Skykeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  They moved in synchrony, staying a constant distance apart, on a rotation that made it seem like they were dancing without touching. Then, without warning, he moved in with a foot sweep that nearly caught her, would’ve flattened her if her reactions had been any slower. She jumped over the top of the attack, touched down, and hopped again immediately, expecting a return sweep. But there was only his dry chuckle as he disengaged and resumed his circling. “The follow-through is too banal. I try not to do what’s expected of me.”

  “So I’ve noticed.” Knowing he was toying with her, she dampened the flare of irritation, reversed the circle, and closed on him from the side with a hip check-sweep combo that used a bigger opponent’s leverage against him.

  He twisted away from the meat of the throw, dropped himself, and rolled away, flowing to his feet with an elegance that tightened the knot of desire riding low in her belly. She didn’t want to fight him; she wanted to feast on him, wanted her hands on him. But as she closed with him again, dodged a sweep-kick, and went in low, aiming an elbow into his kidneys that landed with a satisfying jolt, she was jarringly aware that he was doing everything he could to avoid touching her. He wasn’t throwing punches or going for holds or throws; he was using his legs and feet, his balance and body mass.

  “Put your damn hands on me,” she snarled, closing and going for a hold. She gained purchase for a moment, putting the two of them face-to-face. She saw the fire in his eyes, felt the heat pouring off his skin.

  He gripped her for a second, convulsively, and leaned in, his eyes hard and hot, and a little frightening. She saw the kiss coming, welcomed it with a flare of raw lust that wouldn’t let her fear him. Then he flipped her, and the world spun a full revolution around her before she slammed to the ground, only to find him there, cradling her neck and hips in his arms to break her fall.

  Enraged, she bounced to her feet and faced him, hands balled into fists at her sides, breaking the practiced positions for one of pissed-offedness. “Don’t baby me, godsdamn it. Fight me.”

  “I can’t.” His eyes were a little wild in his face, his chest heaving with far more exertion than he’d evidenced while practicing alone, though they’d done little but circle each other.

  “You can,” she insisted. “Just stop holding back. I can take a punch.”

  “You want me to kick your ass?”

  “I want to live, damn it. I want to celebrate being free of Iago. I’ve got a bloodline now, a place in the world. He can’t take that away from me. Nobody can.” Startled by the freeing truth of it, she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed aloud. As if called by her joy, a sense of power flowed through her, a heady elixir that made her feel wholly feminine, yet strong with it rather than soft. She caught a thread of that foreign, marchlike music, and embraced it, sent the heat of her blood toward it, and welcomed it inside her when it washed back to her on a staccato rattle of drums.

  Red-gold sparked at the edges of her vision—or was that in the air itself? She wasn’t sure, but it gathered, stormlike, as she locked eyes once again with Michael, the man who’d rescued her, then turned away from her. He wasn’t turning away now, though. He was staring at her hungrily, as though something she’d said had finally gotten through whatever was keeping him from making the move they both wanted.

  She stepped into him, getting inside his space and looking up at him in direct challenge. The heat from his body echoed into hers and back again, binding them together. “And no, I don’t want you to kick my ass,” she said in answer to his earlier question. “I’d much rather do this.”

  Reaching up, she twined her arms around his neck, where the long hair at his nape was damp from his exertions. And then she kissed him, pouring all of the red-gold hope and magic that was within her into him, coaxing a response, demanding it. Want me, the kiss said. Want me enough to get past whatever is hanging you up here. Want me enough to risk a relationship, risk a commitment, risk whatever it is that you’re really afraid of. And though she’d gone out there looking for a single night, the adrenaline high of sparring with him, of pushing him to the limits of his self-control, brought her all the way back to naked honesty, and the admission that she didn’t just want this one night. She wanted more. She wanted everything. And so she poured everything into the kiss, and hoped to hell it would be enough.

  Michael knew he should’ve sent her away the moment he’d sensed her there, watching him. He cursed himself for the weakness that prompted him to let her stay, the hubris that had convinced him he could handle it, that he could handle her. Instead, she’d leveled him almost immediately with her challenge and then taken him out at the knees with her kiss, and with the magic that spiraled through him, tempting him. Making him yearn.

  He leaned into her, letting go of his control enough to cup her slim, strong waist and return the kiss half-measure, holding back, holding tight to the self-discipline he’d found through the katas he practiced in the darkness, using their rhythm and routine to keep the energy flow contained, the sluice gates shut. But even as he let go that much, and let her heady, intoxicating flavor seep through the sturdy barriers he’d erected around his soul, he could feel the Other’s excitement, almost hear its voice. No, he said inwardly. You’re not welcome here. And he turned his back on the creature within and let himself slide into Sasha’s kiss, though he knew he was running a major risk. The feel of her in his arms once again made that risk seem worthwhile.

  Her lips parted beneath his. He tasted her desire, felt it in her fingernails digging into his back. More, he felt the new magic in her, the sparkle of red-gold power. It was strong and sure, seeming so much purer than his own. He embraced it, leaned into it, and felt it push back the darkness inside him.

