Storytime with Rachel F Hundred

Irina knows the moment she holds her youngest son that he is a guide.

Like calls to like and she feels the stir of her own calling rise up like an elderly giant who has slept for years.

She keeps her eyes on him to hide her expression from the old midwife, to give her no indication of Ilya’s status, of her own. There are tales that midwives drown the babies who give any sign of being a sentinel or a guide. A man was imprisoned and executed only the year before on suspicion of being a guide.

Russia is an unfriendly place for their kind.

The Sentinel and Guide Council cannot operate within its borders; they have no power in Russia, no agreement with the government. Not since Stalin had declared all sentinels and guides to be enemies of the state unless bound to its service.

Children born with the gifts are meant to be given up to the government. They are meant to be sent away to a friendly country if they are not fit for service. Noone really knows what happens to them.

Whatever the fate of the children, Irina refuses to allow it to happen to her son.  

Irina gently kisses Ilya’s baby mop of blond curls and silently promises him that she will protect him.

o-O-o

Her Great-Aunt Sophie is still alive.

Irina breathes out sharply as she settles back in her chair.

Irina’s mother and grandmother had ignored Sophie’s existence. Irina’s sister had once whispered that the reason why they did was because Sophie was gifted.

Irina hopes the family story was true. She needs an ally.

The rest of her family is long gone. Her grandparents dying when she was young; her sister in the same car accident which had taken her parents when she was a teenager; the same accident which had left her with struggling with sadness every day. Her father’s brother and wife had raised her in the aftermath. They had been cold and detached as guardians. She had been nothing but a duty to them.

Marrying Grigori had seemed like a perfect escape to a better life.

If only she knew then what she knew now, Irina thinks darkly. She tugs the sleeve of her shirt back down to cover the latest bruise from Grigori’s temper.

She turns off the computer and goes back to her usual chores. She focuses on picking up Alexei from after-school practice, feeding him, feeding Ilya. She puts her children to bed and she makes dinner.

Grigori arrives home late, smelling of booze and cigarettes. He sits down to eat.

“I thought I might try to reach out to my Great-Aunt,” Irina slides the statement in after Grigori’s third vodka as he sits back, plate empty, looking satisfied.

Grigori cocks his head. “Why?”

“We have no other family but each other,” Irina says. “We have two boys. She is old. She may remember stories of our family I cannot.”

Grigori hums. “She has money?”

“Some,” Irina shrugs. “I checked and she’s living in Ivangorod now.”

“Shit place,” Grigori downs his vodka and pours himself another.

“Maybe it would be best to let it lie,” Irina says out loud, looking down at her plate so he does not see her eagerness. “She is an old woman. Perhaps she will have no interest in me and the boys.”

“Reach out to her. Maybe she has money to spend on our boys,” Grigori orders. “Bring the dessert.”

Irina nods and gets up to clear the plates, ignoring that she has barely touched her food. She’s planted the seed. She needs to let it take root so Grigori believes contacting Sophie is all his idea.

o-O-o

Sophie arrives and Irina almost buckles with relief as her Great-Aunt takes one look at Ilya and understands without a word being said.

They share tea and take a walk around the picture-perfect garden Grigori has insisted is essential to their image.

“You will need a plan,” Sophie states bluntly. She uses a plain wooden cane, leaning on it heavily. She’s dressed in thick woollen pants, a brown floral shirt which had seen better days, and a thick duffle jacket. Sturdy boots complete her outfit. Her grey hair is constrained into a bun.

Irina wonders if her own mother would have looked like Sophie in the end; a graceful old lady with sharp blue eyes and an easy smile in a face wrinkled and lined with time.

“Your husband will not let you go easily,” Sophie continues, “especially if you take the boys.”

“Only if I take Alexei,” Irina corrects her gently. “He favours him. He is his heir, his legacy.” It breaks her heart to think of leaving her child behind, but Alexei is already his father’s son, ungifted and safe. When it comes down to it, she knows her priority is Ilya.

“Now, he favours him,” Sophie says, “but Ilya will grow up to be special. He feels beloved.” She glances back to the house. “Those who are gifted in the way he is often excel; they are smart, funny, dedicated. They outshine their siblings and become favoured, especially when there is no counterbalance of knowing why.”

