Final Prophecy 04: Demonkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  Jade broke the kiss, breathing lightly, her body seeming to vibrate against his. “Do you feel that? Do you feel the magic?”

  “Maybe.” He wasn’t sure he’d recognize Nightkeeper power if it ran him over doing eighty-five in a forty zone. He’d heard the thoughts of the demon that had possessed him, the one he’d named Cizin. Flatulent one. The makol’s foul, angry temper had echoed inside him, becoming his own. Marking him. He knew he would instantly recognize the awful pressure of possession if the Banol Kax ever sought him again. But he wasn’t sure he’d ever felt true magic, not the way the Nightkeepers meant it. Even when he had lain on the floor of Iago’s giant volcanic cave, bleeding out onto the stone while the Nightkeepers crowded around him and enacted the Prophet’s spell, he couldn’t say he’d felt the magic. He’d felt inner chaos and the soul-deep agony of Cizin being ripped out of him, but he couldn’t have pointed to any part of the spell casting and said, That’s magic. He was only human, after all.

  “There’s magic here,” Jade whispered against his lips. “Trust me.”

  In answer, he kissed her again. He didn’t want to think about trust or power, not really; he wanted to think about the woman in his arms, who would be his first lover in this new body. He wanted to touch her, shape her with hands that spread wider than they had before, registering the soft curves with fingers that seemed to have gotten exponentially more sensitive as the other parts of him had grown and changed. He kissed her, caressed her, learning her body and letting her get used to his, even as he was getting used to the newly acute bite of heat, the powerful thunder of the blood surging through his veins, impelled by the beat of a heart he instinctively knew was stronger than before.

  Murmuring appreciation, Jade slipped her delicately capable hands beneath his tee and ran them up his back, skin-on-skin with an inciting scrape of fingernail. He groaned as an answering avalanche of lust swept into his system, bringing an unexpected and unwanted slash of raw aggression. In the next instant, nothing existed but his need to take her, to wrap her around him, to put her up against the nearest wall and pound into her, lose himself in her. Mine, the heat said, branding the possessive howl across his consciousness.

  His mind jerked back but his body leaned in instead, inviting her maddening touch. Unnerved to be suddenly teetering at the edge of his hard-won control, he broke the kiss and smoothed his hands down her body and back up again, soothing himself more than her. Hold it together, he told himself. Don’t lose your shit. Before, he’d let himself be taken over, used. He didn’t intend to let that happen again, whether by makol, desire, or power. Not ever.

  Needing a moment, he released her to turn and snag the quilt he’d left tossed over the back of the couch, having dragged it in from the bedroom one night when he’d been working on a series of translations, unable to sleep. Done in masculine shades of rust, brown, and cream, the quilt’s color scheme mimicked the hues on the TV screen. Shoving aside the coffee table with his foot, he spread the comforter on the thick carpeting and swept a bunch of pillows off the sofa onto the quilt, creating a layer softer even than the padded wall-to-wall carpeting beneath, a comfortable nest in the wide- open space of the floor rather than the close confines of a too-soft couch that occasionally made him feel trapped even when he was sitting there alone.

  Unable to bear the constricting chafe of his tee, he shucked off his shirt over his head and tossed it aside. He was acutely aware of Jade watching him, taking in the sight of muscles where there hadn’t been any before. He was grateful that she didn’t seem to linger on the heavy, gnarled scar that ran across his stomach, just below his ribs. Maybe, like him, she didn’t care to remember the day he’d almost died . . . and had been reborn instead. He’d taken the pain and the smell of his own blood pumping from his slashed throat, the grotesque panic of seeing his heart on the outside of his chest cavity, connected to him by a few thin threads of vessel and fascia—and he’d locked those memories deep inside, away from the things that mattered. He hoped she could do the same, hoped she already had. And yes, he hoped she cared enough to need to lock those things away. Just because they were distilling sex to mutual pleasure didn’t mean he didn’t care deeply for her. It was just that he’d finally grown up—and out—to the point that he got what she’d been trying to explain before: that not every sexual relationship had to be aiming for more. Sometimes it was just about friendship and sex. And in this case, there were also the issues of their summoning sex magic and getting his ass into the library. Gods willing.

