Shadow Visions: Shadow Warriors, Book 2

by Gabriella Hewitt

  “You have no idea what you do to me.” His voice came out husky, emotions crowding in his throat. How long had it been since he had felt anything deeply? And all because of this woman.

  “Oh, I think I do.” Her eyes twinkled as her hand slipped under the cloth to stroke him.

  He pulled her hand away and brought it to his mouth, sucking on each finger, enjoying the flush working its way up her cheeks.

  “I want to explore every inch of you.” Her breasts were round and ripe. He brought his mouth down to take the dark tip in, sucking and nipping and laving first one and then the other, until she was writhing underneath him.

  He kissed his way down her flat stomach, paying particular care to her navel, loving the way her breath hitched in her throat. The scent of her traveled deep into his lungs, fresh and pure and entirely Ixa.

  He hadn’t thought he could get any harder, any thicker, but the sight of her magnificent body lying there beneath him like a feast for a starving man had him swelling larger.

  He brought one leg up over each of his shoulders, ignoring her shocked breath. Her sex glistened with cream, just for him. He brought his mouth down and stabbed deep.

  “Manuel,” Ixa screamed.

  He gripped her thighs so she couldn’t move and speared her with his tongue over and over. Energy swirled around them like a living entity, air blew up and over and around them. They were in the eye of a storm. Safe. Untouched.

  He felt Ixa’s body tensing. She was so close.

  “Please, Manuel. I can’t take anymore. I want you inside me.” Her head rocked from side to side. “Now, Manuel. Please.”

  Whispering ancient Aztec words, he willed his warrior clothing away. Still holding her legs, he thrust inside her, swallowing a moan at the feel of her wet channel surrounding him. She fit like a glove made just for him. He pumped in and out, wanting to go slow, but too caught up in the energy building around them.

  Ixa curled her fingers into the rug and then she screamed. Her muscles contracted, gripping him so tightly that he came as well, his seed flowing out of him and into her womb. The energy crackled and sparkled all around them. Colors danced on the air. He’d swear they were both lifted up by the wind flowing around them before landing softly back down.

  Slick with sweat, he lay down beside her and gathered her to him. His fingers rubbed gently over her hummingbird tattoo. It tingled at his touch.

  “I think we died,” Ixa whispered.

  Manuel smiled. She could do that to him. “No, we are very much alive.”

  “There is no way we can do that again. That must have registered on the Richter scale.” She yawned, her body soft and relaxed next to him.

  “Go to sleep, Ixa.”

  She nodded, her eyelids already closing. Her body snuggled up against his. He held her tight, listening to her soft breathing.

  He would let her sleep…for now. But soon, he needed to be inside her again, because inside her hot, silken sheath he had found peace. He had found a home.

  He had found his humanity and with it he hoped for the one thing he had not dared to believe he could ever deserve again…a family.

  They lay spooned together on the small bed, where they’d eventually moved to from the floor. Ixa felt tired and spent in the aftermath of their lovemaking. The cool air of the cabin touched her skin. She shivered.

  “You cold?”

  “Yes.” She pressed her buttocks closer into the crook of his hips, seeking his body heat. He draped his arm over her.

  “I can restart the fire.”

  “No. Let me try.” She focused her thoughts on the hot embers that lay at the bottom of the potbelly stove. No longer a child afraid of her power and the past, she pursed her lips and blew. The fire was stoked and slowly rekindled. She waited to hear screams in her head. Silence reigned. Warm air picked up and caressed their bodies. She sighed in satisfaction.

  “You are doing well.”

  She twined her fingers with his. “It is you who taught me control.”

  He kissed her shoulder. “Tomorrow I will teach you more.”

  Ixa smiled halfheartedly. Worry crept up into the pit of her stomach. She had let herself get lost tonight with Manuel, but come the morning they both would be back to searching for her abuelo and Galante. She closed her eyes, and prayed that her abuelo was truly someplace safe tonight. Tomorrow morning, she would track him down and persuade him that whatever he was doing took a back seat to protecting him from Galante.

