He didn’t, though. She deserved better than the hard, fast rut his body demanded, and he knew she liked it slow and easy.
“Too fast?” he asked, voice grating from deep in his chest.
She shook her head. But the ripple of surprise brought by that negative was nothing compared to the hot, greedy shock that pounded through him when she turned around, bent slightly at the waist, and braced herself against the bedpost. The mirrored headboard gave him a delicious view of her round breasts, her taut belly, her parted thighs, with a neat triangle of darker blond between—and his own expression going from a dropped jaw to fierce heat when she looked back over her shoulder, eyes smoldering, and said, “Let’s take one for ourselves before we try the magic.”
His body tightened on a howl of yes, yes, yes, hard and fast, yes! But he held himself in check as he moved up behind her, curled his body around hers, and went still for a second, absorbing the sensation of her skin against his. He knew he should stroke her, knew he should take care of her before himself, but he was already on a knife-edge of control.
Gritting his teeth at the effort it took to move slowly, he reached down to rub the head of his hard, aching cock against her moist opening, hissing at the spear of sensation that pierced him, making his stomach muscles tighten against the press of her round, firm buttocks. He’d meant to move up and forward to tease the soft flesh at her front, but she shifted as he did, rolling her hips to accept the blunt tip of him.
Wet warmth slid around him, surrounded him with a sledgehammer of pleasure that had him surging forward with a harsh, primal growl. He thrust once, hard and deep, seating himself fully with zero thought for her, only for himself.
Slow down, damn it, said the gentleman within him, the one who knew how she liked it. Realizing he had one arm banded across her stomach, the other pressed flat against that enticing blond triangle, in a hold that pinned her back against the pressure of his hips, he eased up. “Sorry.”
“Don’t be. And don’t hold back.”
The husky, unfamiliar timbre of her voice had his eyes opening. It took him a moment to focus, surrounded as they were by reflections of themselves from all different angles, the blend of his skin against hers, and the shadows they made together. Her face was flushed, her eyes gleaming. Belatedly, he noticed that her arms mirrored his, snugged tight atop his grip, holding him tight against her.
Their eyes met in the reflection, and hers blazed. “Take what you want. It’s what I want too.”
Lust roared through him like fury, but he managed to rasp, “Tell me you mean that.”
In answer, she fisted her inner muscles around him, so hard that the pleasure edged toward pain when she shifted back against him, inviting him to do more, to do everything. A whole-body shudder rose up from the soles of his feet as he locked his arms around her, his body into her. And he began to move.
The first stroke wrung a groan from his chest and battered his defenses with lightning-bolt lust; the second blitzed through the tattered remainder of his analytic self and left him in the throes of instinct, and the blind quest to possess the woman in his arms, and the power that sang in the air around them.
He held her, surged against her, pounded into her in a frenzy that went beyond emotion to pure action and reaction. He wasn’t fucking her, wasn’t making love to her; this was mating, pure and simple, the primal drive to lose himself in her, fill her with his seed. Even the distant knowledge that all the magi had undergone fertility-blocking spells to avoid complications in the final years before the end time didn’t diminish the imperative to plant part of himself inside her and mark her as his own in a place beyond marriage and the jun tan mark.
On some level, he was aware of her escalating cries, the graceful curve of her neck as she pressed her face to her arms and gave herself up to his hold and thrust. Her hand atop his urged him inward, until his fingers were tight against the hard bud of her clit as he rode her from behind.
Her pleasure, though, was far secondary to the need that consumed him, the pressure that built within him, tightening the muscles of his abdomen and ass. One second he was breathing hard and deep; then in the next he stopped breathing entirely, as oxygen became so much less important than the rushing tingle that started at the bottoms of his feet and the tips of his fingers and raced upward and inward, warming and tensing each individual muscle until his whole body felt the pleasure that had previously belonged solely to his cock.
A groan reverberated in his chest as he bowed his body to match hers, thrusting again and again in search of the pinnacle, helpless to do otherwise in the face of a gathering orgasm of unparalleled intensity.
Patience shuddered against him, said his name in a passion-strangled voice, and went over the top of her own climax.
He felt the hot, moist pulse on every inch of his skin, felt her pleasure as his own. Sinking himself deep within her, beyond all thought of control or finesse, he stroked again and again, then roared as his vision went white and he locked himself against her and came.
He flashed outside himself with a lurch of magic, and suddenly he was above, looking down on the two of them, suspended in a vision, yet not.
He saw them surrounded by a pearlescent gray dome, a shield unlike any other he’d ever sensed before. Within it, their images were strangely distorted, refracted, as though together they formed the pieces of an incomplete whole. Somehow he was certain—gut-deep certain—that the pieces they were missing could be found just beyond the dome, that he and Patience could be whole again if he could only breach that gleaming shell.
Then the vision shattered and he was back inside himself, losing himself to the rush of pressure and pleasure, the pulsing throb of ejaculation as he emptied himself into her. He held her tightly, binding them together as his vision grayed and time seemed to slow, measured only in the pulse of their joined flesh.
Even after the intense wave passed, he stayed still, absorbing the moment, the sensations.
