“How was I supposed to know about all these weird things?” she said. “I certainly didn’t have any flying creatures like that in my book. But I’ll be sure to add them to my next one. Maybe a whole flock or gaggle of them, or whatever you people call it. Turns out that truth really is stranger than fiction.”
****
How dare she!
“Damn it, Meredith! This isn’t some game we’re playing to stroke your writer’s ego,” he said. “This is serious. We are fighting real demons and the outcome has real consequences! And for some reason you felt the need to tell the whole world all about it!”
He inhaled deeply and lowered his voice, channeling the calm objectivity of the part of him that was demon-warrior. He couldn’t afford to scare her off again. Not while he had another chance to bring her before the Warrior Council. As another half-breed, Randy would be able to relate to Dax’s masculine desires. The others, as full-blooded demon-warriors, would get a truer sense of Meredith’s intentions and motivations. The energy she might be trying to hide. Whether she was friend or foe.
But the others weren’t seeing her as he was now, in the plain white T-shirt and white lace thong she had slept in. With glossy black hair sticking out in all directions, her face scrubbed of makeup. More beautiful than ever.
He didn’t want her to realize how easy it would be to simply leave again.
“That must have been why my eyes turned gold,” he said. “That only happens when there’s about to be demonic activity. Not just because someone is having car trouble.”
She seemed to shrink before him. Her eyes widened and she took a deep breath. “Do you mean that thing was a demon?”
She fiddled with the leather cord on the ridiculous pendant that dangled between her breasts. Her only connection to her ancestors.
Her family.
Dax felt a pang of regret that he had only one living relative. He would remind Aunt Cara how much she meant to him as often as possible.
Something wasn’t making sense, though. “Are you absolutely certain about what you saw?”
“Yes, of course. Why?”
“The thing is, I’m not aware of any demonic creature that has ever taken that physical shape,” Dax said. “Since my eyes changed, I know it was demonic. But this must be some sort of lesser being. My hunch is that it was just checking you out—trying to scare you off, maybe, but not powerful enough to do real damage.”
She sat beside him on the bed. Neither spoke as early morning sunlight filled the room.
“I don’t want to fight, Dax. Maybe that was our dance through the fire,” she said at last. “Whatever that means.”
“You’re right,” he finally said. “We have to put this behind us. Demons love to throw us off course by making us argue about trivial things. We have to stick together.”
His human emotions were on fire. For the first time, he dared to imagine that Meredith was the love of his life from all those centuries ago. As grateful as he was to have finally found her, his heart was in shreds.
The battle would launch soon, perhaps in a matter of days. If the demon-warriors were defeated, he would be separated from Meredith once more. Could his human side endure the loss? He would not let himself think about it now. Instead, he would try to make her understand. Or at least stay with him for a little while longer.
He took her hand and kissed its palm. “When I was a young man, more than two centuries ago, I fell in love, right here on the banks of the river. She was Lipan Apache. Neither of our families approved, so we kept our relationship secret. But knowing her made me want to be fully human, to know love and tenderness as well as violence and caution. To dedicate myself to someone in this life and all those that follow.”
He looked at her. It was now or never. “The thing is, I am convinced that that someone is you. Sounds crazy, I know. All I am asking is that you stay with me for a while, at least until the battle starts and it’s too dangerous for you.”
“Oh, Dax,” she said, unable to keep the tears at bay. “It is crazy, but it’s also real. I feel the same way. I carried the dream of you always, even past the point of remembering.”
He wiped away a tear from one eye and then the other.
“But I don’t want to talk about it or even think about it right now,” she whispered. She pulled his body onto hers and they sank onto the unmade bed.
With expert hands, he lifted her head to his, kissed her temples down to the nape of her neck. He brushed his lips against hers, then moved slowly down the front of her neck, lingering at the spot where her pulse throbbed.
Meredith moaned, her back arching, ready to give herself to him. Her fingers reached for the T-shirt that kept his skin from hers.
