He said, “I’m the sole mage-born survivor of the Solstice Massacre.” He paused. “At least I thought I was.”
Tears shone in her eyes. “Me too.”
An unfamiliar pressure expanded in his chest. This was real; it was actually happening. Patience was a survivor, just like him. “What’s your bloodline name?”
“Iguana.” The word wasn’t even a whisper, more a shaping of the lips. “My winikin changed it after the massacre, in order to keep us safe.”
His voice rasped when he asked, “Are there others?”
“Hannah thought we might be the only ones. The way the drop box for contact info is set up, she couldn’t tell.”
He nodded. “Woody said the same thing. I wanted him to crack the box and see if there were others, but he refused. Said he was sworn to keep us hidden until he was convinced it was time to reunite the Nightkeepers.”
It was the first time either of them had said the word, and it hung in the darkness, echoing in the sacred space.
Nightkeepers. Their people. Their magic.
He’d been programmed from birth to believe in the unbelievable, to take it on faith that he had a higher destiny and the potential for magical skills that might or might not be needed, depending on whether the barrier stayed shut through the end of 2012. But belief and faith suddenly seemed insubstantial now that he was face-to-face—and naked—with another full-blood survivor, one who knew what he knew, who’d been raised, as he had, by an actual winikin .
It was impossible. Unbelievable.
But somehow it was true.
They stared at each other for a long moment, speechless. Finally, he swallowed hard. “I—” Wow, he didn’t know what to say to her, how to deal with the sudden realization that they were connected far more deeply than by the sex they had just shared.
Patience’s eyes darkened. “Gods. This must mean that the massacre didn’t seal the barrier after all.”
“Maybe.” He cupped his palm and watched red-gold swirl. “Maybe this is just . . . I don’t know. An anomaly.” But he had a feeling neither of them believed it.
She exhaled slowly. “I was supposed to leave this morning for a two-day island hop to Cozumel.
Something told me I shouldn’t go.”
“I was supposed to leave yesterday for Chichén Itzá. Didn’t feel like it.”
“The gods wanted us to meet.”
It was a tempting thought—very tempting—but he shook his head. “I think it was more the equinox magic pulling us here. The gods aren’t my biggest fans.”
Her brows drew together. “For real?”
“For real.” He rubbed the numb patch of scar tissue high on his inner calf. “I’ll tell you about it, but not here, not now.” He paused. “I think we should try to jack in. If the power is back online and pulled us here together . . .”
When he trailed off, she nodded. “Yeah. We’re here for a reason. Which means I’ll let you get away with the not-so-subtle subject change. But don’t think you’re going to get out of explaining that little comment about the gods.”
“I won’t.” He’d never told another soul the whole wretched story, not even Woody, but he had to tell her. That was suddenly very necessary.
Reaching for her piled clothing, she dug in a pocket and withdrew a matte black handgrip that flipped open to reveal a five-inch combat knife. “You have a blade?”
He nodded, excitement sparking at the sight of the knife, and the challenging gleam in her eyes.
“You didn’t check that with your luggage, did you?”
“Bought it when I got here. You?”
“Ditto.” He fished through his clothes and pulled out a butterfly knife that had looked cool at the pawnshop where he’d picked it up, but had taken some practice getting used to. Now, though, he was able to open it with decent flair to reveal a blade about the same size as hers, though his was edged on both sides and narrowed to a wicked point, while hers was wide and serrated on one side.
It wasn’t their potential as fighting weapons that mattered, though; it was their ability to draw blood sacrifice. No Nightkeeper walked around without a knife. It just wasn’t done—at least according to Woody. And apparently according to her Hannah as well.
He grinned at her and she grinned back, and magic hummed faintly in the air.
It hit him then, that his life had changed forever the moment he’d caught a glimpse of her coming out of that bar with her friends.
They weren’t just lovers. They were about to become teammates. And to a Nightkeeper, a fighting partner was so much more than lover.
Setting their knives aside, they dressed in unspoken accord, staying close to each other, not seeming to need words to communicate the basics. He was achingly aware of her, attuned to the way she moved like both a fighter and a woman, capable yet feminine, and entirely at home in her own body.
The fading penlight emitted a muted glow that made her look like an angel, while the fact that she carried a combat knife, and the suppressed excitement he saw in her eyes, called to something inside him.
Red-gold power flared, this time inside him, filling him with hot, hard purpose and an unfamiliar, almost atavistic possessiveness. We’re meant for each other, said something deep inside him, with a certainty that swept aside all other considerations.
Closing the small distance that separated them, so they stood toe-to-toe at the edge of the underground lagoon, he took her hands and lifted her knuckles to his lips in a gesture that should have seemed foolish, but didn’t.
“Before I saw you, I didn’t believe in—” Love at first sight, he was going to say, but the “L” word jammed in his throat, blocked by the part of him that knew he couldn’t go there.
Fuck me, he thought as his emotions revved. What the hell did he think he was doing?
On one level, his analytic self knew he’d been caught by a surge of sex magic, and that he needed to freaking watch himself. On another level, though, he wished, more than ever before, that he could go back and undo what he’d done. But he had scoured the myths and magic of a dozen cultures looking for a way, and come up empty. There was no way out. And if the magic was coming back online, that was going to be a big fucking problem.
“You don’t believe in what?” She was gripping his hands, forming a link he didn’t want to break . . . but had to.
He lowered their joined hands, easing his hold. “I don’t think I really believed I would ever meet another mage, or that the barrier might come back online. We don’t know what’s going on, or what’s going to happen next . . . but I want you to know that I’ll do my damnedest to get us both through it safely.” Because the two of them being there together, on that night, couldn’t be a coincidence.