Fixation Page 7

  “But you’re better now?” asked Jack, happily missing the undercurrents in our exchange.

  I nodded. “Much better. Just starving.” And I really was. Balam had been right about this. “We’re gonna get some dinner.” Out of politeness I added, “Have you eaten yet?” even though the last thing I wanted was for Jack to join us. I wanted to hear the rest of Balam’s story and find out exactly what the hell happened to me last night. That wasn’t going to happen with Jack in the room.

  Jack’s expression turned suddenly sheepish. “Um... I’ve kind of got company.”

  “Well, then, you should kind of get back to her, doncha think?”

  Jack cast one more uncertain look at Balam, then back at me. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “I will take care of her.” Balam’s tone left no room for argument.

  I rolled my eyes. “Just feed me, okay? Night, Jack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Once inside the house, I immediately headed for the bathroom. Before shutting the door behind me, I turned back to Balam. “I need to take a shower,” I said. “There are take-out menus in the kitchen in the drawer nearest the fridge. Pick what you like. I’ll eat anything at this point.” I shut the door and then opened it again. “Except if you get pizza, no onions or green peppers.” I started to shut the door yet again, then paused long enough to say, “Make yourself at home.”

  Satisfied I’d fulfilled my hostess duties for the moment, I turned on the showerhead, stripped out of my clothes, and stepped into a few minutes of blissful hot water sluicing down over my head and body. It soothed the residual aches and washed away the dirt and god-knew-what-else from the last twenty-four hours.

  Drying myself off, I rubbed vanilla spice body butter into my skin, put moisturizer on my face and neck, and slipped into the bedroom to find clean clothes. I emerged a few minutes later in black yoga pants and a long-sleeved, forest green thermal shirt, my feet encased in bright red fuzzy socks. I was ready to face the world—or, at least, Balam.

  He’d taken my “make yourself at home” to heart. The fairy lights were on and he’d lit a number of candles placed around the living room. He’d opened a bottle of zinfandel I’d bought at a winery on a trip to Paso Robles and poured a generous amount in two stemless wine glasses. Half-empty bottle and glasses were on the coffee table, along with a half-dozen take-out menus. Balam was crouched in front of one of the bookshelves, studying the titles with great interest. I padded quietly up behind him. He’d honed in on my books about exotic felines. He’d pulled out Jaguar by Alan Rabinowitz, the zoologist responsible for establishing the first jaguar preserve in Belize.

  “A great man, this,” Balam said, flipping through the pages.

  “You’ve read it?” I knelt beside him.

  He nodded. “Yes, and met him.”

  He put the book back on the shelf and got to his feet in one smooth movement, holding out one hand. I took it, feeling the contained strength as he pulled me up seemingly without effort. I tried to put the memory of those strong hands on my body firmly out of my mind.

  “I ordered pizza,” said Balam, handing me one of the wine glasses. “I haven’t had it in quite a long time. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” I said. I could eat pizza every day for a month without getting tired of it.

  “No onions or green peppers,” he added before I could ask. “Cornmeal crust with feta cheese, sun-dried tomatoes, black olives and salami.”

  My favorite combination. “How did you—”

  “Your last order was attached to the menu.” He grinned then, a surprisingly boyish expression on that very masculine face. He picked up the other wine glass and extended it. “Cheers.”

  “What are we toasting?”

  “You, Maya.” He looked at me with those amazing green eyes, flecks of gold flickering like flames in their depths. Talk about a smoldering gaze.

  I stared back at him suspiciously. “Why?”

  He paused, glass still extended. “What do you mean, ’why’?”

  “I mean, why me?” I clutched my wine glass. “Why, out of all the people at the compound, why did you choose me? Was I just in the right place at the right time?”

  Balam sighed, a long, drawn-out sound that spoke of great weariness. “I will tell you everything, I promise, but after we eat. My strength is still not what it should be. The shift from animal to human form takes much energy at the best of times, but even more when a spell is involved to stop the transformation.”

