by Robyn Nyx
Rayne Marcellus knows what people want, and she’s damn good at getting it. Antiquities is her game, and she’s the best there is, moving in the shadows even as she trades in the light. When an ambitious criminal approaches her to take on a deadlier game than even she’s willing to play, she knows she has to stop him. But she’ll need help…
After a previous betrayal, Chase Stinsen doesn’t want anything to do with Rayne. Chase believes archaeology is a tool to understand the past in an effort to help the future and has no use for profiting from the finds of history. But when Rayne proposes they track the legendary Golden Trinity, with the added benefit of helping indigenous tribes, she’s hooked.
Danger lurks around every corner, and their defenses crumble as they have to depend on one another to survive. If Chase can finally trust Rayne again, she might just end up with more than the gold.
What Reviewers Say About Robyn Nyx’s Work
Music City Dreamers
“Fans of the show Nashville will love Music City Dreamers by Robyn Nyx, for its angsty drama involving megastars and aspiring singers, songwriters and record executives.”—NPR
“I am so glad Ms. Nyx made this foray into lesbian romance. She has captured the passion and intense emotions of the two women, as well as weaving a fascinating story. …The story centers around an intriguing romance but also the struggle LGBT people face in homophobic industries and areas of the country. Ms Nyx managed to get across the tension and fear involved in living in such an environment.”—Kitty Kat’s Book Review Blog
“I really enjoyed Nyx’s storytelling approach to this subtly-crafted, well-told love story between two very different music dreamers. …To sum up—a bloody good read!”—In Bugs’ Own Words
Death in Time
“A seriously impressive end to this amazing trilogy! …The mission is full-on action that never lets up.”—Kitty Kat’s Book Review Blog
Change in Time
“I didn’t think it was possible to top the first in the Extractor Series by Robyn Nyx but I was wrong. Change in Time is exciting, tense, romantic and sexy.”—Kitty Kat’s Book Review Blog
Escape in Time
“As an opening to the Extractor Trilogy, Escape In Time is the perfect introduction as it introduces main characters Landry and Delaney who have a complicated friendship, lifestyles and job. The perfect mix of sci-fi and history, the story is fascinating and will make you think!”—LesBiReviewed
“Ms. Nyx tells an awesome story with real characters, and that to my mind is the goal of a good book.”—Lesbian Reading Room
“A really good read that incorporated sci-fi, romance, adventure and a whole lot more.”—Kitty Kat’s Book Review Blog
Never Enough
“Nyx’s debut is a grim but entertaining thriller that makes up for some truly grisly moments of violence with two well-realized heroines. …But readers who can handle the gory content will find it well balanced by plenty of romance and copious amounts of sex, as well as a solid cast of supporting characters and some insightful handling of contemporary social issues.”—Publishers Weekly
“[Nyx’s] debut novel grabbed my attention from the first page and it kept me captive until the last word.”—The Lesbian Review
Uncharted
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Uncharted
© 2019 By Robyn Nyx. All Rights Reserved.
ISBN 13: 978-1-63555-326-0
This Electronic Original Is Published By
Bold Strokes Books, Inc.
P.O. Box 249
Valley Falls, NY 12185
First Edition: December 2019
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Credits
Editor: Cindy Cresap
Production Design: Susan Ramundo
Cover Design By Robyn Nyx
By the Author
Never Enough
Escape in Time
Change in Time
Death in Time
Music City Dreamers
Uncharted
Acknowledgments
Once again, I’d like to thank the family at Bold Strokes Books for continuing to believe in me. It’s an honor to be part of the legacy Radclyffe and her team have created. My thanks also go to Cindy Cresap, my editor, for making each manuscript polished and ready for the world, and for seemingly enjoying working with an author whose work is like I’ve “vandalized a Hallmark store.”
I need to thank Ginette Murray, a real-life archeologist, for her invaluable consultation, fact-checking, and research. Ginette is also an avid reader and supporter of Bold Strokes Books generally. At every UK event, she purchases enough books to stock a small library, so we should all be thanking her!
And lastly, thanks to Brey Willows, my wonderful wife and authory partner, who puts up with every repetitive conversation we ever have about the world of writing and sits by my side for every sentence I create.
Dedication
To Brey, the woman I’m privileged to share my life, dreams, and words with.
You made this all possible, and I can never thank you enough.
Chapter One
Paris, 2018
Urban spelunker. Chase could add it to her résumé but supposed that the suits at Stanford wouldn’t be impressed. Nor would they add any danger money to her fee. She adjusted the face mask that was doing a pretty awful job at keeping the earthy, metallic tang of death at bay. Not for the first time that night, she lost her footing slightly and instinctively grabbed at the wall. It seemed terribly disrespectful to stick her fingers in someone’s eye sockets. Dead or not, that was just rude. But needs must. She didn’t fancy taking a gulp of the dank water she was wading through. Who knew how much of it was actually liquefied human? She prodded the toe of her rubber shoe along the wall and found a ledge. “Sorry…to all of you,” Chase muttered as she used the eye and nasal orifices of multiple skulls to edge toward dry land.
