drink herself to sleep. But the idea didn’t appeal nearly as much as the image of Michael somewhere outside under the full moon, fighting himself into oblivion. She considered the options for all of five seconds. Then she pushed through the sliders and headed out into the moonlit night, intent on a hunt of her own.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Outside, the moon was lower than it had been before, during the ceremony, and gone yellow with its declination. Some small part of Sasha noted that it wasn’t orange or otherwise off-color, confirming the latest reports that whatever was wrong with the sun, it wasn’t the atmosphere’s fault.
The larger part of her, though, focused on her footing, and the growing sense of nervy panic at what she was about to do—not only the booty-call aspect of things, but the prospect of disturbing Michael at his most private.
Still, though, she didn’t turn back. She padded across the ash shadow where the great hall had stood in Ambrose’s day. The ceiba tree that had grown from its ashes was black in the wan moonlight, its leaves limned in gray. Then she forged onward and passed into the wide space between the tall, parallel walls that formed the I- shaped ball court, where small stone rings were set high overhead as the goals of the ancient game, with its life- and-death stakes.
She was dimly aware of passing a tray of covered food, but she focused entirely on the man at the center of the open space.
Barefoot and naked to the waist, wearing only the loose black track pants he favored around the compound, Michael wielded a pair of curved swords as though they were extensions of his arms. He moved as one beautiful, balanced whole when he spun, leaping into the air to avoid the swipe of an invisible attacker. He landed and lashed out, then flowed away again, his movements liquid and lovely in their perfect violence.
Sasha was hardly aware of moving, but she drew closer to him, crossing the packed earth that her ancestors had used for a game that had celebrated the daily rise and fall of the sun, the cycle of life itself. This night, though, the lone player wasn’t celebrating anything. He was trying to burn himself out.
The moonlight gleamed off his skin; shadows edged the sharply defined muscles that slid beneath.
His wide shoulders bunched and flexed, and the strong column of his spine curved elegantly as he reversed, redirected, then swept low and pinwheeled out of his phantom opponent’s reach. There was no sound but the brush of his feet on the trampled dust, and the flare of his nylon pants. The silence made the whole scene feel otherworldly, as if she were standing outside herself, looking down on the scene.
Then he paused, holding a final triumphant form for several heartbeats before he broke the kata, set the swords aside, and turned to face her. Eyes dark in the night, he said, “You shouldn’t have come.”
She held her ground, tipped her head in acknowledgment. “Probably not. But I collect what I’m owed. You’ve used me twice to ramp up your magic. Now I need you to help me burn mine off.”
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand. “I owe you distance, not another go-round.”
“I’m not sure that’s your call.” Blood hummed beneath her skin, pulsing in time with her heart, with the tension that sprang to life between them, hot and wanting.
“Then whose call is it?”
On impulse, riding the burn of her blood, she said, “I’ll fight you for it. Winner chooses. Sex or distance.”
“I don’t want to hurt you.”
“Not even close,” he growled, eyes fixed on her with an intensity that sent shimmers of heat along her neurons to gather at her center, where they coiled, thrumming with desire.
This was the man she wanted, the one she’d come looking for. She tipped up her chin. “I’m willing to take my chances.”
He stared at her a moment longer as the night closed in on them, the silence broken only by a whisper of wind running along the top of the ball court walls, and a coyote’s eerie howl in the distance. Finally, moving so slowly that she was acutely aware of the change in each muscle, the exquisite control he commanded over his own body, he came to a ready position and inclined slightly in a bow. Acknowledging her challenge. Challenging her in return.
Adrenaline and burgeoning hormones hummed in her bloodstream, along with a sparkle of nerves that warned her she was already in over her head. But she didn’t back down, didn’t wimp out. She’d come outside for him. If this was what he was willing to give her, she’d take it. Then, gods willing, she’d take more.
Hyperconscious of her own body and the brush of cloth on skin, she skimmed out of her long-
sleeved shirt, leaving her in the tight sports tank and flowing pants. She kept her sneakers on for the benefit of grip, bouncing on the balls of her feet a couple of times to test her balance and loosen muscles that threatened to go tight with excitement and need.
He watched her in utter stillness, the only movement the dark gleam of his eyes as they tracked her with an intensity that made the touch of his gaze into a caress. But when she squared off opposite him and mimicked his earlier bow before dropping into a balanced, fight-ready stance, he didn’t make a move in her direction. Instead, he moved away, circling her slowly. She turned, keeping their eyes locked as he reversed the rotation, moving back widdershins.
They moved in synchrony, staying a constant distance apart, on a rotation that made it seem like they were dancing without touching. Then, without warning, he moved in with a foot sweep that nearly caught her, would’ve flattened her if her reactions had been any slower. She jumped over the top of the attack, touched down, and hopped again immediately, expecting a return sweep. But there was only his dry chuckle as he disengaged and resumed his circling. “The follow-through is too banal. I try not to do what’s expected of me.”
“So I’ve noticed.” Knowing he was toying with her, she dampened the flare of irritation, reversed the circle, and closed on him from the side with a hip check-sweep combo that used a bigger opponent’s leverage against him.
He twisted away from the meat of the throw, dropped himself, and rolled away, flowing to his feet with an elegance that tightened the knot of desire riding low in her belly. She didn’t want to fight him; she wanted to feast on him, wanted her hands on him. But as she closed with him again, dodged a sweep-kick, and went in low, aiming an elbow into his kidneys that landed with a satisfying jolt, she was jarringly aware that he was doing everything he could to avoid touching her. He wasn’t throwing punches or going for holds or throws; he was using his legs and feet, his balance and body mass.
“Put your damn hands on me,” she snarled, closing and going for a hold. She gained purchase for a moment, putting the two of them face-to-face. She saw the fire in his eyes, felt the heat pouring off his skin.
He gripped her for a second, convulsively, and leaned in, his eyes hard and hot, and a little frightening. She saw the kiss coming, welcomed it with a flare of raw lust that wouldn’t let her fear him. Then he flipped her, and the world spun a full revolution around her before she slammed to the ground, only to find him there, cradling her neck and hips in his arms to break her fall.
Enraged, she bounced to her feet and faced him, hands balled into fists at her sides, breaking the practiced positions for one of pissed-offedness. “Don’t baby me, godsdamn it.
“I can’t.” His eyes were a little wild in his face, his chest heaving with far more exertion than he’d evidenced while practicing alone, though they’d done little but circle each other.
“You can,” she insisted. “Just stop holding back. I can take a punch.”
“You
“I want to live, damn it. I want to celebrate being free of Iago. I’ve got a bloodline now, a place in the world. He can’t take that away from me. Nobody can.” Startled by the freeing truth of it, she tipped her head back to the sky and laughed aloud. As if called by her joy, a sense of power flowed through her, a heady elixir that made her feel wholly feminine, yet strong with it rather than soft. She caught a thread of that foreign, marchlike
