Dark Desires (Dark Romance Boxed Set)

by Cerys du Lys

  I shouted the news back to Nick and launched myself toward it, praying it would be large enough to provide me with an exit. I couldn’t judge distance well in the tunnel, but presumably the smallness of the aperture meant that the light was still far away.

  It was not. I had to crawl no more than five yards before I came to the end of the shaft. The smell of fresh air was dizzyingly strong here, but even so, the opening was no larger than my fist.

  For several seconds, I stared from a yard away, unable to accept that my odyssey could end in failure. It didn’t make sense. The tunnel was large enough—just—for a person to crawl through. Surely it required a more substantial exit than that. Through the circular hole I could see the blue sky. The irony of it appalled me. Only a few inches of rock separated me from light, life, and freedom.

  “I will not cry,” I said aloud. “There’s got to be a way out.”

  I ran my faltering flashlight beam over the stone around the aperture and noted that it looked different from the other walls of the shaft. Moving closer, I checked it with my fingers and realized why. What I was confronting was not a solid wall of rock, but a tightly packed mound of stones. Hope leaped in me once again. Whoever had constructed the tunnel had walled it up to conceal it from the outside.

  Putting down the flashlight, I tried to shift the stones around the opening. My hands were shaking. At first the stones wouldn’t shift at all, and I was afraid they’d been mortared. But I finally felt one loosen. I dug at it until I was able to push it out, enlarging the aperture to the size of two fists. I pressed my face to the opening and looked out.

  Before me was the most beautiful sight I’d ever seen—the blue arc of the sky and, just beneath it, the sun-drenched sparkle of the Aegean Sea. And straight ahead, almost on a direct line from me, I could see the trim, clean-lined prow of the Voyager, gracefully floating on the silken sea. “Nick!” I shouted, hearing the joy in my own voice. “I made it! I’m on the other side of the mountain, on a cliff overlooking the bay where Voyager is anchored. I can see her!”

  Ignoring the cuts and bruises on my fingers, I continued to widen the opening. “I’m going to climb down and swim to the boat. If Metin’s there, I’ll get him to help us. If he isn’t, I’ll radio the mainland for help.”

  “Dammit, Ellie! If Nigel catches you he’ll kill you.”

  “I’ll be careful, I promise. Are you okay back there? How’s your head?”

  “My head is fine, and you are amazing. I fucking love your ass! But please be careful.”

  My spirits were soaring. I no longer knew what fear was. Even the prospect of climbing down an extremely steep and rocky slope to the sea didn’t faze me. I had crawled through my own personal vision of hell and survived the experience. Nothing, not even a devil like Nigel, was going to stop me now.

  The swim to the boat through the cool water was a welcome change to the harsh, sweaty work of crawling through the tunnel. I was cautious, breast stroking as noiselessly as possible. When I reached the yacht, I hauled myself up the built-in metal ladder at the stern and jumped lightly over the side. I stayed perfectly still for several moments, listening. There was no sound.

  I slid open the main hatch and went below. On tiptoe, I checked the various compartments. They were empty. Damn. What had Nigel done with Metin? I thought about the young man’s handsome face and quick smile and prayed he was still alive.

  The last door I approached led to a tiny storeroom. As I opened the door—a little less cautiously now, since the boat seemed deserted—I was grabbed from behind. I stiffened and would have cried out had a hand not clapped across my mouth. Then I heard the mutter of a masculine curse, and I was released.

  “Allah be praised. I thought you were dead.”

  I whirled. “Metin! You scared me.”

  “You scared me. I thought you were one of them, come back to finish me off.” He held up one wrist, which still had a coil of rope knotted around it. “They knocked me out, the dogs, bound my body and left me in here about an hour ago. Fortunately I have a hard head and strong teeth.” He showed me where the cord had been gnawed through. “I was just coming to search for you and Nick when I heard someone board the yacht. What happened? Are you okay? Where’s Nick?”

  “He’s hurt. Nigel beat him badly.” I quickly explained our ordeal in the cave. “You’ve got to help me get him out of there.”

  “Okay. No problem.”

