Relentless (Lodestone)

by Cherry Adair

  He didn’t have much, if any, faith in the locals. Kidnapping might not be a cottage industry in Egypt as it was in South America, but the local authorities were more likely to turn a blind eye than investigate. This was above their pay grade. The kidnapping plot was sophisticated and elaborate, well thought out and flawlessly executed. In other words, professional. These were no backwater thieves looking for a quick payout.

  Too bad for their kidnappers that it wasn’t going to fucking well work. He’d die trying to save Isis, and she was equally determined to live.

  It was hard to tell if what he’d found was a cave or a long-forgotten tomb entrance, but it was imperative they find shelter until the storm stopped. The good news was, the bad guys weren’t going anywhere in the sandstorm, either.

  What looked like a pile of fragmented mud brick blocks, almost completely obscured by piles of sand taller than he was, indicated an opening. “This way.”

  Isis spread her hand on one of the blocks for balance as the wind picked up velocity, almost strong enough to knock her off her feet. “This looks like the access corridor to a burial chamber.” She raised her voice over the rustle of sand blowing against sand. Without further ado, she turned sideways and slipped into the narrow, dark opening.

  The woman was fearless. Denizens of the desert would have the same sense of self-preservation, and Thorne expected to encounter snakes and scorpions as well as assorted other critters waiting to welcome them inside. Venturing into a pitch-black, confined space—while unavoidable—could prove as fatal as staying outside in the elements.

  Thorne paused to look back the way they’d come. Their footprints had already been wiped away, leaving no sign of their passing. A plus. The speed of the wind pretty much guaranteed that their faux camp was blown away as well.

  “Connor?”

  He loved hearing his name on her lips. When the hell had anyone last used it? His associates called him Thorne. His parents used his middle name, James, and his lovers called him by endearments. The only person who’d called him Connor had been his twin, Garrett. The ache in his chest had nothing to do with squeezing his too-large body through a too-narrow, unyielding opening.

  Bending and contorting, he squeezed in after her. The opening was several inches too low and uncomfortably narrow for the width of his body. Letting out his breath, Thorne forced his torso to follow an arm and a leg. But for a moment he was pinned in place, neither in nor out, the pressure of the unyielding stones surrounding him, squeezing the air from his lungs.

  The position painfully reminded Thorne of Yermalof’s men pinning him down while the Russian finished torturing Maciej and Ayers. He felt the same pressure to survive now, the same urgency.

  “Thorne, is it too tight?” There was a trace of panic in her voice, and a slim beam of light flashed through the opening as she shone the torch through the skinny opening.

  Closing his eyes, he imagined himself on the other side and pushed his body through the opening like a ship rope through a sewing needle.

  FOURTEEN

  It was almost quiet inside. Isis stood feet from the doorway, the flashlight pointed at the ground. She pushed her scarf off her hair and down off her face. “I was just about to see if I had a shoehorn or some baby oil to slip you in.”

  Unwinding the scarf from around his head and face as well, Thorne smiled. “Hold the thought on that baby oil.” He stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust, allowing his breathing to even out after the exertion. His night vision was above average, and with the faint glow of the small flashlight he could make out most of the shapes and walls inside the room.

  The chamber was small, perhaps twelve feet by twelve. Rough-hewn brick walls, dirt floor. It smelled of dust and charred wood from a long-dead fire, evidenced by a tall black scorch mark up one wall and part of the low ceiling, and a pile of half-burned wood in the far corner.

  Isis shone the narrow beam of the little flashlight along the walls. “No limestone revetment with reliefs and paintings.” She sounded disappointed. “Probably the necropolis of the workers who built a tomb nearby. Hey! If the Valley of the Scorpions is on the other side of this ridge, maybe they built Cleopatra’s tomb?” Her voice rose, as the idea clearly appealed to her.

  “Wouldn’t that be an amazingly cool payoff to all the running-chasing-kidnapping we’ve been through?” She slowly shone the light around. Every now and then Thorne would guide her hand to direct it at something so he could assess their situation.

