CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Jade awakened warm
and rested, tucked into a sinfully soft bed that smelled faintly of
minty sage. She was feeling deliciously loose and proud of herself,
and that latter emotion was so unusual for her, she took a moment
to track the pride to its source. Memory came flooding back in a
flash: She’d found her magic through a kiss, and she’d had to give
only part of herself to get it. More, she’d proved her second
theory correct: She couldn’t touch the magic unless she was
emotionally available. It wasn’t a comfortable discovery for a
woman who’d spent years teaching others—and herself—how to
self-protect, but there it was. What was it that Scarred-Jaguar was
supposed to have said time and again? Sacrifice isn’t supposed to be easy. Well, this one
wasn’t, but she thought she could learn to live with it, so long as
she kept a firm grip on reality.
Remembering another
aspect of her present reality, she shifted under the bedcovers,
reaching a hand to reassure herself that she was still wearing
Anna’s skull effigy. She wasn’t looking forward to telling Strike
what had happened, but she really
didn’t want to follow it up by admitting she’d lost the
irreplaceable pendant. She went still when she found she was
wearing only her bra. No shirt . . . and no pendant.
“Don’t freak,”
Lucius’s now- familiar raspy voice said. “It’s on the
nightstand.”
Exhaling a long,
relieved breath, she opened her eyes to mock-glare at him. “Way to
give me heart failure.” Then her eyes widened as she caught her
first glimpse of their surroundings.
She had assumed he
would’ve checked them into another no-tell motel while she’d been
sleeping off her postmagic crash, but the rough- finished wood
beams and pristine white plaster of the bedroom she found herself
in were a far cry from the average offering of a highwayside chain.
The sky was the blue-black of nightfall, visible through a pair of
French doors and framed by gauzy white curtains that were repeated
in the filmy swags that roped the huge canopy bed. A bedside lamp
was on, sending soft light through a cut-glass dome to gleam on the
yellow quartz skull, which sat safely on the nightstand, its chain
neatly coiled beside it. The bedclothes were white; the whole room
was white, except where splashes of violet and navy blue were
picked out in framed watercolors on the walls and boxy accent
pillows on the long couch along one wall. An open door offered a
glimpse into a bathroom done in navy tile with violet edging and
pristine white towels, with a Jacuzzi-jet tub big enough for
two.
Lucius stood in a
wood-framed doorway; beyond him she glimpsed a sitting area of
natural wood and emerald green, but it was only a glimpse before
her eyes locked onto him. Arms folded, he leaned against the door
frame, watching her with a familiar intensity that sent shimmers of
heat washing through her in an instant, and took her straight back
to the kiss they had shared in Rabbit’s sublet. That might have
been hours ago, but as their eyes met it might have been no more
than a few minutes. She was instantly back there, with need
coursing through her body alongside a poignant ache beneath her
heart.
His gesture
encompassed the room. “Not bad, huh?”
“Nicer than last
night’s generica America, by a long shot.” It was a room made for
romance. For love. It had probably been his only non-truck-stop
option for a hundred miles, she told herself. The choice had been
expediency, not seduction. Unfortunately, she had started the
evening already halfway seduced, though that had been her own
doing—and the magic.
“We’re at an inn
called the Weeping Willow,” he said by way of explanation. “Willow
is our proprietress. The weeping, I gather, occurred when her
fiancé died in Vietnam. Her parents both passed soon after, leaving
her family money from oil rights, along with the ranch, which she
turned into an inn because she likes having the occasional guest.”
He paused, the corners of his mouth kicking upward. “Or so I
learned after I made the mistake of commenting to the lady checking
me in that there aren’t many weeping willows out in west
Texas.”
“Ah,” Jade said,
matching his smile. “I take it the lady behind the desk was
Willow?”
“Got it in one. It’s
just her, a road- tripping family in the cottage closest to the
house, and us out here on the edge of it all.” His gesture
encompassed what she imagined was a whole lot of nothingness in the
night beyond the French doors. “And yes, I set the motion detectors
around our perimeter and made it clear to Willow that she shouldn’t
come knocking.”
