She had defended her new hobby, but now she realized that she hadn’t really believed—not deep down inside—that the cards had any true power. Now, though . . . she hesitated to pull another, fearing that she would turn over something way darker than etznab. When a tap came at the hallway door, she flinched.
“It’s open,” she called. But then, unable to sit still, she stood and crossed to the door as it swung inward. She stopped dead at the sight of Rabbit. He was carrying a brightly painted, three-legged clay pot, and had a plastic bag and a manila folder tucked under one elbow. And he hadn’t been in the suite in a long, long time.
For a few seconds, the past and present ricocheted off each other, making her yearn.
“I volunteered to bring this stuff over and see if you want help with the spell,” he said conversationally, like they were picking up in the middle of a discussion they’d been having only moments earlier, rather than the year-plus it had been since the last time they had hung out together.
His blue-gray eyes, though, were wary.
It was the same expression he’d worn early on, when he’d watched the world from behind the insulation of an iPod and a teenager’s sulkiness. Back then, his father had given him good reason to anticipate trouble. Now she didn’t like knowing she had put that look in his eyes.
She reached out impulsively to grip his forearm. “I was just thinking about you.”
He went very still. He didn’t pull away, though, and when he met her eyes, he saw an echo of her own regrets. “I’m sorry about Brandt. If I didn’t have the hellmark—”
“It wasn’t your fault,” Patience interrupted, tightening her grip. “Not even you can control the gods.
And besides, I wasn’t thinking about what happened today. . . . I was thinking about the breakfasts we used to have in here, the whole gang of us together.”
Rabbit nodded, but he broke eye contact and his body closed up on itself, the way it used to. After a moment he pulled away from her and headed for the master, where he took a long look at Brandt before turning away to set the pot on the floor beside the bed, then crouching to put the folder and plastic bag beside it.
Those simple actions seemed to take forever.
Finally, he said, “I miss the rats.” That was what he’d called Harry and Braden—his rug rats. “I miss those breakfasts.” There was a long pause; then he glanced up at her. “I miss us being friends.”
She had been looking at the clay pot. Now she looked at him. And, seeing a hint of vulnerability, she didn’t cheat either of them with a knee-jerk answer of “We’re still friends.” Instead, she said, “Myrinne doesn’t like me.”
His lips twitched, and he glanced away. “She figured out that I used to have a huge crush on you.”
She kept it light, sensing that was what he needed right now. “I can’t say I mind the idea of a gorgeous coed wanting to scratch my eyes out over a younger man.” Though really they were only a few years apart in age.
His expression eased a little, but his body stayed tight as he stood and turned to face her fully. “That wasn’t . . . I wasn’t . . .” He took another breath and tried again. “Did having me around screw things up between you two?”
Oh. Ouch. So much for keeping it light. Too aware that Brandt was lying a few feet away, she said, “You didn’t screw up anything, Rabbit. At least not between Brandt and me.” In other areas, he was notorious. “You just reminded me what it felt like for a relationship to be fun and easy. And there were moments when I saw a younger version of him in you, and realized how much I missed the guy he used to be, how much I wanted him back.”
They both looked at the bed, where the older, tougher version lay motionless and stern-featured.
“Okay,” Rabbit said after a moment. “Yeah. Okay.” She got the feeling he wasn’t totally satisfied, but he didn’t pursue it. Just nudged the pot with the toe of his boot. “You should be all set. The folder’s got the translated spell, both in phonetic Mayan and English, along with Lucius’s interpretation. There’s some incense and stuff in the Ziploc. I’m not sure what all’s in there, but Jade said the spell itself wasn’t anything too drastic. None of the old ‘Draw the thorny vine through your pierced tongue’ or ‘Let blood from your foreskin.’” He gave an exaggerated shudder, but his sidelong look was one hundred percent serious. “I could help, you know. Unless you think the hellmark will fuck things up yet again.”
“I don’t—” That time, the knee-jerk almost made it out, but she stopped herself, narrowing her eyes. “You’re still a manipulative little shit, aren’t you?”
