by Anthology
The one and only man to whom she’d ever said the words, “I love you.”
He’d said it back. And that was supposed to mean something, right?
But that was then, and this was now. Amazing how different life could be after finding her “Dear Sonya” letter almost a month ago.
Shaking her head, she focused on the next obstacle, happy to have her attention drawn to something that would kill her quickly. Rolling bars of spikes that spun over a pit filled with… Peering over the edge, she grabbed her penlight from a pocket and clicked it on.
Snakes. A pit filled with snakes. Thankfully, Sonya had no issues with the slithering reptiles. Well. As long as they weren’t the two-legged variety.
After successfully crossing to the other side of the pit, Sonya pictured the treasure she sought. A small black stone the size of her palm. A stone supposedly stolen hundreds of years before from the very tomb of Qin Shi Huang, the first Chinese emperor. The Peruvian tomb she trekked through held its secret, but if Sonya had her way, it wouldn’t much longer.
People seeking her services called her a tomb raider. Her business cards stated she was simply an Artifact Recovery Specialist. That she’d never failed a job made her card quite valuable. A card only passed in the most elite circles and only to people who could meet her asking price, which contained quite a few zeroes.
Money spoke many languages, and her current client was quite…fluent.
Why they wanted the black stone she wasn’t certain, but her research had turned up the fact the stone wasn’t common at all, but rather a rare black diamond worth enough to purchase a sizeable country.
Another open section of corridor loomed in front of her. Goose bumps rose on her skin. The quiet surrounding her wasn’t serene. The eerie pause reminded her of the silences that fell over forests when danger closed in. Animals always knew when something horrible grew close.
The feeling of being watched crawled up her neck. A glance behind her revealed nothing. She should have had a partner along, watching her back. Hating to admit she missed Jack’s presence didn’t make her feel any better.
Her gaze went back to the flooring in front of her. A strange pattern carved into the stone caught her eye. Something she’d seen before. It was never good. Crouching low, she grabbed a handful of loose gravel and sand and tossed it at the ground in front of her. Spikes recessed in the wall shot across the space in front of her. Throwing more rocks proved there were more darts to be tripped—some high, some low. A few even shot out from the ceiling.
That was new.
She would have been impressed if it wasn’t her hide on the line.
Several more handfuls of debris tossed before her produced nothing. Decisively, she moved across the floor, ready to jump out of the way at any time, but it seemed lady luck was still with her. Very unfulfilling company, in her opinion.
Around another curve, she stopped. A rock wall spanned the entire twenty-foot height of the tomb. A door in the middle was its only adornment.
Cautiously, she checked the edges, handle, and the floor in front of it.
Nothing.
Her neck tingled again. Not as if anyone could sneak up on her anyways. Jack had always told her she had eyes in the back of her head.
Invading thoughts, when she needed to stay hyperaware of what she faced, pissed her off. Taking one deep breath after another, she cleared her mind to concentrate on what she hoped would be the final barrier between herself and her treasure. She’d been searching for months. Once she found it and delivered it safely to her buyer, she’d take the other half of her payout and decide whether or not she had the heart to stay in the game any longer. Always having to be on the move took more of a toll than she cared to admit.
Completing her examination of the door, she determined she needed to drill a hole in the wood to see what was on the other side. But she didn’t have the right tools.
Fuck it. If something was set to detonate on opening, which was her guess, then she’d just have to improvise or kiss her ass goodbye. But then, going out in a fireball of glory had always sounded appealing. Fate had her number either way, and she had no other option.
She tried the handle, even knowing it would be locked. Then a thought struck her, and she smiled.
From beneath her tank top, she pulled a long chain and an ancient-looking key. She didn’t even want to think about how much money it had cost to find this key. Nor how much trouble it had been to procure. And especially not the fact it was the last mission Jack and she had completed together.
Removing the key from around her neck, heart kicking against her ribs, she slid it into the lock and turned. The latching mechanism released with a tiny snick.
Moment of truth.
Sonya gripped the door handle, rotating it slowly, taking in each degree of movement for any indication something was rigged to blow. The tumbler snapped free of the frame, and she opened the door a tiny fraction of an inch.
A grenade from the last century was rigged to the door. A string tied to the ring of the detonation pin connected to something on the other side of the door she couldn’t see. Keeping one hand on the handle, she fished out a pair of cutters. They were barely thin enough to fit through the narrow space, but they did the trick.
Pocketing the cutters, she pushed the door open farther, and thankfully glanced up at the last possible moment to see another trap rigged at the top of the doorframe. The back of her neck tingled once more, so she made the choice to leave the trap set in case someone tried to surprise her. Keeping the key, she left the door unlocked in case she needed to run for it. Fading light told her she needed to hurry.
A skeleton lay slumped on the floor to her left with tattered rags covering bone. Unfortunately, she’d never know his story since he was long since dead. But her curiosity was aroused. Every mystery deserved an investigation, but she had a job to complete.
Inside, treasure of various kinds littered the floor and walls. Every surface was covered with coins and jewels, but the black stone was nowhere.
“Sonya.”