“Not yet, my love,” he whispered. He would make this worth the wait of more than 200 years. His fingers moved slowly down the cloth, tracing the contours of one breast and then the other. Skimming along her waist, he slipped just inside the lace hem of her panties, moistening his fingertips. Tracing the curve of her thighs and calves, then ascending again.
He gently pushed up one side of her T-shirt, cupping her breast as he slid her arm through the armhole, then repeated the process.
His fingers slid under the leather cord of her pendant. “I don’t think Nanna will miss this for now,” Dax whispered, lifting it from Meredith’s neck and letting it slip to the carpet.
He stood up and tugged on the cord of his cotton pajama pants. “It’s been so long,” he murmured into her ear. “I can’t wait any longer.”
He plunged into her. She moaned as he thrust again and again. She built to a climax but seemed to hold back.
“Yes, my darling,” he whispered. She shuddered in ecstasy, squeezing him with endless shivers of delight. She moaned his name as if possessed.
Finally, in exquisite agony, he let himself go. He could bear it no longer. With a final thrust, he released the frustrations of more than 200 years.
****
Meredith showered and dressed, thankful for the jeans and white linen tunic she had packed along with the dressier clothes for the book tour. She tiptoed downstairs to the kitchen. The light was on but there were no other signs of life. Perfect. She didn’t know which she was dreading more: dropping hints to let Cara know that she wasn’t the kind to sleep with someone just a few hours after being introduced, or Cara dropping hints that Dax was. A man didn’t perfect that kind of talent by spending his nights alone.
Coffee would help. Even though Cara’s suite was on the opposite side of the house, Meredith made as little noise as possible as she searched cabinets for coffee beans, mugs, filters. Within minutes she was on her second cup, ready to face the day.
A small door that Meredith had not noticed before creaked opened, and Cara stepped up into the kitchen, carrying a jar of what looked like homemade peach jam.
“An early riser, just like Dax!” Cara said, “I never could understand why some folks want to spend half the day in bed. I trust you slept well, my dear?”
“Like a rock,” Meredith said, trying to remember whether Cara’s eyes had twinkled quite so brightly the day before. “I assumed that life on a ranch meant early to bed, early to rise.”
“It does,” Cara said. “There’s always so much to do. Like this, for instance—the last of the peach preserves. I can’t believe it’s been a whole year! Time to visit the orchards. They say this year’s crop is the best in years. Of course, that means I need to get busy canning my okra and pickles, too.”
“I’ve always wanted to learn how to do that,” Meredith said. “You must have a lot of pantry space if you can store so much for a whole year.”
“Oh yes, downstairs. I have a good-sized room to myself.”
“Downstairs?” Meredith said. “I thought the sand and clay in the soil here wouldn’t let anyone build below ground level.”
“Dax put this house right on top of a cavern,” Cara said. “It was the only way we could have this view. A whole series of rooms and passageways. Stays cool year-round.”
“I can see why he did that. The view is spectacular,” Meredith said.
“I’d say the view in here is pretty good, too,” Dax said as he entered the room, snapping the top snap on his starched white Western-style shirt. “Has Cara been tempting you with her peach preserves?”
“Oh, by all means,” Cara said. “I’ll make some toast.”
“Actually, if you don’t mind, we’ll be needing something a little heartier. Enough for our powwow with the guys in an hour or so,” Dax said. “Meredith went without dinner last night. Plus, the only reason ranch hands would ever agree to meet during the only halfway cool part of a hot summer day is to get a bite of your cooking.”
“Flattery will get you everywhere,” Cara said. “But I’ll be happy to make some toast to tide you over.”
“Thanks, but coffee is enough to get me going in the mornings,” Meredith said.
“Okay, then. You two go on. I’ll be there in about an hour.”
“Ready for our expedition?” Dax picked up a backpack from the table and slipped it over his shoulders.
“Can’t wait!” Meredith said.
He went to the door that Cara had just come through and opened it. “After you...”