He shrugged, unrepentant. “Almost worked.”
She pointed to the hallway door. “Out.”
The order echoed back to the numerous times she’d banished him and the twins out to the patio, or the pool, or just about anyplace other than the suite, with its enclosed spaces and tight acoustics. This time, though, the echo brought a sense of the past and present connecting rather than moving further apart. And it eased something inside her, just a little.
He tossed her one of the panic buttons that were hardwired into the Skywatch system. “Jox wanted me to remind you not to be shy about using it.” He paused. “You want an earpiece? One of us could monitor—”
“No,” she cut in, “but thanks.”
He nodded, sent her a “good luck” salute, and headed out. Before the hallway door had fully shut behind him, she had cleared off the nightstand, dragged it into position beside the bed, and hefted the three-legged pot onto it.
The upper rim of the artifact had a wide, flattened section that was stained dark with char. The interior of the pot was painted glossy black and buffed to a shine around the sides; the bottom was inset with a perfect circle of black stone—obsidian, maybe?—that had been polished to a ruthless gleam that threw her own reflection back at her, even in the indirect bedroom lighting.
A brightly painted scene ringed the outside of the pot: Against a creamy white background, the black-outlined figures were painted in shades of earthy red, orange, and yellow, with vivid sea blue accents. The painting showed a ceremonially robed figure with the flattened forehead and exaggerated nose typical of ancient Mayan art—a king or a priest, maybe—inhaling curls of smoke from the small dish at the top of the three-legged pot, with a second pot turned on its side to show the interior . . . which was marked with a jagged “X” symbol. Etznab. More smoke billowed around the figure, its tendrils becoming strange, hunched figures—gods, maybe, or ancestors—who acted out unintelligible pantomimes.
“Okay,” she said softly to herself. “Burn the sacrifice, inhale the smoke, look into the mirror, and see your past. I can do that.” Question was, could she use what was left of the jun tan bond to bring Brandt into the magic? Gods, I hope so.
She prepped things per Lucius’s instructions, removing Brandt’s IV, folding their blood sacrifices into a blob of the Nightkeepers’ claylike brown incense, and then lighting the sacrifice with a match and a dash of highly alcoholic pulque.
As she tipped the pot on its side, so the mirror reflected Brandt’s image, magic buzzed in the air, touching her skin with phantom caresses that heated her body and made her ache with the memory of better days. But it was those memories she sought, so she didn’t will them away as she normally would. Instead she thought about her dream-vision of earlier that morning.
She remembered how he had slipped into her from behind, locking her to him with a strong arm that banded across her body to her opposite shoulder, trapping her with pleasure as he moved within her, possessed her, loved her. Their jun tan connection had been wide-open, letting the sensations wash back and forth so she felt his passion as her own, and vice versa, binding them together in an escalating wash of heat that had put her over and left her shuddering against him, helpless beneath their shared orgasm.
Ignoring the moisture that blurred her vision, she stretched out beside him and clasped his hand, pressing their bloodied palms together and intertwining their finger
s in a familiar move that made her throb with longing. She inhaled a deep breath of incense-laden air, then another and another, until her head spun with the mildly hallucinogenic properties of the copan. Closing her eyes, she whispered the spell words Lucius had given her.
The humming magic changed pitch, gaining a high, sweet note, and energy brushed across her skin, warming her. For a few seconds she hesitated, unable to make herself look into the mirror and complete the spell, fearing that the memories wouldn’t meet her expectations . . . or that they would exceed them. She wasn’t sure which would be worse.
Finally, she whispered to herself, “You can do this.” And she opened her eyes.
The glossy black mirror glowed silver, lit by magic. It swirled with liquid ripples that ran across the surface, light chasing dark in ever-expanding circles that shimmered . . . curved . . . curled . . . and began to resolve into images, flickers of memory.
She saw Harry’s sweet smile, Braden’s devilish gleam, Hannah’s proud scars . . . and Brandt’s glittering brown eyes gone gold-shot with love.
