by Anne Marsh
The breath whooshes out of me, making the webs in his hand dance angrily. “Oh, Heqet.”
“Squeamish?” he asks pleasantly.
Absolutely. “No,” I lie, going with my Show no fear rule. Leaning forward, I tie the strip of silk around his nose and mouth. Funny how somehow he’s got exactly what he demanded. “Keep going.”
With every foot I crawl, the moon’s pull lessens. Somewhere, far above us, the moon sails proudly through the clouds, shedding her silver light over the Valley. Down here, however, I can barely feel its influence. No moonlight—I experience a wrenching sense of loss. I hate working underground, and the bastard who sent me here knows that. He sent me anyway.
“How much farther?” I ask, wondering how much more of this I can stand.
“You look sad,” he observes. “Why?”
“Because we’re a good mile underground, all right?”
He brushes a cobweb off my face. “Is it the depth that bothers you?”
Is he displaying a sensitive side? Now? He surprises me: Mr. Gruff-and-Tough alpha male has a thoughtful side. He’s sweet in an awkward manner. Who knew he had it in him? Or that it would attract me?
“Being underground does bother some people.” His hand strokes my hair. “Don’t like the sensation of all that dirt and stone pressing down on them.”
Great. I aim a look at the ceiling—a mere six inches above our heads—and shudder. If I hadn’t been claustrophobic before, I would be now as I contemplate the massive weight of the temple located right over our heads.
“Do I look like I’m scared?”
“No,” he says. “You look like you’re in pain.” And it almost seems as if my pain bothers him. No. Scratch that. I’m sure what he wants is to pry. Get to know my inner secrets.
“I’ll keep you safe,” he promises and I shoot him an incredulous look. Keep me safe? I could keep myself safe.
Because I know better than to trust someone like him.
It takes twenty minutes to slither through the narrow tunnel—nineteen minutes too long, as far as I am concerned because I mentally count off each and every second of those nineteen minutes. The tunnel is sheer hell. Now, safely on the other side and standing in a corridor that is distinctly not marked on my bootleg map, I slap spider webs—and spider bits—off my damn partner. Possibly, I smack him just a little harder than necessary.
Of course, he’s still not playing fair. Before I can take evasive action, his hand lands on my ass with a sharp slap of his own and I jump. “Web,” he says innocently. “Spiders bite. Best to have them off.”
Right. I shoot him a look and he merely smiles that cat-in-the-cream smile I’m starting to detest. That smile means he thinks he’s just won the latest round in our ongoing who’s-top-dog contest. Sooner or later, I’ll have to disillusion him.
At least he looks satisfyingly surprised when I land a retaliatory swat on his butt. “More spiders,” I return sweetly when he growls. Goody. He doesn’t believe me either.
A twisted maze of tunnels, corridors, and walkways snakes away from our webby exit point. On the level just beneath us will be the burial chambers, room after room of the mummified dead laid out in their ceremonial best. Impossibly elegant tombs, according to the Valley stories, decorated with fabulous gems. Equally legendary are the traps for the unwary. Apparently the Guardians rely on more than brute strength to do their policing. From my current vantage point, I can see several graphic examples of what happens to thieves here.
A skeleton still pinned to the wall by numerous blades.
A headless, handless skeleton.
A skeleton trapped in an impossibly small space.
I give full marks to the Guardians for knowing how to make a point—I just have no desire to be the next illustration in the Temple’s history.
“Did we lose our pursuers?” I can only hope.
He shakes his head. “They’re coming down your passageway and coming fast.” He holds up the flarestick so I can examine the map. Unfortunately, as I’ve already noticed, our current location is not marked on the papyrus. That makes pinpointing our exact whereabouts difficult.
“We’re here,” he says, jabbing at the waxed parchment with his thumb. The tomb I’m looking for is just below us. If I can trust him and his navigational skills. His successful shortcut, however, is a point in his favor as he has bought us valuable minutes.
“Thank me later,” he says, looking amused.
“You didn’t lose them completely,” I feel compelled to point out.
