Elsewhere, the younger winikin were herding all the kids into the Great Hall; the grown-ups were all pretending like it was a party—a movie first, dancing later, with pizza and cake. But their eyes were worried, and Dez’s mother and father had hugged him too tightly just now. They had done the same to baby Joy, making her cry. She was still sniffling as Keban tucked her into her bouncy chair.
“Son.”
Dez craned around, but it wasn’t his dad, it was Keban’s father, Keru. The two winikin hugged briefly, looking very alike, though one was old and the other young.
“We’ve got everything packed like you said.” Keban kept his voice very low. “If things go wrong, Breese and I are out of here with the kids.”
Dez sat up straight. Breese was his winikin—she was soft and nice, and smelled like strawberries. Were they all going somewhere? He wanted to ask Keban, but didn’t dare. He was nice to Joy, not always so nice to everyone else.
“Be strong,” Keru said. “And whatever you do, preserve the bloodline. Because gods help us if we have to go into the war without a serpent king.”
The men hugged again, and Keru went off toward the warriors, where Dez’s parents were helping each other with their gear. Keban turned, found Dez staring at him, and started to scowl. Then he seemed to catch himself, and sighed. “Come here, kid. Let’s go find Breese. The four of us need to stick together, okay? No wandering off on your own tonight.” Dez nodded, but the winikin looked unconvinced. He hunkered down and gestured for Dez to come closer. “Hold your sister’s hand for a second.”
Dez complied, sticking out a finger and letting Joy curl her chubby fist around it. She smiled at him, sniffles forgotten.
“Do you know what an oath is?” the winikin asked.
Surprised, because Keban didn’t usually say much to him, Dez nodded.
“Okay, I want you to say, ‘I swear I’ll watch out for my sister tonight. I won’t leave her, no matter what.’”
Dez stammered his way through the oath, feeling very grown up and protective all of a sudden. His father had told him Joy was his responsibility before, but nobody had ever made it his job to stay right with her. It all seemed very important, and a little scary, but it gave him the courage to ask, “What’s going on?”
“Nothing you need to worry about as long as you stay right with your sister. Because if you don’t, bad things are going to happen.” Keban looked up when someone called his name. “There’s Breese. Come on.” He picked up Joy, bouncy chair and all, grabbed Dez’s hand, and headed for the doors to the Great Hall. At the stairs, though, he stopped and looked back. It seemed like a lot of the winikin were doing that.
Dez looked back, too, his eyes zeroing in on his parents. His mother’s laughing eyes were very serious, and his father′s face was drawn, his serpent-bare scalp hidden beneath an armored helmet. He was saying something to Keru, who was his winikin. Dez’s stomach gave a funny shimmy, and he called out, “Mom! Dad!”
They didn’t hear him, and Keban tugged him to keep going, but just as they went through the doors, Keru looked straight at Dez, meeting his eyes. He touched his heart and then his wrist, letting his fingers linger where rows of serpent glyphs sat above the image of a hand cupping the face of a sleeping child.
The vision dissolved, leaving Dez floundering for a moment as his perceptions shifted back to those of his adult self, the one who knew that the glyph was the aj winikin, and the gesture meant “I serve you, serpent.” Keru had been swearing fealty—not just his own but that of all the serpent winikin, who had guessed that the attack would fail and had made clandestine plans to save Dez and Joy.
Staring into the fire, Dez tried not to think how different his life would have been if Breese had made it out, or if Keban had been able to save both him and Joy. If it had gone down like that, the winikin’s mind wouldn’t have gotten fucked over by the magical backlash of him having sacrificed his blood-bound charge. He would’ve been a normal winikin instead of what he had become, and Dez would’ve come out a better man, maybe even a man fit to be a king. Now, though . . . the gods might have done their best to patch him back together with Triad magic, but that didn’t make him the man he should have been. Which made it damn lucky—or the will of the gods—that the Nightkeepers had Strike.
