From Jennifer Ashley, With Love

by Jennifer Ashley

  But the seemingly cold Nash made it clear to all that he preferred the volatile Maya. Maya had actually softened him a little and he her, though you’d have to know them very well to be able to tell.

  “How do you do it, Janet?” Maya asked, hands on hips. “I get this place into better shape than anywhere else in town, and you go and destroy it. Every time.”

  “I’m a victim of circumstance,” I said. “Not my fault.”

  She gave me the skewering look that only Maya could manage. “It never is.”

  “Think you can fix it?”

  “Of course, I can fix it.” She trailed off into mutters. “I’ll never get out of this town, not when I have to repair your hotel all the time.”

  “I thought you were living in Flat Mesa with Nash.”

  “Same difference.”

  She still owned a house in Magellan, though, with a nice garden and painfully neat interior. Nash had lived like a bachelor for a long time, and Maya was disdainful about the state of his house. Something they needed to work out.

  Finally Salas’s nephews finished closing off the saloon. Cassandra and I worked a spell to rid the rest of the hotel of lingering smoke, seal off any bad gasses that might have collected in the saloon, and sweeten the air. To the scent of sage and sandalwood, I went to bed.

  It was three a.m., and still no Mick. I looked out windows, hoping to see a dragon winging his way home across the desert. Given our history, I went a little crazy when I didn’t know where Mick was. I knew, though, that I couldn’t keep a leash on him. Our relationship would never make it if I tried to do that.

  The hotel was silent now, the guests and Cassandra in bed, the spectators gone. When I’d gone down to the basement to look in on Ansel—who’d been enjoying a viewing of the original Thirty-Nine Steps—I discovered Elena sleeping on a folding cot near his room, like a guard dog. She’d been sound asleep when I passed her, but I had little doubt she’d awaken if another slayer went down there after him.

  I didn’t think I’d sleep again with so many things on my mind, but I was out by the time I pulled up the covers.

  I awoke to a sensation I couldn’t mistake. Mick’s mouth on me between my legs. The wild friction of it brought me to a half-awake state, to a place of joy I never wanted to leave.

  He’d stripped the sheets from my sweating body, and now he lay on the lower half of my bed, my legs over his arms. I made a sound between a gasp and a moan. “Welcome back,” I said.

  Mick smiled up at me, his eyes hot and blue. Not black, not his dragon eyes, which was good for now. Mick the man was enjoying me, and Janet the woman lay back and let him.

  He worked on me, his mouth talented, until my body was rising to his mouth. The coming was good. Black and purple lights danced at the edges of my vision, my body one point of squeezing ecstasy.

  When I collapsed, trying to catch my breath, Mick pulled me up to him, him on his knees on the bed, me with legs locked around him.

  I loved watching Mick have sex with me. He would gaze straight into my eyes, his so blue, his face relaxed, his skin damp.

  He wasn’t a quiet lover though. “Janet, you’re a fire in my heart. It burns me when I’m not with you.”

  My replies weren’t as poetic. We crashed down onto the bed, me on my back, his big body weighting me into the mattress.

  He finished, and everything went still.

  We ended up with me on my side, Mick cradling me back against his chest. I loved moments like this. I thought I could stay forever curled into the curve of him, Mick’s arms around me and protecting me from harm.

  The world didn’t work that way, but for now, I could bask in his warmth and let the world go to hell. And hope it didn’t, not literally.

  “It’s what dragons do,” Mick said quietly, drawing light fingers across my throat.

  “What’s that?” My words were barely coherent.

  “Curl up around each other, male and female, to keep warm after mating. It’s our most vulnerable time.”

  “I can see why. I’m weak as a kitten.”

  He kissed my shoulder. “No, you’re not. You’re strong, my Janet. That’s why you can take me. I saw your strength the night I met you.”

  “After I tried to fry you,” I said. “And then you ate the lightning and laughed. I was pretty sure I was dead.”

  “My way of telling you I liked you. I took you out for Mexican right after, didn’t I?”

  I smiled. “And then seduced me.” I remembered walking into the hotel room in Las Vegas with him, knowing what we’d do there. I’d been both excited and scared to death.