“I got you here first,” he counters. “Gives us the advantage. We can pick our ground. Stand or run, but we decide.”
He has a point. And I like the fact that he apparently knows his battle tactics and isn’t going to wade into a fight just because he can. In the distance—but still closer than I prefer—comes the soft whisper of rock on rock, as if our followers have grown careless or bored or overhasty and allowed one foot to drag too long, too low over the floor.
“Guardians?” I suggest, my mind sorting through possible defenses. Or rather, since I know there is no standing against those hard-faced warriors I spotted in the antechamber to the temple, possible hiding places and acts of misdirection. I’ve no intention of becoming any male’s mate and I’m equally unhappy about the possibility of becoming a shish kebab either. Defense. Distraction. Disappearance. Those are my sole options.
“Not Guardians.”
“How do you know?”
“Too loud. Too clumsy. They don’t smell right, either.”
As if he can smell them from here. Still, I inhale deeply—and almost choke on the lungful of dead Valley men that I draw in. You could reconstruct several bodies from the dusty particles floating almost invisibly through the stale air. An alcove must have caved in and dumped its load onto the unforgiving floor. Apparently, the Guardians are so busy ripping would-be thieves to shreds, they’ve ignored basic structural upkeep.
Just peachy.
“I don’t smell anything.”
“I do,” he says, and I shoot him another sideways look. What is he? If he hadn’t had that impossibly smooth face—completely free of the dark marks that brand the Guardians—I’d have been suspicious. He moves comfortably through the corridors, even in the semi-twilight. Do his eyes glow? I haven’t paid enough attention.
Because I’ve been too busy eyeing his magnificent ass.
My full-moon hormones are the devil.
Before us, the corridor branches, splitting into two equally dark passageways that drop away to the left and the right. Jafar waits for me to choose. “Which one?”
I consult the map. Making a mistake now could be fatal. “Left,” I determine.
He takes the indicated tunnel. As we pass through the opening, I eye the wooden braces with trepidation. All this stone and the temple’s builders can’t be bothered with more permanent supports?
“The catacombs outgrew themselves,” Jafar explains, following my gaze.
“Too many dead people?” I ask lightly, to mask my unease. Never show fear. That’s an important rule. Along with never get caught.
“Something like that,” he agrees. “The first levels were planned. After that, the Valley dwellers just kept bringing the dead and they had to go somewhere.”
“So we’ve got the same three on our trail,” I say. He nods tightly. “Are we going to kill them?”
“They’re thieves,” Jafar says flatly. “How else would you deal with them?”
“News flash,” I mutter. “Pot calls kettle black. What do you call yourself?”
“I’m not here to thieve, Miu,” he says in that delicious rumble.
“Right. Pull the other one; it has bells.”
“Not yet,” he rejoins.
There is no time for further chitchat. Our new-found company bursts from the main corridor as if they are pursued by an army of death spirits or worse. None of them bothers to conceal their approach, although the dark faerie pauses. Wisely. The daemon sim
ply barrels forward without hesitating, his momentum stopped with a sickening squelch as Jafar guts the male. Withdrawing his blade from the body, he shoves the corpse to the ground.
Jafar certainly has the two survivors’ attention now.
He has mine as well.
That move with the knife is cold-blooded. Just a smooth, lethal jab that lets the other fellow’s momentum skewer him on the unforgiving metal.
“Fellow thieves?” he asks me.
Without answering, I roll the body over with my foot and examine the daemon’s face. It’s possible. No one knows who else works for the Master. There are the inevitable pairings and you certainly can’t avoid spotting others coming and going from the Master’s lair. But no one knows for certain. The daemon, however, is completely unfamiliar.
“Call them treasure hunters,” I snap. “Sounds more professional that way. Because that’s what we really are. Can’t truly steal from the dead, can we? After all, they’re dead. They don’t need anything they’ve brought to the tomb with them. Those are unclaimed, ownerless artifacts, merck, and we’re simply giving them a new owner. No harm, no foul. Dead aren’t going to miss what we take, and we need it.”