  “I think the stones and rock out there were originally part of a heavy stone plug, something they’d use to seal the tomb to discourage people from coming in after they left. A robber would have to chip away at it for a long, long time to get in.”

  She directed the beam across the dirt floor littered with fragments and shards of clay, using the light as a pointer. “That looks like part of a stone sarcophagus, and these are pottery shards. Bones over there. Robbers must’ve stolen whatever they could carry a long, long time ago. But at least it’s relatively warm and out of the wind.”

  The bones didn’t seem to bother her, but perhaps she knew they were animal, not human? Two large winged beetles flew into the stream of light. Isis merely swatted them with the flashlight, without the usual female shrieks of fright. His estimation of her went up another notch.

  “This was probably the entrance the workers used,” she told him, swatting away the various small bugs that flew around the light. “Hey! Look.” The light jerked across the wall to illuminate a half-collapsed square hole in the back wall. “That’s a tunnel, probably leading to a corridor. And maybe to a burial chamber—”

  He had no intention of wandering around miles of underground tunnels to explore. “We’re not tourists,” he pointed out. “We don’t have enough light to sightsee, and I don’t want to use more energy than we need to. We only have half a bottle of water between us. That won’t last long if we’re walking around when we don’t need to. Plus we could get lost. As soon as this wind stops we’ll go up on the ridge and see if we can spot some sort of a landmark. But there’s no telling how long we’ll be away from civilization. Once our eyes adjust we should only use the light when necessary.”

  “My vote is to use it as much as we want, and when it dies, we’ll be in Cairo at a nice restaurant eating a candlelight dinner.”

  Charmed by her, Thorne shook his head. She had a point. “Fair enough. The bugs certainly appreciate it.”

  She crouched down, using a flat stone to scrape off a clear spot in the sand. “This could be a diorite fragment.” She held it up. “Perhaps from a vessel of some kind.”

  “Unless it’s a pillow and a feather tick, I don’t give a damn. I need to get off this leg, maybe take a short kip, and get an early start.”

  “Is a kip something that goes with leather and baby oil?”

  He grinned. “A kip is a nap, but yes, it could certainly go with leather and baby oil. One of these days we’ll have to combine the three and see.

  “Here, give me that. We can do what needs to be done without it for a while.” Taking the flashlight from her, he clicked it off, then stuck it in his back pocket, plunging them into unrelieved darkness.

  She grabbed his arm and he pulled her closer. “Afraid of the dark?”

  “No. I’m afraid of what’s in the dark.”

  “Any snakes will be trying to stay warm and shouldn’t bother us.”

  “From your mouth. Turn the flashlight on,” she instructed, her voice a little high. “I don’t care if the batteries run down. I want a light on.”

  Handing her the flashlight, he removed the sleeping bag from the duffel, tossing it on the area she’d cleared. She trained the narrow beam where he needed it, without asking. “I’ll make a fire.”

  “With what?” Isis asked, wrapping a bit of clothing around her hand and efficiently picking up two scorpions at the same time. “Two sticks rubbed together?” She tossed the scorpions outside, then shone the light in a grid pattern, presumably
to find and kick out any more roommates.

  “A lighter.” He took a leather-covered keychain out of his pocket. A creative and indispensable item the kidnappers hadn’t thought to take off him. It was a combination lighter and Swiss Army knife and had several other features that had served him well over the years. A gift from Zak Stark engraved, FOR THE MAN WHO HAS EVERYTHING. At the time Zak had given it to him, it seemed like Thorne indeed had everything—at least from the outsider’s perspective. A rich, titled family, a body in its prime, and a supermodel for a girlfriend. But if anyone had dug deeper they would have seen the darker, seething mess bubbling just beneath the surface.

  His father made sure no one ever knew what happened behind closed doors. All the wealth was a payoff for the abuse he witnessed or experienced himself. The girlfriend liked his wallet better than him. And his body—well, he’d learned the hard way you only got one.

  He flicked the lighter out of the device. “See if you can find something to burn. Just don’t stick your hand anywhere dangerous.”

