Doomsday Can Wait (20 page)

"I know what I don't want," he said in that too calm voice.

The sky swirled with wind and rain. The
Naye'i's
face was as white as the lights shining above, her eyes black pools, her mouth a slash of blood-red lips.

"You think I went through childbirth for nothing?" she shouted.

Lightning sizzled, striking the pavement all around her. Her hair stood straight up, making her appear not only crazed but electrocuted.

"I did it for you," she roared, her voice a bestial growl.

"Thank you," Sawyer said mildly.

She screamed and the earth shook. I half expected a crevice to open and swallow them both. But that would be too easy. And did I really want to lose Sawyer, even if it meant losing her, too?

I just didn't know.

"I will kill her slowly. I'll eat her intestines while you watch. I'll make her beg to die. I'll make her hate you."

"She already does."

"Then why do you protect her? Why did you mark her as yours?"

I leaned forward, straining my ears, but he didn't answer.

Without warning, the
Naye'i
threw out her arm, pointing in my direction. Fire shot from her fingertips. I had no time to duck, not that ducking would have done one damn bit of good.

However, the flames stopped several feet from me, roaring and dancing, flaring upward, then rolling back down as if turned away by an invisible firewall.

I lifted my hand to the turquoise; the stone was hot to the touch. As my fingers curled around it, the
Naye'i
shrieked again and disappeared in a column of smoke. The instant she did, the flames died, along with the storm.

CHAPTER 19

Sawyer walked across the parking lot, his skin golden even beneath the silver flare of the lights, his gait as smooth as a panther's. We were really going to have to find him some clothes: he'd stop traffic like this.

I couldn't help it, my gaze dropped to his crotch to see if he was aroused.

He wasn't. Thank God.

I knew nothing about incest. The very word made me wince. The thought made me nauseous. But I had to think that the perversion had a permanent effect on the psyche of the victim. Even if the victim, and the victor, weren't entirely human.

Sawyer seemed no worse for the encounter. The same couldn't be said of me. I was shaking.

He herded me inside, shut and locked the door, then threw out his arms, threw back his head, and sang a Navajo chant to the ceiling. Watching him in the half-light, nearly naked, tattoos dancing, his long, dark hair cascading past his shoulders, I wanted him, too. And that I did disgusted me. He'd been preyed on enough.

Seeing Sawyer as a victim disturbed me. He'd always been the bane of my life. I'd feared him. I'd hated him, as he'd said. But there'd been something between us from the first moment we'd met. I hadn't understood at fifteen what that something was; I'd only known that it, that he, was dangerous.

He stopped chanting, lowered his arms, and then his head, though he didn't look at me, continued to face away from me. "That should keep her out for a while," he murmured.

I glanced at the door. "She's coming back?"

"What do you think?" Sawyer took a breath, then released it.

I found myself fascinated by the play of muscles beneath his skin, the inked images of the shark on his shoulder and the hawk at the small of his back. The crocodile on his forearm—

The image made me pause. It was new, except I'd seen it before.

In his dreams.

I wondered momentarily why he'd gotten it, then remembered what I'd felt as my fingers brushed the image—strength in my jaws, the furious urge to chase and to kill, the power over all that swam in the waters. Every being etched into Sawyer's skin was a beast of prey. Really, what good would it do to shape-shift into a lamb?

But I also had to wonder if his tattoos were begun as a defense against the indefensible. His mother had preyed on him; he'd had to become an uberpredator in order to survive—both physically and mentally. Not that Sawyer had ever seemed to have a lot of psychological problems.

Considering what I'd just witnessed, Sawyer's not having psychological problems was a problem.

"What did you do?" I asked.

He glanced over his shoulder; for an instant his face was stark, haunted, and I caught my breath. Was he going to tell me about his past? Could I handle it if he did? Then the unguarded expression was gone, replaced by his usual indifference.

"I cast a spell of protection. It'll keep her out for a few hours, maybe even the rest of the night."

"Why don't you cast that spell over and over and over again? Keep her away forever."

