Strike reached out for Leah, took her hand. At the touch of her skin on his, he felt the zing of connection, the flow of energy that was theirs alone. And as the golden spark of the two of them together crackled in the air, Anna woke up, sucking in a deep breath and opening her eyes.
Only they weren’t her eyes, Strike saw with dawning horror. They were flat obsidian black.
‘‘I have a message for you,’’ she said, but it wasn’t her speaking. It was the nahwal, staring up at nothing and speaking with its emotionless, multitonal voice.
Everything inside Strike went cold and hard in an instant. ‘‘Tell me,’’ he grated.
‘‘The creator god dies because you have not acted.’’
Leah dug her nails into his palm. Strike tightened his grip on her and said, ‘‘Tell me how to save them both, the god and the woman.’’ Please, gods, let there be a way.
‘‘For the god to live the woman must die. There is no other way.’’
‘‘There must be,’’ he rasped. He refused to believe the gods had set him up only to fail her, only to force him to make a choice between the life he wanted and the duty he’d been born into. There had to be another way.
‘‘There is not.’’ The nahwal locked its flat black eyes on him. ‘‘Make your choice, Nightkeeper. Make it well.’’
With that, the nahwal’s time was up. Anna didn’t know how she knew that, but she did, just as she knew that she’d be going with the creature when it returned to the mists. They were bound now. Inseparable. She hadn’t just come close to dying back at the temple; she had died. The nahwal had simply kept her alive until the god-bound power of Leah and Strike together had triggered the message.
Now, it was time for her to leave.
The gray-green mist swirled around her, forming a funnel, a vacuum that drew her away from the reality of Skywatch. She felt herself being sucked down, felt herself accelerating without moving.
The outside world dimmed, and her heart cried out for the people she’d loved—for Dick and Lucius, for her brother and the others.
She heard Strike call her name from far away, heard the crash of furniture being overturned, and men shouting. Arguing. Then pain flared in her palm, bright and white amidst the deepening dark gray, and a hand gripped hers.
Power blasted through the connection, jolting through the mist, and suddenly that someone was there, inside her head, shouting at her.
‘‘Gods damn it, this way!’’ He tugged her away from the funnel, away from the nahwal’s might, and she heard the creature roar in denial. Then the vortex collapsed.
And she woke up staring into Red-Boar’s eyes.
That night, which was the night before the equinox, Leah eased away from Strike’s sleeping form and watched the faint light of the desert starscape play across his strong features.
Something lodged tight in her throat: a wish, maybe, or a prayer.
Don’t make him choose, she wanted to ask the gods, but didn’t know how. Besides, the nahwal had already said the choice was his to make.
Or maybe, in the end, it was hers, too.
She touched his face and the strong line of his shoulder, and saw his fierce expression lighten, as though he’d felt her caress even in sleep. Her emotions shuddered very near the surface, strong and frightening. Technically, they’d known each other for nearly three months, since the summer solstice. If she believed that what had happened before would happen again, then by her relationship clock their time was up. But she didn’t want it to be, damn it. She wanted . . .
She wanted the impossible. She wanted him to choose her even though it meant going against logic, against his advisers, hell, against the gods.
Restless, she rose from the mattress, pulled on a pair of loose yoga pants and one of his T-shirts, and padded from the room, headed for the kitchen. The halls were dark, the mansion quiet around her, suggesting that everyone else was asleep, or close to it.
It was a freeing thought. She’d grown used to living with the others and having to create the illusion of privacy. Now, it felt good to be alone in the night.
Until she stepped into the kitchen and saw Jox.
The winikin sat at the marble-topped breakfast bar, with his skinny ass perched on a stool and his pointy chin in his hands. His eyes were closed, and a small pipe sat in a saucer nearby, emitting a thin curl of copan-scented smoke.
Leah slammed on the brakes and was in the process of doing a one-eighty when he said, ‘‘We could both pretend we didn’t see each other, but that’s not really the point, is it?’’
She stopped and stiffened her spine before she turned. ‘‘And what is the point?’’
