He didn’t know how long he’d been cycling, but he knew for damned sure that he had to get out of this fucking loop, and fast, because it wouldn’t be long before it started all over again.
This wasn’t part of the Triad spell. By now, he should be fighting to assimilate—or be assimilated by—his ancestors. Instead he was reliving the night he’d almost died in that river. At the thought, though, adrenaline kicked. A near-death experience formed a link to the gods. The Godkeeper ceremony involved near death by drowning. Maybe the Triad spell did too.
But he was already having an almost-dead-by-drowning experience within the vision. What more did he need to do in order to complete the spell?
He didn’t know.
And then it was too late, because the temperature dropped, chilling him to his bones.
For the last few seconds he was himself, he let his mind fill with a warm memory, that of Patience’s face aglow with happiness as they swapped marriage vows in front of a JP and half a dozen friends, needing nothing more than each other, really. Even though they had both lied about why their godparents—aka winikin—couldn’t be there, beginning the chain of small lies that had shaped the early, happy years of their marriage, the memory brought only a poignant ache.
No matter what had come after, that had been a good day. One of his best.
As the small peace dissolved, he closed his eyes and whispered into the blackness, “Sorry, sweetheart. I’m lost and I can’t figure out how to get back.”
Then the bottom fell out of his world, his soul lurched, and his consciousness regressed to that of a terrified, dying teen.
Skywatch Just past dawn, Patience jolted awake with her heart pounding and Brandt’s voice echoing in her mind.
“Hey,” she said, a smile blooming as she rolled toward him, having finally crashed in the bed, albeit clothed and atop the comforter. “You’re—” She broke off at the sight of his still form, the lack of animation in his angular features. “Not awake,” she finished, disappointment thudding through her as she saw that he looked the same as he had when she’d fallen asleep—his breathing too slow, his skin gray despite the IV taped at the crook of his elbow.
After recharging, she and the others had tried everything they could think of the night before, from a joint blood sacrifice to a one-sided attempt for her to call sex magic and awaken their jun tan bond.
Their mated link had remained stubbornly silent. Yet now she could swear his voice had awakened her.
Although the other mated pairs could share thoughts when they were uplinked, her and Brandt’s bond had always been different. Their jun tan link had carried a magic of its own, one that allowed them to transmit power, pleasure, and thoughts, sometimes even from a distance. So it wasn’t impossible that she’d heard him, but still . . .
“It was probably just a dream,” she murmured, knowing too well how much false hope could hurt.
But that didn’t stop her from taking his hand, interlacing their fingers, pressing their scarred palms together, and sending part of herself into their jun tan bond, just to see. The mark on her wrist warmed momentarily, but that was it. His half of their mated bond didn’t respond.
It wasn’t a surprise. But it hurt with a dull ache that gathered beneath her breastbone and lay leaden, weighing her down. She didn’t let go of his hand, though. Instead, she inched closer to his big, warm body and let her eyes drift shut. I’ll just lie here for a minute longer. . . .
Shrieks and laughter pulled her out of sleep into the warm drowsiness of yellow morning sunlight and the weight of her husband’s arm across her hips, the curve of his body behind hers, enfolding hers. Through the open bedroom door, she saw Rabbit spinning around in the main room, roaring demonlike while Braden clung to his shoulders and Harry battered at his knees, two miniature magi fighting to bring down one of the fearsome Banol Kax . With a final roar, Rabbit fell back onto the couch, flailing in pretend death throes while the twins pounced on him.
Hannah and Woody were making a big breakfast in the kitchen nook beyond, in what had become a weekend tradition, a way to carve some family time out of the daily demands of life at Skywatch.
Catching Patience’s look, Hannah grinned and turned her palms to the sky in an “I tried to get them to keep quiet” gesture belied by the amusement that snapped in her good eye. She had a brightly patterned kerchief tied pirate-style over the other side, where six parallel scars trailed down her face, tugging her smile slightly off center as she pretended to whack Woody’s knuckles for snitching an underdone pancake off the stove.
In the main room, Rabbit rolled off the couch to pounce on Harry with renewed roars and a growl of
“Gotcha!”
Braden shrieked and dove into the fray, and the three of them went down in a laughing, squirming tangle.
“Welcome to chaos,” Brandt rumbled against Patience’s neck, his voice amused. Beneath the bedcovers, he slid his hand up from her hip to her breast and began a slow, seductive morning fondle that was all the more enticing for its semipublic nature. More, it said that he was in a good mood, not sharp or distant as he had been too often lately, stressed by the transition to their new lives.
Her blood fired as she shifted to fit herself closer into the curve of his body, so she could feel the heavy throb of his morning erection. “Silence is overrated,” she whispered in return, keeping her voice low in the hopes of protecting a few more minutes together before the twins noticed that Mom and Dad were up.
And Dad was most definitely “up”; he rolled his hips a little to seat himself more firmly into the cleft of her buttocks, then slid his hand down to press her into him, with his strong, clever fingers drifting across the very top of her mound, sending spears of sensation that left her breathless. His breath was hot on the back of her neck and the side of her face, air-feathers that sent shivers coiling through her, making her yearn.
“Breakfast is ready!” Hannah announced brightly from the kitchen, her voice pitched to carry.
“Last one out to the patio gets rotten eggs!”
Rabbit lunged upward, roaring something about food, and slow-motion charged for the sliders leading out to the kid-proofed deck at the far side of the main room. Braden scrambled to beat him; Harry lagged and shot a look toward the bedroom.
“Your mom and dad will be with us in a minute.” Woody hustled him along, kicking the bedroom door shut on the way by, with an amused “Or twenty minutes, half hour, no rush.”
Brandt’s chuckle vibrated through his body and into hers. “Points to the winikin .” He slid her panties down but not off, so the waistband caught at the tops of her thighs, holding her legs together and creating deliciously wicked friction as he positioned himself to rub against her slick folds from behind, teasing them both. She purred and arched against him, heating to his touch and moving restlessly as urgency built. Then he shifted to slide into her, stretching and filling her—
Patience’s body shuddered, and the movement snapped her from her light doze, jolting her back to reality.