The screen went black with a muted thunk.
Phoenix.
I swung toward the bed, where Sawyer stood with his paw on the control. I shook my head to clear it of the bestial hunger, that burning need to kill—it always freaked me out.
Your wound will fade more quickly in this form.
I lifted my neck, stretching the skin of my chest. He was right. Already, it didn’t ache or pull quite as much.
What happened? I asked.
I saw you fall, then she disappeared.
And then?
I kept fighting.
I should be glad that he’d stayed on task. There’d been nothing Sawyer could do to help me anyway.
Except I wasn’t glad. I was just a tad pissed.
With me lying dead on the ground, you just kept fighting?
I knew you weren’t dead.
Would have been nice if I’d known it, I muttered.
You need to wear the turquoise. Always.
He wouldn’t get any argument from me.
Speaking of that, you never explained why the sight of it made her go poof.
The stone marks you as mine.
A low growl rumbled from my throat. I wasn’t anyone’s, especially Sawyer’s.
His nostrils flared, no doubt from the scent of fiery fury that must be rolling off me like a flame. Relax, Phoenix, it was the only way to keep you alive.
Let me get this straight —if I wear the turquoise, she can’t kill me?
Exactly.
So I’m invincible.
He tossed his head disdainfully. Just because she can’t kill you doesn’t mean the rest of them can’t.
Damn. Invincible had sounded so good right now.
I returned to my original question. What happened in Lake Vista?
Sawyer lay down, rested his nose on his paws and sighed. What you might expect.
What good is knowing they’re coming if we can’t stop them?
We would have stopped them if not for her.
I stilled. She planned it?
Either she followed the luceres or she sent them.
Sent them?
Controlling Nephilim was a power of the leader of the darkness, and the woman of smoke couldn’t be that unless she killed me. Which she hadn’t done until after the luceres arrived. Even so—
The hair on the back of my neck lifted. She killed me. Does that make her the new leader of the darkness?
She didn’t really kill you.
Then how could she control the luceres?
She couldn’t. Not in the true sense of control. But she’s persuasive. Especially when what she’s suggesting is what you want to do anyway.
His tone and choice of pronoun made me glance up sharply. Was he remembering his father—the medicine man who’d embraced his bear spirit, who’d lived as an animal all of the time and come to crave human flesh because of her?
Or was he speaking about himself? Sawyer had told me once that she could make anyone do anything that she wished.
Despite my fur, I shivered. What had she made him do? What might she still?
If the Naye’i is that powerful, she doesn’t need to kill me. She can rule all the forces of darkness just by wanting to.
It doesn’t work that way.
Seems like the way things were supposed to work aren’t the way they’re actually working.
Certain things will happen. The leader of the darkness will kill the leader of the light, resulting in Doomsday. Doomsday will lead to Armageddon.
Some people say Apocalypse, some Armageddon. Is that like potato, po-ta-toe?
What does a potato have to do with anything?
I wanted to rub my forehead, but I had no hands. He was so damn literal all the time.
What is the difference between Apocalypse and Armageddon?
The final battle between God and Satan is called Armageddon. Apocalypse is a general term for the end of the world.
I guess that made as much sense as anything else.
We need to go after the luceres.
I killed most of them.
Sawyer wasn’t a seer or a DK, he was something else, something I’d never been quite sure of. I wondered if Ruthie was. She trusted him. I didn’t. He was a killer. But then weren’t we all?
We should round up the few you missed.
No point. They’ll return to their hidden lives until they’re called again. Luceres spread out, blend in. They could be anywhere.
I growled and scraped my claws across the carpet, reveling in the ripping and tearing shriek, wishing it were a lucere beneath my paws, or the woman of smoke.
How do we kill her?
If I could, I’d have done it already. We’ll just have to keep searching, keep trying.
A little random, wouldn’t you say?
What isn’t?
I lifted my head, sniffed the air, caught again the distant drift of flames and ashes. Why do you smell of smoke?
I’ve told you before; she’s part of me.
The Navajo are matriarchal. They believe the mother’s side is strongest. No matter what I said, Sawyer wouldn’t stop believing it, too. Sometimes I worried that she would bring him to the dark side. The thought scared me almost as much as Sawyer did. If he ever joined the Nephilim, we were finished.
The power that poured off him—morning, noon, and even in the dead of night—reminded me of the tornado Ruthie had spoken of. Inside Sawyer lay a storm of destruction just waiting to get out.
Is that why you conjured her all those years ago? Because she’s part of you? Because, like all neglected children, you long for her approval?
His eyes flared. I’d never asked him about that night; I hadn’t wanted him to know I’d been spying. But he must have known; otherwise why had he given me the magic turquoise that would keep her from killing me?
You think I’m secretly working for my mother?
Had I? Not really. But I couldn’t be sure. Not with him.
I’d touched Sawyer, in the most intimate way a woman could touch a man, and I’d seen a lot, but I hadn’t seen everything. Sawyer was capable of blocking me in a way that no one else could. I knew he was hiding something, but I didn’t think he was hiding that.
Why did you call her that night? I pressed.