A piece of her really wished the two of them could find a way to get along. She admired the hell out of the winikin’s fierce loyalty to Strike and Anna, and the traditions of their culture. Unfortunately, it was those very traditions that put them at odds. She didn’t fit into his worldview. Never would.
He said simply, ‘‘Neither of us wants him to have to choose.’’
She stilled as he echoed the sentiment she’d been thinking only moments earlier. She gave a cautious nod. ‘‘Agreed.’’
‘‘So what are you going to do about it?’’ The winikin’s expression remained impassive, but there was something new in his voice, something that wasn’t usually there on the rare occasion he spoke to her. It sounded an awful lot like sympathy, which Leah didn’t like one bit.
‘‘Don’t go there,’’ she said. Please don’t go there.
‘‘Do you have an alternative?’’
She took a deep breath that did nothing to settle the sudden queasiness in her stomach, and looked away. ‘‘No.’’
After a silent moment, he said, ‘‘Self-sacrifice isn’t a sin to the Nightkeepers. It’s the ultimate way for a magic user to honor the gods.’’
She wet her lips, forced the words. ‘‘And wouldn’t that be convenient? It’d get me out of your precious house and leave the field free for one of the others.’’ She paused, hating the hollow ache that took over her chest at the thought. ‘‘Who would you hook him up with? Alexis? Jade? Someone else? Wonder if Ledbetter’s got a daughter.’’
‘‘It wouldn’t matter if he did,’’ Jox said softly. ‘‘It doesn’t take an itza’at to know that you’re it for Strike. If you die, he’ll rule alone.’’
Emotion was a brutal gut-punch that had tears welling. ‘‘Yet you’d rather that than have us try again to bring the god through during the equinox.’’
‘‘My duty is to protect the son of the jaguar king, and the Nightkeepers.’’ He glanced at her. ‘‘For what it’s worth, I’m very sorry.’’
‘‘Maybe Jade will find something useful in Ledbetter’s journal.’’
The winikin nodded. ‘‘Maybe.’’
But what was the likelihood she’d manage it in the next twenty hours or so?
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Red-Boar stayed with Anna through the night, making sure she didn’t succumb again to the nahwal’s pull. Problem was, having him in her bedroom seriously freaked her out. The two of them had always rubbed each other wrong, partly because they understood each other too well. Now he was sitting in a chair next to her bed, wearing drawstring pants and a fleece, both in penitent’s brown. Like she was really going to fall asleep with him there.
‘‘I’m fine, really,’’ she said. ‘‘You can leave anytime.’’
‘‘And if the nahwal comes back, they’d have to come get me to climb inside your head and kick the bastard out again, which would take time you wouldn’t have.’’ He folded his arms across his chest, and she worked very hard not to notice the slide of muscle beneath the soft material of his shirt.
Forcing herself to focus on what he’d said rather than how he looked—and since when did that matter to her?—she said, ‘‘You wouldn’t be here unless you wanted to be, so ergo, you want to talk to me about something. So spill it, old man, and get out of my room so I can rest.’’
He scowled. ‘‘I’m only eight years older than you, for gods’ sake.’’
Damned if he wasn’t right, she realized as she did the math. He’d been married and a father at the time of the massacre, but he’d started young. ‘‘What do you want?’’ she persisted, knowing there had to be something.
He shoved a glass of juice across the nightstand in her direction, nearly dumping it on her. ‘‘Drink your OJ. You’ll need the energy.’’
‘‘For what, exactly?’’
‘‘I want you to go back into the barrier.’’
‘‘Wait.’’ She held up both hands, sloshing the OJ. ‘‘Whoa. I thought the point was to keep me away from the nahwal. Now you want me to go back in?’’
‘‘I’ll go with you.’’ He paused. ‘‘We need more information. ’’
Her skin chilled. ‘‘You can’t use the three-question spell until the actual equinox.’’
‘‘I know. That’s why I need you. The nahwal has marked you. It will come if you call, answer if you ask.’’
