“If you know about Naago, why didn’t you have him get rid of Dokkon for you?”
“Because Naago and I have a special working arrangement. Having him perform this service would have drawn unwanted attention to that arrangement.”
Kato strode over to the bar and Deynas watched him. The strange enchantment of the demon’s color-changing scales and the scent he emitted commanded his full attention, soothing away his anger. Deynas was aware of it. He didn’t try to fight it. In this situation, his anger would only get him killed. The sooner he let it go, the better.
“The sword is not your weapon of choice?”
Deynas touched the staff grip. “No.”
Kato reached behind the bar again and pulled out a cloth. He tossed it to Deynas who caught it easily and used it to wipe the blood from his blade. Then he sheathed the weapon and tossed the bloodied cloth back to Kato. The big demon sniffed at the blood and smiled before setting it down on the black bar.
“It would be grand to watch Endless fight in my arena again. It is a shame your kind have been banished.”
“I won’t argue that.”
“The offer to work for me while you are here still stands. I can always use an additional guard downstairs. I will provide you room and board and keep your secret. In exchange for the service you’ve done me today, I will also give you Kaira to warm your bed each night you are here. A generous offer, don’t you agree?”
He wanted to hate Kato for using him, but he couldn’t. The demon was clever. He knew his business well and he used his uncanny glamour to his advantage in a way that Deynas couldn’t entirely resist.
“I will work for you, but I will hate you for lying to me.”
Kato turned, dropping to all fours. He looked as natural there as he did upright. His muscles bunched and he launched himself toward his desk. Deynas caught his breath at the stunning play of color that swept along his impressive form. He landed on the glossy black desk top as lightly as if he weighed nothing.
Kato chuckled and stretched out upon the desk. “On the contrary, Deynas-ra, you will love me because you cannot help it. Go to your rooms now. I will send Kaira up to stitch that wound and tend any other sore spots that might need attention.”
Deynas stared at him. There were so many questions he still wanted to ask. Ultimately, however, it was wiser to let his curiosity go unsatisfied and leave the warlord’s presence while he retained enough will to do so.
He bowed his head once and walked away.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
For three days, the Keeper let Naago show her his favorite places in the desert, or rather, let him direct her to them. She insisted on piloting the flyer. The arrangement was risky given that she could be called to keep at any time, but there was usually enough warning that she would have time to take the flyer down before she disappeared. It wasn’t clear to her what he saw in the vast canyons and towering rock formations he took her to, but something about flying from place to place put her at peace with the host body. The more she flew, the easier it became to let the host and its memories guide her movements.
Dusk of the third day found them parked on top of the tallest dune for miles around, sitting on the peak next to the flyer. They’d finished eating and the Keeper was content to wait, letting the light breeze blow through her hair while Naago held his silence, watching the setting sun. The fading light reflected off a pod of sand dolphins passing nearby and he stood. She stood with him, watching him, the wistful smile that played across his lips, the shimmer of sorrow in his eyes.
When the pod passed out of sight, he turned to her. “You never watch them.”
“Should I?”
“Nara loved to watch them.”
“Your umahk-ra’sen?”
He nodded. “You don’t find them beautiful?”
Frustration tightened her jaw. She gazed past him toward where the pod had been. “I don’t know that my spirit recognizes beauty the way yours does.”
He took a step closer and her attention shifted back to him. One of his hands came up to touch her cheek. “I recognize a great deal of beauty in you.”
Despite the obviousness of the flattery, she couldn’t stop a smile. Even if the flesh she wore hadn’t always been hers, there was something nice about his complimenting it. Or perhaps it was because of this host and its memories that his words affected her.
A nervous flutter rose in her stomach when he moved another step closer. She turned toward the flyer, fleeing his touch. “You said there was a travel haven nearby.”
“Yes. Do you want to pilot again?”
The thought brought another smile to her lips, which was all the answer he needed. He hopped up to buckle himself in against the stand. She climbed up and fastened her feet into the insets. When he had her harness secured to his, she reached to turn on the craft then hesitated, the deepening dark bringing a twinge of uncertainty. She twisted to look over her shoulder at him.
“I haven’t tried flying in the dark and I don’t know the way. Perhaps you should pilot this time.”
He reached his arms around her and took her hands, placing them on the control grips. His hands rested over the top of hers, his body pressed warm against her back.
“I’ll guide you,” he murmured in her ear.
At first, it was hard not to resist him when he adjusted her hands to change their trajectory. By the time they reached the travel haven, they were moving together easily, even playing with the sand and performing some simple maneuvers in harmony. It was what she imagined dancing would be like had she ever done it. The mind within the host was silent on the matter.
She pulled her hood up and followed him to get a cabin from the caretaker, watching his hands as he swapped currency for the key. They were strong hands that could wield a sword with frightening expertise, yet they could touch with such gentleness. Fascinating.
They moved the flyer to the cabin and he led her to the door, unlocking it and stepping to one side to open it for her.
