Any Given Doomsday (23 page)

I saw the world from a different angle, in an entirely different way. I couldn’t hear, not really.

Did snakes have ears? I didn’t think so.

Instead, I sensed vibrations, movement, a wash of heat across my face. Something warm-blooded and small just there. My head swiveled to the right. Beneath that bush, a mouse quivered, black eyes wide, nose twitching in terror, and I liked it.

Nearby something much larger and equally warm loomed. Sawyer. A man. Not prey. No. He was the only one like me in the world.

I relished the power to mete out death with one swift attack. I wasn’t angry; I was just… me. My nature was to watch and wait, to sense, to strike when striking was necessary.

But I also knew, in that other part of me, that I was more. I was Elizabeth. I was a woman most of the time.

The sensation of movement drew me in another direction, but no warmth there. Cold-blooded, then. The rattler that wanted to talk to me.

How did I talk to a rattlesnake, even when I was one?

My companion coiled his body round and round, the movement mesmerizing. The triangular head lifted, darting forward until we were eye to eye.

Seer.

The word appeared in my mind, a thought not my own. I waggled my own three-sided head.

Listen and understand.

Listen? A bit hard without ears, but I got the concept. There was some kind of telepathy involved here. Maybe all animals had it.

Telepathy
? the voice whispered.
What is this
?

Sharing of thoughts.

Yesssss. I come to share with you the thoughts of all earth’s creatures.

All?

The snake zigged one way, then zagged in the other.
All who matter. Those who follow the path of good
.

Snakes follow the path of good? Wasn’t there a little incident in a garden?

The bone-chilling rattle sounded. I wasn’t afraid. I had a rattle of my own. Just thinking of it made my tail buzz, and I got a head rush very much like adrenaline.

Not all snakes follow the dark man. Are all women as foolish as Eve?

Point taken.

Our rattles stopped buzzing.

You must fight the fight, seer. Only you can thwart the coming end times.

Why me?

Who is to know why this one is chosen and that one is not? You have the power, and you must use it.

What if I don’t want to?

Then you must live with that choice, or die from it. Only those who truly embrace what they are, who commit to the fight, can succeed.

And if I can’t? If I fail?

All will suffer. Not just humans, but beasts as well as breeds. The horrors to come will be as nothing you have known or imagined. You must do whatever it takes to become who you were meant to be, and then you must do whatever necessary to win. There will be sacrifice and pain. There will be choices.

Choices. I’d never been good at them.

The rattlesnake’s head lowered. Its body swirled, round and round, unwinding from the coil, then sliding rapidly across the dirt until it disappeared beneath the bush where the mouse had been.

A scratch, a scramble, then a sharp squeal. Silence.

The temptation to follow, to see if perhaps there was more than one mouse, was nearly overwhelming. But there was also that large, warm-blooded presence nearby.

Sawyer. He waited.

I imagined myself myself, and I was.

Well, not quite like that—shazam, I was me. But first hot, then cold, silvery light all around. Up I went; there I was.

Sawyer sat cross-legged next to the fire. He’d removed the rabbit. The scent was heavenly. My stomach contracted so tightly I sneezed. Or perhaps that was just the chill on my naked skin or the remnant of my blood having cooled. Quickly I dressed.

I joined Sawyer, and without comment, he handed me a plate of meat. I was so hungry I didn’t mind the lack of utensils. I shoveled it in with my fingers, barely chewing. I couldn’t recall anything ever tasting so good.

When I was finished, he took the plate, rinsed it in the lake, and began to pack what was left of his things.

I wasn’t sure what to say, so I fell back on the easy questions. “What’s the point to snake shifting? I mean, I understand the power of a wolf, a mountain lion, the shark. But—” I waved vaguely in the direction of his crotch.

“Did you feel the warmth of prey wash over your face?” he asked. “Did you know, despite the lack of sound, where everything was?”

“Yes.”

“Rattlers are pit vipers; we have pits below our nostrils to detect warm-blooded beings. Even in the dark we will find our prey. We can slither into places no other beast can, often undetected, and survive where warm-blooded animals cannot. Just by rattling our tails, we make all living things run.”

