Skykeepers

two glyph tattoos, both done in black, both images she recognized from childhood lessons: the stone bloodline and the warrior’s talent. They were the marks of a mage. A so-called Nightkeeper.

He was one of them, damn it. A role-player. Sasha knew she shouldn’t be surprised. More, she shouldn’t be disappointed. Because she was both, she stopped dead and yanked away from him, anger giving her strength.

He spun back, brows snapping together over those fierce green eyes as he looked fully at her for the first time. “What the hell?”

“You think you’re a goddamn Nightkeeper!”

He leaned in, giving her a close-up of his square, shadowed jaw and the burning intensity of his gaze. “Correction,” he grated, the word seeming to vibrate beneath her skin, “I am a goddamn Nightkeeper. And right now, I’m your best chance of getting the hell out of here alive. So are you going to move your ass, or am I going to have to carry you?”

“I don’t—” she began, but didn’t get any further than that.

He muttered a sharp expletive under his breath and scooped her up against his chest as though she weighed nothing. Outraged and terrified, Sasha drew breath to scream—

And the world went gray-green, then black.

As Michael hustled down the tunnel cradling Sasha’s warm, curvy body against him, guilt pinched that he’d used a sleep spell on her. She wasn’t all the way under, which argued for her being a mage of some sort. But she’d gone far enough under that he could pick her up and get going.

We’ve gotta move, not argue , he rationalized. But really, that had been only part of the decision—

the other part was that he’d needed a moment to regroup. As in, a moment without her conscious and pushing his buttons, threatening his control.

When Lucius had led the Nightkeepers into the Xibalban ambush, the magi had swung into plan B: Strike, Leah, Nate, and Alexis had dug in to return the enemy fire, while the others had scattered to search the compound, each assigned to a block of high-priority rooms. Michael had started to head for his assigned rooms, but halfway there his warrior’s talent had stopped him dead, turned his ass around, and sent him in the entirely opposite direction. He’d radioed his change of plans; to his surprise, Strike hadn’t argued. Instead, the king had muttered something about there being no such thing as coincidences, and got Sven and Patience to check his assigned rooms. Ignoring Strike’s reference to the writs and the will of the gods, Michael had followed his instincts—or whatever the hell it was—all the way across the labyrinth in the direction of the main mansion. There, he’d practically tripped over Sasha.

He’d imagined rescuing her more times than he wanted to admit, and the scene had usually involved him kicking in a door—or some Xibalban ass—in the process of getting her free. But there hadn’t been a door, and she’d gotten at least partway free on her own. With nothing to kick, he’d been off his stride. And that first sight of her in person, where before she’d existed for him solely in the PI’s notes and pictures, had done the kicking, with him as the target.

As in the photos, her cheekbones were wide set, her nose slightly tipped up at the end, her mouth lush and bow-shaped, her eyes a deep, rich brown. Her dark hair surrounded her face in a halo of waves and looping curves with no definable style. Her body was long and lean, yet subtly curvy inside faded bush pants and a too-big sweatshirt, and she was tall enough to look him in the eye. He’d gotten all that from the PI’s file.

What the file hadn’t told him was how the very air around her would snap with energy, or how alive she would be, how vital, when he hadn’t dared hope she would come out of her captivity in one piece, either physically or mentally. Thank you, Lucius, he’d thought, seeing the slashes on her palms. Their inside man-turned-traitor must have blooded her in an effort to jump-start her connection to the healing magic of a Nightkeeper. And damned if it didn’t look like it had worked, providing another point in favor of her having mage blood. He’d guess it was a strong bloodline, too, given how clearly she was thinking, how easily she’d moved . . . and how she felt in his arms as he doubled back along another steel-lined hallway.

His talent-sharpened hearing brought him the sound of quick-stepping bootfalls a couple of hallways over, and he paused to take a listen. Shit. They were between him and the other magi, they were headed his way, and there were a bunch of them. Outnumbered and cut off from the other magi, burdened with a mostly unconscious woman, Michael knew he didn’t dare fight them, though part of him thought otherwise.

Heart pumping, senses and reflexes sharpening as the footsteps drew nearer, he ducked into the shallow alcove created by a vaulted doorway and cast a chameleon shield that should conceal him and Sasha . . . assuming the Xibalbans couldn’t see through his magic. Then he shifted her to a fireman’s carry and pulled one of his MAC-10s, just in case they could.

Moments later, six heavily armed and armored, tense-looking gray-robes rounded the corner and headed along the hallway toward where Michael and Sasha were concealed. They got to work immediately, splitting into two groups and checking each room.

Michael stifled a curse, knowing there was no way they wouldn’t notice they were missing a doorway. Pulse thrumming, he braced himself to make a mess as they drew abreast of his position . . . and didn’t even glance over.

Apparently the chameleon shield didn’t just confuse light and sound; it confused perception and memory. Nice.

He didn’t have time to bask, though, because two of the men paused just opposite the alcove. “The master wants us to watch for the mick, and he needs the woman alive,” said the first, a lean-faced man with pale blue eyes and a hooked nose. “Once we’ve got her, he’ll bring her straight back to the mountain.”

The other guy—a shorter, squatter type with a wrestler’s face—shrugged, looking annoyed. “That’s assuming we find her. It’s like she fucking disappeared.”

“Don’t sweat it,” Hook-nose said as they moved off again. “The pilli are on their way. Won’t take them long to sniff out the Nightkeepers’ magic.”

Michael waited a minute longer, making sure they didn’t double back. When he was sure they were gone, he keyed on his throat mike and reported the convo to Strike and the others, finishing with, “Damned if I know what the mick and the pilli might be.” The only magic sniffers Michael knew of were the boluntiku, which were horrifying lava creatures from the underworld itself. “But I’ve got Sasha. Let’s meet up and get the hell out of here.”

“Easier said than done,” Strike answered. “The ambush team retreated and sealed the exits using some sort of central lockdown, so we’re stuck in here. Rabbit felt a pretty good surge of dark magic a few minutes ago, probably teleport, but we’re not sure whether Iago’s people were coming or going.”

“Shit,” Michael muttered, hoping to hell Strike was keeping a close eye on the kid.

During his imprisonment, Rabbit had traded Myrinne’s life for the red hellmark of the Xibalbans, which had connected him to their hellmagic.That meant the young man could track the Xibalbans’ power draws, but also that Iago could sometimes reach him through a mind-link.

“It gets worse,” Strike continued. “I can’t zap us out of here. Either the resonance from all the stonework has fouled my ’port lock or Iago’s got some sort of ward going. Rabbit’s trying to burn his way through the ceiling into one of the exit tunnels.”

“How’s that coming?” Michael asked.

“Not good.” The reply came from Rabbit himself.

Michael grimaced, hesitated, then said, “All due respect, but my gut says we don’t have time to dick around. Is there a faster option?”

There was a murmur of off-mike convo for a moment; then Strike came back. “The second hidden chamber Leah and I found was clearly Nightkeeper in origin, not Mayan like the rest of them. Maybe the latent power of those stones, plus the group of us linking up, will give me enough to punch through.”

Michael hissed out a breath. “I thought solid rock fouled ’port lock, period.”

“It screws with my ability to lock onto a destination, but I can still trigger the ’port and get us into the travel flow of the barrier. From there—gods willing—I can lock onto a destination and get us the rest of the way home.”

Michael could’ve done without the “gods willing” part, but it seemed their best option, especially when he