Free Dawnkeepers by Jessica Andersen Page A

had felt as if she were trying to keep up, trying to live up. Now, feeling another consciousness beside her own, feeling another’s life overlap with hers, and knowing deep down inside that it was Gray-Smoke, or at least the memory of her, the essence of her, Alexis could only pray she’d be worthy of the mother she’d never known.

    More, she prayed for the gods to help her understand what the dream was telling her. About her mother. About herself. About the man who wore the hawk medallion.

    Knowing there was no other way, she closed her eyes and pressed her bloodstained palms to the altar, and said the words that had come to her in a dream, though she was no seer: “Tzakaw muwan.” Summon the hawk.

    A detonation rocked the room. Water splashed on the footpath, and the sound of ripples turned to thin screams coming from the people carved on the walls, who hadn’t moved, yet somehow seemed to gape in awe.

    She turned, knowing what she would see.

    He stood opposite her, at the edge where the stone and the water met. His eyes bored into hers, hard and intense and no-nonsense. He wore combat gear, with his black shirt unbuttoned at the top to show a glint of gold. He was Nate, yet not, just as she was Alexis, yet not.

    She was the smoke and he was the hawk. And that was all that really mattered as his eyes darkened and he strode toward her, his intent as clear as the need inside her.

    Sex.

    It was a vision, Nate knew, yet it wasn’t. He was part of it, yet apart from it, distancing himself even as his heart pounded and the scent of her touched him, wrapping around his soul and digging in deep, a combination of arousal, musk, and the moist warmth of the tropics. He was vaguely aware of the carved chamber, and the fact that he should be wondering how he’d gotten there. The last thing he remembered was reaching for Alexis, intending to pull her away from the statuette of Ixchel. Then the world had gone gray-green, then black, and now he was here. He didn’t have a clue where “here” was, but that didn’t seem to matter so much. What mattered was the woman standing near the carved stone altar, her bloodstained hands held out to him.
    She was Alexis, yet she was someone else. Her features were slightly sharper, her breasts slightly fuller, and when he took her hands he felt confidence exuding from her that was lacking in the woman he knew. He felt different, as well, more centered, more in tune with his body’s demand that he take her here and now, that it was his right and duty.

    They were, he thought in a flash of insight, the people they would have become if King Scarred-Jaguar hadn’t led his people to their deaths. They were the fully trained versions of themselves, warriors who had been thoroughly indoctrinated into the magic and culture of the Nightkeepers, soldiers of the end-time war who were willing to do whatever was necessary, even if it meant pimping themselves out to the gods.

    He opened his mouth to speak, to ask her what the hell this was—a piece of the barrier or something else?—but before he could formulate the question, she had raised herself up on tiptoe and pressed her lips to his. He wanted to pull away, to protest, but her kiss had the new maturity of the woman she’d become, the new confidence, and the added thrill nearly dropped him. Heat slashed through him at the feel and taste of her, familiar yet not, with deeper, darker layers than before. His hands, which he’d lifted to ease her away, wound up dragging her closer instead.

    “This isn’t us,” he managed to say in the space between one kiss and the next. “This isn’t real.”

    She let go of him and stepped back, but she sure as hell wasn’t retreating. No, she was loosening her weapons belt and letting it fall in a blatant invitation. “It’s as real as we let it be. This is a better version of us. One that doesn’t go beyond these walls, beyond this dream.”

    Was that what it was, a dream? He’d never been