  My mind flashed on one of those websites for tracking calories in and calories out. You know, where it tells you you’ve burned X amount of calories spending a half hour walking up hills. I wondered if I could add “transforming into were-jaguar” as an exercise option.

  “For now, share this toast with me.” He turned the smolder up a few notches. This time it was underscored by the tone of a man used to getting his own way. I found the combination both infuriating and sexy. “Please.”

  The “please” pushed the sexy quotient higher. Damn.

  I raised my glass and clinked it against his, then took a sip of wine. It was excellent; lots of dark berry flavors underscored by spice, rich on the tongue. I’d been saving it for a special occasion. I guess this qualified as special.

  Balam did a little swirl, chew, and swallow routine, yet managed to not look pretentious. He made an appreciative noise deep in his throat. “You have good taste in wine.”

  “When I can afford it, yeah.” I took another sip. The flavors were incredibly vibrant and the mouth-feel was like silk. “This is even better than I remember.”

  He nodded. “You’ll find your senses enhanced for a day or so after the transformation. Both the good and the bad.”

  “So is that why it hurt so damn much to change back into a human?” Even as I said it, part of me could not believe I was calmly discussing shapeshifting as if it were real.

  “In part. It also always hurts more the first time.”

  I couldn’t help it; I snorted. Feels like the first time, indeed.

  Balam raised a quizzical eyebrow.

  There was a knock on the front door; the pizza was here, saving me from having to explain the band Foreigner to Balam.

  I reached for my purse, but Balam put a hand on my wrist and shook his head. He pulled out a wad of cash from one pocket and answered the door. I sat down on the couch and had some more wine while Balam charmed the delivery girl, a normally sullen Goth type in her late teens. I rolled my eyes when I heard her giggle. I’d remember that next time she treated me like an inconvenient necessity when delivering my pizza—and tip her accordingly.

  Within minutes I had a slice of hot pizza on a paper plate in front of me. I let the aroma waft up for a minute, marveling that I could smell each separate ingredient from the yeasty cornmeal crust to the feta cheese. The first bite was nothing short of orgasmic. I forgot everything in the sheer joy of eating what had to be the best piece of pizza in the history of mankind, followed by a second and third. Balam appeared to be enjoying his meal too, if the half-closed eyes and blissed-out expression were any indication. Between the two of us we polished off the entire large pizza and were well into our second glasses of wine by the time we finally settled down to talk.

  “Ask me what you will.”

  Balam stared at me, the angles and planes of his face illuminated by candles and fairy lights. He looked like something out of an impossibly sexy dream.

  There were so many questions I wanted to ask, but one popped out of my mouth without hesitation. “Did we really have sex? Or was it just a dream?”

  By the surprised look on his face, that was not the question Balam expected to hear. But to his credit, he answered me.

  “What we did ... it all took place in what we call Dream Time.”

  I heaved a sigh of relief. “So nothing really happened.”

  Balam arched an eyebrow. “Some would argue that which happens in Dream Time is more real than anything that happens in
the corporal world.”

  I matched him with a raised eyebrow of my own. “So every time I’ve gone to school naked in a dream that’s really happened?”

  Balam snorted. “You are confusing common dreams with Dream Time. They are not the same thing.”

  I looked at him. “And I’m supposed to know this how?”

  He had the grace to look embarrassed. “My apologies, Maya. I forget you do not know these things.” He reached out and took one of my hands in his. “I feel like I have known you for much longer than I actually have.”

  I tried to ignore the frisson of heat I felt when his hand touched mine. “So you’re saying what, exactly?”

  “My people believe Dream Time is its own reality. And what happens there is reflected in the walking world.”

  I yanked my hand away.

  “So you ... we ... it really happened?”

  He nodded.

  “How could you do that?”

  “It wasn’t my intention to take advantage of you, Maya.”

  “By ‘take advantage’ I assume you’re talking about sex.” I stared straight ahead, too humiliated and angry to look him in the eye.