  I looked at him doubtfully. “But there is a problem. Nick can’t crawl out the way I did. His shoulders are too wide, and he’s hurt. You and I are going to have a hard time clearing the entrance to the cave alone.”

  “Then we will get help,” Metin said confidently. His white teeth flashed in his swarthy face. “You think I would let those swine escape after all the time I have invested in their capture? The first thing I did upon freeing myself just now was radio for assistance. The Turkish Shore Patrol are on their way.”

  “Thank God!”

  “Nick will not be pleased. He hoped to keep his grandfather out of prison. I was ready to help him with that—why not—one must have respect for the old, even if Sir Avery was a little crooked. To trap Nigel was the important thing. But now—” He shrugged. “I don’t know what will happen now.”

  Whether or not Nick’s grandfather went to prison was not my immediate concern. “We need blankets, bandages, medicine, water. A couple of new flashlights. If we can’t move the stone, I’ll crawl back in through the tunnel and wait for help to arrive.”

  “I will come with you.”

  “You can’t. Like Nick’s, your shoulders are too broad.”

  “Then we will move this stone of yours. Come, Ellie hanim.”

  Chapter 42

  Ellie

  The hot afternoon sun beat down upon us as we rowed into shore, unloaded our supplies and began the trek around the promontory to the excavation site. As we scrambled over the arid ground, I stared at the cliff towering above us, trying to take in the fact that I had crawled through a narrow tunnel in the bowels of this jagged rock pile, propelled myself through silent darkness and escaped safely into the light. I stretched, reveling in the warmth of the sun dancing upon the bare skin of my arms and legs. If it weren’t for my anxiety about Nick, I might actually have felt good.

  We were nearly at the site when Metin, who was leading the way along the narrow track, stopped. He looked back at me, laying a finger across his lips. I listened. I heard the swell of angry male voices, moving toward us from the direction of the compound.

  “Quickly, get behind these rocks,” Metin ordered. I obeyed without hesitation, responding to the cool note of authority in his voice. We were both speaking Turkish since I no longer had to hide my knowledge of that language. My Turkish was better than his English.

  No longer did Metin look like a fisherman’s kid with a lust for adventure. Instead he’d transformed himself into a Mediterranean bandit, armed from head to toe with handguns, knives and a deadly-looking object that was, he’d informed me, an automatic rifle. He was also carrying a crowbar and an oar from the yacht’s lifeboat, which he intended to use as a lever at the cave entrance.

  We crouched out of sight just a few yards from the sealed entrance to the cave. Through a chink in the rocks, I had an unobstructed view of the men who were approaching from the other side of the excavations. “It’s Sir Avery,” I whispered. Because of his crippled legs, the elderly archaeologist rarelyvisited the excavations. It would have been impossible to push his wheelchair over the rough, stony ground.

  But they were carrying him. Mustafa, the cheerful, burly cook, and Erdal, Sir Avery’s longtime companion, between them were cradling him in their strong arms. Beside them were the other men loyal to Sir Avery—Ahmet, Engin, the leonine Aslan, and a couple of others. They were armed. One of them had Sir Avery’s folded wheelchair for whenever they reached a flat place where he could again sit in it again.

  Also present, looking disgruntled, were Nigel and Sinan. Sir Avery was hol
ding a gun upon them, just as he had earlier held one upon Nick.

  I stared, puzzled. What had happened? I remembered that Nick was friendly with most of the workers at the compound and that Sir Avery’s workers outnumbered Nigel’s by a considerable margin. Had Nigel been unable to convince them all to do things his way?

  The small procession halted in front of the boulder that now blocked the entrance to the cave. “Open it,” Sir Avery growled. “You sealed it, now roll away the stone. They better be in there, and alive, Nigel.”

  I looked at Metin. “I guess Sir Avery didn’t wish us dead.”

  I was all for showing ourselves, but Metin wouldn’t allow it. “We will wait. In the meantime, they will do the heavy work for us.”

  It took the efforts of several men to shift the large boulder. I wondered what Nick must be thinking if he could hear the sounds of the cavern being unsealed.

