Any Given Doomsday (22 page)

His eerily light eyes flicked to mine. “Make no mistake, you’d have slept with me eventually. I just hastened the occurrence of the inevitable.”

“What was the rush? Haven’t gotten any in a few centuries?”

His lips curved. “Oh, I’ve gotten plenty.”

The way he said it made me think he’d had better, and I wanted to smack him. Last night had been the best sex I’d ever had. Which only made me…

Pathetic? Confused? Furious? Tempted?

“That was rape,” I lashed out.

“I didn’t force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. The
ya’ lid
is a Navajo herb that releases your true desires.” His voice lowered until I had to strain to hear him. “From deep down where those desires live.”

Because his words made that deep-down part of me throb, I snapped, “So
you
say.”

“You want to believe I raped you, believe it.” He stood and caught me by the forearms, hauling me against him. “That won’t change what happened and why.”

I struggled, but I shouldn’t have bothered. He’d let me go only when he was finished with me.

“I’m a catalyst telepath,” he said.

I stopped struggling, my brain searching for the knowledge I’d obtained long ago. “You bring out abilities in others.”

“Yes.”

“How?”

His brows lifted. “How do you think?”

Sex.

I heard the word in my head as clearly as if he’d said it.

A vague sense of disappointment washed over me, followed closely by embarrassment at my stupidity. Had I really hoped he’d drugged me because he couldn’t wait another instant to get between my legs? Apparently I did, deep down where all those secret desires lived.

“So you whore for the federation?”

I had expected him to pale, let me go, maybe slap me in the mouth. 1 did not expect him to shrug and say, “Someone has to.”

This time when I struggled, he let me go. “What ability did I need in such a great big hurry? Shape-shifting?”

He frowned, opened his mouth as if to say one thing, then shut it, shook his head and said another. “Ruthie gave you her gift, which was clairvoyance, the ability to clearly see.”

“The future? The past?”

“The identities and supernatural natures of the Nephilim. However, you were partially blocking the talent. Or maybe your innate psychometery was. Knowing by touching is your gift. But you had to be able to hear, to see another way. You needed to open yourself.”

“Sheesh, could you play a new tune?” I muttered. He ignored me.

“I’d hoped I could get you to open without sex, but you were being as stubborn now as you were when you were here the first time.”

“Excuse me if I’m no good at being open.” I made quotation marks in the air around the last word. I did have a few trust issues. Considering Sawyer, considering Jimmy, who could blame me?

“Does Jimmy know how you—” I paused, uncertain how to say it.

With his usual intuitiveness, Sawyer filled in the blank. “He knows what I do.”

I expected fury, hot and bubbling. Instead my eyes stung, shocking me. I turned toward the clear, calm waters of the mountain lake and waited until the uncommon urge to weep passed. It didn’t take long.

I thought about what had happened today, and a prickle of unease came over me. Shape-shifting was a Nephilim trait, at the least a breed. I had no idea who my parents were, but maybe Sawyer did.

“What about the shifting?” I faced him. “Where in hell did I get that?” I braced myself to hear that I was descended from a werewolf or worse. As usual, I was wrong.

“You’re an empath.”

I’d never been particularly empathetic. People’s emotions usually annoyed me. Especially my own.

“Not in the usual sense,” Sawyer continued. “True em-paths have the ability to put themselves into another’s shoes. They feel what that person feels; they empathize. But you put yourself into another’s shoes literally. You can take on their supernatural abilities.”

I blinked. “Because you can shift, so can I?”

“Yes,” he said simply.

I rubbed my forehead. “This is gonna suck.”

“I’d think you’d be happy about it. You’ll be the most powerful seer on the planet.”

“Goody,” I muttered, dropping my hand. “I’m going to explode with power if I get some from every supernatural entity I see.”

He was shaking his head before I finished. “You’ll only take on a power once. If you have it already, you won’t absorb more of it. And you don’t get their power by seeing them.”

“How then?”

He lifted his eyebrows and spread his hands.

“Touching?”

He shook his head again, but the curve of his lips told me what I needed to know, and my heart thudded so loudly my chest ached.

