The Bloodgate Guardian

by Joely Sue Burkhart

  Let her be trustworthy.

  “So if the magic flows through the Ceiba, where are the priests, like you, who use the magic?”

  “We’re the branches and trunk. Without us, the magic doesn’t flow. Unfortunately, there are few of us left. Magic in this world thins. The branches have been stunted.”

  Her eyes narrowed and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind, clicking into place. “The Lords of Xibalba would want the magic to die. Because once it fails—”

  “The Gates will fall open,” he admitted. He drew the knife. Immediately, her gaze focused on it. The startled flare of her eyes and quickening of her breath told him she still wasn’t comfortable with sacrifice, despite what she’d done for him last night. “Magic has a cost. I pay the cost myself as often as possible, but some magic can only be wrought with great sacrifice.”

  “Did you…” She swallowed hard and her face paled. She jerked her gaze away from the knife up to his face. “Did you ever sacrifice a human?”

  He kept his face smooth. “You know the answer to that question.”

  A shudder wracked her shoulders, but she didn’t pull away.

  “The tales of your time greatly exaggerate the role and act of human sacrifice by my people. Did we sacrifice people? Yes. But never mass slaughters where the steps of the pyramid ran red with blood. We have no mass graves. We never decimated an entire tribe by slaughtering every living being.”

  “How many?” Her voice was raw, ragged, her hands fisted at her sides. The pale tightness on her face made him want to snarl.

  “We fought wars. We captured our enemy. We gave them the honor of fighting in the ballgame. The losers were often sacrificed. Great kings, too, were often sacrificed, and they went willingly to save their people. What great sacrifice have you made? How would you save your people?”

  “You killed people,” she whispered, backing away as though she stared at an abomination. “Did you kill someone to resurrect your brother?”

  Grimly, he drew the knife across his palm, deeper than he intended in his fury. “Of course not. That price I paid with my own blood.”

  Turning away, he smeared his bloody palm on the glyph for magic. Pressure built behind his eardrums. His heart quickened. Jaid must have felt the rising power, too, for she let out a soft startled sound and edged closer despite her repugnance for what he’d done.

  The wall cracked. He pushed the opening deeper, revealing a rough-hewn door and tunnel beyond. She walked through without a word, her body withdrawn and closed. His throat tightened with explanations and entreaties, but he spoke not a word. For the first time in centuries, he had a reason to live as long as possible instead of finally ending his miserable existence in Xibalba.

  This was something she must resolve for herself. If she cared for him, she would work out the ramifications. She had to trust his motivations and understand his culture. If she thought him capable of casual murder, his words would merely break apart, ignored and unheard.

  Silently, he led her up the tunnel to the next door. This one, too, required blood. Magic pulsed in him, begging to be used, wrought by the powerful sex and blood sacrifice she’d given him last night. If she’d known what power it would give him, would she have refused? He dared not ask. The last thing he wanted was for her to regret giving herself to him, not when he would carry the memory and her scent in his heart forever.

  Heavier than the other door to better conceal the secret beneath the pyramid, this one took all his physical strength to move. Breathing hard, he rested his forehead against the stone.

  Jaid stepped closer and stretched out the hand he’d healed, her palm whispering of remembered blood and his lingering magic. Then she pulled away and stepped into the chamber.

  Clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and willed his heart to harden. For this next magic, he needed his mind clear and unhampered by foolish longings of his heart.

  How could he ask what she’d been willing to sacrifice?

  Didn’t he understand that she’d sacrificed her entire life for her father already?

  How could he, when she’d only begun to realize the truth herself on this trip?

  Nerves jittery, she walked into the hidden chamber. The torch cast flickering light and shadows on the walls, but she recognized the dizzying map on the floor as identical to the one in Chi’Ch’ul.

  Not exactly, she decided, squinting as she moved closer. Ruin brought the torch in and started lighting the ones ready on the walls, illuminating the small chamber fully.