Irina shivers. She buries her hands in her good winter coat. She remembers how her parents had favoured her over her sister. “You were gifted.”

“Until the government suppressed it,” Sophie nods. “A whole generation of us were rounded up and sent to suppression camps to send our gifts into dormancy with chemicals. They watched us for a decade after sending us home.”

She is matter of fact about it, but Irina feels her pain. Her own sleeping gift has continued to stir in the wake of Ilya’s birth. She knows that she may never come online fully. She is old. 

“Didn’t watch us long enough,” Sophie comments with a slight smirk. “The older I got, the more I was able to get back even if I can’t fully be a Guide.”

There is a flicker beside her and, just for a second, a black bear ambles alongside her.

“I can tell you your son has a powerful gift,” Sophie says. “His sentinel is probably already born. He won’t be able to hide for long.”

“Grigori…” Irina bites her lip. “If he ever suspects, none of us…you won’t be safe.”

“Safety at my age is overrated,” Sophie says. “Besides, my duty is to the tribe.” She holds out her hand and Irina grasps it tightly. “We’ll get your boy safe, Irina.”

Irina blinks back her tears. 

“I’ll teach you what I know,” Sophie says, “and I can set things up so you have a place to land. Our arrangements will take time though. We will need to play a long game.”

o-O-o

Ilya is a skating prodigy.

They know it as soon as they strap boots to his feet at one of Alexei’s practices and Ilya toddles onto the ice and simply skates as though it is all he was born to do. He is immediately scooped up into the national programme and Grigori demands that he focus on hockey rather than figure skating.

Irina tries to balance Grigori’s new favouritism of his youngest son. She spends time with her eldest son alone in the same way she spends time alone with Ilya. She celebrates Alexei’s wins as much as Ilya’s.

It is not enough.

It is not her regard Alexei craves. It is his father’s.

As Alexei grows more resentful of his little brother’s success, he reshapes himself into a mini-Grigori.

Irina cherishes every moment with him regardless because she knows she will have to one day leave him behind.

Sophie and Irina make plans.

And contingency plans.

And more plans.

Sophie visits once a year to train them. She sets up a trust each for the boys and one for Irina. They tell Grigori it is for after her death, but there are clauses which allow Irina to access the funds earlier if she leaves Russia and her husband.

Ilya’s talent changes their plans once, twice, a dozen times.

Time slips by. Year after year.

Irina lives in dread of Ilya coming online fully before she can safely extract them from Russia. She’s watchful.

She’s preoccupied when Grigori gets home. She doesn’t quite have everything ready for him. His temper is immediate and he raises a hand even as she cowers back and…

There is a slap of invisible psionic energy which surges through the house. Irina staggers under the weight of the silent command which sings with Ilya’s soul.

Grigori stops.

He looks confused for a long moment. Finally, he wanders out of the room and leaves the house.

Irina sits down shakily in the nearest chair and takes a deep breath. She gets up and heads upstairs, her heart pounding, her mouth dry.

She goes straight to Ilya’s room, opens the door and freezes.

A huge grey wolf sits by his bed, amber eyes staring back at Irina steadily.

Ilya is sleeping. He is sturdy six, already tall for his age. His body is spread out like a starfish across the small child’s bed he sleeps in, one foot hanging off the side.

Irina assesses his psionic profile as best she can with her own limited gift. Thanks to Sophie, she knows more than she did about to how to use it despite the constraints.

She breathes out sharply.

Despite the presence of the wolf, Ilya is not online.

Her eyes meet the wolf’s steady gaze and Irina knows that with his spirit protector is present things are going to change regardless.

o-O-o

Ilya turns ten.

Irina holds a birthday party at the rink after his practice, ignoring the mutters of the coach who thinks it is a waste of time and Grigori’s icy disapproval.

Ilya eats too much cake, but he adores the attention. He is a bundle of energy, fierce and boisterous, but so focused and sharp on the ice. Nobody around them suspects Ilya is a guide.

Three nights later, Irina wakes abruptly, bolting into a sitting position in her bedroom.

She’s alone.  