Jade’s brain hadn’t
yet gotten around to worrying about security. She was still stuck
on the bedroom ambience and the man standing in her doorway. He’d
showered and changed into a fresh tee and jeans; he was barefoot,
his hair still slightly damp. She couldn’t decipher his expression,
and badly wanted to. Although he was keeping the conversation
light, there was nothing light in the hazel depths of his eyes or
the hard, hungry set to his jaw.
“Well, then. Since
you’ve taken care of the possibility of interruptions . . .” She
let the comment trail off on a suggestive purr, acutely aware that
she was wearing only her bra and panties beneath the bedclothes,
which meant he’d already had his hands on her once that night. Her
body tingled at the phantom memory, and in anticipation of what was
to come. “I believe that earlier today, you voted for sooner rather
than later?”
He hesitated longer
than she would have expected. She said nothing, though, did
nothing. Although she thought he was almost ready to embrace the
magic, to open himself up to it and to her, she wasn’t going to
trap or trick him into it. Finally, he exhaled a long, shuddering
breath, crossed to her in three strides, and eased onto the bed
beside her. “I can’t not do this,” he said in an undertone rasp,
and she got the feeling he wasn’t totally talking to her. “I want
this. I want you.”
The scent of sage and
mint intensified as he kissed her openmouthed, with the blatant
possessiveness that had sparked between them back in Rabbit’s
sublet. She kissed him back, helpless to do otherwise, but deep
down inside her, panic kindled at the realization that she didn’t
know the rules anymore.
Her heart shuddered
in her chest. Be careful, she told
herself. Be very careful. Because the
man kissing her now wasn’t the Lucius she’d come to know over the
past week. Or rather, he was, but he was also the Lucius she’d
known before, the one who had been so much more open with himself,
and with her. The man kissing her now was the man she’d been with
in the archive, the one who had sparked feelings strong enough to
frighten her and make her shut him down. Back then, she’d shoved
him into the friends-with-benefits zone, afraid that he might tempt
her into the trap she had seen so often in her practice, the love
that caused an otherwise strong, capable woman to disintegrate when
her lover turned on her, spurned her. He
wouldn’t do that, she told herself. He’s different from the others. He’s Lucius. But at
the same time, she imagined Shandi’s voice—or was it the
nahwal’s voice?—cautioning,
He’s just a man. He’ll distract you, weaken
you, make you forget what’s important.
Which might be true .
. . except that Jade was almost certain that this was the important part. She’d been wrong
before when she’d said sex magic was about the act. It wasn’t about
the sex, after all. It was all about finding the connection . . .
and it was up to her to show Lucius how.
Drugged with desire,
with the romance he’d brought her to, intentionally or not, she
kicked free of the bedclothes and came back to him, pressing her
near nudity to his fully clothed, fully aroused body. He groaned
encouragement and cupped her ass, his fingers splaying wide beneath
the lace of her panties as he urged her toward him, rolled partway
over her, pinning her with his good, solid weight. Their legs
wrapped together, threading in a four-way braid. Her feet rubbed
against the strong, lean muscles of his calves, and she thrilled to
the strength of every part of him.
Whispering his
approval against her mouth, he dragged a hand up from her hip to
her ribs, then higher, to shape the outside of one breast. Then he
popped the clasp of her bra, freeing her to his touch. Arching into
his hand, she grabbed the hem of his tee and pulled it up, rucking
it high between their bodies, and then off over his head, so they
were skin-to-skin.
“Lucius,” she said,
his name a sigh. Then, so she couldn’t say anything more, she
nipped his lower lip and slid into his kiss, moaning when it went
suddenly dark and wild, matching what she’d felt before when she’d
called her magic. She sensed the power hovering nearby, felt it
flowing through her and reverberating with the burn of heat as he
hooked a hand around the crook of her knee and drew her leg high
against his hip. He surged against her, setting a rhythm that
thrummed through her body and made her neurons sing, Yes, oh, yes. Or maybe those were her words, urging
him on as they kissed and rocked together, rolling so he was fully
above her, wholly pressing into her, holding her nearly helpless
beneath his big bulk. He kissed her deeply, demanding a raw, primal
response that she felt with her entire body.
