by Mima
The whistling, gasping sound of strangled air was unattractive in her ear. Oh, that was her. She choked again, coughing, as his words detonated the memory of one of their nights. Her mind froze. Her body softened, eager to repeat the intense pleasure of his body.
“Adam will not fail you. I’ll see you again. Be brave.” He hung up.
The dial tone sawed and she closed the phone automatically. Listing against the tree, she stared into the soft shifting shadows in the canopy of leaves. The apples were small and green, still fuzzy.
“Markos.”
The word floated in the saturated ocean air. She closed her eyes against the welling tears. He was still manipulating her. Trying to shock her into fortitude. Using three generations of friendship. Damn him. Because he understood her, it always worked.
Chapter Six
Xia tramped the countryside until it was time to return for Adam. She wasn’t going to moon around the house with him sleeping on her bed. She took from the elements and focused herself as she walked home from the little ruined croft she liked to go out to sometimes.
Standing in the bedroom doorway, she shifted awkwardly. He was big, his feet coming right to the end of the bed. He looked good against the green and white plaid. Disgustingly, finger-curling good. His T-shirt today was some indeterminate gray from age.
“It’s hard to sleep with someone staring at you.” His voice came soft but was startling in a room so tiny there was just a walkway around the bed. A man’s voice hadn’t come from her bed in a long while.
“It’s time.”
He opened his eyes and stretched. Okay, that went beyond finger-curling into toe-curling. He was all honed muscle, trim and dense. Her tongue swished in her mouth but she would not lick her lips.
“You’re not going to undress?” He swept his fingers through his hair, rubbing his scalp as he lay sprawled in the middle of her bed.
“The term is skyclad. I only do rituals skyclad. I undressed for patrolling the dreamtime before simply out of comfort.”
He considered her. She knew it made no sense to be modest around him, but didn’t move to take off her dark orange top.
He held out his hand. “Come, then.”
Powerful ramparts did not have to be in contact with a morphi to shadow them in the dreamtime. After all, the work was entirely psychic. She’d bet her knickers Adam could guard her from Glasgow if he wanted to. She stepped forward, folded her cold fingers around his rough, steady ones and climbed onto the bed. She lay down facing him and he curled his arm around her. Settling her head on his shoulder, she put her hand on his chest. The feeling of a man against her sang through her skin.
Letting herself snuggle forward, she sank into his warm body, inhaling his salty, musky scent. She could smell the ocean on him, and still her limbs relaxed. Taking a big breath, she held it, closing her eyes and clearing her mind. A memory flashed through her—bone-numbing cold, a web of intestines covering her face—but she banished it. For the Chamber, for her sister, for the world, she had to let Adam take that bitch’s horrors now.
“Xia.” His voice rumbled under her ear. The gentle rebuke was accompanied by a spine-shivering sweep of his arm from her shoulder down to her wrist, where his free hand settled gently. “I am your rampart. I know water, and I am a predator, too. I am ready.”
He was certifiable, boastful and foolhardy, but she was going to trust him. She focused, setting her inner energy spinning, growing. He slid up against her doors, a heavy presence, as clean as his scent, and she let him in. He flowed around her without making her feel crowded. Much the same way he held her. With technique like that, he should have been a morphi.
The dreamtime formed around her, directed to water as per her order. Once focused on an element, morphi weren’t in control of the dreams. They were merely bystanders and occasionally playthings. What would Aqua throw at her now?
Tonight, she was in a little bowl-like boat. The frame was lashed wood, the body tight hides. By the Lady, water was cruel. A sleek seal head popped up out of the inky-blue water. He was adorable, with whiskers as long as her hand. She grinned. Adam yawned, revealing dagger sharp teeth, and sank without a ripple.
There was nothing. Absolutely nothing around her but acres of water, the sky a flat gray, turning the world monochrome. Then the horizon lifted, the wall of water that would swamp her moving forward. Her heart stuttered. In the early days, she’d learned she did not want to get taken without being anchored to earth. She was lost from the first if water could toy with her, tossing and lashing Xia as she pleased.