  Blood humming, feeling back in control, he toed off his sandals, dropped to the makeshift bed, and stretched out on his side, head propped up on one hand. Looking up at her, he patted the wide empty space beside him. “You want to at least get horizontal this time?”

  He meant as opposed to their rushed coupling in the archive, when they’d stayed partially dressed and gone at it hard, starting up against the wall and finishing on one of the study tables in the inner sanctum. But they both knew that he was also saying, Last chance . . . you going to go through with this or not?

  Jade stared at the bare skin of Lucius’s torso, where hard muscles glowed with burnished highlights in the reddish brown light. Shirtless and barefoot, wearing only his jeans and an I-dare-you gleam in his eyes, he looked like something out of the pages of Cosmo. His caption might have read, Ways to let him please you, or some such nonsense that implied the article was aimed at female self-actualization, but the subheading would’ve been a thin lipstick gloss over the simple fact that sex sells, the hotter, the better. Hell, yes, I’m going through with it, she thought, wetting her lips and seeing his eyes darken in the rusty light. Dipping into the pocket of her jeans, she touched the earpiece Strike had given her, partly to make sure it was toggled off, partly to reassure herself it was there, just in case. Because even if Lucius couldn’t feel the magic, it crowded thick and warm around her, seeming expectant, the calm before the storm.

  Yes, there was magic in the air. She only hoped her reserves would be enough to jump-start the Prophet’s powers. But if Lucius could grow into the jock’s body he’d always wanted, then she should be able to grow into the power she craved. And if that wish bumped up against the knowledge that people didn’t really change, she ignored the disparity to focus on the moment, and the man watching her with an intensity that brought heat to her skin and tension coiling deep inside her.

  Entirely conscious of his eyes on her, imagining herself silhouetted against the fiercely elegant painting projected on the big screen behind her, she caught the hem of her floaty green shirt in both hands, gave a little shimmy as she skimmed it up and over her head, then stretched sinuously to let the garment fall beside his discarded tee. Leaving her soft, lace-edged bra—the same jewel green as the shirt—in place because it made her feel wholly feminine, she toed off her sneakers and socks into a small pile. The cool air tightened her skin, though the blood pumping through her veins still sizzled with desire.

  He was wholly focused on her, hot for her. The knowledge added an extra wiggle to her walk as she crossed the short distance to where he lay waiting for her. She lowered herself to the comforter, coming down on her knees with the thought of touching him, enticing him, letting the hum of magic lead the way. The moment she knelt, though, he reached out and snagged her wrist, overbalancing her and then rising up to cover her body with his own. She gasped, her senses revving to flash point as he pressed into her, the sensation of skin on skin heightened by the chafe of their remaining clothes. He caught her other wrist, bracketing her hands together in one of his, holding them captive above her head in the pillows. Nearly helpless in the face of the heat that speared to her core at the move, Jade gave herself up to his kiss.

  She was peripherally aware that the bedding carried his scent, bringing some of the intimacy she’d hoped to avoid by keeping them out in the main room, with its glowing scene of ritual and magic as a pointed reminder of their goal. But she wasn’t thinking of ritual or magic as she dragged he
r fingernails lightly down his sides, then stroked his ass, his hips, and the long columns of the thighs that lay alongside hers, slightly bent to take some of his weight. As she did so, he shifted, moving the line of his kisses from her mouth to her jaw, her throat, all the while touching her breasts through the thin fabric of her bra, stroking her, bringing her nipples to twin peaks beneath the lace, then popping the clasp of the bra and tugging the wisp of fabric away, baring her breasts. She arched into him on a gasp when he touched her next; she wasn’t heavily endowed, but she was exquisitely sensitive there.