  I’d fallen in love with him that night—as much as I’d pretended I hadn’t—fallen hard.

  Had never really fallen out again.

  “Couldn’t help myself,” Mick said, his voice tickling my ear. “You were the sexiest woman I’d ever met.”

  “Since most of your women were dragons, I’m not sure that’s a compliment.”

  Mick kissed my shoulder again. “I’ve been alive a long time. But the moment I saw you, my whole world changed.”

  He knew how to melt my heart. I rolled over, kissed him, and we made love again, slowly this time, face to face. I loved looking into his so-blue eyes.

  We slept again afterward, and when we woke, the sun was coming up. Mick lay next to me, facedown now, with the covers halfway up his legs. I sighed in relief. I’d woken up too often without him.

  While we lay in the early sunlight, I filled him in on what Ansel had told me while he’d been off healing himself. Mick’s skin was whole and smooth now, only a little scar on his chest to show for it, one too near his heart.

  Mick’s eyes flicked to black then back to blue as I went through the story. “I think we need to have a talk with Richard Young from Santa Fe.”

  “And the dragons,” I said with vigor. “I want a word with Drake. By the way, I’ve never had a chance to hear what you found out from them. You know, before Drake decided to set fire to the hotel. Please tell me it was nothing you said.”

  “I never saw Drake. I spoke directly to Bancroft. He doesn’t know where Laura is, or what she was doing at Chaco Canyon, and I believe him. He seemed surprised I thought he’d know.”

  “Drake’s playing a game by himself, maybe?”

  “Maybe.” Mick’s frown deepened. “Mmm.”

  “What?”

  He shook his head, lifted my hand on which I wore the silver and turquoise ring he’d given me, and touched his lips to the ring. “We’re going to have to work to figure this out, which means less time I can spend in bed with you.”

  My body warmed. “Then I say let’s find Laura as fast as we can, punch Drake in the nose, clear Ansel, and go back to bed.”

  Mick shook his head in mock anger. “I’m sacrificing way too much for them.”

  “I agree.”

  We both rolled out of bed, me stretching, Mick standing naked in the sunlight and watching me stretch.

  “Seriously,” I said. “You need to kick Drake’s ass for burning down my saloon.”

  “He’ll pay for the damages, believe me.” Mick reached for the jeans he’d left on the floor. I loved watching him bend over for his clothes.

  “Mick,” I said as he slid on the pants and began zipping and buckling. “What else did you do at the dragon compound? Something to do with why you’ve been going out there so often lately?”

  He didn’t look at me, which was a bad sign. Pretending to have trouble with his belt buckle, Mick said, “Dragon business. I’ll tell you in time.”

  Dragons lived so long that in time might mean five years from now. “I’m not trying to be nosy. You know why I worry.”

  “I know. You have good reason.” He finally looked up at me, his expression unreadable. “But I will tell you, when I’m ready. On this—you’re going to have to trust me. It’s complicated.”

  Everything about my relationship with Mick was complicated. Worth it, but complicated.

  “Do
you trust me?” he asked, watching me for my answer.

  “Oh, I trust you. I don’t trust the rest of the dragons or anyone else magical out there who wants to kill you or enslave you.”

  “You hold my true name, Janet. As long as you do, no one else can touch me.” He brushed one finger across my cheek. “The only one who can destroy me now is you.”

  I looked at him in sudden terror. “Oh, great.”

  His eyes warmed with his grin, and he kissed my parted lips. “I’m not worried.”

  Good for him. “You said last night that there were dragonslayers as well as Nightwalker slayers.”

  “That’s true. But dragonslayers are few and far between. Most humans aren’t stupid enough to go up against a dragon. Those who are . . .” He made a movement like he was scattering dust. “Aren’t any more.”

  “Natural selection at work?”

  Mick laughed. He kissed me again, picked up his shirt and went out, no doubt to find a giant breakfast. Sex always made him ravenously hungry.

  I showered, noting that Mick had worked healing spells on me while we’d enjoyed ourselves. My cuts and bruises had faded to mere shadows.

