by Jayne Castle
The flash of relief he had experienced after waking evaporated. In its place was a bottomless pool of dread. He had to face the grim truth: After weeks of being so cautious, so careful, there was a damn good chance that he had destroyed the glowing future he had worked so hard to build.
He had no one to blame but himself.
Virginia had had a bad case of bridal jitters before they embarked on this venture. After what he had done to her here in this room, she no doubt despised him. It would be a miracle if he hadn't scared the living daylights out of her. She was probably making plans this very minute not only to call off their marriage but their business partnership as well.
He picked up his shirt and got to his feet. Anger washed through him. He was furious with himself. The loss of control had been inexcusable. He could only pray that he had not hurt her.
How long had he been out? He glanced at his watch. Two hours. Long enough to restore some but not all of his depleted psi energy. He needed more sleep to function at full capacity but he could manage with what he had regained during the nap.
He grabbed his trousers and pulled them on. The only thing he could do to make amends to Virginia was to get her safely back to the surface.
A shadow moved in the doorway that separated the antechamber from the fountain room. Not illusion-shadow, but it might as well have been, given the hopelessness of his situation.
"Sam." Virginia hovered anxiously in the doorway. "You're awake. Everything okay?"
"Good enough." He realized with a jolt that he did not want to meet her eyes. He did not want to see the accusation and the wariness that he knew he would find there. "Nothing new outside?"
"We're still alone in this place. I'm beginning to think I was right when I suggested it might have once been a zoo. Something about the nature of the traps makes me think they were set to keep visitors away from whatever used to live in all these little apartments or cages."
"Whoever or whatever once lived in the cells is long gone." He reached for his boots. He did not remember removing them. His jaw tightened. "Got the mag-rez?"
"Right here." She took a few steps into the room to hand it to him. "Sam, are you really okay?"
"Don't worry, I'll be able to get us out of here." He took the narrow little gun from her and shoved it back into his belt. "There's probably another exit around here somewhere, but 1 think our best bet is to go back out the way we came."
She halted. "Back through the waterfall?"
"Yeah. It's the last thing Drummond would expect. Especially after all this time has passed. By now he'll have reported us officially missing, probably killed by an explosion of dissonance energy. I doubt if we'll find him hanging around on the other side waiting for us. But just in case, I'll have the mag-rez in my hand when we go through the waterfall."
"All right. Whatever you think best. You're the expert on ghost-energy."
He glanced down and realized that he was dressed. He could find no more excuses for avoiding her eyes. Time to act like a man. He turned slowly around to face her. "Virginia—"
"Sam—"
They both broke off, staring at each other. In the gloom it was impossible for him to read the expression in her eyes. If she was frightened of him, she was hiding it well, he thought.
He braced himself and tried again. "I'm sorry for what happened," he said evenly. "I don't know what else to say. I could promise you that it won't ever happen again, but I don't know if I can keep that promise."
She did not pretend to misunderstand. "I see."
He drew a deep breath. "I realize that you're probably having second thoughts about our business arrangement as well as our marriage. I don't blame you. I've been doing some thinking about it, too."
"You have?"
He glanced around the tranquil little room. "This is not the time or place to talk about how we're going to terminate our business futures."
"No, it's not." There was an unsettling, flat note in her voice.
"Yeah, well, let's save that conversation for later." He started toward the door, aware that even in the depths of the disaster, he was still trying to buy himself some time. The odds were strongly against him coming up with a way to talk her into going through with the marriage after what had happened, but he could not give up without a fight.
She looked at him as he went past her. "Sam, do you really regret what happened?"
"Hell, yes, I regret it." He planted one hand against the green stone doorway and turned to face her. "Making love to you was the last thing I wanted to do."
She stiffened. "I realize that you were rezzed up because of the afterburn."
"That was no excuse."
"Just tell me one thing. Would anything in skirts have worked for you two hours ago?"
He frowned at her trousers. "You aren't wearing skirts." She narrowed her eyes. "That was a figure of speech."
"It's never smart to use figures of speech when you're talking to a hunter who's still recovering from an afterburn. We tend to be literal, even on our good days."
"For heaven's sake, this is no time for wisecracks. We're talking about our future."
"I thought we just got through deciding to talk about it later." He took his hand off the wall and stalked into the fountain room.
"Damn it," she called out behind him, "don't you dare walk out on me when I'm talking to you. Come back here, Sam Gage."
"What the hell do you want from me?" He felt his temper ignite. "I said I'm sorry. I don't usually lose control, not even during an afterburn. But things got out of hand this time." She swept out her palm to indicate the quartz chest on which they had made love. "Didn't what happened in here mean anything to you?"
"Of course it did. It meant I screwed up everything. But what's done is done."
She raised her chin, eyes glittering with anger. "Would you undo it if you could?
"Didn't I just get through saying that I—" He broke off abruptly. There was no point lying about it. The damage was done. He set his back teeth. "I wish it had happened under other circumstances. I wish I had done things differently. I wish I hadn't scared the hell out of you."
"But you aren't really, truly sorry that you made love to me?"
