That startled a snort out of her. “Understatement of the year.” But she took a deep sip of her coffee, hoping that the sugar and caffeine would give her the kick in the ass she needed. “Sorry. I’m just . . . it’s so weird to think that we’re all going to go our separate ways now, and that’s got me feeling . . . I don’t know. Clingy, I guess.”
“We’re sure as hell not going our separate anything, babe.” Rabbit nipped her ear. “You said you loved me, remember? I’ve got witnesses.”
She chuckled and poked him in the ticklish spot over his ribs, making him twitch and grab her wrist. The exchange sloshed her coffee, but it made her feel immeasurably better.
“Call it clingy if you want.” Strike shrugged. “I call it love. Family. And there’s nothing wrong with that—in fact, it’s exactly right as far as I’m concerned.” He was sprawled back in the love seat with his feet up on a detritus-heaped coffee table, but his eyes were suddenly intense. Suddenly those of the one-time king. “You guys know we’re family, right? I don’t care about blood, your parents, or what-the-fuck-ever, Rabbit’s my little brother, and that’s never going to change.”
“I . . .” Rabbit cleared his throat. “Yeah. Thanks. Love you, man.”
“Same goes. And being family, I want you to come to me and Leah if you need anything—a place to land, a sounding board, a kick in the ass, whatever.” His eyes flicked to Myr. “You, too, kiddo. You’d be family even if you hadn’t hooked up with this one.” But his grin said he was glad they had worked things out, that they were in it together for the long haul.
“What does that make her,” Rabbit said in a teasing tone, trying to reassemble his tough-guy image. “An in-law?”
“I’ve always liked the idea of being an outlaw,” she put in, ignoring the faint, unexpected tug. There would be time to get into the marriage-and-future stuff later. It surprised her a little, though, to realize it was something she wanted with him—something normal and official, and just about the two of them.
“Family is family,” Strike said, wisely avoiding the topic.
A sudden burst of noise and energy from the Nightkeepers’ wing brought her eyes around just as Patience and Brandt hustled through the archway, dragging wheeled carry-on suitcases.
“We’re ready,” Patience announced breathlessly. Her cheeks were pink and her eyes shone with excitement. “We’re leaving.”
“I suspect they picked up on that,” Brandt said dryly. But he was grinning, looking more relaxed and easy than Myr had ever seen him. To Strike, he said, “I just talked to Jox, confirming everything. He said to say ‘hi’ and that he’ll see you soon, with Hannah, Harry, Braden and the dog all in tow.”
In other words, the winikin and the twins were fine, and there hadn’t been any unexpected end-date happenings on that end. No doubt the winikin had been equally relieved—if not more so—to learn that the Nightkeepers had made it through without any real casualties except their magic. Which was a worthwhile sacrifice, Myr supposed, even though it was going to take some time to get used to the loss.
Strike closed his eyes and exhaled a long, relieved breath. “Good, good. I’m . . . that’s good.” Then he cracked one eye. “What dog?”
For some reason, Brandt’s eyes went to Rabbit and danced with glee before he said, “Long story. Tell you when we get back.”
“Let’s go, let’s go!” Patience nudged her husband toward the garage. “We’ve got a plane to catch.”
Amid a chorus of “Good luck,” “Congratulations” and “See you soon,” Patience and Brandt headed off, dragging their luggage and looking like any other couple headed off for a few days away. Well, any other couple made up of two huge, incredibly attractive people who drew the eye and exuded an aura of power. It seemed that Seth had been as good as his word, letting them keep some of their lower-level magic.
“Damn it’s going to be good to have Jox home,” Strike said with a broad grin.
“And the rug rats,” Rabbit added, eyes gleaming at the prospect of once more being Unc’ Rabbit.
When they said it like that, acted like that, Myr finally relaxed all the way, realizing that things at Skywatch weren’t going to break up right away. There were reunions yet to have, plans yet to make. And no matter what else was going on in their lives, they would meet back every three months for the Cardinal Day ceremonies, year after year, generation after generation.
