The Bloodgate Guardian (15 page)

Ruin hauled her up into air and she spluttered and coughed. The world spun crazily. It was still dark, but the moon had changed position. It gleamed directly overhead, illuminating steep cliffs all around, shaped like a bowl.

“Welcome to the Sacred Cenote of the Itza people.”

He had just enough strength remaining to give her tempting backside a shove up out of the water so she could climb onto the ledge leading to the cave. Turning around, Jaid held down her hand and helped draw him up onto the sandy ledge, or he might not have made it.

“Ruin?”

Her voice sounded very far away, vibrating with worry. She leaned over him, little more than a shadow in the cave. Her hands felt scorching hot on his face, trailing down his neck and across his shoulders.

“Are you hurt?”

Transforming again and again, while working such magic, had diminished even his cursed immortal reserves. Distantly, he wondered if he could die from exhaustion. How long would the gods allow him to rest before forcing him back to his duty? “It’s not serious.”

“Blood—you’ve been shot!”

Her rising panic through their magical bond made no sense to him. “The bullet went through. You’ve seen me receive much worse damage than this, lady.”

“Your skin is cold and clammy, your heart rate is erratic, and your speech sounds fuzzy. You must have lost too much blood. I think you’re going into shock.”

“I’m just tired.” He started to lift a hand toward her face, but then realized he still gripped the knife. He let it fall to the sand so he could cup her face in his palm. “For so much magic, I must pay the price.”

For her, he’d pay that price willingly.

“You said you had clothing stashed here. Do you have blankets? Maybe some food?”

“Yes, but not here in the cave where it may be found. Truly, I’ll be fine after a little rest.” He noted she was shivering, but whether from shock herself or simply being wet, he couldn’t tell. Everyone responded to the Gates differently, especially the first time. Maybe that explained her panic.

He tried to sit up and wrap her in his arms so they could warm each other. Biting back a groan, he let his head fall back. Too weak. Perhaps this was the end. He’d never exerted himself so many times without renewal before. He didn’t even have enough reserves left to transform to the jaguar and hunt.

To his great shame, his teeth began to chatter and shivers shook his frame.

Brow lined, she placed her hand on his head. She gnawed on her bottom lip and he groaned again, remembering her mouth beneath his. That would certainly restore his reserves, but it also presented a risk he dared not take. “You’re getting worse by the minute.”

He let his eyes fall closed. There was no need to expose her to the darker elements of his curse. For the first time in nearly a thousand years, he found himself wishing he didn’t have to die. That he could live. With her.

She made a soft, fragile little sound that made him want to wrap his body around hers and never let her go.

Blood. He scented her blood.

His eyes flew open. Gripping his knife, she smiled down at him, her eyes glittering, her mouth hard with determination.

“You work the magic of the Gate through blood, so surely this will help you.” Slowly, she lowered her bleeding hand toward his mouth. “Am I wrong?”

He wanted to refuse it. He should die untouched by her compassion, her courage, her spirit. Such a sacrifice. For him.

“It’s very dangerous, lady. Are you sure you want to risk it?”

Her free hand brushed his hair away from his face. “You’ve saved me at least twice, now. Let me help you.”

The taste of her blood exploded in his mouth, a sunburst of flavor and power. She tasted as she smelled: green magic, forgotten knowledge, rain, mixed with the deep, rich spice of coppery blood. Each swallow sent warmth coursing through his body, heating his throat, stomach and groin.

Ah, the danger. Exactly why he didn’t indulge in human blood. The power and temptation were too great.

He locked his fingers around her hand and set his teeth into the flesh of her palm. She made a low, ragged sound in the back of her throat that had nothing to do with pain. A sound he liked a great deal. He tugged her down, sprawling her across his chest. Her wet clothing prevented the stirring magic of skin to skin contact except through her hands. She stroked her free palm over his chest in torturous circles that seared his mind to ash.