Grigori is with the mistress Irina pretends not to know about. She’s somewhat grateful that his attention has wandered every time he looks at her with anger since the night Ilya’s spirit protector arrived. Whatever Ilya had done, innocently, unconsciously, with the only intent to stop his father’s violence, it has left a lasting mark on Grigori.

In turn, Grigori’s growing apathy with his marriage and family has turned Alexei into Irina and Ilya’s staunchest defender. Her eldest son is schooling away at a prestigious skating academy. He lacks Ilya’s brilliance and dedication, but after years of practicing with his brother, he is good enough for the coaches to notice; for them to invest in him too. Grigori is already making noises to send Ilya and Irina knows the day he announces that he is sending Ilya to the academy is the day she will take her son and run.

The last time Alexei had been home during Sophie’s usual visit, he had quietly informed them both that if Ilya needed to leave, Irina should not think of Alexei; that he would be fine. Sophie had promised he would not be alone and Alexei had promised her the same. Irina had simply hugged him and told him she loved him. She does not know what Alexei had noticed, how he had found out, but she knows that the two brothers have grown close in the absence of Grigori. Ilya adores Alexei and Alexei adores his Ilya.

She slowly slides out of the bed and heads to Ilya’s room. She opens the door and…

The scene startles her a gasp from her.

The window is wide open, a cold wind whistling through into the room.

Ilya sits huddled up by the headboard of his bed, his arms wrapped around Zolushka, his wolf. He is white as a sheet and his green eyes are glossy with shock. His bedding lies on the floor as though it was tossed away.

On the ground by the bed, a large feline animal which Irina can’t identify stands over a man dressed in black whose throat has been torn to shreds. When she forces herself to look at his face, she recognises the new Assistant Coach. She doesn’t like him because she has sensed his avarice to use Ilya. She just assumed it was to do with hockey not with…

She shudders.

Irina knows three things.

One – that this pedo has tried to attack her son and it is a miracle it has not brought him fully online.

Two – it is most likely his sentinel’s protector has killed the man.

Three – there is no way for her to explain what has happened without someone in the police realising Ilya is a Guide. Forensics will pick up the psionic residue.

Irina moves.

She sweeps in and checks that the man is dead. He is very dead which is very good. She turns and hurries to Ilya who leaves the comfort of his wolf for his mother without hesitation, throwing himself into her arms and weeping. She carries him from his room and into her own.

They sit on the bed, rocking together.

She tucks him into her own bed and enters her closet. She takes out the small bags she has packed. She opens up another suitcase and redresses Ilya in non-descript children’s clothing; nothing of the quality they are used to wearing. She opens up her box of family photos squirrelled away on the top shelf and takes out the three burner phones Sophie has given to her. She uses the first to send through the alert to Sophie.

She redresses in her own version of unremarkable clothing sticking with jeans, t-shirt, plain sweater. She has just finished lacing up her boots when her registered phone buzzes. She picks it up.

“I am here, Irina,” Sophie says calmly.

Irina breathes in sharply, tears stinging her eyes.

“Follow the plan,” Sophie continues. “You will leave a note for the housekeeper that I have had a medical emergency. You will send Grigori the same text once you are at the train station. I have just called for the ambulance. I have stroke symptoms. You are on your way to me.”

Irina closes her eyes and breathes in, out. She looks over at Ilya who is curled up on her bed snoozing with his wolf guarding his back and the large cat, a cougar perhaps, at his front. “We are on our way, Aunt Sophie.”   

It takes more minutes than she hopes for to wake and hustle Ilya into the car, to leave the note, to close the door on Ilya’s room and hope the housekeeper does not ignore her instruction to leave the bedrooms alone.

She drives to the nearest rail station. She buys one set of tickets for Ivangorod at the ticket office to play into their story, talking with the sympathetic attendant. She buys another set from the ticket machine for Vladivostok. She wants the authorities to assume she is running East to the sanctuary of countries like France, Switzerland and England.

She does not take a train.

She does take a moment to post a letter to Alexei (her heart is breaking at leaving him behind); she texts Grigori.

She clasps Ilya’s small hand in hers and heads out of the railway station and takes the bus to the airport. Three stressful hours later they are on a flight, picking up the tickets Sophie has arranged at the airline desk for the first leg of their journey to Los Angeles. Every step is taken with Ilya’s two spirit protectors beside them. Irina thinks they are helping to obscure them as nobody seems to pay them any specific attention.