“Are you kidding?” Meredith said, laughing as they moved down steep wooden steps. “This has taught me two things. First, you should never believe all the crazy stories a child tells you in your dreams. Until yesterday, I was expecting gold bricks and donkeys with carts and Spaniards in pointy hats. And until just this minute, I was expecting the cave to be out in the middle of nowhere.”
“You got a lot of it right. We’re still Spaniards, even though we got rid of the donkeys and hats years ago. And the second thing?”
“I see how Cara stays in such good shape!”
Chapter Five
Dax spent considerable time deciding on the best way to introduce Meredith to the cavern. Each entry had certain advantages. The kitchen entrance led into the space that was more like an extension of the house: Dax’s wine cellar, Cara’s pantry, and storage for items that weren’t appropriate for the ranch’s various barns. The cozy, furnished spaces would make a neophyte feel comfortable, letting Dax ease into the realities of the demon portal that was quite a distance from the house.
On the other hand, the cave entrance that opened up into the meadow at the other end was in its natural state. Musty and dank. Spooky, even. The portal flooded that side of the cavern with negative energy. Enough to make the hairs stand up on the back of a person’s neck. Enough to convince a neophyte that the hounds of hell were pacing just around the next corner.
He saw now that he had made the right decision. Meredith seemed to be her usual upbeat, chatty self. Just what he wanted for their meeting with the ranch hands. Even though he had told Meredith that the guys she would meet were really members of the Warrior Council—full-blooded demon-warriors—he wondered if she fully grasped what that meant. He hoped she wouldn’t be intimidated by their questions, or their attitude. It’s easy to put a book down when it gets too scary, but impossible to dismiss a plot that is unfolding before one’s eyes.
For his own part, he was hoping that the other warriors would confirm his beliefs about Meredith. Later, they would no doubt track down the spirit of the girl that came to her in her dreams. For now, at least, Dax was certain that the pressure on Meredith would soon be alleviated. She was no demon expediter. She was innocent. And it wasn’t just because she was the sexiest creature he had ever seen. His body stirred with desire.
Not now
!
He realized that he had no idea what he was saying, although the sound of his voice echoed through the cavern. Meredith was drinking in every word. Ah, right—the story of the scepter and its powers.
He turned to the niche in the stone wall where it was kept.
Empty
. Dax’s pulse raced. Could be a moot issue, since the scepter was powerless without the missing object.
Or, it could be the beginning of the end of the world.
“It seems to be missing,” Dax said as calmly as he could. “Randy, our foreman, is in charge of it, so he must have it. Perhaps he’s found the object and he’s placing it back into the scepter. We’ll find out shortly.”
They crept deeper into the cave. The passageways grew hotter and narrower.
“Ugh! Sulfur again!” Meredith said. “It smelled like that earlier, when the bird thing was outside the window.”
“It’ll be even stronger when we go inside the actual portal—the cave,” Dax said. “This is the door, here. You ready? Remember, these are the crystals that the demons have been placing here for centuries. Each crystal carries a powerful energy that is deadly to humans and all other living creatures.
“But they are beautiful. And they cannot hurt you now. They are simply gathering energy. It’s only when the demons return and release the energy into the world that we need to worry.”
“I’m ready. I can’t believe I’m about to see something that no other human being has ever seen,” Meredith said.
Dax opened the door and they entered a cathedral of stone and light. What fun it was going to be to see the room through someone else’s eyes after all these centuries.
Thousands of crystals covered the floor, walls and ceiling. They glowed with different colors and varying levels of brightness. Prisms of light danced across the space as if the walls were lined with mirrors.
“Stay on the path here and you’ll be fine,” Dax said. “Try not to touch anything.”
“You mean I can go in farther?” Meredith said.
“Absolutely. Come on,” he said, taking her hand.
“There’s a lot of writing on the walls, too,” she said. “What’s this?”
“That’s the symbol
melkranos
in the ancient demonic hieroglyphics,” Dax said. “Means circular or whole. The energy that starts the cycle all over again, for better or worse.”