  “I prefer to think of it as making love.”

  I gave a short bark of laughter that hurt like hell and had no amusement in it. “You don’t make love to someone you just met.”

  “What would you call it, then?”

  He met my angry glare with a calm patience that infuriated me.

  “I don’t know, but making love implies an emotional connection between two people. Not a quick boink or two”—or three or four; I’d lost count—“in the jungle.”

  “Boink?” That startled a laugh out him, a melodious chuckle as rich as cream. The sound sent a delicious shiver down my spine. “Maya, we did many things last night, but I would not consider any of them as a ‘boink’. I would not use the word ‘boink’ to describe any of them.”

  “You know what I mean,” I said crossly. “Strangers boink.”

  “Then I argue we are not strangers.” Setting his wine down, Balam dropped on one knee in front of me so he was looking directly into my eyes. “Look at me and tell me you didn’t feel the emotional bond between us ... even before you saw me in my human form.”

  I opened my mouth to deny it, then stopped. I prided myself on a fair amount of self-honesty—and Balam was right. Staring into those amazing gold-flecked green eyes, I could feel my very essence drawn to him, as if our souls were connected by invisible strings.

  It pissed me off no end.

  “You are very special, Maya.”

  “Why?” I took a big gulp of wine and glared at him. “What makes me so damn special? Why not any of the other docents at the compound? Why me?” Okay, I knew it had to have something to do with my psychic ability. But I waited for some bullshit response about how he couldn’t resist my beauty or something equally lame.

  Balam sighed and sat back on the couch next to me, dividing up the rest of the bottle of wine between our two glasses.

  “How familiar are you with the myths and legends of Mesoamerica?”

  Okay, not the answer I expected. I shrugged.

  “Enough to know the Aztecs had a lot of bloodthirsty gods to appease,” I said.

  He nodded. “I will try to keep this simple, then.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Mesoamerican Myths for Dummies?”

  Balam gave a snort of amusement. He managed to make even the snort sound kind of sexy. Totally not fair.

  “Many of the gods and goddesses worshipped by the Aztecs demanded blood, it is true. But not all of them were so greedy for human sacrifice at their origin.”

  “What do you mean?”

  He settled back against the couch. I could almost see his brain click over into storytelling mode.

  “All deities come from the same primordial wellspring, although whether it originated with the development of the human species or from a time and place far more ancient, I could not tell you.”

  “Hang on a sec.” I got up and padded into the kitchen, returning with my corkscrew and another bottle of the same wine. “I have a feeling this is going to be a two-bottle story.” I sat and uncorked the wine. “Please continue.”

  “Each culture embellished their pantheon with deities that suited their specific needs. Every culture has a god of war, a goddess of love, a god that rules the underworld, et cetera. For instance, Ratri, the Hindu goddess of the night, is much the same as the Morrigan, the shapeshifting Celtic queen of phantoms and demons. And each of those is another name for Evaki.”

  “Evaki? I’ve never heard of her before.”

  “Evaki is the goddess of night and dreams. She has in her possession a pot with a lid, which she keeps with her at all times. In the morning she pulls the lid off the pot to let the sun out and bring the day. At the end of the day, the sun returns to the pot and she closes the lid and brings the night. She gives some the power to communicate with animals, others the ability to shift forms.” Balam stared at me, eyes reflecting the glow of the fairy lights. “Legend has it that her shamans would roam the jungles in their animal forms, sometimes to protect their people ... and other times to hunt.”

  I didn’t ask him what these legendary shamans hunted. I thought I knew.

  “Was she an Aztec goddess?”

  “Evaki is older than the Aztecs.” His voice seemed to deepen, taking on an eerie resonance as he continued his tale. “She is older than the Mayans, Toltecs, and Olmecs. Yet she has been forgotten by almost all but the Bakairi.”

  “Bakairi?” I’d never heard of them.