Ilya is subdued; he is not himself. He does not act out once as they make the difficult long flight. When they land in Los Angeles, twenty-four hours have passed since they left Russia, over twenty-four hours since Irina stepped into Ilya’s bedroom.

When they step into the airport, they are met at the gate by a man and woman who are wearing Sentinel and Guide Centre badges. She knows that Sophie had called the American Council to inform them of their arrival on another burner phone which cannot be traced to her. The pair waiting for them look like a poster for the Sentinel and Guide Council. He is a dark-haired tall sentinel and she is a sweet blonde guide. Their eyes widen as they take in the sight of the cougar and wolf guarding Ilya.

Irina smiles tremulously as they step forward. “I request sanctuary for myself and my son under the Sentinel and Guide Protection Act,” she states clearly as they reach her.

“You have it,” the Sentinel states briskly. He looks at Ilya. “Welcome to the United States, Guide Rozanov.”

Irina thinks she may faint. It feels like she can finally take a breath. They are safe. Her baby is safe.

o-O-o

They don’t stay long in Los Angeles, only a year.

Grigori divorces her in absentia and marries Polina. There are arrest warrants for her and Ilya if they so much as dip a toe across a Russian border. Sophie gets word to them that she was briefly questioned but ultimately the authorities were unable to prove she knew about the attack at the house or faked her medical emergency.

Alexei sends her letters via the Council. They are short but filled with love and news of his life. He has left the skating academy for a boarding school in the North. His father has made it clear that he expects Alexei to follow him into the police. The good news is that he is dating a lovely girl. Irina hopes that Alexei will be happy. She sends him occasional messages via Sophie and hopes that he knows how much she loves him.

She and Ilya get their citizenship confirmed in Los Angeles and Ilya has therapy and healing for the attack he’d endured. Irina learns that while his sentinel’s protector had killed the man before he had laid a hand on her son, Ilya had felt the full force of what the pedo had wanted to do to him. It makes him quiet in a way which hurts Irina’s heart. His only joy is skating.  

Ilya is quickly spotted by a scout when he practices at a local rink.

They move to Illinois a year after their flight from Moscow. Ilya joins a youth skating programme and blossoms under the direction of a former national coach. Their house is small but it is theirs. Irina might feel settled except for one problem: the local Centre is more traditional than Los Angeles.

At their first meeting, the sentinel in charge, a balding snooty man called Charles Miller, questions Ilya’s intent to play hockey and pushes a pro-military agenda. Miller suggests Ilya should focus on being the best guide for his sentinel. His guide, a polite younger man, remains quiet in the corner of the room.

Irina steps in as her son’s face shifts from polite respect to angry glower. “Doctor Sandburg already made clear that a militant adherence to the idea of protecting the tribe is outdated in the modern era, da? All jobs in society contribute to tribe, from trash collector to billionaire businessman so all sentinels and guides contribute no matter what they do.”

“It is a waste of time for him to focus on hockey,” the sentinel blusters. “Sentinels do not play hockey.”

“Maybe they do they just don’t tell you because you are, what is the word? Old-fashioned bigot!” Irina states brusquely. She nudges Ilya. “Come, Ilyusha, we do not need to waste time on this chush’ sobach’ya.”  

Ilya’s eyes are comically wide as they get up and head for the door.

Miller hurries around his desk, coming after them. “Now, wait just a…”

The cougar appears directly in front of the Sentinel and snarls.

Irina looks at the cougar and back at Miller. “You should be careful. She has already killed once in protection of her sentinel’s guide.” She glances at the silent guide in the corner. “Perhaps you should think more about how your bullshit impacts your own.”

They walk out.

o-O-o

They move to New York.

The Centre is more progressive with many of its sentinels and guides working in the entertainment or tourist industries. It feels like a safe space although even in New York the assumptive societal view that sentinels and guides are first responders or warriors is disheartening. The elderly African-American sentinel who leads the Centre notes that opinions are changing but slowly, with some parts of society moving faster than others.

There is also a small community of Russian immigrants. Ilya becomes instant best friends with a girl named Svetlana, the daughter of a former hockey goalie who lives with her guide mother in the same apartment building as them.