  She brought up the map floor from Lake Atitlan in her mind, remembering the trio of volcanoes, the large blue lake, the rounds and their glyphs, and the corresponding numbers. “They don’t match.”

  “Of course not.” His voice was tight with repressed emotion, but he didn’t rant or growl about like a jaguar. She knew she’d hurt him with her doubts, but she couldn’t comprehend sacrificing someone, no matter how willing the victim might have been to “save” his people. “The key for Chich’en Itza is different than mine.”

  Made sense, she supposed. Each city had its own set of patron gods, so it was only to be expected that they’d have a different layer of encryption. “So what’s the key?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  Whirling to face him, she stared at him incredulously. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Then why are we here?”

  Pulling on a pair of jeans from the stash of clothing he’d mentioned, he arched a brow at her. “We don’t need to travel through the Gate to retrieve what we came for.”

  Or did he not trust her with the knowledge? Averting her gaze—although it was too late, for every bronzed inch of his body was emblazoned in her memory—she turned back to the map. Determination filled her, as well as that familiar excitement to solve the puzzle. She could reason out the encryption by herself while he did whatever he needed to release the White Dagger from its hiding place.

  Lake Atitlan and the volcanoes had been a crucial part of Chi’Ch’ul’s encryption. They believed their lake was the navel of the world, and that belief provided the answer to how to read the map—which is why she’d gotten it wrong the first time. She hadn’t really understood the Maya or the codex until she’d walked the ruin with the priest who’d lived and ruled there.

  So what did Chich’en Itza believe? What was important to them and unique to their city alone?

  The Sacred Cenote, obviously. They’d used crushed white stone to pave the White Way from the city proper to the cenote. They’d often tossed small items as sacrifices into the waters, and according to legend, people, too. Some dreadful accounts claimed children had especially been used. They were tossed into the hole in the morning, and if they still survived that night, they were pulled out. Often, they recounted “visions” that likely had more to do with terror and exhaustion than anything else.

  Or so she’d thought. What if they had managed to pass through the portal? Would the Great Feathered Serpent have taken pity on young people thrown into his Gate?

  Thanks to the legends about Kukulkan someday rising again and bringing the Maya back to their full glory, her father had spent a great deal of time here in the beginning. Here in Chich’en Itza he’d first begun theorizing about the Gates. He’d made his first significant find: a small tile in the floor of a temple beneath the main pyramid El Castillo, buried beneath inches of dust and dirt.

  There was so much about the famous pyramid that they still didn’t understand. Just a few years ago, someone had noticed that a strange bird sound emitted from the pyramid, supposedly the sacred and extinct quetzl. On the Vernal Equinox, when the sun reached the peak of the pyramid, the shadow of a writhing serpent raced down the steps.

  Last night, she’d seen a vision of a gleaming black pyramid with a blazing sun at its top and jade feathers falling all around. Surely a glimpse of what might lay on the other side of the Chich’en Itza portal.

  Fighting to keep her gaze locked on Kukulkan’s Pyramid on the floor�
��painted black, she noted, matching Ruin’s memory—she walked across the floor and stood at its peak. The map settled into place and the rings appeared with the corresponding numbers. “I think I’ve got it!”

  Face cast in shadows, he stood in the corner watching her. Gripping the knife in his right hand, his left hand still dripping blood on the floor, he sent shivers down her spine, even while her inner muscles clenched with remembered passion. Fear, danger and desire made a deadly combination.

  She knew he’d killed people to protect the Gate. As a priest, he’d even sacrificed people. Yet he’d saved her several times. When he’d touched her last night, he’d been only tender, gentle, his touch reverent. He possessed inhuman powers she couldn’t fully comprehend, but he’d only been a man last night when he’d held her, buried his face against her neck, and shook with release.

  Scanning the floor and walls, she tried to decipher what he’d done. There was blood on the wall in several spots. “Are you ready?”

  With a jerk of his head, he motioned her away from the relief map. She moved to the edge, opposite him so she could see his face.

  “Watch the Sacred Cenote.”

