Fixation (7 page)

I tried to ignore the frisson of heat I felt when his hand touched mine. “So you’re saying what, exactly?”

“My people believe Dream Time is its own reality. And what happens there is reflected in the walking world.”

I yanked my hand away.
“So you ... we ... it really happened?”

He nodded.

“How could you
do
that?”

“It wasn’t my intention to take advantage of you, Maya.”

“By ‘take advantage’ I assume you’re talking about sex.” I stared straight ahead, too humiliated and angry to look him in the eye.

“I prefer to think of it as making love.”

I gave a short bark of laughter that hurt like hell and had no amusement in it. “You don’t make love to someone you just met.”

“What would you call it, then?”

He met my angry glare with a calm patience that infuriated me.

“I don’t know, but making love implies an emotional connection between two people. Not a quick boink or two”—or three or four; I’d lost count—“in the jungle.”

“Boink?” That startled a laugh out him, a melodious chuckle as rich as cream. The sound sent a delicious shiver down my spine. “Maya, we did many things last night, but I would not consider any of them as a ‘boink’. I would not use the word ‘boink’ to describe any of them.”

“You know what I mean,” I said crossly. “Strangers boink.”

“Then I argue we are not strangers.” Setting his wine down, Balam dropped on one knee in front of me so he was looking directly into my eyes. “Look at me and tell me you didn’t feel the emotional bond between us ... even before you saw me in my human form.”

I opened my mouth to deny it, then stopped. I prided myself on a fair amount of self-honesty—and Balam was right. Staring into those amazing gold-flecked green eyes, I could feel my very essence drawn to him, as if our souls were connected by invisible strings.

It pissed me off no end.

“You are very special, Maya.”

“Why?” I took a big gulp of wine and glared at him. “What makes me so damn special? Why not any of the other docents at the compound? Why me?” Okay, I knew it had to have something to do with my psychic ability. But I waited for some bullshit response about how he couldn’t resist my beauty or something equally lame.

Balam sighed and sat back on the couch next to me, dividing up the rest of the bottle of wine between our two glasses.

“How familiar are you with the myths and legends of Mesoamerica?”

Okay, not the answer I expected. I shrugged.

“Enough to know the Aztecs had a lot of bloodthirsty gods to appease,” I said.

He nodded. “I will try to keep this simple, then.”

I raised an eyebrow. “
Mesoamerican Myths for Dummies
?”

Balam gave a snort of amusement. He managed to make even the snort sound kind of sexy. Totally not fair.

“Many of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the Aztecs demanded blood, it is true. But not all of them were so greedy for human sacrifice at their origin.”

“What do you mean?”

He settled back against the couch. I could almost see his brain click over into storytelling mode.

“All deities come from the same primordial wellspring, although whether it originated with the development of the human species or from a time and place far more ancient, I could not tell you.”

“Hang on a sec.” I got up and padded into the kitchen, returning with my corkscrew and another bottle of the same wine. “I have a feeling this is going to be a two-bottle story.” I sat and uncorked the wine. “Please continue.”

“Each culture embellished their pantheon with deities that suited their specific needs. Every culture has a god of war, a goddess of love, a god that rules the underworld, et cetera. For instance, Ratri, the Hindu goddess of the night, is much the same as the Morrigan, the shapeshifting Celtic queen of phantoms and demons. And each of those is another name for Evaki.”

“Evaki? I’ve never heard of her before.”

“Evaki is the goddess of night and dreams. She has in her possession a pot with a lid, which she keeps with her at all times. In the morning she pulls the lid off the pot to let the sun out and bring the day. At the end of the day, the sun returns to the pot and she closes the lid and brings the night. She gives some the power to communicate with animals, others the ability to shift forms.” Balam stared at me, eyes reflecting the glow of the fairy lights. “Legend has it that her shamans would roam the jungles in their animal forms, sometimes to protect their people ... and other times to hunt.”

