offer came clear. He was the Triad mage; he could take the talents from a dead mage of his bloodline, and Iago was certainly that. What was more, he could do so many things with the Xibalban’s magic. He could open the intersection at El Rey; he could teleport; he could borrow the talent of any other mage he touched. And the Xibalban’s skull harbored the demon’s memories as well as his own; he knew spells the Nightkeepers didn’t. With him as part of the Triad, Dez would be . . .
The guy I don’t want to be, he thought, looking up at Reese and feeling his heart turn over and then settle with the good, solid weight of decision.
“She’s mine.” He gave a convulsive yank, pulled the statuette out of Iago’s corpse, and sent it skittering away. “You’re not.”
Something wrenched inside him—a tearing pain in his heart and head, like his magic was being ripped away as the demon dug in her claws and fought. But he didn’t give in to the pain; he wasn’t going to let her fuck up his life this time. Gritting his teeth and forcing the words through the agony, he repeated the banishment spell.
Luminous green flashed like sheet lightning, the ajaw-makol crumbled to greasy ash, and thunder cracked in the temple, detonating a green-tinged shock wave that smashed away and down, tearing through the serpent shield. Reese cried out as she was thrown backward and slammed into the ground. The shock wave flattened the Nightkeepers, rolled through their shield, and plowed into the makol lines, rippling through them as luminous green winked out and the villagers collapsed, unconscious.
The pain vanished, leaving Dez hollowed out. But he didn’t give a shit.
“Reese!” He grabbed his fallen knife, and bolted for her, all too aware that the dark-magic vibrations beneath his boots were getting steadily worse.
She lunged up off the ground as he reached down for her, and they slammed together, mouths fusing. He dragged his hands down her body to grip her hips, hold her to him, then back up to band his arms around her, lifting her up against his body. “You’re here,” he said between kisses. “Thank the gods you’re here.” He pulled away to look into her eyes. “You’re my compass, Reese. My sanity. I promise you that—”
She clapped a hand across his mouth. “No promises. I don’t need them, because I trust you. I believe in you. What’s more, I believe in us.”
The hollowness the star demon left behind began to fill back in with another kind of greed. He leaned into her. “Thank Christ. I thought I had lost you. I thought—”
A jolting shudder ran through the ground beneath his feet and the sound of grating stone suddenly surrounded them with a harsh rattle of magic, like the tail of a giant rattlesnake gearing up. Beneath that, he heard a terrible stone-on-stone screech that sounded like a giant bird. A vulture. Gods.
“Take the staff,” an unfamiliar voice said. “Become the serpent king.”
He spun to find Anna standing there. Only it wasn’t the Anna he had known for the past year—instead of the fog he’d gotten all too used to seeing in her eyes, he saw clarity. Wisdom. Prescience.
“Where did you come from?” But before she could answer, her words sank in and his gut clutched. “Shit. Is Strike—” He broke off when he saw him standing strong and tall, with his arm around Leah’s waist, looking better than he had in months.
“It’s a long story that we don’t have time for,” Strike said. “But you still need to do this. You’re the king we’re going to need for this war.”
Dez wasn’t sure how his heart was still beating, given the ice in his veins. “I won’t sacrifice you, damn it.”
“You don’t have to. You already killed your rival. I’m giving you this of my own free will, as demanded by the thirteenth prophecy.” Tears gleamed in Strike’s eyes. “There is no greater sacrifice for a king to make than to give up his throne on behalf of his bloodline. After today, the jaguars will no longer be the royal house.” The ground shifted, trembled. “The serpents will.”
Jesus gods. This wasn’t happening. Dez closed his eyes for a moment, growing even colder when Reese moved away from him. He turned toward her. “Reese—”
She was holding out the star demon. The idol wasn’t covered with ichor anymore; it had dematerialized along with the body. But it oozed with Iago’s psychic stink.
For the first time, instead of being swamped with possessiveness, he was vaguely repulsed. “I don’t want it.”
