Nightkeepers (39 page)

‘‘Thanks. And, Leah?’’

She turned back near the door. ‘‘Yeah?’’

‘‘I’m glad you’re staying. And I’m sorry. For all of it.’’ He was sorry for disappearing on her the night before and leaving her to look foolish in front of the others. More, he was sorry for not being the man who could give her the stars and the moon, and all the love she deserved. And he was sorry that, even knowing he wasn’t that man, he couldn’t let her go.

‘‘Apology accepted,’’ she said, though he wasn’t sure which part she’d agreed to. Sending him a small finger wave and a sad smile, she slipped through the door, out into the sun-bright day.

When she was gone he sat there for a moment, staring after her, feeling shaken and stirred up and far more like a man in the grips of obsession than the levelheaded leader he was supposed to become, or the king his people needed him to be. He wished he knew how to balance the two, how to be a better man. But at the same time, he was realizing that something had changed. He didn’t know whether it was because of Leah’s lecture the night before, the motto she’d given to Skywatch, or his trip into the barrier, but for the first time he wasn’t wishing for an escape or an out.

He was trying to figure out how the hell to get it all done without losing himself in the process.

Leah was feeling shaky and achy as she crossed the pool deck to the mansion, squinting in the too-bright sun.

A few of the twinges were from doing the sleeping-sitting -up thing while waiting for Strike to come around, but the vast majority were from that hell-and-gone kiss he’d laid on her, the one that proved she’d been lying to herself when she’d tried to say that being with him hadn’t been as good as she remembered, that she’d fantasized it into something it wasn’t.

Nope. It was all that, and then some.

Which was a problem, not only because he was determined not to let it happen again, but also because she couldn’t be sure how much of the connection was real and how much was a product of the circumstances.

It was a given that what’d happened in the sacred chamber during the solstice had been courtesy of a god, probably Kulkulkan, trying to gain a foothold on earth by going co-op with her gray matter. And perhaps the sizzle the day after the aphelion had been part magic, too. But since then she hadn’t shown a lick of magical talent, and the sizzle was still alive and kicking harder by the day.

Okay, so she was hot for the guy, magic or no magic. But what about him? There was no way she could separate the man from the sorcery or his upbringing, and if he believed the dreams meant the gods intended them to be together, that was the direction his brain was going to go, whether or not they were compatible. And aside from the whole save-the-world thing, she was enough of a girl to want him to want
her
, not just the woman the gods had shoved at him.

Though she’d ended her share of relationships, she’d heard enough of the old, ‘‘it’s not you, it’s me,’’ to know that it really
was
her most of the time. She was too much work for not enough payoff, too judgmental, too driven by the job and her own concepts of right and wrong.

Was it so much to ask for a guy who wanted those parts of her, too? One who was willing to fight for her, not just against their common enemy, but against the tenets that said they couldn’t be together?

And that brought her right back to the thirteenth prophecy and the whole, ‘‘I’d love you but then I’d have to kill you’’ thing, which just sucked beyond sucking.

Trying to banish the faint suspicion that his interpretation of the thirteenth prophecy was a cosmic version of, ‘‘it’s not you, it’s me,’’ Leah pushed through the doors leading from the pool deck to the mansion’s great room, intending to hunt up Jox and pass along Strike’s message.

The
winikin
was waiting for her just inside the door, wearing jeans, a light-colored long-sleeved shirt, a pair of rope sandals, and an expression that said he wished she’d just go away. Permanently.

‘‘Oh.’’ Leah stopped in her tracks, feeling off balance. ‘‘You’re here.’’

‘‘I was headed out to check on Strike.’’ The
winikin
moved to push through the door.

Leah blocked him. ‘‘He’s fine. Told me to tell you to assemble the trainees for a meeting.’’ Jox just stood and glared and she did the same, and though she hadn’t intended the standoff, she figured they’d been headed there all along. ‘‘Go around me or go through me,’’ she said evenly. ‘‘But I’m not moving.’’

The
winikin
’s mouth went tight. ‘‘The barbecue was a good idea, as was the name.’’ It took her a moment to realize he’d actually said something nice to her, but he blunted the shock by saying, ‘‘That doesn’t mean I think you’re good for him.’’

