Nightkeepers

by Jessica Andersen

  But she stilled as the reality crashed in on her, chilling her to her soul. ‘‘You’re in bed with me because you think there’s no point in our staying away from each other, that you’re going to have to—’’

  ‘‘No,’’ he interrupted, tightening his fingers on her jaw before she could pull away. His eyes went dark, his voice rough. ‘‘No, I don’t think that. I won’t think that. But last night when the ajaw-makol went after you, I realized that it doesn’t matter whether we’re lovers or not. You’re already too important to me. Losing you wouldn’t just be the greatest sacrifice; it’s simply not an option.’’

  ‘‘Oh,’’ Leah said, the word coming out on a long, shuddering breath. Just ‘‘oh,’’ because what else was there to say? Longing coalesced inside her, a bone-deep desire to be the woman who could love him. Scrambling to find distance and reason, she said, ‘‘It’s the god. Kulkulkan. He’s trying to reunite himself on earth by bringing the Godkeeper of his light half together with her Nightkeeper mate.’’

  ‘‘Maybe, maybe not. But more than that, this is us.’’ He shifted and sat up so they were eye-to-eye when he said, ‘‘It’s just you and me right now, Blondie. What do you say?’’

  There was a ton left to say, she knew, a whole list of reasons why their being together complicated far more things than it simplified.

  But in that moment, alone with him in the glassed-in solarium with the late-summer sun splashing down around them through privacy-tinted panels, it didn’t seem to matter that a future looked damn near impossible. What mattered was the two of them together. And the question that hung in the air between them. What do you say? he’d asked, and she had no answer for that, because ‘‘yes’’ was too simple a word for what was between them.

  So she leaned in. And touched her lips to his.

  The kiss detonated something inside her. The first touch of tongues brought heat screaming, and need.

  And rationality was lost. There was only desire.

  They’d kissed before. She already knew his taste and the feel of him against her. But it was different this time—there was an edge of desperation when he slid his hand up to fist in her hair.

  Heat flared, ripe and dangerous, and need was sharpened with the knowledge that their days were numbered.

  Suddenly the sun was too bright, the room too open, the sparse furnishings too modern. Leah’s heart beat with the rhythm of wooden drums, and that golden place inside her where the dying god lived had her rising to her feet and stretching out a hand to him. ‘‘Come with me.’’

  He stood without a word and followed her to the private temple.

  The torches flared as they stepped inside, reflecting their images from the black stone mirror—Leah tousled and bed-ready in a T-shirt that hit the tops of her thighs, Strike looking dark and forbidding and dead sexy in all black.

  Then she turned and hiked herself up on the altar as she had done before. Only this time when he moved up against her, so her knees bracketed her hips and they were eye-to-eye, there was no thought of holding back or turning back. There was only the heat spiraling up toward madness as they kissed, straining together.

  Leah moaned, the small, vulnerable sound escaping before she could call it back.

  ‘‘That’s it,’’ he said thickly, nipping lightly at the side of her neck. ‘‘Tell me where and how and I’m there for you, Blondie.’’

  He rocked his hips against her, creating torturous friction. She arched into him, offering herself to him even as she tugged at the hem of his T. ‘‘Hope you weren’t too fond of this.’’ She grabbed a corner of the fabric between her teeth, bit down, and used her hands to yank the material apart.

  The shirt tore neatly up the middle, all the way to the reinforced collar, which she parted with a quick jerk, leaving the fabric hanging off him on either side, baring his heavily muscled torso and the faint line of masculine hair that ran down the center of his ripped abdomen and disappeared beneath the waistband of his jeans.

  When their eyes met, she grinned. ‘‘Sorry about the shirt.’’

  ‘‘Screw the shirt; that was hot.’’ He got a couple of handfuls of her shirt and drew it up and off over her head while she nipped at the strong line of his throat and jaw.