He pulled away and
looked down at her, his eyes dark and nearly wild. “You’re so
godsdamned beautiful,” he rasped. It was the first time he’d said
something like that to her, and the small compliment brought
star-bursts to her bloodstream. Before she could say anything in
return, though, he shifted to cup a breast in his wide, scarred
palm and lowered his head to taste her, taking the tight, sensitive
tip in his mouth. He worked one breast and then the other,
concentrating on each action separately, with the intensity he
brought to the things he deemed important.
Helpless to do
otherwise, Jade arched into him, her mouth opening on a silent cry.
She buried her hands in his hair, holding him there for a long,
glorious moment. A faint warning sounded at the back of her
consciousness, a spark of panic that kindled as heat and want
flared through her and she lost track of herself. Her whole world
concentrated itself down to Lucius, and the ways he was touching
her, the things he was making her feel.
Was this, then, what
other women found with their lovers? Was this the path to madness?
If so, she needed to back off, gear down, let things level. But
even as she was aware of the fear and the thought, both were lost
to the pressure growing within her, the need to have her hands and
mouth on every part of him, to make him feel the same obsessive
need that gripped her. Before she could make the move, though, he
moved to kiss his way down her body, leaving her no choice but to
caress whatever part of him she could reach, and absorb the
feelings detonating within. Pleasure slammed into her, through her,
great waves of it building and growing, holding her hostage to each
new sensation. Then he moved back up her body and she was surprised
to realize that he was naked now, that they both were.
The glide of skin
against skin was viciously erotic as he slid up her body to kiss
her mouth once again. She tasted the faint salt from her own skin,
the sharp tang of his arousal, and the combination of the two.
Sinking into him, letting the rest of the world fall away, she gave
herself over to the gossamer pleasure he’d brought her, and the
sharp need to have him inside her. Wrapping her legs around him,
she opened to him, shifting until they were almost, but not quite,
joined male to female, hard to soft.
He went still above
her, in her arms. But he didn’t thrust home. Instead he stayed
there, poised and unmoving.
Jade opened her eyes
to find him staring down at her, his hazel eyes hot and borderline
wild. But when their gazes met, his expression eased. He touched
her face, drawing a finger down her cheek to her chin, then tipping
her mouth up to meet his in a kiss. When the kiss ended, he
whispered, “There you are.”
Then, before she
could respond—if she’d even known how
to respond—he shifted, aligning their bodies more surely, leaned in
to kiss her long and deep . . . and slid into her. And as he did
so, she understood what he’d been waiting for. Not for her to give
in or give up, but for her to return to him and be in the moment,
with him. With them.
No longer lost in the
layers of pleasure, she acutely felt his penetration, felt her
inner channel stretching to accept him, tightening around him in a
squeeze of welcome that wrung a groan from deep within his chest.
The sound of it vibrated through her, making her neurons hum and
spark, and making her intensely aware of his size within and
without, and the carefully leashed strength that pulsed through him
as he hooked his arms behind her, loosely gripped her shoulders,
and used the leverage to hold her in place when he began to
move.
She should protest,
she knew, should assert herself as a partner in their sex, giving
back equally rather than allowing herself to be dominated, pinned
down, taken. And she would protest, she assured herself. In a minute.
But one minute turned to several, then to time untold as he moved
over her, inside her, giving her pleasure and taking it in return.
Sweat slicked his spine and sides, causing her hands to slip as she
touched him, stroked him, her hips pistoning in aching counterpoint
to his strokes as heat built to a roar. His tempo increased; she
clung to him, buried her face in the crook of his neck, and
took. She wasn’t giving anymore, wasn’t
thinking about his pleasure; she was beyond that, gone past herself
to a mindless place that beat with an ungrammatical chant of,
“More, harder, yes, oh, yes, there!”
