Skykeepers (31 page)

“I—” She broke off, unable to make the promise. “I don’t want to.” But at the same time, she had to protect herself.

“I understand.” Tomas closed the book, let it rest on his thin knees for a moment. “The gods brought you to him. I just hope he’ll listen to them better than he ever listened to me.” He stood and inclined his head in a half bow. “Good night, Princess.”

Then he turned away and headed for the
winikin
’s wing of the mansion, leaving Sasha to stare after him.

When he was gone, she told herself to abort the mission. Maybe she should follow Jade’s example and drink herself to sleep. But the idea didn’t appeal nearly as much as the image of Michael somewhere outside under the full moon, fighting himself into oblivion. She considered the options for all of five seconds. Then she pushed through the sliders and headed out into the moonlit night, intent on a hunt of her own.

Outside, the moon was lower than it had been before, during the ceremony, and gone yellow with its declination. Some small part of Sasha noted that it wasn’t orange or otherwise off-color, confirming the latest reports that whatever was wrong with the sun, it wasn’t the atmosphere’s fault.

The larger part of her, though, focused on her footing, and the growing sense of nervy panic at what she was about to do—not only the booty-call aspect of things, but the prospect of disturbing Michael at his most private.

Still, though, she didn’t turn back. She padded across the ash shadow where the great hall had stood in Ambrose’s day. The ceiba tree that had grown from its ashes was black in the wan moonlight, its leaves limned in gray. Then she forged onward and passed into the wide space between the tall, parallel walls that formed the I-shaped ball court, where small stone rings were set high overhead as the goals of the ancient game, with its life-and-death stakes.

She was dimly aware of passing a tray of covered food, but she focused entirely on the man at the center of the open space.

Barefoot and naked to the waist, wearing only the loose black track pants he favored around the compound, Michael wielded a pair of curved swords as though they were extensions of his arms. He moved as one beautiful, balanced whole when he spun, leaping into the air to avoid the swipe of an invisible attacker. He landed and lashed out, then flowed away again, his movements liquid and lovely in their perfect violence.

Sasha was hardly aware of moving, but she drew closer to him, crossing the packed earth that her ancestors had used for a game that had celebrated the daily rise and fall of the sun, the cycle of life itself. This night, though, the lone player wasn’t celebrating anything. He was trying to burn himself out.

The moonlight gleamed off his skin; shadows edged the sharply defined muscles that slid beneath. His wide shoulders bunched and flexed, and the strong column of his spine curved elegantly as he reversed, redirected, then swept low and pinwheeled out of his phantom opponent’s reach. There was no sound but the brush of his feet on the trampled dust, and the flare of his nylon pants. The silence made the whole scene feel otherworldly, as if she were standing outside herself, looking down on the scene.

Then he paused, holding a final triumphant form for several heartbeats before he broke the kata, set the swords aside, and turned to face her. Eyes dark in the night, he said, “You shouldn’t have come.”

She held her ground, tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Probably not. But I collect what I’m owed. You’ve used me twice to ramp up your magic. Now I need you to help me burn mine off.”

He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I owe you distance, not another go-round.”

“I’m not sure that’s your call.” Blood hummed beneath her skin, pulsing in time with her heart, with the tension that sprang to life between them, hot and wanting.

“Then whose call is it?”

On impulse, riding the burn of her blood, she said, “I’ll fight you for it. Winner chooses. Sex or distance.”

“I don’t want to hurt you.”

Too late
, she thought, but didn’t say, because what would be the point? She was coming to realize that he hadn’t intentionally hurt her; he was stuck in a loop of desire feeding into anger and back again, and not sure how to deal with either. So she jerked a thumb over her shoulder. “You haven’t eaten yet, and you’ve been out here, what, an hour already? I’m guessing the edge is off.”

“Not even close,” he growled, eyes fixed on her with an intensity that sent shimmers of heat along her neurons to gather at her center, where they coiled, thrumming with desire.

This was the man she wanted, the one she’d come looking for. She tipped up her chin. “I’m willing to take my chances.”