  She nestled closer to him. “Hold me.”

  “Forever,” he mumbled against her back.

  Ixa felt her heart squeeze. If only it could be true. But she knew from years of past experiences that nothing lasted forever. She closed her eyes and fell asleep listening to the rhythm of his beating heart.

  Boom…boom…

  The rhythm at first came soft and low, methodically lulling her into a false sense of calm. Then the beat changed to a fast, furious pace that hammered at the inside of her head. The vision shackled her into a small, dark corner hidden from the world of man. Images came in fuzzy and unclear, everything cast in shadows. Slowly Ixa emerged fully into the other place. Wet and damp, the smell of decay and rotting wood permeated her senses. A frail body huddled in a fetal position on a broken slab of cement, the face covered with bruised hands. Gathering sunlight offered feeble illumination, but enough to see the graffiti on dirty, smoke-stained walls, the swear words in English and Spanish a crude contrast to the daisy wallpaper peeking out beneath the grime.

  Desperately, she wanted to pull out of the nightmare. She couldn’t handle seeing another death. Watching another life she could not save drain away. But the vision wouldn’t release her. It swept her along in a torrent of wind, holding her captive.

  A laugh from a source unseen grated against her mind. Garbled voices chanted in the background while a figure came closer. A man with a half-skeletal face stepped from the shadows. Galante! He wore his evil grin, and she’d swear he reeked of madness. He grabbed the figure on the slab and held down the elderly person’s arms. Shock coursed through her as she recognized the beloved features of her abuelo.

  A lightning bolt cracked, and where the ground smoldered stood a man draped in a mantle of bones and teeth wearing a hideous rabbit mask. He raised his obsidian blade.

  Ixa kicked and thrashed, helpless to stop the event unfolding before her.

  “No!” she screamed.

  Chapter Eight

  Sweat coated her body as Ixa lashed out in her sleep.

  Manuel put his hand on her bicep—it burned at the touch. The tattoo on her arm fluttered against his palm. Something was wrong.

  “Ixa, wake up.” He nudged her gently, afraid to startle her. She awoke with a jolt, her breathing coming in fast pants while her body trembled against his. She looked at him with panic.

  “He’s going to die.”

  His protective instincts kicked in. “Who?”

  “Abuelo.” She covered her face with her hands.

  “Shhh, nohuitzil.” Manuel pulled her into his arms. He could feel her erratic heartbeat against his bare chest. “It was only a nightmare, my hummingbird.”

  “No. It was a vision.”

  Manuel froze. “A vision?” He lightly pushed away from her to better see her. “Ixa, can you see things that are going to happen?”

  Her hands fell to her lap. “Yes,” she said quietly, her face full of shame. “My abuelo calls this, too, a gift from the gods. I call it another curse.”

  “Did you see visions of the women being killed?”

  Ixa dropped her hands, but she didn’t raise her head. She was usually tough, defiant, only now she wouldn’t look at him. When she spoke, the words seemed to be dragged from deep inside her. “I never wanted this. I never asked for this. Those women. I could do nothing to help them. I watched them die. I wanted it to stop.” The last came out almost as a cry of anguish.

  “So why didn’t you stop it?”

  “What are yo
u talking about?” Her head jerked up, so that she finally looked him in the eye.

  Her stricken features tugged at the softer side he had recently rediscovered thanks to her, but he hardened his heart. “Why didn’t you stop the women from being killed?”

  “I can’t.” She sat up, the blanket pooled at her waist. Her hair streamed around her shoulders, offering tantalizing glimpses of her nude body, though she didn’t seem to notice. “Don’t you understand? My visions are of the future. I have no control over them. I don’t know where or when they are going to happen.”

  “I understand you didn’t confide in me about your visions.”

  She was quiet for a moment. “What do you want from me? We’ve only just met.” As if suddenly realizing the vulnerability of her position, she pulled the small blanket up over her breasts, shielding her body from his eyes.