Gods. She didn’t know her own name, didn’t care about anything
happening beyond the hard grasp of his arms and the expanding
sphere of her own pleasure, which had gone sharp, growing teeth,
needs, and demands. “Yes, like that. Please.”
She was begging and
didn’t care. He was saying things too, but she could barely hear
him over the hammering pounding of the blood in her veins and his
body into hers, and the broken gasps of pleasure that streamed from
her. Ohyesohyesohyes! Clinging to him,
hanging on to him with the knowledge that she’d be lost if she let
go, she cried out as the first orgasmic contraction seized her,
making her whole body rigid and vising her inner muscles around his
thick, heavy length.
He gave a guttural
roar that brought her even higher as he thrust and thrust again.
Then he seated himself to the hilt within her, pressing hard
against her most sensitive spots within and without, bowed his
head, and let himself go. His muscles locked rigor-tight as he
bowed into her, held her against him, and shuddered his release.
Hips flexing, he pressed himself into her harder still, once and
again, in an automatic reflex that protracted the echoes of her
pleasure.
They stayed locked
together, holding hard on to each other, for a long, long
time.
Eventually, though,
the heat faded to languor and reality returned. And that reality
had Jade’s hands staying locked onto his shoulders, and her face
remaining pressed against his throat . . . because she didn’t have
a clue what to do next, what to say. She would’ve liked to keep
things light and playful, as she’d meant to in the very beginning,
but somewhere between desire and domination, things had turned
serious.
Lucius let out a
long, satisfied breath, muttered something about crushing her, and
sort of flopped off to one side. Part of her would’ve been relieved
if he’d landed facedown and fallen immediately unconscious, as one
of her unlamented exes had habitually done after far more lukewarm
sex than the room rocking that had just occurred. Lucius, though,
propped himself up on one elbow and gazed at her, his expression
far more intense than she would’ve preferred. She wasn’t sure what
he read there; his expression was guarded and his voice gave away
nothing of his inner thoughts when he said, “You
okay?”
It was the sort of
thing lovers said to each other when they didn’t know what else to
say. In this case, though, she knew he meant it, that he truly
wanted to know where her head was at in the aftermath of . . .
well, in the aftermath. But she didn’t know where her head was at,
wasn’t really sure if she was okay or not. The sex had been . . .
amazing. They’d connected, pleased each other. But whereas her
magic had kindled, flowing within her, his magic hadn’t. There had
been no hint of the whirling, tugging sensation she’d experienced
right before their transition to Xibalba, and again when she’d been
swept into the barrier in his wake. He’d given no sign of sensing
anything beyond very, very good sex. Which
means that was all it was for him, she thought on a long,
slow twist of disappointment.
“I’m—” She broke off,
gut icing at what sounded like a cry of pain from outside. “Did you
hear that?”
Seconds later it came
again, and this time there was no mistaking the sound of a woman’s
scream. It was muffled by distance, but carried terror and pain.
Adrenaline jolted through Jade. She was moving even before the
motion sensors guarding their perimeter went off with a loud
whoop of alarm.
“Shit!” Lucius scrambled off the bed and hit the
floor hard, yanking on his clothes as he ran. He grabbed her folded
clothes from a chair and chucked the shirt and jeans in her
direction. “Hurry.” He disappeared into
the sitting room; moments later, she heard the snick of the lockbox
latches and the metallic clicks of clips being slapped home into
autopistols.
Dragging on her jeans
first, Jade pulled the panic button out of her pocket and activated
it as she shoved her feet into her sneakers. She dropped the
handheld unit in the process of jerking her shirt on over her head.
Just as she bent to retrieve it, the French doors exploded inward
and the chatter of machine-gun fire split the night. The bullets
cut through the air where she’d just been, slicing the white canopy
swags to tatters and pulping plaster to dust as she threw herself
flat behind the bed.