The spirit bond between them glowed like a comet in the midnight sky, blazing fire through him. She soaked into him like the first spring rain after a drought, healing the cracks and chasms in his soul. Gods help him, how could he ever die and leave her?
“See how dangerous?”

She felt fragile in his arms. Human. Temporal. He could snuff out her life with a simple twist of his powerful hands. He could wipe her memories with his power. He could open a Gate and drag her to eternal paradise, where he’d be forced to leave her and return to his punishment.

“It may be dangerous, but it feels incredible.”

Slanting his head, he dragged his tongue over the cut in her palm. She moaned and squirmed against him, her breath catching in her throat. Silk slithered through his mind, rain-slick and magic-hot.

“Touch me.”

He slid a palm down her back, relishing her response. Every soft gasp and tremble was sweet music to a man doomed to endless death.
“I never dreamed to hold a woman again.”

“I never dreamed I could tame a jaguar.”

Rolling, he pinned her beneath him and laughed, low and rough, a deliberate growl rumbling his chest. “Do you think me tamed?”

“Your injury—”

He licked her palm one last time and released her hand. “Healed.”

She sought out the jagged hole the bullet had tore through his back and he knew she found only the slightly thickened skin of a scar. She raised her gaze to his and trembled faintly. His body couldn’t help but respond.

Her emotions crashed through him, a tumult of shock and desire, fear and desire. “So fast.”

Carefully, he lifted his weight off her and pushed back to kneel at her feet. “I thank you, lady. I’m fully restored.”

Still shivering, she gazed up at him with darkness in her eyes. She sat up, holding his gaze, and began to tug the soggy shirt over her head. He could not help but trace the gentle curves of her body with his gaze. So lovely. The greatest artisans of his time would have delighted in attempting to capture her form.

She stood and worked at her jeans, shoving and twisting to get the wet material down her hips. His tongue felt thick and swollen in his mouth, his throat tight, and he knew his eyes must be blazing like lamps in the darkness, but he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Her skin gleamed like the moon, inviting his touch, his mouth.

Biting back a rumbling growl, he averted his gaze. The rustle of clothing made his entire body tighten. He fisted his hands. He couldn’t bear to look upon such glory and be denied. It would be worse than the agonies of dying, to see the Great Ceiba in the distance and be sent back to this earth yet again to die in the service of the Gates.

She touched his shoulder and he flinched. Her scent flowed over him, sweet as honey, rich as cacao, green and fresh with his magic. His mouth watered to taste every inch. Muscles straining, he forced himself to remain still, his hands at his sides.

It was a battle he lost as soon as she slipped into his lap and wrapped her arms around his neck.

Gods above, her skin was as soft and fine as he’d imagined, even clammy and cold after her dunking. Shivering, she nestled closer, tucking her head up against his neck.

Skin to skin, the magic flared between them. Flames licked his flesh, energy pulsing higher with each breath he took. His hands trembled on the smooth expanse of her back, his fingers aching to linger lower, gripping her hips and hauling—

“Are we safe here?”

Her lips brushed against his neck with each word. It took him two tries to ease the tightness in his throat enough to speak. “Even if the demons feel the dagger’s presence, it will take them much longer to trek across all of Guatemala and the Yucatan. We’re safe enough to rest and recuperate our strength.”

“Good.” She opened her mouth and gripped his throat with her teeth, pressing harder until he let out a raw growl that should have told her how close the jaguar walked in his body. “Because I’m very hungry. For you.”

He dipped his head and nuzzled her neck. Slow and gentle, he kissed a path up to her ear, where he lingered, breathing warm and moist, his lips soft against her. “You saw me die.”

She shuddered, her heart clenching with dread at the image of his powerful body crumpled on the floor at the compound with a bloody dent in his skull. “And you always come back.”

“Not always. Someday, I will die the final death. I already fear our connection. If I die, I may drag you to the White Road as well. If we make love, the spirit bond will only grow stronger. I would not cause you suffering, lady.”

She pulled back slightly and looked into his eyes. “Say my name.”