A graceful, lean shape circled the little boat, dark body undulating powerfully. He looked so at ease. So…happy. Breathing deeply, Xia closed her eyes against water’s threat. Letting her body rock on the still-gentle patch of sea, she focused on the rhythm, on the smell, Adam’s smell, and forced her fingers to uncurl from the edge of the boat. Her fingertips brushed the soft wet of a wave, and in that second, she slid her psyche into the flow, letting Adam guard the rest of her.
Aqua was muttering with discontent, irritated and snarling. Xia faded along the slipstream of primal thoughts, seeking the touch of another sentience. Somewhere, a magical was teaching Aqua to wake. The child was still in its bedroom, but in the huge house of the planet, a sloppy, selfish parent was howling for it to get up. Eels, striking, stinging, biting, ripping—
Xia felt the boat rock gently, but trusted Adam. She let her mind sink deeper into the weightless state that was water. She flowed with water, drifted, coasted. And there, that was the thing. All of water was being drawn, even across currents. Aqua was being drawn to one point.
They were standing in a circle, in a cavern with slanting rays of harsh sun. Vines and ferns cascaded through the gaps in the ceiling. The air was moist and thick, the water they stood in shallow and turquoise.
“Rise and take your due. Remake the world as you please. Nothing can stop you. Nothing.” The woman’s voice was a plea and a curse, full of rage and sorrow. Her voice echoed in the enclosed space, the peaceful light dappling and sprinkling the creamy rock, incongruous with her hate.
The six were ankle deep, holding hands. The power in them was like nothing Xia had ever encountered. These were not garden-variety magicals. Drawn by their background chanting, Xia shifted her attention. Since she was riding water, they were all blurry, flicking like funhouse mirrors. She made a quick perusal of the whole circle and went back to the woman leading them for more details. But then she felt the tug.
It was like someone inside her pulled on her belly button. And that quick, she was back in the boat, the currach, in a bubble of air, at the center of chaos. Black water enclosed her, and through the swirling currents that pressed on her fragile container, she caught glimpses of sharks, orcas, nets, and blood.
“No.” With ruthless command, she severed the dream. The word reverberated and she was on the bed, against Adam’s sweating, panting body. With a force of furious will, she’d ended the dreamtime, taken control of the vision as she couldn’t do when it was her own mind being tortured.
Scrambling to her knees, she grabbed fistfuls of his T-shirt and shook him. “Come out!”
His hands clamped on her wrists and she was rolled under him, his face stark and tight. For a moment, his teeth were bared in a ferocious grimace, and then his head hung down to rest on her shoulder, his body shuddering.
Xia wrapped her arms around as much of him as she could, ignoring his sticky dampness. Unbelievable how she’d wrenched out of the dreamtime before water dealt her psychic death. Victory sang in her blood. She spread her fingers and pulled him in tight. “Are you wounded?”
His gasping breath scalded her throat. In a moment, he pulled against her grip. “Let me check.”
She knew that feeling. When the psychic damage had to be separated out from the physical. The mind needed reassurance it hadn’t been real. She relaxed her arms, letting him pull from her hands. He rolled to sit on the edge of the bed, his head in his hands
as his chest continued to work like bellows. She put one hand between his shoulder blades.
He stood and shucked his pants, studying his thighs, front and back. She studied them too, with worried eyes first, admiration second. The tighty whities were lovely and tight. He rotated his spread hands, coughing, considering his fingers. Then collapsed on the bed, falling back so that his shoulders landed on her legs. Sweat glistened on his face, darkening his hair. She put a hand on his shoulder, feeling useless. Feeling guilty.
Swallowing, she whispered, “Mostly, I wasn’t there. I didn’t know. I saw a bit of it, at the end. Was all of it her, or did the tracker tag us again?”
“Tagged us. Just one, I think. He had two harpoons, and I got rid of them both. He left and came back with a net.”