  As though her soft cry had broken through whatever small restraint had kept him in check up to that point, he growled something in his new, rasping voice, and plunged into the next kiss, letting go of her wrists and dragging his hands down her body in a rough, inciting stroke. He used his tongue, teeth, and hands on her with ruthless intent and an edge of anger that demanded a response. Barely breaking the kiss, he stripped her out of the rest of her clothes with impatient movements, then came back to cover her naked body with his own, his jeans making an arousing contrast against her skin.

  Lust slammed through Jade, revving her system from zero to holy shit in two seconds flat. Gods, she thought, latching her fingernails onto the solid muscle on either side of his spine as he rolled fully atop her and pressed her into the piled bedding, making her even more aware of the feel of him, the scent and taste of him, the fact of him. Moaning as the world went white-hot behind her eyelids, she clung, knowing that this was what she’d wanted, what she’d come back for. Not just the chance to make a difference, but to feel the burn of lust and chemical combustion she’d found with him before. More, this time there was no makol, no one-sided hopes or expectations of more than she was willing to give; there was only the plunge and surge of raw, unabashed sex, and the buzzing hum of magic. The heady flow of power swirled around them, inside her. Urgent yet formless, the energy made her feel that her low- level skills were straining toward an unknown destination . . . and falling short.

  A hollow kick of disappointment threatened to break through the sensual spell when she realized it wasn’t working, that she was too weak—or Lucius too human—to force the gathered magic to detonate. But then he slid a hand between them to touch the place where their thighs twined together, and the sensation of his strong fingers rhythmically stroking her core blotted out all other thought or logic.

  Arching into his touch, she grazed his earlobe with her teeth, making him groan, then whispered hot incitements until he shuddered against her. Her inner muscles locked around the long fingers he slid inside her; she surged against him as he set a hard, fast rhythm, then mimicked it in a deep kiss until an orgasm rolled through her, shattering her remaining thoughts in a wash of sensation. She came hard and fast, fisting around him with a long, wordless cry as the whiplash pressure released only to quickly recoil within her, tightening her to a waiting, wanting knot that demanded more than his fingers and his kiss.

  Gods, she thought. Just . . . gods.

  Growling something under his breath, Lucius rolled aside. She heard the slide of cloth as he shucked off his jeans and briefs in a single impatient yank. Before she could gather herself to look at him, fully naked in the reflected light, he rolled back to her, covered her with his body, and kissed her long and hard. Between the disease resistance inherent to the magi and the fact that they were all using contraceptive spells now, this close to the end-time, there was no need for a condom, and skin on skin was glorious contact, an erotic contrast between his skin and hers, his body and hers. When she wrapped her legs around him wantonly, wonderfully, he reached to position his hard cock at her opening . . . and slid home.

  Jade’s vision dimmed as all of her senses turned suddenly inward, concentrating on the feelings that sparked as he stretched her, filled her, invaded her, possessed her. His first thrust set off a chain reaction within her; heat slammed into greed, which banged up against a kernel of fear, not of him, but of being weak, of failing. She didn’t even know anymore what she was afraid of failing at, knew only that she existed to hold on to him as he surged into her on powerful thrusts that he counteracted with the iron grip he kept on her body, holding her in place as he took her with more lust than finesse, seeming driven beyond himself, beyond them both, by the chemistry they’d shared from the first.

  Heat rocketed through her as she clung to him, dug into him, and tried to give as good as she was getting, counterpointing his movements with her own to create heady, insane friction. Air hissed between his teeth in a word that might have been a curse, might have been her name, as he drove into her again and again. Jade forced herself to keep breathing, but oxygen did little to cut the spinning that swept her up and threatened to take her over before she was ready to go. Fighting the raw, edgy pleasure that seemed certain to push her over to the other side of an orgasm that loomed large on the horizon of her senses, she bit his sweat-dampened shoulder. When he groaned harshly at the back of his throat, she turned her head to whisper in his ear: “Come with me. I don’t want to leave you behind this time.”