  His eagle spirit sensed the disturbance in his emotions and demanded release. Manuel quashed his beast down, though a part of him wished for the freedom of the outdoors. Dealing with emotions after so long was difficult. Only this was too important to ignore or shove aside. He and Ixa needed to sort this out.

  He thrust his fingers into his hair, unable to calm the turmoil that seemed to be growing within him. “I expected your trust.”

  She stared at him, disbelief clear on her face. “You want too much. I couldn’t stop Galante from killing my family. What makes you think I could have protected those other women? And why does knowing about this freakish ability matter to you? Could you have done something about it?”

  “Yes. I am a shadow warrior.” Anger swelled in his breast. “Ixa, you are a cop. You swore to protect lives. If you had the opportunity to stop something that you knew was going to happen, you should have intervened. Those women were like you…special and irreplaceable. They could have saved another warrior’s life, allowing him to hold on to his humanity, but now we will never know. Your visions gave you a choice. You chose to sit on the sidelines and let Galante and his master take innocent lives, and now your abuelo stands to lose his. If they get away with it, then a darkness like no other will descend upon the Earth and all of humanity will be lost.”

  He got up from the bed, his body no longer warm, his heart growing cold. “You are not a child anymore, Ixa. You are an officer of the law and a warrior chosen by the gods to protect humanity. Where is your sense of duty?”

  Ixa’s eyes blazed fire. “Don’t even go there. I did my duty. I spent my life tracking that man down and put Galante away in prison. It’s your gods that set him free. Where’s the justice in that?”

  “You’re right. There is no justice. Shit happens to good people every day. You know goddamn well it does. You see it all the time on the job. That doesn’t mean you give up.”

  “I didn’t give up, damn you.”

  “You didn’t learn from your mistakes either. You refuse to use all the tools at your disposal. You have power that goes beyond the badge and gun that you carry. The gods gifted you with the ability to call the wind and they gave you the gift of foresight. I’m sure your abuelo offered to teach you how to control them, but you stubbornly reject anyone’s help.”

  She scrambled off the bed, pulling the blanket with her, knuckles white, holding the material tightly closed. “You son of a bitch. My family died because of me and my so-called gift. Do you have any idea what it’s like to hear the screams of your family every night when you close your eyes?”

  “Do you think you are the only one to lose loved ones? Mine were wiped out because I arrogantly believed I was smarter, faster and more capable than any other Aztec chieftain. They were slaughtered on my watch. I became a shadow warrior to find justice for them. Soon, my eagle spirit will devour my soul and even seeking justice will be beyond me. But until that day comes, I will fight because that is who I am.”

  “I can’t be like you.” Her voice shook.

  “You could be if you wanted to. That is why you carry the mark of the huitzil.” Weariness settled deep into his bones. The gap between Ixa and himself might as well have been a gulf. He thought finding his spirit mate would be his salvation, his hope to have what he had waited centuries for…his humanity and a family. He’d thought wrong.

  “Tell me what you saw in your vision.” He hated how harsh he sounded, but time was of the essence. Again he had underestimated his adversary, but this time the stakes were higher. All of humanity stood to lose. He had already lost. Being this close to his spirit mate and knowing that she would never feel the same way he felt drove a dagger through his heart.

  He would rescue her abuelo and deliver the demon to the netherworld, and when his mission was complete, he would give himself over completely to the eagle spirit, for if Ixa would not have him, he wished to feel nothing at all.

  Tall and strong, he dominated the room and simply waited for her to speak. She felt at a disadvantage. Definitely underdressed. Manuel, on the other hand, appeared unfazed by his nudity. Handsome and tough, he took her breath away. Her body still remembered the feel of his touch, and the sweet kisses he had run along her body. The musky scent of their sex still clung to her skin and laced the air. He stood out of her reach, his body rigid and demeanor cold, and she lamented that she had put that scowl on his face. She wanted to fix it but knew firsthand that there was no changing the past.

  On unsteady legs she returned to the small bed and sat down on the edge. One of her hands crept up to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “Can you please clothe yourself?”

