Murmuring pleasure, she bit his shoulder, the side of his neck, urging him on with a whisper of, “Don’t tease. Not now.”
“No, not now.” He would have said more, but words left him as he thrust into her.
Her hot wetness gloved him, rubbing with perfect friction. That first moment of joining sent a shock of sensation and pleasure through him, tightening something inside his chest.
The battle hammered on beyond the shield; magic surrounded them; she surrounded him, locking her bare feet at the small of his back. And when he pulled back to look down, she smiled up at him and lifted a hand to cup his cheek, rubbing a thumb over the bristle on his jaw. “It’s okay,” she said softly.
“We’re good.”
He didn’t know what she’d seen in his eyes, didn’t know why her words loosened something inside him, but they did.
Then, unable to do otherwise, he began to move. Blood roaring through his veins and singing in his soul, he thrust on a surge of heat and power. As he did, Sasha arched against him with an abandon that nearly put him over the edge then and there in a too-quick response he hadn’t suffered since he’d been taught control by his first lover—a black belt slightly older than him who had begun his fascination with warrior women.
Sasha might not yet believe she was a warrior, but he’d bet money on it.
Gritting his teeth, he bowed his head and pressed his cheek to hers, straining with the effort of not coming immediately. Their joining was powerful, profound. And it shifted something within him.
Magic gathered around them as he balanced on the edge between pleasure and madness. He pistoned his hips, starting slowly, but building fast to set a hard, fast pace that spurred them both through the heat and insanity. They twined together, moved together, and the incense-laden air around them sparked.
It seemed no more than a moment before her nails dug into his shoulders and she cried out, spasming against him. He kept going, driving her beyond the first orgasm to another, driving himself beyond madness. Sensation layered atop sensation, until finally pleasure shock-waved through him in an orgasm that locked his muscles tight on a roar of magic and triumph.
The chameleon shield went red and gold with the purest of Nightkeeper magic as he emptied himself into her and she fisted around him, the two of them locked together in thundering pleasure that drew out from one heartbeat to the next, and the next. It seemed unbelievable that the gray-robes didn’t see or sense it as they mounted a concerted rush out the door, leaving the chamber empty, the door still braced open.
Michael was peripherally aware that they were gone, but that wasn’t his focus as passion faded to its aftermath and he sagged, bracing himself against the wall with one arm and holding Sasha against him with the other. He should’ve been wrung out, sated. Satisfied. And on one level he was.
But on another level, fresh and greedy need clawed at him, demanding that he take more, that he take her, make her part of him. And that was a level he didn’t want to go to. One he wished he could rid himself of forever.
Fuck. His defenses were down. She’d stripped him bare, leaving him wide open. And he’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t reacted to the threat.
Closing his eyes, working fast, he tried to find the center of himself, seeking the peace that had kept him sane for the past year-plus, ever since the talent ceremony that had released the creature within him, the murderous alter ego he called the Other. But he couldn’t find his center. Instead, he found sex magic still burning hot within him, but its jagged edges growing teeth and claws, digging into him, taking him over. Heat rose again, but this time it wasn’t the need to sink himself within her.
It was a far darker, more dangerous need. One she’d brought out in him somehow, even though he’d been able to keep it at bay for so long.
No, he grated inwardly, struggling to keep the Other where it belonged, locked away from the outside world. Don’t you fucking do it . He envisioned the sky-high dam he’d constructed, piece by piece, at the back of his brain, envisioned locking his other self safely behind it. Instead, the dam bulged obscenely as the Other strained to break through, drawn by Sasha’s vital energy, darkness pulled toward the light.
She shifted against him and murmured something into his neck. Strung tight, he pressed his cheek to hers and fought a silent and—hopefully—invisible battle to keep the halves of himself together, fought not to lose control of himself. And in doing so, he missed the moment for soft words and praise.
“ I said, your earpiece is yelling for you.” Sasha turned her face away from him, her body tense.
“And let me down.”
“Sasha—” he began.
“Let. Me. Down.” Her voice was icy.