He stared at her a moment longer as the night closed in on them, the silence broken only by a whisper of wind running along the top of the ball court walls, and a coyote’s eerie howl in the distance. Finally, moving so slowly that she was acutely aware of the change in each muscle, the exquisite control he commanded over his own body, he came to a ready position and inclined slightly in a bow. Acknowledging her challenge. Challenging her in return.

Adrenaline and burgeoning hormones hummed in her bloodstream, along with a sparkle of nerves that warned her she was already in over her head. But she didn’t back down, didn’t wimp out. She’d come outside for him. If this was what he was willing to give her, she’d take it. Then, gods willing, she’d take more.

Hyperconscious of her own body and the brush of cloth on skin, she skimmed out of her long-sleeved shirt, leaving her in the tight sports tank and flowing pants. She kept her sneakers on for the benefit of grip, bouncing on the balls of her feet a couple of times to test her balance and loosen muscles that threatened to go tight with excitement and need.

He watched her in utter stillness, the only movement the dark gleam of his eyes as they tracked her with an intensity that made the touch of his gaze into a caress. But when she squared off opposite him and mimicked his earlier bow before dropping into a balanced, fight-ready stance, he didn’t make a move in her direction. Instead, he moved away, circling her slowly. She turned, keeping their eyes locked as he reversed the rotation, moving back widdershins.

They moved in synchrony, staying a constant distance apart, on a rotation that made it seem like they were dancing without touching. Then, without warning, he moved in with a foot sweep that nearly caught her, would’ve flattened her if her reactions had been any slower. She jumped over the top of the attack, touched down, and hopped again immediately, expecting a return sweep. But there was only his dry chuckle as he disengaged and resumed his circling. “The follow-through is too banal. I try not to do what’s expected of me.”

“So I’ve noticed.” Knowing he was toying with her, she dampened the flare of irritation, reversed the circle, and closed on him from the side with a hip check-sweep combo that used a bigger opponent’s leverage against him.

He twisted away from the meat of the throw, dropped himself, and rolled away, flowing to his feet with an elegance that tightened the knot of desire riding low in her belly. She didn’t want to fight him; she wanted to feast on him, wanted her hands on him. But as she closed with him again, dodged a sweep-kick, and went in low, aiming an elbow into his kidneys that landed with a satisfying jolt, she was jarringly aware that he was doing everything he could to avoid touching her. He wasn’t throwing punches or going for holds or throws; he was using his legs and feet, his balance and body mass.

“Put your damn hands on me,” she snarled, closing and going for a hold. She gained purchase for a moment, putting the two of them face-to-face. She saw the fire in his eyes, felt the heat pouring off his skin.

He gripped her for a second, convulsively, and leaned in, his eyes hard and hot, and a little frightening. She saw the kiss coming, welcomed it with a flare of raw lust that wouldn’t let her fear him. Then he flipped her, and the world spun a full revolution around her before she slammed to the ground, only to find him there, cradling her neck and hips in his arms to break her fall.

Enraged, she bounced to her feet and faced him, hands balled into fists at her sides, breaking the practiced positions for one of pissed-offedness. “Don’t baby me, godsdamn it.
Fight me
.”

“I can’t.” His eyes were a little wild in his face, his chest heaving with far more exertion than he’d evidenced while practicing alone, though they’d done little but circle each other.

“You can,” she insisted. “Just stop holding back. I can take a punch.”

“You
want
me to kick your ass?”

“I want to live, damn it. I want to celebrate being free of Iago. I’ve got a bloodline now, a place in the world. He can’t take that away from me. Nobody can.” Startled by the freeing truth of it, she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed aloud. As if called by her joy, a sense of power flowed through her, a heady elixir that made her feel wholly feminine, yet strong with it rather than soft. She caught a thread of that foreign, marchlike music, and embraced it, sent the heat of her blood toward it, and welcomed it inside her when it washed back to her on a staccato rattle of drums.

Red-gold sparked at the edges of her vision—or was that in the air itself? She wasn’t sure, but it gathered, stormlike, as she locked eyes once again with Michael, the man who’d rescued her, then turned away from her. He wasn’t turning away now, though. He was staring at her hungrily, as though something she’d said had finally gotten through whatever was keeping him from making the move they both wanted.