Going on instinct, she rose over him, pressed her lips to his, and summoned every shred of magic she could wrap her mind around. She gathered the power, not shaping it into a fireball, a shield, or her own personal talent of invisibility, but rather collecting it into a pool of pure energy that rippled in her mind’s eye, suddenly looking like a mirror itself. Then she focused on the cool spot on her wrist.
And she sent the magic into it.
The jun tan tingled, then heated. Warmth washed into her, through her, making her feel whole and connected, like she was part of something larger and stronger than herself. But still it wasn’t enough.
She kissed him again, only this time she held nothing back. She opened herself fully, sacrificing her self-respect and the barriers that had protected her, offering her magic, energy, and love. Then, whispering against his lips, she repeated the spell.
Time stalled for a second; the magic went silent, the air strung tight with anticipation. Lifting her eyes, she looked into their reflections and said, “Show us the night we met.”
The mated link flared to life, her jun tan going from cold to warm, then to blazing hot as energy poured out of her and into him, draining through the uplink. She gasped as the magic left her. Her perceptions grayed, yet still the power flowed from her, into a seemingly bottomless sink within him.
Then the grayness detonated in a red-gold flash, and she was back in her own body—or rather, she was in a younger version of herself.
The warm, humid Yucatán night embraced her, grainy sand pressed underfoot, and a sea of coeds swarmed around her in various states of inebriation and undress. Fireworks arced overhead, celebrating the equinox; when they burst, they illuminated the looming bulk of Mayan ruins nearby, overlooking the ocean.
It was spring break of her senior year in college. She was nineteen, almost twenty. And she was staring at the biggest, most gorgeous guy she’d ever seen in her life.
She had done it. They were back at the beginning.
CHAPTER FIVE
Cancún, Mexico Six years ago Hel-lo, handsome, Patience thought as a salvo of salutes flash-banged overhead, lighting the sky and shortening her breath. Or maybe it wasn’t the fireworks driving the air from her lungs. Maybe it was the guy she’d just locked eyes with, picking him out of the crowd because he was a half a head taller than everyone else, and he wasn’t looking at the fireworks. He was looking at her.
It wasn’t like she’d never been stared at before. She was tall, stacked, and blond, and years of fight training had honed her movements in a way that drew attention—especially that of the Y chromosomes. So yeah, she was used to being looked at, used to being wanted.
But she wasn’t used to immediately wanting in return. She recognized the warm, liquid shimmy in her stomach as desire, but had never felt it like this before, as an instantaneous chemical response that lit her up and made her yearn for an entirely unknown quantity. Always before, she’d liked her boyfriends before desiring them, gotten to know them before taking the physical plunge. But there was nothing gradual about this; it was like being hit between the eyes with a big cartoon hammer labeled LUST.
He was built big, which was an instant turn-on given that she towered over lots of the guys she knew. He was flat-out, hands-down gorgeous, with spike-cut hair she thought would be dark brown in better light, and eyes a shade lighter. His dark, unadorned T-shirt was stretched across a wide chest and ripped abs, and tucked into faded cutoffs that were practically painted onto narrow hips and massive thighs. His calves were corded with muscle, tan and hairless, his feet encased in beat-up boat shoes. But it was more than just the way he looked. He seemed to radiate a quiet, watchful strength along with a punch of charisma she wasn’t used to from guys her age, or even a year or two older, as he appeared to be.
Her body flashed from hot to cold and back; she felt dizzy and a little drunk, though she’d had only two rum-and-whatevers since dinner, holding off the serious tequilaing for later after the fireworks, when she was supposed to be going barhopping with Casey and Amanda. Who, she suspected, were going to be on their own now, because he was coming over.
Normally, she would’ve felt a flare of feminine triumph that he’d lost their eye-lock standoff by making the move. Now, though, all she felt was anticipation.