  Take me, her kiss said. I need this. I need you. And gods knew he remembered the hormone burn of new magic, and the craziness it brought. But this was more than hormones, he knew. There was a connection that bolstered his magic and touched his soul, making him believe, for the moment, at least, that anything was possible. He’d managed to block the rage while they had sparred, had managed to keep the Other behind closed doors. That made him think he could keep blocking his nemesis, keep himself in control even when his body begged to be set free, out of control. Letting that control slip another degree, he deepened the kiss and let his hands follow the tug of gravity down from her waist to her curved buttocks, which filled his hands perfectly when he cupped her, drew her up and around him, then turned and pressed her against the carved ball court wall.

  Her eyes glinted in the moonlight. “This feels familiar.”

  “One of these days we’ll make it to a bed,” he said, and wished he could believe there would be another time for them.

  “It’s a date.” She wrapped herself around him and fastened her teeth on his lower lip, nipping gently at first, then increasing the pressure. Lust speared through him, hard and hot, and it was all he could do not to take her then and there.

  His thoughts didn’t extend past that prospect. There was no thought of tomorrow, only of that night, and the payback she’d demanded, that she’d challenged him for. She might not have won the fight by points or throws, but he’d ceded it to her rather than risk the edge of violence that rode the periphery of his mind, begging to be set free. Not happening, he told the Other. She’s mine. Not yours, not ours. Mine.

  He touched her through the thin fabric of her pants, kissed her throat, her cheeks, the point of her chin, as heat rose within him, threatened to take him over. He wasn’t sure anymore whether it was her magic or his, the Other’s grasping will, or a combination of all three, but his control wavered as temptation leaked through, borne on her sparkling, newly minted red-gold magic, which seemed somehow determined to reach inside him and find the places he wanted kept hidden.

  “Let me love you,” he whispered against her lips, barely aware of what he was saying anymore, knowing only that he needed to lose himself in her, while keeping a piece of himself separate. “Let me have you.”
>
  “Yes.” That was all she said, all she needed to say as she twined around him, flowed into a kiss that started hot and went hotter, heading straight to flash point. Their tongues and teeth clashed, bringing a nip of pain, a taste of blood.

  It was the blood that put him over the edge.

  Pain detonated at the back of his brain, and silver magic spewed out through a broken sluiceway, called by the blood sacrifice and, he thought, Sasha’s gloriously positive energy. The power reached for her, called to her, and he heard the jarring dissonance of music gone wrong.

  He jerked away from her with an inarticulate cry, suddenly suffused with the Other’s memories, which were drenched in the blood of his victims. Michael saw staring eyes, torn throats, and tangled limbs, and knew that his alter ego was throwing them at him, using the dead as weapons in an effort to disorient him, to make him give way fully. Forcing his way through them, wading through their blood, Michael slogged to the dam and reached for the sluiceway, using the mental image to shape his efforts to force the Other back where he belonged, away from his conscious mind.

  He doubled over, gagging at the sights and smells, and the knowledge that none of the horrors were fabricated. The Other had made those kills and washed himself in that blood. And, dissociated or not, the Other was a part of him. Which meant he had done those things. Those were his hands in the memories, his blood singing with death and violence. Michael might have killed as a Nightkeeper—both Rincon’s makol and Iago’s disciples—but he hadn’t enjoyed the brutal task. His other half not only gloried in killing; it existed solely to kill.

  “What’s wrong?” Sasha’s voice seemed to come from very far away, from the other side of a river of blood. She was still too near him, though. When she stepped toward him, he held up his hands to ward her off.

  “Don’t,” he grated. “I . . . I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” He didn’t want her to see him like this, couldn’t tell her, even now, what was going on with him. More, the gray, clinging muk was attracted to her, wanted to wrap around her, seduce her. And he couldn’t—wouldn’t—let that happen. When she hesitated, he waved her off, almost violent in the action. “For fuck’s sake, would you just leave me alone?”

  She stood her ground for a moment, during which her features came clear through the blur of silver and the effort he was expending to push the Other back beyond the inner barrier that segregated the soul they shared. He expected to see hurt, maybe fear of whatever she could see inside him. Instead, she looked flat-out pissed.

  Brown eyes flashing, she fisted her hands at her sides like she wanted to take a swing at him, street-style this time, with none of the trained finesse she’d shown earlier. He didn’t blame her for the impulse, wouldn’t blame her if she went ahead and punched him. Instead, she lifted her chin in her trademark go to hell gesture and said, “Oh, I’m going, all right. And you needn’t worry about fighting me off again, because I’m done with this. You want space? Fine, you’ve got it, playboy. I might want you, but I sure as hell don’t need your shit.” She spun and stalked off, stiff legged, body screamingly tight with fury. Pausing at the edge of the ball court, she kicked at the tray Tomas had left for him. “And for fuck’s sake, eat something and go to bed. Whether either of us likes it or not, I have a feeling I’m going to need your help getting into the temple and finding the library scroll. The gods apparently got it wrong as far as us being compatible, but that doesn’t stop our magic from resonating. So get your shit together, will you?”

  Magnificent in her fury, she turned and disappeared into the darkness, leaving her words to ring into silence on the night air.

