Skykeepers (10 page)

She met his eyes, and hers widened. “Michael?” Her voice held a faint tremor, but she didn’t pull away. He almost wished she would. More, he wondered what she saw in him, and whether it scared her.

It should, he knew, just as he knew damn well he should let her go. But the jagged, primal heat was unassailable, undeniable, compelling him to move in for another kiss. Somewhere in the back of his brain he told himself it would level off the energy that built within him, help him rein it in. But the moment their mouths touched he knew it was a lie. Heat blasted through him, tipping his balance and skewing his world off-kilter. And the magic—of the temple and the night, and the sacred sexual power that was suddenly laced with something more—rose up and swept him away. Magic roared in his veins, lighting his neurons with a howl of,
Yes, yes, this one,
mine
!
as he slanted his mouth across hers, teased her lips apart and plunged his tongue inside, needing more from her, demanding more.

Far from pushing him away, she met him equally and then raced ahead of him, pouring herself into the kiss. He told himself to back off, that she was in the grip of new magic, that she didn’t have full control. But he couldn’t seem to make that matter as he lost himself in her.

Magic sparked red-gold in the air between them, revving his blood even higher. She felt it too; he could see it in her eyes, hear it in her shuddering inhalation. Then she reached down and cupped him through his combat pants, rubbing the line of his painfully hard erection.

She’s not in control
, he reminded himself.
And she doesn’t know why
. He remembered how it had been for him right after he’d tasted Nightkeeper power—how the need for sex had been sharp and overwhelming, and nothing he could’ve walked away from. He told himself to back off, back away, that she wasn’t entirely rational. But although he’d been raised out in the modern world, with modern mores and ethics, he was a Nightkeeper by blood and magic, and some deeply primitive part of him argued that there was nothing wrong with magic-wrought desire.

Red-gold power crisped the air as she touched him again, shaping him through the tough fabric of his Kevlar-impregnated combat pants. “Gods,” he grated, dimly aware that the shield had gone red-gold, shot through with other, unfamiliar colors. Darker hues to match the dark, edgy power that bit at the edges of his mind.

A warning bell sounded at the back of his brain, reminding him of the danger, the
pilli
. The creature that lived within him. But he was lost to reason; his universe had concentrated itself at the place where she was holding him, touching him. He was no stranger to sex—far from it. He loved women, loved the pleasure his body could give them, the moment of their orgasm, and his own. Yet despite all that, he’d been celibate since his talent ceremony more than a year ago, when the shock of gaining the warrior talent had busted through the hypnosis and drug-induced mental blockade, slamming Michael with lost memories and almost releasing the thing lurking within him.

If this bloodline
nahwal
hadn’t zapped him into an offshoot of the barrier, he might’ve slaughtered the other Nightkeepers then and there. The
nahwal’s
warning had echoed in Michael’s skull:
Your past has put the balance of your soul too close to the darkness. Don’t touch the power it offers. And for gods’ sake, don’t lose control.

In the aftermath of that vilely nasty surprise, Michael had been a mess. He’d broken things off with Jade and had kept to himself ever since then. Now, though, those three hundred and however many days roared through his bloodstream now, heat and temptation howling for release. But not just any release; his blood and body were clamoring for Sasha—for the woman in the photos, the fighter who’d escaped from her own cell. He wanted her energy, wanted to take it inside himself and use it to light the dark corners of his soul.

He was vaguely aware of a half dozen gray-robes blocking open the damned doorway and taking up positions inside the chamber, looking out into the hallway. As if from a distance he heard radio traffic, reports that the other magi were just around the corner, but meeting heavy resistance from search parties bent on recapturing Sasha. But if Iago wanted her, why had he used her to bait the Nightkeepers into Lucius’s ambush? Why not just have Lucius himself call for help?

A half-realized thought gnawed at the edge of his consciousness, warning of something deeper, but it was quickly lost when Sasha kissed him again, then moved against him, restless with desire.