She pulled herself up onto the damp ground and squelched her way beyond a collection of skulls and bones that stretched between the ground and the ceiling, arranged like giant vases. The ends of limbs, thousands of them, looked like downturned hearts broken from the overwhelming weight of death pressing down on them. “This is a great advertisement for cremation,” she whispered before wondering why she was bothering to be quiet. It wasn’t like she could disturb anyone down here…So why was there another source of light other than her flashlight? Chase slowly advanced toward it on a four-inch-wide stone walkway between two black pools of foul-smelling liquid.
Then just like any good horror movie, “CHUNKY CHASE STINSEN!”
She swiveled to face the direction of the hollering, twisted her ankle, and lost her footing. Chase sprawled backward and felt weightless for the tiniest fraction of a moment before the filthy water broke her fall and she was submerged in its darkness. She came up for air, her arm outstretched to find purchase on something, anything. A strong hand wrapped around her wrist and pulled her from her putrid predicament in one tug. She landed on her feet and wiped the sludge from her eyes just in time to see Rayne Marcellus lift the skull of Joan of Arc from its stone altar.
Chase pulled her face mask down. “What the hell are you
doing here?” She’d just spent three hours wading through freezing cold pools of God-knows-what. To lose another treasure to Marcellus? How many times could this keep happening?
“That’s no way to greet a fellow professional, now is it?”
Defeat ripped through Chase like a hurricane. She raised her eyebrow. “I’m not greeting a fellow professional though, am I? I’m saying a cordial hello to a well-heeled grave digger.”
Rayne brought her free hand up to her chest and feigned offense. “Chase, your words wound me. But I forgive you. I expect the raw burn of repeated failure is the only thing making you speak to me with such disrespect.”
Chase went to move toward Rayne, but the giant brick shithouse of a woman who’d pulled her out of the water stepped forward and blocked her path.
“Think about your next move, Stinsen,” Brick Woman said as she crossed her arms across her considerable chest and smirked.
Chase clenched her jaw, irritated that Rayne’s new team member knew her name. It sounded more like a dare than a warning. She’d been training hard for the last month. Capoeira. Tae kwon do. The gym. A quick scenario of her versus Brick Woman played out in her head, but it wasn’t a happy or bloodless ending for Chase. She held up her hands. “Fine.” She craned her neck around the mountain of a woman and jutted her chin toward Rayne. “If you’re good with taking something that belongs to the people of this country.” It was likely a waste of breath, but Chase held on to a sliver of hope that one day Rayne might surprise her and locate her missing conscience in the sea of money she’d made raiding tombs for billionaires. “She’s their saint, not yours.”
“I don’t need her or anyone else to be my saint.” Rayne smiled as she held up the skull and inspected her prize. “Isn’t it amazing how we all look more or less the same when our flesh is long gone and we’re reduced to bones?”
Rayne’s esoteric observation seemed out of place, but it was something Chase had gotten used to over the past few years. She occasionally wondered what it might be like to have a real conversation with Rayne, away from dead and ancient artifacts, far from this cutthroat competition they’d cultivated…like old times. Sharing a good bottle of wine from Rayne’s renowned collection before…Chase shook the intrusive thought away, not caring to admit that her wondering was more than occasional.
“Earth to Stinsen.” Brick Woman waved her hand in front of Chase’s face.
“And yet some of us are still more valuable than others,” Chase said. No doubt Joan of Arc’s skull was already bought and paid for by some private collector with more money than taste. Someone who’d keep her on a shelf for their rich friends to gawk at, ignorant of the history and struggle of an amazing woman.
Rayne shrugged. “As in life, in death.”
Another philosophical pearl. Rayne opened her leather satchel and placed the skull carefully inside. At least she was treating it with the respect it deserved. For now. “Doesn’t it ever bother you that you’re selling history to the highest bidder instead of facilitating its restitution to the whole world?” Chase asked.
“Then what would you do for a living?”
Rayne smiled again, a mischievous sparkle in her eyes. Chase wished Rayne was a man. Or at least not such an alluring woman. It didn’t seem fair that God would have bestowed so much talent on one person. Intelligence, beauty, strength, Rayne Marcellus had everything Chase could want in a woman. But Rayne’s lack of a moral compass meant Chase’s actual attraction to her, beyond a wild fantasy, was way south of never gonna happen.
Brick Woman turned and gathered the floor lights they’d set up. An equally sizeable companion appeared from around the corner with a duffel bag—they looked like two oversized, matching book ends—and Chase watched, frustratingly helpless, as yet another priceless archeological find disappeared from her grasp.
