Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

‘‘I’m sorry the circumstances of your birth dictate that you’ll never belong.’’ Then, before Rabbit could wheeze past the gut-punch of pain, the old man turned and walked away, leaving what he hadn’t quite said to ring in the air between them: I’m sorry you were born, period .

It wasn’t a surprise. But it still sucked to hear.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Leah slept far better than she would’ve expected, given her level of sexual frustration—high—and the general weirdness of staying in a suite of rooms that had belonged to her not-quite-lover’s parents, the king and queen of what-the-hell-is-going-on-here. Still, she woke tired. She supposed she could blame her fatigue on the postmagic hangover, but that didn’t exactly improve the logic of the situation.

Magic. Right.

Pulling on her borrowed clothes, she stumbled into the ornate marble-and-chrome master bathroom and gave herself a once-over in the mirror. The results weren’t exactly impressive—the clothes were too big and she had a shiner and no makeup.

‘‘Note to self,’’ she said aloud. ‘‘Find a mall. Or an Internet connection to Overstock.com, whichever comes first.’’ Or, hell, she could just have Connie mail her some stuff from home. She’d need clothes and whatnot if she was going to stay.

And yeah, she was going to stay—for the time being, anyway—because she might not appreciate Strike’s I’m-calling -the-shots attitude about Zipacna, but he’d been right about a few things. For one, it sure looked like the ajaw-makol was jonesing for a do-over of his interrupted human sacrifice, starring her, and for another, this whole mess was going way outside the usual for the MDPD, which meant it was just good policework to cultivate an expert in the field.

And whether or not it ran the logic train right off its rails, she wanted to know more about the magic.

She hadn’t been into D&D as a kid, and the whole Harry Potter thing had left her cold, but those had been make-believe. The things she’d experienced over the past few weeks were . . . well, whatever they were, she was betting that if it turned out she had some sort of power, and if she could learn how to use it, then she’d have that much more ammunition against Zipacna. Because whether or not Strike liked it, as soon as she found the bastard, she was going after him personally.

Ignoring the faint twinge of disquiet brought by the thought of going behind Strike’s back—and equally ignoring the flare of heat brought by any thought of the dark-haired warrior—she prowled the suite a little, not quite ready to head for the kitchen and face the rest of the Nightkeepers and their winikin . She’d seen most of them briefly in passing the day before, and had weathered their what the hell are you still doing here? surprise, but she wasn’t looking forward to joining their magic lessons later in the morning.

It was all just too freaking weird.

Her prowling brought her to the locked door she’d found the day before when she’d toured the suite, checking all the drawers and closets—because, hey, she was a cop—and finding nothing but bland decor and hotel-neat conveniences. And the locked door just before the solarium.

It was an utterly normal-looking door, save for a pair of glyphs carved into the upper half of the panel, both of which she recognized from Strike’s arm: a jaguar’s head and a long-nosed, highly stylized human figure holding a staff of some sort.

She didn’t need to be able to translate the writing to know what it meant: family only. Which didn’t include her, as Jox had so clearly pointed out the day before. But she’d never been able to resist a locked door.

‘‘It’s not much of a lock, either,’’ she said aloud, giving the knob a shake. The door rattled in its frame, far looser than it needed to be for the sake of security. Heck, it was more like a suggestion than a real lock.

Her conscience told her they would’ve left the key if she was supposed to open the door, but that didn’t stop her from pushing the panel to the edge of the bolt, twisting the knob, and giving it a hip check.

The lock popped free.

‘‘Oops.’’ Feeling only a little guilty, she stepped through the door into a dark, windowless chamber and fumbled for the lights. There was no switch plate, but the moment her foot hit the floor, torches flared to life at each corner of the square, closet-size space.

She froze, partly because, damn, that was weird, and partly because she couldn’t go very far. Right in front of her, a mat lay on the tiled floor. Made of some sort of natural fiber, the neutral beige rug had a green border of strange symbols, and two bright red footprints woven into its center. The footprints faced a waist-high statue that looked like the one in the ritual chamber from the night before, the one Vince had called a chac-mool . Behind the statue, a circular plate was set into the wall. Made of highly polished black stone—obsidian, maybe?— it showed her torchlit reflection.

And that of a large man sneaking up behind her.

Leah spun automatically and threw a punch straight from the shoulder.

‘‘Whoa!’’ Strike feinted and the blow grazed his ear.

‘‘Sorry!’’ She pulled the follow-up, which put her off balance and sent her stumbling into him. He caught her against his chest, and she felt the vibration of his chuckle.

‘‘Does this mean we can add assault and battery to the B and E charge?’’ he asked, holding her easily. He was wearing jeans and rope sandals, as he had been the night before, with a worn-soft oxford rolled up to his elbows, showing off the ink. Marks. Whatever. She didn’t know what they were exactly, but the sight of the symbols made her hot and cold, thirsty and hungry all at once.

Or maybe it wasn’t the marks. Maybe it was him, or the room. Or the both of them together. Whatever the cause, where she’d been able to buffer herself against the attraction—more or less—the day before, now the gut-deep chemistry flared between them, making the air crackle with tension.

Flushing with sudden warmth, she pushed away from him. ‘‘Sorry. I was just—’’ She broke off, then sucked it up and said, ‘‘I was just snooping where I had absolutely no business being. I’ve never been able to resist a locked door.’’

But it was more than the door, she realized as her eye was drawn back to the statue. It was as though the contents of the room had called to her. Compelled, she stepped onto the mat, fitting her feet to the red shapes on the thatch. The woven footprints were larger than her own, creating a bloodred halo around her feet as she leaned forward and touched the altar.

The stone was cool and slick to the touch, and it felt like, well, stone. Leah frowned slightly. She didn’t know what she’d been expecting, but that wasn’t it. Then Strike stepped onto the mat, crowding behind her, pressing up against her and covering her hands with his, and suddenly the woven footprints weren’t too large at all . . . and the altar didn’t feel like stone.

The surface warmed beneath her palms, turning liquid and strange, and an image flashed in her mind, an impression, really—that of her and Strike naked and intertwined in the torchlit darkness, making love atop that very altar, their joined reflection showing in the black mirror.

Need swamped her, making it almost impossible to breathe.

Strike’s fingers tightened on hers. Heat poured off his skin, surrounding her, radiating into her where his chest pressed against her back, and where the brush of hard flesh where it hadn’t been moments earlier suggested she wasn’t the only one having a waking fantasy.

The moment contracted around her, until there was nothing beyond the small sacred chamber and the two of them, and the sexual attraction that bound them together in raw need and magic. It didn’t matter that they came from different worlds and had different agendas, didn’t matter that he was every tough guy she’d ever dated all rolled up into one über -virile package, or that she fully intended to go her own way the moment she had a good handle on Zipacna’s whereabouts and how to kill him. What mattered was the man pressed against her, his front to her back, and the searing heat that flowed at the points of contact.