  Glorying in the feel of him, the reality of him, she suckled his skin, reveling in the harsh rattle of his breathing and the stroke of his hands as he caressed her hips and sides, then traced inward to touch her aching breasts with a soft skim of pressure, a rough hitch of pleasure. Her nipples tightened harder still beneath his touch and she rocked against him, moaning deep in the back of her throat, though she didn’t let the sound free.

  ‘‘Did you dream of this?’’ he demanded, rearing up so they were pressed chest-to-chest, staring into each other’s eyes. ‘‘Did you dream of me?’’

  ‘‘You know I did.’’ She kissed him, wet and hot and openmouthed, stroking the bare skin of his shoulders and back beneath the ruined shirt, which he shrugged off and tossed aside. ‘‘I dreamed of us beneath the stars.’’

  ‘‘Tell me,’’ he whispered, his breath hot against her throat as he stripped off his jeans, then her underwear.

  ‘‘I slept in the attic,’’ she said between kisses. ‘‘Under a skylight. I touched myself and thought of you.’’

  ‘‘Show me.’’ His voice was harsh, his excitement vibrating to her core.

  At any other time, with any other man, she would’ve told him he was dreaming. But because it was here and now, with the man she knew better than anyone, yet not at all, she took his other hand in hers. ‘‘Like this.’’

  She guided him to her breasts, showed him whispered touches and long, slow strokes. She was aware of the firelight and magic around them, and the warrior who stood against her, watching with fierce intensity when she spread her legs wider, opening the place where she was already wet and wanting. She guided him there, guided him until he was touching her the way she’d touched herself up in the attic, the way she’d dreamed of him caressing her so many times before.

  Soon light and lingering wasn’t enough, and she pushed his hand against herself harder, quickening the tempo. Sounds broke free—a gasp, a moan—and needs coiled tighter within, and she whispered, ‘‘Condom?’’ They’d had unprotected sex once before, and their blood had mingled, but there was no sense being stupid about the pregnancy thing, especially under the circumstances.

  He grinned. ‘‘Great minds and all that.’’ Heat coursed through her as he pinned her with his body, reached across to his discarded pants, and retrieved the flat square of a wrapped condom. When he withdrew it from his pocket, there were multiple crinkles, and three others fell out.

  Leah found a grin amid the heat, amid the deadly seriousness of it all. ‘‘That’s optimistic. I guess you planned ahead.’’

  As he dealt with the protection, he touched his lips to hers and whispered, ‘‘I have faith.’’

  Ignoring the faint twinge that statement brought, Leah leaned into his kiss, into the heat, and murmured her pleasure when he shifted against her and poised himself for entrance. Her body ached with need, lending a sharpness to the desire as she looped one leg around his hips, urging him home.

  Yet still he paused, holding himself away from her.

  Frowning, she opened her eyes and found herself caught in his.

  ‘‘There,’’ he murmured. ‘‘That’s better.’’

  The connection stripped her bare. Claustrophobia threatened, fluttering panic at the edges of her consciousness. She scrambled for a joke, for a snippy comment that would reduce the moment to what it should have been—sex between two consenting adults who liked and respected each other, who desired each other, who had common goals.

  ‘‘Don’t.’’ He touched her lips. ‘‘Don’t try to make this less than it is.’’

  Don’t try to make it more, she would have said, but he moved before she could, sliding into her and disrupting all rationality with the feel of him. The reality of him. His ha
rd, thick length filled her, stretched her, set off neural detonations within her that took away speech, took away thought, and tunneled her vision so all she could see was the fierce love in his eyes when he took her. Claimed her. Made her his own.

  Her inner muscles clamped onto his invading length, stroking him as he thrust and withdrew, thrust and withdrew, each time seating himself deeper and deeper still until— Yes, there.

  Her breath whistled through her teeth on a hiss of pleasure, and she changed the angle, drawing him deeper and watching his eyes go hot with the new sensations.

  He growled low in his throat and increased the tempo of his thrusts, sliding in and out of her, simultaneously touching her core and her clit with each drive home, coiling the long-denied orgasm so tightly her body became a vibrating knot of tension. The sensation built, then faded into the hot, tingling numbness her body hid behind in the final few seconds before implosion.

