by Donna Grant
Now everything rested in Camdyn and Saffron’s hands.
Fallon was a doer. He didn’t like waiting for someone to do a job for him, yet in this instance, he had no other choice. The magic wouldn’t let any of them pass to follow Camdyn and Saffron.
Dani had used her magic to look into each doorway. She had been insistent that none of them force their way into any of the other doorways. What awaited them if they did Fallon didn’t know. And he’d rather not find out.
* * *
Camdyn wasn’t surprised when Saffron fell asleep almost immediately. Her head had lolled to the side to rest on his shoulder.
He would have been content to stay just like that if he hadn’t felt a shudder run through her. The water might not have been leaking through the stones there, but the air was damp and cool.
Camdyn shifted so that he wrapped an arm around her and pulled her tighter against his body. She slept like the dead after that.
All the while, his thoughts went over everything they had endured since stepping into the labyrinth. If it was any indication, there was more in store for them. How much more was the question.
There were three more artifacts to use. Which meant three more perils at least. Could his heart take it? He knew it couldn’t. Every time Saffron’s life was threatened, he felt it like a blade in his gut.
He was responsible for her safety. He alone. Before, he might have been looking out for her, but then again so had the others. If she died, it would be his fault.
Camdyn didn’t know how long he sat there with that mind-numbing thought rolling through his mind. But the next time he glanced down, Saffron was staring at him.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
Her voice, rough and seductively low from sleep, sent heat pooling into his aching cock. “No’ a thing.”
She sat up and yawned before raising her arms over her head and stretching, her back arched so that her jacket parted and her breasts pushed forward.
Camdyn tried to look away, but desire had him in its grip. And it wasn’t letting go.
“You’re a very bad liar,” Saffron said with another yawn. “How long did I sleep?”
He shrugged and hurriedly rose to his feet. The fact he missed having her pressed against him, her scent filling his senses, he did his damnedest to ignore. “I doona know.”
“We need to get moving, I suppose.”
“Nay,” he said, and held out his palm to stop her from rising. “Eat something. You need to keep your strength up.”
The fact she didn’t argue with him told him she must be starving. While she pulled yet another bar from her jacket and peeled back the wrapper, Camdyn looked down the hallway to where they had to go.
“The labyrinth is taking back the artifacts,” Saffron said around a bite of food.
Camdyn turned his head to her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean that every artifact we’ve brought down here that’s been used has been taken back by the labyrinth. The next three will have to be used in that same fashion, is my guess.”
Camdyn nodded. “Of course. We have the Tablet of Orn—”
“That’s not really a tablet,” Saffron interjected.
“True. It’s a cylinder case. Then there is the cylinder that was inside the Tablet of Orn.”
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “And the key.”
“Aye. The key. That could be used in any number of ways. It’s the other two artifacts that have me thinking.”
The crinkle of the wrapper as she wadded it in her hand and stuffed it in her pocket drew his attention. “Let’s find out, shall we?”
Camdyn’s appreciation for her courage and fortitude rose. He should have known she would rise to the occasion. She was a strong, independent, and amazing woman.
He waited until she caught up with him before he started down the corridor. The tunnel narrowed, forcing Camdyn to have to turn his shoulders to be able to fit through.
“I have a feeling this won’t lead to anything good,” Saffron said.
“Has anything else?”
She gave a snort of laughter. “No. I thought getting us into the maze would have been the greatest feat. But, come on. It should be easier to find and wake Laria than this.”
“The Druids never did anything halfway. They wanted to be sure Deirdre wouldna be able to get to her sister.”
“They certainly succeeded. We’re lucky to have gotten this far. What if there hadn’t been any more Druids in the world? Did they think of that when they built this? Nope. Then were would we be? In this shit, that’s where.”
Camdyn coughed to cover his laugh. She was agitated, which anyone would be, but he knew women well enough not to let them know he found their annoyance humorous.
He kept in front of her to knock away the spiderwebs he found blocking their way. If she was afraid of being belowground, then spiders could very well send her over the brink.
“Ick,” he heard behind him. Then it turned into a gasp before he felt her rubbing her hand back and forth on his back.
“What?” he asked as he turned around.
“I … I…” she stuttered as she tried to get something off her hand.
It was obvious by the way her eyes had grown large that she was indeed afraid of spiders. Camdyn saw the web and hurried to help her in order to keep her calm.
“There,” he said when it was off her hand and arm. He looked up to tell her not to be worried when he saw the spider on her shoulder.
He inwardly groaned as his mind raced to come up with a way to get it off Saffron without her knowing it. The fact they were in a cramped tunnel didn’t help.
“I need to get out of here,” she said as she pushed against him. “Keep going. If there’s a web, there’s a spider, and I don’t want it anywhere near me.”
“Why be afraid of a little insect?” Although he had to admit, the one crawling on her was anything but little.
She shuddered, her face scrunching in horror. “All those hairy legs crawling. And the eyes.” Saffron scratched her head. “Just thinking about them makes me feel as if they’re crawling all over me. Are they crawling on me? I know they’re crawling on me. I have to get them off. Get them off!”