  Confused, she turned her attention to the map. From the city glyphs, the White Way led a glowing path to the blue circle representing the sinkhole. The image wavered. Narrowing her gaze, Jaid edged closer.

  Whispering beneath his breath, he stepped to the map and held his bleeding hand over the cenote.

  Hair rose down her arms and her scalp felt alive, crawling with energy. Her skin tingled with whispered breath. Ultrasensitive, her nerves tingled, her fingers itching, burning with…magic. It hadn’t felt this way at Chi’Ch’ul. Had passing through the Gate made her more sensitive?

  The blue paint of the cenote wavered with ripples like the smooth surface of a pool after a stone had been tossed in. She sucked in a breath and chills raced down her spine. Real. The water was real. A scent sparkled in the air like the moist jungle after a light rain.

  Wide-eyed, she leaned closer. Something white glinted in the waters. With his voice rolling like thunder on the horizon in his chant, Ruin reached down. His fingers touched water and sank through to grasp the white shape below.

  A voice floated through the living glyph. “It’s a trap!”

  “Dad?” Heart hammering, she rushed forward. “Hold on! We’ll get you out!”

  “Stay back!” Ruin shouted and threw up his free hand to halt her. “I’ll lose the connection if you step on the map.”

  Her father’s voice wavered as though oceans separated them. “Don’t risk opening the Gate again. One Death waits.”

  At first, she thought he meant that someone would die. Then she realized he meant One Death, the highest Xibalban Lord of Night. Her teeth chattered. If the most powerful demon waited for them…

  She fell to her knees and leaned as close as she dared so she could hear him better. “We have to send the ones that escaped back. I’ll find a way to get you out. I swear it.”

  “They’re waiting. Get out of there. Leave me!”

  Ruin closed a hand on her arm, pulling her up. “He’s right. They’re here. We have to get out now.”

  Desperation pounded in her veins and her ears roared with hurricane winds. “No, no, I can’t leave him! Dad!”

  In an iron grip, Ruin dragged her toward the secret door to the tunnel. “Now is not the time. I will help you as I swore, but you have to trust me. We can’t save him now.”

  “Okay,” she gulped, forcing the clamoring panic to recede. “What do we need to do?”

  He gave her a quick, hard smile and pushed her toward the tunnel. “Run toward the cenote while I set the Gate to get us out of here. I have to put additional safeguards on the magic to ensure the demons can’t escape through with us.”

  “What demons? If they’re in Xibalba—”

  “Your father spoke truly. I feel at least one demon, here, now. If it gets the White Dagger, all is lost. Now go!”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  The White Dagger pulsed darkly in Ruin’s hand. He knew a demon was close because of the jarring ache in his bones. Something hurt his ears, a shrill scream just beyond his hearing. He had to get Jaid out of here, immediately.

  If a demon took her, the Lords of Xibalba would have a powerful, untrained priest to torture. After they stole her knowledge, they’d kill her and possess her soul with the nasty weapon in his hand. The dagger hungered for souls like a slavering rabid beast. He despised its clamor in his head. His skin crawled but he dared not let the thing out of his sight.

  He stepped on Kukulkan’s Pyramid and double-checked the map. It’d been dozens of lifetimes since he’d used this Gate and he had to make absolutely sure. With the White Dagger in hand, he was powerful enough to stop his brother. Truth be told, he was powerful enough to stop every demon as well.

  He knew of only one place Wrack would go to bide his time: Iximche, Butterfly Star’s home.

  Ruin clicked the rings into place and raced after Jaid. He felt her waiting ahead in the outlet above the water. Magic swelled within him, the Gate shimmering in his mind. With his bloody handprints acting as safeguards in the chamber, all the Gate needed was a touch of his blood to open it only to him and those carrying his blood.

  Something he would have to correct in a heartbeat, or she’d be left behind.

  A demon howled, a cry of derision or glee that skittered down his spine. His sense of time told him it should be high noon, but no sunlight reached the waters. Clouds roiled in the small circle of sky, darkening the sun.