My merck doesn’t look as if he agrees with my assessment.
“But do you? Need it, that is?” Casually, he bends over and wipes his blade on the dead man’s body. The blood leaves macabre black streaks on the moss green skin of the deceased.
The dark faerie perks up noticeably. That kind has a thing for blood, likes to use it in ritual mazhyk. If I’d had a choice, I wouldn’t have spilled it in his presence.
“Master wants it, then Master gets it.” Do I sound as bitter as I feel?
“What do you want?” Jafar’s dark eyes examine my face, clearly doing some thinking. “Seems to me that’s the more important bit of this discussion.”
“No.” The dark faerie speaks up at last. “No matter at all what she wants. None of us. We’ve come for a little bit of a necklace and that’s what we’ll be taking away with us.”
“Nothing else?” Jafar sounds skeptical and I can’t blame him. We are surrounded by a vast quantity of gold and jewels—and no one plans to make off with any of it?
The dark faerie shakes his head. The banshee merely crouches on the ceiling, hissing with irritation.
“He must really want this necklace.”
Jafar’s gaze snaps to mine, his eyes suddenly intent. “Why?”
I don’t know and, judging by the look on the faerie’s face, no revelation will be forthcoming from that quarter either.
Jafar shakes his head. “No idea why he wants it—and yet you’re going to haul a priceless mazhykal artifact back to him? No wonder he’s the guy in charge. Sheep,” he mutters in disgust.
The dark faerie barks a short, pithy curse that more than reflects how I feel about our current situation.
“It’s not that simple, merck,” I explain. “Look, you want a reason why we’re all here? It’s called leverage. The Master simply helps himself to whatever—or whoever—we care about. Then we have to toe the line. Ask them, if you don’t believe me. I don’t know what he has on them, but he has something.”
“Is that true?” He angles toward the dark faerie, being careful to keep the banshee in his peripheral vision. He isn’t a fool.
The dark faerie shrugs. “True enough,” he agrees in a gravelly voice. “Fetch back this necklace or pay the price.”
“Which is?”
“Personal.” The faerie’s voice is hard. “A private matter between myself and the Master.”
“And yours?” Jafar turns toward me.
“Same as his,” I say, hearing the unmistakable bitterness in my own voice. “Personal. And none of your business. All you need to know is these two are after the same necklace as us, they’re equally desperate, and we all share the same rule: winner takes all.”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see the banshee move. Hell. I need Jafar’s attention and I need it now.
JAFAR
One moment I am listening with intense satisfaction as Miu’s fellow thief reveals the object of their search, and the next minute I am trying not to gape as Miu grabs my ass.
A hell of way to get my attention, admittedly. The tangled scents and emotions swirling around me in the passageway are a distraction and worse is the rank despair shrouding the newcomers. They want the necklace badly, badly enough to confront Miu—and myself. Which all points to Miu’s boss having a powerful hold over them. I have to ask myself what that hold could be.
Miu’s fingers flex, squeezing the cheek cupped in her palm, and my thoughts scatter to the winds. Desire rises fierce and strong in me. My senses gather, focusing on the exquisite feel of her bare fingers as they move slowly, teasingly over the naked skin of my ass. I bite back a groan as her warm palm cups more of me.
Her free hand—the hand not palming my skin as if I belong to her—shoves a plug of wax into my hands. She must have pulled it out of that pack of hers. I look up—and spot the female banshee inhaling.
Deeply.
“Oh, crap.” Miu’s hands fall away from me. “Quick. Into your ears. She’s going to scream.”
And scream she does. The blasted female throws back her head and looses a powerful swell of sound into the narrow space, shaking the walls and making the floor buck and ripple beneath our feet.
With a loud crack, the supporting beam on which the banshee perches splits apart.
The world explodes around us in a seething whirlwind of dust and rock. From somewhere high above, the piercing scream of the banshee cuts off abruptly. The cave-in begins as a slow-motion spill of rock and dirt, and then, with a tremendous roar, the wall nearest us collapses.