Her hysteria grew with every word, and Camdyn had no idea what to do. He didn’t want to tell her about the spider and make things worse, but neither could he ignore the fact that it sat on her shoulder.
Since the spider was getting closer to her neck, Camdyn knew he needed to do something immediately. He flicked it with his hands and pulled at her hair.
“What?” she screamed and tried to get away, only succeeding in bumping into the wall. “Do I have one on me? Oh, God, please tell me it’s not on me.”
“It’s no’,” Camdyn answered with all honestly. “Just a bit of webbing in your hair.”
She gave him another hard push. “Thank you, but I really need to move away from this place. Now. Move!”
Camdyn faced forward again and continued along the tunnel, his shoulders constantly hitting the wall, even though his torso was turned sideways. He grinned at her demand to get moving. She really was afraid of spiders.
He was thankful that he had got the spider off Saffron before she noticed it. As scared as she was, she’d probably have climbed over him to get away from it.
“Declan used them against me,” she said softly into the silence.
“When we found you, you thought they were crawling on you.”
“Before he took my sight, that was one of the ways he tortured me. He knew it was the one thing I was truly petrified of. I always have been, even as a little girl. He had them all over me, and the spell used was one where I couldn’t move. It was horrific. I cannot even look at spiders now.”
Camdyn was rapidly beginning to hate Declan as much as he did Deirdre. “Larena said when she first discovered Declan was keeping you that you thought the spiders were on you. But they weren’t. He knew it would scare you.”
“Is
it wrong that I want to find his greatest fear and make him suffer again and again?”
Camdyn glanced at her. “Nay.”
“I want to kill him.”
“As I want to kill Deirdre.”
There was a pregnant pause before Saffron asked, “Did Deirdre hurt you the way Declan hurt me?”
Camdyn sighed. “Deirdre is evil like Declan, but Deirdre came from a different time. She did things differently. Declan tortured you, but Deirdre had nothing stopping her from killing our families if we didna do as she wanted.”
“Did she…?”
Camdyn rubbed the back of his neck. “It’s a long story.”
“I suspect we have enough time.”
He opened his mouth to begin the tale when the tunnel suddenly widened and torches flared to life.
“This place gets freakier and freakier,” Saffron said as she peered around his arm.
The light danced upon the wall, flickering over the stones in a wild dance. Camdyn let his gaze slowly move around the widened part of the tunnel. “It gets narrower ahead.”
“Ah, but is that where we’re supposed to go? Look,” she said and nudged his left side.
He followed her finger as she pointed to the wall.
“It looks like the stone has been hollowed out in the shape of a cross.”
Camdyn made his way to the cross and peered at the stone. “It’s a Celtic cross,” he told her. “See the carvings?”
“Stunning,” she said as she ran her finger along the markings.
“But why hollow out the cross? Why no’ just carve the cross as they did the knotwork?”
She fumbled in her pocket and produced the Tablet of Orn with its gold cylinder. “Maybe because this goes in there?”
Camdyn looked from the Tablet of Orn to the cross. Both the horizontal and vertical areas of the cross were the same exact shape. “Aye. But which way?”
“Just once I’d like them to make this easy,” she muttered.
Camdyn had to agree with her. He spotted something in the hollowed stone. “Look. There’s something here.”
“A spiral and a trinity symbol on the horizontal portion. On the vertical there’s a triskelion and a spiral. Do you know what it means?”
“Nay.”
“Then we have a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right one.”
Camdyn looked at Saffron. “What do you think?”
“Vertical.”
“Vertical it is,” he said as he took the Tablet of Orn from her and slid it into the slot.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-FOUR
Saffron’s heart raced, her blood pounded in her ears. All those times she had sat watching the adventure movies she loved so much saying she wished she could have a life like that seemed eons ago.
And now she knew she didn’t want a life like Indiana Jones because her heart simply couldn’t take the constant surprises and life-threatening episodes.
There was a soft click as the Tablet of Orn fit perfectly into the slot. Saffron looked down at the floor and hastily jumped to the wall.
“What is it?” Camdyn asked.
She shrugged as she stared at the floor, waiting for something to happen. “I’m tired of falling. I’m tired of the floor shifting beneath my feet. These Druids seem to have a thing about plunging people to their deaths.”
Camdyn licked his lips and hastily turned his head away to try and hide his smile. “I doona believe the floor will cave in this time.”
“You doona believe,” she repeated, mimicking his brogue. She gave a very unladylike snort that would have appalled her mother. “Well, I feel all better now.”
Saffron didn’t mean to allow her anxiety to show, but she was tired, cold, and wanted more than another PowerBar to eat. She was at her wit’s end with this entire ordeal, and she knew more was coming. That’s what scared her the most.
“I have been wondering why they supplied fire.”
She lifted her gaze to the four torches and cringed. “Now that you mention it, why would they? Nowhere else in this hell of a labyrinth has there been any light. Why now?”