Then, inhaling a huge draft of air, he pressed a kiss to her nape, where damp tendrils had escaped her beleaguered ponytail. As he eased out of her, he was all too aware that he’d taken her standing up.
And he’d do it again in a heartbeat.
Feeling that he needed to say something profound, he started with, “That was . . . wow.” Okay, not so profound after all. Magic danced invisibly across his skin, making him conscious of the warmth of his jun tan mark, the faint sense of connection where they had been apart for so long. Trying again, he said, “I think—” Dropping her braced-arm stance, she turned and silenced him with a soft brush of her fingertips across his lips. “Don’t think. For right now, let’s just leave it at ‘wow.’” Instead of arguing, he kissed her.
He set a soft, slow rhythm that was the diametric opposite of the hard and fast, borderline-rough sex they had just shared. He’d meant the gesture to soothe, to wordlessly apologize if that had been too much for her, to thank her for the gift. To his surprise, she met him more than halfway with an inciting nip of teeth and tongue, and a shudder-inducing drag of her fingernails down his ribs.
Heat flared as he took the kiss deeper. Magic hummed anew, wrapping around them both and making him think of the shell that had surrounded them in his vision-flash, and the sense that good things were waiting outside that shell, that things would get better, not worse, if he could manage to break through the barrier blocking him from the Triad magic.
Or was that just wishful thinking?
It doesn’t matter, his conscience warned. You don’t have a choice. And it’s time.
So he ended the kiss, stepped back, and held out a scarred palm. “Lie down with me?”
Her eyes held a shadow of resignation as she took his hand, but she smiled. “With a brothel bed like this, how can I say no?”
“At least it’s not heart-shaped. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t vibrate.”
“Color me disappointed.”
I t was a ridiculous bed, all mirrors and black lacquered wo
od, topped with a scarlet brocade bedspread edged with gold braid, and a huge pile of gold-edged red pillows.
Somehow, though, it didn’t seem ridiculous. Instead, the red-gold of the bedding blended with the hum of magic that touched the air, intensifying as she stretched out on her side near the center of the plush mattress with one hand behind her head, one leg slightly bent, goddesslike in her nudity.
He stretched out opposite her for a kiss, then rolled onto his back and drew her with him, so she was cuddled up against his side with her hand over his heart, the two of them fitting together, puzzlelike.
Their legs twined and he brushed his scarred calf along the softness of her skin.
Then, in unspoken agreement, they looked up into the big mirror that hung suspended over the bed.
As their eyes met in the reflection, they touched the magic that hung thick around them, and together invoked the etznab spell.
The mirror wavered; the world around them went thin. And they slipped into memory together.
CHAPTER NINE
El Rey Six years ago Holy hookup, Batman. That was about all Brandt’s brain was capable of managing as he lay beside the underground lagoon, intertwined with Patience while their bodies cooled in the aftermath of some seriously hot sex.
How much of that had been about the two of them, and how much of it had been about his bloodline connection to whatever the hell was going on beneath El Rey? He didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to guess.
According to Wood, sex had been part of the magic on almost every level. In another lifetime, he might have thought the gods had meant for him and Patience to pair up like this. But he was out of that loop now, which meant . . . hell, he didn’t know what it meant, except that something had drawn him to her, and it was no coincidence that they had found the underground cave together, or that they had gotten down and dirty beside the sacred lagoon.
But what did it all mean?
When she stirred and let out a small, satisfied sigh, he tightened his arm around her and cracked his eyelids, trying to come up with an awkward-moment-after line that didn’t sound totally cheesy.
Then he got a good look around them, and all he could come up with was, “Holy crap.”
The fireworks were long gone, but the air still sparkled red-gold.
Magic.
Patience’s body tightened. “Oh. My. God.” Her voice was tinged with the wonder he saw in her face when their eyes met. Then her expression clouded. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I can’t let you see this.”
Reaching out, she cupped his cheek and whispered three words in a language that should have been unfamiliar.
Except it wasn’t unfamiliar at all. It was a fucking sleep spell.
Shock hammered through him. Her expression fell when he didn’t go narcoleptic, and he could almost hear her thinking, Why didn’t it work?
If he could’ve formed a coherent sentence, he would have told her it was because lower-level stuff like the sleep spell didn’t work on magi. But his thoughts were racing too fast for that. The questions bombarded him: Where the hell had she learned the spell? How had she known what the glitter-dust effect meant? She obviously wasn’t Maya, but—
Whoa. He stared at her as the litany ran through his mind: The Nightkeepers had been big, fast, smart, and charismatic. And they were extinct. He was the last of them.
Unless they weren’t extinct.
And he wasn’t the last.
Excitement knotted low in his gut. What if that explained everything? What if he’d been meant to see her, meant to follow her and bring her to El Rey just in time for them to discover the doorway?
Granted, the chances of that were pretty fucking slim given his history. But the gods were low on options. And if the magic was coming back online now, with eight years to go before the zero date . . .
Holy. Shit.