I didn’t ask him what these legendary shamans hunted. I thought I knew.

“Was she an Aztec goddess?”

“Evaki is older than the Aztecs.” His voice seemed to deepen, taking on an eerie resonance as he continued his tale. “She is older than the Mayans, Toltecs, and Olmecs. Yet she has been forgotten by almost all but the
Bakairi.”

“Bakairi?” I’d never heard of them.

Balam nodded. “They were known as the Sons of the Sun. Many were enslaved or forced to assimilate into supposed civilized cultures, but those who
are left still remember Evaki.” His eyes seemed to glow, the gold flecks catching the reflection of the fairy lights. “She has protected us and we have kept her memory alive.”

“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.

“The Children of Evaki.”

A shiver ran up my spine at those words. Balam noticed my reaction and nodded. “You, Maya, are a child of Evaki.”

“What the hell does that even mean?” I demanded.

“Evaki’s children all have a strong psychic talent ... along with an empathetic connection with certain animals. For you, Maya, it is felines.”

I stared at him, recognizing myself in the description but unwilling to buy into what he was saying.

“You are skeptical, Maya, but your abilities shine from you like a beacon, clearly visible to anyone who knows what to look for. I knew the minute our minds touched that you were a true child of Evaki.”

For some reason, his words pissed me off.

“Fine, I’m a child of Evaki.” I glared at him. “I can talk to animals like Dr. Doolittle, read the occasional stray thought, and project a few of my own. What does that have to do with”—I shook my head—”with everything?”

“I was trapped in my jaguar form by someone I trusted,” Balam said bluntly. “This person then sent me in place of the jaguar scheduled to go to your compound. You see, only a child of Evaki could help me break the spell.” He gave a crooked smile.

“She—” Pain flashed across his features and his voice faltered briefly.

She
. Of course there was a woman involved. Probably the smokin’ hot woman I’d seen in my visions when I’d first touched Balam’s mind when he was trapped in Nagual, his jaguar form.

Balam took another sip of wine and continued. “This person did not expect one of Evaki’s children to be waiting for me at the other end of my journey.”

“So you did use me.” The truth of the words stabbed into my heart even as I said them.

“No, Maya, I—”

I held up a hand, cutting him off.

“If I hadn’t been one of Evaki’s precious children, would you have even looked at me?”

Balam didn’t answer right away, which pissed me off even more. This was
so
not what my self-esteem needed after seeing Jesse with his stick-insect slut.

“Thought so.” I stood up, furious and hurt. “You can let yourself out whenever you’d like.” I turned to storm off into my bedroom, but suddenly Balam was in front of me, barring my path, his movements so quick it seemed impossible.

I tried to brush past him, doing my best to avoid any and all body contact. He countered my movements with his own, refusing to let me by.
I narrowed my eyes. “You want to move out of my way about now.”

A low rumbling growl sounded deep in his throat. “No, I do not.”

The growl sent a chill up my spine, but my anger overrode any fear and I put my hands up against his chest and shoved with all my strength. He didn’t budge an inch and something primal flashed in his eyes.

If I had any common sense, I’d have backed down. But something, maybe the time spent as a jaguar, albeit in Dream Time, sparked an answering primal challenge within me. Snarling wordlessly, I slapped him across the face with an open palm, the sound cracking like a gunshot.

Two strong hands seized my shoulders and threw me on my back onto the couch. Before I could scramble up, a hard body pressed against mine, one hand pinning both of mine above my head and keeping it there despite my struggles.

“Let me go!” I snarled.

“No.” The word was uttered in a low, guttural pitch, more animal than human.

I stared up into eyes gone feral, the oval pupil of a human replaced by feline slits and an amber glow that had nothing to do with the reflection from the fairy lights.

A shudder of fear ran through my body. The hair on my arms rose as my skin prickled with electricity, a sensation I’d felt once before during a lightning storm.