Rayne winked before walking away with her two henchwomen a few steps behind, covering her back. Brick Woman tossed a dismissive sneer as she turned the corner, leaving Chase holding her flashlight…and little else. The suits at Stanford weren’t going to be understanding about yet another loss to Rayne Marcellus.
Chapter Two
Syria, 2019
Chase closed her eyes as another round of artillery bombardment somehow managed to echo across the vast emptiness of Syrian desert. Where once this land had boasted some of the finest examples of Hellenistic buildings and art, now landmines and dynamite traversed the rubble and ruins of a history ISIS forces were determined to destroy. She backed up a little closer to the smooth stone of the temple column and tried to breathe as quietly as a whisper on a wild wind. She concentrated on controlling the thudding of her panicked heart against her ribcage, and the thoughts spiraling around her mind cursing her for taking this job. Though a few years had passed since ISIS had beheaded the director of antiquities and displayed his mutilated body on a column much like the one she was now pressed against, the image was fresh. It would never leave her and had haunted her for the few nights prior to this trip.
“I don’t want you to go.”
Chase smiled, holding tight to the pride she’d felt when Noemie’s protective nature had kicked in. But it was rich coming from a young combat medic who’d already completed two fifteen-month tours of Iraq and Africa.
“I’ll be fine. I always am. Anyway, isn’t it me that’s supposed to be the one that worries?”
The angry spitting of fully automatic machine gun fire jolted Chase from her memories and pulled her back into the cold darkness of the desert night. She pressed the heel of her palm to the side of her head. If she wasn’t fully in this moment, right now, if she wasn’t aware of every little thing that was going on around her, she could find herself the next ISIS proclaimed idolater on a column all her own.
She moved slowly around the pillar. In the distance, though not far enough, distinct golden flashes of gunfire dappled the night sky like stars raging at the gods. She wondered what Queen Zenobia would make of those weapons on her territory and bet she’d have liked them plenty back in 270 CE. Maybe then she wouldn’t be in the tomb that Chase was hunting down now. She retreated back around the ancient stone and retrieved her pack from the ground. She hoisted it over her shoulders and pulled the straps tight. With all the portable lights, camera, and laser scanning equipment in there in addition to her usual gear, it weighed a damn sight more than she was used to. Happy coincidence that she’d been training hard for over a year. It’d given Chase the results she wanted so jacking her pack around didn’t present a problem. And Rayne Marcellus wouldn’t be making comment about her physique the next time they had a run-in.
She lifted the thermal imaging scope to her eye and scanned across the hundred-and-eighty-degree area that lay in front of her. She didn’t register any warm bodies on two legs close enough to be of concern. It was go time.
* * *
Chase dropped her pack to the floor, released her climbing rope, and quickly tied a double constrictor knot around the vertical bar of the iron gate. She walked to the crude, blasted hole in the ground and tossed the rope length down it. She focused her Maglite and could see a few curls of unraveled rope. The satellite imaging had been able to show the underground structure beneath the castle, but the Stanford techs hadn’t been sure of its depth from the castle floor and had estimated it at two hundred feet. Seeing the relatively little amount of rope gathered on the cave floor, Chase was glad she’d insisted on a three-hundred-foot rope. She fixed the Maglite to her harness, turned back to the gate, and refastened its chain to keep it from swinging open while she rappelled into the cavern.
Chase stepped onto the edge of the crater and tautened her line before slowly lowering herself until her legs were level with where the ground had given way when the Ms7 earthquake had hit Syria three days ago. Thousands had died, and the underground structure Chase now held herself over had been revealed. She was the archeologist they’d called to go in. They knew she was the only one crazy enough to disregard the risk of being caught
by ISIS. Or at least that’s what her carefully cultivated reputation made them think. As she began to sweat with the heat and exertion of the undertaking, being discovered by extremists was at the absolute forefront of her mind. But there was no way she’d be anywhere else right now.
She released the descender and welcomed the cooler air as she traveled downward. The rappel gave her time to think about the legend she was hoping to prove as fact. Chase had long been fascinated with Zenobia, the Warrior Queen of Egypt. Her rule in the traditionally masculine world of the Arabian desert had motivated Chase to become an archeologist, after it had first given her the strength to accept who and what she was. And in between paying gigs and lectures, she dedicated her time to discovering the truth behind Zenobia’s disappearance once she was defeated by the Roman Emperor Aurelian. Chase didn’t want to believe the story of her being married off to a Roman senator or of her committing suicide. She wanted to unearth a hero’s death and the loyalty of her staff that saw her body hidden from those who would parade her through the streets as a warning to other women, or men, who might have the gumption to defy the Roman Empire.
And that’s exactly what the new batch of unearthed Vindolanda tablets described.