  Michael watched her go, aching with the loss, and the knowledge that she’d been meant for the man he should have been. She was his warrior, his equal—at least, she should have been. Given the choices he’d made, the things he’d done, they were badly unequal now, with her so much better than him, her soul so much purer.

  For the first time in nearly eighteen months, he wondered whether his first instinct had been the right one, back after his talent ceremony: that it might be better for him to sacrifice himself than risk taking her down with him. Taking all of them down. But in the end, he was a selfish man, too proud to really believe the world would be better off without him, too greedy to let go of his life until he was absolutely positive there was no other way.

  He should get the fuck back to work, he knew, should keep fighting to burn off the restless, edgy energy she’d renewed within him, the kind that made him want to go after her, to give her everything he could, and damn the consequences. Instead, he sat cross-legged in the dust and ate the food Tomas had brought him, tasting nothing, knowing only that it fueled the burn within him, but didn’t come close to filling the emptiness.

  When the plates and bowls were empty and he registered only that he was full, finding no satisfaction in the feeling, he stood and returned to the center of the court, where the waning moon lit a diminishing patch of earth. His muscles ached a protest when he took the first ready position, having stiffened during the break, but those small pains didn’t even start to get at the burning within him. He had hours to go yet before he collapsed, exhausted.

  “The longer you wait, the longer it’s going to take, asshole.” He forced his fists up, pushed himself through the first set of positions, feeling them catch initially and then begin to flow, as his body loosened from the tension of sex magic, and his center allowed itself to be redirected away from Sasha, turning inward, where he needed to be. He launched into the phantom fight viciously, almost inhumanly so, sparring with his inner demons, and the ghosts of the dead. He fought his desire for a woman who deserved so much more than he had made himself, so much more than he could offer her. And he fought himself, hating what he had become, but not seeing any hope of ever being otherwise.

  Sasha’s anger carried her all the way back to the mansion and across the pool patio, where she faltered, not entirely ready to go inside and admit defeat. “Damn him,” she muttered, breathing past the tightness in her throat that came from rage and frustration and a barely acknowledged kernel of unease. She focused on the rage and frustration, though, because those were easy. She could hate Michael for being the worst sort of hunter—the one who seemed sincere in his intentions, who acted like he was trying to do the right by her, only to shut things down when they started getting too serious. Saul had been that kind of hunter. And she hadn’t realized it until far too late.

  She didn’t even think it was all about the rage with him. She’d seen him fight the anger to a standstill enough times to believe he could control it. But that was the key, she knew—control. He couldn’t control something that involved another person, couldn’t be sure of his victory if the two of them got involved. So he’d bailed. Again.

  This time at least she’d been forewarned, had buffered herself—somewhat—against the sting of rejection. It had still hurt, yes, but it had pissed her off more. Being mad she could deal with, she told herself. It was far better than being needy and heartbroken.

  But as she paused on the pool deck and stared out across the nearby rock formations toward the dying moon, she couldn’t avoid the small brain worm that said he truly had seemed sincere, that something within him had changed—with more than just the angry darkness she’d seen before. His face had been different at the end, and his eyes had flashed almost silver. More, she’d felt a kick of power from him; one that had felt strange to her. Not that she was an expert on what magic should feel like, but still . . .Which was worse, she wondered: for him to be mentally unbalanced or magically tainted? And what should she do in either case? What could she do? Even Tomas, who was supposed to be his advocate, thought it was just a too-quick temper and some impulse control problems. If she cried wolf to her new teammates . . .

  “There you are!” Jox’s voice said from behind her, sounding breathless and harried.

  She turned, something kicking at her, putting her into full battle readiness in an instant. The warrior’
s talent, she thought, recognizing the signs of the magic activating, and wondering why it hadn’t done so before, with Michael. Then Jox stepped into the light that came through the sliders, and she got a good look at his face, and she stopped thinking about her own problems. “What’s wrong?” she asked quickly.

  “There was an incident at the university,” the winikin reported, crossing to her and urging her the way he’d come. “Strike just got back. Rabbit’s unconscious, and we need your help reviving him.”

  She went along with him, but was baffled. “Why me?”

  “Just hurry. Strike will explain everything.”

  Figuring she would have to live with that nonanswer, Sasha followed him into the darkness, hoping to hell she could do whatever it was they needed her to do, not just because she owed a personal debt, but because she was a Nightkeeper now, damn it. She would do whatever it took to get the job done.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Jox led Sasha to Rabbit’s cottage, and pushed through the front door without knocking. They stepped into a plain kitchen that had the clean, orderly look of disuse. The next room was a sitting area, with doors off it leading to a pair of bedrooms and a bath. The decor was an odd mix of outdated early eighties furniture and accessories that were heavy on silly pig motifs, overlaid with a layer of modern things—tossed clothes, a pair of sleek laptops, and various high-tech entertainment gadgets.

  Sasha glanced at Jox. “You guys didn’t clean out the place after his father died?” She’d bet money nobody born in the past two decades had chosen the china pigs. That would’ve been the work of his father’s first wife, before the massacre.