No, he was in the mirror.
I hadn’t seen him like this since he’d died. Make that since before he’d died.
I didn’t want to remember what he’d looked like trussed to a telephone pole with his heart torn out. Unfortunately what I wanted, I rarely got, and I’d seen it often enough both in my dreams and out of them.
His skin glistened bronze beneath a sun I couldn’t see. Muscles rippled in his stomach, his chest, his arms, causing his tattoos to dance. His hair shone black, sleek, and loose; it flowed around his shoulders, blown by a wind too far away for me to feel. His gray eyes burned wherever they touched. Since I’d left my clothes in a heap on the bathroom floor, along with the towel, my body responded to the brush of his gaze as fiercely as if he’d run his fingers everywhere.
“I miss you,” I whispered, and he held out his hand.
I reached forward, half afraid I’d put my palm to the cool glass and he’d vanish now like he had when he’d died. Instead my fingers squelched through the pane, seeming to disappear from here and appear over there. His closed around them, and Sawyer tugged me into the mirror.
I stumbled, and he caught me. He was warm, and he smelled so good—like the trees, the earth, the sun on the mountain—like himself. I wanted to rub my face all over him, feel his flesh against my cheek, his hair brush my eyelids, his scent becoming my own.
Glancing through the looking glass at the motel room, empty but for my duffel and keys, made me dizzy. Here the sun shone bright and warm in opposition to the moon sheen I’d left behind. That contrast made me realize that where I stood was the mirror image of where I’d been.
I returned my attention to Sawyer, questions ready to tumble from my lips, and he kissed me.
He tasted of both day and night, salt and sugar, spicy yet sweet. He tasted like Sawyer, and all I wanted was to keep tasting him until the pain and the fear and the loneliness went away.
I filled my hands with his hair. The ebony strands felt like midnight—cool and dark, they flowed over my wrists, spilling the scent of the mountains that rose from the desert and the wind that whirled the waters of the sea.
His tongue brushed the seam of my lips, causing gooseflesh to ripple across my back. He rubbed the prickle away with firm strokes of his hard, magic hands, then traced his nails across my shoulders, making the skin rise again.
Opening to him, I met his tongue with my own, dueling, teasing, chasing it back into his mouth for just one more taste. I scored his lip with my teeth, tempted to draw blood just to see if I could.
A wraith wouldn’t bleed, neither ghost nor spirit, just a man. But Sawyer had never been just anything in his life.
If I drew his blood would he disappear forever? If I tasted it would I? I didn’t want to take that chance.
My hands were cold against his neck, and he shivered. I ran my palms over him as he’d done to me, and beneath my closed eyelids the images of his beasts flashed like a Vegas light show. If I wanted, I could become each of them. All I had to do was touch him and reach for the change.
Though there was another skinwalker on Inyan Kara, there would never be another with the power of Sawyer, the power of me. There was no one like us in the world.
He’d told me once how similar we were, and I’d denied it. The thought of being as cold, sarcastic, dangerous, and distant as he was had repelled me. For years Sawyer had terrified me. Probably because whenever I peered into his eyes I saw a reflection of myself. More recently I’d come to realize that our similarities connected us in a way I was connected to no one else. Only with Sawyer could I ever be completely me.
I tried to peer into his face, but the sunlight through the windows was too bright. I squinted, and he flicked his wrist. The curtains flew across the curtain rod with a muffled shriek.
The sun still peeked around the edges just enough that I could see myself at the center of his gray gaze, captured forever.
“What is this?” I asked. “Where are we?”
He didn’t answer, and I began to wonder if he could. Like the Little Mermaid, had his voice been the price he’d had to pay to touch me one more time? What would I pay to touch him?
How about your soul?
I started. Was this how Summer had lost hers? Feeling the pain of Jimmy’s inevitable loss, knowing she could prevent it, being enticed with the promise of saving him. All she had to do was sell her immortal soul. Would I do the same to bring Sawyer back? Would I do it even for Jimmy?
“Kiss me,” I whispered. “Kiss me and don’t stop. Love me and don’t talk.”
I didn’t want to hear any more whispers, not his and definitely not my own.