“You’re amazing,” she said simply. “You’re perfect. And you’re mine.”
He had nothing to say to that, but she didn’t mind, because she was pretty speechless herself, and tears were starting to film her eyes and leak a little, because this was all so important.
“Yeah,” he said, and she felt his mental touch as a kiss. Then his mood shifted, and he said, “Grab the knapsack just inside the door, okay? I packed clothes.”
Grinning at the memory of him wearing a makeshift loincloth, she did as he’d asked. Once she’d grabbed the bag and was back outside, he dipped a shoulder and she climbed up, settling herself in the hollow between his sleek head and powerful shoulders, and twining her feet and hands in his chains as she had done before. Nerves kindled, sweeping her burst of excitement away.
“Hang on!” he warned, and then hunkered down and kicked off, then began beating the air with powerful strokes of his wings, a fast tempo at first as they skimmed the ground alongside the ball court, headed for the mansion, then slower as he gained altitude. She halfway thought he would head the other way, straight out the back of the compound to the emptiness beyond, keeping this between them, a private thing.
Instead, he buzzed the mansion.
He banked around the ceiba tree with a fierce cry of joy and sent them flashing past the residential wing, then the pool. She saw the windows and openmouthed faces, saw Sven holler with joy and backflip off the diving board as they skimmed directly over him.
Then they were away from the mansion and Nate was powering up, sending them arrowing toward the thermal currents high above.
On a whisper of love, Alexis cast a light shield spell around them. When he glanced back, she sent, We’re in radar range, and too close to Area 51 for comfort.
Yikes. Good thinking. He paused, then sent a soft, Well?
Which was when she realized she’d forgotten to be weirded out, even a little. Maybe sleeping on it had helped adjust her perceptions, or maybe her psyche was ahead of her brain for a change, but his shifting talent was the last thing on her mind as they winged over the canyonscape, with the sun beating down on them from above, warming her skin.
It was the first full day of spring, she realized suddenly. A time for rebirth and growth, for starting over. A new dawn for the Nightkeepers.
“It’s perfect,” she said, speaking aloud, though she knew he’d catch the words from her head. He didn’t seem to be able to ’path in human form—for which she was grateful, because a girl needed some privacy—but she liked the mind-link they formed while flying. She liked flying too, she realized as she watched the ground flash past and listened to the wind song rustle through his feathers. “You’re perfect.”
He started angling downward, spiraling through the layers of air, his wings outstretched in a glide that took them to a small cave, one he must’ve sighted from the air, or maybe scouted out earlier in the day, who knew?
When they touched down, Alexis had a moment of nerves at the sight of the dark cave mouth. Given her last couple of cave adventures, she wasn’t exactly looking forward to going in there. But it wasn’t a hellmouth, didn’t have a river. It was soft and dry and welcoming, and when they moved inside she saw that the walls were marked with pteroglyphs, images painted by the men and women of another time, another culture than their own.
She dropped down from astride the hawk and looked in the knapsack, knowing he would’ve packed a blanket in addition to clothes. She turned her back on him as she spread the blanket on the dusty cave floor, giving him a moment of privacy, and by the time she turned around he was back to human form, stark naked and aroused. They lay together, loved together under the warm desert sun of springtime, and when the moment came they climaxed together, the orgasm punching through even stronger than before, because it was love now, not just sex. . . . In that moment she felt a sting on her forearm, and thought she saw a shimmer of rainbows reflected on the cave wall.
A few minutes later, as they lay cooling together, she raised her forearm and held it beside his. They each wore a new mark. A loving mark.
He leaned over and touched his lips to hers. “Jun tan.”
Late that night, when the stars and the moon had turned the world outside his cottage windows to something mysterious, Nate lay awake, watching his mate sleep.
There was no panic in his soul, no regret. Nothing except an absolute and perfect rightness that might’ve made him suspect that he and Alexis had been destined for each other all along . . . if he believed in that sort of thing. Which he didn’t. Just in case, though, he sent his thoughts skyward and whispered, “Thank you, gods.”
Little was actually settled in real terms, of course. Rabbit was awake and talking, but there were major questions about his connection to Iago and what it would mean going forward. Myrinne was another consideration, as was the search they were going to have to man in order to find Iago’s compound, and Sasha and Lucius. And the library.
The next few months—and years—were going to be complicated and dangerous, but he wouldn’t be facing them alone, or unarmed. He had a talent, a purpose, and a role within the Nightkeepers. More important, he had Alexis. Tipping his head back so he could look at the painting hung above the bed, which glowed shadows-on-gray in the moonlight, he whispered, “I get it now, Father.”
The paintings didn’t symbolize detachment at all, he’d realized. There were two people in every one of them: the artist . . . and the woman who’d clung to his shoulders and laughed with joy as they flew the skies together, looking down on the canyon, the ruin, and the sea. The paintings were his mother and father. They were love. And, as Nate curled into Alexis and breathed her scent, he knew that one thing would remain constant in the months and years and battles to come: With her, he was finally free.
Read on for a sneak peek at the third book
in the Final Prophecy series from
Jessica Andersen,
SKYKEEPERS
Coming from Signet Eclipse in August 2009.
Sasha Ledbetter’s boots felt strange on her feet, constricting after she’d spent so long going barefoot, with her sturdy lace-ups shoved under the cot in her cell. Her chest tightened, though that was from the nerves that flared when she finally— finally! —heard footsteps in the hallway. One set. Coming toward her room.
In all the time she’d been held prisoner by Iago and his freak-show disciples, this was the first time she’d looked forward to hearing the measured tread of boots in the hallway outside her cell. Before, it’d always meant interrogation. Terror. Endless questions without answers. Pain without end. This time, though, she wasn’t the same dazed creature the masked, red-robed interrogators would be expecting. A little while ago she’d awakened with both her palms sore from shallow cuts that had already scabbed over, her thoughts clouded with a dream of a brown-haired man bending over her, his eyes flickering from hazel to luminous green and back again. But though that was weird enough, far stranger was the clarity of her mind and the strength that flowed through her body, which had been weak and wasted, and was now whole once more.
A small, panicked part of her thought that this was a dream, that her soul had once again retreated deep inside her as the red-robes dragged her to the small stone room that smelled of incense and blood. But no, she had to believe this was real. She could feel the pinch of her boots and smell her own fear as the footsteps came closer.
She didn’t know why or how she was awake, whether they’d forgotten the drugs or withdrawn them for some purpose. She also didn’t know how it could be possible that her bedsores had healed overnight, and her muscles had grown strong once again, her arms and legs lean and toned. She knew only that she’d somehow been given a slim chance, and she didn’t intend to waste it.