Jessica Andersen - Nightkeepers

‘‘The Pyramid of Kulkulkan is the focal point of Chichén Itzá,’’ Jade said in her soft, barely-above-a-whisper voice. ‘‘Wouldn’t that have been the center of his worship?’’

‘‘For the Maya, yes,’’ Anna agreed. ‘‘But there was another center for the Nightkeepers’ worship. If we can find it, maybe the inscriptions will give us a hint how to help Kulkulkan escape from the skyroad.’’

‘‘And maybe not,’’ Red-Boar said. ‘‘Probably not.’’

‘‘From what Ledbetter’s written over the years, I think he has some of the lost spells,’’ Anna countered. ‘‘It doesn’t matter what you think of Leah, or even what you think of Strike. If we can get our hands on those spells, wouldn’t it be worth the trip?’’

She held his eyes until he gave a curt, dismissive nod. ‘‘Good,’’ Strike said. ‘‘Get your stuff together. I’ll zap you and Anna down south as soon as you’re ready. Oh, and bring a weapon.’’

Red-Boar’s eyes blanked. ‘‘I thought Ledbetter was a professor.’’

‘‘Apparently he’s done one of his solo disappearing acts into the field. The Guatemalan highlands, to be exact.’’ Strike fixed the senior Nightkeeper with a look. ‘‘Go pack.’’

And, to Leah’s surprise, Red-Boar did exactly that.

The meeting broke up soon after, once Strike had run through the training schedule for the next few days leading up to the equinox, and Jox had added some housekeeping complaints. When the trainees and winikin dispersed to their tasks, it seemed to Leah that they looked more resolute and, in a way, relieved.

It was Strike, she realized, sliding him a look.

He was deep in discussion with Anna, his head cocked at an angle as he considered something she was saying. Even standing at ease with his sister, he projected an aura of command he’d been missing before, a sense that it was his way or get-the-fuck-out.

He’d lost weight, she realized suddenly, as though what little excess he’d had before had been burned away by the events of the past few weeks. His high cheekbones stood out sharper, and his eyes were a little more sunken beneath his dark brows, a little more intense in their gleam. And beneath yet another black T-shirt, she could practically count his ribs and the ripped six-pack of his abdomen.

Lust kindled in her belly. They’d had each other only hours earlier, but she wanted him again, now, wanted to get her hands on him, and her mouth.

As if she’d said the words aloud, his head came up and his eyes fixed on hers. The desire flared hotter, tempered with an edge of nerves. The man she’d ass-slapped ten days earlier over issues of leadership was gone. In his place was the ruler she’d wanted him to become.

And damned if he wasn’t intimidating as hell. In a totally hot, sexy way, yes, but still, Leah found herself backing up a few steps as he crossed to her, staring into her eyes, making her feel stalked. He stopped a few feet away, yet she could feel his body heat on her skin, feel his energy slide against hers, dark against light.

She licked her lips in an effort to wet her suddenly dry mouth. ‘‘Nice job. With the meeting, I mean.’’ Inwardly she thought, Man up and be a cop. You know this guy. You can handle him. Nothing’s changed.

But something had very definitely changed. It was like he’d come to some sort of inner decision, one he hadn’t yet shared with her—if he even intended to.

He leaned in and dropped his voice to an intimate rumble, even though there was nobody within earshot. ‘‘I had Jox move my things into the royal suite. It’s time.’’

A shimmer of awareness touched her skin, a quiver of nerves. ‘‘Am I . . . where am I staying?’’

‘‘Your call.’’ He didn’t ask her to stay, didn’t tell her he’d like it if she did. Just left it up to her. Her choice. Her commitment. Damn it.

She should put some distance between them now, before he figured out what she was planning and made it impossible. It was the smart thing to do, the right thing. But she heard herself say, ‘‘I’m staying.’’

He nodded once, then turned and strode back toward the mansion, looking every inch the king in a black T-shirt and jeans. And damned if she didn’t want to chase after him.

Instead, she headed in the opposite direction, back out to the shooting range, where she unloaded clip after clip of jade-tips into the shredded practice dummies, imagining that every single one of them was wearing Zipacna’s face.

The section of rain forest where Anna, Strike, and Red-Boar zapped in was moist and fecund and smelled disconcertingly like antibacterial Febreze. Once Strike zapped back out, Anna checked her handheld GPS and set off in the direction Ledbetter’s grad student had indicated.

It couldn’t have been someone easy to find, like Harts-horn or Cortes at the Institute of the Yucatán, or even Foohey up in Ottawa. They all had home bases and scheduled lectures, conferences, and tours. No, it had to be Ledbetter, who had all of those things and blithely ignored them to disappear into the highlands for months at a time, but got away with it because he was deranged enough—and brilliant enough—that everyone called him eccentric rather than unreliable. That had worked in her favor, though. She’d been able to bribe his senior grad student to give her Ledbetter’s approximate coordinates by dangling the promise of a job at UT.

It wasn’t so much that the program in Austin was better, but the head epigrapher at UT—namely Anna— had less of a rep for flaking out.

Between magic and GPS, she figured they were maybe two miles from Ledbetter’s camp. Within a half hour of hard hiking, her calves were burning, reminding her that the stair stepper was her friend, not just a place to hang dry cleaning. But she didn’t complain, because what would be the point? Red-Boar didn’t care if her feet hurt. He didn’t care about anything but the past. Never had.

But when she sighed, he paused, looked back, and said, ‘‘Need a break?’’

‘‘Several, but not of the kind you’re thinking,’’ she said drily, then motioned for him to keep going. ‘‘We don’t have time for a sit-down. I’m fine.’’ More or less.

He looked at her for a long moment, then turned away without comment.

Anna followed him, her eyes glued to his wide shoulders, trying not to envision the scars she knew crisscrossed his back beneath the long-sleeved shirt he wore tucked into camo pants and hitched with a stocked weapons belt. She wore the same, though her belt wasn’t loaded with nearly as much firepower. Her aim was notorious, and not in a good way.

Shrugging beneath her light pack, she tried to resettle the load, which suddenly seemed off-kilter. Faint nausea stirred, though she wasn’t sure if it was hunger or teleport sickness. Thinking to drown whatever it was, she reached for her bottle of purified water.

She had the bottle halfway to her lips when she realized it wasn’t nerves or hunger. It was power. Not the kind she was used to, but a deeper, darker kind that grabbed her by the gut and squeezed, making her want to run and hide.

Ahead of her, Red-Boar stepped through a curtain of hanging vines into the sunlight.

‘‘Wait!’’ she cried, but he’d already stopped dead.

He turned back, expression grim. ‘‘Stay here.’’

‘‘What is it?’’ Ignoring his order, she stepped up beside him.

They stood on the edge of a small clearing. Or not a clearing, she realized. At some time in the past, a sinkhole had broken through, allowing access to one of the subterranean rivers that formed the only source of freshwater in the Yucatán. Over time, the sinkhole—called a cenote—had filled with leaves and organics that eventually became soil, capping off the cenote and creating new ground within a perfectly circular depression.