Something slammed into her chest, throwing her back from the doorway. She hit the ground hard enough to knock much of the air from her lungs. The beast that struck her landed alongside her head and skidded in the sand. It spun around to snarl at the now empty doorway then hissed at Naago, who already had his sword out and poised to strike.
She surged to her feet and threw a hand up to stay his blade. “Don’t. It’s only a desert cat. Since it can’t see me, it’s probably rather confused and frightened right now.”
The cat’s ears lay flat against its head and it cowered low to the sand, its teeth bared. The Keeper let herself be seen and the animal started, bounding sideways in surprise. It hissed once more, then bolted into the night.
Naago sheathed his sword. “Are you all right?”
She put a hand to her chest, feeling the strong fast beat of the heart there. “Startled mostly.”
He turned to eye the cabin. “Cruel trick, locking that beast in there.”
“Yes.” She wondered if he meant it was a cruel trick to play on the person opening the door or if he meant a cruel trick to play on the animal, as she did. Probably the former from what she knew of him, though he had surprised her before.
The cabin reeked of urine and every inch of available fabric was shredded. She waited while Naago went back to trade the key for one to a cabin that hadn’t been subjected to the temper of an angry desert cat. This time he insisted on entering ahead of her, just to be sure. He lit the two lanterns hanging on the wall. She watched while he started a fire to keep the nighttime chill away. When he finished and turned to face her, his gaze focused in on her neck, his brow furrowing.
“You’re bleeding.”
She hadn’t even noticed the sting until he said something. “I’m sure it’s just a scratch.”
“I should check it. No sense taking chances.” He walked over and brushed her hair out of the way, his fingertips tracing across the skin of her neck. “It’s not bad. You’re right. Just a scratch.”
She sensed a change in his intent then and became aware of how close he stood, the warmth of his body heating the scant inches between them. His fingers slid up the side of her neck, his gaze following them along the curve of her jaw and on to her lips. She didn’t notice his other hand moving until it released the clasp on her cloak. The cloak dropped to the floor with a soft rustle of fabric. When she opened her mouth to object, he leaned in, silencing her with his lips on hers.
She stiffened, frozen by surprise and a powerful lack of context to pull upon for this situation.
He moved his lips away enough to murmur, “Trust me.”
Trust him? She had no idea how to respond to his attentions. Once again, the Keeper’s restricted memories had no guidance to offer.
His hand moved back down the side of her neck, fingers gliding over the black roots twined upon her skin and under the shoulder of her simple black dress, moving the fabric off her shoulder.
The Keeper’s pulse sped up then and her body warmed. The host body and the mind of the woman buried within it knew how to respond to him. The Keeper retreated to a back corner of their shared mind and let that presence guide her the same way she had with the flying.
When he kissed her again, she closed her eyes and kissed him back, letting him draw the sleeves of her dress down over her arms. Once her hands were free of the fabric, they moved up to begin undoing his shirt.
He unfastened the loose hanging belt at her waist, letting it fall on the soft cushion of her cloak. With that gone, he moved his hands down her body, sliding the dress over her hips so that it joined the rest on the floor. Then his hands began to move freely over her skin, exploring her curves with his gentle caresses. The host moaned into his mouth, pressing her body into his touch. Sensations swelled in her breasts, along the curve of her waist, over her hips, between her thighs, everywhere his fingers and lips touched.
The Keeper hung back, staying present enough to feel his touch upon the host, discovering what pleased it and how it pleased him. There was no confusion, only pleasure and the touching and joining of flesh. So new and yet familiar.
•
After Naago found the satisfaction he craved from her host body, he got up and went to sit in a chair before the fire, leaving her lying naked on the bed. The other within that flesh was quiet now, perhaps also contented.
He pulled out his violin case as he had every night and began to open the buckles. “When I told you to trust me, I didn’t expect such a willing response.”
She got up and began to dress, suddenly wary of the possibility of being called to keep while in this state. The cloak couldn’t hide her if she wasn’t even in contact with it. “Were you disappointed?”
“Not in the least.” He smiled at her, watching her with open appreciation while she pulled on the dress.
She adjusted the belt, aware that he seemed to expect some reaction to his words, but unsure what that reaction should be.
“And you don’t even blush a little.”
“I wear the body of an Endless woman. That does not mean I am one.”
“What are you?”
She glanced at him, feeling a prickling of frustration. “You have asked this before.”
“And you didn’t give me an answer,” he countered, his tenacity apparently as endless as his blood.
She picked up the cloak from the floor and flung it around her shoulders. “I am not an Endless woman.”
“You figured out how to respond like one fast enough.”
“In that, you are wrong. I didn’t know how to respond to you, but she did, so I let her.”
His brows pinched together as he watched her now, troubled. “Is it always that way? You can share control with the one whose body you inhabit?”
She fastened the clasp on the cloak, feeling measurably safer in its embrace. “No. I know it isn’t supposed to be this way. She should be silent. Dormant within this body.”