Their life becomes routine.

Irina goes back to school, focusing on psionic studies while Ilya dominates the local junior league and when he turns fourteen, he dates Svetlana for a few months before they break up and decide to be friends. It sets a pattern for the next two years with the couple until their last break-up feels like the last.

Sophie manages to send them a photo of the bride and groom from Alexei’s wedding. Alexei looks very in love and Irina cries at the sight of her eldest son looking so happy. Irina places it on their mantelpiece. Messages are rare between them with Alexei now in the police.

Then, just past his sixteenth birthday, Ilya comes online.

One moment he is fine, laughing at something one of his team has said to him and in the next he collapses onto the ice like someone has just yanked his skates out from under him.

Strangely neither of his protectors appear.

Thankfully, the Centre responds immediately.

An elderly guide, Albert, sits down beside Irina at Ilya’s bedside. They are in one of the isolation rooms. It is calm and quiet. There is the scent of lavender in the air from a bouquet on the table on the other side of the room. Her son looks as though he is simply sleeping. He is a tall boy for his age, muscular because of his sport, still lanky though in the way of a puppy growing into the size of its paws. He looks surprisingly tiny in the bed.

“We believe his sentinel has come online in a traumatic event elsewhere in the world and Ilya came online in response,” Albert says quietly. “We cannot know for certain as the integration at the national and international level is poor. It’s something we’re all working on, but it does not help us today.”

Irina takes a breath. “Is Ilya hurting?”

“We think he is with his sentinel on the psionic plane,” Albert answers. “Our strongest guide wasn’t able to reach him though.”

“What does that mean?” asks Irina sharply.

Albert meets her gaze squarely. “There are sentinels and guides who are known as game changers. Their gifts are different, stronger. Whatever gifts they bring to the tribe, their impact changes things. Sandburg and Ellison are game changers. There is another couple in Washington D.C. here on the East coast. England has a pair.” He sighs. “They are rare.”

Irina swallows her panic. “What does this mean for my son?”

“It means he is going to do great things,” Albert smiles at her. “That he is with his sentinel now? That suggests even without a bond, they have a strong compatibility.”

Irina sighs. Briefly she wishes her boy was not so extraordinary.

Albert leaves her and she continues to wait.

Ilya wakes the next day. He looks at her sleepily, blinking as the sun streams through the window and into his face. “You will love him, mama.”

Irina kisses his forehead and smooths his curls away from his face. “How could I not? He is your other half, my son.”

He falls back asleep. When he wakes a second time, Ilya cannot remember anything other than that he was with his sentinel.

o-O-o

Life becomes dominated by ice hockey and Ilya’s guide training. He throws himself into both and ignores the hints some people throw at him that he should focus only on the latter.

When the World Junior Championships come around, Ilya makes the national team but he cannot attend as he continues to grapple with his guide gifts. His only consolation is that the only other hockey player he considers any good, a young Canadian his own age, is also not attending for some reason.

Life moves forward.

o-O-o

Irina walks with Ilya into the rink at Regina in Canada. The World Junior Championship tournament has been stressful thanks to the presence of the Russian team.

Luckily the Canadians had drawn the Russians in the semi-final. She and Ilya had watched it in her hotel room with the sentinel and guide pair who Albert has sent to keep them safe.

The match had been brutal.

The Russians had tried every dirty trick in the book, but they had lost in the end because of the Canadian centre forward prodigy. Even Irina who doesn’t know skating as well as Ilya and his coach can see that Shane Hollander is a brilliant skater – a generational talent as he is coined by the media. It is his goal in the third period which keeps Russia out of the final. The day before Switzerland had taken the bronze and sent Russia home in fourth place.

Ilya kisses her cheek as he says goodbye. He splits to head to his practice session ahead of the finale.

Emily and Patrick walk Irina into the stands where she can sit with the other parents and watch the practice since it is an open practice and not a closed one.

Across the rink, there are a handful of other parents, the Canadian coaches and a few of the young players. Irina spots Hollander sitting off to the side with an Asian woman who can only be his mother.

Sentinels.

Irina stifles a gasp. Her sensitivity picks up on them easily.  

