Sure enough, he carried her, not to her room, but to his own—the one with the sealed-shut windows and the lock on the outside of the door. He set her on his bed, then leaned over her as though to kiss her. Instead, he braced himself on one hand and stared hotly down at her. “If you can’t give me the benefit of the doubt for two damn seconds, how am I supposed to prove I can handle the power? And for the record, the only thing I was hiding back there—the thing I was congratulating myself on not having to tell you—was that I couldn’t have you on the op because I can’t filter every decision through whether or not you’re going to approve—especially when my damn job is to push the team past their limits, which means doing things you’re not going to like. And I can’t have you putting doubts into the others’ heads, like you were about to just now in the great room. Fealty oath or no, if they think I’m taking aim at the king, they’ll be distracted, which is going to get them dead.” He paused, shifting to pinch the bridge of his nose.
The vantage put his marked forearm right in front of her face, bringing the serpent, the warrior, and the lightning god into focus. More, she saw the images made by his wrist cuff: the star demon and the red skybearer. West and east. Transformation and rebirth. Her head spun.
Dropping his hand to the side of her face, he bent even closer, so his breath feathered along her jaw and made the side of her neck tingle as he said, “Either you trust me or you don’t . . . and I guess we’ve got our answer there.” He paused, voice going sad. “Maybe it’s not that we’ve got bad timing. Maybe we just missed our chance.”
Tears stung her eyes as he whispered a string of unfamiliar syllables into her ear, repeating the sleep spell. She felt a drop break free as her eyelids turned into lead and dragged shut. Then, as she spun toward unconsciousness, she felt his lips on hers in a chaste, achingly tender kiss, then his hands moving gently over her body, taking her armband and phone, her .38, and even the cute little .22 she wore on her ankle. The tendril of energy between them pulsed, filling her with warmth as red-gold sparks shimmered behind her eyelids.
Then there was darkness, punctuated only by the sound of a door easing shut and a lock clicking into place.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Coatepec Mountain
The ’port went off without a hitch, with Strike and Rabbit collaborating to land the team safely in the small clearing downhill from the mountain’s crown, right on target. Once they were there, though, Strike doubled over and retched miserably.
“Jesus.” Dez stared at the king as the sharp sounds broke through his dark roil of emotion: regret, remorse, anger, grief. Reese would hate him for knocking her out and locking her up, but what other choice had she left him? He’d been telling the truth, damn it. Maybe not all of it, but the part that he’d left out hadn’t hurt anyone but her, and he hadn’t dared risk having her destabilize an already fragile team. Especially not when parts of it were getting shakier by the second.
“Sorry.” Strike straightened painfully, waving off Leah when she tried to help, though softening it with a quiet, “I’m good.” That was an overstatement, though; he was gray and peaked, and his combat gear hung on him even with extra holes punched.
Dez was painfully aware that a couple of the others were thinking the same thing he was: If it came to it, Strike could very well die today, by his hand. There had been no more messages, no miracle cure from Lucius. The prophecies stood, the danger clear and present : The king had to make the ultimate sacrifice and the last serpent needed to take out his adversary and become king.
As if sensing his thoughts, Strike limped over to him, Leah hovering at his elbow. The king’s eyes were still the same vivid cobalt blue, his hair black and thick, tied back at his nape. But beneath the jawline beard, his face was gaunt and drawn. When he reached Dez, he held out a hand. “Whatever happens today is on the gods, Mendez. Not you.”
Aware that the others were watching, Dez inclined his head in a shallow bow. “If we go down, we go down fighting . . . Sire.” He’d never called Strike that before, probably never would again. But in that moment, it felt right. Then he took the king’s hand, aligning palm to palm, and, going on instinct, opened himself wide, trying to pump energy into the other man, shoring him up as he had learned to do with Reese.
For a moment, he made the connection: The king’s eyes widened and color stained his throat. “Don’t drain yourself on my account.”
“I’m good.” In fact, he was better than good—the power flowed around him like blood, thick and warm. It coalesced, pulsed, surged. And then suddenly it was rushing away from him, flaring outward as if magnetized to a distant point, and “good” went to “oh, shit” in an instant. His magic was wild, crazed, jacked on the solstice rush. Damn it. He yanked away from Strike, trying desperately to rein in the power that poured through him, strange and sinuous.
The king pointed. “Look!”
A section of air near the mountain’s peak shimmered and dark magic hissed as, with a whoomp that sent Sven’s familiar scattering, the serpent temple appeared, its snake-carved pillars and open-roofed structure completely enclosed within a shield that had a strange, pearlescent sheen. The moment it was fully in place, the energy flow cut out and Dez sagged, suddenly drained. Shit. Shitshitshit. “What the fuck was that?”
“I’m guessing it was you summoning the serpent temple,” Leah said drily. But her eyes telegraphed a silent thanks for the color in Strike’s face, and the fact that he looked like he might be able to fire a weapon without the recoil flattening him.
“We’re still ten minutes from the three-hour window,” Michael reported. He tossed Dez a pair of binoculars. “And check it out. I don’t think they were ready for the big reveal.”
The scene jumped into focus: a robed shadow knelt within the shield while the green-eyed villagers scrambled to surround the temple, their weapons at rest position, deactivated. “Fuck the recon,” Dez said, making the call. “We hit them now.”
As the others sprang into action, digging into the crates for guns and ammo rather than computers and tactical equipment, Strike said in an undertone, “You know this is either a brilliant tactical move, or suicide.”
“Story of my life,” Dez said, telling himself that bad timing was his and Reese’s thing, not his alone. But as his team formed up around him, he heard something that chilled his blood and made him wonder whether his tactical move wasn’t entirely self-serving. It was a soft, feminine whisper at the back of his brain that said: I’m here.
Skywatch
Anna, for fuck’s sake, get up! The mental snarl cut through the fog, harsh and familiar, yet so out of place that it jolted her to a semblance of focus, bringing a flash of hard gray eyes and anger.
“You’re dead,” she whispered. She felt her face move, but didn’t hear any sound.
You’ll be dead, too, if you don’t get moving and open your godsdamned eyes.
“There’s nothing but the fog.”
Those aren’t the eyes I’m talking about and you damn well know it.
Her heart shuddered. “I can’t.”
You have to. He needs you to wake the hell up and open your fucking eyes.
She knew who “he” was. Brother. The one who sat beside her, sad and silent, looking like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders. Because he did. “I can’t.” This time the whisper came with a breathy sound. Her own voice. She heard the noise on the air, felt the vibrations in her throat. And part of her despaired, because the fog was safe and familiar. It didn’t take anything from her or force anything on her. It didn’t show her tunnels and flames, didn’t make her die over and over again in her dreams, didn’t—