Shit. He released her, and watched as she retrieved her pants with as much dignity as possible under the circumstances. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to process what had just happened, either between the two of them or between him and the Other. The sex had touched him deeply. And that was a problem.
But he had to say something. So he went with, “Sorry. Postcoital brain freeze. Let me check in with the others; then we’ll talk. I promise.” He waited for her nod, which was a beat slow in coming; then he zipped his fly and jammed his receiver back into his ear. He wasn’t even sure when it’d fallen out.
“Stone here,” he grated after keying on his throat mike.
“Godsdamn it!”Strike’s voice exploded in his ear. “What have you—Never mind. Are you in the chamber?”
His gut fisted at the king’s tone. “What’s wrong?”
“We’re pinned down, and you’ve got a red-robe incoming. Deal with it, and for gods’ sake, keep the woman alive!” The transmission cut out in a rattle of gunshots, or maybe magic, but Michael could fill in the rest for himself. The red-robe was one of the pilli; he’d sensed the magic flaring in the hidden chamber. His and Sasha’s luck had just run out.
Michael spun toward her. “Sorry,” he said again. And hit her with another sleep spell.
Her eyes flashed with anger for a second, but then she went down, crumpling and lying still, as if too drained to fight the magic this time. It wasn’t fair, he knew, but the same mental blocks that wouldn’t let him tell the others about his past didn’t want her to see what was going to happen next.
He wasn’t an itza’at seer, but he knew that whichever way the next few minutes went, it wasn’t going to be pretty.
Tucking her near the wall, he covered her as best he could with his body armor. Then he pulled the shield spell away from the door and put it over her instead. When he’d done the best he could do for her, he stood and turned, cross-drawing his autopistols in a smooth move that had been ingrained long before he joined the Nightkeepers. “Let’s do this.”
The door slid open as if on cue, and a tall, thin red-robe with hollow cheeks and pale skin stepped through. His eyes went past Michael to the shield behind him, and a look of satisfaction crossed his sallow cheeks. He lifted his wrist and spoke into a comm device. “You were right; she’s in here.” Then he smirked at Michael. “You might’ve gotten away with it if you’d kept it in your pants, playboy.”
Rage hazed Michael’s vision. He answered the taunt by opening fire, putting the autopistols to work with a spurt of dark excitement that echoed his orgasm of only minutes earlier.
The red-robe cast a shield spell, deflecting the bullets as he spoke into his comm, talking fast.
Moments later, the pilli’s shield rippled. Then, shockingly, the magic flew at Michael, wrapping around him and clinging for a second, freezing him in place. It faded quickly, but the delay gave the Xibalban time to pull a stubby black object and lever it at Michael. A Taser. Shit.
Michael tried to dodge, but the shield residue left him slow to react as the red-robe fired. The clinging barbs tagged the bare skin of Michael’s forearm, just above his marks. He cursed and grabbed for the thing, but he was too damn slow. Electricity arced across the tether, locki
ng him in place.
Pain! It raced through him, freezing him, pissing him off. Mad fury rose within him, bringing with it the hard, vicious power that characterized his other self. Cold logic locked into place, and although his natural healing magic quickly fought the rigor-lock of the electric shock, dulling the pain to a throb and bringing a measure of feeling back to his paralyzed limbs, he didn’t let that on to the red-
robe. Instead he lay limp and still, hoping the bastard would come over to him to yank the barbs, or to get at Sasha. I dare you, he thought coldly, keeping his eyes slitted, his face slack. I fucking dare you.
A moment later, dark ’port magic rattled out in the hallway, and there was a thunderclap of displaced air. Michael’s earpiece was dead, no doubt shorted to shit by the Taser zap, but he didn’t need Strike to guess who had just arrived. The Xibalbans’ leader might not have the stones—or the power—to ’port straight into the uprooted Nightkeeper temple, but he obviously had no trouble getting through his own wards to the rock-shielded tunnels below. Which was just more proof the Xibalbans were light-years ahead of the Nightkeepers in terms of magic.
Gods help me protect her, prayed the piece of Michael that still could pray. The Nightkeepers were doomed without the library.