  I dressed and went outside my back door to perform my morning ritual of scattering corn to the rising sun. A few local rabbits watched me, waiting to dive in and grab the morsels, as did a crow perched high in the juniper.

  I waved at the crow. Might be Grandmother, manifesting to watch me, or just a crow. Either way, didn’t hurt to be friendly.

  I caught sight of movement on the railroad bed. Just a flash, but it was a coyote’s tail, the coyote dashing down out of sight into a wash.

  Then I heard a roar.

  Dust rose into the air from the top of the railroad bed, kicked up under the feet of a giant grizzly. The bear was far larger than a normal bear, its fur rippling brown and golden as it ran with startling grace across the railroad bed and down into the desert beyond. Dust hung in the air in its wake. It roared again, and the howl of a coyote answered it.

  I hurried to the railroad bed and scrambled up it, half curious, half worried. I didn’t often get to see Bear in her grizzly form, and I wanted to watch Coyote try to evade her. He wouldn’t be able to, I knew it in my bones.

  The grizzly easily gained on Coyote as he loped through the dry wash and up the other side. The morning light flashed on the bear’s brindled coat as she leapt, crashed into Coyote, and dragged him to the ground.

  I started to laugh. Coyote should know better than to try to run from his wife.

  Coyote shifted to his man shape, a big, muscular Indian male, well-formed in all areas. At the same time, Bear rose into her human female form, tall and formidable, breathtakingly beautiful.

  My laughter cut off as Bear raised her hand. In it was a long, brutal-looking knife that had appeared out of nowhere. As I watched, my eyes getting wider, she plunged the knife straight down into Coyote’s heart.

  Chapter Ten

  I found my feet moving, faster and faster, carrying me down the side of the railroad bed and through the warm morning toward the scene of the carnage.

  I sprinted through the dry wash and up the other side. By the time I came out from behind a screen of scraggly cedars, Bear was gone. Completely gone—no sign of her bear lumbering into the desert, or her in human form walking away.

  Coyote lay on his back on a flat stretch of ground, still human, a huge knife protruding from his chest.

  The knife looked odd, very plain and obviously old, but nothing like I’d ever seen before. As I dropped to my knees I saw that the inch of blood-soaked blade sticking up was made of stone—not flint or obsidian, but ground stone like granite. The handle was made of the same stone and wrapped with a strip of leather.

  I noticed this distractedly, because what I saw mostly was Coyote, his breathing labored as blood poured from his wound.

  “Janet.” His voice was barely a sigh. “You weren’t meant to see this.”

  “But why did she do this? Why?”

  I liked Bear. I hadn’t been able to get to know her as well as I’d wanted, because I’d been busy in the five or so months since she’d arrived, and she, like Coyote, tended to disappear for long stretches of time. Even so, I’d found her to be patient, kind, and full of practical wisdom.

  Not the type to pull a huge stone knife out of the air and viciously thrust it into her husband.

  But this was Coyote. Coyote was a god, a seemingly indestructible god. Earlier this year I’d thought him dead, but then he’d been fine. He’d laughed at me for worrying.

  Bear was a goddess—did that make a difference? Gods could kill each other, while mortals couldn’t make a dent in them.

  “What can I do? How do I help you?”

  “Take the knife out.”

  I reached for it. If this was some bizarre god game with god rules, maybe taking out the knife would restore him.

  As soon as I touched the handle, the knife dissolved and disappeared. I snatched my hand back, a dark tingle snaking up my arm.

  The wound didn’t close, Coyote didn’t spring to his feet and laugh, or tease me for worrying. He lay gasping, his lifeblood pouring out of him, his eyes clouding. He could no longer see me.

  I pressed my hands to the wound, trying to stop the bleeding. He couldn’t stay here. I needed Mick to take him off somewhere to heal him—anywhere. Maybe even a human hospital could help him.

  “Don’t try to move,” I said. “I’ll get Mick.”

  Coyote grabbed my wrist with a bloody but still strong hand. “No. Nothing you can do. This is between Bear and me.”