  If he failed, if he allowed a demon to reclaim the White Dagger for the might of Xibalba, the sun would be destroyed along with all the worlds within the rings. Yet dread at what he needed to do twisted his gut. What he needed from her now might be the final thing that drove her to turn her face and heart from him forever.

  Terrified but calm, she smiled with relief as soon as he joined her. “Where are we going?”

  Solemnly, he traced the curve of her cheek with his thumb. “Do you trust me?”

  She stared at him, her chin trembling slightly.

  “Priest!” The demon screamed above. “Surrender the White Dagger, or I’ll slice the woman’s skin from her body in thin strips and feast on her flesh!”

  She paled and her pulse thumped in her neck. Staring at him, she weighed his many sins against the night they’d spent together.

  Carefully, he kept his mind closed and his face shut down. He would not accidentally use the mental connection he’d forged through healing to sway her. Steeling his heart, he prepared to make the most difficult sacrifice of his life. His heart rebelled. A knife cracked open his chest and exposed his frantically pounding heart.

  How could he leave her to a fate worse than death? Did he dare force her? His heart raged in the everlasting battle he could never seem to escape. This was his true curse, this desire to throw all caution away for his heart.

  For his love.

  “I would die to save you,” he whispered raggedly. “I love you, Jaid.”

  She trembled. “You barely know me.”

  “I know your heart. I touched your soul when I healed you. I love you like no one else could. Trust me. Let me save us. I’ll pay the cost myself.”

  A splash told him the demon had jumped into the cenote, willing to risk that he’d send it back to Xibalba in order to gain the greatest prize of all.

  Ruin clenched his hands into fists. Choose, choose, he screamed silently. Don’t make me force this choice upon you.

  “I trust you.”

  Relief flooded him. He wrapped his palm around the back of her head and dragged her against his chest. “Hold this,” he rasped, thrusting the White Dagger into her hand. He dared not use it for this sacrifice, and he had a better chance of surviving this journey through the Gate if the weapon of power was not in his grasp. “Whatever happens, don’t let it fall from your hand or your entire civilization will die.”

  She wrapped trembli
ng, chilled fingers around his and took the weapon. He unsheathed his personal knife. Her eyes widened and her throat worked on a swallow. Or a scream? No time. He couldn’t pause to explain or comfort her, not with the demon swimming toward them, thrashing wildly in the water.

  Lifting the knife, he sliced both his shirt and chest open on a deep cut and dragged her toward his flesh.

  Involuntarily, she flinched back, her mouth opening on a protest. “No—”

  He hauled her mouth against his chest. Blood coated her lips and face, hot and coppery. She braced for revulsion. Gagging, retching, she’d surely throw up whatever small amount of blood he was able to force down her throat.

  Her stomach clutched, but not in a spasm of sickness. His blood burned like a shot of perfectly aged whiskey, rich and dark with a powerful kick. She shuddered, her throat closing on another swallow. Another. Once she started, she couldn’t seem to stop. His scent filled her nose, jungle jaguar prowling in the night. His strength enveloped her, his magic alive and breathing like thousands of tiny fingers against her skin.

  She couldn’t worry about the approaching demon, or the trap her father had warned them of, or the horrible plague, not with this man at her side. Not with this mighty jaguar prowling in the jungle night.

  “Enough.” His fingers tightened on her nape, at odds with his order. In her mind, she saw his darkest desire: to be seated deeply within her while she licked blood from his throat. Her body kicked into high gear. Her veins felt full of life, swollen with energy, magic, whatever he wanted to call it. Her skin felt as though it would simply peel away from the cage of bones holding it in place and dance with joy and passion.

  He murmured her name against her cheek. Rough like the jaguar’s sandpaper tongue, his tongue flicked out to lick a spot of his blood from her lip. She couldn’t help but moan out loud. His blood caught fire. Her muscles tightened with longing, and all she could think about was another night with him. Last night she’d had his tenderness and vulnerability. Tonight, she wanted his wildness. She could almost feel his teeth in the back of her neck, pinning her beneath him like a male jaguar would take its mate.