Jaguar Sun (22 page)

Richard got the message this time.
“Toltec thinks that she’s a goddess? Does that seem right, Adri?” he asked.

“Maya, is that right?” Adriana asked.

Man, my nerves were shot. This was worse than charades. My hands shaking, I stuck a Y on a piece of gum and sent it through.

“I’m not making a lot of sense out of this,” Richard said.

“Hey, maybe they don’t think that she’s just a reincarnation,” Damian said. “Maybe they think that she is an
actual
goddess, like the goddess Maya. Remember when we researched this at WNMU? At least two of the entries referred to actual goddesses, one Greek and one Hindu.”

“My God, we’ve gotta get her out of there,” Adriana said. “Maya is there anything else?”

I thought for a moment and then sent through a reply.
N
.

“If it’s okay, I’d like us to be alone for a minute,” Matt said. Quickly, everyone said their good-byes to me and cleared out of the room.

“I love you, My,” he said. “I miss you so much. Lately, I’ve been able to feel what you’re feeling. Has that been happening to you?”

My eyes welled up with tears as I sent through a Y.

He picked up the gum and then closed his eyes. He just stood there quietly for a moment.

What was he doing? All of a sudden my heart filled with a feeling of love so strong it nearly knocked me over. The tears in my eyes started to spill over. I put my hands to my chest, not wanting the feeling to fade, not wanting to ever lose it.

“Can you feel it, My? Maya? I can feel you panicking! What’s wrong?”

Banging on the bathroom door. I had to open my eyes and break our connection. Now someone was pushing against the door.
Shit!
I had totally forgotten about the curfew!

“Open up this door, Maya! Do you hear me?” It was Victrixa. She was screaming with rage.

I quickly grabbed at the letters on the sink and tried to gather them up, but it was too late. She had forced the door open.

“What the hell have you been doing in here?” She looked down at the sink. “You’ve been communicating with them all this time?” And she slapped me in the face so hard I thought my eye was going to explode. I fell back against the wall.

“Answer me!” she yelled.

“No,” I stammered. “J—just this once.”

“Avery! Avery, get down here!” she screamed.

He walked halfway down the stairs and poked his head down. The man from my vision was now real. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“Get me two shifters,” Victrixa barked. Then she turned back and looked at me. “You are going to wish you had never been reborn,” she said. And then, right before my eyes, Victrixa phased into the most terrifying snake I had ever seen. I mean, she was
huge
. Her whole body wouldn’t fit into the bathroom. Watching
Snakes on a Plane
didn’t make me an expert, but she had to be an anaconda or python or something. I stared into her yellowish-green eyes, desperately looking for the human inside. But all I saw was rage. Sweat pouring down my face, I tried to make myself as flat against the wall as I could. Slowly and carefully I moved my jelly legs toward the shower. That was the only shelter I could think of. But when her head flattened and her hood opened, I realized just how wrong I had been.

She opened her mouth, revealing two large fangs. She hissed and lunged at me. All I could do in my panic was move my hand and move her through a portal, hurling her backwards against the bathroom door. Her head smacked hard against it and part of the wall crumbled. I couldn’t seem to move her any further. I was too freaked out. Then I felt a sharp pain in my right shoulder and everything went black.

~ ~ ~

When I woke up, I was tied to a chair in the study that I had seen in my vision. There was no one in the room with me. My T-shirt was torn and my right shoulder was still sore from whatever had hit me. I could only hope that it hadn’t been a fang. I turned my head to look out a window and saw that the sun was low on the horizon. God, what day was it?

I heard a man’s voice. “I see you’re awake. Good. Don’t worry. You were not bitten. You were put out with a small tranquilizer dart. You and I have some things to discuss.” I turned my head so I could see him. “My name is Avery Wells. I am a member of Toltec. I’m sure that needs no explanation.”

I tried to shake my head, even though it hurt. “Victrixa and I have already talked about that,” I said, “and the answer is still no.”

“Oh, is that what you two were doing in my basement? Talking?” He had some kind of accent, but I couldn’t place it.

“Yeah,” I said. “And maybe you should rein in your snake, and I do mean
snake
.”

He took a step closer to me. “Well, we’re going to discuss it again. And this time, you’ll listen. I have plenty more tranquilizer darts where that one came from. It would be a very easy matter to simply put you out until after tomorrow.”

Crap, crap, crap.
How long had I been out? Panic seized my insides as I tried to appear calm on the outside. I had to get out of there.
Now
.

“Look, Maya,” he was saying, “it’s all very simple. If you agree to join us, then you live. If you insist on playing the hero, then you’ll die like one. It doesn’t seem like a difficult decision to me.”

“No, you asshole, it wouldn’t,” I practically spat. I made a kicking motion with my right foot, even though I could only move it about an inch.

“There’s no need for language,” he said, squatting in front of me. “You have such power, Maya. We can show you how to use it…”

As he went on, I went into my mind, trying to connect with the earth below my feet as much as possible. As soon as I connected, I began drawing energy from the earth. This time I had no intention of grounding myself. I would never join Toltec, so if they were going to kill me, I figured I had nothing to lose. I felt the power moving up through my legs and into my torso. It was so strong I wondered for a moment if I could contain it. But it just continued to move on throughout my body.

I continued to stare at Avery, trying to look like I was listening and blink at the right times. He was pacing know, enjoying the sound of his own voice as he talked about how great I could be. I focused on the
k’ul
inside me until its power permeated every part of my being. I looked down at my body, which was outlined in a faint light. But Avery didn’t seem to notice the glow. He had walked toward the window, as light from the setting sun now filled the room. I watched him as he turned his back to me. I focused hard on the compound and let go.

