Still, though, her instincts said that she and Lucius should travel together. Question was, did that instinct come from actual logic and the slim chance that she might be able to help him regain the Prophet’s magic, or was her star DNA urging her to rash action, just for the sake of some excitement?
Knowing she could trust Michael’s opinion on any and all strategy, she glanced at him. “What do you think?”
Lucius started to say something, but Michael held up a hand, forestalling him. “We know what you’d prefer. You want her hanging back, safe. And believe me, I can sympathize. But that’s not how it’s going to work, and you know it.” To Jade, he said, “We’ve talked it over”—by “we” he meant the skeleton royal council gathered there, she knew—“and the decision is that we’re not making the decision. It’s up to you. There’s zero shame in your staying here and continuing to refine your command of the iceball spell and see what other spells you can tweak. Or, hell, even if you can put together one from scratch. That’d be huge.” He paused. “But we all know that you’ve been frustrated with your role here. Before, it didn’t seem like a viable option to send you out into the field. Now, though . . . well, it’s not unheard of for a mage to take a little while to grow into his—or her—true talents, which is what you seem to be doing. Add to that the new info that you’re half-blood star, which might incline you to more power than if your mother had come from one of the bloodlines that usually intermixed with the harvesters, and it’s tempting to think you’re on your way to becoming a warrior, with or without the mark. Obviously, we want to encourage that. Under the old training system, your skills would’ve been developed step by step under the protection of a senior warrior. But those days are gone. Most of us have achieved our full powers by being thrown into situations that were way larger than anything we wanted or expected them to be.” He spread his hands. “Here, we’re trying to hit a middle ground between the two by putting you into a moderate-risk scenario with a shit-
ton of available backup, and a partner who would cut off his left nut before he let anything happen to you.”
Lucius looked away at that. Jade nearly corrected the misconception that the two of them were anywhere near that tightly bonded, but she didn’t, because what was the point? The others would believe what they believed, regardless of what she said. In a culture that orbited around the concept of destined mates, even the most alpha of males were matchmakers at heart.
“There’s a third option,” Michael added. “I could go along on the road trip, if you’d prefer. And for the record, if you stay behind, that doesn’t mean you won’t be allowed out on ops later. Once you’ve figured out your new limits, done some additional weapons training and hand-to-hand, that sort of thing, we can introduce you to the field in more controlled situations. This isn’t a one-shot deal, understand?”
She tipped her hand in a yes/no gesture. “For me, perhaps. But we’re getting down to the wire on figuring out how to save Kinich Ahau. Lucius and I were together when he opened the hellroad and then sent himself into the library. Although he hasn’t had any luck reproducing that magic so far, his odds are going to be far better if I’m there.” She glanced at Michael. “Without a chaperone.”
He nodded. “Good point.”
“No, it’s
Triumph kicked through Jade, though buffered by nerves and a serious case of
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
There had been no sign of pursuit or dark magic, and they had kept the conversation to relatively safe topics like the passing scenery, the sun going supernova, and the end of the world. Jade had floated the idea of them uplinking prior to sex, thinking that the blood link might allow him to lean on her magic to transport himself to the library. When he’d said he’d think about it, she didn’t push. And she hadn’t even hinted at whatever she’d been about to say the other night, when he’d been pretty sure she was headed in the
The fact that she hadn’t gone there should’ve been a relief. Instead, it was pissing him off.
Admittedly, that put him straight in the inconsistent-asshole category, at least in his own mind. He shouldn’t want her to push him on their relationship when he had no intention of letting things go further than they already had. But still, it chapped him big-time that she seemed to have reached the same conclusion, to the point that he was down to monosyllabic growls by the time they passed the signs indicating they were inside the campus proper.
“We made good time,” she commented as he navigated them through light summer on-campus traffic, headed for the visitors’ lot closest to the art history building.
He more or less grunted in her direction.
She wore jeans and a cheerful yellow short-sleeved polo shirt that clung to the curves of her breasts and the dip of her waist. Open at the throat, it offered occasional glimpses of the hollow between her collarbones and the soft skin beneath, making him want to touch. And that ticked him off, which didn’t make any sense. They were bed buddies, right? He could look; he could even touch. He didn’t need to get all weird about it.
He turned into the lot and aimed the Jeep at a decent spot, parking legally because he didn’t want to draw attention from the campus security guards, who would have a collective cow if they found the lockbox in the back, which was loaded with weapons, jade-tipped ammo, jade-filled grenades, and a decent array of assorted techware, some of which wasn’t exactly legal for civilian use. He and Jade were both wearing semiautomatics inside their waistbands and small-caliber drop pieces in ankle holsters, which worked only because UT hadn’t yet installed metal detectors.
Figuring that they were as prepared as they were going to get, he keyed off the Jeep and got out. He hadn’t gone more than a step when the air hit him—dry and hot even under the funky sun, and smelling so damned familiar as it brought the sudden gut-punching realization that his pissy mood had nothing really to do with Jade.
He froze in place as memories unfolded around him.
From the moment he’d finally escaped his home-town and come to UT to stay, he’d rarely left campus. He’d found his place at the university, had finally felt like he’d fit somewhere. Granted, he hadn’t fit everywhere; he’d still been scrawny and geeky, obsessed with science fiction and adventure role-playing. But he’d found friends. And then, in taking Intro to Maya Studies, he’d found his passion. He’d worked his ass off so he could afford to stay through the summers rather than going home, where, when he did return for the odd holiday, he’d felt even weaker than before, felt himself backsliding into the victim he was damn tired of being. So he’d stayed at the university through four years of undergrad, then slid seamlessly into the grad program, with Anna as his adviser. And, for nearly a decade, he’d immersed himself in the university, in the pieces of it that accepted him as he was, rather than wanting him to be bigger and stronger, more charismatic.
Sure, he’d gone out into the field with Anna, sometimes with colleagues of hers, or even a few times as a team leader in his own right. But those trips had been part of his university life, allowing him to transplant a subset of his stuff, George Carlin-style. And because of that, it hadn’t felt as though he’d truly left UT . . . until the demon within him had driven him in search of the Nightkeepers. And oh, holy shit, it felt strange being back.
“How long has it been?” Jade asked softly.
She understood, he realized. She got it. Automatically, he reached for her hand, drew her to his side, and let their fingers twine together as he stared at the students walking from one place to the next, or lying sprawled in the weird sunlight. The faces might change from year to year, but everything else was the same. “Since last spring. Fifteen months or so.”
“A very busy fifteen months.”
“Except for the part where I was sitting on my ass in the in-between.” He tugged on their joined hands,