“Puppies!” a new voice said from up near the kitchen, and Sven shuffled through the archway with his hair standing straight up, wearing nothing but boxers and an utterly disconcerted look.
“The twins got puppies?” Strike asked.
Sven frowned. “No clue. But if they don’t, I’ve got some they can have. Eight, in fact. Eight coyote puppies in the back of my freaking closet.” He headed for the coffee like it was the answer to a prayer, muttering to himself, “We didn’t even realize Pearl was preggers. How the hell did she hide that? Why? She was fighting yesterday, for crap’s sake.”
One of the winikin, Ritchie, looked over from cooking up a mess of eggs. “Why are you in your boxers? Aren’t you cold?”
“Shit, yeah. But Mac won’t let me near my clothes.” Sven sucked back half his coffee, then looked into the mug. “My own familiar. Sheesh!”
“You can grab some of my jeans and stuff,” Strike offered. “Just knock. Leah’s hiding out with a book, taking some quiet time.”
The corner of Sven’s mouth kicked up as he took a look around the room. “Can’t imagine why.” As he headed for Strike and Leah’s quarters, though, Cara came into the kitchen—fully clothed—and he diverted to give her a kiss and offer up his coffee. As she leaned into him and took a sip, he asked, “How are the happy parents? Did you get Mac to cough up a T-shirt or two?”
She grinned and shot him a sidelong look. “Cut him some slack. He’s her mate, and he’s got to be pretty freaked out right now.”
“I guess.”
“Poor guy.” She patted his cheek. “You should borrow something to wear.”
“So they tell me.” He grinned though, and kissed her again, more thoroughly this time, until Ritchie ordered them both to get their asses out of the kitchen if they wanted to eat any time soon. Still, though, as Sven headed off, he was shaking his head and muttering, “Puppies. Seriously?”
Rabbit’s low chuckle vibrated through Myrinne, making her smile up at him in answer. He grinned down at her. “I guess the world really didn’t end, after all.”
“Nope,” she agreed with all the joy that was bursting in her heart. “In fact, it seems like things around here are getting going.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Three months later
Spring equinox
Skywatch
Ninety days after the world didn’t end, the Nightkeepers, the winikin and their human allies met back at the training compound for the Cardinal Day ceremony. It took a while for everyone to get there, since they had to use human-normal transport now. Anna didn’t mind the long, storm-delayed flight or the dusty drive, though. In fact, she thought it was all pretty awesome.
It was funny how fast things could change.
Three days ago, she’d been in the Australian outback, eating flaky morsels of fish that she, David and Rosa had cooked on a campfire, simply because they could. The bulk of the meal had been made up of yellowbelly that she and David had landed using native-style handlines from the bank. The tastiest bites, though, had come from the little trout Rosa had caught in the shallows, using a trap she’d dug out with the help of David’s six-year-old nephew. Colin had become a fixture around the cabin, and fast friends with Rosa, who had adapted to the cabin and her new friend just as quickly as she’d taken to her new life.
Loud noises still made her duck and cover, and there were times when she got quiet and withdrew inside herself. But although some things would take time, she was a bright, cheerful kid who seemed ready to thrive in any situation. She’d wrapped most of the quarantine camp around her pinki
e by the time the adoption paperwork had gone through, making her Anna’s daughter for real and forever. She’d taken to David’s cabin—and his family—instantly, yet she’d been equally intrigued by their flight back to the States, charming the attendants and chattering in a mix of Spanish and English, the latter of which currently carried more than a little of an outback twang.
The trip to the cabin had been a delight . . . and so was the small family they were building. Anna had tried to hold back at first, not wanting to assume anything or fall too quickly. She kept reminding herself that Rosa was hers, and that relationship needed to be separate from her and David’s budding romance.
On their third afternoon at the cabin, though, he had gotten a couple of cousins to babysit and took her out for a long ride to an Aboriginal site, where Anna delighted in the pictograms carved high on the weathered stones. They were painted in hidden clefts in colors that were still bright and vivid, and made her feel like the artists had just packed up their paints and moved on only moments before their arrival.
