Dawnkeepers

least because he and Nate resembled each other: They were both tall and dark, both stylish in their own ways, and both came off as wealthy. In Michael’s case, though, Nate suspected the money was only surface-deep. More, he had a feeling that a background check that went a level or two further than the one Jox had done on each of them might turn up something seriously dark and dangerous, something that Alexis belonged nowhere near. Nate didn’t have any evidence to back up his hunch, though. It was just a guess, based on a couple of overheard snatches of the telephone convos Michael invariably took in his private rooms, and the fact that of all of them, Michael had shown the least desire to leave the compound and return to the real world they’d left behind.

I should have Carter look into him, Nate thought, then cursed himself for the impulse. Michael was a Nightkeeper, a teammate. He deserved better.

They all did.

Realizing he wasn’t any closer to sleep than he’d been when he lay down—in fact, feeling even more alert and awake now that he’d worked himself into a mental lather—Nate groaned and swung himself out of bed. Dragging a T-shirt on over a pair of gym shorts, he figured he’d head downstairs for a workout, hoping to exhaust himself into a stupor. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the same plan he’d had the evening after the bloodline ceremony, when he’d gone to the gym hoping to tire himself past the perma-boner he’d acquired with his first link to the magic. Instead Alexis had come looking for him, and they’d become lovers.

And that so wasn’t what he wanted to be thinking about right now.

Cursing himself, he headed out of his suite and down the residential hall, toward the stairs leading to the basement. He was halfway there when a scream split the air.

Alexis! He knew it was her, knew it in his gut, and was running for her door before the sound died off.

Images flashed in his head—not visions, but a mix of the things he’d seen and the ones he feared: scenes of Iago grabbing her and ’porting her someplace he couldn’t follow; scenes of her lying limp, bleeding out from sacrificial cuts in a long, rectangular chamber he didn’t recognize, one that his brain must’ve conjured to fill the need for a dark and creepy setting.

He hit her door at a run, twisting the knob and using his shoulder, slamming the panel inward with such force that it banged against the inner wall hard enough to break the stopper and dent the drywall.

He didn’t care about the door, didn’t care about the growing clamor of voices out in the hallway as the others responded to the commotion.

“Alexis!” He pushed through into her bedroom, slapping at the light switch on the way through, his heart in his throat with a half-recognized conviction that she’d be gone, her bed empty.

But she was there, sitting bolt upright in bed with the sheet clutched just above her nightshirt-

covered breasts. Her skin was pasty pale, her eyes glazed, seeing nothing. His initial spurt of relief at seeing her there in one piece fled quickly when he realized she wasn’t tracking, hadn’t noticed his arrival.

His first impulse was to grab and shake her, but the memory of being drawn into her link with the Ixchel statuette had him staying clear and raising his voice. “Alexis, snap out of it!”

She didn’t even blink.

Others were starting to come into the room now: Strike and Leah first, followed by Jox and Izzy, and then Michael, whom Nate really didn’t want to see just then. Nate forced himself to block them out, though, as he reached out and gripped Alexis’s wrist. When he wasn’t immediately sucked into the barrier, he said, “Come on, Lexie,” deliberately using the intimate nickname. He was partly hoping she’d hear it and know who was calling her back, partly wanting Michael to hear it and know Alexis was his, even though Nate knew the territorial urge marked him as a complete shit. “Wake up. It’s just a dream.”

That was so wrong it wasn’t even funny, because he was rapidly learning there was no such thing as

“just a dream” in the Nightkeepers’ world. Which was probably why he never dreamed. His subconscious wouldn’t let him.

The lie worked, though. Somehow it worked. Alexis stirred, and her pulse cranked up beneath his touch. She blinked and focused on him, then looked past him to where most of the resident Nightkeepers and winikin were crammed in her bedroom, expressions ranging from what the hell? to oh, shit.

Bright spots of embarrassment stained her cheeks. “I screamed, didn’t I?” When she closed her eyes for a second, Nate saw the pain she was trying to hide.

“What did you see?” he asked quietly, aware that he was still holding on to her wrist, and she’d curled her hand around to grip his forearm, linking them palm-to-mark.

When she hesitated, Leah said, “Would you like us to leave?”

“No,” Alexis said, too quickly. Her blush went darker and she pulled away from Nate, scooting higher up in her bed so there was a sizable gap between them. “No, you should all stay and hear this.”

It stung that she didn’t want to be alone with him, didn’t want to lean on him, but that was what he’d wanted, right? He didn’t get to bitch about getting his way.

“The dream?” Strike prompted, his eyes intent on her, no doubt because of all of them, he was the biggest believer in dreams and their portents.

“I saw . . .” She shuddered and looked at Nate, then away, staring out the window and the gathering dawn when she said, “I saw Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk; I’m sure of it this time.”

The logical part of Nate would’ve asked, “This time?” because he hadn’t known she’d seen their parents before this. But the other part of him, the closed-off, judgmental part, had already turned away, blocking off acknowledgment of the past. He didn’t care what his father had done, who he’d been. The circumstances had been beyond his parents’ control, granted, but that didn’t change the fact that they’d been nothing more to him than DNA donors.

It was Strike who said, “What else did you see?”

That implied he already knew about the visions, which just irked Nate more. If Alexis had kept this from him, what else was she keeping secret? But even as he wondered that, the rational part of him knew that it wasn’t like he’d encouraged sharing.

“They were in that long, narrow stone chamber,” she said slowly. “The same one I saw when I touched the statuette.” She bit off the word, making Nate wonder what she wasn’t saying.

Anna pushed through the crowd, moving between Nate and the bed, subtly easing him away. She shot Strike a look, and he started clearing the room.

“Go on,” Anna urged Alexis. “You saw your mother. What else?”

“I—Wait,” she said breaking off when Strike herded Michael toward the door. “I want him to stay.”

Nate muttered a curse and fought to stifle a flash of rage he had absolutely no right to feel.

Strike glanced from Nate to Michael and back, but raised his hands in surrender. “Okay. Michael stays.” But the look he shot at Nate promised a serious convo to come.

Alexis nodded, then said, “In my dream, Gray-Smoke and Two-Hawk were at the altar, which was made of stalagmites mostly, carved with scales and rainbows. They were working some sort of ritual —at least, they started to. Then they broke off and started arguing about something.”

“Did you hear the spell?” Anna asked. She was holding Alexis’s hands in hers, and Nate suspected she was either leaking the younger woman power or trying to see her dream through the contact. “Or what they were fighting about?”

“No.” Alexis paused and took a deep breath. “But here’s the thing: It was the same chamber, only the altar wasn’t the same. Well, it was, but there was a small door open on it, one that I didn’t see before. Maybe it was a secret compartment? Anyway, there was a little alcove behind the door, and inside the alcove there was a small carving.” Now she looked at Nate, their eyes locking. “It’s the other half of the Ixchel statuette. I’m sure of it.”

He nodded. It made sense that Ixchel would want them to find the other piece of her demon prophecy. Would’ve been nice if she could’ve beamed the missing text straight to Alexis or something, but he had a feeling none of what they were up against was going to be that easy. The gods had rules the Nightkeepers didn’t understand any better than they knew the extent of their own magic, or the limitations of the Xibalbans and Banol Kax. “What else did you see?” he asked.

“Nothing much.” She shook her head, grimacing. “There was this buzzing over everything, like interference. Static. I couldn’t hear any of what they said, and they were still arguing when I woke up.”

Strike shot a look at Nate. “Did you dream anything?”