She could feel the heat of his body, the sudden tensing of his muscles beneath her hand. In a slow glide, she ran her hand down to the cloth-covered ridge of his cock. She stroked her hand up and down over the firm rod. On a groan, his hips pushed into her hand.
“Lina…” Shard’s hand gripped her wrist and pulled it away from the eager, aching flesh which throbbed and pulsed with the desire for more of her touch.
“Well, what was their plan?” She wriggled the fingers of the hand he held. She inhaled the heady scent of male desire and knew that they could just as easily smell her own. It would be as clear to them as if they could touch or see the creamy nectar spilling onto her thighs in a hot flood.
The lift arrived and the moment the doors opened, they almost shoved her into the privacy of its confines.
“Their plan was a simple distract and grab. Two men were supposed to keep the few guards in camp busy while the third ran in and found the vase, you little tease.” Kaleb’s hand patted her rear, the touch a little too firm for a tender caress.
“I wasn’t teasing.” She laughed, turning her hand in Shard’s loose grasp. A broad smile tilted her lips as she tossed a wink up at Shard. “I was stroking you. Did it not feel good, rao nari?”
“I’ma, it felt wonderful.” Shard ran the pad of his thumb over the underside of her wrist and watched the shiver pass through her body. “You aren’t only a tease. You’re a lying little tease. It’s fortunate that we’re here to reform you.”
“I hear this from one of the two biggest male teases I’ve ever met.” She leaned over and lightly nipped his upper arm through his shirt.
Shard gasped at the sting, his eyes flaring at the bold move. A growl rumbled in his throat. “The little cat wants to play, does she?”
Kaleb stepped behind her and bent his head. His teeth closed over the strong muscle at her neck and shoulder. Shard crowded in front of her and one of his hands dipped down, gathering her skirt to her waist. He slid his hand over her smooth mound, running his fingers around the swollen pink lips.
Lina moaned and her head tilted and dropped forward, giving Kaleb better access to that sensitive spot. Her muscles loosened and she shifted, widening her stance in encouragement, needing that hand to move to her clit or her slit. She wanted to have them in her, thrusting deep and she didn’t care about the location. With a sigh, she grabbed Shard’s free hand and drew it to her breast. His palm cupped the firm, round mound, wandering up over it before his fingers plucked at the hard nipple.
Without warning, Kaleb’s mouth left her neck and he stepped back. Shard’s hand drew away from her pussy, allowing the fabric to fall a moment before his hand rose from her breast. The lift had stopped and the doors swished open a moment later. They took a step toward the door and paused.
Drawing a deep breath, she followed into the giant shuttle bay. Her breasts ached and she was all too conscious of the empty need pulsing within her pussy. Damn it, two against one just wasn’t fair.
Kaleb reached back and pulled her between them. He leaned down and his warm breath fanned over her ear. “Aren’t you glad you know two such men, i’ma?”
Lina growled. There should be a law against doing this to someone. She would have to suffer at least through a shuttle ride to the surface before she could satisfy this ache.
Chapter Nineteen
Lina smiled as she saw Shard and Kaleb sitting at a table with the images spread out before them. Dressed almost identically, they looked dangerous in the brown shirts and brown pants. Other men had joined them there, trying to help them solve the puzzle. They worked on it every day after they’d searched for the Seal in the old Santir ruins. They hadn’t made any progress on the puzzle, but so far they’d been good-natured about it. They hadn’t pressed her for information or the answer.
“Rao nari, I feel like going for a run. Would you like to go with me?” She raised her brows and propped her hand on her hip as she stood at the end of the table. Since the lifting of the restrictions she’d taken a run whenever she had felt the need to be free of the camp.
“No, i’ma, we’re anxious to get our apology from you. We’ll stay here and work on this puzzle.” Shard lifted his eyes from the image of one of the scenes.
“Some of the women might want to go.” Kaleb barely looked up from his work.
“Nerisa might want to go.” Avick sat across from Kaleb. “She mentioned that it would be a nice night for a run earlier.”
Lina rolled her eyes, but gave in without an argument. What she’d wanted was a romp with her mates, but a run was still a good idea. The need to move through the forest in the body of the tiron coursed through her. She asked the women and six of them accepted the invitation. All went to their tents to undress and change forms.
Shard looked up from the image as Lina and six others streaked through camp and headed into the forest. His eyes fell back to the scene on the paper before him. He couldn’t see any message in it. It was just a woman watching as a piece of pottery was being painted. His eyes took in the other scenes. The whole thing together looked like a simple, large vase to him.
Determination flowed through him. He would solve this. If she said the answer was there to see, it was there.
They’d tried to find some meaning in the scenes as a whole, but the images jumped from one scene to another and they weren’t even certain which image was supposed to be first or if there was a first. There didn’t seem to be a notable order to the scenes which had been painted in two rows on the large vase.
“Do you think Lina was as frustrated as we are before she solved this thing?” Kaleb tried placing the pictures in front of him in a different order. Although he had tried it before, he was getting desperate.
“I don’t know. Was anyone in the camp in the artifact tent when she first saw it?” Shard looked around the table to see if anyone knew.