A hard-fought battle raged within his soul. The Nightkeeper warrior in him wanted to attack the gray-robes, helping clear the way for his teammates, and the man in him wanted to rip into them for what they’d done to Sasha. But at the same time he was brutally aware of the
nahwal
’s warning. He was already running too close to the edge of his control; killing could put him all the way over.

“We’ll be there as soon as we can,” he dimly heard Strike report. “Hold tight and keep the woman safe.”

I will
, Michael thought with the force of a vow.

Magic hummed in his skull—a compulsion for sex, for orgasm, the feeling sharper than before, more protective. Possessive. He wanted to take her, make her his own. He wanted to keep her safe, kill for her, take his revenge on the men who had hurt her. He held the impulses grimly in check, but then she twined her arms around his neck and pressed her lips to his in a blatantly carnal, openmouthed kiss.

And he broke.

Heart hammering, heat roaring through him on a wash of red and gold gone gray at the edges, he returned the kiss and dragged his hands down her curvy body as he pressed her into the wall, his body armor a hard barrier between them. He growled as he reversed the caress, bringing her shirt up so he could reach beneath. Her skin was warm and soft and so very alive under his touch.
She
was alive, arching and quivering, responding beautifully to him as he shaped the dip of her waist, the flare of her ribs, the curves of her breasts. She moaned as, beyond himself, Michael groaned and kissed her, tasted her, touched her.

Somewhere at the back of his brain, beyond the madness of lust and magic, a voice of reason was shouting,
Abort, abort! Bad idea!
She’d been Iago’s prisoner for a year, had to be in a fragile mental state. But there was nothing fragile about the feel of her as she pressed against him, demanding as much as she gave, and more. She raked her fingernails along his bare shoulders and arms, making him shiver with the raw power of his response.

The hot, jagged magic grayed his vision and brought a flash of a high wall with narrow gates inset near the top. Warning buzzers sounded, but he was too far gone within the heat and need to do anything but take the next kiss deeper, take them both higher. He was shaking with desire; they both were.

On the other side of the chameleon shield, he was dimly aware that the gray-robes had taken high and low positions on either side of the doorway, digging in to return the Nightkeepers’ fire.

Part of Michael wanted to drop the shield and open fire, taking out the gray-robes from behind. He wasn’t sure if that was his warrior’s talent talking, or a thought-thread coming from behind the wall, from that hated part of himself. But his priority was keeping Sasha safe. Which he was doing; with each kiss, each caress, the magic ramped higher, the shield grew denser and thicker, seemingly in proportion to his own hard, aching flesh.

He hissed as she loosened the Velcro waist straps of his body armor and reached beneath his tank to run her hands across his heated skin. She drew gentle, inciting trails across his stomach, along his sides, down his spine and then lower to latch onto his ass and pull him into her, anchoring them together at the point where he ached to connect them. He broke their kiss briefly to yank the armor off over his head, then tossed it aside and reached for her, so they were wrapped together, chest to chest, though still clothed.

Her sweetness surrounded him, seeped into him, humbled him. He chased kisses along her jaw and down her neck, heat racing through him as she shuddered and clung. A moment later she pushed him away, but only to create a space between them, room to reach for his pants, and work the fly without undoing his weapons belt. He groaned when her fingers found him, closed around him. Locking his knees so he wouldn’t buckle as the blood drained from his buzzing head, he kissed her, pressed his cheek to hers and let himself
feel
.

She stroked his erection, trailing soft fingers along his length. He was so hard he ached, but he held himself still, absorbing the delicious torture until he could take no more. Then, knowing only that he had to be inside her, that nothing else in the world mattered, he shifted to kiss her again as he undid the worn catch of her bush pants, causing them to fall to her feet. He hissed when his hands found her bare skin beneath, then stepped back and looked at the treasure he’d uncovered. The sweatshirt covered her to the tops of her thighs, but he didn’t want to take it off her and leave her bare to the carved stone at her back.

Boosting her up, he cupped her sweetly rounded ass in his scarred palms as she wrapped her legs around his waist, opening to him without hesitation or pretense. He leaned in and kissed her softly, lingering over her silky lips and the taste of her passion.

