Island of Glass (The Guardians Trilogy #3)(26)

He stripped down, switched off the lights. By moon and firelight he lay in bed, let his thoughts circle for a moment. But since they circled to the wolf, and the woman inside it, he shut them off as routinely as he had the lights. With a soldier’s skill, he willed himself to sleep.

He often dreamed. Sometimes his dreams took him back to childhood, sometimes back to wars, sometimes more pleasantly back to women. But the dreams that chased through sleep flashed and burned. The witch’s lair, his brother’s blood, the shocking pain of the curse hurled at him that for one agonizing moment had seemed to boil him from the inside out.

Battlefields littered with the dead, more than a few by his own hand. The stench of war, so much the same whatever the century, the weaponry, the field. That was blood, death, fear.

The first woman he’d allowed himself to love, a little, dying in his arms, and the child she’d died for stillborn. The second woman he’d risked, a century later, growing old and bitter with it.

Dying, the pain of it. Resurrection, the pain of it.

Nerezza, the hunt, around the world, across time. Battling with five he’d come to trust. More blood, more fear. Such courage.

The slice of sword, the death song of a bolt, the snap of bullets. The scream of creatures unearthed from a dark god’s hell.

The wolf, impossibly beautiful, with eyes like hot whiskey.

The woman, brilliant and bold, sharp and quick.

Those eyes—they compelled him to wonder.

Beside him the wolf curled, a companion in the night. Warm, soft, and bringing him an odd sort of peace. Dawn broke in bleeding reds and golds, striking the moon away with color and light. The wolf howled once.

Bittersweet.

And changed. Flesh and limbs, breasts and lips. A woman now, the tight, disciplined body naked against his. The scent of the forest on her skin, a beckoning in her eyes.

When he rolled to cover her, she laughed. When he crushed his mouth to hers, she growled, nails biting into his back. He took her breasts, firm and perfect in his hands, smooth as silk against his rough palms. Tasting of the green and the wild under his mouth.

Strong legs wrapped around him as she arched in demand. So he plundered, thrusting, thrusting, hard, fast, deep into the tight, the wet, while those eyes—wolf, woman—watched him.

He drove her, himself, next to madness. Drove mercilessly until . . .

He woke in the dark, hard as iron and alone.

He cursed, as for an instant the dream scent of her, forest wild, followed him.

The last thing he needed were sex dreams starring a woman who deviled him half the time. Until this quest was done, he needed to keep his mind, his body, his focus on the stars, on defeating Nerezza, on making sure the five who fought with him survived.

When that was done, he’d find a willing woman for a night of uncomplicated, impersonal sex. And then . . .

That was as far forward as he needed to think.

Restless, annoyed—he wouldn’t have dreamed of her if she hadn’t come to stand with him in the graveyard—he rolled out of bed.

He could smell dawn, see its approach in the slight lessening of the dark. Naked, he strode to the open doors and through for air, for the fresh and the damp of it.

The faintest sound had him whirling, braced and ready to spring back for his sword. Down the terrace, facing the sea, Sasha stood at her easel, one of Bran’s shirts over her own thin nightshirt. Bran, wearing only jeans, stood behind her while the light from their suite washed out and over them.

In it, Doyle could see the intensity on Sasha’s face as she swept charcoal over the sketchbook.

Bran glanced down, angled his head. “You’ll want some pants,” he called out. “It appears we’ll start the day with visions.”

“I’ll wake the others.”

He dressed quickly and, considering the start of the day, grabbed his sword before going on. He knocked briskly on Riley’s door, remembered the sun had yet to rise—any moment now—and just shoved the door open.

The wolf stood in front of a fire gone to embers, quivering. And let out a low, warning growl.

“Save it,” Doyle snapped. “It’s Sasha. No, she’s fine,” he added as the wolf poised to spring out of the room. “She’s painting. Bran’s with her. She—”

He broke off as the wolf threw back her head, let out a long moan. The eyes stayed fierce, locked on his, anger striking out. But under it was a helplessness that had him stepping back. Though he considered witnessing the transformation fascinating, he closed the door, gave her privacy.

He heard the howl, pain and triumph, as he hurried away to wake the others.





CHAPTER SIX




As he saw no point in waiting for the others, Doyle went straight into the master suite in the tower. It opened into a gracious sitting room where the doors stood open to the sea terrace.

Bran glanced back at him.

“She woke—or came out of sleep—only a few minutes before you stepped outside. She said she needed her easel. I barely managed to get the shirt on her—it’s so cool—before she was coming down here and starting.”

He gestured Doyle closer, then to a table on the terrace. “She’s done those already.”

Doyle studied the charcoal sketches in the backwash of light. Another of Arianrhod, this in warrior garb, a sword at her side. The others would be Celene and Luna. One a dark beauty, also dressed for battle, holding a bow, the other lovely as sunrise, a dove on her shoulder, a sword in her hand.