Part 1 (1/2)

Storm Kissed.

Andersen, Jessica.

This book is dedicated to strays, and to the generous hearts who bring them in from the cold.

AUTHOR'S NOTE AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS.

I don't know about you guys, but I love a bad boy, especially one who lives by his own code of honor. Dez is one of those guys-except he went off the rails a while back and broke the heart of the woman who was, and will always be, his soul mate. What's more, Reese Montana-a former bounty hunter who is a bada.s.s in her own right-isn't the kind to forgive and forget. So when they're reunited, major sparks fly.

Please join me now as these two b.u.t.t heads, lock lips, and try to figure each other out while racing to discover the secret of the serpent bloodline, and kicking some serious a.s.s in the process.

For new readers and fans alike, there's a glossary and list of characters at the back of the book. I hope you'll check it out.

To explore the Nightkeepers' online world and sign up for Nightkeeper News, please visit . Also, you can friend me on Facebook to get a look at my oh so Freudian typos and other authorial misadventures!

My heartfelt thanks to Deidre Knight, Claire Zion, Kara Welsh, Kerry Donovan, and others too numerous to name for helping me bring these books to life; to J. R. Ward for being my sounding board; to Suz Brockmann for being a mentor and an inspiration; to Sally Hinkle Russell for reminding me to keep my eyes up and my heels down; and to my family, friends, and many e-friends for always being there for a laugh or (cyber) hug.

And thank you, dear reader, for picking up Reese and Dez's story. I hope you love it as much as I do-I'm not much of a weeper, but the ending of this one gets me every time.

Jessica (aka Doc Jess).

Bound by blood and magic, the Nightkeepers must defend mankind from the rise of terrible demons. In order to reach their full powers, they must find and bond with their G.o.ds-destined mates . . . who aren't always who or what they seem.

With their ancient enemy reincarnated in the form of a brutal mage named Iago, their G.o.ds trapped in the sky by the destruction of a critical Mayan ruin, and people disappearing mysteriously, the magi need all hands on deck. So when one of their own-a powerful and dangerous mage named Mendez-vanishes without a trace, the Nightkeepers' king does the only thing he can think of . . .

CHAPTER ONE.

Ten years ago.

Denver.

Reese Montana had survived her parents' divorce, a grabby-fingered stepfather, and hitting the gang-infested streets at fifteen. She had survived-barely-being targeted by the leader of one of those gangs, and had turned police informant to help bring him down. But now, at nineteen, she was sick of surviving. She wanted to live. And, d.a.m.n it, she wanted to do it with the man who was squared off opposite her in the main room of their shared two-bedroom, looking like she'd just gut-shot him.

”Reese,” he grated. ”Don't do this.”

Mendez meant it as an order, but it came out more like a plea. His pale hazel eyes slid from hers, but he didn't move, just stood there-six seven worth of wide-shouldered, rawboned energy wearing jeans and a leather jacket he shouldn't have been able to afford, with an angular face that hadn't been carded in years, though he'd only just turned twenty-one.

His big body vibrated with the same tension that ran through hers-the need to fight, to kick a.s.s, to burn off the heat that had been growing between them for months now. But although he would fight for her, fight with her, he wouldn't fight her. His control, like his protection, had been his promise. And she was sick of both.

”Sorry. I've had it with your timetable.” She kept her voice dead level, knowing that if she got shrill and snippy-or worse, let him sense her nerves-he would find a way to put her back in the ”little sister” box inside his rock-hard head. But she wasn't his sister, hadn't ever been.

Closing the distance between them, she splayed her hand on his chest as she had often done in their early days together, when they had huddled in abandoned squats, sharing body heat and vigilance. His heartbeat was fast against her palm, his chest a solid wall of muscle.

Heat pooled alongside her nerves, and her stomach gave a little flutter. She knew his body completely, yet she didn't. The shared-warmth cuddles had ended a year ago when they'd finally started making enough to get into an official flop with actual utilities, a signed lease, and the locks he'd installed on the insides of both their bedroom doors. And she was sick of that, too. More, she was afraid that if she didn't do something, he was going to decompress. He'd been driving himself too hard lately, straying way too close to the line between right and wrong. The thought of him going all the way over that line scared her worse than the idea of being rejected.

Almost.

”Don't push me, Reese.” His words vibrated against her palm, setting up resonant quivers inside her. ”Not-” He bit it off, but she heard it anyway: Not now.

”Why not now?” She wasn't quite brave enough to wrap her arms around his neck, though she badly wanted to, had envisioned herself doing just that when she'd played it out over and over again in her head. Instead, she s.h.i.+fted to grip the edges of his leather, leaving a scant inch of s.p.a.ce between their bodies. ”We've got jobs and a place of our own.”

Outside it was night-black and p.i.s.sing rain, cold and hard-edged with the chill of early fall. The sharp drops hammered against the room's single window, but inside the apartment they were warm and dry.

He shook his head. ”It's not enough.”