“Please...” My voice cracked, all anger washed away as it hit me once and for all that I was dealing with something that could kill me in a heartbeat. “Let me go.”

“No.”

This time the word was a purr, low and throaty—and totally sensual.

I shivered again, but this time the fear was mixed with a desire so strong it threatened to cut me in two.

“If you were not one of Evaki’s own,” said Balam, staring down at me, “I would not have felt your soul in my very being.”

“So I’m only special because of that?” I hated the weak sound of my voice, but hated even more the thought that what had drawn him to me was because of something totally outside my control.

Balam’s gaze softened.

“I swear to you, Maya, that what happened between us was more my need to be free of the spell. It was magic.” He paused, brushing his lips against my neck. “It
is
magic.”

I shivered at the touch of his lips on my bare skin.

“Do you really want me to let you go?” Balam whispered the words in my ear, the warmth of his breath sending reverberations through my entire body.

I wanted him. Wanted him more than chocolate or wine.

But my self respect?

It needed a break.

“Yes.” The word came out a whisper, but it worked.

“Very well.” Balam’s grip on my wrists loosened and his pupils lost the feral feline glow.

I wriggled free and sat up. Balam backed away, sitting against the far end of the couch.

“I ... I need to get some sleep.” My voice sounded strangely formal.

So did his. “Yes, that would be a good idea.”

“I’ll get you some blankets and a pillow,” I said awkwardly. “You can sleep on the couch.”

He nodded. “Thank you. I would appreciate not having to find a hotel at this time of night.”

I nodded too.

“I’ll get you those blankets.”

I grabbed blankets, sheets, and a pillow out of the linen closet, setting them down on the couch and uttering a hasty “goodnight” before beating a retreat to the safety of my bedroom. I tried my best to ignore the imperative pulsing in my nether regions, willing sleep to come so I could pretend I did not want Balam so badly that it hurt.

I’m in jaguar form, running through dense foliage and towering trees, the air sultry with moisture and heat. I revel in the power of my muscles as I leap on and over fallen tree trunks. Other animals flee before me. I am the apex predator in this land and no other creature is bold -- or stupid-- enough to challenge me.

A noise to my right – a crack like a gunshot – startles me and I leap to the left, landing in a thick tangle of vines, like dark green pythons with blood-red flowers. Their scent is sickly sweet, an underlying decay covered with perfume. I don’t like the smell and scramble to get free of the foliage, but the vines cling to my legs, holding me there no matter how hard I struggle. They coil around my body and neck, pulling me down into their cloying depths. A vine wraps around my neck, choking off my roar of fury.

“Poor little kitty...”

The voice is as sweet and poisonous as the flowers that surround me.

My frantic thrashing stills as the sound of footsteps approach. I know that whoever the voice belongs to means me harm.

The footfalls stop short of my trap.

I smell another scent over the toxic perfumed flowers: a musky smell that reeks of carnal desire. The face that lowers itself into my vision is the embodiment of this sensual perfume.

“Hello, little one...”

Huge eyes, a blue so dark they appear black. Straight, strong nose with flared nostrils. A mouth so ripe and red as to be almost obscene. She is corrupt and beautiful.

Desirable ... and evil.

I recognize her as the woman I saw in Balam’s visions. The woman who trapped him.

She reaches out one hand and strokes the fur along my head and neck.

I would bite her if I could.

“Poor little jaguar girl. Are you the best Balam could find?”

I growl, a low rumble in my throat.

She laughs, the sound as melodious as water in a polluted mountain stream.

“You have teeth, eh?”

Anger giving me strength, I pull against the vines with my right front paw and wrest it free. I slash out with my claws, raking them down the side of her face. She shrieks in pain and fury, my attack taking her by surprise. I revel in the sight of blood flowing from the gashes my claws have left in her golden flesh.

