Chapter Four

Natalie’s entire body hummed with strange, fluid warmth as she gave herself over to the night and the moment. Whether he wanted to admit it or not, JT was right for her; they were right for each other.

But as they paused in the bathroom doorway and eased out of their clothes, piece by piece in the short pauses between long kisses, she knew, deep down inside, that he was wrong about the camazotz.

They didn’t come from any species that was meant to walk the earth. More, she was somehow connected to them through the parrot glyph, the crystal skul , and the bone-deep instincts that had pul ed her to this forest. Was she supposed to fight the creatures, like one of the warrior-priests in Cooter’s stories? She didn’t know, but the idea both scared and excited her. So did the humming warmth that sparkled somehow gold at the edges of her vision and dul ed the throb of fear.

Magic, she thought, the idea not seeming nearly as impossible as it had before. There was magic in the air, and in the way JT groaned when she raked her nails along his biceps, then down along his tattoo.

He turned on the shower, spun her beneath it, and pinned her to the wal with his hard, heavy body, his kisses going rough and needy. He ran his hands up her sides, into her hair, then down her arms to link fingers as they swayed together. In his touch she felt the heady urgency that pounded in her veins, a combination of relief at being back together and the painful awareness that it was only for tonight.

She wanted him, wanted to hold him, have him. They were protected inside the compound; the skul was locked in the Jeep, safe because nobody knew about it except her. If one night was al he would give her, then she’d take it. And she would deal with tomorrow when the sun came up.

The solar-heated water was at once both warm and cool on her skin, adding an edge to her pleasure as they twined together beneath the spray.

Outside the glass-wal ed shower, the night was seamlessly dark, broken only by a few stars high above, showing through the hole he had punched in the canopy. Before, she hadn’t understood why he had pushed back the rain forest rather than living beneath it. Now she got it, and the perimeter made her feel safer. But stil , she was acutely aware of how little separated them from the dark rain forest and the creatures that walked within it.

The knowledge added an edge that had her reversing their positions and pushing him back against the wal so she could taste him, biting lightly at his neck, his shoulder, the flat planes of his chest, and then lower down. As she closed her lips over the wide, blunt tip of his cock, he hissed out a breath and leaned back against the warm stone that formed the fourth wal of the shower, one arm braced to hold him upright as the muscles of his powerful thighs moved in time to the slow, grinding rhythm she set.

A harsh groan rattled in his chest, and his free hand dug lightly into her shoulder, her neck, the back of her head, not holding or directing her, but more proving to himself that she was real y there.

Or maybe not. She didn’t know, but in that moment al that mattered was that they were there together. She could ride the golden hum inside her, the one that made her feel powerful, reckless, and wicked as she ran her tongue along the thick, distended vein on the underside of his shaft, savoring the places where the texture of his skin changed, and where the touch of her tongue and hands could make him shudder.

“Natalie.” He said her name like a prayer, the gritty tone sending new heat sizzling through her as he swept her up in his arms, lifting her and spinning so the warm stone wal pressed against her back and she was the one at the mercy of pleasure. He tongued her breasts, making her arch up against him with the unfamiliar rasp of a three-day beard and the exquisite familiarity of his touch.

She moaned, digging in her fingers, urging him onward, inward, but he kept going with an insistent rhythm that drove her up, far beyond any place they had been before. She cried out—his name, a plea, she wasn’t sure—and he answered by kissing her deeply, thoroughly, pressing his body into hers without completing the act she craved.

Instead, he slid his hard length between her legs, along the slick cleft that wept for his entry.

Then he anchored her with his hands, spreading her and holding her exactly where and how he wanted her.

“Now,” she said, not caring that he’d made her beg. “Now, damn you.”

His chuckle was low and masculine, with an edge of the effort it cost him to set a torturous pace, pleasuring her without penetrating. She moaned with mounting frustration, then again as the rhythm caught fire within her and she tightened around the empty place where he should have been.

