WarriorsandLovers Page 7

  She broke off. There was no point trying to define an emotion that might not exist.

  She needed a plan. Although Nieko usually did what she wanted, he seemed to have developed a resistance to her attempts to get him into bed. Too bad for him. Eora never gave up. She would keep trying, seize any opportunity.

  What had happened the night before had been a start. If she was being honest with herself, it was a lot more than a start—it was brilliant. Her body still hummed with an echo of the pleasure he’d given her.

  She wanted more. Much more.

  She cast her mind back to their conversation. They’d been talking about her past lovers. Maybe that was the key to pushing him into more sex.

  She wasn’t fool enough to think he was jealous—he was far too Dvalinn for that—but he might be manipulated by rivalry. Nieko always wanted to be the best at anything he tried.

  If she hadn’t made any progress in her quest by the time they got back from Ogof, she could tap into that. Seek out another lover, flaunt him in front of Nieko, challenge him to do better.

  She knew Nieko. It just might work. “Yesss!” she said, and pumped her fist in the air.

  “You’re awake.” Nieko’s voice rumbled sleepily.

  * * * * *

  Nieko pushed himself up into a sitting position and looked over at Eora. Her cheeks were red. “I fell asleep, didn’t I? I remember we were… You…” The red turned fiery. “I came, then I must have fallen asleep.” She screwed her face up. “And you didn’t… You didn’t get to…”

  “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I enjoyed what we did do.”

  “Then why are you sleeping in the other bed?” she retorted.

  “You were tossing and turning. We’d had a long day. I thought it was a better idea.”

  “It sounds like a stupid idea to me,” Eora pushed herself up on her elbows and with a puff of air blew the hair out of her face.

  Not half as stupid as lying all night with her cradled in his arms would have been. Nieko was strong but not that strong. When he’d finally had the control to open his eyes the night before and realized she’d fallen asleep, he’d known he’d been given a reprieve.

  He’d forced himself to walk away, to crawl into the other bed, lying in the half-dark, staring at the rock wall, trying to continue breathing through the pain of heartbreak.

  “We need to get going,” he said, “if you still want to find Tybor and Huon.” He pushed the bedding aside and stood. “I suppose it’s too much to hope you’ve come to your senses.”

  “Of course I still want to find them,” she replied. She tossed her sheet to the floor, then stood there, naked, her skin glowing.

  Nieko swallowed to try to get some moisture into his mouth. He turned to the meal preparation area. “I’ll make us some breakfast.”

  “It’s my turn,” Eora said, leaning in to him, warm and desirable. “But wouldn’t you rather finish what we started last night?”

  “There’ll be plenty of time. But it may not be long before someone figures out where we’re going.”

  Instantly she stepped back, reaching for her clothes, dressing quickly. “You’re right. Don’t bother with breakfast. We can eat one of the nut and grain bars as we walk.”

  So much for hoping she might develop an undying passion for him. First his attempts at sex sent her to sleep, now any interest in finishing what they’d begun took a distant second place to hunting down the human and her Dvalinn companions.

  He ran his hand through his hair. Keeping Eora from getting too close was what he wanted, but damn, it felt as if she’d taken a blade to him and stripped the skin from his chest. He only hoped she couldn’t see his bleeding heart, beating on in lonely yearning for her.

  She tossed his pack to him. “Let’s get going, then.” For some reason she seemed annoyed. Maybe she hadn’t enjoyed what they’d done last night as much as he’d hoped.

  “Sure,” he muttered. “Nothing quite as much fun as racing to your doom.” Because one way or another, that was exactly what he was doing.

  She strode on ahead of him, setting a brisk pace, her legs covering the ground, her arms swinging. Nieko stood it for an hour before he broke. If her pants hadn’t fit her so snugly, if her bottom hadn’t swished up and down with every step—if she hadn’t been Eora, he would have been able to suppress a groan.

  Eora stopped at once. “Did you say something?”

  Maybe if he brazened it out she’d get back on with the job of leading him around by his dick. So he grunted, “No.”

