There was a blur of movement, a crack of fist on bone, and Zane flew back onto the table with his arms outstretched.
Cara gaped as Sven bent over him, fist drawn back for another blow. “Keep talking,” he warned in a low growl that Mac echoed from the other side of the table. “I dare you.”
Zane grinned to reveal teeth that were rimmed red with blood. “Go lick your own balls.”
“Insult me all you want,” Sven grated. “But not her, not like that.” His eyes raked the others. “And it doesn’t have a godsdamned thing to do with politics.”
The winikin didn’t react to that, but they also didn’t come to Zane’s defense. They just watched, stony eyed and rapidly sobering, as Sven dragged the other man up off the table and fished the cuffs from his pocket. As he started securing Zane’s wrists, he said down low, “If it was up to me, you’d be headed straight to Xibalba, do not pass go or collect dick. But the king wants Rabbit to ask you both a few questions, so—”
“No!” Lora exploded from her chair and lunged toward them. Mac yelped and grabbed for her with a flash of sharp teeth, but he missed as she came over the table and flung herself on Sven. He reeled back as she raked at him while screaming curses in a thin, high voice.
Jerked off balance when Sven dragged at the half-attached cuffs, Zane stumbled and went down to his knees, but when he came up, he had a cuff dangling off one wrist and was holding the .22 he kept in an ankle holster. He aimed at the back of Sven’s head and thumbed the safety.
“Gun!” Reacting instinctively, Cara swung the sawed-off as hard as she could. She hit Zane’s hand and the small pistol went flying, but her grip slipped on the follow-through and the shotgun went off with a roar.
And all hell broke loose.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
As the shotgun blast echoed against the background music, one of the winikin shouted and went down, writhing. There was a frozen moment of shock—Cara’s, theirs—and then the others broke and, shouting in drunken fury, hurled themselves into the fight.
She screamed and stumbled back under the onrush, but tripped on something furry and went down. Mac yelped and skittered out from underneath her, then reoriented on her attackers and lunged with a deep-throated snarl. The coyote slammed into the closest—Sebastian, who was reaching for her with blazing eyes. The winikin staggered and shouted in pain as Mac locked onto his forearm with grim intent. Cara scrambled to her feet and fumbled with the shotgun, hands shaking as she tried to get two more slugs loaded. She dropped one, got the other one in, and brought up the weapon to—
“Freeze!” This time it was Sven’s voice shouting the command, and there was a punch of magic behind it.
The sleep spell took hold instantly, dropping all of the winikin except Cara. Their bodies went limp and they fell, some hitting the floor directly, others bouncing off tables or one another on the way down, so the music—it was the Battlefield Band now—gained a bass line of meaty thuds and scraping furniture, along with Mac’s surprised snarl as he tore free from Sebastian and darted out of range of the tree-trunk fall of his body, which was the last to land with a heavy thunk.
And abracadabra, the fight was over.
Or rather, Cara saw with dawning horror, this particular fight was over and a new one was just about to get started. Because this was a winikin catastrophe of epic proportions.
“Oh… shit.” Blood speckled the floor and cloyed the air, and the fallen bodies were strewn like the losers of a battle. But she was the real loser here.
She had shot Breece in the leg. Mac had mauled Sebastian’s arm.
And Sven had magicked the whole bunch of them.
There hadn’t been a case of magic being used against a true winikin since Scarred Jaguar press-ganged the prior generation into the Solstice Massacre. This wasn’t on that scale, granted, but the timing sucked.
Back on his feet now, standing among the fallen with Mac at his side, Sven glared down at Zane. His fists were clenched, his body tight, and when the music swelled in the background, he flicked a hand and killed the stereo from across the room.
The silence echoed louder than if he’d shouted something over the music. More, it made her viscerally aware of his power and shifted something inside her, setting aside her dread for a precious moment and forging a tight pressure in her chest. One that felt like… awe.