It creeped me out the way he said
we
, but I was also oddly pleased. I felt connected to him. There
was
no one like us in the world.

I shook off the pull of that connection. I didn’t want it.

“Is there a way to make all these powers go away?”

“All of them?” Sawyer sat next to me on the bedroll. “You don’t want the power you were born with?”

“I never did.”

“Let me guess. You want to be normal?” I nodded. He sighed. “You aren’t. We aren’t.”

“Couldn’t I be?”

“There is such a thing as destiny. You were created the way you were for a reason. You were meant to be who and what you are.”

“What if I don’t want to be?”

“Did it occur to you that if you don’t follow your destiny, if you become the normal woman you think you wish to be, the world you wish to be normal in will no longer exist?”

There was that.

Hell. The snake had said there’d be choices, but in this case there weren’t. Not really.

My life had changed at Ruthie’s; I had changed, and fighting against that change was not going to bring my other life back. It hadn’t been all that great anyway.

Sawyer stared into my face. He must have seen my capitulation, because he stood. “Time to travel down the mountain.”

“But I haven’t—”

“You will.”

His confidence was inspiring, but I still hadn’t had a vision; I wouldn’t be able to tell Jimmy or any of my other DKs what they needed to know. 1 hadn’t wanted this power, but since I appeared to be stuck with it, I should at least be able to use it without getting myself and everyone around me killed.

“If you’re so smart”—I stood too—”why don’t you have the visions?”

“Because you were meant to have them. I was meant to show you the way.”

He’d knelt and begun to roll the bedroll into a cylinder. I put my foot directly in the middle and he stopped, glancing up.

“You knew that sex would bring me into my power.”

His lips thinned; he sat back on his heels. The sheepskin, released from the pressure of his blunt, strong fingers, loosened, spilling across his knees in a soft wave.

“You know that I did.”

“You do this to save the world.”

He frowned, confusion spreading across his timeless face.

I thought of the centuries he’d been alive, the things he’d seen, the people he’d done. I’d been disgusted at first, still was a little, but I could also see how his place in this world might be more difficult than anyone’s.

“Sex for most people is about love—” He snorted. “At the least about pleasure, fun, a connection. This has to take a toll on you.”

He laughed. “It’s not such a hardship. I am what I am.”

“But—”

“I’d have fucked you anyway. It’s what I’ve wanted since the first time I saw you.”

I took a step back, and his smile was all teeth, his eyes all beast.

“I was fifteen,” I pointed out, “and you were, what? Three hundred and fifteen?”

He got to his feet. “You think that matters to a man like me?”

It must have, because despite my being here that summer, just the two of us, he’d never touched me like that. Except in my dreams.

Sawyer’s fingers closed around my upper arms. “Don’t expect me to be a hero; I’m not capable of it.”

“I think you’re capable of a lot more than you let on.”

To prove his point, or perhaps mine, his mouth swooped down. I didn’t try to get away. I doubt I could have, even if I’d wanted to.

His kiss was rough, punishing—him or me? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. Our teeth clicked; he nipped my lip and I tasted blood. His tongue laved it away.

I opened to him, relishing the violence. It called to me. When he kissed me, I saw worlds, centuries, all that he’d done, everything he knew and everyone. I wanted to lap up the knowledge like a tiger at a jungle river, like a wolf at a mountain lake, like everything he was and everything I could be.

He broke away, staring into my face. “Did you see anything? Hear anyone?”

I scowled. He’d kissed me to jump-start a vision? I wanted to kick him, but that never worked out as well as I hoped.

“No.” I shifted in his amis. “Let me go.”

He didn’t, and I considered kicking him again. My fingers brushed his shoulder where the shark lived and for an instant I felt the water, cool and sweet, all around me. I wanted to dive deeper where the darkness lived, chase things and make them bleed.

I yanked my hand away. He still didn’t release me.

“Will I have to touch a tattoo every time I want to shape-shift?”

Not that I wanted to shape-shift, but I was pretty certain I was going to have to. Eventually.

“Either that or get some of your own.”

“You’re sure?”