After exploring, they had camped and drunk homemade wine until they were giggling like little kids, then made clumsy love for the first time, in a sleeping bag that wasn’t quite built for two. Then, later, drunk only on each other, they had made love again, lying atop the sleeping bag, naked under the stars and moon. When morning came, there was no question that they were a couple, and that they were in it for the long haul.
As for the rest? They would figure it out as they went. For now, they were taking each day as it came, and enjoying the hell out of life. With David’s time off coming to a close, though, things were going to change. As much as Anna would’ve liked to go with him to every new outbreak, new adventure, she had Rosa to think about—school, friends, that sort of thing—so she had started looking around for a place to live, and had surprised herself by gravitating toward the Albuquerque area.
David had taken a laid-back “when I’m not off on assignment, home is where you two are” attitude about things, so he and Rosa were going to spend the next few days checking out the city and its ’burbs, and thinking about putting down roots there. He’d been curious about Anna’s trip into canyon country, but hadn’t pressed. He would someday, she knew. But not yet.
A year ago, if someone had told her that in twelve months she would be part of a mom-dad-kid trifecta and thinking about getting a job at one of the universities in the city nearest Skywatch, she would’ve laughed her ass off. Hell, she wouldn’t have believed it even if she’d seen it in a vision. But it was her new reality, her new life. And she was freaking loving every minute of it.
She’d earned this reprieve. They all had. For her—and, she hoped, for all of her teammates—it wasn’t about zapping from place to place anymore, wasn’t about training and prepping for the next equinox or solstice, the next attack. It wasn’t about saving the world—it was about living in it, and enjoying every moment.
And as she pulled through the wide-open gates of Skywatch, she was surprised to realize that she was enjoying the hell out of this particular moment too.
She’d been sad to leave David and Rosa behind, and had figured she would treat the ceremony more like a duty visit to her relatives than anything. But her spirits lifted suddenly when she saw the front of the mansion jam-packed with a dizzying variety of conveyances, and it hit her that she might be back at Skywatch, but it was nothing like it had been before.
The vehicles ranged from Harleys, Victories and other two-wheelers leaned up in the rock garden to the right of the main entrance, to a wide assortment of banged-up jeeps and random rentals, all the way up to the sleek black Jaguar that Leah had bought for Strike, partly as a joke on his bloodline name, and partly because she liked going fast. The narrow-nosed helicopter off to one side probably belonged to Nate, who’d always had a thing for techware and had undoubtedly needed to get back in the air. He and Alexis had loved flying together, after all.
Oh, and of course, there was Sven and Cara’s windsail, a flimsy wheeled surfboard thing that cruised along the hardpan at stupid speeds. They had surprised everyone by staying on at Skywatch when Reese and Dez relocated permanently to Denver, taking a goodly number of the winikin with them to found a bunch of nonprofits and see about spreading out the Nightkeeper Fund.
Despite Sven’s former footloose tendencies, he and Cara had decided Skywatch was the best place for Mac, Pearl, and their pups, at least for the time being. So they had stayed to oversee things, and were helping Jade and Lucius fully catalog the library and figure out how to keep the Nightkeepers’ records secure for the next twenty-six millennia or so. They all wanted to believe that Rabbit’s magic had barred the kax and the kohan from the earth for good, but they weren’t taking any chances.
No doubt Sven had parked his toy out front as a reminder that these were his digs now, a way of marking his turf that was a little more subtle than taking a whizz on the pillars that ran on either side of the covered overhang leading up to the front door.
Then again, Anna wouldn’t put it past him to have done that, too.
She was grinning at the thought as she parked at random amid the vehicular mob scene, killed the engine, and just sat for a moment, looking up at the mansion. It was the same white-trimmed stone as before, with its sprawling wings and low-maintenance landscaping, but somehow it looked different to her now, as if it had changed.
Or maybe—probably—she was the one who’d changed.
