Demonkeepers

hammering pounding of the blood in her veins and his body into hers, and the broken gasps of pleasure that streamed from her. Ohyesohyesohyes! Clinging to him, hanging on to him with the knowledge that she’d be lost if she let go, she cried out as the first orgasmic contraction seized her, making her whole body rigid and vising her inner muscles around his thick, heavy length.

He gave a guttural roar that brought her even higher as he thrust and thrust again. Then he seated himself to the hilt within her, pressing hard against her most sensitive spots within and without, bowed his head, and let himself go. His muscles locked rigor-tight as he bowed into her, held her against him, and shuddered his release. Hips flexing, he pressed himself into her harder still, once and again, in an automatic reflex that protracted the echoes of her pleasure.

They stayed locked together, holding hard on to each other, for a long, long time.

Eventually, though, the heat faded to languor and reality returned. And that reality had Jade’s hands staying locked onto his shoulders, and her face remaining pressed against his throat . . . because she didn’t have a clue what to do next, what to say. She would’ve liked to keep things light and playful, as she’d meant to in the very beginning, but somewhere between desire and domination, things had turned serious.

Lucius let out a long, satisfied breath, muttered something about crushing her, and sort of flopped off to one side. Part of her would’ve been relieved if he’d landed facedown and fallen immediately unconscious, as one of her unlamented exes had habitually done after far more lukewarm sex than the room rocking that had just occurred. Lucius, though, propped himself up on one elbow and gazed at her, his expression far more intense than she would’ve preferred. She wasn’t sure what he read there; his expression was guarded and his voice gave away nothing of his inner thoughts when he said, “You okay?”

It was the sort of thing lovers said to each other when they didn’t know what else to say. In this case, though, she knew he meant it, that he truly wanted to know where her head was at in the aftermath of . . . well, in the aftermath. But she didn’t know where her head was at, wasn’t really sure if she was okay or not. The sex had been . . . amazing. They’d connected, pleased each other. But whereas her magic had kindled, flowing within her, his magic hadn’t. There had been no hint of the whirling, tugging sensation she’d experienced right before their transition to Xibalba, and again when she’d been swept into the barrier in his wake. He’d given no sign of sensing anything beyond very, very good sex. Which means that was all it was for him, she thought on a long, slow twist of disappointment.

“I’m—” She broke off, gut icing at what sounded like a cry of pain from outside. “Did you hear that?”

Seconds later it came again, and this time there was no mistaking the sound of a woman’s scream. It was muffled by distance, but carried terror and pain. Adrenaline jolted through Jade. She was moving even before the motion sensors guarding their perimeter went off with a loud whoop of alarm.

“Shit!” Lucius scrambled off the bed and hit the floor hard, yanking on his clothes as he ran. He grabbed her folded clothes from a chair and chucked the shirt and jeans in her direction. “Hurry.” He disappeared into the sitting room; moments later, she heard the snick of the lockbox latches and the metallic clicks of clips being slapped home into autopistols.

Dragging on her jeans first, Jade pulled the panic button out of her pocket and activated it as she shoved her feet into her sneakers. She dropped the handheld unit in the process of jerking her shirt on over her head. Just as she bent to retrieve it, the French doors exploded inward and the chatter of machine-gun fire split the night. The bullets cut through the air where she’d just been, slicing the white canopy swags to tatters and pulping plaster to dust as she threw herself flat behind the bed.

“Jade!” Lucius appeared in the doorway, carrying a double-barreled shotgun with deadly menace.

He was wearing black body armor over his T-shirt and a black utility belt slung low across his hips over his jeans. The belt was loaded with spare clips and guns, and a military-style combat knife hung where the magi wore their bloodline blades. The combination of warrior’s gear and human casual should have jarred. Instead, it made him look deadly and capable.

“I’m here! I’m okay.” She scrabbled partway up, grabbed the skull effigy off the bedside table, and then lunged toward him while he laid down cover fire with double loads of jadeshot, spraying the night outside the ruined glass doors. The booms of the shotgun were deafening in the close quarters, but it was viscerally satisfying when they cut through the higher-toned chatter of automatic fire. It was even better when the guns outside went silent. She wasn’t willing to bet that would last for long, though.

“Hurry.” He was right behind her. “We’ve got to get out of here.”

“No shit.” She yanked on the body armor Jox had found for her, and grabbed the second shotgun while Lucius loaded up on grenades. Her heartbeat drummed loudly in her ears, and she was shaking with a combination of nerves and adrenaline, but her head was clear; she was thinking, not just reacting. And she hadn’t frozen. Not yet, anyway. Not this time, she told herself. Which reminded her of the magic: not the spells, but the ice. “I could—” Something flashed outside, luminous green. “Down!” Lucius shouted, and lunged for her. He hit her with his shoulder and knocked her off her feet and into the sofa, but somehow managed to get his arms around her and turn himself so he partway shielded her from the impact.

They tumbled to the floor as the sitting room windows shattered inward under a hail of gunfire.

Cursing, Lucius rolled them to the sofa, flipped it over atop them, and held her so tightly she could barely breathe. The furniture was scant protection against the heavy-caliber weapons; the bullets had wasted the window glass and the curtains, and were doing a damned good job of chewing through the walls themselves, coming from all directions at once.

“We’re surrounded,” she yelled into Lucius’s broad chest, barely able to hear herself over the thump of gunfire and destruction.

“Did you hit the panic button?”

She nodded into his chest. “They’re on their way.” She’d left the device in the bedroom, but if Strike couldn’t get a good ’port fix off the images from the built-in camera, there was a similar unit mounted atop the Jeep. More important, the magi could use the view from the Jeep to assess the situation, and figure out the safest place to materialize.

“We can’t wait for them here.” His voice rumbled against her cheek, carrying a grim sort of finality. “Whoever’s out there might decide to just fuck it and crater the cottage. We’re safer out in the open than pinned down here.” Though not by much, was the unspoken end to that statement.

“Use the grenades to get their heads down,” Jade ordered. “Then we run. I’ll shield us.”

“You’ve got shield magic?”

“No, but I’ve got ice. It’ll have to be enough.”

He nodded, his jaw tight, his expression set in lines of concentration. “It will be. I believe in you.”

Leaning in, he kissed her hard and fast, and when he pulled back, there was something new in his eyes, something that made her heart lurch in her chest. “I’ll cover you.”

For a crazy moment, those three words rearranged themselves in her head to become something else entirely. So she merely gaped when he heaved against her, overturning the sofa and in the same motion yanking the pins from three jade-loaded grenades. He counted, “One . . . two . . .” On “three” he heaved the grenades through the blown-out windows. They landed on “four.”

On “five,” there was a rending, tearing explosion outside, followed by screams of agony as jade shrapnel tore into their attackers.

“Come on!” Lucius grabbed her and dragged her up, and then they were running for the door. As they ran, Jade yanked the combat knife from his belt, used it to nick her palm, and called the ice magic. Power formed around her, coalescing to include Lucius in a circular swirl of cold air convecting with hot. She had originally intended to put an actual shield of ice around them, but saw the better option immediately. Instead of casting the iceball magic, she built it around them. Ahead of them it was clear. Everywhere else around them, sleet whipped in a twenty- foot whirl, obscuring them as Lucius flung open the cottage door and they ran out into the night.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Lucius’s heart rattled in his ears, sounding like machine-gun fire, but that was the only rat-tat-