“Calla was there the day your Lady first saw it,” Vador volunteered, turning the picture in front of him. “She’s still in camp if you’d like to talk to her.”
“Call her over here.” Maybe knowing what Lina had done when she saw this would help them solve the puzzle. Shard picked up an image of one side of the vase and looked at it. The colors on the vase were surprisingly vibrant, the images detailed.
Vador went to get Calla. He returned with his petite, black-haired mate. She stood at the end of the table waiting for their questions.
“What did Lina do when she first saw the vase?” Kaleb looked up from the images and watched her face as he waited for her answer.
“She smiled, circled the table, and leaned close to look at it a few times. She laughed and rubbed her hands together, wearing a very satisfied look. Immediately, she took it off the table and carried it over to the corner where she hid it. After that, she didn’t touch it again that day.” Calla frowned at the memory. “Oh, and before she moved it, she took a light and looked into the vase.”
“Into it?” Shard frowned. He had requested detailed images of the vase and they had taken a few of the inside of the vase. It was just smooth glazed pottery. There was nothing special about it.
“It sounds as if she knew almost immediately that there was something special about this vase.” Kaleb moved a picture and frowned. “That means that she’d seen it before or… Shard, does this look like the symbol of Pryman to you?”
Shard took the image and looked to the decorative drawing around the scene. There amid the curling lines was the symbol of the Pryman, the first of the ancients in old Santir lore. It had sometimes been used to denote first in order in some of the old stories.
“That’s Pryman.” Shard handed the image back to Kaleb. “Now we need to see if any of the others hold the symbol for Saudane, Naushar, Retarin and so on.”
Soon, they had the pictures spread out in an order far different from the one which was on the vase. A story unfolded before them. Now they merely had to figure out what it was telling them. At first glance, it wasn’t clear.
“The
se two men in the first scene are just sitting in chairs all alone in a room.” Avick frowned. “Could the meaning be symbolic?”
“They’re the Ardin of a thent. Look, there’s the symbol on the wall between their chairs.” Vador pointed to the silver circle in the picture.
Kaleb had been looking at the second scene where the two men gave a woman a wrapped bundle. He scanned the wall between the two chairs in that scene. There was no symbol there. His eyes swung to the first scene.
“It’s not in the second scene, Shard.” Kaleb looked up and caught the near-black eyes across from him. “In the second scene, the Ardin are giving a woman a wrapped bundle.”
“You don’t think…” Shard’s eyes scanned the pictures, excitement sending a rush of adrenaline through him.
“They would have known that it might be many years before any Santir returned here. They’d have wanted to be able to find it again when it was time. A sort of picture map would make sense.” Kaleb moved on to the next picture, his excitement building at the thought of finding the symbol of their thent.
The woman had the packet in her hands. She was in a room with various pieces of pottery and a man stood nearby. They both appeared to be looking at a lump of clay.
In the next scene, the woman’s hands were empty. She watched as the man pushed a piece of pottery into a kiln. Kaleb’s eyes searched the tables and shelves for the packet. There was nothing in the image that resembled the bundle she had held.
“Do we have it out of order? Where is it?” Shard picked up the image to look at it more closely.
“It’s the right image.” Kaleb had already double-checked. His doubts had flared when he couldn’t see the packet. “Maybe it will show the packet in one of the next scenes.”
The woman stood to the side of a table now. A large piece of unglazed pottery sat on the table. A woman with an array of paint pots in front of her was looking to the woman at the end of the table. There was no sign of a packet in the scene.
The following scene showed the woman bending and pointing at a half-finished scene. The young painter looked to the woman as if listening to instructions.
The focus of the next scene was the mouth of the kiln as the paints were baked onto the pottery. The woman was to the side of the scene, standing near the man. Both of them seemed be staring at the kiln.
The last scene showed the two Ardin and the woman near a table on which various sizes and types of pottery had been placed. The two men looked very satisfied as they gazed at the array of ceramics arranged before them. The woman’s hands were spread, indicating the table and its contents.
“Does that large vase look familiar to you?” Shard pointed to the large vase amid the others on the table.
“It’s the one the woman in scene six was painting. See there is the finished scene she’d been working on.” Kaleb pointed to the detail on the vase.
“That I know, but look at the scene the woman was painting and the third scene on our images.” Shard pushed the third scene toward Kaleb.
“They’re the same.” Kaleb sat back in the chair, frowning as he turned the matter over in his mind. “Why would they…”
“A better question is why our mate would let us waste so much time if this is the case.” Shard growled as he stared at the images arrayed before him. Everything before him indicated that she’d been keeping a very important secret.
He stood and strode to the artifact tent. Picking up the large vase, he bluntly ordered the man brushing at a piece of mud-caked pottery with a delicate brush to bring the scanner. Shard left without another word. He carried the pot to the table and waited.
The scanner was primarily used to check for voids behind walls or beneath sections of floor, but it could do what they needed it to do. The handheld device was placed into Kaleb’s hands. With a flick of his finger, he activated it.
He ran the device around the base of the vase in a slow sweeping motion. He lifted the scanner and waited as the image came onto the screen. He grimaced and handed the device to Shard.