His stark face was as hard as the chiseled rock of the stelae guardposts of his dead city. “For the first time in hundreds of years, I find myself unable to pray for an end to my duty as Gatekeeper. I don’t want to die this time. I don’t want to miss one moment of this life with you, Jaid.”

Such vulnerability trembled in his words. She knew what his heart had cost him in the past. Throat aching, she couldn’t promise she wouldn’t drive him to break his duty, either. Not when her father was trapped in hell and innocents were slaughtered to demons, all because of her research. “I can’t leave my father in Xibalba if there’s any hope that he’s still alive.”

Ruin sighed soft and low, his breath a whisper against her cheek. “I know. I said I would help you, did I not?”

Guilt suffocated her. “I don’t want you to suffer, either. I don’t want to put you in the same position as your brother.”

The sudden white flash of his smile stunned her. “I assure you, I never had this position with my brother.”

She laughed, he smiled, and some of the regret and tension bled away, leaving only the glide of skin, the heated press of his body, and rising desire. She needed to touch him and feel his hands on her skin. For a little while, they could forget the horrors of demons. She didn’t have to worry about Venus Star and her lost father.

This man had already opened her up and stared into her darkest self. Ruin stood at the top of his pyramid, dripping blood from her heart clutched in his hand, volcanoes rumbling and Lake Atitlan surging like a tsunami behind him. She felt new-made, as though Dr. Jaid Merritt had jumped into the lake and some other woman had emerged in the Sacred Cenote. A woman who shivered and moaned at the thought of this untamed, powerful man sinking into her.

Her breath came short and fast. Rising up on her knees, she took him into her body. He groaned harshly, his hands convulsing on her back.

“I’m doubly cursed now,” he said, his eyes glittering eerily, his voice rumbling with jaguar tones, “because I don’t wish to part from you. Ever.”

Everywhere their skin met, golden light spread liquid and warmth. Unlike the dancing fireflies when he transformed, this light grew softly, glowing brighter to fully illuminate his face, his high forehead, his sharp, chiseled cheekbones, the thick slabs of muscle across his shoulders and chest. His tattoos swirled and pulsed, spreading in a thickening vine up his neck as if they fed on the light.

As if they fed on his pleasure and need.

“Yes,” he breathed against her lips. “As you gave me blood, you give me power now. Such power.” He trembled beneath her and buried his face against her shoulder. “I feel like we’re still in the Gate. I’m drowning in you.”

Her senses overloaded. She fisted one hand in his heavy hair and clawed at his back with the other, trying to get closer, closer yet, as if she could simply crawl inside his body and meld their hearts forever. She flicked her tongue hesitantly at the dark swirls in his throat. His skin felt like living velvet, but she couldn’t feel the tattoos themselves. He groaned and threw his head back, so she pressed her mouth harder, letting her teeth dig into his flesh.

Falling through the Gate, the only thing real had been his hand gripping hers, his body dragging hers under. It was the same now, as he dragged her through a different Gate. In his mind, she saw a sleek black pyramid stretching all the way to the sun. It blazed liquid fire at its tip, casting rainbows and rivers of gold down the steep obsidian sides. Feathers fell all around, jade and gold, and the air smelled alive with a thousand scents carried on the first breath of spring.

He took her to First Five Sky. Heaven.

She heard his hoarse cry. Her throat hurt, so she must have yelled too. Her head felt disconnected, her consciousness still lingering in that place of magic. She barely felt him draw her down to lie on the sands. Cradled against his chest, she listened as his thundering heart slowed. Her breathing steadied, her pulse slowed, and so did his. It dawned on her that their breathing was perfectly synchronized.

Drifting off to sleep, she wondered how her heart could possibly continue beating when he died again.

Lighting a torch at the back of the cave, Ruin could not help but steal glances at Jaid as she dressed in the faint sunlight streaming through the cave opening. She grimaced at her still-damp clothing, but until he took her into the hidden temple, it was all she had available.

She, too, couldn’t help but look at him beneath her lashes. She said nothing, though, which twisted him into uneasy knots. Did she regret giving both her blood and her body to him last night?