“Jade!” Lucius appeared in the doorway, carrying a
double-barreled shotgun with deadly menace. He was wearing black
body armor over his T-shirt and a black utility belt slung low
across his hips over his jeans. The belt was loaded with spare
clips and guns, and a military-style combat knife hung where the
magi wore their bloodline blades. The combination of warrior’s gear
and human casual should have jarred. Instead, it made him look
deadly and capable.
“I’m here! I’m okay.”
She scrabbled partway up, grabbed the skull effigy off the bedside
table, and then lunged toward him while he laid down cover fire
with double loads of jadeshot, spraying the night outside the
ruined glass doors. The booms of the shotgun were deafening in the
close quarters, but it was viscerally satisfying when they cut
through the higher-toned chatter of automatic fire. It was even
better when the guns outside went silent. She wasn’t willing to bet
that would last for long, though.
“Hurry.” He was right
behind her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”
“No shit.” She yanked
on the body armor Jox had found for her, and grabbed the second
shotgun while Lucius loaded up on grenades. Her heartbeat drummed
loudly in her ears, and she was shaking with a combination of
nerves and adrenaline, but her head was clear; she was thinking,
not just reacting. And she hadn’t frozen. Not yet, anyway.
Not this time, she told herself. Which
reminded her of the magic: not the spells, but the ice. “I
could—”
Something flashed
outside, luminous green. “Down!” Lucius shouted, and lunged for
her. He hit her with his shoulder and knocked her off her feet and
into the sofa, but somehow managed to get his arms around her and
turn himself so he partway shielded her from the
impact.
They tumbled to the
floor as the sitting room windows shattered inward under a hail of
gunfire. Cursing, Lucius rolled them to the sofa, flipped it over
atop them, and held her so tightly she could barely breathe. The
furniture was scant protection against the heavy-caliber weapons;
the bullets had wasted the window glass and the curtains, and were
doing a damned good job of chewing through the walls themselves,
coming from all directions at once.
“We’re surrounded,”
she yelled into Lucius’s broad chest, barely able to hear herself
over the thump of gunfire and destruction.
“Did you hit the
panic button?”
She nodded into his
chest. “They’re on their way.” She’d left the device in the
bedroom, but if Strike couldn’t get a good ’port fix off the images
from the built-in camera, there was a similar unit mounted atop the
Jeep. More important, the magi could use the view from the Jeep to
assess the situation, and figure out the safest place to
materialize.
“We can’t wait for
them here.” His voice rumbled against her cheek, carrying a grim
sort of finality. “Whoever’s out there might decide to just fuck it
and crater the cottage. We’re safer out in the open than pinned
down here.” Though not by much, was the
unspoken end to that statement.
“Use the grenades to
get their heads down,” Jade ordered. “Then we run. I’ll shield
us.”
“You’ve got shield
magic?”
“No, but I’ve got
ice. It’ll have to be enough.”
He nodded, his jaw
tight, his expression set in lines of concentration. “It will be. I
believe in you.” Leaning in, he kissed her hard and fast, and when
he pulled back, there was something new in his eyes, something that
made her heart lurch in her chest. “I’ll cover you.”
For a crazy moment,
those three words rearranged themselves in her head to become
something else entirely. So she merely gaped when he heaved against
her, overturning the sofa and in the same motion yanking the pins
from three jade-loaded grenades. He counted, “One . . . two . . .”
On “three” he heaved the grenades through the blown-out windows.
They landed on “four.”
On “five,” there was
a rending, tearing explosion outside, followed by screams of agony
as jade shrapnel tore into their attackers.
“Come on!” Lucius
grabbed her and dragged her up, and then they were running for the
door. As they ran, Jade yanked the combat knife from his belt, used
it to nick her palm, and called the ice magic. Power formed around
her, coalescing to include Lucius in a circular swirl of cold air
convecting with hot. She had originally intended to put an actual
shield of ice around them, but saw the better option immediately.
Instead of casting the iceball magic, she built it around them.
Ahead of them it was clear. Everywhere else around them, sleet
whipped in a twenty- foot whirl, obscuring them as Lucius flung
open the cottage door and they ran out into the night.