Shaking his head, he added more gas to the fire, and watched it burn. When it was over and the winikin was little more than a smudge of ash and some shitty memories, he scattered the embers and headed back to the parking area, strides purposeful. He had given Strike and the others enough time to hash things over without him, and now it was time to step up and defend himself, make whatever promises they wanted him to.
He didn’t know if the vision had come from Anntah or his own head—but it had brought home that they were all on the same team. It wasn’t the serpents against the other bloodlines, or him against the world; it was about the Nightkeepers against Iago and the Banol Kax. And the Nightkeepers needed all the help they could get, even if it came from a guy like him. Which meant there was no way in hell he was quitting the team; he was there to stay, and they were going to have to find a way to believe that he didn’t want the throne, that the serpent prophecy—if it had ever been anything beyond a serpent-fueled dream—no longer applied. The same went for Reese—he wasn’t letting her go without a fight. He just had to figure out a way to convince her of that, convince her to give him another chance to prove that they were meant to be together.
His steps faltered slightly when he came out from between two high stone walls and saw the remaining Jeep Compass parked next to Keban’s pickup. Reese was sitting on the hood of the Compass, waiting for him, a silhouette in black leather highlighted by the oranges and reds of the setting sun. As he drew closer, he tried to read her expression, but failed. He wasn’t sure if her poker face had gotten better, or if his perceptions had gotten worse, fouled up by how much this mattered. How much she mattered.
Swallowing past the fist-sized lump in his throat, he moved to stand in front of her, caging her in, yet leaving himself wide open, his defenses down in more ways than one. He took her hand and turned it over to trace the nearly healed cut. Without preamble, he said, “I was afraid you would leave if you knew about the serpent prophecy. Or that you would tell Strike and . . . well, things would blow up.”
Her expression was lost in the shadows. “And now that it’s happened?”
“They learned to trust me once. Hopefully I can convince them to give me another chance.” He paused. “And, yeah, I should have told them everything right up front.” If he had, they wouldn’t be up Hell’s creek without a scepter.
He expected her to tell him he’d been an idiot, which he couldn’t argue. Instead, she turned her hand and twined their fingers together, giving him a jolt. “They’ll forgive you eventually, because they’ll see what I see in you.”
The heat that had flared at her touch was joined by something strange and unfamiliar. He thought it might be hope. “What’s that?”
“They’ll see a man who, even after everything Keban did wrong, still does the right thing for him in the end.” Her gesture encompassed the ruin. “You did good here, Mendez.” And coming from Reese, that was high praise.
He exhaled, letting it go. “In his own way, he was obeying the gods.”
“Um. It wasn’t the gods talking to him. It was Anntah.”
“It was . . . What?”
“I saw him in a dream, talked to him.” She briefly described her vision. “He told Keban what to do, though not how, which was his mistake. I don’t think he realized how badly losing Joy had damaged him.” She paused. “He gave me a message for you. He said to tell you that you need to fulfill the prophecy or Vucub will reign. Which isn’t news, but it underscores what Anna said.”
They were out in the open, but invisible walls seemed to press in on him from all directions, hemming him in. He tightened his grip on her hand. “The man the prophecy was talking about doesn’t exist.” But he knew that wasn’
t good enough; the messages suggested that what mattered was fulfilling the serpent prophecy, period. “I won’t challenge the king and I sure as hell won’t kill him.”
Though back in Denver he had done exactly that, and history repeated. Could he really promise that he wouldn’t backslide straight into being the bastard he’d once been?
Yes, he decided, he damn well could.
When Reese was silent on that point, his heart sank a little, but he said only, “Was that it for Anntah’s message?”
“Not exactly.” She turned away so the setting sun lit her face. “I’m supposed to tell you what he said and leave, because you’re supposed to fulfill the prophecy alone. And”—her voice got a little smaller—“we’re not destined mates. We never were.”
“Bullshit,” he said flatly.