He was completely healed and stronger than he’d ever been. The thought should have pleased him greatly. But Jaid moved as though every muscle in her body ached. Sleeping on the sand and jumping through the Gate for the first time had taken their toll, and though she didn’t complain, she wasn’t refreshed and strong, not like him.

She winced at her palm. The cut she’d made for him. He’d forgotten about it entirely.

Shame welled in his heart. He set the burning torch back into the holder and gently took her hand in both of his. The cut wasn’t deep, but it was red, angry, and the edges were inflamed. Dirt and sand had been ground into her flesh.

Holding her gaze, he lowered his mouth to the cut. Carefully, he breathed magic into her skin. He kept his lips soft and carefully slid his tongue over the cut to clean the dirt away. When he was done, her lips were parted, her eyes glazed with desire, and her breathing was a soft, rapid pant.

He placed a kiss on the now smooth skin and straightened, letting his mouth quirk. “Thank you for your sacrifice last night, lady.”

Heat bloomed on her cheeks and she tugged her hand away.

Laughing softly, he returned to the back of the cave and retrieved the torch. “Are you ready?”

“Lead the way.”

Casting wavering torch-light on the wall, he scanned the glyphs. The small depression in the wall of the Sacred Cenote was just that, a hole to the casual eye. It certainly didn’t appear to be a tunnel that led up to a hidden chamber beneath Kukulkan’s Pyramid. It had been centuries since he stared at this wall.

“They’re remarkably clear after so many years.” Jaid stood beside him, lightly trailing her fingers over them. “I suppose they’re rather sheltered from the elements, unless the cenote floods this high.”

Lost in thought as she translated the glyphs, she gnawed on her bottom lip. The lip he would relish nibbling on again.

“Great Feathered Serpent, rise again. Renew us to power and life.”

“This glyph is actually
magic
.” He touched the one she’d translated as power. “This picture shows the
kuxan sum
, or living cord, that rises toward Raised-Up Sky, connecting earth to heaven. Magic flows through the Ceiba, from the branches to the trunk, even to the roots.”

“To Xibalba,” she whispered grimly.

“Yes. The magic is there, too, but Itzamna, the first sorcerer, never gave his brothers in the Place of Fright that knowledge. Knowledge in this case truly is magic, or power as you said. If the Lords of Night ever gain the Gate magic, Raised-Up Sky will be hacked to pieces and the world as we know it will end. There will be no afterlife, no Return, no paradise. The Maya and humans alike will be slaughtered.”

Jaid shivered but didn’t stop studying the glyphs. Her fingers twitched at her side as though she traced the markings. She could be so dangerous.

Let her be trustworthy.

“So if the magic flows through the Ceiba, where are the priests, like you, who use the magic?”

“We’re the branches and trunk. Without us, the magic doesn’t flow. Unfortunately, there are few of us left. Magic in this world thins. The branches have been stunted.”

Her eyes narrowed and he could almost hear the wheels turning in her mind, clicking into place. “The Lords of Xibalba would want the magic to die. Because once it fails—”

“The Gates will fall open,” he admitted. He drew the knife. Immediately, her gaze focused on it. The startled flare of her eyes and quickening of her breath told him she still wasn’t comfortable with sacrifice, despite what she’d done for him last night. “Magic has a cost. I pay the cost myself as often as possible, but some magic can only be wrought with great sacrifice.”

“Did you…” She swallowed hard and her face paled. She jerked her gaze away from the knife up to his face. “Did you ever sacrifice a human?”

He kept his face smooth. “You know the answer to that question.”

A shudder wracked her shoulders, but she didn’t pull away.

“The tales of your time greatly exaggerate the role and act of human sacrifice by my people. Did we sacrifice people? Yes. But never mass slaughters where the steps of the pyramid ran red with blood. We have no mass graves. We never decimated an entire tribe by slaughtering every living being.”

“How many?” Her voice was raw, ragged, her hands fisted at her sides. The pale tightness on her face made him want to snarl.

