Catching her hand in his, he pressed his lips to her knuckles. “Weren’t you supposed to spend the day in bed?”
Was it only that morning she’d been chafing at being stuck in her suite? That felt like forever ago. “Christ, I’m tired. Physically. Emotionally . . . God. I need some time to process.” Slanting him a look, she said, “Your timing blows. You know that, right?”
His lips twitched. “Like I said, I’m through with waiting for the perfect moment.” But he stepped away from her and pushed open her door. “Get some rest.” He leaned in and gave her a lingering good-night kiss that was soft and sweet, and shifted something in her chest. “I’ll see you in the morning. And do me a favor and keep a gun on you.”
She pressed her cheek to his and closed her eyes at the grim reminder of the world beyond the two of them. “Count on it.” But she appreciated that he was giving her the space she needed, and trusting her to be smart about her safety.
And she appreciated how, when she got out of the shower a half hour later, feeling warm, drowsy, and achy, she found a king-sized sleeve of peanut butter cups sitting just inside the door, like a sacrificial offering from an old friend who knew what she needed, and may finally be ready to give it to her.
It was nearly ten p.m. when Dez headed for the royal wing, but it had taken him some time to come down off the high of having finally made a real and honest move on Reese. She needed to think about things—he got that—but he thought they may finally—finally—be on the right track. But, given that, there was something he needed to do.
He tapped on the heavy double doors that led to the opulent royal suite. A moment later, Leah swung open the smaller, normal-sized panel inset into the carvings, but instead of inviting him in, she pointed farther down the hall. “He’s sitting with Anna. Said for you to meet him there.”
“Thanks.”
The royal wing contained the king’s huge suite, along with apartments for the royal winikin—empty now that Jox was gone, though still kept exactly how he left it—and several sets of kids’ rooms. The door to one of them stood open.
Dez tapped on the frame, got Strike’s quiet, “Yep,” and went on in.
Anna had taken the suite that she and Strike had shared as kids, though it had been redecorated in an eclectic mix of bright colors and choice pieces from her rogues’ gallery of fakes. Strike was in the living room, sitting on a plush love seat with his feet on a circular wooden coffee table that was carved with the calendar round. Anna lay on a sofa nearby, curled on her side, eyes closed, breathing slowly. Her skin was very pale, her dark reddish hair a stark contrast. She could simply have been sleeping, but Dez knew it was much more than that. He had come out of his Triad coma within a couple of weeks. She had awakened the same day, but never came all the way back. And now she was drifting again, losing ground.
“You want to tell me why this is a priority all of a sudden?” Strike asked, setting aside the magazine he had been holding, and rising to his feet. “Or should I take a wild guess that it has something to do with our resident bounty hunter, who looks way more at home in guns and leather than she did in business casual?” A Nightkeeper couldn’t take a mate without having sworn to his king.
“That’d be a decent guess.” Reese wasn’t the whole reason he wanted to take the oath, not even the primary one, but Strike would know the rest of it soon enough. He wanted to tell Reese first, then the others. Tomorrow. He would do it tomorrow.
“Want to take it outside?” Strike asked.
“Probably a good idea.” Less messy than sacrificing onto the carpet.
They headed through a pair of sliders to a small patio that was enclosed by a sturdy metal railing. Two chairs and a small table sat off to one side near an unfolded awning. The night air was cool and dry, the stars washed out by the mansion lights, and as Dez faced Strike squarely, he caught a glimmer surrounding the other man—a halo of energy, maybe, or a hint of magic that didn’t hit his other senses. He did a double take, but when he looked more closely, it was gone. Maybe hadn’t ever been. Pulling his ceremonial blade, he nodded. “I’m ready when you are.”
There was no fancy ceremony, no invocation. Strike simply looked him in the eye and said, “Who am I?”
Dez drew his knife blade sharply across his tongue. Pain slapped; blood bloomed salty in his mouth and ran down his chin to drip on the patio stones. Bending, he spat a mouthful of blood at Strike’s feet, and said, “You are my king.”
He felt the fealty oath take hold, felt the magic of the Manikin scepter—the barrier-bound symbol of the jaguar′s rulership—forge a link with his soul, and knew the deed was done. He was bound to Strike, to his king. Gods help them both.
Anna was nowhere. She was everywhere. She was nothing and everything. She hung in the fog of her own mind, lost.
Sometimes she remembered being a teacher, a wife, a normal woman living a normal life. Sometimes she was a visionary, a priestess, a warrior, a child, a mother. Sometimes she was a thousand women at once, living a thousand lifetimes strung together by a thin chain hung with a glowing yellow crystal carved into the shape of a skull. And other times, like now, she was almost herself. Those times, she could open her eyes and see the room around her, could comprehend it as “hers,” knew she had been told that someone had repainted it for her, wanting her to feel at home.
But “home,” like “hers,” was nothing more than a vague concept in the fog, no more real to her than the memory fragments that shot past her mind’s eye, glimpses of a thousand lives gone past—here, a baby; there, a lover. Never hers.
She felt a presence nearby, the one that she connected to the concept of “brother.” Their shared blood formed a connection that echoed grief and worry into her. She had tried to reach through that connection, tried to latch on to something there that glittered in the fog, but it had slipped away from her time and again. So lately she had stopped trying and simply . . . drifted.
Now, though, she knew she couldn’t drift. There was something she needed to do, something she had to say. She fought through the clinging fog, managed to find a body that felt dim and distant—her body. She made it turn to him and say: “He hides in the darkness, but must come into the light to act. Stop him and fulfill the prophecies, or Vucub will reign.”
He said her name, reached for her, but she was already gone, slipping back into the fog with only that thin connection remaining. In her mind, though, she whispered: Brother.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
December 19
Solstice minus two days
When Reese awoke she lay still for a moment and tracked the lightness in her chest, the sense of anticipation. When was the last time she had felt this way? Had she ever, or was it all sharper and more immediate because each minute, each hour, was more precious than it had been before?
She didn’t know, but she knew who and what she wanted. He had said she was it for him, and the reverse applied. As long as they had that going for them, they could figure out the rest of it together, because he was right that there was no such thing as perfect timing, especially for them. She couldn’t wait to see him, to talk to him, but her half-formed plan of sharing a quiet breakfast—and maybe more—went off the rails the moment she got out of the shower and found a “meeting in the great room” message waiting for her.
Dez had saved her a seat, but when she shot him a raised eyebrow, he shook his head. “I’m not sure what’s going on.” He paused and, after a quick glance showed that nobody was paying particular attention to them, lowered his voice. “How’d you sleep?”