The water was cooler than her body now, cooler than the friction they made together. That contrast, along with the slap of water and skin, the wet slide of his body against hers, combined into a brutal y erotic thril that caught her up, turning her inward. She clung to him, kissed him, tasted his excitement and fraying restraint. And she went over.

She cried out against his lips as the throbbing pleasure took hold, gripping her and leaving her helpless to do anything but dig in, hang on, and ride it out. She said his name, cursed him, begged him, thanked him; she didn’t know what she was saying, didn’t care as long as he kept sliding against her, hard and ful .

Then the storm passed and she went limp. He let her down from the wal ; his chest was heaving, his eyes wide and almost wild. His hand shook as he slapped the toggle to kil the water; his steps were slightly unsteady as he led her out of the shower. “Bed,” he grated. “Now.”

She wasn’t arguing.

They toweled each other off and headed for the bedroom, weaving, drunk on lust. The hot, humming power raged through her, making her ache when they lay down together and he kissed her, his hands framing her face, his heavy erection trapped between them, throbbing against her skin.

Then he shifted and slipped inside her. She saw stars and comets, felt the pounding of her blood and his as he shifted to match their palms on one side, and then twine their fingers together.

Her eyes fluttered open and she looked down at their joined hands. She had lost the bandage in the shower, but the cut must not have been that bad. It was barely a faint, faded line now, matching up with the word tattooed on his left forearm: FREEDOM. The alignment seemed somehow profound, sending a new spear of sensation through her as his eyes met hers, and he began to move within her.

It would have been smarter to look away, to close her eyes and lose herself to the physical pleasure. Instead, she stayed locked on him, looking into him and letting him see too much.

New needs rose up in her, clawed at her until she surged against him, clung to him, urging him on and then racing ahead, her body bowing beneath his as the leading edge of another orgasm caught her unaware. It took her outside herself, to a place of push and pul , action and reaction, until she would have done anything, given anything, to reach the climax that beckoned just out of reach.

Her vision blurred; her eyes drifted shut. He whispered to her: “Natalie.” Just her name, yet in a soft, moved voice that touched her more deeply than it should have.

“I missed you.” She hadn’t meant to say it again, hadn’t real y meant to say it the first time. But

“I missed you.” She hadn’t meant to say it again, hadn’t real y meant to say it the first time. But he answered with a body-locking shudder of passion, a surging stroke that put her over and took him with her.

She clung to him as the world shattered around her, pulsed through her, lit her up with warm liquid gold.

Crying his name, she pressed her face into the crook of his neck so he couldn’t see into her eyes, where she knew there was no hiding that she had lied when she said she could handle a no-harm-no-foul night with him. Because if she had been in danger of fal ing before, she edged that much closer now as he came inside her, grating her name and a male litany of, “Oh, yes, oh, there, oh, gods, oh, fuck, yeah.”

They clung, shuddering, and then easing as their bodies unlocked. Then, though she knew she probably shouldn’t, she curled natural y into the too-familiar cuddle they had developed in their six-week stint as lovers.

Her heart hurt from the comfortable warmth of his body against hers, the touch of his breath in her hair, the pressure where he stil held her hand, and the way his grip gentled when he slipped into a doze. That in itself was a sign of his exhaustion. Always before, he had fal en asleep after her and woken before she was up. Not so now. His arms went lax and heavy around her; his breathing slowed and deepened.

Cuddling in, she closed her eyes. And didn’t come anywhere close to fal ing asleep.

She was wide-awake, her brain churning. Oddly, though, she wasn’t overthinking what had just happened between them; her mind was caught on something else, something that stayed tantalizingly out of reach when she tried to focus on it.

She frowned and opened her eyes, then eased back to look at him, trying to find the tiny detail that had caused her instincts to kick in.

Rather than softening in sleep, his features had become even fiercer, as if he couldn’t let go even when unconscious, afraid that something important would slip away.

