“Poor you,” Red-Boar sneered. “You always had the basics and then some. Cry me a fucking river.”
“Don’t,” Rabbit said flatly. “You really don’t want to go there.”
His old man must’ve seen something in his eyes, because he cursed and turned away. “Screw this. I’ve got a meeting with the king. Think about it, though, boy. Think long and hard before you do something really fucking stupid.”
“That’s one of the few lessons I think I have learned.”
Red-Boar just growled back over his shoulder. “Use your head, for fuck’s sake.”
Rabbit didn’t mean to watch him walk away, but his old man always could twist him around and tie him in fucking knots. Which left him standing there for a minute, debating. Logic said he should warn Dez how bad his old man was getting. Instinct, though, had him gravitating toward the path that led to his cottage . . . and beyond that to the firing range.
At the thought of the range, warmth kicked in his chest and an ache tugged low in his gut, letting him know that he hadn’t been heading for his cottage, after all. He’d been heading for Myrinne.
His body knew where she was. His magic knew.
What it didn’t know was what he was supposed to say to her.
“Fuck it.” Deciding to let Dez and Red-Boar go the first round without him, he headed for his cottage, but ducked in only briefly to grab a couple of things. Then he kept going along the path, all the way to the range.
When the Nightkeepers had first returned to Skywatch, the weapons training area had consisted of a boring-ass indoor range of the cubicle-and-paper-target variety, plus an outdoor sniper range that wasn’t much better. These days, thanks to Michael’s background as a government-trained assassin and his lust for gadgets, the training area included a faux Mayan ruin built in cement and rebar, along with a second indoor range inside a prefab steel building. There, trainees could work their way through an urban-jungle training course, blasting away at pop-up targets and holos, with a digital scoreboard in the corner tallying their speed, kills and collateral damage.
Rabbit made for the big steel building, knowing that was where she would be even before he saw a flicker of reflected light and heard the generator kick on. The setup was like a full-scale video game. He couldn’t think of a better place for someone like him—or Myrinne—to burn off some aggression.
As he approached, he heard a muffled pop-pop-pop from one of the holo-enabled training weapons, then the crackling roar of a fireball. The surge of magic lit his senses and tightened his skin as he stepped through the main door and into the small locker room that acted as an antechamber. The lights were off in the windowless room, creating a warm darkness that wrapped around him as he paused in the shadows and looked into the main room, seeing without being seen.
Myr had changed out of the jeans and soft sweater she’d been wearing earlier, into close-fitting black workout gear that moved as fluidly as she did when she spun and snapped off a “shot” of laser light into a glowing lava demon, flung herself to the ground to avoid a hologram claw-swipe, and came up firing. Wearing her weapons belt along with the gizmos that made up the badass laser-tag system, with knives strapped to her thigh and calf, she looked deadly as hell, and twice as sexy. Her face was set in concentration, her eyes gleamed with reflected holo-light, and her moves showed the hours she’d put into her training, and the athleticism—and sharp edge—that had made her a natural at this from the very beginning. She didn’t think she was brave, didn’t think she had fought enough against the Witch, but he knew different. And could’ve stood there watching her all damn day.
She crouched and spun, flattened three hologram camazotz in rapid succession, then nailed a fourth with a bolt of crackling green magic that surged and spit with a dangerous, feminine power that hardened his flesh. More, it brought his own fighting instincts to the fore, making him want to challenge her, tussle with her, make love to her, right here and now.
Question was, what did she want?
Steeling himself, he stepped out of the shadows and into her peripheral vision.
She checked her next attack and spun to face him, cheeks flushed with exertion, eyes going wary and brittle at the sight of him. She raised her weapon but didn’t holster it, and didn’t let the magic ramp down. “I’m a little busy here. And really not in the mood for company.”
“It’s a pretty night.” He lifted the six-pack that was the first of the bribes he’d grabbed from the cottage. “I was hoping we could sit out and watch the stars for a bit.”
Her eyes didn’t give a damn thing away. “Why?”
Because last night was amazing, but you still snuck out. Because you’re the one I want to be with, the only one I trust, even when I don’t trust myself. Especially then.
He kept those answers inside, though, and went with the one that’d come to him as he’d stood there at the pathway’s fork, knowing he should go up to the mansion but wanting to be with her instead. “Because the first time around, we just sort of happened. We met, we liked each other, made sense together—at least as we saw it—and we got together and had some damn good times.” He paused. “But the thing is, I was so caught up in being a Nightkeeper, so convinced that we were destined mates that I coasted. I didn’t work for it, didn’t work for you.”
Maybe she paled a little, but she didn’t back down, didn’t lower her defenses. “And now?”
“Now I want to make it up to you. Hell, I don’t know what that even means, just that I hated waking up alone this morning, and I hate not knowing if you’ll be with me tonight, or ever again. What’s more, I know damn well that there’s not anybody else I want to be with right now, nobody else I want to talk to about the things that’re going down.” He reached into a pocket, pulled out a Ziploc half full of Sasha’s death-by-cacao brownies and held it out to her. He wasn’t even entirely sure what he was asking for, but he asked it anyway. “What do you say? Are you willing to give me another chance?”
Myr stared at him for a beat, telling herself not to be an idiot. Problem was, she didn’t know which answer counted as idiocy: accepting his peace offerings and risking what little hard-won balance she’d managed to get back after their night together . . . or telling him to get lost.
The fact that she could come up with a laundry list of why she should send him away probably should’ve made the choice for her. She hesitated, though, and not just because of the brownies. It was the mix of hope and “I dare you” in his eyes, and the shimmer of heat that snapped in the air between them, one that she couldn’t quite ascribe to the fighting magic that was pumping in her veins. And, to be honest, it was the shame of knowing she had wimped out this morning.
Tell him to stay? Tell him to go?
It would’ve been easier if he’d been just another guy, like the ones she’d hooked up with in New Orleans. But there were millions of those guys out there, and only one Rabbit. He awed her, impressed her, sometimes scared the hell out of her. He had the potential to save them all . . . and the potential to destroy her. She wanted him, yearned for him, and after last night she knew damn well it would be far too easy to submerge herself once more in a relationship with him.
But he’d brought her brownies and beer, which had been a Friday night ritual during their year-plus together in college, a way to celebrate the weekend back when they’d thought they had it so tough and hadn’t had any idea what tough actually felt like. Now, she knew exactly how it felt . . . and it was asking her for a chance to get back with her, and to let things between them go deeper than she’d had any intention of going.
She should tell him to get lost. Instead, she nodded to the six-pack. “Vitamin B?”
The tense set of his shoulders eased slightly. “Something like that.” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Wanna take a walk?”
She really, really shouldn’t.
She did it anyway.
They ended up at the pueblo. Nostalgia tugged as she crested the narrow, winding trail leading up and saw the wide, flat ledge and familiar round doorways. This was where Rabbit had gone when they fought, where they had gone together to get a little drunk and make love under the stars, and—although she hadn’t told him—it was where she had hidden out in the weeks after he disappeared, while she recovered from his attack and tried to come to grips with what had happened between them.
She hadn’t been back since she gained control of the magic. It didn’t look any different, though. She was the one who was different . . . or at least trying to be.