  Except she never let things go. “I heard you say something. What was it?”

  He’d never had much imagination. Making something up now, while the blood his brain needed was on vacation in his groin, was impossible. “I thought I felt something.” Oh, very creative. Like that would slow Eora’s inquisition for a second.

  “Why would that make you moan? It’s not as if—” Eora stopped, her head tilted slightly to the side. “Oh shit! You did feel something.”

  “I did?” But the instant he spoke, it hit him—a hot stirring of the air and throbbing pressure emanating from the rocks of the passageway. A moment before he’d thought he’d have been grateful for anything to divert Eora’s attention. But not this. Never this. “A thermo-magnetic storm! We have to get to shelter.”

  Eora was already picking up speed. “We probably have about fifteen minutes before it hits. There’ll be another safe room somewhere nearby.”

  They ran. Even if they’d dared to, they couldn’t teleport during a thermo-magnetic event. The disturbance in the Earth’s magnetic field sent their navigation system haywire. Any Dvalinn foolish enough to attempt to teleport during a storm could find themselves miles away from where they intended to be or, even worse, crushed into nothingness by teleporting into the heart of the rock itself.

  Even with their high levels of battle-ready fitness, Nieko and Eora’s lungs were straining by the time they came across the red-marked opening that indicated the presence of another shelter. They hurtled inside and slumped against the wall.

  Eora’s hand hovered over the button to lower the door, sealing them off from the developing storm.

  “Shut it,” Nieko panted.

  “In a minute,” Eora replied. “The storm hasn’t fully hit yet. Maybe someone else might need to get in.”

  “Someone who?” Nieko retorted. “No one else is going to be out there. You know tha —” Realization hit him. “You think they might come, don’t you?”

  “They who?” Eora asked. Her pseudo-innocence didn’t fool him for a second.

  “Tybor, Huon. The human. They’ll be in the city or wherever it is they live…somewhere with proper protection from storms, anyway. They won’t come here. Shut the door.”

  With a loud sigh he knew was aimed at him, Eora slammed her hand down over the button. A curtain of glittering black magnetic rock slid from the ceiling and sealed them in.

  The night before the presence of the wayside shelter had been a convenience, a bit of an oddity, the shiny black walls so different to the warm apricot glow they were used to. This room was smaller than the other, and instead of two beds had one wide one. He groaned to himself. How was he going to avoid Eora this time?

  Maintaining control would be hard, but it beat the hell out of the alternative. Without this haven, Eora and he would die in the building storm. No Dvalinn ever wanted to get caught in one of those. If he’d known one was approaching he would never have let Eora set out on this crazy quest.

  He hadn’t known, because he’d had no reason to find out. But Eora had planned… “If you knew this bloody storm was coming, I’ll wring your neck,” he growled.

  She turned to face him, shaking her head from side to side. “I didn’t know, I swear it.”

  “So you set out on this mad journey without even checking the forecasts. Great. Just fucking great.”

  Flecks of angry gold sparked in her eyes. “I checked. Twice. There was no mention of a thermo-mag
netic storm.” She glared at him. “The forecasters don’t always get it right, you know.”

  He slumped back against the wall. “I know. It’s not as if it really matters. The magnetic shielding around population centers means most of us never even notice a storm. There’s always a bit of warning anyway.” He looked down his nose at her. “And no sane person would ever think to walk between cities.”

  “Blah, blah, blah,” she said, making yapping gestures with her fingers. “We’ve had this conversation already. We’re here. We’re safe.” She flung her gear down on the bed. “The worst part is we have no idea how long we’ll be stuck here.” As soon as the words left her mouth, her face brightened and a wicked smile curved across her face. “We were in the middle of something last night, and since here we are with a nice bed and nothing to do but wait out the storm, I suggest we get back to it.”

  “After we’ve had something to eat and drink first,” Nieko said in a rush. “And a shower. That last mad dash left me feeling sweaty and I—”

  “Anyone would think you didn’t want to have sex with me.” Eora said.

