Dawnkeepers

sensitive spot at the back, just beneath his hairline.

Heat speared through him, lust flaring as that small gesture reminded him of the past. They’d been together only two short months, but they’d packed a hell of a lot of sex into those weeks, when they’d been ridden hard by pretalent hormones and the magic that had sought to bind them together. Had almost succeeded.

Memory gentled his touch, had him cupping her, shaping her the way he’d learned she liked. Her eyes went glassy and her head fell back, baring her throat to his lips. Time stretched out, spiraled inward. In that instant there were only the two of them and the small stone room, the carved audience frozen timeless on the walls, and the moving floor of water, pierced with stone teeth and ripples of movement.

“Lexie,” he said, using the name he’d used only when they’d been alone together, wrapped up in each other. “I—”

“Don’t,” she interrupted, pressing a finger to his lips. “It’s only a dream.”

He wasn’t sure he believed that, but knew damn sure he didn’t care anymore. He eased back to strip off his shirt, and when he did she dropped down from her perch to shimmy out of her pants. Then, with a crook of her finger, she brushed past him, naked, and headed for the edge of the platform, where the stone gave way to liquid darkness. Without a word or a moment’s hesitation, she lowered herself into the water, which rose to her waist, then her shoulders.

Swimming, treading water with lazy strokes, she turned and looked at him, one eyebrow raised in challenge. “Well?”

Done with hesitating and justifying, he hastily stripped off the rest of his clothes and dove in, slicing cleanly between the pale teeth of stone that broke the surface. The water was warmer than he’d expected, cool but not cold, and the thrill of it tightened his skin and ramped his excitement. There was a quiver of power, too, the resonance of sacrificial offerings that had been thrown in the pool in ages past.

The water was deep enough that he had to tread, kicking gently as he stroked toward the place where Alexis had come to rest. She was settled between two tall stalagmites that were joined at the base and split near the waterline, forming a pocket for her to sit in, with the spires branching away above, giving her freedom to move, yet an anchor to brace herself against if she desired.

Desire. It was all he felt, all he could process as he moved toward her. Her arms were linked around the stone pillars, her legs eased slightly apart in the natural stone pocket. Water licked at her navel; her wet hair clung to her shoulders and full breasts. Amber torchlight glittered on droplets of water as they ran from her hair and tracked down her breasts and belly and ran along the graceful curves of her arms.

She was an astonishingly beautiful gut-punch that took Nate’s breath away. And in that instant, as he closed with her and touched his lips to hers, he thought he understood the lure of thinking that goddesses were real.

If he’d believed in such things, he would’ve sworn he was looking at a goddess right now.

Alexis wasn’t a weeper, but a single tear gathered and broke free, sliding down her cheek as he touched his lips to hers for the first time in so long. The kiss was sweet and soft, a moment of worship from a man who didn’t believe in either sweetness or the gods. She leaned into him, wrapped herself around him, holding herself firmly in the moment because thoughts of the past and the future were equally heartrending. This wasn’t real; she knew it deep down inside, with both the beings that were her and not-her. This was a dream, a vision. Their bodies were back at Skywatch; they weren’t really making love; nothing was really going to change. But in that instant, in that shiny, glittering instant, she could pretend, if only for a few minutes or an hour, that the hawk was hers as he’d been before.

Before? thought a small, panicked part of her, knowing the impulse went much farther back than just the previous summer. More like a previous lifetime, and that was getting weird even for Alexis.

Then he changed the angle of the kiss, took it deeper, and the past, present, and future contracted to a single point, a limitless now that picked her up and swept her away. Murmuring agreement, encouragement, she opened to him and let herself fall into the familiar madness, the feelings she’d tried to let go of, but had really only set aside. Being with him once again unlocked those feelings, setting them free to flood her with an ache that was edged with the sharp anger of rejection.

You ditched me, she said with her next kiss. You didn’t want me enough to work out whatever got stuck in your head. She didn’t know what had happened, or how she could’ve changed the outcome.

And really, it didn’t matter now, because now wasn’t real. Still, she wanted to punish him for the pain, wanted to dig into him for hiding the truth, for hiding himself. But the other woman inside her, the one who’d never been clumsy, never been embarrassed, that woman turned the punishment into pleasure, skimming her hands and lips over his body, using the sensitive spots Alexis had found and taking them further, dancing her fingernails on his skin and testing them with her teeth.

Heat spiraled higher, flared hotter, as she and Nate strained together, locked in a combative sort of lovemaking. The air warmed around them and the water heated—or maybe that was their bodies, and the heat they made together as they brought each other to the place where joining became as necessary as breathing.

He entered her, sliding into her on a wash of wetness and a clench of pleasure. His hollow groan echoed deep in his chest, counterpointing her soft cry. Then they were moving together and apart, one against the other, push and pull, push and pull. Alexis braced herself against the rocky spires, feeling the slide of stone without, the slide of his hard flesh within, and around it all the soft wetness of the water and moist air, and the good press of his arms around her as they clung and shuddered.

Then he gripped her hips in his big hands, holding her in place as he began to piston, setting a pace of ruthless masculine pleasure.

“Gods,” Alexis whispered, going numb to everything but the sensations that rolled through her.

She’d forgotten this, somehow forgotten about the moment when the sex took him over, when he went beyond the civilized veneer to a feral, animal place beyond, where he existed only for his pleasure—

and hers.

He drove into her, held her, pinned her, stripping away her defenses and contracting her universe until the only things that existed were the two of them, the points at which their bodies connected, and the thundering pace of his sex.

He held her, loved her, took her over. The orgasm slapped at her, unexpected in its ferocity, which gave her no option, bowing her back and wringing a cry from deep in her throat. Her inner muscles clamped around him, feeling stronger than before, needier. She pumped him, clenched around him, and he cut loose with a roar. The pulse of his flesh within her heightened her response, prolonging the orgasm, drawing it out until she was nothing more than a bundle of neurons coalesced together, throbbing in pleasure. She hung on to the only solid objects nearby, lest she be swept away.

Then the waves passed, fading to an echo, then a fearsome memory.

Alexis clung to him with her face turned from his, her cheek pressed into his shoulder. She didn’t dare pull away and look at him, didn’t want to see how much the sex had—or hadn’t—meant to him.

And as much as she tried to tell herself that none of it was real, it’d sure as hell felt real, and the tug at her heart was real.

“Lexie,” he said, his voice cracking on the endearment. “I—” The world lurched, interrupting. The water started to swirl, and a hard, hot wind whipped through the stone chamber, coming from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Alexis heard him shout, and screamed as they were torn apart and sucked down, as everything went to flame and then gray-green, spinning and moving and howling as though they’d insulted the gods themselves. Her heart pounded in her chest, panic slicing through her as she grabbed for something, anything she could hold on to, and found nothing but air. Wind screamed around her, howling, sounding almost like words.

All of a sudden there were words, a multitonal voice shouting, “The Volatile must be found!” Then, out of nowhere, a strong hand gripped Alexis’s wrist and yanked.

And she was back at Skywatch.

Her consciousness dropped into her body with a jarring thud. She went limp and slid sideways, saved only when Nate jammed his hip against her shoulder and shoved her back into her chair. He was still hanging on to her