He could drop twenty men with a single word and silence music with a gesture. He could throw fire, cast an invisible force field, telepathically communicate with a hybrid coyote, and move things with his mind.… How had all that gotten commonplace in her head?
It was impossible. Amazing. Incredible.
She had grown up dreaming of being part of the Nightkeepers, and while she might not be a mage herself, she was allied to one, connected to one. And, for an hour earlier that day, she had been his lover.
Letting out a soft breath, she tried not to shiver as the sudden heat rushing through her clashed with the cooler air and raised goose bumps on her arms.
He glanced over, eyes dark. “Damn it, Cara, I—”
His armband pinged and Dez’s voice grated, “We heard shots. You’ve got ten seconds before we come in.”
Sven tapped the transmit button. “We’ve got everything under control now, but a couple of winikin are going to need to see Sasha.” With a magical talent for healing and manipulating life energy, she was the Nightkeepers’ answer to first aid.
“Ah, fuck me. How bad are the injuries?”
“Superficial, but they’re going to be pissed when they wake up. I, uh, had to knock out the whole lot of them.”
“Damn it.”
“It couldn’t be avoided. There was a situation.”
“There always is,” Dez said, sounding suddenly very tired. “Okay, we’re coming in.”
The next few minutes were organized chaos as the Nightkeepers poured into the training hall, looking remarkably unfazed by the scattered bodies.
Then again, they probably were unfazed, Cara thought, mind whirling on the strange, shivery currents that were suddenly racing through her body.
Dez muttered a curse, but it didn’t seem to be directed at anyone in particular, and he looked more resigned than angry as he said, “Give me the four-one-one.” Voice flat and careful, Sven made his report. When he was finished, Dez just shook his head. “Yeah. That didn’t go down the way I had hoped.” His eyes flicked to Cara. “You okay?”
She swallowed, then said, “I’m not hurt. As for repercussions… well, the fallout is going to start the moment these guys wake up.”
“Which we’re going to leave until morning,” Dez decided. “If we’re lucky, they’ll think they blacked out.” His eyes went to the two injured winikin, who were being field-patched for the ride back to the mansion. “Okay. Maybe not.”
Turning on his heel, he rapped out a string of orders to the assembled team: Zane and Lora were consigned to two of the mansion’s basement storerooms, which doubled as cells, the wounded were turfed to Sasha, and the others were dispersed to their beds to sleep it off. Things shifted into high gear for a few minutes, and then, with a pop of displaced air as Strike ’ported them back to the main house, the last of the group disappeared, leaving Cara and Sven standing alone in the training hall, amid what looked like the aftermath of a decent bar fight: one tipped-over table, a little blood, and a lot of knocked-over chairs.
She stared at the place where Zane had been lying, and the only thing she could think through the spinning in her head was that there should’ve been more actual damage. Some rearranged furniture wasn’t nearly enough. “Tell me that didn’t just happen,” she said hollowly. “Tell me I’m still dreaming.”
She knew she wasn’t, though. She hadn’t dreamed the cave, the crazy-hot sex, or his confession, and she hadn’t dreamed this.
He moved to her side and gripped her shoulder. “Hey. It’s going to be okay. We’ll deal with it.”
“We,” she echoed, finding that the word jarred.
“Sure.” He squeezed and let go, moving a few feet away to flick a few chairs back upright—one with his foot, several more with his magic.
As before, the show of power stirred her juices. This time, though, there was also a jangling discord, a sizzle of warning. And as he put the table back into place with a gesture, the heat drained away, leaving behind a gruesome realization.
He wasn’t hers to desire, and they weren’t part of a “we.” She wasn’t a member of the Nightkeepers’ team, not really. She was supposed to be the winikin’s advocate… Yet she had fallen entirely under Sven’s spell, and hadn’t even noticed the change. Worse, when the time had come for her to get her justice against Zane and Lora she had hung back while Dez and Sven made their plan. Just like a good little servant.
Nausea pressed, forcing her to swallow hard.
How had it happened so fast? How had she not noticed? And how in the hell was she going to break the spell?