  “No. I mean yes… I mean no, it’s not…” He stumbled to a halt, no idea what it was exactly he was trying to say. Fortunately for him, at that moment Eora’s stomach rumbled and she grinned. “You win. We’ll tend to other bodily functions first. Go have your shower. I’ll get some food together.”

  The sense of being saved from a difficult situation faded a little. “You don’t have to bother,” Nieko blurted out. “I don’t need to have a shower yet. I’ll do it.”

  “But I was supposed to get breakfast and all I did was unwrap some power bars.”

  “And they were great, honestly,” he said in a rush.

  Eora’s laugh rang out. “Why don’t you say what you really mean? You want me to stay the hell away from the food because in the entire Dvalinn world no one can stuff up the preparation of a meal the way I can.”

  “You do have a tendency to make a mess of it,” Nieko admitted.

  She grinned, opened a cupboard and stared inside. “Not this time,” Eora replied. “Look.” She pulled out a packet and held it up. “I’ve never seen these before. The meals are completely pre-prepared. All I have to do is pull the tab and they self-heat. Even I couldn’t muck that up.”

  Nieko hesitated before he nodded and turned away. He might love her but it didn’t stop him from recognizing that her domestic skills did not count among her strengths. He was pretty sure they didn’t number among her skills at all.

  “I might be a while,” he said as he left. “There’ll be plenty of hot water and my legs and feet aren’t used to walking. A long soak might do them good.” There! That sounded perfectly plausible. Far better than having to admit that the thought of intimacy with her scared him stupid.

  * * * * *

  Elijah ran back down the passageway, his almost empty pack bouncing against his shoulder blades. He kept his gaze fixed on the middle distance, looking neither right nor left. He didn’t want to see the delicate perfection of the paintings, didn’t want to think about the empty rooms behind the cleverly disguised doors. He picked up his pace, ignoring his burning lungs, but he couldn’t outrun the knowledge that ate at his gut.

  Once he pressed the button on the remote, he’d be a mass murderer, as bad in his way as Hitler or Pol Pot. Maybe the death count wouldn’t be as high, but he would have done what both other men had failed to do—committed genocide. Wiped out an entire race of people.

  He skidded to a halt, the words echoing in his brain. He pounded his fists against the solid rock. The Dvalinn were people. He’d seen their homes, seen their artwork. They might be warlike, they might be the implacable enemies of humanity, but they were men, women and children with hopes, dreams and individual lives.

  He stood straight and sucked breath into his heaving lungs. The air felt hot and thick. For a moment he thought he would vomit. He splayed his hand on the wall to brace himself. Instantly he snatched it back, the palm burning where it had made contact.

  Sweat soaked his body and his head pounded. He narrowed his eyes and tried to focus. Ahead of him the passageway split in two. Thick air distorted the light and he was no longer sure of his bearings.

  He pulled the compass from his pocket and flipped it open. The needle swung wildly from side to side and wouldn’t settle. The solid rock heaved and the floor under his feet rippled like the swell in the ocean. His head swam as if he’d been drinking and his vision blurred.

  He tried to move forward but he stumbled, unable to gain a footing on the rolling surface. The heat built and sweat poured into his eyes, stinging and obscuring his sight.

  He couldn’t think, could barely see. The pulse had become a throbbing pain.

  A wild surge of the rock beneath him sent him hurtling to the floor, onto his hands and knees. He crawled onward. He had to get out of this roiling pressure cooker or he’d die.

  His hands burned where they contacted the stone. He forced himself to his knees, then to his feet. His boots, made of leather with thick sturdy soles, offered some measure of protection. He staggered and fought for balance, trying to ride the fluctuations like a surfboard.

  He’d traveled fifty, maybe a hundred meters more when he felt himself being tossed upward. He shouted as he was slammed against the wall of the passageway. His head hit the wall with a solid crack. Waves of black heat rolled over him and he slid bonelessly to the floor.