Tenderness tugged at her. She touched his jaw, tracing the rasp of stubble. He hadn’t shaved since they’d broken up, she thought, and wondered whether he’d been out hunting the creatures al that time, keeping moving, not slowing down long enough to think. Restless. Itchy. Twitchy. Like her.

Don’t talk yourself into something that isn’t there, she told herself. But warmth coursed through her as she let herself mental y replay their lovemaking: his deep rumble of sexual completion, his earthy praise, his—

Her bel y knotted when she figured out what had been bothering her.

Just now, in the throes, he had said gods. Plural.

Oh. Shit.

There was nothing wrong with polytheism . . . but it was an almost unthinkable choice for a man who had grown up, as he had claimed, in a deeply religious family smack in the heart of the Bible Belt. Which meant he hadn’t, or at least not entirely.

Was it another lie? Or something that went deeper?

Her heart thudded as the getting-to-know-you stories he had shared about his childhood suddenly seemed too pat, almost rehearsed. More lies. Who was he, real y? How did he fit into this place, with these creatures? He was one of the good guys, a soldier, just as he’d said—that much she was sure of. But she didn’t know who he was beyond that.

Thoroughly chil ed even though she was stil lying beside his big furnace of a body, she slipped out of bed and pul ed on borrowed clothes, adding a sweatshirt against the bone-deep cold that had chased away the golden warmth.

Pausing in the doorway, she looked back at his sleeping bulk. “Who the hel are you?” she whispered. Inwardly, though, she was thinking, Who the hell am I ?

Was she a piece of whatever was happening in this place, or was this just the ultimate in orphans’ fantasies: that she was the lost child of powerful people, abandoned with a magic necklace that brought her back to where she belonged?

Or not, she thought, stil staring at JT. She didn’t do lies, didn’t do liars.

But what was the truth?

Turning away from him, she padded out into the main room and took a long look around, not sure what she was searching for, but figuring she would know it when she saw it.

A half hour and two cups of coffee later, she found it: the seam of a hidden door disguised to look just like the rustic, exposed-beam interior of the main room. After that, it wasn’t hard to identify the pressure pad that triggered it—the disguise was cursory, more to fool casual visitors than to evade a determined search.

She hesitated, nerves sparking even as her instincts said, Do it.

Blowing out a breath, she whispered, “Okay. Down the rabbit hole we go.” She wanted, needed the truth about what he was hiding, what it had to do with her.

As she opened the door and pushed through, she was braced to find almost anything. What she got was a plain, workmanlike space with a computer, filing cabinet, and other office detritus.

Not letting herself hesitate—she had already crossed the line—she woke the computer, wincing when a solar converter kicked on somewhere else in the house. But the machine was password-protected, and she was no hacker. So instead of messing with that, she searched the rest of the smal space, rifling through desk drawers, and then the filing cabinet. There, she found four journals, arranged by date, going back nearly a decade.

She pul ed out the oldest one and cracked it open, but then stal ed at the sight of his distinctive, crabbed writing.

Did she real y want to do this? He had lied to her, it was true. But reading his personal papers wouldn’t make that better; it would just make her guilty of something, too. Maybe finding the office was enough—she could cal him on it and see what he said. More lies, probably. But with her body stil warm and loose from their lovemaking, she wanted to give him the chance.

She moved to shut the journal, but then a word jumped out at her, and she froze. Xibalba. It whispered in her mind. Xibalba. It was the Mayan underworld, the root of evil and the source of the vil agers’ bat-demons. Which most definitely weren’t the cryptic species he had claimed them to be.

Another lie.

Damn it, JT.

Taking a deep breath, knowing she wasn’t going to like what she found but unable to walk away now, she opened the journal al the way, and began to read.