Iago stepped through the doorway a heartbeat later, wearing black leathers, heavy boots, and a slash-metal concert tee. He exchanged a look with the red-robe, then crouched down beside Michael.
“Fug—” Michael began, then broke off with a gargle when the Xibalban grabbed him by the throat and squeezed hard.
Iago leaned in, his pupils going to pinpricks. “Did you just fuck her, or was there more?”
A terrible force pressed behind Michael’s eyes, driving a knife into his brain and paralyzing him once again. He would’ve screamed, but he had no breath, would’ve writhed, but his muscles were still lax. Then Iago let go of his throat and the pressure snapped out of existence, as though it had never been, leaving Michael to groan with the absence of pain and the sudden flood of feeling returning to the rest of his body.
“His magic’s for shit,” Iago said dismissively. Lifting an arm, he spoke into a wristwatch comm device. “Set the timer for five minutes, collect the Nightkeepers, and wait for me at the rendezvous.
I’ll zap the prisoners to the mountain and come back for you before this place turns crater.”
He wanted one of the Nightkeepers. But for what? Was he looking to borrow a specific talent?
Michael’s thoughts churned. Then the redheaded mage moved past him and crouched down beside Sasha, and Michael wasn’t thinking about anything but keeping the bastard from touching her.
The shield spell had quit when the red-robe shocked Michael; the sleep spell would wear off more gradually. In sleep, curled on her side, she looked soft and vulnerable as the Xibalban reached out and stroked her pale cheek. Icy rage slammed through Michael. Get away from her! he howled inwardly, not giving voice to the words because he didn’t want them to hear their clarity and know he was almost back in control of his body, if not his power. And for the first time since the talent ceremony, when his ancestral nahwal had helped him recapture the Other and warned him not to touch its power or risk his soul, he didn’t give a shit whether he was in control.
Sasha! he raged. Gods, help me protect her!
With the skyroad gone, the gods had no access to earth, yet he was suddenly flooded with a heavy, silver, strange magic that wasn’t Nightkeeper or Xibalban, but somewhere between the two.
“Shock him again,” Iago said to the red-robe. “I’m not taking any chances with this guy.”
Letting the strange magic have him, Michael roared and exploded upward, attacking Iago in one continuous, deadly movement. The red-robe hit the Taser trigger and fifty thousand volts lit Michael from within, but this time it didn’t shut him down. Instead, the energy smashed through the last of his carefully constructed inner barriers—he felt them give, felt the Other come through fully for the first time since his talent ceremony.
Aided by the element of surprise, he caught Iago in a flying tackle, slamming them both to the stone floor. The red-robe howled and went for his guns, but Michael cast a thick shield spell fueled by blood rage and hatred, sealing him inside with his enemy. Iago shouted and tried to fight back, but he was far better at magic than hand-to-hand. Michael got in under the Xibalban’s weak guard and pinned him to the floor, straddling him and getting his hands around the bastard’s throat. Iago’s eyes bugged and he tried to pull shield magic of his own, but Michael countered it and bore down, leaning in so he could see his victim’s fear, the knowledge of his own death.
Only it wasn’t fear he saw in Iago’s eyes. It was fear . . . and satisfaction.
Michael’s grip loosened slightly, just enough for Iago to rasp, “It is you . . . or it will be.” The Xibalban’s eyes narrowed in speculation. “I can wait until you finish your transformation and understand what you really are, why you belong to me.”
“Fuck you.” Michael leaned in, silver magic spinning up within him. “What am I?”
“She’ll show you. And you’ll both be mine by the height of the solstice. If you don’t come to me, I’ll come for you. That’s a promise.” Then, without warning, dark magic cycled up, ’port lock engaged, and the Xibalban vanished from beneath Michael.
“No!” Slamming palm-first into the stone floor, briefly off balance with his quarry’s disappearance, Michael roared with fury and disappointment. Unable to stanch the flow of violence within him, the need to kill, he dropped the shield magic and lunged to his feet—just in time to see the red-robe headed out the door with Sasha’s limp body over his shoulder. At the sight, the rage within him redirected itself to killing hatred.