When an assassin worked in the dreamtime, their tools were psychic weapons that the target’s brain understood and feared. By using a net against a seal, the assassin had used a subtle attack. Unlike a fast, violent death, the net would drown Adam, even though in the dreamtime, no one needed to breathe underwater. But in the time it took for him to realize it wasn’t one of water’s ploys, he’d called her back, and she’d taken them out of the killer’s reach in time. Adam coughed roughly. Her gut twisted. Just in time.
“I shouldn’t have gone so far. If I had been there to help you, we probably could have taken him.”
Adam slung his arm over his eyes. Fisting his hand, he brought it down on the bed with a whump. “Damn it!” Adam had shown her so little emotion, his anger unsettled her.
“We got out, Adam.” She took her hand off his tense shoulder. “And…I got through. I was able to get a guiding vision.”
He took his arm from his eyes and glared at her. “Call Markos. Tell him, and then listen to my report.”
She blinked at him, propped up on her hand, staring at him across her legs. “You don’t think we should send it privately?”
“I know our tracker, and I wounded him badly. We need to move fast.”
Xia blinked, mouth agape. Scrambling from under Adam, she raced into the kitchen and grabbed the phone. Markos answered by the time she was sitting back down next to Adam on the bed.
“Xia.”
She knew it was okay to talk when he said her name. “I had a guiding dream, and Adam wounded our tracker.”
“Tell me.”
“They were six, three women and three men, in a tropical cavern. One of the males was a werewolf, one of the females a lamia.”
“Bald or black-haired?” Markos was alert, his voice tight.
“Bald. An Asian woman was leading the invocation, and it was heartfelt, not formal. I didn’t get a sense of the base chant, except it wasn’t a language I know.” Xia only knew four languages, so that wasn’t much help. “They were so powerful, Markos. Really, really strong. I’ll capture the memory and send it soon.”
“Yes. Xia, I knew you could do this. I knew it.” He was practically vibrating with excitement. She felt it too. So long without a break, and now they had something. Her memory could be shared with hunters who could possibly identify the perpetrators. Exhilaration flooded her, erasing all the long, bitter nights before.
“Adam wants to talk to you.”
She handed the phone to Adam, who still hadn’t sat up. He had one arm folded under his head, his face again closed. The position showed off the muscles in his arm. She wanted to lick that hollow where the sinew came together.
Adam spoke hoarsely into the phone. “It was Gavin. I took his right arm.”
Silence, and then, a minotaur’s roar. Adam held the phone from his ear, then returned it when Markos’s rage ran out of breath. Despite the small tinny sound of it coming from hundreds of miles away through a cell phone, Xia wrapped her arms around herself.
“She’s fine. He never touched her.”
The rumble of Markos’s voice.
“No, he was much closer than Hawaii. Try Bermuda. The bastard likes his comfort.”
Rumble, rumble.
“I’m calling my people in.”
Rumble, “…chain of command!” She heard Markos’s shouting clearly as Adam pulled it from his ear again.
“Your chain is compromised, and you damn well know it.”
Rumble, mutter.
“Whoever finds him first gets the kill. Even with his arm, he won’t go easy. Don’t send amateurs.”
Rumble, rumble.
“No. We have more work to do. You’ll get her report.” He hung up.
Xia couldn’t be mad he’d ended the call. She chewed on her lip. “Was he a friend?”
Adam gave her a disbelieving look. “No. An old enemy.”
She shrugged, defensive. “Well how should I know?”
“What kind of friends do you think I have?”
“Dangerous ones?”
He grinned suddenly, his human teeth looking just as deadly as his seal teeth. “True.” He finished kicking off his pants and stood. “I’ll go shower. We’ll get the report off, and then I’ll jump through your hoops like a good little circus selkie.”
He strode from the room, pulling his shirt over his head. Xia blinked, still stunned by the force of his face when he smiled. Adam looking pleased and happy was a sight a woman would never forget. Nor was the view of his nearly naked backside.
Chapter Seven
They’d eaten the last of the breakfast leftovers, and Adam had made an enigmatic call to a selkie named Lily, who was doing his footwork. Back on the bed, Xia had captured the memory of the glimmering cavern and its six creepy residents and sent it to Markos. Aer had been agitated and highly distractible, but no one had called it away from her this time, and Adam had let her drive. After that, she’d put on her robe, and he began to cook.