When the demons first come through the barrier, from Xibalba to the earthly plane, their flesh is raw and exposed, and they’re newborn-weak. They hunt animals in the beginning, the bigger the better, because they need the blood volume to power up. They drain the bodies dry, then take the skins to cover themselves—it knits somehow, so the skin becomes theirs, everywhere except the wings. In order to fill in their wings, they need human skin.

They were sneaky this time, taking only a few animals from each herd. It wasn’t until Rez’s family went missing that we knew for certain. And even then, they hid the bodies in their damned burrow. Skinned and drained, and left there for the poor bastard to find.

We go hunting tomorrow, and I hope to hell I don’t fuck it up. Some chan camazotz. That first time was a fluke and blind fucking luck, and now they’ve gone and made a hero of me.

Mostly because they need one, and the real heroes are gone.

I don’t even know if the jade ammo will work for me. We’re still eight years out from the endtime. If things are bad now, what are they going to be like two years from now? Six?

Fuck me. I never should’ve come down here. Because now I’m trapped.

“Son of a bitch,” she whispered, her skin chil ing to prickles of gooseflesh as things started to line up in a patchwork of fact and fiction—or what she had thought was fiction, even though old Cooter had sworn it was al true.

Her fingers trembled as she closed the journal, then laid her hand flat on the cover. Her scientist self should’ve been electrified by the grim discovery—it was a huge find, way more important than the temple. But she couldn’t get excited, not over this.

JT hadn’t just lied about his background and the’ zotz. He had lied about everything.

“Snooping, Natalie?” he said from the doorway, voice neutral.

She looked over as her heart thudded and her stomach gave a sick churn that was mingled with heat and heartache. He was wearing a tee and jeans and had one hand braced on the doorframe, so the FREEDOM tattoo faced her. He didn’t look angry so much as haunted. Caught.

She hated that she had to blink back tears. “How much of our relationship was you keeping track of me and my team, and using us to find tunnels the camazotz might be living in?”

It wasn’t the most important question in the grand scheme, but it was the one she wanted answered first, damn him.

He looked away. “Some of it.”

“How much?” The burn of tears went to a wistful ache. Give me something. Tell me the sex was about us, at least. She couldn’t have been that far off. Could she?

He didn’t answer for a long moment, just stood there staring at her. Then, final y, he muttered an oath and jerked his head toward the kitchen. “Come on. If we’re going to do this, I need some damned coffee.”

She sat for a long moment, holding the journal in front of her like a shield. Then she got up and fol owed him into the other room. “Got anything stronger than coffee? I think I’m going to need it.”

Five minutes later, armed with drinks and sandwiches, JT faced Natalie across the narrow butcher-block bar that separated his kitchen from the rest of the main room. He was strangely calm.

She had seen a ’ zotz, heard him cal on the gods, and read enough in his journals to figure out that he’d been using her. There was no point in denying any of it. And he was so godsdamned tired of being alone.

She was his lover. More, she might be impulsive, but she wasn’t irrational. Once she understood what was going on—as wel as he did, at any rate—she wouldn’t blab when she got back to civilization.

Hel , he was almost glad she had found the hidden room. Their lovemaking just now had changed something inside him, or maybe it had been changing for a while now. He didn’t know.

Al he knew was that he wanted her to understand who he real y was. No more lies, no more secrets.

“How much did you get from the journals?” he began.

Something shifted in her eyes, but she said only, “Enough to know that the camazotz aren’t anybody’s cryptic species.”

He took a deep breath, orienting himself. “Okay. Twenty-six thousand years ago, there was a . .

.” He trailed off as he heard the words echo in other voices, other times, handed down from father to son, generation after generation. “Scratch that. Screw the history. What matters is that there’s a barrier of energy that separates the earth from the underworld. It’s been destabilizing over time, making it easier for things like the camazotz to get through weak spots and come to earth. It’s my job—if you want to cal it that—to make sure they don’t get far.”

“ ‘Over time,’ ” she repeated. “You mean as we get closer to the winter solstice of 2012.”