He turned the shield opaque with a thought, blotting the gray-robes from sight as he eased away from her, cupping her gorgeous, angular face between his scarred palms. He waited until her eyelids fluttered open, dark lashes framing chocolate brown eyes. When their eyes met, he said, “You said you dreamed about me. Where were we? What were we doing?”

“We were here,” she said simply. “And we were making love.”

Aroused, humbled, caught up in the magic they’d made together, he leaned in and touched his lips to hers in a kiss that started gentle and caught fire from there, until they were pressed together, straining together. Mind hazed red-gold with greedy need, barely aware of the firefight escalating beyond the shield, he caught her hips and boosted her up against the wall, pressing into her, rubbing himself against her slick folds. “Like this?”

Murmuring pleasure, she bit his shoulder, the side of his neck, urging him on with a whisper of, “Don’t tease. Not now.”

“No, not now.” He would have said more, but words left him as he thrust into her.

Her hot wetness gloved him, rubbing with perfect friction. That first moment of joining sent a shock of sensation and pleasure through him, tightening something inside his chest.

The battle hammered on beyond the shield; magic surrounded them;
she
surrounded him, locking her bare feet at the small of his back. And when he pulled back to look down, she smiled up at him and lifted a hand to cup his cheek, rubbing a thumb over the bristle on his jaw. “It’s okay,” she said softly. “We’re good.”

He didn’t know what she’d seen in his eyes, didn’t know why her words loosened something inside him, but they did.

Then, unable to do otherwise, he began to move. Blood roaring through his veins and singing in his soul, he thrust on a surge of heat and power. As he did, Sasha arched against him with an abandon that nearly put him over the edge then and there in a too-quick response he hadn’t suffered since he’d been taught control by his first lover—a black belt slightly older than him who had begun his fascination with warrior women.

Sasha might not yet believe she was a warrior, but he’d bet money on it.

Gritting his teeth, he bowed his head and pressed his cheek to hers, straining with the effort of not coming immediately. Their joining was powerful, profound. And it shifted something within him. Magic gathered around them as he balanced on the edge between pleasure and madness. He pistoned his hips, starting slowly, but building fast to set a hard, fast pace that spurred them both through the heat and insanity. They twined together, moved together, and the incense-laden air around them sparked.

It seemed no more than a moment before her nails dug into his shoulders and she cried out, spasming against him. He kept going, driving her beyond the first orgasm to another, driving himself beyond madness. Sensation layered atop sensation, until finally pleasure shock-waved through him in an orgasm that locked his muscles tight on a roar of magic and triumph.

The chameleon shield went red and gold with the purest of Nightkeeper magic as he emptied himself into her and she fisted around him, the two of them locked together in thundering pleasure that drew out from one heartbeat to the next, and the next. It seemed unbelievable that the gray-robes didn’t see or sense it as they mounted a concerted rush out the door, leaving the chamber empty, the door still braced open.

Michael was peripherally aware that they were gone, but that wasn’t his focus as passion faded to its aftermath and he sagged, bracing himself against the wall with one arm and holding Sasha against him with the other. He should’ve been wrung out, sated. Satisfied. And on one level he was.

But on another level, fresh and greedy need clawed at him, demanding that he take more, that he take
her
, make her part of him. And that was a level he didn’t want to go to. One he wished he could rid himself of forever.

Fuck
. His defenses were down. She’d stripped him bare, leaving him wide open. And he’d been so caught up in her that he hadn’t noticed, hadn’t reacted to the threat.

Closing his eyes, working fast, he tried to find the center of himself, seeking the peace that had kept him sane for the past year-plus, ever since the talent ceremony that had released the creature within him, the murderous alter ego he called the Other. But he couldn’t find his center. Instead, he found sex magic still burning hot within him, but its jagged edges growing teeth and claws, digging into him, taking him over. Heat rose again, but this time it wasn’t the need to sink himself within her.