She lifted a shoulder. “I’m just telling you what he said.”
It wasn’t until that moment that he realized he’d been taking it as a given that she was his gods-chosen mate. Why else had he locked on to her from that very first moment? Why else had he known he had to save her, keep her, be with her? Why else would she have come back into his life now? It had to be magic. Nothing else made sense.
When he didn’t say anything, she put in, “According to him, you would have fallen for the star twins if they had lived. They were your true mates.”
“Twins? Really? Damn.”
She scowled. “Be serious.”
He sobered, willing her to believe him when he said, “I am serious . . . about you. I always have been, even when I had my head up my ass.” He moved in closer, putting a hand on the Compass’s hood on either side of her and leaning over her, crowding her back on the vehicle’s hood. “If you’re planning on leaving because Anntah told you to, or because the gods, or destiny, or what the fuck ever didn’t mean for us to be together, think again. Because I say we belong together. So what if it wasn’t magic? We’ll call it something else and move on. The only destiny I give a shit about is the one that’s right in front of me, right here, right now.”
He was braced for an argument, pumped for it, even. Instead, she looped her arms around his neck and touched her forehead to his, so they were leaning on each other. “Say that again.”
“Which part?” But he knew. He lowered his voice and whispered, “We belong together, baby.” And then he kissed her for real, because he was through waiting for the perfect moment.
Reese’s heart raced, heating her blood and making her exquisitely conscious of the cooling night air when it brushed against her skin and rushed to cool the dampness as he kissed her cheeks, her throat. She caught his ear between her lips and savored his groan, tugged up his shirt to revel in the feel of muscles strung tight with need.
Driving up here, she had known it would end like this, or at least she had hoped so. It might not be what she had pictured when she woke up—God, had it been just this morning?—but that didn’t make it wrong. The overanalytical part of her wanted to worry that she was making excuses, but the rest of her knew better. He wasn’t the boy she had loved or the criminal she had hated, or even a mix of the two. He was a new, better man, a mage. And that was who she wanted.
Flashes of desire built quickly to greed as they kissed and touched, twining together. Then he pulled away and stared down at her, his eyes unreadable in the gathering darkness. He touched her cheek, traced her jaw, brushed his thumb across her lips. “Come home with me?”
Something shivered deep inside her at the way those four simple words suddenly took on greater meaning. Once, she had dreamed of making a home with him. Now, she was dreaming of tonight. Tomorrow. The day after. But no more than that. She didn’t dare. Brushing aside a poignant sting at the thought, she kissed the thumb he held pressed to her lips, took the tip in her mouth for a longer, moister kiss, and had the satisfaction of hearing his breath catch. He urged her legs up around his hips and slid his hands to cup her ass, his thumbs working delicious pressure through her jeans as they kissed. The world spun around her and she cried out as a small orgasm caught her unawares, bowing her against him in a rush of unexpected pleasure.
He shuddered against her. “Gods, Reese. That was so fucking sweet.”
The rasp of passion in his voice set off chain reactions inside her, turning the fluttering nerves to an imperative: She had to have him. Now. She slid off the Compass’s hood, letting her body graze down his. Then, when he reached for her, she dodged and shoved him toward the driver′s side. “You’re driving.”
She might be channeling some of her inner nineteen-year-old’s long-ago crush, but now it came with a woman’s experiences and fantasies. And this was one of them. Because if the world was on the brink of disaster, the future unclear, she was taking this for herself.
Once they were off the road and onto a relatively flat stretch of hardpan where they couldn’t get into too much vehicular trouble, she checked her armband to make sure there weren’t any messages or emergency transmits. Reassured that no new shit had hit the fan—or at least none that they had needed her for—she gave herself permission to take tonight, starting now. So she stretched her belt to the limit and slid over to him, enjoying his hiss of pleasure when she slipped an arm around his neck and caught his ear in her teeth. He stroked his free hand along her ribs to her hip, then lower to trail across her upper thigh and inward.