“We fought wars. We captured our enemy. We gave them the honor of fighting in the ballgame. The losers were often sacrificed. Great kings, too, were often sacrificed, and they went willingly to save their people. What great sacrifice have you made? How would you save your people?”

“You killed people,” she whispered, backing away as though she stared at an abomination. “Did you kill someone to resurrect your brother?”

Grimly, he drew the knife across his palm, deeper than he intended in his fury. “Of course not. That price I paid with my own blood.”

Turning away, he smeared his bloody palm on the glyph for magic. Pressure built behind his eardrums. His heart quickened. Jaid must have felt the rising power, too, for she let out a soft startled sound and edged closer despite her repugnance for what he’d done.

The wall cracked. He pushed the opening deeper, revealing a rough-hewn door and tunnel beyond. She walked through without a word, her body withdrawn and closed. His throat tightened with explanations and entreaties, but he spoke not a word. For the first time in centuries, he had a reason to live as long as possible instead of finally ending his miserable existence in Xibalba.

This was something she must resolve for herself. If she cared for him, she would work out the ramifications. She had to trust his motivations and understand his culture. If she thought him capable of casual murder, his words would merely break apart, ignored and unheard.

Silently, he led her up the tunnel to the next door. This one, too, required blood. Magic pulsed in him, begging to be used, wrought by the powerful sex and blood sacrifice she’d given him last night. If she’d known what power it would give him, would she have refused? He dared not ask. The last thing he wanted was for her to regret giving herself to him, not when he would carry the memory and her scent in his heart forever.

Heavier than the other door to better conceal the secret beneath the pyramid, this one took all his physical strength to move. Breathing hard, he rested his forehead against the stone.

Jaid stepped closer and stretched out the hand he’d healed, her palm whispering of remembered blood and his lingering magic. Then she pulled away and stepped into the chamber.

Clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and willed his heart to harden. For this next magic, he needed his mind clear and unhampered by foolish longings of his heart.

How could he ask what she’d been willing to sacrifice?

Didn’t he understand that she’d sacrificed her entire life for her father already?

How could he, when she’d only begun to realize the truth herself on this trip?

Nerves jittery, she walked into the hidden chamber. The torch cast flickering light and shadows on the walls, but she recognized the dizzying map on the floor as identical to the one in Chi’Ch’ul.

Not exactly, she decided, squinting as she moved closer. Ruin brought the torch in and started lighting the ones ready on the walls, illuminating the small chamber fully.

She brought up the map floor from Lake Atitlan in her mind, remembering the trio of volcanoes, the large blue lake, the rounds and their glyphs, and the corresponding numbers. “They don’t match.”

“Of course not.” His voice was tight with repressed emotion, but he didn’t rant or growl about like a jaguar. She knew she’d hurt him with her doubts, but she couldn’t comprehend sacrificing someone, no matter how willing the victim might have been to “save” his people. “The key for Chich’en Itza is different than mine.”

Made sense, she supposed. Each city had its own set of patron gods, so it was only to be expected that they’d have a different layer of encryption. “So what’s the key?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

Whirling to face him, she stared at him incredulously. “What do you mean, it doesn’t matter? Then why are we here?”

Pulling on a pair of jeans from the stash of clothing he’d mentioned, he arched a brow at her. “We don’t need to travel through the Gate to retrieve what we came for.”

Or did he not trust her with the knowledge? Averting her gaze—although it was too late, for every bronzed inch of his body was emblazoned in her memory—she turned back to the map. Determination filled her, as well as that familiar excitement to solve the puzzle. She could reason out the encryption by herself while he did whatever he needed to release the White Dagger from its hiding place.

Lake Atitlan and the volcanoes had been a crucial part of Chi’Ch’ul’s encryption. They believed their lake was the navel of the world, and that belief provided the answer to how to read the map—which is why she’d gotten it wrong the first time. She hadn’t really understood the Maya or the codex until she’d walked the ruin with the priest who’d lived and ruled there.

