Listen to them. They almost sounded like they were arguing. It was the best kind of struggle, the best argument, unbelievably sharp and delicious. He bit at the delicate curve of her ear, the light, stinging nip conveying his urgency.

She raked the fingernails of one hand down the wide, tense curve of his powerful back. At the same time, she lifted her hips and groaned, “Now.”

He surged into her, swearing a low litany in her ears, and he didn’t stop until he was buried to the hilt inside of her. Then he froze.

She made a disappointed sound and wriggled against him, longing to reach for that sharp spike of pleasure again.

He gripped her hip and said sharply, “Mary.”

She exploded into laughter, threw her arms around him and hugged him tight. “It’s okay. Just do it.”

He growled, cut loose and f**ked her, driving in long, hard strokes. She slammed back against the mattress, and the wildness was so exhilarating, she stretched both arms over her head and whined high in the back of her throat. She used to have absolutely no interest in sex or making love. How she had ever thought she might be frigid, she had no idea, because this was so bloody fabulous, she could barely stop from screaming.

Then he put a hand between them and found her sweet spot. Still f**king her, he worked her with his fingers, and she lost all vestige of control. She bucked underneath him and clawed at his shoulders. There was light shining in her eyes.

No, that wasn’t light, it was Michael’s spirit. The tiger that lived in his human body roared at her in a wild frenzy.

She convulsed into the most savage climax she had ever experienced. The peak hit her—body and mind—and she froze in incredulity. It was the whitest, purest light. It rolled out of her and into him.

Then he twisted and bucked on her, and his own highest point doubled back on her. They fed it back and forth to each other as they rocked together. It was very slow to die away.

“What the hell,” he whispered in awe.

She was shaking. He was shaking. They were wrapped around each other so tightly, she didn’t know where her skin left off and became his.

Love. In love. The words simply didn’t encompass the reality of this.

“I just have no words for what you mean to me.” Tears spilled out the corners of her eyes.

He covered the back of her head with one big hand, and gripped her even tighter. “Jesus, woman,” he said from the back of his throat. “Neither do I.”

Chapter Twenty-four

AFTERWARD, MARY DIDN’T fall back asleep so much as plunge into blackness.

She was the first one to awaken, and awareness felt pure and new. She opened her eyes to discover light streaming in through a crack between the dark, heavy curtains. The digital alarm clock said that it was close to noon. They had slept the morning away.

Michael lay sprawled on his stomach beside her, his arm lying across her torso. She settled her pillow into a new position and scooted up the bed until her head and shoulders were propped against the headboard.

Michael roused long enough to curl around her body. She tucked the covers around his shoulders, noting the red scratches she had left on his skin. He fell back to sleep, this time with both an arm and a leg draped over her, head pillowed on her narrow shoulder. Alert and at peace, she rested with her arms around him.

She could hear Astra moving around the cabin. Cabinet doors opened and closed in the kitchen.

Then, very quietly, the knob on their door moved. The door eased open, and Astra peered inside. The light from the large central common room shone through the thin white nimbus of hair around her head. There was something poised about that shabby, skinny figure, an alert listening attitude in how she held her head.

Mary led her eyelids fall. She watched the older woman between the veil of her eyelashes with a potent cocktail of emotions.

Astra looked like a shadow puppet, held together by pins and wishes. Was there also a forlorn, wistful air about the little old woman? Or did she project an extrapolation of her own self onto Astra?

Behind that shadow puppet was an entity Mary thought she loved, or at least it was someone she had loved once. Now she needed, respected and pitied the older woman, but she also couldn’t quite bring herself to trust Astra.

I don’t know how you can bear to be who you are, Mary thought, taking care to keep the thought locked within the privacy of her own head. She wondered if Astra could see that her eyes were open. The thought unsettled her even further. If so, they were staring at each other in silence, like two opponents sizing each other’s strengths and weaknesses. A chill washed through her.

Michael’s head rested against the bare curve of her collarbone. She felt the whispery brush of his eyelashes as he opened his eyes.