Pushing back her sleeve with a shaking hand, she stared at the coyote’s mark. “Is this what you want?” she asked, aiming the question at the gods, but a little bit at him too.
“What—” Sven began, but she cut him off.
“This shouldn’t have happened.” In hindsight there was almost no way the plan could’ve worked the way Dez had painted it. Even if they had managed to get Zane and Lora subdued without resorting to magic, there was no way a group of drunken, revved-up rebels would’ve let them walk out of there unchallenged. “We should’ve waited until they were back in their rooms and done it quietly.”
But what was twenty-twenty clear to her now hadn’t been before.
When Dez had proposed the plan, she’d nodded along, imagining the look on Zane’s face when she swaggered through the door with Sven right behind her. She didn’t know whether the urge had come from those long-ago superhero fantasies of hers, from some inherent ability of the bloodline mark to make her accede to the Nightkeepers’ king, from a deep-down urge to stay near Sven and try to figure out whether he really meant what he’d said back in the cave, or all of the above, and then some. All she knew was that she hadn’t been thinking about what was best for the winikin. Far from it.
“What happened here was stupid grandstanding,” she said bitterly, furious with herself for not seeing it at the time. “Dez wanted to show that the Nightkeepers are so powerful that a single unmated mage can control a whole room of winikin. He wants us to be able to rule ourselves… but only as long as we remember that he’s allowing us to.” It wasn’t the first time she’d had the thought, but this was the clearest evidence to date. She shook her head. “I should have refused to be a part of this plan. More, I should’ve stopped it.”
“Why didn’t you?” Sven’s voice came from nearer than she’d thought him, and she glanced up to find him standing close enough to touch her, though he didn’t. Instead, he held her eyes with an intensity that urged her to confide in him, to trust him.
She could do that, she knew. But only to a point.
“I think I got caught up in the idea of the two of us working together as a team, just like in the stories.” She hesitated, heart suddenly thudding, even though she knew what the outcome had to be. “I used to pretend we were gods-destined mates.”
And there it was. The impossible.
His hands moved as if to reach for her, but he restrained himself. “Then you have feelings too.”
“Had,” she corrected, then sighed. “Maybe ‘have’ too. Who knows? It’s all so screwed up.” Strangely, the knots in her stomach smoothed out when she admitted it. If anyone had told her that morning that she’d be talking to Sven this way, she would’ve laughed them out of her suite and then taken her own temperature to make sure she wasn’t delirious. “It doesn’t matter, though. Not really.”
“It could,” he said carefully. And the fact that his eyes slid away from hers let her know that it did matter, very much, to him. “We might be able to find a way.”
Her stupid heart picked up a beat, but she shook her head. “I can’t risk it. Zane was right when he said that I can’t be connected to you—not as your servant and sure as hell not as your lover—and still be a hundred percent committed to the winikin.” She cut him a sharp look. “How can you even ask me to try? Doesn’t that go against your oath?”
“The gods outrank the king.”
A shiver tried to crawl down her spine. “Why is that relevant?” She lifted her arm, turning her mark to face him. “Because of this?”
“Because of that. Because of the way the vision played out… and because maybe Zane wasn’t wrong about what the gods were telling him to do, just about what it meant.” He paused. “What if everything’s happened the way it was meant to? Or, failing that, what if the gods have fixed things so we’re back where we were supposed to be all along?”
“The gods don’t acknowledge the winikin,” she said through lips gone suddenly numb. “They only talk to the Nightkeepers.”
“Says who? It’s not in the writs, same as the part about the winikin not being able to do magic.” He leaned in. “Think about it. Scarred-Jaguar proved that he would do anything, say anything to keep control of the winikin. What if he—or another king like him—started those rumors?”
“That’s…” Impossible, she wanted to say, but the word got stuck in her throat, because it suddenly didn’t seem so far-fetched after all.
“The nahwal talked to you, not me,” he pressed. “And its message was about the First Father’s resurrection. The First Father made the winikin, Cara. Who better to remake them, bigger and better and able to fight the war?”