Then the door swung open to reveal Strike, Leah and Jox jammed into the opening, waving and shouting for her to get her ass inside already, looking like they were so damn glad to see her they couldn’t stand themselves.
She was out of the car in a flash, leaving her luggage behind, and dodging through the jammed parking area to meet them halfway.
Leah got to her first. “You look amazing!” Hauling Anna into an energetic hug, she whispered, “I’m so happy for you!” She broke away with a grin and a wink as Strike and Jox reached them, and passed Anna off for more hugs, more exclamations.
“Come in, come in.” They urged her up the walkway so quickly that she didn’t get a chance to hesitate, as she had done almost five years earlier, when she’d first come back after so long, and found only bad old memories.
Now there were new memories—not all of them good, granted, but enough good ones to balance off the bad. And, really, she couldn’t regret the things that had made her the person she was today, living the life she had now.
Better yet, as she walked through the front doors, past the engraved sign that showed the world tree and reminded her to fight, protect and forgive, she felt for the first time since she was a teenager that she really had come back to her childhood home, and she was safe there. And, better yet, she was happy to be there for a while . . . though she’d be happy to get back to her family, too.
Maybe, hopefully, the teammates would eventually find a way to bring their human families into the compound and include them in the Cardinal Day celebrations. Because gods knew there would be human families and more celebrations—there were too few of them to intermarry, and they had vowed to keep the traditions alive, one way or another. There would need to be changes, of course, ways of explaining the teammates and their gatherings so the humans wouldn’t find them too strange, but one day soon, Skywatch would be filled to its seams once more, would be alive once more, as it had been in their parents’ times.
For now, though, this was good. It was right.
And it was time to party.
* * *
As the quick spring dusk descended on Skywatch, the teammates gathered beneath the ceiba tree; they had decided to start a new tradition of meeting out there, at the center of their little village. Where once the area had been shadowed with the ashes of the fallen and packed hard by countless feet coming and going from the training hall, now it was softly carpeted with a faint, fuzzy green, suggesting that while the Nightkeepers’ magic might’ve ramped down, the earth magic that sustained their rain fores
t grotto was still going strong, keeping the ground unusually fertile.
And the grove apparently wasn’t the only thing benefitting from some fertility dancing, Myr thought with a sidelong look at where Sasha, Reese and Cara were sitting at a picnic table comparing notes; all three had announced their pregnancies at lunch, and gotten a raucous round of applause. Cara was the only one with a visible baby bump, suggesting that she and Sven had gotten a jump on things prior to the end date, intentionally or not. The other two weren’t showing yet, but they freaking glowed.
She was a little surprised to feel a harmless tug of envy—look at that, maybe she had a bio-clock, after all. Down girl, she told herself with a grin, tamping down on her link with Rabbit so he wouldn’t catch the direction where her thoughts were going and do a deer-in-headlights impression.
At the moment, he was over with Dez, Sven and Michael, stacking wood for the bonfire, their efforts overseen by two adult coyotes and their perpetual-motion puppy pack.
Even that tugged, making her laugh at herself. Really, it wasn’t like she wanted to do the home-and-baby thing any time soon. For one, she and Rabbit had a few things to knock off the to-do list between now and then. Like finishing up their degrees—something environmental for her, engineering and physics for him, along with some business courses and international relations, with the plan of heading up the emerging Nightkeeper Foundation’s interests in the Mayan highlands. They both loved it down there, and wanted to help the locals recover from the outbreak. At least that was their current game plan.
And that was the awesome thing. They didn’t need to know for sure right now. They could explore for a bit. Or, heck, for the rest of their lives. Because, hey, howdy, they had a future now. A beautiful and totally blank-slate future. The only thing they needed to know for sure was that they were going to be spending it together. Period. Full stop. She didn’t care if the gods had meant for them to be together, or that they hadn’t ever gotten their mated marks. Okay, she cared a little, but only because it had once been important to him. Now, though, he seemed content for them to go on as they were, living together and loving each other while they started really figuring out what their lives were going to look like for the next few years.
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