  “I know somewhere dangerous I could stick my hand, and we’d both get warm.”

  Thorne smiled in the darkness. “Why, Miss Magee, that’s extremely forward of you.”

  “Here.” She shoved a handful of food wrappers at him. “That wood in the corner is probably three centuries old, but I say we use it.”

  “I’ll get it.” Rummaging in the duffel, he took out his custom Fioravanti suit jacket. “All I need is for you to get bitten by any of a number of poisonous insects.”

  “Why is it okay for you to get bitten?”

  “Let’s neither of us get bitten, okay?” Thorne used the toe of his boot to break up the clump of logs and small sticks. A few scorpions scurried away into the darkness. Crouching down, he wrapped the jacket around the wood and carried the bundle across the small chamber, tossing it down near the sleeping bag.

  “You don’t carry around any perfume with you in your bag, do you?”

  “Oh, God—I stink, don’t I?”

  “You smell incredible.” And when she scowled at him, he rephrased: “You smell hot and sexy, and I want you like mad. No, I need an accelerant. Perfume would work.”

  “How about hand sanitizer?” She opened her camera bag and started taking things out. The little bottle was of course right at the bottom. She fished it out and handed it to him.

  “Hand sanitizer is perfect.”

  It took only a few moments to get a spark from the hand cleaner and candy wrappers, and a minute or two to get a decent blaze going. Orange light flickered on the walls.

  THORNE TOOK THE DUFFEL and a handful of shirts and pants and stuffed them in the narrow doorway opening, to keep out the sand, but also so their campfire didn’t attract any attention. Satisfied that the glow, small as it was, couldn’t be seen from outside, he turned to find Isis standing in the middle of the space, watching him.

  He took her hand and led her to the sleeping bag. Sitting at last, he tugged her down beside him and lay back. Thorne suppressed a groan of appreciation for the relief of his pained leg.

  Isis came willingly, lying down when he did, her body half over his. Wrapping an arm across his chest, she curled a knee over his hips, then sighed as she snuggled her head into the curve of his shoulder. Soft, cinnamon-scented hair brushed his chin.

  A shudder ran through her body and he smoothed his palm up and down her slender back, pulling her against his side with one hand and tugging the edge of the down sleeping bag over her—or part of her. The back of her T-shirt was damp, her skin cold even though it must be in the low seventies. It pissed him off that she was anything but comfortable.

  “I like that,” she murmured, her breath warm and moist against his throat.

  “What? This?” He trailed his fingers up her back and her arm tightened around his chest

  “My father loves me, but he’s not touchy-feely. My mom was. It’s strange how one can miss something as simple as a loving touch in comfort, not sex.” She tilted her head to look at him. “Not that I don’t enjoy the hell out of touches prior, during, and after great sex, mind you.”

  He smiled against her hair. “What happened to her?”

  “She had a heart attack. A congenital heart defect no one knew about. She died in her sleep on my twelfth birthday.”

  “So young?”

  “Barely forty. It devastated my dad. My parents had a great marriage, even if he spent most of the time here and not with us in Seattle. Mom anchored him to the real world.” She smiled at a memory. “She came on a couple of digs. Disastrous,” she chuckled. “God, she hated everything about it.”

  “It isn’t for everybody.” Scorpions, flies, unrelenting heat. Disappointment.

  “She let me come. Sometimes for a few weeks, and several times she let me attend school here so I could be with my father when he made some spectacular discovery and he refused to leave. Her death was… difficult for him. He didn’t know what to do without her.”

  “But he was apart from her most of the time,” Thorne pointed out gently. Her rose-colored glasses rationalized everyone’s actions for the better, without leaving room for her own feelings. “Worse for a young girl losing her mother. Especially at that age, I imagine.”

  “It wasn’t easy,” Isis admitted. “I went to live with my aunt. Acadia and I became like sisters. I miss Mom, but Dad’s disease is ten times worse. He doesn’t know me anymore, and it breaks my heart.” Her body tensed a fraction against his. “I have to find Cleo’s tomb for him, Connor. I have to prove that all the years he spent away from us were worth it. Can you understand that?”