The scan was clear. It showed a large metal disk sandwiched between two distinct layers of clay at the wide base.
“That little kitten has some explaining to do.” Kaleb looked toward the spot at the edge of camp where Lina and the others had disappeared into the forest.
“Her run is over.” Shard stepped forward and tilted his head back. A roar tore from his throat. He growled and began to pace as he waited.
“Come back now, woman.”
The roar resonated in the early evening air. Lina’s golden head came up and cocked to the side. The use of the word “woman” didn’t bode well, although the tone held only demand. She grimaced.
She could think of only one reason for such a call and the reaction indicated that they hadn’t taken her surprise in quite the way she’d hoped. Resigned, she stopped and jumped to the forest floor. She turned back to camp, but paused to tell those with her.
“I have to go back now.” Lina looked back over her shoulder to the other tiron who had descended from the trees at the roared order. “Continue your run. I’ll go back and face them.”
“We’ll go back with you.” Medina trotted up beside her. “We’re curious to find out what you’ve done.”
“It’s probably about that vase.” Lina led the way at a run back toward the camp. “I don’t think they appreciated the discovery as I intended.”
She wasn’t eager to arrive. She knew that Shard and Kaleb were probably furious, but there were times when it wasn’t wise to push a man. This being a perfect example, she thought wryly. A delay would only anger them further and the two men were difficult enough without infuriating them. Lina entered the camp at a trot, heading straight for the tent.
“Lina…” Shard growled. The rumble in his voice carried no true anger.
Her head swung around and collided with his brown eyes. She couldn’t quite read his mood in either tone or those dark, intense orbs. “I need to change.”
Kaleb strode out of a gathered crowd of men and stepped up beside Shard. He held a folded blanket in his right hand. As her gaze alternated uncertainly between the tent and them, he raised a brow and then his hand. The blanket flapped in the breeze. With a last longing look toward the large tent, she turned and paced over to where her two men stood.
She wished for just a little time and the comfort of her own clothing. Without a word from Shard or Kaleb, she knew it wasn’t going to happen. Kaleb stepped forward and knelt beside her. He wrapped the blanket around her. She shifted to human form.
Tucking the blanket under her arms, she wrapped it securely around her. She stood and pushed the wild tangles of honey-gold hair away from her face. She glanced up and saw that Kaleb now stood beside Shard. They were waiting for their explanation.
“You once again have some explaining to do.” Shard’s lips were compressed in a firm hard line. “Now begin.”
Shard held up the round symbol, a shiny silver engraved disk. It was larger than his hand. The symbol was much bigger than the personal symbol Lina had found on Denao. That metal disk had been meant to be worn. This symbol was meant to be displayed in the home of the Ardin.
She looked past them and saw the pieces of the vase scattered across one of the tables. Her mouth dropped open in horrified amazement. “You didn’t have to break it. There was a way to get it out without destroying a piece of history.” Her hands slammed onto her hips and she frowned at them.
Shard smiled. She was so appalled by the destruction of the vase that she had forgotten to worry about their anger. “We would have smashed it much sooner if we’d known what it was. Why didn’t you tell us?”
“You were looking for your symbol. I wanted you to find it,” Lina explained earnestly. It was that simple.
“Why?” Shard tapped his hand on the leg of his brown pants. “I want a full explanation, not the simple version.”
“I wanted you to have the satisfaction of solving the puzzle on your own. I wasn’t go
ing to take the thrill of discovering a piece of your own history from you. You’d been hunting it for years.” She looked first at Shard and then at Kaleb.
“Come here, i’ma.” Kaleb held out his hand.
The mask fell away from their eyes and faces. She saw the happiness, the amusement in their eyes. Stepping forward, she slid her palm into his large hand. His fingers curled around hers and he pulled her against his chest. He stroked his hand down the length of her back. She relaxed against him, her eyes closing in contentment.
“Open your eyes, Lina.” Shard brushed his finger down the bridge of her nose.
She opened her eyes and blinked in confusion. The camp was gone. Her eyes widened as she recognized the haven they had created for her. Her eyes locked with Shard’s dark gaze. A frisson of apprehension coursed through her. Surely they weren’t going to punish her for trying to give them what they wanted.
“I didn’t intend to make you angry. I thought you’d be happy when you found it.” She reached out and ran her hand over the strong lines of Shard’s dark face.
A smile kicked up the corner of Kaleb’s lips as he stepped away from her. “We’re not angry. There was a moment…but then we remembered the way you made sure that it didn’t leave the camp, the way you challenged us to solve the puzzle.”
“It never mattered to us who found it as long as it came to Karach Thent as it should.” Shard hugged her against him.
“We weren’t interested in the hunt, you see, i’ma.” Kaleb pressed against her back. “The only thing that mattered was getting it, the end result.”
Lina felt his cock pressing against her. She pressed her face against the material covering Shard’s broad chest, inhaling his heady, masculine scent.
“Rao nari,” Shard trailed his hands up the side of her ribs. She wriggled against him, raising her head. Her eyes flashed with suppressed laughter. “You were right about one thing. It did feel good to solve the puzzle.”
Between Two Tiron Page 20
