Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

‘‘Or something.’’ He wasn’t yet ready to verbalize his deepest fear: that somehow the Banol Kax had gotten a foothold inside his head. Looking at his forearm, he said, ‘‘And then there’s this. The flying serpent.’’

‘‘Jade couldn’t find that specific mark in the archive, and none of the winikin remember having seen anything like it before,’’ Leah said before he could ask. ‘‘Red-Boar thinks it probably means you’re bound to the creator god Kulkulkan through your Godkeeper mate.’’ She paused. Grimaced. ‘‘You know, the Godkeeper mate you don’t have because one, the god didn’t come through the barrier during the solstice because I’m ‘only human’ ’’— she emphasized the phrase with finger quotes—‘‘and two, because neither of us is sold on the predestined-mates thing.’’ Her grin went a little crooked and she didn’t meet his eyes. ‘‘I’m not looking for long-term, and we both know that a couple of dreams and some hot sex does not necessarily a lasting relationship make. And besides—’’

He touched a finger to her lips, cutting her off. ‘‘Don’t,’’ he said, as a whole bunch of messy emotions crowded around inside him. ‘‘Don’t talk yourself out of believing in what’s happened between us.’’

To his surprise, her eyes filled. ‘‘Why not? What good does it do me to keep thinking about something that’s going nowhere? You’re afraid that if we’re lovers then the gods—the prophecies, whatever—are going to demand me as a sacrifice. I get that. I even appreciate it, because I’m nobody’s sacrifice. But if that’s the case and we can’t even talk to each other, never mind sleeping together, what’s the point of me being here at all?’’ Her voice went thin. ‘‘It sucks going to bed alone every night, knowing you’re right across the pool deck, and knowing that you’ll buck tradition by having me here, but you don’t want me enough to take it all the way.’’

‘‘That,’’ he said through gritted teeth, ‘‘is bullshit.’’ The anger fought to come, and he fought equally hard to hold it back, though he wasn’t sure anymore how much of it was him and how much wasn’t.

‘‘Is it?’’ Color rode high in her cheeks. ‘‘Then why—’’

He cut her off again, this time with his lips, shifting his grip from her hands to her hips, and bracketing her knees with his, blocking her escape.

There was no finesse to the kiss, no soft question or coaxing. It was all about the anger that had ridden him for days now, and the raw need he’d been holding in check for far longer than that. Don’t tell me I don’t want you enough, the kiss said. Don’t even think it . It was because he wanted her so much, needed her so much, that he’d stayed away from her for so long. Only now she was right there in front of him, in the place where he slept, and he was near the breaking point.

But when he broke, she was right there with him.

She didn’t resist the kiss, didn’t shove him off and ask what the hell he thought he was doing, didn’t blast him for the mixed messages. No, she met him head-on, leaning in and grabbing on, one hand in his hair at the nape of his neck, the other wrapped around his upper bicep, fingers digging in. She opened her mouth beneath his, a demand rather than an invitation.

Their tongues touched and slid, and the taste of her raced in his veins. He crowded closer, or maybe she did—he wasn’t sure who moved first—but they twined together, her hands streaking across his bare shoulders and back, her T-shirt-covered breasts brushing against his naked chest.

He went hard against the fabric of his cutoffs, the material a rough contrast to the silk of her skin when he slid his hands beneath her T-shirt. She made a soft, urgent sound at the back of her throat, one that called to everything primitive and male within him. He wanted to drag her across his body and press her down on the bed, wanted to take her, to possess her, to brand himself across her skin so there would be no question that she belonged to him and he to her, and nothing else in the world mattered.

Which was the problem.

Shuddering with the rampant need that rode him, locking horns with the logic that told him he had to stop now, he forced himself to end the kiss. He couldn’t make himself pull away, though. Instead, he pressed his forehead to hers so they were leaning into each other, holding each other up. ‘‘It’s not that I don’t want you enough to risk the prophecy,’’ he said, his voice rasping. ‘‘It’s that I want you so much, when I’m with you the other stuff fades. You could become so much more important to me than the others.’’ He paused as a tremor within warned that maybe she already had, that their relationship was already clouding his judgment the way his father’s love for his family had altered the decisions he’d made as king. ‘‘I can’t let that happen,’’ he said. ‘‘Not if we’re going to win this war.’’

He expected her to argue, almost hoped she would. Instead, she said softly, ‘‘Then let me go. I can protect myself now . . . and you’d be a teleport away if I got in trouble. I think it’d be better, easier for both of us.’’

She wasn’t asking for permission, he knew. She was asking him to end it, to release her from their nonrelationship, or at least give her the distance to regain her footing in the rational world.

But he couldn’t. ‘‘Stay,’’ he said, a single word that held both command and longing, even to his own ears.

She drew away so they were no longer supporting each other. ‘‘You don’t need me here, and the others don’t want me here. Why should I stay?’’

Because you’re safer here than on the outside, he wanted to say. Because my gut tells me the gods aren’t finished with you and me, despite what Red-Boar says; and because you were right last night when you said we need an outside perspective, and that I need the occasional kick in the ass. But while all of that was true, he knew it wasn’t what she was asking. So he said, ‘‘Because I want you to. Please stay, at least through the conjunction.’’

Her eyes went dark. ‘‘And then?’’

‘‘And then we’ll see.’’

He expected her to press. Instead she nodded. ‘‘Until the conjunction, then.’’ She touched his arm, tracing each of his marks with a fingertip in a light caress that let him think about nothing but the softness of her skin and the taste of her breath on his lips. ‘‘Where did you go?’’ she asked, tapping the last mark, the one he’d gotten the night before.

It took him a second to refocus, another to answer. ‘‘I zapped myself into the barrier.’’ He didn’t mention that he’d jumped blind, and that he might’ve ended up totally in limbo if the nahwal hadn’t reached through and given his subconscious mind a destination, as Leah herself had done the very first time he’d teleported. ‘‘When I got there I saw my father, or the nahwal I believe is my father and Red-Boar believes is a figment of my imagination.’’ He paused. ‘‘The nahwal told me that it’s time, but I think he’s wrong.’’ He paused, exhaling heavily with a look toward the mansion. ‘‘They’re not ready for a king.’’

‘‘Are you ready to be king?’’ she asked, still touching his arm, her fingers resting above the serpent’s wings.

‘‘No,’’ he said, shaking his head. Not with what felt an awful lot like a demon rocketing around in his skull. Not until he figured out how she fit into everything that was going on around him, inside him, and whether the thirteenth prophecy would require her death if he took up the Manikin scepter, which was the symbol of the Nightkeepers’ king. ‘‘But I’m ready to be their leader. I’m ready to find out what the flying serpent mark means, and I’m ready for the others to get their talents so we can start functioning as a team. In fact . . .’’ He glanced at the bedside clock radio and winced when he saw it was past ten a.m. already. ‘‘Can you ask Jox to get everyone together for a meeting? You were right last night. It’s time for me to get off my ass and do my damn job.’’