K’ICHE’S GAZE FOLLOWED HIS XITLALI. She quietly endured, trying her best to maintain composure. Febrero paced back and forth, almost gliding through the kitchen and living room. Distraught, her energy throbbed with an explosive need, the electricity sizzling beneath her skin.

His little star.

His yolia.

A beat skipped in his heart, and then his stomach lurched nervously. Guilt. He almost felt guilty. Almost she didn’t know what the cost of saving her meant. His nostrils flared with the image of her battered form. He felt no remorse; their bond had been the only thing that kept her alive. Guilt could fuck itself. K’iche refused to continue on with that emotion. He would tell her. He would, but… Febrero was hyperventilating. Something wasn’t right. He watched her rummaging through his orange wood cabinets until she found where he kept all the cups.

I’ll tell her when she’s ready.

“Look a puppy!” Artemis’ sweet voice pulled his vision to the tiny girl that resembled her mother. She giggled when she pushed her on the tire swing that, for the longest, had remained outside his backyard from a few years ago when he had bought the cabin house.

The little girl pointed at the sky. The clouds shifting in tune with the humidity in the warm May weather.  The air drew into us as the human world sparkled and stretched hot. The cloud shaped dog thickened and glinted gold. It moved once, twice and like sand, trickled down from the sky, gently lowering down in front of the elated girl in a stretched out bow.

He had stopped the swing and they had watched in awe. Artemis had seen a dog in the clouds and gave it form.

Dangerous.

Artemis squealed and jumped off the swing—launching her body at the golden retriever.

“Puppy!!!”

Did Febrero know about this already? He rubbed his stubbled jaw and watched the woman with her back to the backyard. He somehow doubted it.

“Can I have him?” Her almond eyes shined with innocence and her wide grin was infectious K’iche had to smile right back at the girl.

“I’ll ask your mom.”

Artemis squealed with excitement at the prospect of the newly made dog being hers. He hoped that she allowed her to keep him. It was tough for pets with no owners it besides it would be good for Art. He remembered owning many pets as a child. With a glance up into his house—his heart squeezed at the sight of her beauty.

“I’ll be back.”

He made sure to ward the perimeter with his teotl and walked up the stairs in time watch Febrero go straight to his fireplace. Her gaze intent on the tribal mural on top of his mantlepiece. Crude and beautiful the acrylic art shifted making hidden swirls of hypnotizing work that had a habit of drawing gifted creatures in to see glimpses of a dark past.

The mural reminder for him of what had been and what could be.

A dying sun, bright and crude on a verge of death like a rotten molted egg–centered with quetzal birds flying away from a large blue bird, its neck long and green. Its head yellow with vicious white eyes focuses on its prey. Two different jaguars. One black circling the white with a snarl. People decorated with corn and wheat; their mouths agape in horror and anguish. Death by a snake figure.

“Careful.”

Febrero started swirling around—her hand on her chest. Her cheeks flushed a pretty rosy hue. Reminiscent of the sunrise in the summer in Chicomoztoc. Brown hazel eyes stared wide at him. Her gaze on his still healing lips. It made his mouth twitched a little.

Curious little thing.

“Sometimes it's best not to look too closely at the darkness that hides within beauty.”

“Is that so… Is that why you ended up under Tezcatlipoca?” she asked.

Febrero stepped closer like a magnet drawn to its match and he held still. He wasn’t going to admit that he had been foolish while he hunting—and he defiantly would not admit what he was hunting for…Yet.

His Xitlali held her stubborn jaw up. The smattering of lavender in her eyes looked anguished. Something is not right. A little giggle from outside distracted her. Eyebrows rising slightly at the  sight of her daughter holding a golden retriever as it licks her face.

She defiantly didn’t know. He held in his sigh as he exhaled softly through his nose.

“It was part of it.” he said.

“Why do I feel… drawn to you? Why did you come for me?”

“When you were on death door… When I saved you, I used my teotl and a ritual that permitted me to give you healing. You feeling drawn to me, may be the cost of me saving you.” K’iche shrugged a grimace on his handsome face and his eyes glittered with regret. “The same may be for me Xitlali. Its as if I’ve been hyperventilating my whole life until suddenly you’re in my eyesight and oxygen balances out.”

Just say it, K’iche. You are stuck with me. We are what you call mates.

Glass in her hand jangles and as she sips her water; he catches it. Her panic.

“Sure that makes sense. Your energy is within me.” she says, still avoiding his eyes. “When will it fade?”

Fuck. Thread carefully.

“I’m not sure.”

“If you are trying to say that you’re not sure if this,” she pats her chest a tad roughly, “feeling, this physical weird reaction, whatever it is… If you’re not sure. How do I give your energy back.”

“That’s not how it works. You can’t just give teotl back.”

Febrero draws in a sharp breath stepping back. She curses out loud.

“What dose it mean to give teotl anyways. Is it the same as when I—”

“No.” K’iche shoot that train of thought quick. He wasn’t going to lie just to ease her, but his close proximity could soothed her heart.

“This isn’t normal.” she whispers there body heat a gift. All to soon she side steps him— her eyes back on her daughter chasing the dog in circles.

“Febrero.”

“This whole situation is fucked up. I was only supposed to be in Mexico for two days tops to sell a land to my aunts and uncle. Instead I got pushed into a water portal, almost drowned. Got tortured and found out my parents were never my real parents.” Febrero glanced at him, her face tight in displeasure. “And now this… whatever this is.”

“Hey, breath.”

Coward. I’m a coward, but this is not the time.

He refused to add more to her plate. He had to unpack whatever she just said before he could add to it…

***

The story continues in book two.