  At last it was done. At his command, the men lifted Sir Avery and prepared to carry him into the cave. “We will follow,” Metin said. He cradled the rifle in his arms. His face was set, but his eyes were gleaming with a kind of pleasure I supposed that only men of certain macho tendencies could truly share and understand.

  “You’re not actually going to shoot anybody?”

  “We shall see.”

  “May I have one of your guns?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Do you know how to use firearms?”

  “Yes,” was all I said.

  When he hesitated, I reminded him that the odds were against us. I also reminded him that Nigel had more men, their whereabouts unknown. He gave me a pistol, and briefly explained its action. I familiarized myself with it quickly. I was amazed at how calm I felt. I’d done the hardest thing by crawling through that narrow tunnel. Anything ahead of me seemed trivial in comparison.

  We waited several minutes, and then silently followed the men into the cave, crawling silently through the entrance and remaining deep in the shadows. As the cool, black darkness closed once again around me, I heard Nigel cursing. “They were right here. Here, in this spot. Both of them. They’ve disappeared.”

  “What do you mean, disappeared?” Sir Avery said. “Put me down, for God’s sake,” he ordered the men who were carrying him. “There, on that flat rock. Watch Nigel. I no longer trust him.”

  “This is a fool’s errand,” Nigel snapped. “We could be safely away from the island by now. You can come out now, coz,” he said more loudly. “It seems the old man wants you alive, after all.”

  Where was Nick? I hoped he hadn’t fallen unconscious again.

  He must still be in the inner chamber of the cave where the treasure was. When they could not find him here, would they continue to search until they discovered the narrow passageway that led to the gold?

  “Nick?” Sir Avery called. “Where are you, my boy?” He was answered only by the echo of his own shout. “By God, Nigel, if you’ve been lying to me...”

  “They must be here somewhere, Avery bey,” Sinan said, sounding genuinely distressed.

  “They must have escaped,” somebody suggested.

  “They were here,” insisted Sinan. “There on the floor of the cave. Nick was hurt. He could not have escaped.”

  “How badly hurt?” Sir Avery’s voice was thin and hard.

  “Nigel beat him,” Sinan admitted.

  Sir Avery swore. “Is this true, Nigel? You claimed you hadn’t harmed him.”

  “I didn’t hear you berating him for beating me.”

  “You’ve killed him, haven’t you?” This time Sir Avery’s voice was low, broken, barely audible. “And Ellie. You’ve killed them both.”

  “I should have,” Nigel said. “They’re in here. Look harder, you fools.”

  While they searched, Metin and I edged forward, our weapons at the ready. The stalagmites near the entrance gave us plenty of shelter.

  “This tale of sealing them in the cave was fabricated in order to lure me away from the compound, away from the boat, so the few men who are still loyal to you would have the chance to steal some of the artifacts,” Nick’s grandfather said. “You probably planned on sealing me in the cave.”

  “No,” Sinan protested. “We left them here. They were alive.”

  “Shut up. I’m weary of your lies.” Once again, I heard the sound of a gun being cocked for firing. My eyes had adjusted to the dim light, and I could see Sir Avery’s drawn face. “I never wanted Nick hurt. I was angry with him, yes, but one uses words when one is angry. Words, not fists or guns. You’ve never learned this basic lesson of civilization, have you? You’re corrupt, Nigel. Your grandmother warned me often enough. So did Nick. I should have listened.”

  “I kicked him a few times, that’s all. The clever bastard is in this cave somewhere, listening to this conversation and laughing his head off!”

  “You are a liar, a thief and a murderer. I begin to understand why Nick was so determined to stop you.”

  “But you’re not a murderer, old man,” Nigel said unpleasantly. He took a menacing step forward. “So put the gun down.”

  Instead, his grandfather raised it. “Any man can kill if he is pushed far enough.”

  I touched Metin’s shoulder. We needed to intervene now.

  But Nick beat us to it. Just as Metin and I were about to make our presence known, he emerged from the narrow crevasse that led to the treasure.

  “I’m here,” he said in a clear voice. “For once, he’s telling the truth.”