His blood hammered as he held out his hand, cupping it palm up, and whispered the spell to call a foxfire. There was no surge in the magic, no kindling of the blue-white glow he had tried to summon, but in the wan illumination of Patience’s tiny, dying flashlight, he saw her eyes go wide.
She eased away from him. But she didn’t go far.
He sat up, conscious of the way the red-gold sparkles followed the motion, swirling on unseen currents. He held his breath, barely daring to hope, afraid that there was—had to be—some other explanation.
Hell, for all he knew, he’d gotten trashed and this was a really vivid dream. She could easily be his subconscious’s projection of his dream girl, all blond and blue, with a kick-ass, can-do attitude wrapped in a glossy package. And ever since he’d been a kid, he’d pictured himself wielding the magic of his ancestors, and imagined finding someone else like him.
The shock in her expression was giving way to speculation . . . and hope. She moistened her lips.
“You’re not NA, are you?”
NA? Oh, she’d guessed he was Native American from his name. He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Then what are you?”
Her quiet question hung on the air, echoing in the vaulted cave and counterpointed by the slow drip of water falling from stalactites to the water beyond them. The world seemed to hold its breath—or maybe that was him, because he had the sudden sense that what he said next was going to change both of their lives. This was no dream, he knew; it was the real thing.
He said, “I’m the sole mage-born survivor of the Solstice Massacre.” He paused. “At least I thought I was.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “Me too.”
An unfamiliar pressure expanded in his chest. This was real; it was actually happening. Patience was a survivor, just like him. “What’s your bloodline name?”
“Iguana.” The word wasn’t even a whisper, more a shaping of the lips. “My winikin changed it after the massacre, in order to keep us safe.”
His voice rasped when he asked, “Are there others?”
“Hannah thought we might be the only ones. The way the drop box for contact info is set up, she couldn’t tell.”
He nodded. “Woody said the same thing. I wanted him to crack the box and see if there were others, but he refused. Said he was sworn to keep us hidden until he was convinced it was time to reunite the Nightkeepers.”
It was the first time either of them had said the word, and it hung in the darkness, echoing in the sacred space.
Nightkeepers. Their people. Their magic.
He’d been programmed from birth to believe in the unbelievable, to take it on faith that he had a higher destiny and the potential for magical skills that might or might not be needed, depending on whether the barrier stayed shut through the end of 2012. But belief and faith suddenly seemed insubstantial now that he was face-to-face—and naked—with another full-blood survivor, one who knew what he knew, who’d been raised, as he had, by an actual winikin .
It was impossible. Unbelievable.
But somehow it was true.
They stared at each other for a long moment, speechless. Finally, he swallowed hard. “I—” Wow, he didn’t know what to say to her, how to deal with the sudden realization that they were connected far more deeply than by the sex they had just shared.
Patience’s eyes darkened. “Gods. This must mean that the massacre didn’t seal the barrier after all.”
“Maybe.” He cupped his palm and watched red-gold swirl. “Maybe this is just . . . I don’t know. An anomaly.” But he had a feeling neither of them believed it.
She exhaled slowly. “I was supposed to leave this morning for a two-day island hop to Cozumel.
Something told me I shouldn’t go.”
“I was supposed to leave yesterday for Chichén Itzá. Didn’t feel like it.”
“The gods wanted us to meet.”
It was a tempting thought—very tempting—but he shook his head. “I think it was more the equinox magic pulling us here. The gods aren’t my biggest fans.”
Her brows drew together. “For real?”
/> “For real.” He rubbed the numb patch of scar tissue high on his inner calf. “I’ll tell you about it, but not here, not now.” He paused. “I think we should try to jack in. If the power is back online and pulled us here together . . .”
When he trailed off, she nodded. “Yeah. We’re here for a reason. Which means I’ll let you get away with the not-so-subtle subject change. But don’t think you’re going to get out of explaining that little comment about the gods.”
“I won’t.” He’d never told another soul the whole wretched story, not even Woody, but he had to tell her. That was suddenly very necessary.
Reaching for her piled clothing, she dug in a pocket and withdrew a matte black handgrip that flipped open to reveal a five-inch combat knife. “You have a blade?”
He nodded, excitement sparking at the sight of the knife, and the challenging gleam in her eyes.
“You didn’t check that with your luggage, did you?”
“Bought it when I got here. You?”
“Ditto.” He fished through his clothes and pulled out a butterfly knife that had looked cool at the pawnshop where he’d picked it up, but had taken some practice getting used to. Now, though, he was able to open it with decent flair to reveal a blade about the same size as hers, though his was edged on both sides and narrowed to a wicked point, while hers was wide and serrated on one side.
It wasn’t their potential as fighting weapons that mattered, though; it was their ability to draw blood sacrifice. No Nightkeeper walked around without a knife. It just wasn’t done—at least according to Woody. And apparently according to her Hannah as well.
He grinned at her and she grinned back, and magic hummed faintly in the air.
It hit him then, that his life had changed forever the moment he’d caught a glimpse of her coming out of that bar with her friends.
They weren’t just lovers. They were about to become teammates. And to a Nightkeeper, a fighting partner was so much more than lover.
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