That stung—especially given her and Strike’s recent conversation—but she didn’t let Jox see that he’d scored. Instead, she said, ‘‘The trainees, Jox. Now.’’

He held his glare for a five-count before he said, ‘‘They’re in the training hall. I’ll go tell Strike to meet you there.’’

Then he brushed past her, and even though he’d been the one to leave, Leah felt thoroughly dismissed.

Tears prickled at the backs of her eyes, but she refused to give him the satisfaction, keeping her head high as she marched through the mansion and out the other side, muttering imprecations under her breath.

Once she was outside and the double doors were shut at her back so he couldn’t see, she leaned against them and took a moment. ‘‘Damn it.’’

She’d tried to make friends with the
winikin
, knowing how important he was to Strike and the others. Failing that, she’d tried to negotiate a workable peace, and thought they’d made some progress in that department.

Apparently not, though she wasn’t sure what she’d done wrong. Probably something to do with Strike’s flying-serpent mark and her being human. And there wasn’t much she could do about that, was there?

Shoving away from the doors with a muttered curse, she strode to the steel-span building on the far side of the ceiba tree. Before she’d even entered the training hall, she could hear shouts coming from inside, and as she swung through the door she was figuring on a pickup basketball game. But the trainees weren’t playing, she saw the moment she was inside.

They were working.

Rabbit sat off in a corner, frowning as he kindled a red-orange fireball the size of his head and held it suspended between his hands. Brandt stood nearby, holding his palms up and out, as though he’d been frozen mid-mugging. Then Patience blinked back in, becoming visible standing opposite him with her palms pressed to his. Sven, Alexis, and Nate were war-gaming it in the middle of the football field-size room, spinning and feinting with blunted stone knives, three against one as Michael blocked the attacks with shield magic. The only one missing was Jade.

Holy crap,
Leah thought, freezing in place. She’d seen bits and pieces of the magic before. Hell, she’d made a kitchen knife fly. But she’d never seen it all at once like this, couldn’t even begin to imagine what it would be when they reached their full powers and learned to link up, never mind what it must’ve been like before, when there had been hundreds of magi fighting as a unit.

For the first time she thought she really understood what the massacre had meant, not just to the Nightkeepers but to the future of the world. And in understanding it, she thought she understood Jox a little bit better, too.

It wasn’t personal for him. It was all about the balance of power, and Strike would be far stronger paired with a true Godkeeper than with her.

‘‘Hey!’’ Alexis called, catching sight of her. ‘‘Leah’s here.’’

Where before her entrance would’ve earned her a perfunctory wave or two and some sidelong looks, now the others stopped what they were doing and headed in her direction.

Forcing herself not to back away, Leah said, ‘‘You’re all here. You’re practicing.’’ Which was obvious, but this normally would’ve been their break time, when they would’ve scattered to do their own things.

‘‘Strike wasn’t the only one who got a kick in the ass last night,’’ Nate said. ‘‘Jox got the other
winikin
in on it, too, and they let us have it.’’

‘‘Really?’’ Leah wouldn’t have guessed he’d been that far on board with the idea of rallying the troops. Then again, agreeing with her openly would’ve meant admitting he’d fallen down on the job.

‘‘They were right,’’ Patience said, her soft voice preceding her appearance as she shimmered back to visibility beside her husband. ‘‘Most of us were coming around to the realization that we’re running out of time and there’s way too much left to learn . . . but we needed the push.’’

Alexis nodded. ‘‘Which means we owe you one.’’

There was a chorus of agreement and even Michael, who pretty much defined inscrutable, shot her a grin and dipped his head in acknowledgment.

It was the first time Leah had been the focus of all their attention at once, and to her surprise it was a formidable charisma hit, like she’d been noticed by the gods themselves. She also wasn’t prepared for the clutch of nerves, the feeling of,
Oh, shit. What did I get myself into?

They weren’t just looking at her like she’d helped them out by throwing a barbecue. They were looking at her like they expected her to tell them what was going to happen next.

She’d told Strike they needed a leader, but there was no way in hell she’d intended for it to be her.

Taking a big step back, toward the door, she said, ‘‘I’m glad I could help. Strike’s on his way for a huddle, and—’’

‘‘He’s already here,’’ his voice said from behind her.

