"You think I went through childbirth for nothing?" she shouted.
Lightning sizzled, striking the pavement all around her. Her hair stood straight up, making her appear not only crazed but electrocuted.
"I did it for you," she roared, her voice a bestial growl.
"Thank you," Sawyer said mildly.
She screamed and the earth shook. I half expected a crevice to open and swallow them both. But that would be too easy. And did I really want to lose Sawyer, even if it meant losing her, too?
I just didn't know.
"I will kill her slowly. I'll eat her intestines while you watch. I'll make her beg to die. I'll make her hate you."
"She already does."
"Then why do you protect her? Why did you mark her as yours?"
I leaned forward, straining my ears, but he didn't answer.
Without warning, the Naye'i threw out her arm, pointing in my direction. Fire shot from her fingertips. I had no time to duck, not that ducking would have done one damn bit of good.
However, the flames stopped several feet from me, roaring and dancing, flaring upward, then rolling back down as if turned away by an invisible firewall.
I lifted my hand to the turquoise; the stone was hot to the touch. As my fingers curled around it, the Naye'i shrieked again and disappeared in a column of smoke. The instant she did, the flames died, along with the storm.
CHAPTER 19
Sawyer walked across the parking lot, his skin golden even beneath the silver flare of the lights, his gait as smooth as a panther's. We were really going to have to find him some clothes: he'd stop traffic like this.
I couldn't help it, my gaze dropped to his crotch to see if he was aroused.
He wasn't. Thank God.
I knew nothing about incest. The very word made me wince. The thought made me nauseous. But I had to think that the perversion had a permanent effect on the psyche of the victim. Even if the victim, and the victor, weren't entirely human.
Sawyer seemed no worse for the encounter. The same couldn't be said of me. I was shaking.
He herded me inside, shut and locked the door, then threw out his arms, threw back his head, and sang a Navajo chant to the ceiling. Watching him in the half-light, nearly naked, tattoos dancing, his long, dark hair cascading past his shoulders, I wanted him, too. And that I did disgusted me. He'd been preyed on enough.
Seeing Sawyer as a victim disturbed me. He'd always been the bane of my life. I'd feared him. I'd hated him, as he'd said. But there'd been something between us from the first moment we'd met. I hadn't understood at fifteen what that something was; I'd only known that it, that he, was dangerous.
He stopped chanting, lowered his arms, and then his head, though he didn't look at me, continued to face away from me. "That should keep her out for a while," he murmured.
I glanced at the door. "She's coming back?"
"What do you think?" Sawyer took a breath, then released it.
I found myself fascinated by the play of muscles beneath his skin, the inked images of the shark on his shoulder and the hawk at the small of his back. The crocodile on his forearm—
The image made me pause. It was new, except I'd seen it before.
In his dreams.
I wondered momentarily why he'd gotten it, then remembered what I'd felt as my fingers brushed the image—strength in my jaws, the furious urge to chase and to kill, the power over all that swam in the waters. Every being etched into Sawyer's skin was a beast of prey. Really, what good would it do to shape-shift into a lamb?
But I also had to wonder if his tattoos were begun as a defense against the indefensible. His mother had preyed on him; he'd had to become an uberpredator in order to survive—both physically and mentally. Not that Sawyer had ever seemed to have a lot of psychological problems.
Considering what I'd just witnessed, Sawyer's not having psychological problems was a problem.
"What did you do?" I asked.
He glanced over his shoulder; for an instant his face was stark, haunted, and I caught my breath. Was he going to tell me about his past? Could I handle it if he did? Then the unguarded expression was gone, replaced by his usual indifference.
"I cast a spell of protection. It'll keep her out for a few hours, maybe even the rest of the night."
"Why don't you cast that spell over and over and over again? Keep her away forever."
"She's too strong. Once she breaks this spell, it doesn't work anymore. And there aren't very many that work against her at all."
"You need to save them."
He nodded.
I opened my mouth to ask why tonight, then shut it again. Why not tonight? I could certainly use a rest from her popping in and trying to kill me.
Sawyer turned away from the door, and my gaze was captured by the tiny bottle hanging from a strip of rawhide looped around his neck.
I reached out and captured it between my forefinger and thumb. Inside was a bit of red-brown dirt.