Hell.
Tucking my female into my arms, I pull her against my chest and dive for a storeroom.
Outside, wall stones and dirt rain down, sealing us in.
MIU
Our prison cell measures twelve feet by twelve feet.
One hundred forty-four square feet of dust-filled space and a half dozen stone shelves lined with stone pots of various sizes.
“Damn banshee,” Jafar says. That’s an understatement. I watched the banshee go flying from her perch with the first wave of rocks. Judging by the sheer volume of dirt and stone blocking our exit, I’ll bet the banshee is even unhappier with the outcome of her scream than we are.
Jafar’s eyes go to my forehead and he swears. “You’re bleeding.” Cursing, he rips a strip from his loincloth—making it joyfully, wonderfully shorter—and presses it firmly to the cut.
Pain blossoms in my forehead. Great. Just what I need. “Ouch.” I swat at his hands. “Quit that.”
“Stops the bleeding,” he says, ignoring my protest.
Carefully, he runs his hands over my body, checking for other injuries. He takes his sweet time about the examination.
Discreetly, I attempt to dislodge his hand from my breast. Is the caress intentional? Or is my breast merely a convenient handhold, rather like the shelves holding the stone pots? My clit doesn’t particularly give a damn, so I remind myself that there is still the question of just who sent the merck. Get him naked and I can check for Lierr’s mark—and indulge my own curiosity about the man trapped in the chamber with me. Another win-win situation.
The hand parked on my breast squeezes slowly, stroking the V of flesh revealed by the damn virgin’s robe. Definitely intentional.
“Are you in pain anywhere?” His deep voice makes me shiver—or is it the hypnotic stroking of his hand? Just small strokes along the upper slope of my breast. Only slightly wicked.
Should I let this seduction continue? My body answers the question for me.
I raise my arms around his neck and press myself tightly against him.
“Tell me you want this,” Jafar growls against my mouth.
I know I should be grateful for his question, but I can’t think straight. All I can do is sigh, “Yes.”
Dimly, I realize this is ou
t of character for me, and when I’m more in control of my senses, I’ll be mortified. Now, however, I simply let the pleasure wash over me. Each caress makes the pain in my forehead subside further.
The clasp of the virgin’s robe parting is unbearably loud in the room, grating on my over sensitized nerves. The silk falls to the floor in a smooth rush of fabric. His eyes heat and catch on my breasts.
“Clothes,” I hiss, and he obliges me by slipping rapidly out of his. He might use mazhyk; I no longer care. My pussy tightens, all wet heat, as he exposes his smooth, golden skin to me. A wicked scar curls around his right side like a lover’s caress gone terribly awry. Not a thief mark, but perhaps something worse.
I run a questing finger over the skin. “Knife?”
He nods curtly, his hands reaching for me, drawing me between his legs so I am cradled in the hot embrace of his arms and thighs.
Teasingly, I explore the flat male nipples, let my tongue lick delicately at his darker skin. A rumble of masculine approval makes me smile. My merck likes this. I do, too. His taste delights me, an exotic mix of male and spice and something otherworldly.
“Do you want me?” Running an exploratory finger around his nipples, I let my fingers slide down along his ribs, over the taut, muscled expanse of skin. He’s so large that he makes me feel small. Protected. I’ve never felt that way before; it’s strangely seductive.
In answer, he lifts my legs around his waist in a smooth, hot glide of skin. His thick erection rubs mercilessly against the slick lips of my pussy, his fingers curving around the cheeks of my ass as he lifts me effortlessly upward. I barely stop myself from arching into his possessive touch, from sliding myself against his fingers.
With a growl, he backs me toward the wall, bracing me against the slick surface of the stone. “I’ve waited hours to do this,” he says darkly. “Scenting your heat. Knowing you’re wet for me. Waiting.”
“Hold on,” I protest—I need to see the back of him. There is no visible mark on his front.
“Do you want to wait more,” he asks, “or do you want what I can give you now, femi?”