  Balam nodded. “They were known as the Sons of the Sun. Many were enslaved or forced to assimilate into supposed civilized cultures, but those who are left still remember Evaki.” His eyes seemed to glow, the gold flecks catching the reflection of the fairy lights. “She has protected us and we have kept her memory alive.”

  “Who is ‘we’?” I asked.

  “The Children of Evaki.”

  A shiver ran up my spine at those words. Balam noticed my reaction and nodded. “You, Maya, are a child of Evaki.”

  “What the hell does that even mean?” I demanded.

  “Evaki’s children all have a strong psychic talent ... along with an empathetic connection with certain animals. For you, Maya, it is felines.”

  I stared at him, recognizing myself in the description but unwilling to buy into what he was saying.

  “You are skeptical, Maya, but your abilities shine from you like a beacon, clearly visible to anyone who knows what to look for. I knew the minute our minds touched that you were a true child of Evaki.”

  For some reason, his words pissed me off.

  “Fine, I’m a child of Evaki.” I glared at him. “I can talk to animals like Dr. Doolittle, read the occasional stray thought, and project a few of my own. What does that have to do with”—I shook my head—”with everything?”

  “I was trapped in my jaguar form by someone I trusted,” Balam said bluntly. “This person then sent me in place of the jaguar scheduled to go to your compound. You see, only a child of Evaki could help me break the spell.” He gave a crooked smile.

  “She—” Pain flashed across his features and his voice faltered briefly.

  She. Of course there was a woman involved. Probably the smokin’ hot woman I’d seen in my visions when I’d first touched Balam’s mind when he was trapped in Nagual, his jaguar form.

  Balam took another sip of wine and continued. “This person did not expect one of Evaki’s children to be waiting for me at the other end of my journey.”

  “So you did use me.” The truth of the words stabbed into my heart even as I said them.

  “No, Maya, I—”

  I held up a hand, cutting him off.

  “If I hadn’t been one of Evaki’s precious children, would you have even looked at me?”

  Balam didn’t answer right away, which pissed me off even more. This was so not what my self-esteem needed after seeing
Jesse with his stick-insect slut.

  “Thought so.” I stood up, furious and hurt. “You can let yourself out whenever you’d like.” I turned to storm off into my bedroom, but suddenly Balam was in front of me, barring my path, his movements so quick it seemed impossible.

  I tried to brush past him, doing my best to avoid any and all body contact. He countered my movements with his own, refusing to let me by.

  I narrowed my eyes. “You want to move out of my way about now.”

  A low rumbling growl sounded deep in his throat. “No, I do not.”

  The growl sent a chill up my spine, but my anger overrode any fear and I put my hands up against his chest and shoved with all my strength. He didn’t budge an inch and something primal flashed in his eyes.

  If I had any common sense, I’d have backed down. But something, maybe the time spent as a jaguar, albeit in Dream Time, sparked an answering primal challenge within me. Snarling wordlessly, I slapped him across the face with an open palm, the sound cracking like a gunshot.

  Two strong hands seized my shoulders and threw me on my back onto the couch. Before I could scramble up, a hard body pressed against mine, one hand pinning both of mine above my head and keeping it there despite my struggles.

  “Let me go!” I snarled.

  “No.” The word was uttered in a low, guttural pitch, more animal than human.

  I stared up into eyes gone feral, the oval pupil of a human replaced by feline slits and an amber glow that had nothing to do with the reflection from the fairy lights.

  A shudder of fear ran through my body. The hair on my arms rose as my skin prickled with electricity, a sensation I’d felt once before during a lightning storm.

  “Please...” My voice cracked, all anger washed away as it hit me once and for all that I was dealing with something that could kill me in a heartbeat. “Let me go.”

  “No.”

  This time the word was a purr, low and throaty—and totally sensual.

  I shivered again, but this time the fear was mixed with a desire so strong it threatened to cut me in two.

  “If you were not one of Evaki’s own,” said Balam, staring down at me, “I would not have felt your soul in my very being.”