“Seriously. Eat it yourself.”
He shook his body as if he’d just come out of the lake, but no water flew free. Instead he shimmered, caught in a moonbeam. His fur twinkled with a hundred thousand sequins, and his outline twisted, re-formed, grew and grew, pushing against the moonbeam, appearing to be caught inside a silvery balloon, until he burst free a man.
My eyes ached. Probably because I hadn’t blinked from the instant Sawyer had begun to change. I hadn’t wanted to miss anything.
Sawyer’s shifting of shape was different from any I’d seen before. The berserker had shaken, out came the fur, then bam, he was a bear. Sawyer’s transformation was more elaborate. There’d been something almost magical about it.
My gaze wandered over the tattoos. I thought of the legends of the skinwalker. The robe they wore to make magic happen.
“Why don’t you just wear a robe?” I asked.
He reached down and grabbed the rabbit by the ears, stalking toward the ashes of last night’s fire, uncaring that he was naked. I didn’t mind. My own clothes felt too tight, itchy, wrong somehow.
“Do I look like a man who’d own a robe?” Dropping the rabbit near the cold fire, he ducked into the hogan and returned with a knife, then hunkered down next to breakfast.
“I meant the robe of the skinwalker. Why did you—” I broke off as he glanced up, making a vague motion to indicate his naked body.
“Why did 1 what?” His voice was soft, but the tone was harsh. I had a feeling I’d stepped over a line, but I wasn’t sure when or how.
“Wouldn’t a robe be easier?” I murmured. And less painful.
“I wasn’t after ease but power. As much of it as I could get.”
His eyes glittered, and the wind came up, howling down the mountain like a lone wolf, making me suddenly glad for the clothes I’d been wishing away only moments before. This man wasn’t a pet; he wasn’t a friend. He was dangerous.
“The robe is for amateurs,” he continued. “Men of medicine who rely on a spell to attain their single spirit animal. I don’t need a spell, no ceremony, no chant. I wish to be, and then I am.”
Slowly he stood, his hand trailing up his stomach, his chest, over his arm and shoulder. I was unable to keep myself from following that trail, from remembering how he’d tasted.
I shook my head. That wasn’t a memory but a dream.
“My animals are a part of me,” he said. “As she is.”
My gaze jerked from his biceps to his face. “What are you saying?”
“There’s more evil than good in here.” His palm skated over the left side of his chest.
“That’s not true. You’re the same as the others. Nephilim and human.”
“I told you before I’m not like them. My mother was a Nephilim, true, but my father was more than a man.”
That shiver came back, stronger than before. “Jimmy said—”
Sawyer’s hand slashed through the air, through my words. “Sanducci’s version leaves quite a bit out. My father was seduced, yes, but once he knew the truth he embraced the darkness. He became a skinwalker who wore the robe.”
“An amateur,” I whispered.
“Compared to me.” He dipped his head. “She was Naye’i.”
“A Dreadful One,” I guessed.
“A monster. Yes. She was beautiful but evil. She thrived on chaos, breathed it in like a drag. She could make anyone do anything that she wished.”
I didn’t know what to say. What had his life been like being raised by a monster and the man she controlled? I probably didn’t want to know.
“She convinced him to welcome his bear spirit; he lived as an animal all of the time. He killed at her bidding. He died with the blood of thousands on his soul, and because of her, he didn’t care.”
I thought of all the animals tattooed on Sawyer’s flesh. Not one of them was a bear.
“You care,” I said.
“Do I?”
I opened my mouth to say that I knew he did. That he wouldn’t be working with the federation, training seers and DKs, if he truly enjoyed killing just for the sake of killing, if he wasn’t trying to atone somehow for all that his parents had done.
Then I thought of another question. “In the story your mother killed your father.”
“Yes.”
“Why? Seems like she had a good thing going.” In murdering psycho bitch hell.
“Have you ever heard, Phoenix, how witches gain their power?”
“Aren’t they born with it?”
“Some. Others take it.”
“How?”
“By killing someone they love.”
My gaze flew to his, but I could read nothing there, as always. “Your mother wasn’t a witch, she was a—” I stopped, frowning. I wasn’t certain what she’d been.
Sawyer lifted his brows at my unvoiced question, but he didn’t enlighten me.
“She wasn’t at first,” he agreed, “but after…” He spread his hands. “She became more powerful than any Dreadful One or any witch ever known before.”
“And you?”
He lifted his brows. “Me?”
“How did you gain your power?”