A smile broke across her face like the dawn, though her eyes stayed serious. “I saw. You beat her just now. You used the demon to kill Iago, but you didn’t let it use you. But . . .” She took his hand, flattened it out, and dropped the statuette in his palm. For the first time in a decade, it didn’t feel like anything other than an artifact— cool, smooth, with a buzz of power. There were no whispers, no words. “She’s part of the staff, just like shaking things up is part of being a good leader. She balances off the others. You can’t have light without dark, or else it’s all just one big twilight.”
Like the twilight Lord Vulture would bring if he didn’t take the serpent staff and fulfill both the thirteenth and serpent prophecies. The ground trembled with another birdlike shriek of stone-on-stone that had the others checking their weapons.
Reese closed his fingers around the idol. “I’ve overreacted to so many things over the past couple of weeks because I was scared of what I was feeling, scared of how much more you could hurt me than you did before. And I was so busy being scared, I forgot to trust myself, especially when, deep down inside, I knew you weren’t the guy who became the de rey anymore. You’ve beaten that part of yourself, just like you beat the star demon. I should’ve seen it, should’ve believed that sooner, but I didn’t. Stupid of me.”
“Not stupid.” He covered her hand with his own, trapping the small statuette between them. “Brave and independent.” He tugged her closer. “And the woman I love. My mate. My queen.” He lifted his free hand to her cheek. “I love you. You have my heart, my soul, and my power. Please say you’ll stay with me forever. Promise me.” He held his breath when her eyes darkened and her lips turned down, and he could almost see her draw inward as she realized what he was asking—a bond, a promise, a commitment with no exit strategy. Maybe even, in her perceptions, a box to trap her.
Then her eyes filled, and she launched herself at him.
He caught her against him, his heart hammering when she said against his throat, “Forever. Because I love you. I love who you are right now, at this moment. And I’ll love you tomorrow, and next year, and, gods willing, the year after that. You’re it for me, you always have been. And I believe in you, in us. Whatever comes next, we’ll make it through together. I promise.”
She kissed him. Magic flared and his wrist warmed, and she gasped against his mouth. Shock hammered through him as he pulled away and they looked at their wrists, where they wore matching jun tans. Holy crap, he thought. Holy, holy crap. Suddenly, everything he had never dared want before was right at his fingertips. Doubt shivered through him for a second at the realization that the only other time he’d felt that way was when he was under the demon’s influence. But there were no whispers, no compulsion. There was only love and magic.
Reese grabbed him by the collar and dragged him down for a kiss. “We might not have been destined mates, but I’d say we more than earned these marks over the years.”
Not years, he thought, because for him it had been love at first sight. Someday, he would tell her that. But not now. “I was lost,” he said against her lips, holding her, hanging on to her. “Thanks for finding me.” They kissed again, long and deep, sealing their promise and tapping into the core of the Triad’s light magic within him. Power spun, coursing through him, charging the air as the ground shuddered beneath them.
“Go ahead,” she said, stepping away. “Do it.”
He faced the strange limestone throne as light magic raged within him and lightning lit the air above. Strike brought him the serpent staff, which seemed heavier than its weight when he took it. Aware that the others were gathered in a semicircle behind him, the sun god’s firebird was perched atop the temple, and a thousand villagers lay beyond, waiting for a miracle, he started fitting the compass artifacts into the clever twists of the serpent staff, which was a puzzle without looking like one.
He started with north, the white wind god, bringing the light of truth and integrity to the reign of the serpents. South, the yellow two-faced mask, would bring balance and completion. East, the red skybearer, would help him inspire, lead, and spark new ideas. And then finally west, the black star demon, who carried the power of the shadows and transformation. He expected to feel a kick of new power when he fitted the last one into place. All he felt was the weight of new responsibility twining through him, interlocking with the fealty oaths. And maybe that was the way it was supposed to be, he thought.