In the blink of an eye, I was gone.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

I landed on the ground with a thud. I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I don’t know how long I lay there in a heap, but I know it was dark and the grass was cool. And something smelled so divine that I just wanted to lie there forever.

“Maya!”

Wait. I knew that voice. Cesar?

“
Dios!
Liam, Liam! It is Maya!”

I heard a familiar brogue. “Let’s get her to the house.”

Then as I felt myself being carefully scooped up, a voice spoke soothingly to me in Spanish. I moved my head and looked up into Cesar’s black eyes. He smiled down at me and held me a little tighter.

Somewhere a screen door slammed, and then I heard Richard yelling at Damian to go find Matt.

They carried me inside. “Let’s get her on the couch,” Richard said. “Easy, that’s it.” He raised my head enough to tuck a couch pillow under it. “Maya? Can you hear me, Maya?”

“Yes.”

Suddenly Adriana was there, too. “How do you feel?” she asked me. “Should we get Selena?” she asked Richard.

“No, no,” I said. “I’m okay, just…sore. Really sore.”

“That’s probably from hitting the ground,” Richard said, “Do you feel like you’ve broken anything?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

Out of nowhere my soul was hit with a sudden urgency so overpowering that I started to scream. “Matt! Matt!”

“He’s by the outer wall. Damian went to get him. It shouldn’t take long,” Adriana answered.

“No, no, I need him
now
,” I said, gripped by panic. “Matt!” I tried to sit up, but Adriana was gently pushing me down. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cesar slip through the sliding door in the kitchen.

“Easy, Maya,” Richard said, “He’ll be here any minute.”

“What’s going on?” she mouthed to Richard.

“It’s the mating call. Being forced apart must be speeding things up a bit.”

“A bit?” Adriana said, holding me down more forcefully.

Then I heard the screen door slam and watched as everyone backed out of the way.

“My?” Matt landed on his knees beside me. “Maya,” he whispered softly, tears running down his face. He laid his head on my chest and I brushed his soft hair with my hand as we cried together. There was a sense of completeness inside me that I had never felt before.

“Come on, everyone,” Adriana said after a minute. “Let’s give these two some privacy.”

Matt raised his head and looked into my eyes. I don’t know how long we sat that way. Then he stood up and took my hand, helping me with my wobbly knees. We walked slowly hand in hand toward the door, still looking into each other’s eyes.

“Matt,” Adriana said.

“No,” Richard said, holding her back. “Let them go. He’ll have her back in time. This may be the only chance they’ll ever have.”

As the door swung closed behind us, Matt phased and waited patiently for me as I got my bearings. I phased and he circled me once before taking the lead. He ran toward the back gate of the compound and jumped it easily. I followed him out, and we disappeared into the lush jungle. On and on we ran. We pushed forward with a wild urgency, barely stopping to rest. I followed him southeast until the moon was high above our heads and I could see the rainforest begin to open up ahead of us. We reached a rocky cliff that looked down on a secluded white sand beach. The dunes lay below Mayan ruins that sat on a high cliff along the water.

Matt made his way down the rock face to the sand and I followed him across the beach to the water’s edge. We had hardly phased back before we were pulling each other’s shirts off. We kissed and cried, our tears mixing together like the salty ocean that lapped at our feet.

“I was so afraid you were dead,” he said, as I caught his tears with kisses, “so afraid I’d lost you.”

“Shh, I’m here now.”

“I love you so much,” he said fiercely, pulling me to him. Then he picked me up and laid me down in the sand. We kissed hard, so deeply it was like we were trying to disappear into one another.

It was overwhelming at first, being able to feel his emotions as well as my own. I got lost in his pain, his urgency, his hunger. But then it only seemed to propel my desire, and something else took over. It was wild, feral, and I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t want to. I raked my fingernails down his back. Matt groaned. We licked at one another’s mouths, pulling at the rest of each other’s clothing.

I arched my back against him, moaning as he kissed me down my neck, my chest, my stomach. As he lay on top of me I could feel how every inch of his hard body fit perfectly into my soft curves. I wanted to roar in ecstasy. I wanted to bay at the moon. When we were finished, he pulled my tangled hair out of my face, his hands framing my cheekbones, and looked into my eyes.

“
In Lak’ ech
,” he murmured.

“
Ala K’in
,” I whispered, moving his hand from my face and kissing his palm.

We lay together on the sand, our bodies entwined, and looked up at the stars.

“I know this was our first time,” I said, “But this was…I mean….”

“Yeah, it must be a shifter thing. It was like I could feel you, all of you.”

“Like our souls connected somehow.”

“Feel like connecting them again?” he asked.

“Oh, yeah!”

Afterward, panting, sticky, and full of sand, we decided to take a quick swim to clean off. The water was warm, and as he held me in the moonlight, it looked like the horizon went on forever. I wanted to stay there safe in his arms and never go back. And for a little while, I was able to pretend that we could. I wrapped my arms around his neck and kissed him as he held me close. He tasted like salt and smelled sweet and clean.

Finally, though, we dressed and sat together on the beach, enjoying the last moments we would have together before we had to go back. Matt took my hand and we stood up. He took something out of his pocket.

“Adriana gave me this so I could give it to you.”

I gasped. It was a beautiful silver necklace with seven square plaques held together by chain. Each plaque was a couple of inches long and had a different Mayan glyph carved into it. It was so beautiful. I turned and lifted my hair so that he could put it on me. Somehow, it felt oddly familiar, as though I had felt its weight on my shoulders before.