  “Nick!” Sir Avery swung around, and even in the gloom, I could see the relief that marked his craggy features. His mouth worked speechlessly for a second before he managed to gasp, “Thank god.”

  Holding his ribs, he walked unsteadily into the center of the cavern where his grandfather sat. He reached down and clasped Sir Avery’s hand. Even through the darkness, I could see that the old man was shaking.

  “When your cousin came back without you I realized what a fool I’d been to think he’d leave you unharmed.”

  “He’d have killed us if Ellie hadn’t stopped him.”

  “He tried to get me to leave the island with him. He claimed you and Ellie were tied up on your boat, and that by the time you worked yourself free, we would be far away from here. But I couldn’t leave, and Sinan finally confessed the truth.”

  The archaeologist’s throat sounded choked up. I felt a wave of sympathy. During the time I’d spent with Sir Avery and Nick, I’d seen the unacknowledged depth of the affection between them.

  Nick stooped beside his grandfather so their eyes were on the same level. “You should have trusted me. I’ve been trying to get you away from Nigel and save your scrawny ass.”

  “What a touching scene,” Nigel mocked. He seized the moment to dive toward his grandfather. He moved smoothly and fast, and his grandfather was not expecting it. Nigel wrested the gun from Sir Avery’s hands and swung it toward Nick, snarling, “Die, asshole.”

  Time slowed. There was no doubt in my mind that Nigel was going to kill Nick. I couldn’t allow that. I acted without thinking. I steadied the gun Metin had given me, took aim, and squeezed the trigger.

  Metin fired at approximately the same moment, and Nigel went down.

  In the next instant, I stood staring at my own hands in shock, not quite believing what I had done. Sweat broke out on my brow. Nick was swaying but standing. Nigel had recoiled, obviously from the impact of bullets, and fallen. I could see blood.

  Was he dead? Had I just killed a man?

  Nick swayed a little more, and I realized there was blood on him, too. I dropped the gun. I could hear Metin calling out orders to the others, but the meaning of words didn’t penetrate. Sir Avery was anxiously asking questions about his grandsons. I ignored him.

  On legs that barely seemed capable of holding me, I ran to Nick. He grabbed me and held me to him with his right arm, but his left arm hung by his side.

  “I think I’d better sit down, canim,” he said, as his legs folded beneath him and we both sank t
o our knees on the cave floor.

  Chapter 43

  Nick

  She kept surprising me. When Ellie burst out of the shadows, pistol in hand, I was dumbfounded. I was sure I was dead this time, but she had saved my life twice. She’d shot my fucking cousin, although not before he got one bullet into me. Arm. Unless he’d hit a fucking artery, it wasn’t gonna kill me.

  It took me a few seconds to realize that Ellie wasn’t the only one who had fired. Metin, looking like a Middle Eastern Rambo, appeared beside her. He assessed my condition swiftly and efficiently, and then checked on Nigel. From the groans issuing from his fallen body, I concluded he wasn’t dead.

  “One bullet wound in the right shoulder, another that’s grazed his left hip,” he announced. “If you were aiming for his balls, Ellie, you missed.”

  She didn’t seem to be listening. She was clinging to me, trying to stop the bleeding in my left arm. We were both sitting on the ground. I glanced down at myself, noticing that if it had hit me about three inches to the right, the bullet would have pierced my heart and I’d be history. The shot wouldn’t have gone wide, either, had Nigel not been winged in the shoulder while firing. Yep. My cousin wanted me dead.

  “Is he gonna live?” I asked Metin.

  “Looks like it. We will need medical assistance for both of you, though.”

  Fuck medical assistance. I felt great. “You rock,” I told Ellie.

  “Ssh. You’re shot.”

  “Flesh wound, no big deal.” It was beginning to hurt. I felt like a battered wreck. Why had I ever thought I could do stuff like this? Who the hell did I think I was, Indiana Jones?

  “I was so afraid for you,” I confessed to her. “I can’t believe you crawled all that way through the darkness. Even I wouldn’t have wanted to tackle that tunnel, and I’ve never had an anxiety attack in my life.”