  * * * * *

  The sound wasn’t enough to cause Eora to panic—she knew the door of the saferoom was too secure for anything to penetrate it—but it did make her look up from the package of food she was trying to open. She knew in theory what to expect from a thermo-magnetic storm. Intense heat, strong disturbances in the magnetic field leading to hallucinations and disorientation. Nothing capable of producing a distinct thud. Or the sound of a voice. She jumped to her feet.

  She had heard a voice, a startled shout followed by a groan. Someone was out there. So close to Ogof, it could only be one or more of the three she had set out to find.

  Without waiting for Nieko, who in any case could do nothing more than she intended to do, she pushed the button on the wall and raised the door a couple of feet. She dropped to her knees and peered out.

  Immediately a miasma of heat and pressure hit her. She blinked and steeled herself, then craned her neck to peer out. No more than an arm’s length away someone was slumped against the wall, blood trickling from a head wound, cheeks scaly and reddened where the heat had caught.

  She reached and wrapped her fists in the collar of the person’s khaki cotton shirt, then, crawling backward, she dragged her burden inside. She slammed her hand against the door button to close it.

  The solid rock slid into place once more, shutting out the heat and pressure. She sat with her head dropped forward, her fists still gripping the cloth, trying to catch her breath.

  After a moment she leaned forward to inspect the unconscious form of the man she’d rescued. He was definitely a male. His features were rugged and masculine, his chest flat, and there was a noticeable bulge in the front of his pants. So why was he wearing a shirt—a woman’s garment—instead of being bare-chested like other men?

  Whoever he was, he most definitely wasn’t Huon or Tybor. She’d seen images of them both. This man’s skin was pale, a light tan rather than the deeper brown of herself, Nieko, Tybor and almost every other Dvalinn. Nor did he have Huon’s extraordinary paleness.

  His shirt lifted and fell with the regular rhythm of his breathing. She rolled him into the recovery position and assessed his injuries. Blood seeped slowly from the wound on his forehead. Already he sported a solid blue-black egg. That explained his state of unconsciousness.

  She ran her hands over his cloth-covered chest and arms, searching for other damage.

  He groaned and she leaned back on her heels but his eyes remained shut. Behind her she heard a swift intake of breath, then Nieko appeared at her side. “Who’s that? Whe
re did he come from? How did he get in?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t know, and I dragged him in.”

  “What?”

  “The answers to your questions, stupid. I don’t know who he is. I don’t know where he came from. I brought him inside.

  “You opened the door?”

  Eora heard the anger in Nieko’s voice but there was an undercurrent of something else, something she couldn’t identify. He’d been acting weird ever since they’d set out on this trip. Whatever was bugging him, she didn’t have time to deal with it now.

  “Of course I opened it,” she snapped. “What else would I do?”

  “Think, maybe? You didn’t even call for me.” The breath he blew out sounded more exasperated than angry now. “I was only taking a crap.”

  She giggled. “Now that’s an image I could have done without.” She patted his strong, brown arm. “I heard a voice. I couldn’t ignore it.”

  Nieko moved closer. “He’s unconscious. You couldn’t have heard him”

  Eora sighed and slapped Nieko lightly. “He called out before he hit his head, dopey.”

  “I don’t like it. You should have waited for me.”

  “I reacted,” she said. “Nothing bad happened. Relax.”

  “I don’t think so, Eora,” he replied, going down on one knee to look closely at the man lying on the floor. “Something about this doesn’t feel right. It’s strange enough for us to be in the tunnels on the way to Ogof. What are the chances of someone else being here? Maybe he was looking for us.”

  “Why would you assume that?” Eora asked. “The UDBC wouldn’t send one person. How do you know he isn’t some traveler looking for Tybor and Huon and the human too? You can ask him when he wakes up.”

  “If he wakes up, and if he tells us the truth.”

  Eora raised her eyebrows. “Why wouldn’t he?”

  “Because he has something to hide,” Nieko replied. “Why is he wearing a shirt? Look at how pale he is.”