Her heart raced and her breath caught, but no more so than his did when she got his fly undone and freed his hard, thick length. When she ringed him with her hand, he surged up into her touch in a reflex arc that skewed his foot off the gas.
“Keep going,” she whispered, “I’ll make it worth the trouble.”
He responded with a stream of curses in a low, reverent voice that shivered along her nerve endings and sent fire into her bloodstream. But he followed orders and accelerated, though going slower than before, breaking his shaky concentration to skim his hand down to her knee and back up, trailing fire to her center even through her jeans.
She closed her eyes and stilled her stroking hands for a second, absorbing the delicious sensation. He chuckled, low and masculine. “Like that?”
“I like all of it.” She suckled his ear, his throat, then shifted without warning to tongue the flat plane of his abdomen where she had his clothing open.
“Shit.” He jammed the seat back farther, giving her room as she closed her mouth over him. He went utterly still or a moment, the engine revving and then slacking, creating harmony when he gave a raw, ragged groan.
She tasted the wide, flat head, explored the crinkle of rougher skin at the juncture, and the long, sleek length of him, where the rigid veins pulsed and throbbed, making him jump against her hands and mouth. After that first moment of shock, he fisted a hand in her hair, both guiding her and protecting her from the steering wheel as she slicked her tongue over him, under him, suckling and teasing as they surged over a series of low mogul-like dunes she knew put them in view of Skywatch.
She was dizzy with the motion of the car, with the rush of blood and desire as she took him deep and reveled in his harsh rasp of breath. His hard flesh jerked and his hips shifted restlessly, but he held it together, slewing them around the mansion to jam on the brakes at the back of the residential wing.
He slammed the transmission, killed the engine, popped her belt, and dragged her face up to his for a wild, raucous kiss broken only by his whispers: her name, graphic descriptions of what he was going to do to her, dirty words made wondrous by the passion in his voice. Then he was dragging up her shirt and bra to feast on her breasts, bending her back against the steering wheel as she clutched his jacket for balance.
“Dez,” she panted, “Christ. Inside. Get me inside. I want to feel all of you.”
“Fuck, yeah.” He kicked open the Compass, tried to lunge out with her in his arms, and got hung up on his seat belt. Then they were snickering and shushing each other as they wrestled out of the SUV and crossed the short distance to the mansion.
Reese headed f
or the door, but Dez scooped her up, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her to the side of the building.
“What are you . . . no, you’re not.”
She was laughing so hard that when he let her down she had to lean against the building for support as he balanced on a chunk of stone landscaping, popped the latch on his sitting room window, and slid it open. He gestured her through, eyes agleam. “What can I say? It bugs me to have everyone all up in my business.”
“Why does that not surprise me?” she said, then boosted herself up and went through the window, making sure to give him a shimmy on the way by.
He was right behind her, up and through almost before she could turn around, crowding her up against the couch as he slapped the window shut and caught her against his body in almost the same movement. Outside, the hours were counting down to the solstice and the Nightkeepers′ options were dwindling. But inside Dez’s suite it was just the two of them. At least for tonight.
Laughter turned to heat, teasing to mad joy as he grabbed on to her and overbalanced them, taking them both over the back of the couch so they fell together with him on the bottom. The sturdy couch gave off an ominous splintering noise when they hit. It listed off to one side, sparking more giggles that quickly morphed to kisses, then to a full-bodied wrestling match as they hastily got naked. They wound up with the sofa shoved against the wall, her perched on the edge of the seat, him on his knees in front of her, gloriously naked, his eyes hot and wild as he kissed her, his tongue delving deep.
Her body was screaming for him, mad for him, and he was shaking against her, trying to keep some thin thread of control. Glorying in the crazy power they were making together—not magic, but raw passion—she touched herself and then him, slicking the head of his cock with her wetness in mute invitation.
Storm Kissed Page 25