They are both sentinels. Both.

Emily follows her gaze and clears her throat. “Apologies, Irina, I thought you were already aware that Hollander and his mother are sentinels.”

Irina wonders if that was part of the inane game commentary she hadn’t listened to at all. She yanks her gaze away from them, swallows her discomfort and makes a show of settling into her seat, staring down at the ice and willing Ilya and his team to appear.

Patrick’s head cocks to the side. “The young Sentinel Hollander has offered to leave if it would make you more comfortable, Irina.”

She glances back towards them and meets the steady gaze of the Canadian forward. She shakes her head. “Thank you, but no.” She sees him nod in response.

Irina waits patiently for Ilya to arrive.

She’s not surprised when he skates onto the ice that his head immediately snaps to Hollander. There is a beat of tension as their eyes meet. Irina holds her breath. Ilya nods as though in acknowledgement and turns back to his coach and team.

Her relief is fleeting as his gaze returns furtively and often to the young sentinel throughout the practice.

She is grateful when the practice is over. She heads out to the lobby to get some air and wait for her son.  

She shivers as the psionic plane ripples suddenly. Emily and Patrick both frown and look around as though trying to track down the disturbance, but they settle again, shaking their heads.

“What was that?” asks Irina.

Emily sighs. “Not sure. Maybe someone came online? Or there was a bonding close to here? It was muted, protected.”

Irina frowns as the other American players start to emerge. She is just getting worried when Ilya arrives. Her nose wrinkles at the smell of nicotine and she scolds him as they head to the car. It is one habit that she hates Svetlana for goading him into trying.

Ilya pauses when they get to their car and looks back to the arena. “I think I will go watch the Canadian team.”

“Ilya,” Irina sighs.

“They watch me, yes? I should watch them,” Ilya gestures at the car. “You go, rest at the hotel. Patrick can stay with me here?”

She accepts his offer.

He’s quiet when he returns to the hotel later and he heads to his own room for a surprisingly early night.

The next day dawns cold and bright.

Irina takes her seat in the stands as the final begins.

It is an outstanding match.

Hollander matches Ilya skill for skill, speed for speed, goal for goal. They skate against each other like two opposing gladiators fighting a war.

Their teams can barely keep up with them and the gap in talent is evident.

Irina can’t believe how much her son blossoms with the challenge of someone who can truly compete with him.

The game ends tied at 3-3. All the goals belong to Hollander and Ilya. The teams line up for the penalty shootout.

The Americans ultimately win with Ilya scoring the winning goal.

Irina smiles so much her cheeks ache. She’s so proud of her son as he lifts the cup.

o-O-o

The next six months are a strange time.

Ilya moves from seventeen to eighteen, a boy growing into a man, in the blink of an eye. He still lives in their apartment but it feels like he is rarely home. He spends the majority of his time at the rink. Sometimes he goes to the Centre, but not often. Other times, he says is out with Svetlana and her friends, but Irina’s maternal instinct tells her that is not always the truth.

She wonders if he’s out experimenting with sex and alcohol. She knows he won’t touch drugs because of the risk to his guide gifts going screwy and because drug testing is a very real thing in the league.

He still loves her but she can already feel that he’s drifting away just as children should drift away from their parents; secure in the knowledge that there is still a lifeline they can follow back at any time. It makes her ache for the journey she was unable to take with her eldest son.

Alexei manages to sneak out a photo of her first granddaughter; the picture shows the young family at Sophie’s dining table. They have named the baby Anastasia, Ana. She is an adorable cherub. Irina grieves that she will never meet her.

She takes a job with the Centre as a counsellor. It is part-time, but it fulfils her in a new way; gives her a life outside of Ilya who has been the centre of her existence for so long.

Life moves forward, relentless.

o-O-o

She attends the draft presentation for the Major League Hockey with Ilya and his agent, a brusque mundane man named Frank who is Albert’s cousin twice removed. A good man who is willing to represent a guide trying to make it in ice hockey – not a sport known for its tolerance nor its progressiveness – when others had refused.

Her heart almost bursts with pride as Ilya is picked first. She barely registers that Hollander is picked next.