"She's too strong. Once she breaks this spell, it doesn't work anymore. And there aren't very many that work against her at all."

"You need to save them."

He nodded.

I opened my mouth to ask why tonight, then shut it again. Why not tonight? I could certainly use a rest from her popping in and trying to kill me.

Sawyer turned away from the door, and my gaze was captured by the tiny bottle hanging from a strip of rawhide looped around his neck.

I reached out and captured it between my forefinger and thumb. Inside was a bit of red-brown dirt.

Sawyer had gone still; he barely seemed to breathe. I lifted my eyes to his. "What did Carla do?"

He looked away, then back again, shrugged. "A spell. As long as I wear this talisman, I can walk as a man anywhere that I wish."

"And if you don't wear it?"

"Woof."

"Very funny."

"I thought so."

Yet he wasn't smiling. He so rarely did. After today. I could understand why.

"Talisman," I murmured. "Not an amulet?"

"An amulet is for protection, a talisman brings good fortune."

"Your mother—"

"Don't call her that." He didn't raise his voice; never-theless I flinched at the fury in the words.

"All right." I agreed, though what was, was, and the
Naye'i
was his mother. "The woman of smoke had an amulet."

"To protect her from her enemies by hiding her from their seeking eyes."

"And this?" I lifted the bottle a little higher.

"A talisman to bring me . . ." He spread his clever hands. "Me."

I nodded, laying the talisman against his chest. My fingertips brushed his skin and he shuddered, then took a step back.

"You okay?" He'd never reacted that way before; it was almost as though he couldn't stand to be near me.

"Fine." he said, and brushed past. "Without my fur, the air's too cold."

It was summer, nearly eighty degrees out there, but I didn't bother to point that out. He wasn't cold and we both knew it.

"I'll take a shower." He disappeared into the bathroom.

"I guess we're sharing a room," I murmured to the closed door.

I hadn't had much choice when he was furry, but now ... I wasn't so certain staying in the same room with Sawyer was the best idea. Not that his being furry had done anything to stop the sex—at least in our minds.

I wandered around the room, uncertain what to do with myself. I picked up the TV remote, hit the on button, then just as quickly hit the off. I wanted silence. I needed to think.

I sat on the bed, but every time I tried to mull over our situation, I saw again the woman of smoke trailing her fingertip over Sawyer's chest. Was I ever going to gel that out of my brain? How did he?

Bam!

A dull cracking thud reverberated through the room. I glanced at the door, but it was still on the hinges, then up at the ceiling, but nothing huge and scaly was peeling back the roof and preparing to climb inside.

Bam!

The sound came again. From the bathroom.

I crossed the short distance, then turned the knob and walked right in.

The water was still running, the room full of steam. The red athletic shorts lay in a heap on the floor.

Sawyer leaned against the sink, shoulders hunched, head bowed. His hair was wet, he smelled of hotel soap, though even that couldn't erase the scent of fire, the mountains, distant lightning.

My gaze swept the room. Two huge holes gaped in the tile wall, and Sawyer's knuckles were bleeding.

"That isn't going to heal unless you shift," I said.

"It'll heal, just not right away."

"Was that really necessary?"

"Yes," he said simply.

I wanted to touch him, but I wasn't sure how, wasn't sure if touching him was the right thing, or the worst thing, I could do, so I stayed near the door and I waited.

He shivered and gooseflesh sprang up across his skin. He really was cold, or maybe in shock. Seeing him like this scared me. Sawyer was afraid of nothing and no one. Or so I'd believed.

"The door," he murmured. "It's chilly out there."

I shoved it a little too hard, and the resulting bang made him jump. "Sorry," I said.

He didn't answer, didn't move, just kept leaning against the sink as the mirror fogged and his knuckles bled red rivulets across the white porcelain.

I couldn't just stand there, so I strode forward, twisted the water on, and shoved his hand beneath the stream. That he let me caused the already nervous fluttering of my stomach to flutter some more.

"Why did you let her touch you like that?" I asked.

