Jessica Andersen - Storm Kissed

“One of us is getting laid tonight, and it ain’t you.” JT bared his teeth in a smile that held more than a bit of nyah-nyah, along with a solid dose of anticipation that had nothing to do with Sven and everything to do with Natalie, the pretty archaeologist who was waiting at the other end of the access road.

“Nice. Real nice.” Sven scowled out the window. The tint reflected the bristle of his hair, which had bleached nearly white during the nine months the three of them had spent hunting makol in the Mayan highlands. “Watch it or I’ll suddenly realize I ‘forgot’ something that we have to go back for.”

And given that “back” was a solid three-day drive plus some magical shenanigans at the U.S.–Mexico border, that would put a serious crimp in the plans of Mr. I’m-getting-some-and-you’re-not.

“Try it,” JT suggested with a “you and what army?” sneer, but they both knew Sven wouldn’t pull rank—first because there wasn’t any rank to pull as far as he was concerned, and second because this was no random trip home.

Dez had called them back to Skywatch, which meant there was something going down. More, that “something” was big enough that the king hadn’t been swayed by Sven’s argument that he was this close to figuring out why hundreds of villagers who had been released from makol possession last winter had reverted and gone vampiric, attacking their friends and families and turning them into more of the green-eyed monsters. Instead, Dez had told him to get the hell home. And he’d had a definite “don’t make me repeat myself” tone when he’d said it. So they were headed back to Skywatch, whether or not Sven liked the idea.

Shit.

At the sound of a soft whine coming from behind him, Sven scowled even harder at JT. “You might want to slow down before Mac makes you.” His familiar had toughened up over the past year, getting over his adolescent spookiness, but the burly coyote still wasn’t big on transportation, whether by wheels or teleport. He liked having his paws on the ground.

“Whoops. Sorry about that, big dog.” JT eased up on the gas. He might be a stubborn ass and way too ready to pick a fight over the Nightkeepers versus winikin stuff, but he was a loyal son of a bitch, and Mac had saved both their lives down in the makol-infested Mexican highlands.

Even though the ride smoothed out, Mac kept whining low in his throat, sending off distress vibes that bumped up against the mental barrier Sven kept between the two of them. There was a canvas rustle-thump as the coyote lurched out of the hammock, and then his big head appeared between the men, his shoulders jamming the gap between the two front seats. The coyote’s eyes—pale green, with an eerily human directness—locked on the road ahead, where Sky-watch was invisible behind a couple of sandy humps.

JT chucked him under the chin. “What’s the matter, boy? Timmy fall in the well again?”

“You’re a godsdamned riot,” said Sven, who’d heard about a million variations on the theme since he and Mac had bonded. And, yeah, it had been funny the first hundred or so times, but the laughs were thinning out across the board as the countdown moved into the last month before the end-date.

The gods were holding the barrier so far, but with the makol spreading viruslike, the dark-magic threat was increasing daily. And with tension stringing everyone tight as shit, Sven and Mac had been getting on each other’s nerves more and more, making the mental block between them a necessity and weakening the magic that came from their partnership. That wasn’t good, but Sven didn’t know how to fix it. Or, rather, he did, and it so wasn’t happening. Thus, the mental barrier.

Now, though, something was getting through: Danger . The thought-glyph that came from the animal was faint, but recognizable. And when he raised an eyebrow in Mac’s direction, the coyote chuffed a low bark. It wasn’t his “emergency!” howl or even his “get your ass over here and deal with this” bark; it was more a signal of “I think there might be something wrong but I’m not sure.” Mac’s instincts had proven damn good, though, and Carlos had drilled it into Sven’s head: Never disrespect your familiar.

He could bend the bond if he did it carefully . . . but if it snapped, he was screwed.

So, cursing under his breath, Sven lowered the mental block. As it fell, he muttered under his breath, “This better be for real and not just you jonesing to get out of the car.”

Then the magic took hold, aligning his senses with those of his familiar, and for a moment he perceived the interior of the Jeep from Mac’s point of view: the vehicle’s shuddering bounciness; the two men in the front, one excited the other reluctant; and an intense hit of eau de dirty laundry with a chaser of stale Mickey D’s. Then the connection locked in and he caught the mental stream the coyote was directing at him—not thought-glyphs but pure emotion: frustration, fear, and anxiety overlain with an image of a beautiful dark-eyed woman with a white skunk-stripe in her straight black hair.

Cara Liu.

“Son of a—” Sven broke the connection and glared, sending back a double-helping of the thought-glyph that meant “cold” in the tradition of the coyote bloodline, but for him and Mac had come to mean “chill out and knock it the fuck off.”

JT glanced over. “Problem?”

“Nope.” Sven faced forward, ignoring his familiar. He didn’t block the coyote’s mental stream all the way, though; it buzzed along his nerve endings and filled his mind with thought-pictures, one of which gelled. In it, Cara was standing at the edge of the training hall in the sleek gray military jacket that marked her as the leader of the winikin. With her dark eyes gleaming in challenge, her hair tied back in a slick ponytail and her hands behind her back in a parade rest that made her seem far taller than her fine-boned five three, she looked calm and capable, and nothing like the girl he’d grown up with. But then again, neither of them was the same as they had been back then, thank the gods.

“Guess I’m not the only one excited to get back,” JT said as they crested the last hill and the coyote’s whining got louder.

Sven didn’t answer. He hadn’t let on to JT that for the past few months Mac had been nagging that they needed to get back to Skywatch, that Cara needed them. She was fine, though—he had checked and double-checked. Not to mention that if she needed someone, her second in command, Zane, had made it real clear that he was taking care of business in that department.

Mac growled low in his throat, his attention fixed on where the training compound spread out in front of them at the bottom of the incline.

The stone walls that blocked off the open end of the box canyon were a lighter shade than the red-rock canyon walls, the mansion beyond a study of earth tones and white trim. Behind the sprawling, multiwinged structure, a small grove of trees butted up against the huge steel training hall that the winikin had claimed as their territory, no magi need apply. Beyond that were cottages, the firing range and urban warfare setup, and at the back of the canyon, nearly lost in the distance, the entrance to the Nightkeepers’ ancestral library. There were people scattered pretty much everywhere, reminding Sven how crowded things had gotten in the compound when Cara and her forty-some rebel winikin showed up, nearly tripling the population of Skywatch overnight. Granted, the Nightkeepers needed all the trained bodies they could get right now, but still.

Bracing himself for the close quarters and the feeling of being in the middle of a Nightkeeper-winikin standoff, Sven used his magic to drop a section of the ward spell that guarded the compound. “Door’s open.”