“Why indeed?” Camdyn murmured as he peered closer at one of the torches.
“At least I can take one with me now and be able to see.” Saffron grasped the iron at the bottom of the torch and lifted.
Yet the torch didn’t budge. She thought it might be stuck, so she gave it a harder yank, but still nothing.
Finally, Camdyn tried to pull out the torch he was standing near. Not even his considerable strength could move it. He looked at Saffron and shrugged.
“Great. So the Druids won’t allow us to take the torches with us, and didn’t supply light earlier. This can’t be good.”
Camdyn shook his head. “Nay, I doona suppose it will be. And putting the Tablet of Orn into place didna do anything.”
“There aren’t any doors I can see, so it looks like we’re stuck again until we put the Tablet of Orn the right way.”
Saffron pulled out the cylinder and turned it horizontal. It made the same soft click as it had the first time as she pushed it into place.
When nothing happened, Saffron gave it a push to see if it was meant to go farther back. The cylinder didn’t move. Saffron slapped her hands on her legs in frustration and stalked away.
She stood against the far wall and watched as Camdyn walked to where the Tablet of Orn was held in the cross. He ran his fingers over the knotwork slowly.
“Do you see something?” Saffron asked.
“Maybe.”
When he tapped at something on the stone, Saffron straightened. “You did find something.”
Camdyn looked over his shoulder at her. “Come see.”
She hurried to him and looked to where he pointed. With the fire flickering on the walls, she had a hard time seeing anything clearly. And then she saw the thin, barely visible line.
Her finger traced it to a perfect circle around the cross. She stepped back, the lump of fear growing.
“We have to turn it,” Camdyn said. “I think the entire cross turns based on the line around it.”
“But which way? And which way do we put the cylinder?”
Camdyn’s nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed on the cross and the Tablet of Orn. “Only one way to find out.”
Saffron took another step back as Camdyn pulled out the cylinder and turned it so that it was once more vertical before he put it back in the cross.
With his hand still on the artifact, he glanced at Saffron before he turned it to the right.
Her eyes were drawn to the torches as they flared high overhead. She saw them shift toward her, and even though her mind screamed for her to move, it happened too fast for her to do anything.
Suddenly, she was hauled roughly to the side and shoved against the wall. Camdyn’s hard body blocked her from the flames as he bent over her, but the heat soon had sweat running down her face and between her breasts.
Camdyn grunted, his body stiff and his hands braced on either side of her head. But none of the flames touched her. After a moment, the torches went back to normal as if nothing had happened.
Saffron lifted her head from Camdyn’s chest to see him staring at her. Smoke filled the small area and wafted around them, and she smelled something burning. It dawned on her then exactly what Camdyn had done.
“You’re hurt.”
He shrugged, and she saw the pain that caused him. “I will heal.”
“Immortal or not, I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.” She couldn’t stand the heat anymore and shrugged out of her jacket.
He pushed away from the wall, and what was left of his T-shirt fell to the floor. Saffron saw the scorch marks around the edges of the shirt and knew he had suffered terribly.
Because even though a Warrior always healed, they felt the wounds.
She gently touched his face, her heart aching. “Thank you.”
“You’re a Druid, someone to be protected. There are so few of you left.”
“So you did it out of obligation?” She really hated how much the idea of that hurt.
He let out a breath. “I gave you my vow that I would keep you safe.”
She nodded and he turned away. Saffron covered her mouth with her hand when she glimpsed the extent of the burns that covered his back. His back was a mass of burned flesh twisted and misshapen. His back was already healing, but she knew he had to be in considerable pain.
Camdyn walked back to the cross. “Ready for another try?”
“No.”
He smiled then, a lopsided half smile, but a smile. And it melted her heart.
Saffron’s lungs seized, her world tilted. Because that small smile made the already handsome Camdyn into a devilishly good-looking rake. And if her heart had been in danger before, there was no question of it now.
“Stay there,” he cautioned as he moved the cylinder back to its original position.
Saffron gripped the stones behind her and found herself praying it was the correct way. She met Camdyn’s gaze as he turned the cross to the left.
Once more the flames leaped upward, but this time they didn’t shift toward her. The flames continued as the Tablet of Orn sank farther into the stone.
“Give me the other cylinder,” Camdyn said as he held out his hand.
Saffron hurried to her jacket and yanked it out of the pocket and placed it in his hands. “What is it?”
“I think both are supposed to go here. See how the first sank farther back in the wall? It leaves room for the other one.”
She shrugged. “Try it.”
His gaze met hers before he fit the second, smaller cylinder into the open slot on the cross. As soon as he did, the cross turned on its own, making a complete circle.
When it was upright again, both artifacts were gone. Of a sudden, the flames flickered out and the entire chamber began to move in a circle.
Saffron squatted down, her nails chipping as she clung to the stones. In two strides Camdyn was beside her. His arms wrapped around her.
As abruptly as the room had begun to move, it stopped. They both found themselves looking at the same doorway they had entered earlier.