He hesitated. "Well—"
"Just say it."
He felt cornered. Despair, anger, and frustration boiled together, a dangerous stew spiced with emotions he knew he did not handle well. "You want the truth? The truth is what I said to you just before I tossed you down onto that damned stone chest. The truth is that I've been wanting to make love to you since the first day I saw you."
A short, intense silence gripped the chamber.
Virginia's brows bristled in a ferocious scowl. "Good. Because that's pretty much how I've felt from the first moment I saw you, too."
He felt as if he'd just been struck by lightning. For a few seconds he was too stunned to do anything more than stare at her. "It is?
"Yes." She glared at him. "But you seemed so distant and cool. So businesslike. You kept talking about how many new clients we would attract working as a team. You went on and on about how much money we'd both make once we sold the house to developers."
He finally managed to unfreeze himself. He took a step toward her. "I never wanted to sell the house in the first place. I came up with the idea because I thought it would be a good way to talk you into a marriage-of-convenience. I figured if I—" He stopped. "Hell, I don't know what I was thinking."
She cleared her throat. "We're both adults. We're single. There's no reason we can't simply admit that we're attracted to each other. Marriages-of-convenience are designed for just this sort of situation."
"A legal, socially acceptable, two-year affair."
"Exactly." She shrugged. "If it's just passion, it will probably burn itself out in that length of time."
"Yeah. Sure." Never in a million years. How could he possibly let go of her in two years? Better not to go there in the first place if he knew that he would eventually lose her. But
how could he not take what she offered, given the lonely alternative. "Virginia—"
"That's what you wanted, wasn't it? That was the deal. A two-year MC." She smiled a little too brightly. "And I agreed."
She was acting weird, and it made him more uneasy than ever. What the hell was the matter with him? He had gotten exactly what he'd asked for, what he'd wished for when he'd concocted the plan in the first place.
"You know, you were right when you said that this was not the time or place to discuss this sort of thing," Virginia said briskly. "We'd better get going."
He moved toward her. "Is sex all you want out of this?
"Isn't that what you want out of it?"
"Sex is good. Great." Anger pulsed in him. "I can work with sex."
Her face tightened in renewed concern. "You know, you really don't look normal yet, Sam. You could still be suffering from afterburn. Maybe you'd better get some more sleep before we attempt to go back through that waterfall."
"You're right about one thing. I'm not feeling real normal."
Her eyes widened as he closed the distance between them. "Now hold on just one damn minute. If you think we're going to have sex every time you claim to be in the throes of an afterburn buzz, you can think again. I'll admit it's interesting, but—"
She stopped talking abruptly when he caught her wrists and pinned her to the wall.
"You just got through telling me that you were in this deal for the sex," he reminded her.
"I've got nothing against sex." Her voice was tight with anger. "But the next time we do it, I want to make sure it's for real. Not just the result of a bad burn buzz. Don't you get it?"
"No." He leaned in closer. "Explain it to me in short words."
"I want to be sure it's me you want. I want to be absolutely certain that not just any female would do."
"Trust me, no one else will do."
There was a short, tense silence. Then she cleared her throat and wriggled her fingers in his grasp. "In that case, stop acting like some macho jerk hunter."
He kept her wrists anchored against the wall. "But I am a macho jerk hunter."
"No, you are not," she muttered, seriously disgruntled now. "Stop talking like that."
"You've as good as said I behaved like a macho jerk hunter a couple of hours ago when I made love to you just before I crashed. What happens the next time we get into this kind of situation? Am I going to have to listen to a lot of accusations about how anything in skirts would do? When it's over, will I have to explain that I knew it was you I was having sex with?"
"Just because I wanted to be sure you knew it was me—"
"Believe me. I knew it was you. Just like I know it's you now."
He kissed her, hard and deliberately, letting her feel the frustration and temper she had aroused in him, letting her know that this time he knew full well that she was the woman he had pinned against the glowing quartz wall.
She went rigid. Despair knifed through him.
"Virginia." He released her wrists and caught her head between his hands. "Damn it, Virginia. I want you so much."
She gave a muffled cry and threw her arms around his neck, kissing him feverishly. "I didn't mean to call you a stupid, macho jerk hunter."
"Don't worry about it." Relief surged through him. "Sometimes I am a macho jerk hunter."
"No." She clenched her fingers in his hair. "Never. I knew from the first day that you weren't a macho jerk hunter."
"Yeah?" He took her tender earlobe between his teeth and nibbled hungrily. "What was your first clue?"
"You were reading the Journal of Para-Archaeology instead of the latest issue of Sex-Starved Psychic Playmates."
"Lucky for me my subscription ran out three months ago," he said very fervently against her throat. "I never got around to renewing it."
She laughed softly. Her head tipped back against his arm. "Oh, Sam, do you really think this will work?"
"We'll make it work." Two years. He had two full years to make it work. He touched the edge of his tongue to the soft skin beneath the collar of her shirt.
She stiffened.
"Sam?"
"It's okay. Even without the skirts, I'm positive I'm dealing with the right lady here."
