Jessica Andersen - Spellfire

Sensations rocketed along his neurons: the softness of her breasts, the curves of her waist and the brush of her hair contrasting with the hard edges of her weapons; the buzz of lust and magic in his veins; and the “Oh hell, yeah” he growled at the back of his throat when she trailed her hands down, latched on to his weapons belt, and pulled their lower bodies tighter together.

He cupped her breast through her tight combat shirt, found a peaked nipple, and caught her moan in his mouth. Then he broke the kiss and trailed his lips along her jaw. “Myr,” he rasped against her throat, needing to say it. This didn’t feel like a dream-vision, but he wasn’t entirely sure.

“I’m here.” She pressed her lips to his cheek, his ear.

“Thank the gods.” He kissed her again, long and deep, steeping himself in her scent and flavor, soaking her in and—

Power surged suddenly, coming from a few feet away, and the air sparked red-gold. Cursing under his breath, Rabbit pulled away. “Incoming.”

“I know.”

The two of them were standing shoulder to shoulder, breathing hard, when Anna appeared with a whump of displaced air.

Seeming preoccupied, she glanced at them, scanned the village, and let out a relieved breath. “Cool. Glad to see you guys didn’t get into too much trouble while I was gone. You’ll never guess what happened to me . . . Shit. Why are you laughing? What did I miss?”

Skywatch

After Myr and Rabbit got back to the compound, the next few hours were a whirlwind of debriefings and “what the fuck?” as the Nightkeepers scrambled to plug the new info—or lack thereof—into their battle plans.

Myr managed to snag some leftover pizza and a Coke in between sitting down with Rabbit, Dez and the royal council; going over what’d happened at Oc Ajal; and hustling to the library, where she was helping Lucius and the other members of the brain trust look for references to the true gods and the ruby skull.

There wasn’t much in the way of peace and quiet in the library—Lucius, Natalie and Jade were constantly coming and going from the racks, pulling scrolls and artifacts for quick-and-dirty translations before turning them over to Myr for some database work. But even that frenetic activity was oddly soothing. Or maybe it was just that she needed some space—any space—without Rabbit in it, some time to process what had happened at Oc Ajal.

She had fought a ghost and summoned butterflies. She had stood on her own, ready to face down Rabbit if she didn’t like what she saw. And she had kissed him—not because she was needy or afraid, or because the magic had overridden her control, but because she wanted to kiss him. For the first time, it had felt like they were meeting as equals, as partners.

Or was she talking herself back into the fantasy?

“We’re on our way,” Lucius said as he came around the nearest rack with a couple of scrolls under one arm, using his shoulder to prop a phone against his ear. “Give us five minutes.” Ending the call, he said to Myr, “Anna and the others can’t find any hidden compartment in the altar. It looks like they’re going to have to break it apart to see if the ruby skull is inside.”

“Ouch.”

The chac-mool had been mortared into place with the ashes from generations of Nightkeepers, and the altar had received the blood of practically every mage to come through the training compound since then. It had overseen the marriages of most of the current Nightkeepers’ parents, and held enough accrued magic to make it a serious power sink. It was a constant, a link to their past and a touchstone of the present. Busting it up was not going to go over well.

“Jade, Natalie and I are going to head up and see if we can help,” Lucius said, dumping the scrolls at the far end of the stone table where Myr was working. “You coming?”

“I think I’ll keep working on this stuff.” She waved at the pile of printouts and artifacts that still needed to be logged, scanned and cross-referenced.

“I’d appreciate it. The more we figure out about these so-called ‘true gods,’ the better.”

“What do you have so far?” She’d heard the others bouncing ideas back and forth, but hadn’t heard an outcome.

He shook his head. “Not much. There’s plenty on the gods, of course . . . but what makes a god a ‘true god’? Are we talking about all of the sky gods, a subset of them, or what?”

“Which leaves us where?”

“Digging a jackhammer out of storage to have a go at the chac-mool?”

Myr winced. “I don’t like that idea.”

“You’re not alone. But the message wasn’t exactly subtle.” He spread his hands, flashing the jun tan he wore on his inner wrist, which marked him as Jade’s mate, a love match. The sight shouldn’t have brought a pang, shouldn’t have made her own wrist feel bare, especially now.

“What if there’s nothing in there?”

“Don’t even think it.” But the shadows in his eyes said he was worried too. He paused. “You sure you want to stay here?”

“Positive.” She waved him off and got back to work, only half listening to the subdued commotion of the others leaving, followed by the library settling into an empty quiet broken only by the noises she made when she shifted things from the “to do” pile to the “done” pile, and the background murmur of running water coming from the jaguar-shaped fountain near the door. There was peace in the solitude, and she found herself relaxing as “to do” got smaller and “done” got so big that it started sloping off to one side, threatening an information avalanche.

An hour or so later—maybe longer—she was startled to reach for another “to do” and find the pile gone. And when she actually sat back and looked around, she realized she was more than a little woozy from sitting still too long and probably from some leftover post-magic fatigue.

“Time to call it a night,” she said. “You might not have solved any of your problems, but at least you got some paperwork done.”

Except, as she grabbed the soft leather jacket she’d worn against the almost-winter chill, she realized that she’d come to a resolution of sorts. There was a strange sort of peace inside her that hadn’t been there before, one that said if she could go up against a ghost-demon and summon a whole village’s worth of butterflies, she could handle starting something new with Rabbit.

Carefully, she told herself. Very carefully. Because she wasn’t going to make the same mistakes this time. This wasn’t about forever after; it was about taking what they both wanted while they still had the chance.

The cloud-hazed night was inky black, with just a glimmer of moonlight to guide her along the pathway to the cottage she and Rabbit had shared for more than two years. She didn’t hesitate at the steps, didn’t pause before knocking—bang, bang, bang—using the sharp, peremptory cadence she’d used back in college, the one that said “move it or lose it, buster.” She caught her breath, though, as the knob turned, then let it out as the panel opened to reveal Rabbit standing barefoot, wearing worn sweats and a black hoodie.

His eyes burned into her, resonating with the leftover heat from their earlier kiss. “You came.”

Adrenaline buzzed in her veins, making her feel powerful. “Were you waiting for me?”

“I was doing my damnedest not to go after you. I would’ve lasted another fifteen minutes, maybe less.” His gaze skimmed over her, feeling like a touch. “Come in. Please.”

She didn’t hesitate. This was what she’d come for, after all.

He stepped back so she could move past him into the kitchen, then shut the door behind her, enclosing them in a four-room cottage that suddenly seemed far smaller than she remembered. It should’ve felt strange, being back there after all this time, but the air smelled of vanilla and patchouli. The twin scents twined together, amping her magic. More, they drew her deeper into the cottage, across the kitchen and living room, and all the way to the bedroom door.