‘‘Maybe.’’ She paused. It didn’t take a flying leap of intuition to guess where this was going, what he wanted her to do. ‘‘But you need to get something through your thick skull right now. I don’t want to lead the Nightkeepers. I don’t even want to be here. Maybe instead of charging into the barrier, you should be asking yourself why you’re having so much trouble accepting Strike as leader.’’
‘‘Because he hasn’t accepted it himself,’’ said the older Nightkeeper—though he was right, damn it, that he wasn’t that much older than her.
Before, she’d been a teenager and he an adult. Now they were both adults, which gave her the guts to say, ‘‘You don’t have the right to make that call. The kingship passes from father to son unless the line is broken. It hasn’t been broken. Strike is our father’s son. He is king, whether he likes it or not.’’
‘‘He doesn’t want it.’’
‘‘Neither do I.’’ She leveled a finger at him. ‘‘So why put me in the same position and think anything’s going to be different?’’
‘‘Because you’re different.’’
‘‘That’s right. He stayed in the program. I didn’t.’’ Anna gave up all pretense at resting and sat up, pulling the bedclothes up around her in a protective tepee, even though she was wearing light cotton pj’s beneath. ‘‘Don’t depend on me. I’m not the one you want.’’
When he didn’t say a damn thing, she froze. ‘‘That’s it, isn’t it? You want an alliance. Me running the show, with you as my mate. Me for the bloodline, you for the leadership.’’
Shock and betrayal tangled with something darker, more tempting. It might even work, she had to admit inwardly. Jox and the winikin would never support Red-Boar in a bid for power, but they might support her, support the bloodline.
He met her stare for stare. ‘‘You had feelings for me once.’’
She snorted. ‘‘I was sixteen. You were the only guy I knew who was taller than me. Besides, you were mourning Cassie and the boys. That made you safe.’’
Pain flickered across his normally impassive features. After a moment, he said, ‘‘Do you know how long it’s been since I heard that name? Since anyone mentioned them aloud?’’
‘‘This won’t bring them back. Going against succession won’t fix anything.’’
‘‘If your father had listened to Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk . . .’’ He trailed off after naming the king’s closest advisers, who had normally taken opposite sides in any debate, but had been united in begging him to ignore the visions and wait for the end-time before leading the Nightkeepers to battle.
‘‘That doesn’t mean Strike is wrong now,’’ she said, but wasn’t entirely sure she believed it herself.
His look said he’d caught the hesitation. ‘‘Two jaguar rulers. Two sets of visions that go against tradition, against the prophecies and the writs. How can you not see the parallels?’’
‘‘I see them.’’ She frowned, wanting to support her brother’s born role but not willing to blindly follow tenets she’d learned as a child and walked away from as an adult. ‘‘I’m just not convinced history is always destined to repeat itself.’’
‘‘ ‘What has happened before will happen again,’ ’’ he quoted.
She waved him off. ‘‘Too easy. The world isn’t built on aphorisms and it doesn’t march to the beat of thousand-year -old prophecies. Think about it . . . Godkeeper issue aside, who would you rather have leading the charge, you and me or the rightful king and his mate?’’
‘‘His human mate, you mean?’’
‘‘She’s it for him,’’ Anna said softly. ‘‘Don’t you remember what that felt like?’’ The words brought a faint pang, because she’d found it with Dick, though she couldn’t say for sure they had it anymore.
‘‘Fine. Great.’’ Red-Boar turned his scarred palms to the sky. ‘‘Which just puts us in an even crappier position, because when it comes down to it, he’s going to choose the woman over the gods. We need to stop him from doing something really stupid.’’
‘‘Or you could trust him to make the right decision.’’
‘‘Look where trusting your father got me.’’
And she really couldn’t argue that. He and so many others had trusted Scarred-Jaguar to know what was right, and they’d died for it. Red-Boar might have survived the battle, but everything important that was inside him had been killed that night.
‘‘I won’t lead,’’ she said finally. ‘‘I’m sorry.’’
He sat for a moment in silence, then nodded and stood. ‘‘I’ll let you rest.’’
