by Zoe York
But…her hand curled into his hard chest and he made a contented sound.
She wasn’t sure she wanted this to end.
— FOURTEEN —
Lexa wiped her forearm across her forehead. The suns were both high in the sky and blazing down like a double incinerator.
Her new ballo beast ambled along, following Dathan and Damon. She patted the animal’s matted fur, kind of missing her last one. As the ballo stepped over some rocks, Lexa winced. She was, unsurprisingly, sore. And riding a ballo beast through the desert probably wasn’t the best idea after a day of intense sex. Of mind-blowing, sometimes sexy, sometimes hard and dirty, and sometimes fun sex with a man who couldn’t get enough of her.
She looked at Damon’s back. He was leaning over on his beast conferring with Dathan. God, just looking at him made her feel that little tingle. Get a grip, girl. She’d turned into some sort of sex maniac. She wanted to blame the dancing, or the goddess, but she knew deep down it was this…connection between them.
They’d headed off at dawn. As promised, Dathan and Pris had organized the supplies and a new ballo. Pris had come to say goodbye, bitching the entire time about being up at an ungodly hour. Dathan had a very pleased look on his face that told Lexa he’d manage to talk some lovely young thing into sharing his bed for the night. He’d also managed to collect all the information he could on the Devil’s Garden.
Apparently, it was a lone rock formation in the desert that included sharp rocks sticking up through the sand. Excitement winged through her. She couldn’t wait to see it. He’d also found numerous stories that said the Orphic priestesses used to warn people to stay away from the Devil’s Garden, which just strengthened Lexa’s belief that their temple was there somewhere.
The thought of stepping foot in that temple, being the first person to do so in hundreds of years, made her shiver.
Ahead, the men had stopped. With a frown, she urged her beast up behind them.
Then she saw what they were looking at. “Oh!”
It was amazing. The line of tall, jagged rocks speared into the sky, following a line of large sand dunes. God, it did almost look like the skeleton of some long-ago dragon.
“Come on, Dr. Carter.” Damon nodded down the dune. “Let’s go exploring.”
They descended the dune, which brought them to the bottom of the Dragon’s Spine. Staring up at the rocks, she knew they wouldn’t be able to ride their ballos up there.
Leaving the beasts with some feed, Lexa and the men headed up on foot.
It was hard going. The temperature had reached scorching, in places the sand was unstable, and in other spots, the rocks were broken and rough. But before too long, they were passing through the giant spires.
She touched the rock surface; it was dark and smooth. She frowned. It didn’t look like bone, but it also didn’t look like any type of rock she’d seen before. They kept moving upward, searching every rock for any sign of anything manmade, or priestess-made.
But Lexa didn’t see anything but rock and sand.
Hot and cranky, she was happy when Dathan called for them to take a break. She sipped from her canteen and looked up at the rocks tracking up onto the next dune. She looked back and couldn’t see the ballos anymore.
“Here.” Damon held out a piece of nutrition bar.
She took it even though she hated the stuff. They were one step above cloned food and always tasted the same, regardless of what the flavor was promised on the packet. She chewed it, looking again at the rocks.
“It’s here. I know it.”
Dathan swiped his brow, his shirt covered in patches of perspiration. “You sure?”
“We keep looking,” she said firmly.
The treasure hunter nodded. “You’re the boss.”
After the brief rest, they got back to searching. Every promising rock turned out to be nothing, and Lexa had to concede that every possible engraving was made by the wind and sand.
“Dammit.” She kicked a rock and sent it skidding down the dune. Doubts rose up, but she stomped on them.
Then she heard a faint sound.
The tinkle of…water?
She moved away from the men, wanting to confirm she wasn’t having a heat-induced hallucination before she mentioned it to them.
The rocks were packed closer together here and she climbed up, wedging her boots in wherever she could find a foothold. As she pushed up over a small ledge, the sound of water intensified.