In the span of a heartbeat, she swiveled to face the door, her weapon aimed directly at the heart of the intruder. “Jack…”
As the door swung open, she homed in on her target and pulled the trigger.
Jack shouted, and Sonya closed her eyes, praying she’d made the right decision.
“You fucking shot at me.”
His deep voice sent shivers down her spine, landing on her clit, which did a happy dance at his presence.
Didn’t take her two extra seconds to get royally pissed off that any part of her was pleased about his presence. She thought about shooting him for real, but she shoved her handgun back into her holster and latched it into place before she could change her mind. “I never miss. If I’d wanted you dead, you’d be piled up with Casper over there.” She jabbed a thumb in the dead guy’s general direction and went back to searching for the diamond.
“If you weren’t shooting at me, then what were you shooting at?”
His growled timbre thrilled part of her and made the rest want to weep at how much she’d missed it. “Trip line. Top of the door. Wired to a gas canister on the wall filled with who knows what toxic cocktail. You open the door anywhere past halfway, yank the cord, and we become history. Classic rookie mistake,” she scoffed. “I’m pretty sure I taught you better than that.”
Keeping her face free of emotion, not to mention the damn tears in check, wouldn’t last long. Finding her treasure would save her in more ways than one. She moved cautiously, checking for more traps, but the room seemed free from any more death and destruction. And death from a broken heart was totally not a thing. At all. Ever.
“Why didn’t you disable it when you came through?”
Genuine hurt bled across the room to her, and she gritted her teeth. She mostly shook it off. And knocked over a gold goblet sitting on a stone shelf. “I knew someone was following me. Could have been anyone. So I left it alone. I’d ra
ther be dead than caught.”
The sun was rapidly setting, and the last thing she wanted was to be trapped in the tomb overnight with the man who’d broken her heart.
“You can speak so flippantly of death?”
“Just another adventure,” as her parents said years before they died on a hunt.
Glancing his way was a bad choice. Tall and broad-chested and wearing a middle-eastern headdress and cargo pants that matched hers, his lighter skin tone made him look like some European sheik. Without a shirt to cover his pecs. Nothing could keep her mind from thinking of the last time she’d seen it bare. Him inside her, protecting her, keeping her safe.
For what?
So he could disappear the next morning with no explanation?
Fuck. That.
Mindless conversation of how he wrecked her by leaving? Sounded fun. She could do that. Totally. If her hands would stop shaking, and she could quit knocking shit over, her mask of indifference might be believable.
Looking again, he’d moved closer, but thankfully wasn’t staring at her anymore. He glanced at his watch, then huffed out a frustrated breath as he stared upward at the waning light. Then he took up her mantle, searching through piles to find what they’d come for.
Ugh.
She’d come for the diamond. Not him. Not anymore. Partners didn’t abandon each other.
“I didn’t abandon you.”
Jesus, Mary, and oh hell to the no. Talking out loud when she didn’t mean to. Great.
“Will you at least let me explain before you write me off for good?” He’d moved closer, and now his baby blues were trained right on her.
Walking away, she wasn’t exactly retreating. She just wanted to look for the diamond in another section of the cavern. She stopped mid-step and he almost slammed into her back. “Casper,” she whispered.
“Soooo, is that a yes or no on me explaining?” His voice faded as she ran across the stone floor and hit the floor on her knees in front of the skeleton lying on his side beside the door.
Carefully, she adjusted the bones, wondering if another trap was set. The remains of the person before her fell apart, and she sifted through them until she found a perfect fist, clutching—a black stone. “The Devil’s Heart,” she whispered.
“How’d you know he had it?” Jack was right behind her as she unlocked the dead man’s hand from around the diamond and stood.
“Casper could be a woman.” Being in a man’s typical line of work, she couldn’t help but point that out as she held the jewel up to one of the last shafts of sunlight streaming in the cave. A spectacular prism of color appeared on the far wall. No matter the circumstances, she couldn’t help but stop for a moment of pure awe at its beauty.
“Touché.”
Slipping the treasure in her pocket, she zipped it up and headed out the open door. Sweat ran between her breasts, and she was more than certain it had nothing to do with temperature. “Any treasure hunter would want to die with this treasure in his hands. If he got this far, he was a damn fine raider. And I heard two keys to the room existed. Guess I know where the second ended up.”
At the wall of darts, she threw gravel and tripped another round of poisoned barbs.
“Why didn’t he get out? Why stay?”
She picked up one of the tiny sticks of death as they moved toward the next obstacle. “Poisoned is my guess.” Holding it up for Jack to see, she waited a second then tossed it back down.
He whistled. “You were born to be a raider. In the blood.”
“In the blood,” she said with him at the same time. It was a phrase her parents had taught her. One that she’d passed along to him. It reminded her of how close they’d become and how much she’d shared with him. How much she’d been looking forward to a life together. She’d even thought about retiring, maybe starting a family.
Rolling her eyes, she felt every bit as lame as she had when she’d realized he’d left. Never again would she let a man wield that kind of power over her.
Silence expanded between them as they made their way back across the spiked logs. The hissing snakes beneath their feet fit her mood perfectly.
“Aren’t you going to talk to me at all?”