  “Why would you let her do this? I don’t understand.”

  “It’s her right.” Coyote gave me a smile, his eyes as warm as ever, even glazing over in death. “One thing you can do.”

  “What? Tell me.”

  “Kiss me. Legends say that a maiden’s kiss can heal a dying god.”

  “I’m not a maiden.”

  “I’ll risk it.”

  Coyote’s hand tightened around my wrist. He tried to reach for me, but he fell back, weak.

  I knew he wasn’t faking this. I’d seen people die before, and Coyote was dying. No way he could survive all the blood streaming from his chest.

  What the hell? I leaned down, reflecting that I’d always liked his big, handsome face, which always seemed to be in need of a shave.

  I pressed a kiss to his warm, parted lips.

  Coyote thrust his tongue hard inside my mouth, taking command. His lips banged against mine, teeth scraping. No gentle good-bye kiss for Coyote.

  I was about to smack him and call him a fraud, when his head fell back again, striking the ground with an audible thud.

  Coyote was still alive, but he wasn’t healing. More blood gushed from his wound, and his skin was cooling, his face taking on the ashen gray tinge of death.

  “You shit, don’t you dare die.” Tears clogged my voice. “I can’t do this without you.”

  Coyote gave my wrist a little squeeze. “Yes, you can.” He spoke in the Diné language, making my tears come all the more. “You’re so strong, little one. Stronger than all of us. You’ll need that in the time to come.”

  “Don’t you go all cryptic on me and then die. Hang on, Coyote. You’re a god.”

  “Even gods have their limits. Remember that. I . . .”

  He drew one breath to say something more, then he stopped. Just stopped. Stopped breathing, stopped moving, and his eyes went blank.

  “No! Quit messing with me. Stop it.”

  I shook him. My hands were red with his blood, and I rocked there, shaking him, yelling at him to open his eyes and tell me this was a big joke.

  He didn’t. A beam of the rising sun touched him, and his body rippled with light. Then he dissolved into stream of thousands of tiny light and dust motes that sparkled under the sun for a moment, and then they too were gone.

  I was kneeling alone in the dirt, sobbing, hands and shirt covered in blood, the warmth of t
he desert floor soaking into my knees.

  * * *

  I don’t remember how I made it back to the hotel, but I found myself there again, stumbling in through my private entrance and right into Mick.

  He took a step back and stared down at me, then he grabbed my wrists and turned up my gore-soaked hands.

  “Janet, what happened?” He shook me, his voice harsher than I’d ever heard it. “What happened?”

  “It’s not my blood.” I sniffled, then told him all of it. “He’s gone.”

  “He might not be. He’s Coyote.”

  “I thought of that. But Bear’s a goddess, and what if the rules are different?”

  Mick stared at me a moment longer, then he dragged me close, blood and all. “Baby, I’m so sorry you had to see that.”

  I was sorry too. I couldn’t erase the picture of my friend Bear rising up like an earth elemental and striking her knife into Coyote’s heart.

  Mick kissed me gently on the lips. “You go get cleaned up and have some breakfast. Elena’s going all out for everyone this morning.”

  I nodded. I didn’t want to shower; I wanted to grab Mick and run away with him, somewhere a long way from hotels, vortexes, dead gods, dragons, Nightwalkers, and my burned-down saloon. This spring, Mick had taken me to Hawaii, the Big Island, where we’d stayed in an old ranch house on the side of a mountain, riding down to the beach whenever we felt like it, lying in our big bed on cool sheets all day when we felt like that. He’d flown me to his lair, on an island not far away, and showed me his paradise.

  We’d only been able to stay in Hawaii a week. I wanted to go back there for a year, or better still, kick around the world with Mick like we’d done years ago, when I’d first fallen in love with him.

  My shoulders weighted, I slogged into the bathroom, undressed and took another shower. When I was clean again, I found Mick in the kitchen with Elena.

  Elena had indeed cooked a big spread—everything from eggs with chiles and spices to flatbreads, corn pancakes, and fluffy syrup-dripping puffed apple pancakes that my guests loved. I looked at it all and felt sick.