“Fuck me,” I muttered.

“Exactly.”

Silence settled over us once again as I tried to absorb this new knowledge. I breathed deeply until my heart slowed.

“Just so I’m clear,” I said, “1 absorbed your abilities when you screwed me.”

He didn’t blink at the dual meaning to my words. “Yes.”

“And you knew this was going to happen?”

“I was fairly certain.”

“How could you be fairly certain?” My nose wrinkled, and my voice mocked on the last two words.

“I can recognize psychic talents in others.”

“How convenient.”

He wasn’t bothered by my scorn. I suspected he’d had enough of it heaped on him over the centuries to become immune. It wasn’t as if he cared what I thought. It wasn’t as if I mattered to him beyond a means to the end of saving the world.

If I wasn’t involved in this mess—if I hadn’t been literally screwed for the greater good—I might think him heroic. But I
was
involved, and what I thought was that he was a manipulative asshole.

“Take it back,” I said.

“No.”

“I don’t want any of your abilities.”

“I don’t care.”

We went silent. What else was there to say?

“Do you know who my parents are?” I blurted.

He blinked, once, slowly. “Why would I?”

“I got my abilities from somewhere, I just figured…”

“That you were a breed? Or perhaps they were?”

I shrugged.

“Could be. I’m afraid I don’t know.”

“Who would?”

He looked away, then quickly back. “I don’t know that either.”

Was he lying? Who could tell? Certainly not me.

I got back to business. According to Sawyer, I should now be able to do what Ruthie had—know the Nephilim’s human face, understand what they were so that I could give orders to kill them. I should receive this information… on a wing and a prayer? I wasn’t sure.

“Will I hear a voice from God?” He cut me a quick, disgusted glance. “I’m serious. How does this work?”

“Close your eyes.” I did. “Now, open,” he whispered.

Images of the last time he’d said that word tumbled through my mind. His mouth on my breast, his tongue against me, his body deep inside, pushing, pulsing, making me—

My eyes snapped open. Sawyer stood too close, body aligned to mine. I could feel his erection, straining toward me through several layers of clothing. For an instant I swayed forward, brushing us together. My breath caught, my body tightened. His pupils dilated, the black driving out every vestige of gray.

“What did you see?” he asked.

I needed to break the connection, but that would only prove to him how much he affected me. So I stayed right where I was.

“Nothing.”

His palms cupped the curve of my waist, pulling our lower bodies into alignment. “Maybe we need to try again.”

He flexed his hips, sparks flared at the edge of my vision. My head began to drop back; his mouth began to descend. All I had to do was let him…

I brought my knee up. He countered the move easily. Although his preternatural speed was supposedly only available in animal form, he was unnaturally quick as a human.

He still held my waist. Our faces were so close our breath mingled. “Don’t touch me.” I lifted his hands, stepped out of his embrace, then dropped them as if they were crawling with lice.

He continued to watch me, his eyes still spookily black despite the blazing light of the sun.

“I want to leave New Mexico,” I said. “Today.”

“Until you can do what you’re supposed to be doing, you’ll stay right here.”

“You already did your thing.”
Me
. “And I’m still blocked.”

“They say the sixth time’s the charm.”

“Tough. Find another way. You can’t sleep with everyone who comes here for help.”

“I can’t?”

I narrowed my eyes. His face gave nothing away; it never did, and I wondered—

Was that why Jimmy hated him so?

I jerked my mind from the thought, and turned away, but Sawyer followed. “Ruthie gave her life so we could win this war.”

“She gave nothing; her life was taken from her.”

“I don’t think so. Ruthie would have known her time was coming. Being Ruthie, she would have known exactly how and when. She could have prevented it if she’d wanted to.”

I spun back around. “Why didn’t she?”

“Her death was a declaration of war.”

“The prophesy,” I murmured. “The final battle.”

“Yes. But in dying she made a declaration of her own. It was a great joke, really.”

“Yeah, I was laughing my ass off when I found her in a puddle of her own blood.”

His lips tightened, but he went on. “The leader of the darkness thought he was making us weaker by taking our leader, but instead he made us stronger.”

“How so?”