”This is what we've got. This is our life.” She tightened her fingers on his jacket, willing him to listen to her, to really hear her this time. ”Maybe in a perfect world things would've been different. You wouldn't have been raised by your crazy-a.s.sed G.o.dfather. My dad wouldn't have left, or my mom would've believed me rather than Number Two. But that's not the way it happened. We got through it. We made this.” Her gesture encompa.s.sed the two of them and the s.p.a.ce around them. The three-room apartment, with its c.r.a.ppy flooring, Salvation Army decor, and Febreze-defying funky smell, still felt like heaven to her.

His look labeled it a dump. ”You deserve better.” But then his eyes softened and his voice dropped an octave. ”d.a.m.n it, Reese, you deserve the dream. We both do.”

But the fantasy of escaping to a place with wide-open skies had been just talk, a story she would tell when he fell silent. She hadn't grown up like him, didn't know the things he did, so she'd taken a picture that was burned into her brain and turned it into an imaginary world. For her, it had been a way to avoid the reality of growling stomachs, frozen toes, and constant vigilance. For him, it had become a goal. ”Someday I'll give you a palace,” he would say. But she wasn't a princess and she didn't want him to surround her with stone walls and armed guards. Which was exactly what he would do if he got the chance.

He'd been just three when his parents and baby sister died in a horrible fire, and he still had nightmares about being dragged away by his G.o.dfather, Keban, who had spent the next dozen years alternating between teaching him the history of warfare and subjecting him to bizarre, often b.l.o.o.d.y rituals. So she got why he didn't want to let his guard down-even with her-until they were far away from the gang that had made their lives, and the neighborhood, a living h.e.l.l. He wanted to feel safe. More important, he wanted to know that she was safe, that he wouldn't lose her the way he lost his family. And having seen too many other street kids start with big dreams only to wind up with a kid or two of their own, stalled in a c.r.a.ppy apartment only a couple of streets away from where they started, he didn't want things to go any further between them until they were someplace better.

Stubborn a.s.s that he was, he wouldn't talk about it. Boom, done, end of discussion.

But she didn't want to be on a pedestal, d.a.m.n it. If she wanted something she'd earn it herself, and if she felt threatened, she could deadeye a rat across a cluttered warehouse with her .38. But she hadn't gotten anywhere with that logic, or with anything else. And the more she pushed him, the harder he pushed himself.

Something had to give, and she wanted it to be her.

”I've already got the dream, dumba.s.s. You're my dream.” Stomach fluttering like it was filled with crackhead moths, she s.h.i.+fted her grip to his collar, used it as leverage to pull herself up onto her toes. And kissed him.

She must've been taller in her fantasies, because she'd always pictured herself hitting his lips. She got the side of his throat instead, tasted the faint salty tang of his skin, and felt his quick indrawn breath when the move brought their bodies flush. Her heart drummed in her ears as he stiffened and grabbed her upper arms. But he didn't push her away. And the pulse beneath her lips throbbed hard and fast.

”Reese. Don't.” His voice was a low growl of warning.

But she was done playing by his rules. So instead of backing off, she leaned in, grazed her teeth along the throbbing vessel and bit down, not hard enough to break the skin, but hard enough to say: I want you, here and now. Against his throat, she whispered, ”I know you're working to get us someplace better, and I want that too. But don't you understand? We're safest when we're staying sharp and watching each other's backs. And if you think ignoring what's going on between us isn't a distraction, then you're a bigger idiot than I thought . . . unless you're not distracted, in which case I'm the idiot.”

His answering laugh was part groan. ”You're not an idiot.” He got a hand on the back of her neck and pressed her face into the crook of his neck, though she wasn't sure if he was trying to hold her close or stop her from kissing him again. Beneath her ear, his words rumbled hollowly as he said, ”But you know what happens when people pair off around here. They f.u.c.king stay here.”

”Not us,” she said firmly. ”We're better than that. We won't let ourselves stall.” But she would do her d.a.m.nedest to slow him down a little before he crashed and burned. ”We can be together and still have our dreams.” She might not want a wide-open prairie anymore, but she hadn't stopped picturing tomorrow, didn't ever plan to.

He held himself still and silent for a long moment as thunder rumbled beneath the rattling raindrops. Then, softly, he said, ”Do you really think so?”

For a second she thought that she had to have imagined the question. But there was no mistaking the way one of his hands slid from the back of her head to her nape, the other from her shoulder to her waist. Suddenly, he wasn't holding her captive against him anymore. He was simply holding her.

Holy s.h.i.+t. The air left her lungs in a rush as she realized that she was getting through to him. Or maybe he'd finally gotten to the end of his self-control-maybe, probably, a combination of the two. She didn't know, didn't care. Putting all her certainty into it, she said, ”I know so. We're better together than apart, and that's a fact.”

Together, they had waged war on the Cobras, had helped Detective Fallon's task force weaken the powerful gang and its reign of terror. They had watched each other 's backs, watched each other grow up. And if he had been the boss of their joint ventures more often than not, she had been okay with following his lead . . . at least until now.

Now, she was taking the lead. And he'd better catch up.