So what did Chich’en Itza believe? What was important to them and unique to their city alone?

The Sacred Cenote, obviously. They’d used crushed white stone to pave the White Way from the city proper to the cenote. They’d often tossed small items as sacrifices into the waters, and according to legend, people, too. Some dreadful accounts claimed children had especially been used. They were tossed into the hole in the morning, and if they still survived that night, they were pulled out. Often, they recounted “visions” that likely had more to do with terror and exhaustion than anything else.

Or so she’d thought. What if they had managed to pass through the portal? Would the Great Feathered Serpent have taken pity on young people thrown into his Gate?

Thanks to the legends about Kukulkan someday rising again and bringing the Maya back to their full glory, her father had spent a great deal of time here in the beginning. Here in Chich’en Itza he’d first begun theorizing about the Gates. He’d made his first significant find: a small tile in the floor of a temple beneath the main pyramid El Castillo, buried beneath inches of dust and dirt.

There was so much about the famous pyramid that they still didn’t understand. Just a few years ago, someone had noticed that a strange bird sound emitted from the pyramid, supposedly the sacred and extinct quetzl. On the Vernal Equinox, when the sun reached the peak of the pyramid, the shadow of a writhing serpent raced down the steps.

Last night, she’d seen a vision of a gleaming black pyramid with a blazing sun at its top and jade feathers falling all around. Surely a glimpse of what might lay on the other side of the Chich’en Itza portal.

Fighting to keep her gaze locked on Kukulkan’s Pyramid on the floor—painted black, she noted, matching Ruin’s memory—she walked across the floor and stood at its peak. The map settled into place and the rings appeared with the corresponding numbers. “I think I’ve got it!”

Face cast in shadows, he stood in the corner watching her. Gripping the knife in his right hand, his left hand still dripping blood on the floor, he sent shivers down her spine, even while her inner muscles clenched with remembered passion. Fear, danger and desire made a deadly combination.

She knew he’d killed people to protect the Gate. As a priest, he’d even sacrificed people. Yet he’d saved her several times. When he’d touched her last night, he’d been only tender, gentle, his touch reverent. He possessed inhuman powers she couldn’t fully comprehend, but he’d only been a man last night when he’d held her, buried his face against her neck, and shook with release.

Scanning the floor and walls, she tried to decipher what he’d done. There was blood on the wall in several spots. “Are you ready?”

With a jerk of his head, he motioned her away from the relief map. She moved to the edge, opposite him so she could see his face.

“Watch the Sacred Cenote.”

Confused, she turned her attention to the map. From the city glyphs, the White Way led a glowing path to the blue circle representing the sinkhole. The image wavered. Narrowing her gaze, Jaid edged closer.

Whispering beneath his breath, he stepped to the map and held his bleeding hand over the cenote.

Hair rose down her arms and her scalp felt alive, crawling with energy. Her skin tingled with whispered breath. Ultrasensitive, her nerves tingled, her fingers itching, burning with…magic. It hadn’t felt this way at Chi’Ch’ul. Had passing through the Gate made her more sensitive?

The blue paint of the cenote wavered with ripples like the smooth surface of a pool after a stone had been tossed in. She sucked in a breath and chills raced down her spine. Real. The water was real. A scent sparkled in the air like the moist jungle after a light rain.

Wide-eyed, she leaned closer. Something white glinted in the waters. With his voice rolling like thunder on the horizon in his chant, Ruin reached down. His fingers touched water and sank through to grasp the white shape below.

A voice floated through the living glyph. “It’s a trap!”

“Dad?” Heart hammering, she rushed forward. “Hold on! We’ll get you out!”

“Stay back!” Ruin shouted and threw up his free hand to halt her. “I’ll lose the connection if you step on the map.”

Her father’s voice wavered as though oceans separated them. “Don’t risk opening the Gate again. One Death waits.”

At first, she thought he meant that someone would die. Then she realized he meant One Death, the highest Xibalban Lord of Night. Her teeth chattered. If the most powerful demon waited for them…