  Her mind blanked. Her senses spun with the awe of it, with the hugeness of sensation as everything inside her paused for one. Breathless. Moment.

  And then it came, she came, the rush of pleasure starting in her fingers and toes and all the places where they touched, where they strained together. The shimmer coalesced inward, rushing to the point inside where she gripped his cock with the first long, drawn-out pulse.

  She said something, maybe his name, maybe something more dangerous, but she was beyond knowing, beyond caring, crying out as the inner contractions sped up, playing him, taunting him. He grew impossibly thick, impossibly hard, and his whole body went tight as he bellowed and came with her, within her. His orgasm caught the tail end of hers, kicking it back into the stratosphere, cramping her, wringing her with wave after wave of pleasure that held her paralyzed. Helpless.

  Fulfilled.

  When it was over, Strike muttered something and dropped his forehead to her shoulder. They leaned into each other as the torches continued to heat the air around them. A high, golden hum touched Leah’s soul for a moment, then was gone, leaving her feeling strangely empty and unsettled.

  ‘‘You’re not in this alone, Blondie,’’ he murmured against her neck, stroking a hand along her back in a gesture that was simultaneously reassuring and possessive. ‘‘You’re mine now.’’

  But instead of making her feel better, his words gave her pause, warning her that none of this was simple. Nerves tightened in her belly, bringing the sense that what they’d just done had gone too far, that it’d shifted something that shouldn’t have been moved. ‘‘Being your lover doesn’t make me a Nightkeeper.’’

  ‘‘Maybe not, but being consort to the son of the king has to count for something.’’

  It took a moment for that to sink in. Then, chilled, she leaned away from him, waited until he looked at her. ‘‘You made love to me for my own protection?’’

  Dark anger flashed in his eyes. ‘‘I made love to you because I couldn’t damn well not make love to you anymore. Don’t turn it into more than that.’’ He cursed. ‘‘That didn’t come out right. I meant that you shouldn’t read ulterior motives where there aren’t any. I wanted you; you wanted me. End of story. What happens next is completely separate from this.’’

  Only it wasn’t, and they both damn well knew it. It’d never been that simple between them and wasn’t about to start.

  She got it now. He thought that if they were lovers, the others might not force him to go through with the sacrifice, knowing that a mated Nightkeeper was stronger with his mate than alone, stronger still with a god-bound mate. But that didn’t even begin to address the fact that they apparently had a creator god stuck halfway between the planes, and the thirteenth prophecy loomed large.

  Strike, like his father before him, was trying to bend the traditions to save someone he cared for. And if his strategy failed, as it had done for his father before him, the results could be catastrophic.

  ‘‘Don’t go up against Jox and Red-Boar for me,’’ she said quietly. ‘‘Not without a backup plan.’’

  ‘‘And don’t you tell me how to do my job.’’ He turned away and started pulling on his pants with quick, irritated efficiency, and she could feel the darkness simmering very close to the surface. She could sense the anger that rode him, the frustration, and knew that what they’d just done had, if anything, made it worse.

  Knowing he needed an assurance that she couldn’t give, she dropped down from the altar and pulled her shirt and panties back on. The two of them were close together in the small space, but the gap separating them suddenly seemed wider than ever.

  She touched his arm, where his marks stood out in stark relief against his skin in the firelight. ‘‘I’m just one person, Strike. Like it or not, you’ve got a way bigger responsibility than that.’’

  ‘‘Tell me something I don’t know,’’ he grated out. He sounded angry, but when he spun to face her, she saw grief on his face. ‘‘Do you want to die?’’

  ‘‘Of course not,’’ she snapped, ‘‘but I don’t want to live four more years knowing the world is going to end because I’m still in it.’’

  He looked at her long and hard before he said, ‘‘You know what? Maybe I do.’’

  Then he strode from the small chamber, bare chested and pissed off. And he didn’t look back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Strike had a good fume on as he headed to his quarters for a new shirt. Gods, it seemed impossible that he could want someone so much, and want to strangle her at the same time.