The man’s carotid under his thumbs. His pulse stilling in death.
Snarling, Michael moved to cut off the red-robe’s escape. The man’s face went slack with terror, almost making Michael wonder what the other man saw in him. What he feared. There was no pity within him, though; there was only the hatred, the need for revenge, and the all-consuming call for him to protect what was his.
The red-robe called shield magic, casting it thick and strong in a bubble around him and Sasha, but the thing within Michael wasn’t deterred. He felt a jolt of pain, as though a final synapse had soldered itself into place, and a conduit opened up within him, letting the silver magic flow through him. Into him. Shaking with the power of it, the rage of it, Michael leveled his arm toward the red-robe and sent the magic winging toward his enemy, funneling it into the other man while keeping Sasha safe. There was a noiseless detonation, a shock wave of power flinging from man to man.
The Xibalban’s face contorted, then went slack and gray. Sasha slid from his shoulder and fell to the floor as he sagged, losing cohesion. His flesh slid on his bones, draping over a skeleton that still fought to stand. Then his inner structure lost its solidity and he collapsed, the bloodred robe tenting around him. When it settled, there was a pile of greasy gray dust with cinderlike chunks beneath. The only recognizable piece that remained was the pilli’s hand, looking charcoaled, reaching from the pile as if in supplication. Nearby, Sasha lay curled on her side, still mercifully asleep.
Silence rang in the chamber as Michael stared down at the remains. The killer in him was utterly satisfied. The better man he’d been trying to become wanted to puke.
“Oh, fuck. What did I just do?” More, what am I? What did Iago know about the silver magic, about him?
Michael bent double, dry heaving, feeling totally out of control, shaky and sick with it, and afraid of what came next. Focus, he told himself. Get rid of the Other; get rid of the magic. You’ve done it before. You can do this.
To his surprise, it wasn’t difficult to push the Other back; it seemed sated from the kill, and the magic. Gods, the magic. He could still feel the echo of mad silver power, the thundering might. It fascinated and repelled him, called to one side of him and scared the shit out of the other. When it was g
one, he was left empty and all but powerless, with only the faint hum of red-gold Nightkeeper magic to lean on. And that was a problem. Where before he’d been able to manage the postmagic crash that followed big spell casting, now he felt it hammering down on him, threatening to black him out even though he and Sasha were far from safe.
“Keep it together,” he gritted through clenched teeth, summoning the last of his reserves. With the rattle of foreign magic gone, he could hear the sounds of battle from out in the hallway, forcibly reminding him of what Iago had said about the place cratering, suggesting that he’d set a self-destruct mechanism.
Save Sasha, he reminded himself, going back to basics when nothing else made sense. She’s the priority.
Summoning the last of his reserves, he bent and got his arms around Sasha. She was warm and lax in his arms, solid and real. The feel of her centered him as nothing else had, which was ironic, considering that it was his rampaging desire for her that had breached his defenses in the first place.
Iago had implied she was the key to his transformation, whatever that was, and Michael was afraid the change had already begun. He felt dark and angry, like he could kill the world even with the Other locked away.
Holding her close, he breathed in her scent, felt it seep into him, lighting the darkness and pushing the impulse away. For now.
Then, knowing the fight wasn’t over—not by a long shot—he shifted her to his shoulder. Then, cradling her with one arm and wielding a single autopistol with a half-full clip in his other hand, he stepped through the doorway, took in the situation at a glance, and opened fire.
Killing the gray-robes was far too easy.
The closest group went down without a sound, without even knowing they had an enemy behind them until it was too late. They had been ranged across the hallway, firing to keep the Nightkeepers pinned down in an alcove while their reinforcements came up from the other side. The moment Michael neutralized the cover fire, the Nightkeepers burst from their scant shelter and took out the second team with a combination of jade-tips and fireballs. Michael swayed. “Hurry,” he rasped. “Iago triggered some sort of self-destruct.” There was no sign of the enemy mage; he’d fled the scene, leaving the last of his troops behind.
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