In a quiet move, Astra closed the door and walked away from the bedroom.

Mary expelled a shaky breath. Michael’s arm tightened around her. He put a finger at the racing pulse in her neck. He whispered, “What’s wrong?”

She shook her head. “I’m being too imaginative.”

“Okay. What’s wrong?”

She discovered another new experience, an impulse to smack him, and strangled it. Instead she confessed in a bare thread of sound, “Astra scares me sometimes. I don’t know why. Like I said, I’m being too imaginative.”

“No you’re not.” He rolled away from her, perched on the edge of the bed, reached for his shirt and dragged it over his head. “You should be scared of her.”

“Why?” She levered up to sit beside him.

He reached for his wristwatch and strapped it on. “She cares for us, enjoys our companionship and misses us when we’re gone. I don’t doubt any of that. But she is not our ally. Not in the final reckoning of things. If she suspects that we might get in her way, she wouldn’t hesitate to kill or destroy us.” He rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “But I like to think she would be sad about it.”

Disappointment shadowed the peace she had felt when she had awakened. “We’re all she has left here of her people. We’re her family. We came here to help her.”

“We did,” he agreed. He braced a hand on the mattress behind her spine, half-twisted to face her. “But the fight has gone on for too long. We’ve gotten heartsick and soul-scarred and out of patience. She has watched the Deceiver destroy most of us, and there will be no reinforcements from home. Nobody else is coming. That was decided before the group left.”

She looked up into his shadowed face and blew out a breath. “I don’t want to die. We just found each other. We’ve just gotten good again.”

He kissed her forehead. “I don’t either. Yet our purpose is not to fight for survival. We’re here to destroy the Deceiver, and we promised to do whatever it takes. One of Astra’s tasks is to make sure we remember that. If she can’t hold us to that purpose she’s got to clear us out of the road.”

She gritted her teeth against a surge of rebellion. Why would Astra have to clear them out of the road? Why couldn’t she just leave them in peace?

Then she thought of the life she had lived nine hundred years ago, and how the Deceiver had preyed upon her and her human family. Astra couldn’t leave them in peace because as long as the Deceiver existed, there was no peace to be found for them anywhere on Earth. She rubbed her eyes.

“I don’t know how can she live that way.”

“She’s been under an intolerable pressure for a long time. The thing is, I’m not sure what it has done to her sanity.” He frowned, put an arm around her and pulled her against his side. “I don’t remember enough about our original life, but she seems changed somehow from who she originally had been. She’s different in a way that I haven’t been able to pinpoint.”

She searched his face. “What do you think it is?”

“I don’t know. I just don’t want you to trust her blindly because of who she once was to us. We’ve all changed in ways I don’t think any of us understand, but you and I have become the most human.” He paused. “We should get dressed. We all have to talk.”

She nodded. “I know.”

He shifted to face her and sank his hands into her hair. She held still as he rubbed his face in the thick, curling mass. Then he lifted his head to smile at her. He whispered, “I love your hair.”

She leaned against him, feeling warm all over. He was such a settled, mature man. In many ways, he was more worldly and informed than she was. The wonder that filled his expression in that moment made tears well in her eyes.

“It’s a pain in the neck at the best of times,” she said softly. “I keep it long enough so that I can pull it out of the way, but after everything that’s happened this last week, I think it might be better if I just cut it short.”

“Please don’t. It’s gorgeous.”

“All right.”

“Thank you.” He smiled, cupped her face and kissed her, his lips lingering over the shape of hers. She stroked his cheek, kissing him back. He pulled away and gave her a grave look. “Now we talk.”

She grimaced. “I hope we at least get a cup of coffee first.”

Michael pulled on his jeans and boots. “Wait here. I’ll scrounge up something for you to wear.”

“Thanks.”

While he was gone, she searched for something she could use to tie back her hair. He didn’t seem to have any simple rubber bands anywhere in the room. Finally she stole a shoelace from a pair of shoes. She finger-combed her hair, braided it with practiced fingers and tied the ends as tightly as she could.