My satisfaction is short-lived as a shrieking fury suddenly takes the place of the voluptuous beauty, her face growing larger and larger as she looms over me, like a nightmare visage viewed through a fish-eye lens. Her dark eyes turn red, blood dripping down her face. Her mouth yawns open, red lips thinning out as jagged teeth sprout from black, rotting gums.

I roar in fear this time, the guttural sound rising into the jungle skies until it became a shriek of terror and I—

I sat upright in my bed, clarion shrieks of primal fear pealing out of my throat as sweat ran in rivulets off my body.

“She’s here!”

“Shhhh... Maya, you are safe... Hush, my darling... I’m here... “

Warm, strong arms enfolded me against a bare chest as a deep voice murmured soothingly in my ear until my screams gradually faced into whimpers. I clutched him with both hands as he rocked me back and forth like a baby until the shudders wracking my body subsided.

“I have you, my brave one...”

I let him cradle me in his arms, my head against his chest. I listened to the sound of his heartbeat, focusing on the rhythm until I could breathe without panic tightening my chest.

“She was here...”

“Who was here, Maya?”

“The woman who trapped you.”

Balam’s arms tightened around me. “That should not be possible.”

I swallowed painfully. I really had to stop ripping my vocal cords raw.

“It was her. I saw her before ... when you arrived ... when you were still Nagual. She knew who I was ... and that you were with me. “

Tension thrummed from his body into mine.

“I’m sorry, Maya. I never would have put you in danger if I’d known she could follow me in Dream Time.”

As much as I wanted to stay wrapped in the warmth and security of Balam’s arms, I made myself straighten and push away so I could look him in the eyes.

“Who is she?”

“Anani. A priestess of Evaki. “ He stared bleakly into the distance. “I thought I could trust her. I was wrong.”

“Tell me about her.”

“You should rest now, Maya.” He pushed a sweat-soaked strand of hair back from my face. I shook my head.

“Tell me about her,” I repeated stubbornly. “Maybe if I know more about her, she won’t be able to scare me so much.”

Balam heaved a huge sigh.

“Very well, then.” He settled back cross-legged on the end of my bed, looking like the sexiest storyteller in all of history.

He’d taken off his shirt, revealing those six-pack abs, sculpted chest, and arms, and was now clad only black sweatpants and the little pouch suspended from his neck by a leather cord. I tried not to stare at what they clung to, covering myself with my blanket and settling back to listen to his story.

“I met Anani in New Orleans. She was a child of the streets. I sensed Evaki’s bloodline mixed in with her Creole heritage ... and taught her to use her powers. How to shift form. How to dreamwalk, to control both dream and dreamer. I should not have done so.”

I had to ask. “Did you ... do you love her?”

Balam’s smile was crooked. “I wanted her,” he said. “And I let my desire cloud my judgment. Anani was ... is ... the embodiment of all that is sensual and desirable.”

“Of course she is,” I muttered, feeling as far from sensual or desirable as it was possible to feel. “So what was the problem?”

“She wants to steal the power of the sun from Evaki, put the world into endless night and control all of mankind through its dreams.”

I couldn’t help it. I laughed. “Oh, is that all?”

He gave me a look, but I was unapologetic.

“I’m sorry, but you have to admit it’s a bit over the top,” I said.

“Be that as it may, it is the truth.” He folded his arms across his chest, as close to sullen as I’d seen him ... and one of the few males I knew who could carry off a sulk and still be sexy.

I held up a conciliatory hand. “Sorry. I joke when I’m nervous.”

“Do I make you nervous, Maya?” He smiled and his eyes took on that golden glimmer, as if lit from within by gold dust.

“You know you do,” I said irritably as an unwanted wave of heat flushed through me. “But not as much as the thought of the world cast into endless night with some psycho-bitch stalking everyone in their dreams. And just how does she plan on doing this, anyway?”

“By taking the power of the rest of Evaki’s shamans. She has been slowly ensorcelling us one by one, trapping us in our totem animal forms and stealing our totems.” He held up the little figurine I’d found in his—Nagual’s crate. “She somehow missed mine.”