She stepped into him, getting inside his space and looking up at him in direct challenge. The heat from his body echoed into hers and back again, binding them together. “And no, I don’t want you to kick my ass,” she said in answer to his earlier question. “I’d much rather do this.”

Reaching up, she twined her arms around his neck, where the long hair at his nape was damp from his exertions. And then she kissed him, pouring all of the red-gold hope and magic that was within her into him, coaxing a response, demanding it.
Want me
, the kiss said.
Want me enough to get past whatever is hanging you up here. Want me enough to risk a relationship, risk a commitment, risk whatever it is that you’re really afraid of.
And though she’d gone out there looking for a single night, the adrenaline high of sparring with him, of pushing him to the limits of his self-control, brought her all the way back to naked honesty, and the admission that she didn’t just want this one night. She wanted more. She wanted everything. And so she poured everything into the kiss, and hoped to hell it would be enough.

Michael knew he should’ve sent her away the moment he’d sensed her there, watching him. He cursed himself for the weakness that prompted him to let her stay, the hubris that had convinced him he could handle it, that he could handle
her
. Instead, she’d leveled him almost immediately with her challenge and then taken him out at the knees with her kiss, and with the magic that spiraled through him, tempting him. Making him yearn.

He leaned into her, letting go of his control enough to cup her slim, strong waist and return the kiss half-measure, holding back, holding tight to the self-discipline he’d found through the katas he practiced in the darkness, using their rhythm and routine to keep the energy flow contained, the sluice gates shut. But even as he let go that much, and let her heady, intoxicating flavor seep through the sturdy barriers he’d erected around his soul, he could feel the Other’s excitement, almost hear its voice.
No
, he said inwardly.
You’re not welcome here
. And he turned his back on the creature within and let himself slide into Sasha’s kiss, though he knew he was running a major risk. The feel of her in his arms once again made that risk seem worthwhile.

Her lips parted beneath his. He tasted her desire, felt it in her fingernails digging into his back. More, he felt the new magic in her, the sparkle of red-gold power. It was strong and sure, seeming so much purer than his own. He embraced it, leaned into it, and felt it push back the darkness inside him.

Take me
, her kiss said.
I need this. I need
you. And gods knew he remembered the hormone burn of new magic, and the craziness it brought. But this was more than hormones, he knew. There was a connection that bolstered his magic and touched his soul, making him believe, for the moment, at least, that anything was possible. He’d managed to block the rage while they had sparred, had managed to keep the Other behind closed doors. That made him think he could keep blocking his nemesis, keep himself in control even when his body begged to be set free, out of control. Letting that control slip another degree, he deepened the kiss and let his hands follow the tug of gravity down from her waist to her curved buttocks, which filled his hands perfectly when he cupped her, drew her up and around him, then turned and pressed her against the carved ball court wall.

Her eyes glinted in the moonlight. “This feels familiar.”

“One of these days we’ll make it to a bed,” he said, and wished he could believe there would be another time for them.

“It’s a date.” She wrapped herself around him and fastened her teeth on his lower lip, nipping gently at first, then increasing the pressure. Lust speared through him, hard and hot, and it was all he could do not to take her then and there.

His thoughts didn’t extend past that prospect. There was no thought of tomorrow, only of that night, and the payback she’d demanded, that she’d challenged him for. She might not have won the fight by points or throws, but he’d ceded it to her rather than risk the edge of violence that rode the periphery of his mind, begging to be set free.
Not happening
, he told the Other.
She’s mine. Not yours, not ours. Mine
.

He touched her through the thin fabric of her pants, kissed her throat, her cheeks, the point of her chin, as heat rose within him, threatened to take him over. He wasn’t sure anymore whether it was her magic or his, the Other’s grasping will, or a combination of all three, but his control wavered as temptation leaked through, borne on her sparkling, newly minted red-gold magic, which seemed somehow determined to reach inside him and find the places he wanted kept hidden.