She stands next to her son as the Boston General Manager talks about how they weren’t going to pass up somebody with her son’s talent. She was pleased that there was no qualifier, no ‘even if he is a guide.’ She glances over to Ilya and finds him looking over the balcony to the main floor. She follows his gaze down.

Hollander is there with his parents talking with a man who Irina assumes is the Montreal equivalent of the Boston GM who is continuing to talk about how Ilya’s talent is going to help his team win cups while she is not really listening.

The young sentinel is looking back up at Ilya.

Irina’s heart leaps at the fondness and want painted across Hollander’s young features. When her eyes flicker back to her son, she almost flinches at his soft look of wonder and answering desire before he jerks his attention back to their own conversation.

She takes a sip of champagne and tries to ignore the bubble of anxiety in her belly at the interaction.

Ilya is eighteen. She knows in an abstract way that he is no longer a virgin; that he has experimented. Nothing explicit or specific. Just a mother’s knowing. Yet seeing the raw want between him and Shane Hollander…she feels she has missed something.    

The evening concludes.

Ilya kisses her cheek and says goodnight as he heads into his own hotel room. Across the corridor, Irina enters her own.

She follows her nighttime routine. She gets into the bed. She doesn’t sleep.

Somewhere after midnight, Irina gives up.

She wraps her dressing gown around her sleepwear of comfortable pyjamas. She picks up the spare keycard for Ilya’s room she had pocketed at their check-in and leaves her own room for his. She knocks and waits a beat before she slides the card into the reader and out.

The door clicks open.

She walks hesitantly inside and stops.

The bed looks as though Ilya has used it, but the covers are pushed back and he is not in the room. The desk lamp casts an amber glow across the room.

She sits down abruptly on the chair by the window and waits.

It is another hour before Ilya opens the door and enters the room. He stops at the place where the bedroom meets the short hallway. He blinks at the sight of her. He is sweaty like he has been exercising for hours.

“Mama…”

“I could not sleep,” Irina says quietly. “I was worried about you. I see how you look at him, Ilyusha.”

Ilya looks at her unblinkingly for a long moment before he takes a shaky breath. He takes another step into the room. “One moment, mama.” He closes his eyes and he holds his hand out to the side of him.

A second later the very fabric of the room ripples and…she blinks and Hollander appears, his hand grasping Ilya’s.

Irina’s mouth falls open because that…that should not be possible!

Game changers.

She remembers Albert’s words.

She closes her mouth sharply.

Their spirit protectors shimmy into place; the large familiar cougar sits in front of Shane and Ilya’s wolf beside him.

Irina almost forgets to breathe.

“Mama,” Ilya looks at her, his green eyes pleading with her as though he is small again and wanting her approval badly. “This is Shane. He is my sentinel.”

Of course he is, and she can feel the edges of their bond vibrating in the room across the psionic plane. It is beautiful and strong. They are not just online, they are a bonded pair.

When did that happen, Irina wonders.

Hollander, no – Shane nods at her, serious and nervous if the way his fingers tighten around Ilya’s says anything. He’s drenched in sweat the same as her son; clothes sticking to his body. “Ma’am.”

Irina presses her lips together and stands. She glances at her son who is just as nervous at the boy in front of her, holding tightly onto his sentinel, but there is a hint of protectiveness too in his eyes.

She goes to Ilya first because she will always go to Ilya first and has since the moment of his birth. She cups his face with her hands.

“It is alright,” Irina keeps to English for the sake of his sentinel. “You always have my love and my protection, da?” She kisses his forehead as she feels his relief. She turns to Shane and cups his face just as she had done Ilya’s. “It is very good to meet the other half of my son’s soul at last.” She kisses his forehead.

Relief flickers over Shane’s face as she steps back. He turns to look at Ilya and for a brief moment they simply look at each other with uncomplicated joy and love.

Irina sits and waves the boys to sit on the bed. “Come,” she instructs, “you will tell me everything.” She raises an eyebrow. “Including why you are keeping your bonding a secret, yes?”

They sit down and Ilya begins, his hand still holding Shane’s.

Irina listens.

She promised Ilya when he was born that she would protect him, and she makes the same silent promise to his sentinel. They are hers now, these boys, and she will protect them both.

It is her honour and her duty as a mother.

fin.

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