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She tried to remember exactly what had happened and in what order and in doing so fell behind. Teo simply reached back, snatching her hand in his as if he’d done the same a thousand times before and therefore knew where both she and her hand would be.
Gina’s throat went thick with need, not for sex but for this. A connection to someone that went beyond sight, beyond mind, beyond body—the kind of connection her parents had had.
Before she’d killed them.
Teo squeezed her fingers, rubbing his thumb along the base of hers, a comforting gesture that aroused feelings that went beyond comfort.
Had she made an involuntary movement? Had she gasped or whimpered? She didn’t think so. Nevertheless, he had sensed her distress and answered it. Her longing intensified.
What was wrong with her? She should hate him. He was a liar, an imposter, a thief. Her mind knew these things, but her body didn’t seem to care.
Teo arrived at the wall of glyphs. Lifting the lantern, he squinted, then he dropped her hand, and Gina had to clench hers until her nails bit into the palm to keep from reaching out and taking his back.
“The dog-headed man and the la symbol.” Teo tapped his fingernail, usually so clean and white but now slightly tarnished with dirt beneath the glyphs. “You stood here?”
He turned, his eyes more spring leaves than winter moss, and tilted his head. His hair slid over his shoulder. She clenched her other hand to stop herself from touching it.
“Um.” Gina took a breath, striving for calm. Instead her heartbeat increased in tempo as her nose filled with the scent of dust and oranges. She glanced at the floor, where his boots stood right next to the imprint of hers. “Yeah.”
“Show me.” Gina blinked, and he made a “be my guest” gesture with one long-fingered, dirty hand. “Where you were, what you did.”
Gina stepped forward, positioning her feet directly atop the prints she’d made earlier. “I was looking at the pictures, thinking about what you’d told me. You said this…” She put her finger beneath the man-dog figure. “Might be an indication of an army and not a single man. Which made me think Nahua.”
“Except the Aztecs called themselves Tenochca.”
He leaned over her shoulder to see better, and his hair brushed past her cheek, causing a shiver. His hands landed on her shoulders and he rubbed her arms, quick and fast, as if to warm her. Gina couldn’t help it; she leaned into him, pressing her back against his front. They’d both been drenched; they should be equally cold, except he gave off heat like a bonfire.
“Wh-what does Tenochca-la mean?” she whispered, afraid if she spoke too loudly he might move away.
“Diddly.”
Teo leaned closer. Gina had to bite her lip to keep from arching into him. He was just too hot, and she was oh, so cold.
“I don’t get it,” she said. But boy, did she want it.
“Me, either,” he muttered, and now his breath brushed her cheek, the heat of it warming Gina all the way to her icy, stiff toes. “These are Aztec figures. But I don’t know why any Aztec would draw this.”
He reached past her and tapped the man-dog head, then the la symbol. His arm rested on her shoulder; she wanted to turn her head and rub her cheek against it.
“Is there any such thing as a Nahual?”
“There is. I don’t know that much about it, since my specialty is the history and writings of the Aztecs. The Nahual is more a mystical thing.”
“A god?”
“No. A Nahual was a spirit that took the form of an animal. A guardian. Everyone received a different Nahual, which was tied to the day of his or her birth in the ancient calendar. If you were born on the dog day, for example, your Nahual would take the form of a dog.”
Gina frowned at the figure. “You think this guy was born on the dog day?”
“Could be.”
“So that would mean this glyph refers to a single person, rather than an army of them.”
“Maybe. A Nahual was considered extremely personal. Not something to be advertised, or drawn on walls. An Aztec would only speak of his Nahual to a very close friend or relative.”
Gina shrugged, the movement rubbing the back of her all over the front of him, creating a friction she wanted to continue so badly she immediately stopped. “That just means whoever drew this was his pal.”
“Hmm,” Teo murmured, the reverberation in his chest trailing up her spine and settling at her neck, causing goose bumps to erupt everywhere.