After a few minutes, Michael returned with the pair of jeans she had worn yesterday. Astra had washed them. He had also gone down to the boat to retrieve her shoes and the long-sleeved thermal shirt she had borrowed. The ends of the shirt came down to her thighs, but the clothes were comfortable and that was all that mattered to her. She rolled the sleeves up until they hung at her forearms.

They left the bedroom to find Astra sitting at the dining table, eating a bowl of leftover chicken and dumplings. Mary was very aware of Astra’s cool, blackbird eyes watching them move around the kitchen.

A white-speckled blue pot on the stove held more chicken and dumplings, and the coffeemaker at the counter held a full pot of coffee. Two empty mugs sat on the counter. Mary poured coffee while Michael ladled chicken and dumplings into two bowls. Then they joined Astra at the dining table.

Astra nursed a glass of tea while Michael and Mary ate their meal. Michael’s bowl of stew disappeared fast, and he polished off a second helping before Mary had a chance to finish hers. Meanwhile, the silence stretched out between the three of them, and it was not a calm, peaceful one.

Astra was the one who spoke first. “You’re a pair of damn fools. And the risk you took yesterday was inexcusable.”

Mary set her spoon down on the table and met the older woman’s hard, angry gaze.

Somehow she managed to wrestle her own anger under control. She kept her tone soft and even as she said, “We didn’t agree on this subject yesterday, and we’re not going to agree today, so let’s just cut to the chase. Do you want to waste time going over who should have done what? Or do you want to talk about something relevant? And by the way, Jerry’s just fine, but Jamie’s dead. Thank you so much for asking.”

Astra’s expression underwent a drastic change. “What are you talking about—Jamie’s dead? I called Jerry this morning, and he said Jamie was just fine.”

Mary sat back in her seat. She and Michael exchanged a look. Michael said, “That’s not Jamie. It’s Nicholas.”

Astra’s gaze narrowed on Mary. “Well, that’s unprecedented,” she said, almost to herself. “And potentially very, very useful.”

Mary closed her eyes and pinched her nose. “Just don’t go there. Nicholas gets to do whatever he wants with this second chance. He’s already lost his life once. I hope he stays the hell away from all of us.”

“He won’t,” said Astra. “He’ll come back, and when he does, I’ll make use of him again.”

She knew better. She knew she shouldn’t engage, but she just couldn’t help herself. “People are not your tools to use as you see fit.”

Astra leaned forward, slapping her flattened hands on the table. “Do you know what you did yesterday? You and Michael risked your lives for two people. Two people. Do you know what the Deceiver did yesterday? He killed at least twenty that I know of. And that is NOTHING compared to the kind of destruction he has wreaked on this earth.”

Mary blinked. “What are you talking about? Who did he kill yesterday?”

This time it was Astra and Michael who looked at each other. Astra said, “She hasn’t heard the news.”

She looked from the old woman to Michael, who leaned back in his seat. His pewter gaze darkened, one of his hands resting beside his empty dish. His hand balled into a fist. “I haven’t had time to tell her.”

Mary’s stomach clenched. “Whatever it is, I think you’d better tell me now.”

Michael’s mouth tightened. “He massacred eight people in a restaurant not far from the cabin and framed us for it. That was how he mobilized the authorities to look for us.”

Mary felt the blood leave her face.

Astra watched her closely. “Those weren’t the only people he killed. The body that he left in your old house was that of a computer salesman. The man had a wife who was searching frantically for him. The Deceiver took that man like he took your ex-husband, and he makes drones as casually as other people make scrambled eggs.”

Michael said, “Astra.”

“No, I’m not going to shut up.” Astra’s expression turned ruthless. “Meanwhile you two chose to risk your lives on just two people. Don’t get me wrong. They are nice people. But they are just two. If the Deceiver had destroyed you, everybody else that he would kill would be your fault.”