A shudder took hold, making her nerves jangle. “How long have you been thinking about this?”
“About wanting you? Years. About the gods being involved in it? It’s just now lining up for me.” He tapped his forearm, right atop the warrior’s mark.
That particular magical talent allowed the warrior-magi to subsume their emotions during battle and gave them increased reflexes and strategic thought. It was that strategy-making at work now, apparently, but to what end? Was he truly trying to make sense of things, or was he finding the path of least resistance? Gods knew that had been his style growing up. “You’re looking for reasons to do what you want. Newsflash for you: ‘The gods made me do it’ hasn’t worked as an excuse since the massacre.” But even to her own ears, she didn’t sound sure.
“I rarely need an excuse to do what I want.” And with that scant warning, he closed the distance between them, caught her against his body, and came in for a kiss.
She could have backed away or held him off, probably should have. Instead she stayed put as he cupped a hand beneath her chin, tipped her face up, and fused his mouth to hers.
Sparks caught, turned to flames. And just that quickly, the heat was back inside her, surrounding her, sweeping her up, and bringing an inner whisper of, Thank the gods. She didn’t want to have to think right now, didn’t want to try to interpret the signs or the gods’ intentions—if the magi hadn’t managed it in nearly four years of trying, why would she have any better luck?
No, she wanted to sink into the kiss and dig her fingertips into the lean muscles of his upper arms as their tongues touched. And as his arms went around her and he lifted to his full height, so her feet left the floor and their bodies were plastered together every inch of the way, she wanted to wrap her legs around his waist and purr into his mouth, wanted to strip him naked, lick him until she discovered which spots made him squirm, which ones made him groan.
But she had to think, had to figure out for herself what came next. Because if she screwed up now, the ripples could affect both the winikin and the magi, and from there the war. The knowledge weighed on her, overcoming even the tingle of energy that had gathered beneath her coyote mark and the burn of red-gold sparkles that teased at her senses, hinting at the magic she had experienced back in the cave.
She burned for him, ached to have him pounding inside her with no thought of today or tomorrow, onl
y the now that they made together. Instead, she eased from the kiss and pulled away, levering her forearms against the flat planes of his chest until he lowered her to her feet once more.
He didn’t let go of her, though. “Tell me you feel it.” His eyes were dark, his voice an aroused rasp.
She told herself to lie, but nodded anyway, mouth drying to dust by the heat that seemed to spin from her body to his and then back again.
“This kind of chemistry isn’t something you find every day,” he said. “It doesn’t just happen. It means something.”
Which, if true, meant that her search for future fireworks might be a long one. Trying not to let that possibility—and the twinge of dismay that came from thoughts of moving on—bog her down, she said, “Maybe, maybe not. But guess what? The gods aren’t my masters any more than you are.” Somehow, that didn’t twinge nearly so hard, which couldn’t be a good sign.
“Christ, Cara.” He glanced at the sky as if expecting a bolt of lightning, which might have been funny if it hadn’t made her chest ache.
“Wrong religion.” She took a deep breath and pressed a hand to her stomach, where a sudden churning suggested she wasn’t as comfortable with heresy as she’d first thought.
The winikin might not get messages from the gods, but they prayed to them all the same. And it wasn’t like these were mythical figures; they were real. Three months ago, when several smaller members of the Banol Kax had broken through the barrier and attacked the Nightkeepers’ summer solstice ritual, she had watched in awe as Strike, Leah, Alexis, and Sasha had summoned the gods they were bound to. The plumed serpent Kulkulkan, the firebird Kinich Ahau, and the rainbow goddess Ixchel had combined forces to drive the demons back to Xibalba. Then, as the solstice waned, they had returned to the sky in trailing comets of light and color.
It had been beautiful. Moving. And scary as shit, because it had driven home to Cara just how far off she was from the reality she’d grown up with, and just how dangerous this new reality was going to get over the next bunch of months.
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