Xia watched him move around the rental’s kitchen like he’d lived there forever. Thinking of how she’d boldly demanded he master her body sexually as a test of power and ability, she tried to keep her irritation at this delay from her voice. “We just ate.”
He pulled the dishes she’d put away a few hours before out of the cupboards. “I spent a lot of energy, and I need my strength for later.”
That shut her right up.
He browned some beef, broiled scallops, and added in peas and snow peas.
“Where’d you get snow peas?”
“Anne.”
Xia hadn’t seen anything so exotic available in the grocery when she shopped there. She began to wonder if Anne had a separate, secret store for Adam.
“Do you have a girlfriend?”
The question came out of her mouth without passing through her brain.
Adam didn’t look up from dusting herbs over the simmering mix. “No.”
He turned the stove off and served himself in a cereal bowl. He took it and sat on the couch, eating steadily. Xia sidled over to the stove. She’d just had a bowl of Cheerios and fruit but it smelled delicious. She took a small portion of the stir-fry over and sat next Adam in the small room. The food was flavorful and filling. She could hear crickets outside. Calm settled into her bones after the whirlwind of the dreamtime and sending Markos her report privately. She relaxed, liking his quiet strength at her side.
His voice asked quietly, “Do you?”
“What?”
“Have a lover.”
Xia considered the question. “No…”
“Markos.”
She nodded. “We’ve been together, although it’s been awhile. We’re friends, although I wouldn’t say we’ve been close lately.” She shrugged. “I’m not sure what we are. We have a bond, of course, from a ghosting I did about eighty years ago with Ignis, and all the years we’ve been teamed. But he’s got no rights with me, or I with him.”
“So after you come back from Terra, we can be lovers.”
Xia choked on a pea. He didn’t assist her with her breath, just watched as she struggled. She put her dish on the end table roughly. “Excuse me?”
“You’re interested in me. Now we’re teamed. You’ve
given me permission to use sex for rituals. We’re good together. I’d like to be your lover.”
“Okay—” She struggled up from the couch. Snatching her bowl up like a shield she rounded on him, hating that he looked so normal, with his drying hair beginning to shine in the kitchen light. “You don’t just say stuff like that! It’s arrogant and personal, and not what I need when I’m going into”—she flapped a hand awkwardly in the direction of the tiny spell packet—“that.”
Storming into the kitchen she threw the dish in the sink with a clatter. Noting she had a scallop left, she snatched it up and ate it. Delicious. She chewed angrily, staring at the picture of the little white puppies above the sink. Spinning, she braced her hands by her hips, shoulders squared aggressively. “And I haven’t given you permission to use sex.”
He calmly rose from the couch, coming at her. She flashed to the relentless wall of water rushing at her from the horizon.
“If you want me to prove I can manipulate your body into orgasm, then you’re giving me that tool to draw you back during the ritual.”
She backed deeper into the U shape of the kitchen. “It’s just a test, just something I thought of, to see what kind of focus—”
She’d avoided his trajectory. He stopped at the sink. “I read your file, Xia. I know your lover failed you. I will not.”
“I’m here, aren’t I? Ry didn’t fail.”
Adam turned from rinsing the dishes. He crossed his arms, mirroring her. “He didn’t exactly succeed, either. Markos said you haven’t been in the water in twenty years. I’m thinking it was your own will and power as much as his anchoring that pulled you back.”
Xia felt her face flush. “That is not in my file.” She was getting the feeling Adam and Markos knew each other better than she’d thought.
Adam’s hand came away from his body, lifting toward her. It came slowly, so smoothly. At any time she could have stepped away, spoken. She watched it come. It was the hand with the bruised nail. Snugging her arms in tighter around herself, she held her breath. His finger skated along her jaw and curled around her neck. He was warm. His hand settled heavily on the top of her spine. He flexed his fingers into her, and the hair on her arms erupted.