As he came through the crowd toward her, the inebriated human sea eddied. The women turned toward him, faces lighting and then falling when he moved past without noticing them. The men shifted to let him through while they kept their eyes on the sky, subordinates giving way to the alpha. Then he was squaring off opposite her with his weight evenly balanced, leaving him ready to move in or away with equal ease. A fighter’s ready stance.
Her pulse kicked higher. Oh, yeah. Thanks to growing up with Hannah, she was culturally programmed to want herself a warrior. Not for keeps, of course. She’d promised her winikin she wouldn’t commit to anything until after the end date. She hadn’t promised not to sample the wares, though. And thank the gods for that.
He held out his hand. “Brandt White-Eagle.” His voice was as rocking as his face and bod, smooth and masculine, with an orator’s resonance.
She pressed her palm to his. “Patience Lazarus.” How odd that, of the two of them, he was the one with an animal in his name. Hannah had modernized her bloodline name from “iguana” to “lizard,” and from there to “Lazarus”; the winikin was a Heinlein fan. But White-Eagle . . . if he’d been a Nightkeeper, his bird bloodline would’ve outranked her terrestrial one. As it was, the name—and his looks—suggested Native American blood, which was pretty damn sexy in its own right. She’d take Dances with Wolves over Heinlein any day.
“Are you here with someone?”
Casey and Amanda had noticed the exchange and were openly gaping. When Patience glanced in her friends’ direction, she got a quadruple thumbs-up. She looked back at the guy. Brandt. “What if I am?”
She got a long, slow smile with lots of eye contact. “Then he’s out of luck.” A pause. “Unless you’re not feeling it?”
“I don’t know what I’m feeling, but it’s something.” In fact, the air seemed to be buzzing with that
“something.” Her skin tingled almost to the point of itching, making her want to rub herself, touch herself, do something to ease a sudden surge of restlessness.
“You want to get out of here?” He tipped his head away from the water. “We could head up to El Rey.”
Yearning tugged at Patience. Gods, yes, she wanted to go there with him. El Rey was the only major Mayan ruin located in the Cancún hotel district. Its original name and most of its history were unknown; the modern name, which meant “the King,” came from the discovery of several royal artifacts. The small site encompassed the ruins and footprints of some forty structures, including a large pillared palace and a high, flat-topped pyramid . . . which nowadays offered views of the boat-
clogged lagoon and the entire hotel dis
trict, and overlooked the Hilton’s golf course.
El Rey wasn’t as important—or impressive—as the ruins of Tulum or Chichén Itzá; it had held Casey’s and Amanda’s attentions barely long enough to justify the thirty-peso entrance fee. Patience, though, had visited the site every day since the three girls had arrived the week before, until it’d turned into a running joke among them, how she was hoping the magic pyramid—that was the rumor, anyway, that it was magical—would grant her three wishes.
The friends had discussed those wishes with sotted intensity, finally deciding that she should wish for wild success in her yet-nebulous career aspirations, a long, healthy life, and true love. They had figured if she had those three biggies covered, she could handle the rest. Privately, she’d amended one —maybe all—of those wishes to an inner prayer that the barrier would stay closed, that she would never need to know most of the things Hannah had taught her.
“Too fast?” Brandt asked when she didn’t answer right away. “Or are you wondering if I’m a Creepy Stalker Guy?”
She didn’t—couldn’t—tell him what she’d really been thinking, but she’d had a lifetime of practice avoiding some questions, outright lying in response to others. “The park closed at dark.”
“I paid one of the guides to show me the back way in.”
So had she. That he’d done the same made her take another, longer look at him. “Are you trying to get me alone?”
A challenge glinted in his eyes. “Is that a problem?”
She shook her head slowly. “Not for me. But then again, I’m a fifth-degree black belt.”
“Figured something along those lines.” He tugged on the hand he hadn’t yet let go of. “Come on.”
Behind him, fireworks burst in chrysanthemums of red and yellow, and cometlike arcs lit the sky.
She was dimly surprised to see that the show hadn’t ended yet, that they’d been talking for only a few minutes. How was that possible, when she felt like they’d known each other for way longer than that?
Blood Spells n-5 Page 5