"You think I could have stopped her?"

I lifted my hand, tilted his face toward mine. "You're not a child anymore. You could have stopped her."

He yanked his chin from my grip. "Fighting only excites her."

I fought the gagging reflex at the image his words conjured. I was going to find out how to kill that bitch, and I was going to do it, no matter the cost. If there was justice on earth, and most of the time I had my doubts, the killing of a
Naye'i
would be a slow, drawn-out, and extremely painful process.

"Did you know she was the leader of the darkness?" I asked.

He shook his head. "I'm a witch, not a mind reader."

I narrowed my eyes. Sometimes I wondered.

"I haven't seen her in a long time. She hasn't answered my call." Sawyer pulled his hand out of the water, turned it off with a flick of his wrist, then stared into the sink as if all the answers had just swirled down the drain. "I should have known she was up to something."

Yeah, he should have. But after witnessing how she behaved with him, I could understand why he'd just been glad she was gone.

"She offered me to you."

His gray eyes met mine. "Yes."

"I didn't know you wanted me."

"Liar," he murmured.

Suddenly the room was too small, and despite the steamy heat, my skin tingled as if I'd just stepped into a snowstorm.

"I wanted you the first time I saw you, Phoenix."

"I was fifteen."

"Age means nothing to me," he said. "What matters is what's beneath. The soul is eternal."

I wasn't sure what he was getting at. "Obviously age meant something. You never touched me when I was at your place."

"I didn't?"

My face heated at the memory of what had happened at his place last month. "I meant the first time."

"So did I." He came closer. Even if I'd had room to move back, I couldn't. Backing up was considered backing down. That was a good way to get my throat ripped out. Figuratively. At least for now.

"Did you dream of me, Phoenix? All those years between when you left and when you came . .." He leaned over me, nuzzled my neck, his breath tickling the fine hairs and making me shiver. All the connotations of
came
ran through my head, just as he'd wanted them to. "Back?" he finished, as he kissed my throat, nibbled my collarbone, then suckled the skin where my pulse throbbed.

I couldn't quite recall what we'd been talking about. The steam was so thick, I could barely see the room around us. We seemed lost in the swirling fog, only the two of us left in this world.

I grasped desperately at sanity, caught it by the coat-tails just before it fled, and managed to lift my head, to speak. "Dreams aren't real."

"They are if they're memories."

He was trying to make me believe that he'd had sex with me as a teenager, that he'd somehow seduced me and made me forget it had ever happened, except in my dreams. But I knew that wasn't true. The first time I'd ever had sex had been with Jimmy. Blood doesn't lie.

Sawyer was trying to push me away. He didn't like that I'd seen her touch him, that I knew what she'd done to him. He didn't want my sympathy. But he did want me. I felt that as surely as I felt his heat, despite his protestations of cold.

The urge to show him some tenderness, to teach him that sex could be about something other than nothing, overwhelmed me. I couldn't have stopped what was happening between us any more than it seemed I could stop Doomsday.

I stared into his eyes. "You're trying to push me away."

He stared right back. "Is it working?"

"No," I said, and kissed him.

CHAPTER 20

I figured he'd push me away literally, that I'd have a battle on my hands. But Sawyer surprised me by kissing me back.

His mouth was desperate, his hands were, too. In the past he'd always taken his time; there'd never been any rush. One thing about Sawyer, even when he was doing you for the good of the world, he always made being fucked worthwhile.

He tasted both sweet and spicy. I licked his teeth; his fingers tightened on my arms, one squeeze and then he released me. I grabbed at him, afraid he'd fly away, and when my left palm met his right bicep, everything flickered.

"Open your eyes," he whispered.

I did and saw his had gone wolf. A growl rumbled, and it took me a second to realize the sound was coming from me. If I could see my face in the mirror past the steam, I had no doubt my eyes would reflect my wolf, too.

I yanked my hand away. When we had sex and I touched his tattoos, the essence of his beasts swirled through me. I didn't become them, but I felt them, smelled them, knew them as intimately as I knew him.