  It flat-out pissed him off that in the aftermath of some pretty fantastic, earth-rocking sex, Leah had dropped into cop mode on him, looking for evidence in a situation that was governed by religion, for chrissakes.

  His gut told him there had to be a way to break the connection between her and the god—or better yet, to bring Kulkulkan through to earth—without either of them dying. But instead of trusting him, she’d all but accused him of bending the rules to suit his own needs at the expense of the other Nightkeepers, or the end-time war. And if that thought came too close to some of his father’s failures, then so be it. He wasn’t going to stop thinking for himself and blindly follow some two-thousand -year-old prophecy just because he was afraid of making a mistake.

  Even if it could cost the world the rest of the Nightkeepers? a small voice whispered inside him, sounding very like his mother, or what he remembered of her.

  ‘‘It won’t,’’ he said aloud. ‘‘I won’t let it.’’ But what if the choice wasn’t his? What if everything unfolded as had been foretold?

  And there, he realized, was the crux of things. He hated feeling as if he were acting out a script that’d been written long ago, hated the idea that free will was an illusion, that no matter what he did it was going to come down to his taking up the Manikin scepter and sacrificing the thing that mattered most to him.

  ‘‘Fuck that,’’ he muttered under his breath, determined not to let it go down that way. But he also knew that Jox and Red-Boar would be on the side of tradition— and, damn it, logic—no matter what arguments he made.

  So he went in search of his sister.

  He found her in the suite they’d shared as children— two bedrooms and a main room they’d divided with a strip of masking tape. She stood in the middle of the bedroom that had once been hers, wearing the same jeans and sneakers as the night before, along with a borrowed shirt of pale blue cotton. Her dark chestnut-highlighted hair fell to her shoulders in soft waves, and her eyes were the same cobalt blue he saw in the mirror every morning.

  Strike knocked on the door frame. ‘‘It’s me.’’ Then he stalled.

  There hadn’t been time for an emotional reunion in the grad student’s apartment, and he hadn’t made time for one the night before. Now, in the light of day, it seemed like it was too late, like they’d already settled into the uneasy coexistence that had plagued their growing-up years. He’d been the patrilineal heir to a dead culture; she’d been an itza’at seer whose powers had just begun to awaken right before the
massacre. And boy had that been shitty timing. While he’d dreamed for years of the boluntiku attack and the deaths of all their playmates and winikin, she’d been forced to relive the attack at the intersection itself, her seer’s powers showing her the deaths of their parents, the slaughter of the other magi.

  Among the survivors, only Red-Boar had seen the same things, forming a bond between them. When the older Nightkeeper had disappeared into the Yucatán rain forest a few years after the massacre, he’d left Anna behind, alone with the memories. At first she’d withdrawn into herself. Then, when Jox had enrolled both of the children in public school, she’d flourished into a normal high schooler, turning her back almost gratefully on the world they’d lost.

  Strike had understood even back then. But that hadn’t made it any easier when she’d left for college and they’d all known she wasn’t coming back. Only now she was back, and this time it was up to him to make sure she stayed.

  She hadn’t answered his hail, just stood there in the middle of the room, staring out the double windows that showed the ball court, and far beyond that the canyon wall, with its darkened pueblo shadows. Her blue eyes were dark with memory and sorrow, and Strike wanted to go to her and tell her everything was going to be okay, that he wanted to protect her now the way he hadn’t been able to when they’d been younger.

  But though he would do his damnedest to protect her—protect all of them—there was no way he could promise anything more. Not with the equinox just over a week away, and so much left to figure out. So instead of making promises he couldn’t be sure to keep, he crossed the room and stood next to her to look out the window.

  And, because there really wasn’t much else to say, he said, ‘‘Welcome home, Anna.’’

  A watery laugh burst out of her, and she sucked it back in as a sob. Still not looking at him, she said, ‘‘God, I hate this place. Nothing here but bad memories.’’