She waited until he reached the door before she said softly, ‘‘Hey.’’
‘‘Yeah?’’ He looked back, his expression inscrutable.
‘‘Don’t do anything stupid.’’
‘‘Define ‘stupid.’ ’’
The trace of arrogance in his voice reminded her of the brash young warrior all the girls had sighed over, even after he’d married and become a father. More, she remembered how that had changed him, made him a man, even in her childhood perception. ‘‘Before you do anything, ask yourself whether you’ll be proud to own your actions in front of Cassie and the boys when you finally reach the sky.’’
Her only answer was the slam of the door at his back.
Leah slept poorly and woke the morning of the equinox feeling strung-out and twitchy.
It wasn’t just her conversation with Jox that had her on edge, though it hadn’t exactly been fun to have her lover’s defacto father tell her to do the world a favor and kill herself. There was something in the air, itching beneath her skin and making her jumpy. Restless.
Twelve hours and counting.
She opened her eyes to find Strike awake, propped up on one elbow, staring at her as though he was trying to memorize her and commit every last moment they were together to long-term storage in his brain. Or maybe that was what she was feeling.
‘‘We should talk,’’ she said, her voice raspy with morning huskiness.
‘‘Let’s not.’’ He leaned into her and covered her mouth with his, and though she knew it was a stall, she also knew it might be one of the last times they were together.
Opening her mouth to his kiss, she buried her fingers in his thick hair, hooked a leg over his hip, and offered herself to the moment, to the man she wished she could claim as her own. They strained together, touching, tasting, and the heat built as it always did when they were together. Only this time there was an edge of desperation— theirs, the god’s, she didn’t know. But she knew the end was near; she tasted it in the bold possessiveness of Strike’s kiss and felt it in herself—a sense of needing to take a piece of him with her.
Then he shifted against her, poised to enter her, and she saw the question in his eyes. Tears threatened as she nodded and he slid inside without protection, skin on skin, tacit acknowledgment that after tonight it probably wouldn’t matter whether she conceived.
I
t mattered right then, though. It mattered in the feel of him within her, the sense that she was truly taking him inside her and holding a piece of him close to her heart. She pressed her cheek to his as they moved and found their rhythm, drawing out the pleasure, delaying the moment when they’d have to deal with reality.
Soon though, too soon and yet not fast enough, the heat built; the tempo changed as he thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew, pounding into her, racing with her to the peak. They came together with strangled cries and a rush of love so intense Leah almost closed her eyes against it, denying the emotion. But she didn’t. She kept her eyes wide-open, looking into his and seeing the love there. Seeing the heat and the mad glory of what they’d become together.
Then it was past and the heat faded. The world came back into focus around them. And there was no excuse not to have the conversation they were both dreading.
Drawing away from him, Leah touched his cheeks, his chin, the strong line of his nose. When he lifted a hand to do the same to her, she saw his forearm marks, stark black against his skin. She caught his hand and pressed her lips to the glyphs, kissed each one, then kissed the raised weal of the sacrificial scar that crossed his palm.
‘‘Leah,’’ he said, curling his fingers around to cup her face.
‘‘We need to talk about it.’’
‘‘There’s nothing to discuss,’’ he said, his voice going autocratic in a way that was necessary in Strike the leader, but set her teeth right the hell on edge in the bedroom.
‘‘Try again,’’ she said, lowering her voice in warning. Watch your step, Ace.
His eyes went cool, though she sensed the heat within him, knew it was a calculated move. ‘‘I’m going to try to bring the god through into me,’’ he said, like it was no big deal and the obvious choice. ‘‘Jade’s working on finding the transition spell as we speak.’’
Leah’s skin chilled even as anger flashed hard and hot in her veins. ‘‘And you’re just now mentioning this? What do the others think of the plan, given that, oh, there’s a good chance that you’ll turn into a makol? That’s why Nightkeeper males aren’t supposed to enter the Godkeeper ritual, isn’t it? Too much aggression in their psyches, running too close to the darkness.’’
Nightkeepers Page 40