She crouched and stared at a tiny pool formed by a narrow rivulet of water dripping from out of the rock. She moved closer. The pool was sitting in a basin of rock the size of a bathroom sink.
Was it natural? She ran her hand over the basin. The rock was smooth, the water was cool. The basin certainly seemed perfectly circular, but nature could possibly produce something like that.
Then she looked up at where the miniature waterfall traveled down the rock and into the pool. Behind the water, she saw something. She leaned closer. A familiar egg shape was carved into the rock.
Her breath caught. Yes!
“Lexa?” Damon’s voice echoed up, edged in concern. “If you’ve broken your neck, I’ll be upset. I rather like it.”
Dathan snorted. “I thought it was other parts of her you liked.”
“Shut it, kid.”
With a shake of her head, Lexa leaned over the ledge. “I’m up here.”
They looked up at her and she took a second to appreciate the male beauty of them, both tall, dark and handsome. Even if they both looked a bit hot and bothered.
“I found something!” she told them.
A moment later, Damon climbed over the ledge in an athletic move that he made look easy.
She mock-scowled at him. “Were you born competent at everything?”
He shot her look. “Hardly.” He eyed the pool.
“I think it’s a shrine,” she said.
“Well done, Dr. Carter. We’re on the right track.”
She knew she was beaming.
Suddenly Dathan yelled at them from below. They traded a look. There was urgency in his tone that spelled bad news.
“Damon! Lexa! Get down here.”
They both looked down at the treasure hunter. He was turned away from them, looking into the distance.
“What is it?” she asked.
He spun, his face tense. “We have a problem.” He pointed.
She looked, sensed Damon doing the same.
A huge, billowing sandstorm filled the sky to the south.
And it was headed their way. Fast.
***
Damon climbed through the rocks, keeping an eye on Lexa as she scrambled beside him.
He heard Dathan grunt as he clambered up behind them. “I’ve never seen a storm move as fucking fast as this one.”
Already the wind was picking up around them. Damon could hear the sand pinging off the rocks and in the distance he saw the wind skimming sand off the tops of the neighboring dunes in a wild, dancing spray.
“We need to find shelter,” Damon said. “Keep moving to where the rocks are denser.”
“Shouldn’t we head back to the ballo beasts?” Lexa asked.
Dathan shook his head. “We won’t make it.”
“Will they be okay?”
“Yep,” Dathan answered. “They’re used to sandstorms. They’ll find the best spot to wait it out and their thick coats protect them.”
“We don’t have the same protection,” Damon said. The thought of harsh sand ripping into Lexa’s smooth skin made his chest tighten. “Look for a cave, an overhang, anything.”
They kept climbing, the wind turning to a low howl around them. No caves appeared. Fuck.
“Is it true the sandstorm can take your skin off?” Lexa’s voice was labored from the climb.
Dathan’s face was grim. “Yes. And this one looks bad.”
Suddenly, Lexa lost her footing. She fell, skidding down the rocky-sandy slope.
Damon grabbed her hand,
halting her fall. She struggled to get her feet under her. The wind was whipping her hair into her face and he felt sand stinging his own cheeks.
She expelled a harsh breath. “I can’t…don’t let go.”
“I won’t. Take your time, move your foot slowly.”
She took in a shuddering breath and did as he instructed. A second later, he yanked her up beside him. She let out her breath.
“Keep moving,” Dathan urged. “No time to rest.” He glanced behind them. “Fuck, never seen one like this in my entire life.”
Damon gave the ugly, billowing storm a single glance, then kept climbing, urging Lexa ahead of him.
The visibility decreased further and Damon’s tingle was back. Desert wolves attacking in the day, a massive sinkhole, and now a freak sandstorm bigger and faster than anything Phoenix had seen.
Something was off. Someone, or something, didn’t want them to find this temple.
“Up there.” Lexa pointed.
At first, he didn’t see anything, then he spotted it. A dark opening, like a mouth against the sand and rocks. “Go!”