“Since I have to touch them, and you’ve absorbed my powers, it would follow that you’d have to.”

The idea of marking my skin as he’d marked his chilled me. But I was starting to understand that what I wanted and needed didn’t matter, because if I didn’t do whatever I had to I wasn’t going to have a world for my wants and needs to exist in.

God, this sucked.

Sawyer released me as suddenly as he’d grabbed me, then knelt. I tensed, half expecting him to press his face to my stomach, or perhaps lower. My body responded, going moist at the thought. But he only caught the edge of the sheepskin and began to rewrap it.

I knelt too, then placed my hands over his. He paused, staring at them. My skin was lighter, but not by much. For some reason our hands looked right like that. A man’s hands and a woman’s, the way it should be, the way it was meant to be.

In the beginning.

Chapter 28

For a second I thought he meant to say something, but he never did. Instead, he pulled his hands from mine as he lifted the sheepskin and went into the hogan.

He returned moments later, dressed and packed, then disappeared into the pine trees without even glancing in my direction. What the hell did I do?

I suspected that my trying to talk to him as if he were a person, to understand him, to sympathize, had freaked him out. I doubted anyone had ever bothered before.

The trek down wasn’t any easier than the trek up had been. In areas the terrain was so steep, I slid forward, bumping into Sawyer, who never seemed to slip. He didn’t pause, didn’t help, wouldn’t talk.

Near dusk we reached his place. Sawyer walked straight into the hogan. He didn’t come back out.

I went into the house and took a shower until the water ran cold. By then, twilight reigned. Standing in the doorway, I watched the stars arrive. In the distance, coyotes howled. I assumed they were real coyotes, but I couldn’t be sure. Unless I touched them.

I cocked my head. Something tickled my brain. The snake had said I must do whatever it took to become who I needed to be. Sex with Sawyer had given me his power of shape-shifting, but I was certain he had others. Maybe I’d have to take them.

By taking him.

I lowered my gaze from the stars to the earth, and there he was, standing at the edge of the trees, naked in the night. Had he been running across the mountain as a wolf, a mountain lion, a tiger? The idea was both frightening and arousing, the depths of his power, the possibilities of it, enticing.

He continued to watch me without moving, as if his stillness would keep me from seeing him. He had to know better. I could not only see him, but hear him, smell him.

The snake had also said there’d be choices, so I made one. When he didn’t come to me, I went to him.

The first time had been out of my control. I hadn’t known then that the sex was real. I knew now. I chose it; I chose him. There was no going back, no denying it.

Hell, there was no stopping it—or me.

I took his hand. His skin was scalding. I wanted to feel that heat inside of me. I wanted to drown in his scent. Taste of his flesh.

His light eyes glowed moon silver as he lifted his other hand and touched my hair. It was a gesture so unlike him, I blinked.

His arm dropped to his side. His expression remained stoic. I wanted to bring joy to his face, at the least make him lose control just once.

I reached for the hem of my T-shirt, then tossed it aside along with my panties to stand naked beneath the moon. The chill night made my nipples harden. My skin pebbled with gooseflesh.

As if he couldn’t help himself, he cupped a breast, his fingers dark against my moon-shrouded skin. I let my head fall back, baring my neck, the ultimate sign of trust. His breath caught. I waited for the exhale and when it didn’t come, slowly I raised my face so I could see his.

He held my breast like an offering to the god of the moon, his thumb poised over the nipple as if he fought his own desires as well as my own.

I arched into him; my breath caught as thumb and nipple collided, and the curve of my breast filled his palm.

Still he hesitated, even though I could feel his erection warm against my skin. I imagined sliding to my knees, licking him as I went. He’d taste like sun and wind, salt and water, like man and more. I had to have him for no other reason than that.

“Please.”

My voice was hoarse. Probably from the unlikely bend in my neck, which 1 again offered to both Sawyer and the moon. I began to lift my head, intent on doing what I’d just imagined—going down on him until he was the one saying please. But he stayed me with one sweep of his thumb over my nipple, one squeeze of my breast and the harsh, foreign-sounding expletive that was muffled against my neck when his mouth pressed to the curve.