He was still for a time, his pensive look offering her none of the reassurance she suddenly longed for. The memory of the Keeper might have its limits, but that knowledge was certain. The host body was never more than a silent shroud of flesh controlled by the Keeper. Why was it different this time? Was it because the woman had been umahk-ra-en-mahde? Was it something Naago had awakened? He was umahk-ra-uden after all. Both were favored by The Undying. Perhaps bringing them together had disrupted something.
She went to sit in the other chair beside him. A few minutes passed in silence, then he pulled out the violin.
“If I play, will you let her umahk-ra come out again?”
“If you play, I will listen. Beyond that, I cannot say.”
He positioned the violin and took a moment to check the tuning. Then the bow sang across the strings. He closed his eyes and filled the cabin with a beautiful music. She closed her eyes as well, watching the light of the music dance in the darkness. This time it danced through the room in contented gold and romantic rose tones, a warmer, brighter song than any he’d played before.
She smiled. The umahk-ra within the flesh stirred and she let it move apart to flow with the music. There seemed little reason to hide it from him now. The spirit thief had already seen it once. He had stolen his fragment.
•
They left early the next morning, finally heading back to the city. He let her fly again, content to ride along. On occasion, he would start moving his hands over her body through the cloak until she would snap at him not to distract her from driving. Then he would laugh and tell her to focus. With the Endless woman’s presence actively helping her fly, it was especially hard to ignore his touch and he enjoyed teasing her.
They reached the city that evening and he took them in through one of the ever-changing illegal portals the sand demons controlled into the Undercity. He knew the demons on both ends of the portal they used well enough that they hailed him by name. She stayed unseen on the way in, standing still in front of him with her feet on the surface of the flyer and her hands clasped before her. The cloak worked to hide her harness, though a careful eye might have noticed the periodic shifting of his harness at the attachment points.
The uncomfortable beckoning sensation returned the moment they entered the Undercity, intensifying when they went in through the backdoor of the hotel she’d first met him in. The crossbreed guard also hailed Naago by name and opened the door to let him in. It wasn’t easy to become this well-known and regarded in the Undercity. Such notoriety came from dealings with the Undercity warlords who ran the fighting rings and the illegal medicine shops, businesses that were contrary to the very nature of the Keeper. For a time, she had managed to forget the circumstances that brought them together. Now his crimes began to weigh heavy on her again.
She followed him out to the lobby of the hotel, hanging back unseen, curious to watch him in the hostile environment he had made his own, a world that would tear him apart if it knew what he really was.
He strode across to the front desk, behind which a very tall, svelte blue-skinned crossbreed woman waited. In place of hair, she had a mane of dark blue feathers that hung down past her waist and was about all that covered her. She moved up to the desk, her body swaying like a stalk of grass before a soft breeze, and batted her long lashes over bright sapphire eyes.
“Welcome back, Naago.”
He smiled tightly and glanced about as if looking for someone. “Is Kaira around?”
There was a wicked gleam behind the crossbreeds smile. “She’s been warming the new guard’s bed the last several nights.”
“Has she? He must be something.”
The Keeper noticed a trace of tension in Naago’s voice. Interesting.
“Oh, he is.” The woman grinned and batted her long lashes. “What’s the matter, Honey? Jealous? I can distract you from you’re woes.”
“I don’t need company right now,” he replied a little too sharply.
Perhaps the crossbreed had read him right. He was jealous.
“I’
m busy anyway,” the woman answered just as sharply, her sullen pout belying the sentiment.
“Any messages?”
She reached a hand under the desk and brought up two envelopes that she handed over to him, then she turned her back on him and started to fiddle with the keys hanging on the wall.
Naago opened the first envelope and glanced inside. A thick bundle of high denomination slips nestled within. He pulled a blank message film out and closed the envelope, tucking it under his arm. He held the film over a small code printed on his left palm and a blue dot in the corner of the film flashed once. Text appeared on the clear surface.
The Keeper read over his shoulder, a flash of anger tightening her shoulders. The bundle was a bonus for helping the hunters take down a lesser god. There were unique organs in a god’s body that brought a very high price on illegal markets. The warlord who employed those hunters was sharing a small percentage of expected profits with Naago for luring the beast into their trap.
He tucked that message in a pocket and pulled another film out of the second envelope. This was from Kato, the demon warlord who owned the hotel, The Firelight gambling den, and the fighting ring in the ruins beneath it along with several other properties in the Undercity. The message informed Naago that the current champion had ‘the good graces to finally die’ and offered the ‘usual compensation’ if he were interested in rounding up some challenges for the new round of hopefuls.
Naago pocketed that message as well and turned around, heading for the elevators without acknowledging her. He was growing accustomed to that aspect of their relationship at least.
A rowdy bunch of smartly-accessorized, overindulged New City crossbreeds stormed through the entrance and took up a lively banter with the part-demon woman behind the counter. The Keeper followed Naago into an elevator, happy to leave the noisy group behind.
They went to the same room he’d been in when she first met him, likely a long-term rental given the kind of work he did for Kato. Naago tossed his things on the couch then turned, reaching for her with open desire in his eyes.
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