Feeling that he needed to say something profound, he started with, “That was . . . wow.” Okay, not so profound after all. Magic danced invisibly across his skin, making him conscious of the warmth of his jun tan mark, the faint sense of connection where they had been apart for so long. Trying again, he said, “I think—” Dropping her braced-arm stance, she turned and silenced him with a soft brush of her fingertips across his lips. “Don’t think. For right now, let’s just leave it at ‘wow.’” Instead of arguing, he kissed her.
He set a soft, slow rhythm that was the diametric opposite of the hard and fast, borderline-rough sex they had just shared. He’d meant the gesture to soothe, to wordlessly apologize if that had been too much for her, to thank her for the gift. To his surprise, she met him more than halfway with an inciting nip of teeth and tongue, and a shudder-inducing drag of her fingernails down his ribs.
Heat flared as he took the kiss deeper. Magic hummed anew, wrapping around them both and making him think of the shell that had surrounded them in his vision-flash, and the sense that good things were waiting outside that shell, that things would get better, not worse, if he could manage to break through the barrier blocking him from the Triad magic.
Or was that just wishful thinking?
It doesn’t matter, his conscience warned. You don’t have a choice. And it’s time.
So he ended the kiss, stepped back, and held out a scarred palm. “Lie down with me?”
Her eyes held a shadow of resignation as she took his hand, but she smiled. “With a brothel bed like this, how can I say no?”
“At least it’s not heart-shaped. And I’m pretty sure it doesn’t vibrate.”
“Color me disappointed.”
I t was a ridiculous bed, all mirrors and black lacquered wood, topped with a scarlet brocade bedspread edged with gold braid, and a huge pile of gold-edged red pillows.
Somehow, though, it didn’t seem ridiculous. Instead, the red-gold of the bedding blended with the hum of magic that touched the air, intensifying as she stretched out on her side near the center of the plush mattress with one hand behind her head, one leg slightly bent, goddesslike in her nudity.
He stretched out opposite her for a kiss, then rolled onto his back and drew her with him, so she was cuddled up against his side with her hand over his heart, the two of them fitting together, puzzlelike.
Their legs twined and he brushed his scarred calf along the softness of her skin.
Then, in unspoken agreement, they looked up into the big mirror that hung suspended over the bed.
As their eyes met in the reflection, they touched the magic that hung thick around them, and together invoked the etznab spell.
The mirror wavered; the world around them went thin. And they slipped into memory together.
CHAPTER NINE
El Rey Six years ago Holy hookup, Batman. That was about all Brandt’s brain was capable of managing as he lay beside the underground lagoon, intertwined with Patience while their bodies cooled in the aftermath of some seriously hot sex.
How much of that had been about the two of them, and how much of it had been about his bloodline connection to whatever the hell was going on beneath El Rey? He didn’t know, couldn’t even begin to guess.
According to Wood, sex had been part of the magic on almost every level. In another lifetime, he might have thought the gods had meant for him and Patience to pair up like this. But he was out of that loop now, which meant . . . hell, he didn’t know what it meant, except that something had drawn him to her, and it was no coincidence that they had found the underground cave together, or that they had gotten down and dirty beside the sacred lagoon.
But what did it all mean?
When she stirred and let out a small, satisfied sigh, he tightened his arm around her and cracked his eyelids, trying to come up with an awkward-moment-after line that didn’t sound totally cheesy.
Then he got a good look around them, and all he could come up with was, “Holy crap.”
The fireworks were long gone, but the air still sparkled red-gold.
Magic.
Patience’s body tightened. “Oh. My. God.” Her voice was tinged with the wonder he saw in her face when their eyes met. Then her expression clouded. “I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I can’t let you see this.”
Reaching out, she cupped his cheek and whispered three words in a language that should have been unfamiliar.
Except it wasn’t unfamiliar at all. It was a fucking sleep spell.
Shock hammered through him. Her expression fell when he didn’t go narcoleptic, and he could almost hear her thinking, Why didn’t it work?
If he could’ve formed a coherent sentence, he would have told her it was because lower-level stuff like the sleep spell didn’t work on magi. But his thoughts were racing too fast for that. The questions bombarded him: Where the hell had she learned the spell? How had she known what the glitter-dust effect meant? She obviously wasn’t Maya, but—
Whoa. He stared at her as the litany ran through his mind: The Nightkeepers had been big, fast, smart, and charismatic. And they were extinct. He was the last of them.
Unless they weren’t extinct.
And he wasn’t the last.
Excitement knotted low in his gut. What if that explained everything? What if he’d been meant to see her, meant to follow her and bring her to El Rey just in time for them to discover the doorway?
Granted, the chances of that were pretty fucking slim given his history. But the gods were low on options. And if the magic was coming back online now, with eight years to go before the zero date . . .
Holy. Shit.
His blood hammered as he held out his hand, cupping it palm up, and whispered the spell to call a foxfire. There was no surge in the magic, no kindling of the blue-white glow he had tried to summon, but in the wan illumination of Patience’s tiny, dying flashlight, he saw her eyes go wide.
She eased away from him. But she didn’t go far.
He sat up, conscious of the way the red-gold sparkles followed the motion, swirling on unseen currents. He held his breath, barely daring to hope, afraid that there was—had to be—some other explanation.
Hell, for all he knew, he’d gotten trashed and this was a really vivid dream. She could easily be his subconscious’s projection of his dream girl, all blond and blue, with a kick-ass, can-do attitude wrapped in a glossy package. And ever since he’d been a kid, he’d pictured himself wielding the magic of his ancestors, and imagined finding someone else like him.
The shock in her expression was giving way to speculation . . . and hope. She moistened her lips.
“You’re not NA, are you?”
NA? Oh, she’d guessed he was Native American from his name. He shook his head. “Nope.”
“Then what are you?”
Her quiet question hung on the air, echoing in the vaulted cave and counterpointed by the slow drip of water falling from stalactites to the water beyond them. The world seemed to hold its breath—or maybe that was him, because he had the sudden sense that what he said next was going to change both of their lives. This was no dream, he knew; it was the real thing.