“By dying, Ruthie became eternal. She guides us through you. And you’ll become more powerful than she could ever have been.”

I didn’t feel powerful. I felt, again, like a failure. However, this time, failing wouldn’t just get my partner killed; failing would probably end the world as we knew it. But, hey, no pressure.

I took one step away from Sawyer, needing space, a little time, only to freeze at the sound that swirled around the clearing.

The furious hiss of a rattlesnake.

I looked down. One was coiled near enough to strike. Where had it come from?

“Get back.” Sawyer was all business again. His erection appeared to have deflated at the sight of the rattlesnake. Understandable. I thought I might wet myself.

“Can’t,” I murmured, trying my best not to move anything but my lips, and those not too much either. The word came out both shaky and muffled.

The sound of cloth sliding across skin caught my attention. Sawyer had dropped his breechclout and wrapped his hand around his limp penis.

Now
? I thought incredulously. But a single touch and he shimmered, then shifted. His body was there one second and gone the next. Like Wile E. Coyote who drops off the cliff—now you see him, now you don’t. The only thing left in the suddenly vacant air was a little swirl of current.

I lowered my gaze. Two rattlesnakes slithered toward each other far too close to my feet. I tensed, unwilling to move and draw attention to myself, even when one of them scooted over the toe of my boot.

I’d never seen a rattlesnake, let alone two. I was a city girl. Did snakes fight? What would I do if they did? What would happen if the Sawyer snake lost and the winner came after me?

I’d hide, but where? Inside the hogan, I’d be trapped.

The water? Not much better. I was pretty certain snakes could swim.

Up a tree? Perhaps. Unfortunately, all the trees were on the other side of the snakes.

The two met, rising up, bodies bobbing more like cobras than rattlesnakes. Their triangular heads shot at each other. I flinched. But instead of striking, they wrapped their necks around and around, twining together for an instant before breaking apart.

I wasn’t sure which one was which, until the sun seemed to spark off the nearest, making it shimmer shining silver. The next instant it grew, lengthened, rose toward the sun and burst free a man.

“It’s for you,” Sawyer said.

Chapter 27

Sawyer grabbed my hand and dragged it to his penis.

“Hey!” I pulled back. “Do I seem like I have a burning desire to jerk you off?”

His eyes flared, the most anger I’d seen from him in ages. “He wants to tell you something.”

“Who is he?”

“A snake.”

“Just a snake. Nothing extra?”

“No.”

“Then how can he tell me anything?”

“That’s why you need to shift. The only way to talk to the animals is to become one.”

“I don’t want to talk to him.”

Impatience flashed across his features. “Grow up. This is your life now. Deal with it.”

He snatched my hand again, and from his grip, I knew he wouldn’t let go regardless of what I said, or how I struggled.

I loosened the tight fist I’d made the first time he’d grabbed me. As much fun as it might be, I couldn’t slug him. At least not right now.

He looked me up, and then down. “It’ll be easier without the clothes.”

I was starting to see why he favored a breechclout most of the time.

I sighed; he let me go. I stripped, then met his eyes. “This is the only way?”

Stupid question. I’d touched the wolf tattoo the first time I’d shifted. Sawyer had touched himself to become the snake. To become one myself, touching was involved, and since I didn’t have a tattoo…

He gave a sharp nod, face set, as if he didn’t want me to touch him any more than I wanted to. Because of that expression, I probably grabbed him a little too hard, squeezed a little too much.

How many times did I need him to show me that he’d only been with me because he’d had to be? What difference did it make? It wasn’t as if I loved Sawyer any more than he loved me. I’d only loved one man in my life, and he was as untrustworthy as this one.

I gave myself up to the chill, the heat, the wash of silver flowing through me, the pull of another entity that came from outside myself as well as within.

Beneath my fingers, Sawyer’s skin warmed; I could feel his pulse in my palm, beating in tandem with mine. I stroked him and heard the warning rattle of his snake.

Light exploded, blinding me. The wind blew past me as I fell from a great height. I tried to catch myself, but I no longer had arms or legs. Instead the ground met my belly, my back bent in ways my back had never bent before.