"No, wait." She planted her palms against his shoulders and pushed him away from her.
He stilled, aware that something was wrong. "What is it?
"Psi energy. I can feel it. Someone is trying to take down the big trap at the entrance to this zoo."
"Drummond's friends. So they did come looking, after all." The charge of sexual anticipation that had been arcing through him instantly transmuted itself into another kind of high-rez buzz.
"Wait here." He turned and went swiftly across the fountain room. He halted in the outer doorway and listened intently. Sound carried underground. So did the feel of psi energy.
He heard voices reverberating in the distance. They came from the vicinity of the entrance to the vast zoo chamber.
"… waste of time. Don't care what Drummond says. No way the S.O.B. could made it through that waterfall with the little lady tangler. No small-time security guy could be that good. Even if he was that good and even if he did make it through with her, he'd have one hell of an afterburn. He'll be wasted for at least another hour or two."
"We're working for Fairbanks, not Drummond. He said not to take any chances, and he's the one paying us. The orders were to check out every possibility in this damned corridor, so that's what we're gonna do. Now, shut up and untangle this trap."
"Okay, okay. Give me a minute. It's a big sucker."
Sam left the doorway and went to where Virginia stood waiting.
"Let's go." He took her arm.
"Where?"
"Up." He took her arm and started toward the emerald staircase. "It's easier to hunt when you've got the high ground."
"Whatever you say."
She followed him up the narrow, twisting steps to the next level. He saw the gloom-shrouded entrance to another chamber similar to the one below. An energy fountain cascaded silently in the center. Several more ornately carved chests were arranged in an artful manner around the room.
But the thing that interested him the most was the narrow window. He hesitated before he crossed the threshold and glanced at Virginia.
"Trapped?
She shook her head, frowning intently. "No. This room is clear. Maybe this was the zoo's souvenir shop."
"Or the visitors' room in the prison." He went to the window, braced one hand on the wide ledge, and looked down into the lane. "This will work. If they bother to search this far, I'll have a clear shot."
". . Got it. We're in."
"Shit. What the hell is this place? Look at all those little rooms. Some kinda cheap hotel, d'ya think?"
Virginia stirred hesitantly in the doorway. Then she walked slowly into the room, careful to keep a respectful distance from the energy fountain. "I don't like this."
"Don't worry. I've got a hunch that once they get a good look at all these little cubicles and realize how long it will take to search this place, they'll figure out something else to do. If they do get this far, I can handle them."
"I know that." She folded her arms very tightly beneath her breasts. "Sam, I'm afraid that tangler will try to de-rez some of the traps."
He sank deeper into the gloom and watched the lane. "So?"
"I told you, I don't think they should be touched. If he starts fooling around with some of them, looking for us—"
She broke off.
He gazed at her. "You're really worried about the nature of those illusion traps, aren't you?"
"Yes." Her mouth tightened. "I told you, there's something very, very strange about them. One way or another, they all seem to spell out Do Not Disturb in great big capital letters.
"Whatever didn't want to be disturbed is long gone, Virginia."
"I know, but it just doesn't feel right."
He shrugged. "Maybe that tangler down th
ere will come to the same conclusion, and he and his hunter pal will leave us in peace."
"… Gonna take a couple of hours to go through this place room by room. Must be hundreds of little cubicles in here. And they're all trapped, I'm telling you."
"If they got this far, neither one of 'em would be in great shape. Gage will have crashed, and the tangler will be scared out of her wits. I'll bet they would have picked one of these little cubbyholes near the entrance. Start working, man. I'd rather find the bastard before he recovers from the crash. Easier to handle that way."
"Uh, Drake, I don't like the looks of these traps."
"I don't give a damn how they look to you. Start takin' 'em apart."
"There's something real weird—"
"Shut up and get to work, Chaz. Unless you wanna explain things to Fairbanks."
"Sure. Okay. I'm workin' on it."
"Oh, damn," Virginia whispered. "He's going to do it."
Sam took his eyes off the lane long enough to look at her. The stark alarm in her voice worried him. She was scared, he thought. Genuinely, thoroughly, deep-down scared.
"What is it with you and these traps?" he started to ask.
"Sam. ' Her eyes widened in sudden alarm. "Get down. Now."
"Take it easy, honey, I've got to keep watch—"
"He's got it. He's undone the first trap. I can feel it."
"It's okay—"
"No, it's not okay." She flew toward him across the room and seized his arm. "Get away from the window."
Automatically, he started to resist the tug of her fingers. But the urgency in her was not to be ignored. He reminded himself that traps fell into her area of expertise. They were partners. He had to respect her instincts.
He allowed himself to be drawn away from the window. She pulled him deeper into the room.
"Down," she whispered, dragging him down behind a large quartz chest. "Hurry."
He crouched beside her, the mag-rez gun in hand. "I hope you know what the hell you're doing."
Before she could respond, an inhuman shriek of mingled rage and despair rent the gloom of the alien zoo. It echoed endlessly off the walls. Sam froze, his hand tightening convulsively around the gun. Beside him, Virginia shuddered.
