“But—”
He nipped lightly at the curve of my neck, and I gasped—both surprise and arousal. I knew this was a dream, but my body was responding as if it weren’t.
He felt so real—sleek, hard muscles rippling beneath smooth hot skin. Sawyer had had an exquisite form; living for centuries had given him plenty of time to work on every muscle group for several decades each, honing every inch to a state designed to make women drool. He’d have been perfect if not for the tattoos that wound all over him.
To shift, most skinwalkers used a robe adorned with the likeness of their spirit animal. For Sawyer, his skin was his robe, and upon it he’d inscribed the likenesses of many beasts of prey. Sometimes, in the firelight, those tattoos seemed to dance.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
“Why do you think?” He arched, pressing his erection against me. I couldn’t help it, I arched, too. Sure, it had only been a few weeks. But I missed him. I was going to miss him for the rest of my life.
Without Sawyer, the forces of good—aka the federation—were in deep shit. Certainly I was powerful, and would no doubt get even more so, but I’d been thrown into this without any training. I was like a magical bull in a very full china shop, thrashing around breaking things, breaking people. So far I’d been able to keep those who followed me from getting completely wiped out, but only because I’d had help.
From Sawyer.
“It’s a long trip from hell for a booty call,” I murmured.
His tongue tickled my neck in the same place he’d so recently nipped. “I’m not in hell.”
“Where are you?”
He slid his hand from my hip to my breast. “Where does it feel like I am?” He rubbed a thumb over my nipple, and the sensation made me tingle all over.
“I know you’re not here,” I said. “You’ll never be here again.”
I was proud I’d kept my voice from breaking, even though it had wanted to. I couldn’t show weakness, even to him.
Sawyer didn’t speak, just kept sliding his thumb over and back, over and back, then he sighed and stopped. I bit my lip to keep myself from begging him to start.
His lithe, clever fingers brushed over the chain that hung from my neck, then captured the turquoise strung onto it. “You’re wearing this again?”
Sawyer had given me the necklace years ago. I’d taken it off only recently. When he’d died, I’d put the turquoise back on. It was all I had left of him.
I hoped.
“I—” I paused, uncertain what to say. I didn’t want him to know how badly I missed him. How I rubbed the smooth stone at least a dozen times a day and remembered.
“I’m glad,” he said softly. “It brought me to you.”
In the beginning I’d thought the necklace just jewelry, but it had turned out to be magic, marking me as Sawyer’s, saving my life on occasion and allowing him to know where I was whenever he wanted to.
He let the turquoise fall back between my breasts. “Do you remember the last thing I said to you?”
I stiffened so fast I conked the back of my head against his nose. The resultant thunk and his hiss sounded pretty real to me, as did the dull throbbing in my skull that followed.
“Phoenix,” Sawyer snapped. “Do you—”
“ ‘Protect that gift of faith’,” I repeated.
He ran his palm over my shoulder. “Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
“You’ll see.”
I closed my eyes, drew in a deep breath. Right before he’d said those words, Sawyer had said a few others. Words that had kept me up nights almost as much as his death had.
I chose to leave a child behind.
I blotted out the memory of what had come after those statements with what had come not long before. He’d crept into the room where I was chained to a bed, a prisoner of my own mother, a woman I’d thought long dead. She’d been a winner. Five minutes in her company and I no longer regretted being an orphan.
The situation had been dire, yet he’d seduced me. I hadn’t wondered why until he was gone. My hand went to my still-flat stomach. Had he left a child behind in me?
“Sawyer,” I began. I had so many questions. I didn’t get to ask any of them.
“You need to wake up now.”
“Wait, I—”
“Phoenix,” he said, then more softly, “Elizabeth.”
Most people called me Liz, but Sawyer never had.
“There’s someone here.”
In the next instant I scrambled toward consciousness, and as I did, the sound of his voice, the weight of his hand, and the warmth of his body began to fade.
“Someone or something?” I asked.
“Both,” he answered, and then he was gone.
My eyes snapped open, my hand already reaching for the silver knife beneath my pillow.