“No.”
“You’re not curious? I have a lot that I need to tell you.” He understood her well enough to know he was asking a rhetorical question. “Come on, Sonya. We need to talk. Now. Cut me some slack.”
Right before the web of trip wires, she wheeled on him, jabbing him in the chest he was so close. “I don’t have to cut you anything. You bailed. With no explanation. I owe you noth—”
His lips found hers, and his hands dug into her hair, holding her to his body as he plundered her mouth.
The flavor of him. It intoxicated each of her senses, drowning her in pure sensation in less than the lifespan of a lit det cord. He wiped her mind blank, replacing the feeling of abandonment with longing and need.
His kiss engulfed her as his tongue slid into her mouth, taking what he wanted and giving in return. Love. He tasted like love and passion as he hauled her even closer.
His heat sent ripples of desire to her core, and moisture slid along the lips of her pussy. His hand on her breast, pinching her nipple, made her cry out. Her moan echoed off the walls of the passageway, jarring her out of her lust.
She shoved him away, nearly falling on her ass as she tried to find her footing. He placed a hand on her shoulder to steady her, but she threw it off. “Don’t touch me.”
She meant for it to sound harsh, abrasive. Instead, her words sounded downright sorrowful.
His eyes softened as he gazed at her. “I’m sorry. Shouldn’t have done that. But I missed you.” He held up his hands. “I won’t touch you again, but we need to talk. I have something you have to hear.”
Straightening her shoulders, she moved along the hall, fumbling in her pocket for her—his—whatever—spray. The filaments were invisible again, so she repeated the spray-shuffle-crawl procedure.
Luckily, the progress was slow, and they both had to concentrate to keep from being caught on anything. Even better, she moved quicker and was out the other side before he was halfway through. Grabbing her pack, she fled.
“Wait, Sonya. Wait!!”
Fat chance of that. She had nothing to say to him as she ran down the hall.
Running from him? Probably.
She’d beat herself up about it later. Right then, all she wanted was to get away from him and her need to go back and hear what he had to say. Because she couldn’t let whatever excuse he had bend her will.
With the last of the light, she turned the final corner into what she knew was her salvation. The exit was right—
She screeched to a halt, nearly falling in her attempt to stay upright.
Huffing breaths wheezed out as she stared at the entrance. What was once the opening was now blocked with rock. Which made this space her burial tomb.
“Sonya!” Jack jogged up behind her. “I can explain.”
“The rumble. When I was inside about to go through the trip wires, I felt a rumble. I thought it was an earthquake. But it wasn’t, was it? This is what I felt. You triggered the door to blow when you came through. You missed the first trap.”
“I was trying to tell you, but you wouldn’t listen.”
To add insult to injury, the last of the light faded quickly from the slots carved in the rock walls too high for them to reach or escape through. Darkness would move in quickly, and they’d have no choice but to spend the night trapped in the tomb, before they could attempt to free themselves at the first light of dawn.
“Let me explain.”
His hand on her shoulder didn’t last long as she pivoted and punched him once straight across the jaw.
Groaning, he took a step back and rubbed his jaw.
The need to hit him again raced down her arm, but she shook out her fist as it started to throb. “Told you I never miss.”
* * *
Hours l
ater, the sound of her teeth chattering together bounced off the walls of the cavern where they decided to bunk down for the night. She’d already accused him of intentionally setting off the trap just to keep her in the tomb. He’d denied it. She didn’t believe him.
“You’re being stubborn, Sonya. Dying to teach me a lesson isn’t the way to go about getting back at me.”
She was so cold ice water sounded warm as she huddled in her too-thin sleeping bag. She was thankful for any protection against the rocks beneath her. Croaking before she conceded to sharing body heat with the man on the other side of the hall appealed as well. “I’m n-n-not trying to g-g-get back at y-you.” Mostly.
She was hurt. The emotion was different. And stranded, so she couldn’t run. Neither feeling really did it for her as she tried in vain to warm her hands again.
Unable to build a fire, to avoid revealing their position, they were limited to their sleeping bags, clothes, and the memory of being warm since Sonya was unwilling to bed down with her former lover.
“Fuck it.” With jerky movements, Jack unzipped his sleeping bag and got to his feet. His shadow danced across the tomb walls from the battery-operated lamp positioned between them.
“D-don’t come over h-h-h-here.”
“The choice isn’t up to you anymore, sweetheart.”
Sweetheart. His pet name for her. Something she’d ached to hear again in his absence. Now it did nothing but rankle her already frayed nerves. Warmth spread through her middle, and she cursed beneath her breath as he moved his belongings to her side of the passageway. “It sure as s-s-shit is.”
“Hush. I love you. I’m not letting you freeze to death.” He covered her with his sleeping bag and unzipped hers.
Completely and utterly frozen, she was unable to move even a finger as he slipped inside her sleeping bag.
Not from the cold, though.
From his words. Three of them to be exact.
He zipped himself in, pulling his bag over their heads. Then he gathered her close, pillowing an arm beneath her head.
Shaking, he held her quaking body and kissed her hair. His warmth seeped inside her, wrapping her in a safe cocoon.