The wind was a fierce wail now and the sand hitting them felt like the bite of a thousand tiny whips.
They moved with renewed energy. Then Dathan yelled, “Shit, it’s coming.”
A huge blast of sand-laden wind hit them. Damon was knocked down. He heard Lexa yell, and he squinted to look for her, barely able to make out her shadowy form in the dust. Dathan rushed past him in a tumble.
But the cave entrance was close. Damon focused on getting inside. Nothing else mattered. His concentration narrowed, like it had on many missions before. He grabbed Lexa and tossed her through the opening. He searched for Dathan, but didn’t see him. Shit. Then Damon heard coughing.
Using the sound, he found the young man clinging to a large rock and grabbed him. The wind was a constant roar, now. They stumbled against the strength of it and a second later, they staggered into the cave.
The sound immediately dimmed. They were all breathing heavily. Lexa had moved deeper into the small space, and was huddled against the wall, her hair and clothes disheveled. Damon looked down at Dathan. The boy looked dazed, one cheek covered in an abrasion from the sand, but other than that he was fine. He helped Dathan sit, then turned to look out the cave mouth.
The wind and sand was like the howl of a screaming starship engine. Damon had experienced a sandstorm or two on other desert planets, but he’d never seen anything like this.
“That—” Dathan jabbed a finger at the storm “—is not natural.”
Damon frowned. “Maybe the goddess doesn’t want her temple or her treasure found.”
Lexa stirred. “On Earth, there were legends of ancient cultures putting curses on their temples and tombs to stop treasure hunters from plundering them.”
Damon looked again at the violent storm. He wasn’t worried about millennia-old curses. He was worried about more modern and dangerous threats. And the worst threat of all was an unknown one, because you never saw it coming until it was too late.
— FIFTEEN —
Lexa paced the small cave. “I think it’s dying off.”
Damon raised an eyebrow. “It’s the same.” He was sprawled against the cave wall, looking for all the world like he was resting on a beach at the up-and-coming resort planet of Duna.
She huffed out a breath and crossed the narrow space again. Dathan was fast asleep, stretched out on the rocky floor. The treasure hunter could apparently sleep anywhere—she looked at the sand racing past the entrance—and through anything.
Frustrated at being trapped, she wandered a little deeper into the cave. She clicked on her ion light.
“Lexa.” A warning tone.
She waved a hand at him. “I’m not going to tumble into some disaster or wrestle a cave monster.”
The cave narrowed a little, then widened again. The walls were the same dark, smooth rock as the pillars outside. She shone the light around. Nothing interesting; only a few stalactites hanging from the ceiling that glittered with some sort of mineral content.
She reached the back and turned to rejoin the others.
Then her light passed over an arch of rock hidden in the back corner of the cave. A tunnel!
She hurried over. Yes, there was a tunnel leading farther into the rock. She moved the light around but it barely penetrated the darkness. She stepped back. She had to tell the others.
Then she noted the shape of the entrance to the passage.
It was egg shaped. Coincidence? She didn’t think so.
She hurried back to Damon. “Guess what I found.”
“Hey, some of us are trying to sleep,” Dathan grumbled.
“Well, you should have slept more last night.”
Dathan grinned. “Like you did?”
She rolled her eyes at him and reached down to tug Damon’s arm. “Come on. I found a tunnel back there. A passageway that leads deeper into the hill. And I think it was built by the priestesses.” She saw Damon’s mouth open. “And no, Mr. Over Protective, I didn’t go inside it.”
His eyes glinted. “All right. Let’s take a look.”
The three of them reached the tunnel entrance. They all clicked on their ion lights.
“Looks stable,” Dathan said.
Damon nodded. “Let’s check it out. But any sign of danger, we head back here.”
It was so narrow they had to follow each other. After a brief argument on who would lead, Damon won. Lexa followed, poking her tongue out at his back and Dathan brought up the rear.
