Drawing Deep (22 page)

It was also quite chilly. She considered taking out the jacket from her pack when she saw James stumble. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m good. I guess I need to quit ogling the walls and point my light where my feet are.”

Porter flashed his light in front of Jason’s feet. “Ground’s uneven.”

James flashed
his
light in Porter’s smirking face. “Smartass.”

“Just trying to help.”

As the two bickered good-naturally, Ria sidled up to the closest wall, trailing her fingers over the bone-dry, rough stone. It only took a minute to flash her light over the perimeter. “I don’t see another exit.”

“Me either.” Santos moved to her side. “But the air is tinged with a hint of seawater, and like Porter said, it’s not stale. There’s got to be a crevice or fracture in the wall somewhere.” He brushed a finger down her nose. “Watch your step.”

He stalked off and took the walkie-talkie back from James, flicking it on. “We found a cave.” As he described it to Rome, Ria’s eyes caught on a sparkling vein in the wall and she went to investigate.

Quartz? She rubbed at the colorless spot.

“Say again?” Santos asked, static filling the air. The sharp question brought Ria’s head around and she focused her light just off to his side so she wouldn’t blind him. “Is something wrong?”

Rome’s voice broke through the bad connection. “Gwen’s not...well. Dizzy.”

“Maybe she’s pregnant.” Porter quipped from across the cave.

“Uh,” James cut in. “I don’t think so. I’m not feeling so good either.” With that the man started to waver and would have fallen if Porter hadn’t loped to his side in a heartbeat. Setting him to the hard ground, Porter glanced over at Santos. “What the hell?”

“Lance seems to be okay, ...not right.” Rome’s voice came through slurred.

With creased lines of concern marring his face, Santos surveyed the cave, drawing in lungfuls of air. “It can’t be the air. Ria?”

She turned in a slow circle, scanning the walls, the ceiling, the ground. “I’m fine. No dizziness, no nausea. If it originated in here, we would have felt the affects first, not Gwen or Rome. Besides, he said Lance was okay.”

“James did.”

They both looked over to where Porter was checking the ranger out. “His pulse is strong, his breathing steady. It’s like he just fainted.” Porter went to rise to his feet, tottered, and fell back on his butt. “Oh, shit.”

Santos and Ria raced over. “What? Tell me how you’re feeling.” Ria demanded.

“Like I’m drunk.” Hands on the sides of his head, Porter lifted unfocused eyes. “Room’s spinning. Legs and arms feel tingling. Weak. Just need to lay down a bit.”

“Get out of here, kitten.” A rough order. “I’ll get Porter and come back for James.”

No way in hell was she bailing on him. “No. I’m not leaving you.”

“I can’t carry you both.”

“And I told you I’m fine.” Her heart stuttered when he took several steps back and shook his head like a wet dog. One hand went to his brow. “Santos?”

Stopping his sideways tumble with one outstretched hand on the rocky wall, he eased his body down. Ria bounded over Porter’s outstretched legs. “Oh, God. Santos. Come on. Get up.”

“Drug.”

The single word was so thick she could barely understand. She ripped off her helmet and, putting her hands on his cheeks, tilted his face up. “What? A drug?”

He didn’t answer, only stared blindly through dull eyes, terrifying her. “Dammit, Santos. What do you mean drug?”

His lashes fell and her heart shattered. “Santos?” She shook him violently. “Santos?”

“Not dead. Drugged. Feel exhausted. Can’t keep my eyes open.” His body went limp, his head on her breast. “Get Dad.”

Panic set in and she had to shove her way past it to think. Pressing his head to her shoulder, she rocked, indecisive. She didn’t want to leave him, but even with her enhanced strength, she couldn’t carry him out. Not in her arms or over her shoulder. He was simply too big. As were Porter and James.

She fumbled for her phone, praying for reception, yet unsurprised to see she had no signal. With no choice, she made Santos as comfortable as possible on the cave floor by wadding her jacket under his head. Sobs wanted to rise in the back of her throat as she lay her lips to his. “I’ll be right back, baby.” She ran her hand over his hair several times before forcing herself to stand and abandon the man who’d insinuated himself not only in her head, but into her heart.

Flashlight in one hand, her phone in the other, she careened headlong down the tunnel, intending to contact the b&b the second she cleared the rocks. Between the pounding of her heart and the echo of her footsteps, she almost missed the sound of others coming her way.

Hope soared. “Rome?” Shoving her phone in her pocket, she adjusted her light up, freezing in her steps when the beam landed on three men she’d never seen before in her life. Each one held a flashlight as well and she was momentarily blinded by the searing intensity when they all converged on her face. “Who the hell are you?”

Thankfully they lowered their lights and a blonde with ice blue eyes curled his lips in a nasty grin. “The one who will be taking the treasure. Now,” before her brain could process his words, he lifted his hand, and a gun, in her direction. “Turn around please.”

Saying she had a bad feeling was an understatement. “How did you get in here?”

“Inside help.”

Ria blinked. “What’s that supposed to mean?” She couldn’t let these men get to the cave. Not when Santos lie helpless. And the blonde? He wasn’t human. She knew that without a doubt. He didn’t have that aura of earthy power that she felt around the Felix males so he wasn’t a shifter. He did, however, carry a cool energy that she was very familiar with.

She’d lived with it for years. This man was a vampire.