He rose to his feet, shaking his fur as if he’d just climbed out of a mountain lake. I half expected cool water to sprinkle over me like rain.
We had things to discuss.
Call her now, I ordered, I’d like to discuss a few things.
You’ve always had more guts than sense, he muttered. Did you learn nothing from getting your ass kicked the last time? You aren’t ready to meet her again.
Make me ready.
His amusement fled, and he glanced away. I can’t.
Who can?
He didn’t answer.
So you aren’t going to conjure her?
There was a time when I could bring her to me with fire and blood and magic, but that time ix gone.
Why?
She’s stronger. She resists the spell. Maybe she always could, but now she knows there’s no point in trying to seduce me.
Seduce you? I swallowed, tasting something rotten, something green and slimy and just plain wrong, at the back of my throat.
His eyes met mine. If it meant getting me on her side, she’d do anything.
You’re her son.
She’s an evil spirit, Phoenix. The only thing being her son means is that I’ve got magic, and she wants it.
Can she absorb power like … I paused. Well, like I can?
No one absorbs power like you can.
I wasn’t sure if I should be happy about that or even more freaked out.
She can’t take on the talents of others. To get stronger, she either seduces them to her side —like she seduced my father—or she kills her enemies and removes their powers from this earth.
If you aren’t with me, you’re against me.
It’s a philosophy that’s kept her alive
a long, long time.
Sooner or later she’s going to get tired of waiting and just kill you.
You’re probably right.
Another shiver passed over me, making my skin ripple beneath all the fur. The only thing more frightening than Sawyer being on the side of evil was Sawyer not being on any side at all. My feelings about him were complicated to say the least.
Can she kill you?
He gave a little sneeze—amusement and derision rode on the sound—then pawed at his snout as if that had tickled.
I might be very hard to kill, Phoenix, but that doesn’t mean I’m immortal.
You could wear a turquoise, I suggested.
That wouldn’t work for me.
Why not?
Magic. He took a deep breath. It’s difficult to explain.
I’d have to take his word for it. Though I’d dealt with my share of magic lately—spells and witches and fairies, oh, my—I still didn’t know much about it.
So what do we do?
Sawyer lifted his large, shaggy head, and his gray eyes, which were both bizarrely human and savagely wolf, peered into mine. We find a way to kill her first.
CHAPTER 13
Considering no one, including Sawyer, had a clue how to kill a Naye’i his words weren’t as comforting as they should have been.
Let’s get some sleep, Sawyer continued. By morning you’ll be healed, and we can get back on the road. In order to kill her, we’ve got to find her.
We have to make a detour. He tilted his head. First Ruthie wants us to go to Detroit and meet with the benandanti who can remove the spell from the amulet.
What amulet? he asked.
I guess I hadn’t explained everything, so I did. Then, considering the turquoise, I had to ask.
Did you make it?
You think I’d give her something that allowed her to murder at will unseen?
When he put it like that…
Did you?
No. I’m not capable of that powerful a spell.
I snorted. I thought he was capable of a lot more than he ever let on. Still, I didn’t think he’d do his mother any favors.
Could she have made it herself?
Perhaps, but I have to think that if she could have, she would have, long ago.
We live and learn, I pointed out, and he dipped his head.
How she got the amulet is irrelevant, Sawyer continued. We have it now; it’s useless to her.
She’ll keep coming after it.
Isn’t that what we want? She comes after the necklace and we… He paused, a frustrated sound escaping his throat. If he’d been in human form, he’d have thrown up his strong-fingered, magical hands. Do whatever it is we have to do to end her.
In theory, I agreed. In practice, we don’t know how to end her, so she probably ends us. Ruthie was very adamant about meeting with the good witch of Detroit. And she wanted you to go with me.
What Ruthie wants, Ruthie gets.
I’d thought he would argue or outright refuse to go along, then disappear into the night on his own witch hunt, leaving me to travel alone. He was full of surprises lately.
Come to bed.
My head went up as he leaped to the floor, crowding me until my flanks hit the spindly, scarred excuse for a table and it rattled. His eyes flared, but I refused to look away. Alphas stared down betas. Problem was—Sawyer and I were both alphas.
I growled and bumped his chest with mine. He snarled and bumped me back. This could get ugly.
He ran his open mouth across my shoulder, teeth just brushing my skin, and I shuddered.
Or it might get something else.
Images flickered—of us together in the desert. The best sex I’d ever had.
No. I dropped to the ground, crouching, tail tucked beneath, a position of submission—until I rolled away.
He followed, stalking me like the predator he was. Come on, Phoenix, you know you want to.
The frightening thing … he was right. I wanted to. I would probably always want to. Except—
You ‘re a wolf.
So are you.
He kept coming; I needed to stop retreating. I’d never be the alpha if I let him push me around.
But—
His mouth opened in an expression that was pure wolf, in any form, and I understood.
The first time I’d touched him after Ruthie had died, I’d seen the eons of his life rushing past me, people he’d killed, women he’d loved, the many ways he’d lived. Sawyer had spent time as a wolf. He’d mated as one, too.
Gack! I don’t think so.