  “Yeah.” He brushed his lips across her cheek. “I can.”

  “Tell me about Garrett. Were you identical?”

  “Mirror images. People frequently confused us. It was great fun in school.” And hell at home. “He was a great brother and a good friend. And I miss him every day.”

  “What made you different?”

  “Everything other than our looks. Garrett was the better man in every way. He was everything my parents trained him to be from birth. No rebelling for him. He was the brain, I the brawn. But Garrett didn’t have the freedoms I enjoyed.

  “I played hard, and he studied hard. He’d been moody and quiet for months. The pressure of reaching his majority, and dealing with everything His Lordship was throwing at him, plus that law degree our father so prized. There was a ridiculous amount of pressure put on his shoulders, and he never seemed to take time for fun unless I coerced him into playing truant now and then. He loved reading, would camp out in the library at the house or up in his rooms all day if I didn’t drag him out to the pub or a rugby game. I was the one who insisted on going sailing that day, despite the weather warnings.

  “We’d just turned twenty-one, and I was full of piss and vinegar and feeling invincible.” Thorne dragged in a harsh breath. “I dragged him with me because I wanted his company and thought he’d enjoy a day out on the water.

  “We’d been fighting the high winds and currents for an hour, trying to head back to port. I loved it, but Garrett was pissed at me. He wasn’t fond of sailing, and was afraid as the boat tossed and turned. I made sure—for about the seventh time—that his safety harness was clipped to the jackline, and his life vest secure, then sent him to secure a line. I don’t know why the hell he unclipped his safety line—stubborn bastard, had to do it his own way, by damn. A wave broke over the stern, and he was just… gone.”

  Isis’s arm tightened around his chest. “I’m so sorry. It must’ve been hideous at the time, and unbearable to have to go home and tell your parents.”

  Hideous was an understatement. “They never forgave me. And I don’t blame them.”

  She didn’t say, as some of his peers had done, that it hadn’t been his fault. He hadn’t forced his brother to go out with him. He’d attempted, numerous times, to tether him securely. It didn’t matter what the hell he’d done to ensure his brother’s safety. He’d failed. And failed monume
ntally.

  “Why would anyone in their right mind keep taking off a safety harness?” she asked softly, bringing her fingers up to touch his face.

  “Who knows?” Thorne shrugged, chest tight.

  “You know,” Isis whispered in an achingly soft voice, her breath warm on his throat. “Did your parents?”

  She’d gotten it after one conversation when others, who’d known them well, had seen no further than the nose on their faces. “No. Only me.”

  He felt her tears against his skin. “Oh, Connor…”

  Pressing his lips to her forehead, Thorne’s fingers tightened in her silky hair as his heart swelled with an unnamed emotion. “Thank you.” It took him several seconds before he could speak normally. “Now close your eyes. The wind doesn’t appear to be stopping. Sleep for a couple of hours.”

  “I can’t sleep,” she whispered, shifting restlessly against his side. “It’s been an insane day.” She slid her hand from his chest. Thorne’s belly contracted as she glided her hand beneath his belt and found his hard length unerringly. Cool fingers curled around his dick.

  Lifting her mouth to meet his she murmured, “Make love to me, Connor.”

  THORNE LIFTED UP ON his elbow. God, she was pretty. Without her glasses on she looked younger, innocent, and achingly sweet. Not his type. Not his type by a long shot. But feeling the brush of her fingers on his chest, having those heated Bambi eyes directed at him, almost made him a believer.

  Or maybe having someone else share his secret burden made him feel—lighter.

  Primitive firelight danced on the walls, bathing her skin, turning her creamy complexion to a warm caramel and her dark hair to flame. With a little hum of appreciation that vibrated in his groin, she slid her palm up his chest, then curled her hand around his neck, her fingers cool and smooth as she tugged his mouth down to hers.

  “One day,” she said wistfully, “I’d like to make love in a big bed with crisp sheets, and while we’re at it, twenty-four-hour room service.”