interrupting.
“I’ll stall,” she said. “You answer.”
Without waiting for his nod, she stashed her gun in her bag and ran to the stairwell with a cry of, “Did you see that? What’s happening?” Her tone notched up with each question, ending on a wail of, “Are we sinking?” That stalled the human tide that had rushed up thinking there was something going on up on the observation deck. Her near-sobs of “There’s a fire? Where?” and “Oh, God, are there enough lifeboats? Sven, for the love of all that’s holy, stop trying to upload that to YouTube and come on!” completed the turnaround.
Most of the looky-loos headed back down, while a few stalwart souls—all male, big surprise—stuck around to calm her down and shoot him dirty looks.
“You there?” Dez said the moment Sven answered the phone. “What the hell is going on? The skull arrived hotter than hell, and with a blast of magic like I’ve never felt before. And then your dog went nuts.”
“He’s not— Shit, never mind. Here’s the deal.” Sven rattled off a quick rundown of the attack, ending with, “I don’t know what’s going on here, but there’s got to be some connection between the storms, the creature, and Cara.”
“And between the two of you.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t want to make a big deal about that yet, though. Not until he and Cara had a chance to talk about it. It might not make any difference, really.
Or it might change everything.
“You want us to try a midocean pickup?”
“No, don’t risk it.” When Cara called his name, Sven looked over and saw her and a couple of cruise employees waiting by the stairs. “I’ve got to go. They’re sending us all to our cabins while they turn the boat around and head in. If we disappear now, there’ll be questions.”
“We can handle it. The credit card won’t lead them anywhere if they try to trace you.”
“Still. I’d rather stick it out.” Cara could use a few hours to process what had just happened. Hell, he needed the time too.
“You think it’s safe?”
“We can take care of ourselves,” Sven said, and clicked off. It wasn’t until he had tucked the communication device back in his pocket and was headed over to rejoin her that he realized he’d meant it—not just that he would take care of her, but that they would take care of each other.
Holy shit. He missed a step at realizing that he was suddenly part of a “we.” How had that happened? His gut fisted. He might not have liked it when she said the winikin magic went only one way, but that was because it wasn’t fair to her that the gods and circumstances had conspired to take the choice away from her, not because he’d wanted a two-way magical bond with her—mated, familiar, or otherwise. Yet now the choice had been taken away from him too.
Or had it? He had promised to watch her back, after all. And their new connection had given him the power to do it. That couldn’t be a bad thing.
Right?
“Hey.” She caught his hand as he reached the small crowd at the stairwell. “Did you get through to your parents and let them know that we were hit by a storm, but we’re fine?”
“Yeah, I talked to them.” He slid an arm around her waist. To the two crewmen who had stayed behind, waiting to herd them to their stateroom, he said, “Did the boat take any damage? Are there more of those squalls coming?”
“Everything’s fine, sir, but you really need to get under cover.”
They joined the flow of humanity down below and headed for their stateroom in a silence that seemed out of place amid the babble that surrounded them, a mix of, “Did you see that lightning?” and, “It looked like something was on fire there for a few minutes!” and, “Are you sure we’re not sinking?”
When they reached their room—an exterior cabin with an ornate door and a key-card slot designed to look like old ship’s brass—he swiped his card and held the door for her, and then stepped through and closed and bolted the door. Shutting out the din was a huge relief, but the pressure inside him skyrocketed again as he took a look around what proved to be the sitting area of the two-room stateroom.
The place was decorated like a damn French bordello.
There was gilt and red velvet practically everywhere he looked, and in the nearby bathroom, brass and marble picked up the theme and promised hot tub action and all the slippery bath salts and massage oils he could ask for. Come on in, get comfortable, and get busy, the decor practically screamed. Get naked. Get it on. Or maybe that was just him, he thought. But then Cara turned back from taking her own long look around, and he saw an answering heat in her eyes, along with a disquieting click of connection. It felt almost like he’d jacked into the barrier, but it was faint and far away, just a buzz of magic in his blood, a stir of echoes in his soul.
Their bond—whatever it was, however it worked—didn’t just come when he called his magic, then. The realization brought a skim of disquiet, as did the way she linked her fingers together and stared down at them as if bracing herself.
He crossed to her, didn’t let himself touch. He wanted to soothe, to fix things, but wasn’t sure if they were fixable, or if he should even try. “I’m sorry. I know this wasn’t what you wanted.”
“No, it wasn’t.” She let out a slow breath, then looked up at him, and he was surprised by her calm. “Part of me is glad it happened, though. It makes things easier.” She paused. “After all, I did ask for a sign, didn’t I?”
A buzz of fresh heat entered his bloodstream as he remembered. “Yeah, you did.” Along with the heat came a sense of inevitability. Join, the nahwal had said, or all is lost. She had wanted proof that their being together was part of the gods’ plan before she risked the winikin by becoming his lover for real. But… “I’m still the same guy, Cara. I can’t change who I am.”
“There’s a newsflash.” Brief humor lightened her expression; then it softened to something he didn’t remember seeing from her before: peace. “I’m okay with that. More than okay, really. I didn’t ask for a sign that we were destined mates or meant to be together forever. That’s not what I want. I just needed to know that we weren’t talking ourselves into something that’s not real.”
As much as he was dying to touch her, he held himself back. “The magic is real,” he said, the words coming from deep inside him. “The connection we made upstairs… that’s real, and it means something. But at the same time, the magic shouldn’t force you to do anything you don’t want.”
“It’s not forcing me; it’s giving me permission.” Her lips curved, her eyes lit, and she held out her hand, palm up, to show a thin scar where a scab should have been. “Will you be my lover until the end of the age? Will you stand with me, fight with me, and help me lead my people beside yours?”
Said that way, it somehow took on the weight of a spell. He hesitated, though not because of the magic. “What happens after?”
“We say good-bye.” Her smile didn’t waver. “I’m not trying to trap you into anything, Sven, and I’m not letting the magic trap me. We’ll do our duties and, gods willing, save the world. And after that, we’ll go out there and live our lives knowing that each day after the twenty-first of December is a blessing. What could be better than that?”
They were the right words but they somehow struck him wrong, making him want to argue the inarguable. Instead, he took her hand and cradled it for a moment in his, surprised anew that hers was so small in comparison, yet held such strength. “You’re sure? This is what you want?”
She nodded, then looked up at him. “Yeah. You?”
He let his body answer for him, leaning in and sliding his hand up her arm and down to her waist, skimming over the textures of the dress and the woman beneath. Her eyes darkened and her breath caught, and a primal response surged up from deep inside him. Suddenly he wanted to nip at her neck, herd her into the bedroom, cover her with his body, and thrust into her warmth, pounding hard and heavy. He could see it in that instant, not just through his eyes, but through her senses, as well. He could smell their mingled scents, hear her cries, feel the furious pleasure of taking her as his own.
Do it, his overheated system chanted. Do it!
Instead, he eased in and skimmed his lips over her cheek to the corner of her mouth, lingering there while her hand crept up his arm and her fingers curled around his shoulder. He waited until she softened against him, until her lashes fluttered shut and she murmured his name, and then he claimed her mouth in a deep and drugging kiss, one that said, I want you, and, I need you, and, We’re going to take our time and make this last.