Leah spun, her heart kicking because she hadn’t heard him come in, and jolting again at the sight of him, big and male, wearing a set of older, worn combat clothes, the black gone gray at the seams.

Their eyes locked, and her breath went thin on a surge of lust when she saw herself reflected in him, saw the heat of their kiss and the edge of frustration that rode him as much as it did her. In that instant she would’ve given anything for things to be simple between them.

Because they weren’t, she broke eye contact and took a big step away from him, angling around him toward the door. ‘‘Ah. Have a good meeting.’’

She wanted to sit in on the meeting, to be a part of the strategizing. The Nightkeepers needed to think, not just about the talent ceremony a few days away, but about the equinox on September twenty-first, when they’d teleport en masse to the Yucatán, to defend the intersection their parents had died trying to destroy. But at the same time she selfishly didn’t want to be there, didn’t want to watch Strike settle into a role that took him that much farther out of her reach.

‘‘Stay,’’ he said quietly, as though he knew exactly where her mind had gone. ‘‘Sit with me.’’

‘‘I can’t,’’ she said, taking another step away. ‘‘I don’t belong here.’’

‘‘You could.’’

She snorted. ‘‘Right.’’

‘‘Take this.’’ He dipped into his pocket and came up with a thin chain threaded through a highly polished black figurine the size of her thumb.

Made of a milky green stone, it was intricately knapped in the shape of a man’s profile in the Mayan style, with a long, flattened forehead, a prominent nose, and wide lips. Antlers protruded from the man’s temples.

‘‘What is it?’’ she asked without reaching for it, part of her afraid it meant something in terms of their nonrelationship, part of her afraid that it didn’t.

‘‘It’s called an eccentric, which basically means it’s a small ceremonial item.’’ He crossed to her and draped the chain over her head himself, his fingers brushing lightly against the sides of her neck, bringing shivers of too-ready awareness. ‘‘It’s the deer god. He represents wisdom.’’

‘‘And?’’ she pressed, knowing nothing in Skywatch was ever that simple.

‘‘And it’s the symbol of . . . of an important adviser.’’

He’d almost said, ‘‘the king’s adviser,’’ she knew. A glance at the trainees showed they knew it, too. And for the first time, she saw consideration rather than outright rejection of the concept. Or maybe those considering looks were strictly for her.

She touched the eccentric, feeling nothing more than warm stone and a prickle of disappointment that she didn’t feel more. It should’ve been a powerful charm, she knew. On her, it was nothing more than a pretty necklace. ‘‘I shouldn’t,’’ she said.

‘‘You’re our outside perspective,’’ Strike said. ‘‘Stay.’’ It wasn’t quite a request, wasn’t quite an order, but she felt the power behind the word, and the need.

She nodded before she was really aware of having made the decision. ‘‘Okay. I’m in.’’

And, boy, was Jox going to be pissed. Then again, she thought as light dawned, maybe he already knew. It was a good bet that his attitude earlier had something to do with the eccentric. He must’ve known what Strike was planning.

‘‘Good,’’ Strike said, and stepped away from her. Turning to the others, he said, ‘‘Thanks for being out here practicing. Obviously, we all figured out a few things last night. I’ll start by saying I’m sorry for checking out on you over the past bunch of weeks. I thought I was doing the right thing, but Leah convinced me otherwise.’’

‘‘You weren’t the only one half-assing it,’’ Nate admitted, stepping up and taking the spokesman’s role. ‘‘We talked about it last night. We’re ready to buckle down if you are.’’

It wasn’t exactly a promise of undying fealty, Leah knew, but it was a start.

‘‘Deal.’’ Strike stuck out a hand and Nate stepped up to shake on it, and the others formed a rough line behind him.

To Leah’s surprise, Nate moved to her next and held out a hand. ‘‘Thanks for the wake-up call.’’

‘‘You’re . . . you’re welcome.’’ She shook his hand, and he moved off so she could press palms with Alexis next, followed by each of the others in turn. As Leah shook each of their hands, the sense of unreality grew, not because of their acceptance but because the setup was suddenly seeming far too much like a receiving line.