  “If it will help you to concentrate.” He did as she asked. Manuel passed his hand over his body, mouthing words she could not hear, and changed into his warrior garb.

  Ixa felt like a pebble caught up in a windstorm, battered and buffeted from all sides. Manuel and her abuelo wanted too much from her, asking her to step into a world with rules she didn’t understand, where her badge and a gun meant nothing. They wanted her to embrace her talents and to forget about the fact that one small error on her part could wipe out all of San Diego.

  She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to recall the vision that might mean the difference between life and death for her abuelo. The vision blew through her mind with gale force.

  “I see Galante and my abuelo.”

  “Where are they?” A breeze filtered through her senses, containing the damp, wet smell of charred wood. A picture of a cheerful yellow daisy popped into her mind’s eye—a happy image that burned up in flames and turned into rotted wallpaper hanging down over a broken wall. “They’re in a burnt-down building.” Her throat clogged as she choked on black smoke. It filled her lungs, but it wasn’t from her vision—it was a memory.

  She blinked her eyes and came back to the present. “Galante’s returned to my old home. That house has been boarded up and shuttered for over two decades—my abuelo was reluctant to sell and I was too scared to revisit the scene of so much death and pain. God, it’s like a damn cliché. Murderers always return to the scene of the crime.”

  “What is the address?”

  Ixa told him, wondering if he realized it was now in one of the worst sections of the city, plagued by gang violence, drugs and prostitution. It hadn’t been so bad when she’d been a child. Maybe not the best of neighborhoods, but certainly not the eyesore and pit of despair it was today.

  “Is there anyone else with them?”

  Ixa pushed aside the past to concentrate on the present, knowing it was her only hope if she wished to see the future and possibly change it. “A demon of immense power. He’s chanting. All around him black storm clouds are gathering. He’s holding an obsidian blade.”

  “Focus on the man with the ceremonial knife.”

  Ixa concentrated. “He’s covered in bones, his figure deformed, but he’s not solid—it’s like he’s made of shadows.”

  “Metztli.” Manuel ground out the name. “The god of the moon. He resents his low status in the pecking order. He left the pantheon when humans stopped making sacrifices to him. The continu
ous sacrifices fed the gods their power. Without sacrifices, without belief, they are shadows of their former selves, though still capable of tremendous feats—both good and bad—that would seem impossible by human standards.”

  She looked up at him. “God of the moon. I should have made the connection when Galante mentioned him back at the warehouse. I’ve shoved Abuelo’s stories so far down that they’ve become a jumble of names and far-fetched events. Except for the shadow warriors. Their tales always loomed larger than life, no matter how much I tried to ignore them. Do you think the recent sacrifices brought Metztli back to life?”

  “Yes, I don’t doubt it. Their power on the earthly plane is somewhat limited, but each sacrifice directed towards them gives a god strength. Even so, it would take numerous sacrifices to achieve the power the gods wielded centuries ago. The question is, why? What has the moon god to gain from killing guardians?” He scowled as he pondered the possibilities. He turned around and focused on her abuelo’s walking stick. He turned back around and looked at her. His eyes glowed golden. “How could I have been so stupid not to see it?

  “It took Metztli a while, but he knew how to find you all along. He knew that if he killed the others, you would come and expose yourself to him.” His piercing eyes pinned her. “You are the guardian to the wind.” Without saying more he turned on his heel and headed for the door.

  Ixa jumped up from the bed, uncaring that she left the blanket behind. She chased after him. “What do you mean? I don’t understand. Where are you going?”

  He swiveled around, his eyes no longer human but those of the eagle. “Don’t you see? Metztli was never after you. He wanted your abuelo all along. Galante was a distraction meant to throw you off course.” He put his hands on her bare shoulders. She felt his power tingle along her skin, lighting up her tattoo. “Every god needs a vessel when they leave the pantheon to stay on this plane, something that will contain them, hide them from the other gods and allow them to live on. There is a reason you don’t have any pictures of Ehecatl. Your abuelo must be the wind god.”