His gut tightened at the reminder that the end date was way too fucking close for comfort. But he nodded. “Yeah. On the zero date, there’s a good chance that the barrier wil col apse entirely, releasing al of the nasties that’ve been banished to the underworld over the past twenty-six mil ennia.” He waited for her disbelief. Didn’t get it. Cool fingers walked down his spine. “Why aren’t you making noises about meds and rubber rooms?”

“Beyond having been attacked by a demon?” She paused, blew out a breath, and said, “I used to work for this professor who was obsessed with the 2012 doomsday. He was always tel ing us stories about the end-time war.”

“A nut job, you mean.” But something dark and nasty moved through him. Stories. He had known storytel ers, once. An entire culture of them, gone in a night, kil ed by a king who had dreamed of a great victory and had led his people into a massacre instead.

She tipped her hand. “In some ways. In other ways, Cooter was one of the smartest people I’ve ever met. And it was hard not to see how his stories lined up exactly with the historical record.”

“What stories?” He forced the question through gritted teeth.

Her expression went wary, making him wonder what she saw in his face, but she answered, “He told us about a race of magic users who have lived in secret among humankind, century after century, guarding the barrier against the occasional demonic breakout and training for the zero date, when they would become our saviors.”

“Son. Of. A. Bitch.” He lurched to his feet, heard the chair crash to the floor behind him. He wanted to pace, wanted to run. Instead he stood there, vibrating with an anger that had gone cold and sour with age.

She rose to face him, eyes wide with excitement and dawning wonder. “I’m right, aren’t I? That’s why you’re out here fighting the camazotz. You’re one of them. You’re a Nightkeeper!”

She might as wel have said, “You’re my hero,” because that was the way she was looking at him.

Bile rose. “Not in a mil ion years.”

Anger flashed in her eyes. “Stop it,” she snapped, advancing on him and dril ing a finger into his chest. “No more lies. It fits with Cooter’s stories. You fit. You’re exactly how he described them: You’re a trained fighter, charismatic as hel , and”—she paused, her cheeks pinkening—“the most sensual, sexual man I’ve ever met.” She met his eyes. “That’s part of your religion, isn’t it? Sex magic.”

Something twisted inside him. “I’m no magic user.”

“But you’re a Nightkeeper.”

The moment he had decided to tel her the truth, on some level he had known it might come to this. He’d built his life on living in the moment, dealing with the crisis in front of him, and didn’t want to look back at a past he had final y managed to forget. But for Natalie, whose enthusiasm and impulsivity had both charmed him and gotten her in a shitload of trouble, he would do it.

“The Nightkeepers are gone,” he said bluntly. “Back in the eighties, their king got it in his head that they could prevent the apocalypse by attacking the barrier at a sacred site in Mexico. He ordered every able-bodied man and woman into the battle, nonoptional.” He paused, forcing back the memories that tried to come. Apparently, he hadn’t forgotten any of it. He’d just blocked out the nastiness. “They al died, not just the fighters, but the children, too. Every fucking one. The demons slaughtered the warriors and then went after their home base, wiping it off the earth and turning it to godsdamned dust.”

That was the only explanation for why, when he’d gone back, he’d found only an empty box canyon where the training compound had been. And it was why he’d never been able to find anyone else like himself in years of sending out the signals his parents had taught him, until he’d final y given up.

Her lips parted, but no sound emerged. He couldn’t tel what she was thinking—hel , he barely knew what he was thinking, except that he’d gotten only halfway through smashing her il usions.

He made himself keep going. “But the thing is, the stories tel only part of what it used to be like, the part that makes them seem like heroes.” He paused. “I don’t know if the world is better off without them. Maybe not, given that the barrier is getting thinner by the year. But the thing is, I know for damn sure that I’m better off without them. Because I wasn’t lying when I said I wasn’t a Nightkeeper. . . . I was one of their slaves.”