“How did it end up in your crate?”

“One of my apprentices must have slipped it in there before Anani had me shipped out of the country. I only hope Anani does not know who did it. She will not deal with them gently.”

“How...” I wasn’t sure how to phrase this, so I just went with blunt. “How did she trap all of you?”

Now he really looked uncomfortable. “Sex magic.”

“
All
of you?”

“I thought I was the only one she slept with.” He paused. “As it turns out, I was just her favorite.”

There so many responses that would mix snark with sympathy that I chose to keep my mouth shut. Mortification was coming off him in waves. I didn’t need to add to it.

“She asked me to join her.”

“Come to the dark side, Luke,” I muttered. Typical supervillain.

“I refused and thought that was the end of it. She said she was not serious. I believed her.” He shook his head. “My ego stopped me from seeing how much darkness had taken root in Anani’s soul.”

Thinking with the little head instead of the big one
, I thought. But again I managed to keep my mouth shut. Nothing short of miraculous.

“By the time I realized just how far gone she was, I was the last of our circle of shamans left to oppose her. The rest ...” He shook his head. “Their spirits are trapped in the spirit realm while their bodies roam the jungles in their animal guise, unable to return to human form without their totem stones. I am not strong enough on my own.”

This did not sound good.

“So basically you’re saying this crazy bitch is going to win?”

“Not if I can help it.” Balam’s mouth set in a grim line, the expression at odds with the sensuality of his lips. “If I can retrieve the totems and free my shamans, we can stand against her.”

“But that means going back to Belize and facing her alone first, right?”

He nodded.

“If she trapped you once, what’s to prevent her from doing it again, especially if she has the stolen power of the other shamans?”

“She took me by surprise before. She will not do so again.”

I looked at him.
Really?

“That’s still no guarantee she won’t catch you trying to steal the totems and zap you back into Nagual or just kill you this time.”

“That is a risk I must take.” Nobility of purpose and arrogance shone from his eyes. I wanted to smack him.

I sighed. “Look, Balam, I’m not in favor of living in a world of endless night, okay? But there has to be another way to stop her without you rushing back to stick your head in a noose. Isn’t there any other way to rescue the other shamans?”

He shook his head. “If there were at least one other shaman and we had access to the Temple of Jaguars... but Anani has taken that for her own as well.” Off my look he continued, “It is a special temple made up of five ancient statues depicting different stages of shamans transforming into jaguars. The statues surround her Cauldron, guarding it from those who steal her power. The place is sacred to Evaki, a vortex of psychic energy.” He shook his head again. “There is no other way. I will have to go back to Belize and take my chances. And you will be safe after I leave.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but a jaw-cracking yawn caught me by surprise. The adrenaline of the nightmare was gone, leaving profound exhaustion in its wake.

Balam smiled, his expression softening. “Sleep now, Maya. Your body and mind are still recovering from the shift.”

I clutched the quilt to my chest, unwilling to lie back down and possibly face the creature from my nightmare again.

“What ... what if she comes back?”

Balam cupped my face with one hand, fingers gently caressing my hair. He stared into my eyes, their expression melting my fears and warming other parts of me.

“I will watch over your dreams,” he promised. “She will not be able to reach you again tonight.”

The certainty in his voice soothed me and I lay back down.

“You’ll stay with me?” Yes, I sounded like a five-year-old.

In answer he stretched out beside me, nudging me so I turned over to lie on one side. He curved his body against mine, spooning me, one strong arm draped around my waist. Fingers caressed my scalp, soothing me. I felt protected, cherished in a way I hadn’t felt in years.

“Sleep, my brave one...sleep.” He murmured something in a language I didn’t understand, melodious and fluid, the words flowing from his lips like a mountain stream. I fell asleep basking in the combined warmth of my goose down quilt and Balam’s muscular body wrapped around mine.