  “Fuck.” He turned his head, blindly sought her lips with his, and locked them together in a hard, deep kiss as he surged against her, swelled within her.

  The added pressure—and the raw intensity of the kiss—drove her over whether she was ready or not. Her muscles clamped and pulsed, milked and demanded. He made it two more thrusts, then came, his body shuddering as he heaved into her and stilled, rigor-locked with the force of his orgasm. A long, low groan resonated from his chest as he broke the kiss to press his cheek to hers, holding on to her as the pulses of pleasure went from her to him and back again. Caught in her own ecstasy, Jade could do little more than cling and gasp while the full- body throb went on and on, seeming to cycle up instead of down. Heat poured through her, not an afterglow, but more an extension of the orgasm, a new level of passion and energy that seemed to travel through the point where their bodies merged, becoming something more than sexual gratification, until it felt almost like—

  Magic, she realized, her eyes flying open to find that the sepia tones in the room had gone to red-gold. Nightkeeper magic limned their bodies, making it impossible to tell where his skin stopped and hers began. His face was very close to hers, his eyes locked on hers as the red-gold light intensified, becoming a prickling heat that seemed to come from the last ripples of pleasure within her, centered at the point where his flesh still joined with hers.

  Again, the panic of impending failure flared; the power running through her was stronger than she’d ever felt before, but she didn’t know what to do with it. Was there a spell? A gesture? What?

  “Jade, I—” Lucius began, but then his face changed, his eyes going blank and wide as the magic changed its pitch and swirled around him in tightening spirals. “I see it!” He rolled off her without ceremony and scrabbled into his clothes. “Get dressed!”

  Jade wasn’t supposed to enter the library with him, but the magic was wrapping around her too. Heart hammering, she yanked on her own clothes, knowing that whatever a mage was holding or wearing typically made it into the barrier, and they didn’t want to wind up transitioning bare-assed naked. But I’m not supposed to go anywhere!

  A sharp pain pierced her forearm, a voice—maybe a woman’s voice, maybe her imagination?—whispered, “Beware,” and the world suddenly jolted and spun. She felt the familiar ripping sensation of her spiritual self leaving her physical body, but she wasn’t being pulled sideways into the gray-green flow of the barrier. She was being pulled down. She screamed and tried to block the magic, but it was too late. She heard Lucius bellow, saw him reach for her as their physical bodies collapsed to the floor. She lunged her metaphysical self toward him; their hands caught and held, feeling solid and real as the world blurred around them. And disappeared.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Kaleidoscope images flashed across Jade’s perceptions: She saw a vibrant green rain forest cloaked in gray fog; a screaming skull carved into
the base of a mountain, its gaping mouth forming the opening of a dark, forbidding cave. To one side of the cave mouth, a picked-clean skeleton was spiked to the cave wall, incongruously wearing tattered purple velour. Then darkness whipped again, a shock wave detonated, there was a sense of wrenching disorientation, and she was slammed flat onto a gritty surface that drove the breath from her lungs. Heat slapped at her first, then a bright, searing light that radiated through her lids and made her squint even with her eyes already shut.

  Gods! She rolled onto her side, curling partway fetal as she fought to get air into her chest, then coughed when hot, dry air rushed in, starkly contrasting with the cooler moisture of the earth plane.

  Heart hammering, she rolled onto her back, conscious of the way the surface beneath her yielded and crunched, sandlike in its texture. She cracked her eyelids and blinked until the light resolved itself into a pale reddish brown overhead that shone brighter than the dull orange days she’d gotten used to on earth. The span was cloudless and sunless, radiating a uniform wash of light and heat; she wasn’t sure if it was a strange sky, or a ceiling far above them. There was no breeze, no sound, and the dry air smelled faintly of foreign spices, or maybe overdone barbecue. Wherever they were, it wasn’t the barrier.