Try it, Phoenix. I know you’ll like it.
He moved with the blinding speed that was his in animal form, the speed I had in both forms, thanks to him and Jimmy. Nevertheless, I couldn’t get away. In this small room, there wasn’t anywhere to go.
His body slid along mine, and I saw what he meant; I felt it, too. The animal lust, the uncontrollable urge to be taken, to forget everything with a few minutes of sex, the joining of bodies without the complications of human thoughts, of emotions, an orgasm that would make me howl.
I cringed at the thought and leaped onto the bed, standing stiff-legged at the edge and letting the fury rumble from my throat. His muscles bunched as if he meant to join me, and I bared my teeth, lifting my lips far enough to reveal the red flare of my gums.
This was my place—higher ground. He could stay down there, where his very lack of height made him the submissive—even if it was in name only. If need be, I’d fight him. I’d probably lose, but there could only be one alpha, and it had to be me.
As if nothing had happened, Sawyer jumped onto the other bed, circled three times, and plopped down, tucking his nose beneath his tail before closing his eyes.
My heart, which had accelerated at the confrontation, slowed. He hadn’t meant what he’d said. He’d just been messing with me—Sawyer’s specialty. He messed with everyone. Still …
The images that had exploded in my head at his touch were primal—maddening, exhilarating, both frightening and exciting. My body responded in a predictable manner, throbbing in places that hadn’t throbbed in over a month. Places that had never throbbed that way with anyone but him.
I tried to resist the urge to circle as Sawyer had, to make a nest and burrow in, but I couldn’t. I might be woman and wolf, but in this form, wolf was hard to ignore.
Surprisingly, or maybe not so much, I fell immediately to sleep. Sure, the adrenaline from all the confrontations—the luceres, the woman of smoke, Sawyer, not to mention dying, if in name only—should have kept me wide awake. However, the letdown after so much excitement was exhausting, as was the shape-shifting, and no doubt the healing my body had done already and still had left to do.
In my dreams, the things I’d seen in Sawyer’s head, the memories of what had happened between us in New Mexico, were impossible to forget.
Sawyer and I beneath the moon and the stars. My hands sliding over his body, my fingers tracing his tattoos, absorbing the essence of his beasts, of him. The lightning that seemed to flash when we came together, the rumbling of the earth, the heat and flare of the power he’d released within me.
I dreamed of that night, and then I dreamed of this one. Of coming together as wolves, the pure bestial lust of it, the sex for sex alone, no future or past, an exchange of nothing but bodies. We had only now, only us, and the near-violent pace of his body within mine.
In my mind, in my dream, I was woman and wolf. My form flickered from one to the next as his did. The bed dipped as he leaped between them, the arc of his body in one form, the slide of his skin when he shifted to the other.
His flesh was marked with the images of his beasts— a wolf on his bicep, a mountain lion across his chest, an eagle taking flight from his neck. I’d always found it both amusing and disturbing that Sawyer had made the adage “drain the snake” literal by having a rattler tattooed onto his penis.
I’d asked him once why the markings didn’t heal
when he shifted.
They weren’t made by a human wielding a needle, but by a sorcerer who wielded the lightning.
In other words, magic tattoos. Hey, ask a foolish question . ..
Regardless of how they’d come about, the fact remained that Sawyer’s tattoos never disappeared.
In the night, in the dark, in my dreams, I explored the spirits of those beasts as I explored him. I brushed the eagle at his neck, the hawk at the small of his back, and for just an instant I could fly.
My palm cupped his shoulder, his chest, his thigh, and I was a wolf, a cougar, a tiger. I could smell prey on the wind; the urge to chase and kill was irresistible, almost evil in its gleeful intensity.
There were nuances to Sawyer I didn’t understand, might never understand, probably didn’t want to. He flirted with both sides, and I was never certain which side he was on. I wasn’t certain he knew.
“Are you evil?” I whispered.
“Perhaps.”
My other hand brushed his other shoulder, and I could smell blood in the water; I relished the chill lap of the ocean around my cold-blooded body. As a shark I ruled the sea; all creatures fled from me, and they should.
He rose above me, hip to hip, pressing us together intimately and lights flashed behind my closed eyelids. I grasped his forearms, and I was a tarantula, scampering along the desert floor, the canyons rising above me, yet there in the sand I was king.
Another image flickered, something new. Something that hadn’t been there the last time I’d touched him. I reached for it and became for a single flickering instant a crocodile. The strength of my jaws was legendary; if I captured something in my mouth, it was lost.
The idea enticed me, and I slid downward, capturing something else in my mouth. A long lick up his length, I wrapped my palm around him and heard the distant whisper of a rattler; cool fury washed over me, and I moved my body in a slinking, boneless motion that felt delicious against the sheets.
He pulled away; I let him go, enjoying the glide of his skin along mine. I tasted salt even as fur brushed my belly, my thighs, and in between. I arched, an offering to the beasts, to the man, begging him to take me in every way and in every form.
I wanted to run my hands over him again, to stare down at him as moonlight filtered in through the window, to watch his face as he came, as I did.
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