyes the color of the Caribbean. She forgets the mechanics of breathing as Dakota’s gaze, warm and tender and yet with a spark of fire hot enough to scorch, takes in every inch of her face. A strong, long-fingered and perfectly sculpted hand raises up, and fingers trace themselves with impossible gentleness over the cupid’s bow of Kirsten’s lips.

“Nun lila hopa.”

The voice that speaks the words is deep and husky with sleep, and Kirsten feels a current rocket through her body. She smiles against the butterfly touches, understanding the sentiment, if not the words themselves.

“Thank you,” she whispers. “And you…you are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen.”

This earns her a smile that is equal parts radiant and innocent, and her breath leaves again with the intensity of emotion washing over and through her. She moves not a muscle as Dakota’s fingers leave her lips and trail along her jaw, then slide down her neck, lingering at a pulsepoint she is sure is bounding like an orchestral bass drum. They travel further, soothing against the hollow of her throat, feeling the skin as it stretches taut from a convulsive swallow.

Still smiling, Koda lifts her head and props it on her free hand. Her fingers blaze a molten trail down the “V” of Kirsten’s collar, and still themselves there, resting lightly on the fabric covering the rest of her body from view.

“I love you, you know,” Kirsten says, and then freezes, unable to believe she’s actually spoken her heart aloud.

“That’s good,” Dakota replies after a moment, gently tugging on the collar of her shirt, “because I love you, too.”

“You…do?” Kirsten’s voice is soft and filled with wonder.

“Mm. I do.”

The gentle tug comes again, and Kirsten goes with it, lowering her head and brushing against Koda’s offered lips.

“So very much,” Koda whispers, deepening the kiss as she helps Kirsten stretch out on her side. Asi gives an affronted grunt, but moves away as the two women settle together, bodies touching and moving along their lengths.

Tracing the tips of her fingers over the delicate whorls of Kirsten’s ear, Dakota deepens the kiss, parting her lips and inviting her inside. Moaning softly, Kirsten accepts the invitation. It’s all she can do not to crawl inside this woman who has so effortlessly stolen her heart, and she growls in frustration as her hands clamp down on the thin material covering Koda’s broad back, stretching and pulling the fabric near to tearing.

Caught up in the emotion of the moment, Dakota allows the passion between them to rise, breasting new heights as her tongue tenderly duels with Kirsten’s, tasting their shared excitement on her palate as the flavor of their kisses changes and grows heady.

Breathing deep through her nose, she deftly begins to bank the fire before it blazes beyond her ability to control. It’s not that she doesn’t want what is happening between them. Far from it; she finds herself wanting it more than she can ever remember wanting anything. But she knows, surely as she can feel the frantic beat of Kirsten’s straining heart against her breasts, that there is a time for everything, and the time for a full exploration of their love is not yet.

The transition from burn to simmer is so seamless that Kirsten doesn’t even protest as Koda softly pulls away. Her eyes flutter open and she smiles, happy beyond knowing. “This is nice,” she purrs, her voice husky and a full octave lower than her normal speaking voice.

“Mm. Very nice.” Tipping her head, she rubs her nose along Kirsten’s, then dips further to steal a soft kiss before pulling away again. “I love you.”

Tears immediately spring to Kirsten’s eyes. Her smile is radiance itself. “You don’t know how it feels to hear you say that.”

Tenderly wiping the tears away with her thumb, Koda leans in for another tender kiss. “I think I might have some idea,” she murmurs, lingering for another moment. She then slides her cheek against Kirsten’s silken skin and holds her in a warm, tight embrace, reveling in the closeness and the love that permeates her soul.

This is right. As right as anything could ever be, even in a world gone totally wrong. She lets the last of her barriers slip free without a parting thought, and opens herself totally to the love this one special woman offers up so easily.

CHAPTER THIRTY

“GOD DAMN YOU all, I want justice for my father!”

“Mr. Dietrich,” Harcourt begins patiently, “we know you’re grieved by the loss of your father. But we have a procedure here—”

“You have a procedure here that’s taking the word of the sons-of-bitches who killed him! He’s not here to speak for himself!”

Koda’s hands clench into fists on her knees, fingers curled so tightly into the palms that her skin shows white and taut above the sharp angles of the bones. All through Manny’s account of finding and freeing Dietrich’s victims, all through Andrews’ corroborating testimony, she has held herself small and quiet behind a barrier of calm, withdrawing into the far places of her mind where her grandfather and Wa Uspewicakiyapi himself have taught her to seek refuge from pain. And in those places is Kirsten.

With a conscious effort, Koda forces herself to ignore the anger battering against the walls of her refuge from without, forces back the rage that burns white-hot just beyond the limit of conscious thought, that requires only a moment’s inattention to burn through. Instead she deliberately recalls the pressure of Kirsten’s body against her own, the generous yielding of her mouth. Deliberately too, she recalls the sense of rightness in their coming together, as if her own journey from her parents’ home, Kirsten’s struggle over half a continent, had found their appointed ends in the snow at Minot.

Everything happens precisely as it should. Precisely.

And where, she wonders, does that come from? Dakota is no fatalist. Nor, she knows, is Kirsten. If the last months have taught her anything, it is that fate is shaped by human will, or by lack of it. Many of the uprising’s victims have died not so much from the androids’ onslaught as from a moment’s unbelieving paralysis. Like Kirsten, she has come to Minot and now to Ellsworth by a series of refusals to be stunned into inaction, by choices to fight against an enemy still unknown. And out of those actions has come the warrior she has felt dormant within her the whole of her life. And out of them, too, this unexpected love, ripening now in its appointed season.

“No!”

The shout breaks her calm, jerking her mind abruptly back into the anger that pulses off Dietrich in waves. With an effort she stifles the rage that rises to meet it: if he did not set the traps himself, then certainly he knew of them, was complicit in the pain and death of every creature caught in them. He stands before the court, his face blotched scarlet, his hand raised as if to strike out at the men and women of the jury panel.