The tunnel led straight ahead before starting to slope gently downward.
“Dathan, I don’t think you need to shine your light on my ass,” she said drily.
“Why not? It’s a very fine one.”
Cheeky upstart. She fought back a smile.
Damon made a short sound and the light moved upward.
Lexa kept trying to peer around Damon. “Do you see anything?”
“Yes.”
“What?” Her breath hitched.
“Rock and darkness.”
“Smart ass,” she muttered.
But a minute later, he held a hand up for them to stop. “I think I see something. There’s light ahead.”
They moved on and Lexa wanted to urge him to hurry, but she knew he was too careful for that.
As they moved farther in, they discovered the source of the light was the sun, breaking through the now-dissipating sandstorm and spearing into the tunnel.
“We came right through the hill.” Lexa stared down below. More sand dunes and more spiky rocks of the Dragon’s Spine. No temple in sight. Her shoulders sagged.
Dathan swore. “This temple does not want to be found.”
Lexa stared at the rocks. Maybe the goddess was protecting her place of worship and her egg? Then Lexa realized her gaze kept returning to a particular set of rocks. She blinked. They looked like the rest, long, jagged fingers spearing upward.
But they were arranged in a perfect oval.
Around an egg-shaped rock set right in the center.
“Tell me I’m not imagining things,” she said.
The men followed her gaze.
“I would have missed it,” Dathan murmured. “Nice work, Lexa.”
Damon grinned at her. “Go.”
She stepped out and skidded down the hill through the sand and rocks. She stepped into the circle of standing stones.
Lexa imagined she sensed a hum of power in the air. The rocks were all similar sizes, worn down through time, and a couple had fallen over but they were definitely organized in an oval.
The Temple of the Divine Goddess. This had to be it.
She wandered the circle, letting her hand touch the smooth stone. “There’s probably some astronomical alignment.” She pulled out her Sync and set it to scan. She could look up the databases and star charts and see what fit. She knew the priestesses had associated the goddess with numerous stars and constellations.
“Holy stars, look at this.” Dathan walked toward her. In his hands, he held a carved statue of a woman. “It was half buried in the sand.”
She was tall and slim, her hands clutching a sword. Lexa frowned. Her garments didn’t look like the priestesses’ dress. This woman wore tight pants with some sort of vest. She looked more like a warrior than an Orphic priestess.
Lexa’s Sync beeped and she stared at the shiny surface. Her stomach dropped. “It can’t be—”
“What?” Damon asked, frowning.
“It isn’t old enough.” She stared blindly at the standing stones.
“What?” Dathan said.
“It’s only a few hundred years old.” She sagged against the rocks. “Two hundred, at most.”
Now Dathan was scowling. “There was no one out here a few hundred years ago. And this looks much older than a few centuries. That makes no sense.” He thrust out the statue. “What about this?”
She scanned it with the Sync. She couldn’t believe the results. She snatched it from him, turned and swung it against the nearest standing stone.
“Lexa, no!” Dathan yelled.
The statue shattered, leaving her holding a very shiny and very modern wire mesh form.
“Fuck!” Dathan’s face turned red with rage. He spun and stalked off.
Dazed, Lexa dropped to her knees on the ground. “Maybe the vase and its map were a hoax. A big joke supposed to suck someone like me into it.” She laughed bitterly. “My father will have a field day with this.”
Damon leaned a shoulder against one of the standing stones, watching her.
Lexa scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’ll be a laughingstock among my colleagues.” Not that she really cared about that. The sneering, pitying glances wouldn’t be anywhere as bad as her father’s knowing, smug look. “I should never have set foot out of the museum.”
“You finished?”
She frowned. “What?”
“You finished with your pity party?”
Her head snapped up. She couldn’t have heard right. “Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Now, are you done?”
She shot to her feet. “I’m having a crisis here, Malik. All this is fake! There’s no temple, no treasure, nothing. Where is your sympathy?”
