Their passion had been as wild as the ancient story. When he changed into his human form she’d been awed by the beauty in his bladed face, the midnight eyes and dark hair lifting in the breeze. He was a warrior, but she had always known that he was, never questioned his ability to change form or the lethal efficiency when he had to deliver death. He never did it capriciously. There was always a need, but she would watch him when the shadows were dark and only the dancing yellow light drifted from the fire. When he would stare into the flames, lost in grief.
He was not always hard and remote. He carved a toy for her, whimsical. He offered it to her, half embarrassed. It was a little lion, exquisitely detailed. She tied it to a piece of leather and placed it around her neck so the lion lay close to her heart.
Over the weeks there were nights under skies drenched in stars, teasing in the deep pools beneath the towering boulders, long seductions in the caves hidden in the mountains. They learned each other’s needs, felt each other’s hearts. He taught her how to fight against a larger enemy. She taught him how to cook the rabbits she shot with her bow and wicked arrows.
They raced through the woods and sometimes he let her win. She thrilled when he chased her down and their passion would explode. He told her she was innocence, the one bright, pure thing in his dangerous world. She saw in him a majesty he would never accept for himself. They were each other’s mirror. His strength was her weakness, while her innocence brought him to his knees. She was in his heart, he told her, so deep he would never be free.
He would leave, and return, and leave again. But she always knew he’d come back, and when she stared up at the stars that split the midnight sky, she imagined him flying through the dark rift on some errand for the Gods. She would save up the stories for when he returned. Tell them, while grinding the bsisa, chickpeas with fenugreek and coriander. Tell them, while spilling the hot sweet tea during the evening ceremony, when she was baking the flatbread in sand ovens, tasting the olive oil mixed with dates and milk. She would curl against his side and he would tease her.
“So many stories, Gaia.”
“Not as many as the Grandmother.” And she would feel sad, as she thought of the woman who was young, but held the ages in her eyes. “I’ve not talked to her since I was a child. Perhaps she’s gone.”
“She will always be here,” he said, and kissed her forehead, “here,” and he kissed above her heart, “and here.” Kisses that moved until she no longer thought of stories or sadness or anything at all.
And then one day he simply wasn’t there.
She searched everywhere. She called, begged, fell to her knees and bargained. Panic filled her heart and then turned to dread. He would not disappear unless the one thing she feared had come to pass. And then that fear began to fade and was replaced by another. It wasn’t that he couldn’t come back, but that he chose not to come back.
And her heart began to break.
She cried herself to sleep until she could cry no more, until her eyes were so gritty and raw even her mother remarked about her distress. She busied herself with the goats, with the tending of the cook fires and the making of the bread. Her father watched while her mother turned to the other women for help.
But nothing could bring her back, and over the years she withdrew into her private world, where she would lie sleepless under the stars, imagining he was there in the darkness, watching her. And sometimes, as she drifted to sleep with the dawn, she would feel his soft caress against her lips and ache with a loss so deep she would never be free.
Lexi jerked upright. Her heart was pounding with grief, her skin cold with sweat. She bent her head to ease the tightness in her throat. She was used to the night terrors that woke her in the darkest hours, sending her out onto the deck to stare at the restless waves. Used to the dreams that were visceral, bloody, sharp stabs in the dark.
But this dream… this dream hadn’t come from the imagination. It hadn’t come from a suggestion played through a subliminal message on her phone.
This dream had been real, and her skin still quivered from the touch of his tongue, the stroke of possession that pooled with a heaviness that felt perfect and male and so deep inside a soft cry rose in her throat. She could still taste him in her mouth. Every bit as beautiful as she’d imagined. There wasn’t a part of her body that didn’t still ache. So long ago… all of it, lost.
It took too long to slow her racing heart, and when, in the dark, Lexi curled back on the bed she knew she would not sleep.
CHAPTER 10
When the dawn light warmed from gray to pink, Lexi slid out of bed. She picked up a red moose pillow, held it against her chest. The room didn’t scream phony as loudly as it did the night before, but Lexi missed her own bedroom.
She had spent months getting everything just right. There was the weathered grey planked floor—she’d added scattered white rugs to warm the wood in winter. Shelves lined one wall, displaying the driftwood collected the summer she turned nine, each bundle tied with red thread for good fortune. The old cabinet across from the door had been rescued from a thrift store and provided a bright spot of teal. The color complimented the warm gray of the mohair blanket folded at the end of the bed. The upholstered headboard with the tuck-and-roll design was in a muted sand-colored linen, matching the comforter that kept her warm on damp nights.
Lexi had filled each room with happy memories. Bits of sea glass shimmered in the light. Shells spilled from a mason jar. Beside the jar was a polished half-dome agate, picked up during a research trip deep into the Coast Range. She’d been stranded by a freak winter storm and needed the search-and-rescue to find her, much to her embarrassment. Lexi could have found the way back, but the group of burly men had taken one look at her, drenched and bug-bitten, and had driven her home.
The agate was a favorite piece out of everything Lexi collected. Not because she’d been stranded and then rescued. The concentric lines in the stone resonated deep in her soul, black blending into amber as they contrasted with wider bands of white, with the little splash of crimson in the center, blood of her heart. Lexi wasn’t sure who the memory was for—she’d thought it was her grandmother. Now she wasn’t sure.
Nor was she sure if she was a guest, or if the fake intervention was continuing. Quickly, Lexi straightened the room before dressing in jeans and a yellow shirt, not her clothes but fitting as if they were. Generating more questions, which she would demand Marge answer before the morning ended.
But there were two things she did know: the dream still haunted her heart, and Gaia had been the first life. Gaia of the earth.
Lexi tied her damp hair into a ponytail and then went looking for the kitchen. The homestead was larger than expected, with bedrooms at either end of the living room. Windows overlooked the rolling, barren landscape. Sunlight punched through the slatted window blinds, spilling to the floor with transparent fingers. Nothing more than dust motes filled the quiet spaces.
Marge was waiting by the stove. “How did you sleep?”
Lexi sank into a chair, accepted a cup of hot coffee and held up her right hand. Two faint memory lines intertwined with a graceful curl. “How do you think I slept?”
“I expected more to emerge. Just being around Christan will do it.”
Lexi looked away. “It itches.”
“The warriors have tattoos,” Marge said. “I hear itching is a mild reaction.”
Lexi remembered the lines that shifted beneath bronze male skin, pagan and alive. She stared at her hand, resisted the tingling of ants squirming, not sure if she could live with such an exotic form of punishment long term.
She rubbed her thumb against the mark and watched while Marge moved around the kitchen. A glass of orange juice was placed on the table, followed by a plate of toast. Lexi accepted the mothering; it was what surrogate mothers did and Marge got more out of the nurturing than Lexi did.
Except, now Marge had Robbie to nurture. For a long moment, Lexi listened to the faint hum of the refrigerator filling the silence. “Where is everyone?”
“They thought it would be easier if they weren’t here.”
Lexi stared out the window, listening to nothing, then said, “Why didn’t you tell me about Robbie?”