“Exactly what I said. Everyone must have been extremely thirsty after their hike. Except you it seems.”

Her face puckered in confusion until she recalled how everyone had been guzzling down bottles of water, except Ria. She’d finished off Annie’s special chai tea.

She goggled. “You drugged the water bottles?”

The blonde looked offended. “Personally? No. Instructed. Definitely. Now. Turn. A. Round.”

Ria gulped and turned around, heading back toward the cave as slow as she could. With their faster metabolism and quicker healing abilities, Santos, Porter and Rome may not be out long, depending on how much water they actually drank. If the drug incapacitated rather than killed, all she needed to do was stall and give the cats time to shake off the effects.

“Faster.” She was prodded in the back by the gun. “I don’t have all day.”

She quickened her pace. Slightly. “Why did you have the water drugged?”

“Because I needed a window of opportunity.”

“For what?”

An exasperated sigh. “You’re not real smart, are you? Makes me wonder how you got away from Trenton. I needed everyone out of the way so I could get through security and get to the treasure.”

Her lip curled in a snarl, but as the asshole was at her back, it was lost on him. “You’re the reason I was attacked at the airport?”

“Yes. When I heard you were going alone to the airport, I decided it was the perfect time to ask you some questions.”

“Ask me questions?” Her voice pitched high. “That bastard was going to rape me.”

“Hmm.” A considering sound. “Yes. I can see why Trenton would want to take a little extra time with you. However, his inability to handle one lone female made me reconsider his worth.”

Which meant the blonde had no idea what Ria was. “You killed him.” It wasn’t a question.

“A necessary task.”

While she wasn’t particularly saddened at that, the ease at which the blonde meted out retribution didn’t bode well for Ria and the others. Her gut twisted with regret. She didn’t want to die, not when she’d just been given the gift of belonging. To a man. A home. A family.

Anger blazed in her eyes at that. Someone in that home, in that family had betrayed them all. “Who did it?”

Someone snorted behind her but it was the vamp that said in a condescending tone, “Not smart at all. I did.”

Her hand curled tighter around her flashlight. She was about to hit him with it, the potential for receiving a bullet sooner rather than later be damned. “You said you had inside help to drug the water. Who?” Though she already had a suspicion, she wanted confirmation on the traitor’s identity.

“Sarah, of course. That sweet little piece will do anything I ask. Probably take her own life if I wanted it.” A gruff laugh spiked with a tinge of insanity. “Now that her usefulness is at an end, I just might do that.”

Nice. And she thought her family was psychotic.

“Ah. Here we are.”

When she had bolted the cave, she had left the flashlights where they had fallen. Now, their beams formed streams of light that threw the ground in sharp relief even as deep shadows hugged the walls. The coolness of the cavern invaded to blend with the icy cold dread racing in her veins and she shivered. The blonde remained behind her while the other two men flanked him. Ria slanted her eyes to James, and specifically to his shotgun, before turning and backing away. She had no idea where Porter’s gun was and didn’t have time to look for it.

“Uh-huh. Don’t go far.”

She acted terrified. Not a difficult task. “You’re blocking the only exit. How far can I go?”

He waved the gun in thought. “True. Take care of the shifters.”

Confusion at the command turned to apprehension when the two goons approached Santos and Porter. “What are you doing? And what do you mean shifters?”

“You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

Her eyes narrowed as each man took out a simple metal cuff and clicked them around the right leg of both Santos and Porter.

No way.

“I research myths and have rooted out countless legends.” She couldn’t quite keep the urgency out of her voice. “I doubt anything you have to say would surprise me. And do you seriously need to keep that gun pointed at me?”

Ignoring her last question, the blonde said, “The men of this particular family aren’t human. They’re shifters.” The word came out in a disgusted sneer. “Part human, part animal. What you have here are jaguar shifters. Filthy beasts. Deadly, unpredictable creatures. Believe me?”

Ria swallowed. “I admit I’ve heard that term before, and as you’re holding a gun on me, I believe that you believe it.”

The man shook his head as if wondering how he got stuck with her, but he tucked the gun away in his boot. “Happy?”

“No.” Though she felt a little less alarmed. His foot was a long way off from his hand. “Where’d you find the cuffs.”

“We obtained them from a deep, dark place in Alaska. The previous owner won’t be needing them anymore.”

“You stole them?” Oh, someone was going to be pissed at that. “You drug their water too?”

The blonde’s lips thinned. “No. Our information wasn’t accurate and I lost two good men during the raid. Bastard wizard.”

Her face set in lines of taunting disbelief, keeping his attention on her rather than on the men on the ground in case the effects of the drug started to ebb. “Wizard? Oh this just gets better and better.”

His lips twisted in an angry knot, and those eerie blue eyes started to turn black. That darkness creeping into his eyes as familiar as her own. Though her whole eye didn’t go black like the blonde’s. A sure sign of a vampire hooked on bloodlust.

“Flippant, little girl? You know nothing. Those cuffs are magically infused with power to prevent a shifter from changing into his animal form, because the second they do, the drug destabilizes and the effects shed by the change. The only reason they’re still alive is because I need information. Now where is the fucking treasure?”

Gulping, she hastened back several steps. “Your eyes.”

His mouth opened to reveal a pair of sharp fangs. “Didn’t I tell you? I’m a vampire. Lee.”

The Asian goon walked up to her and touched her face. “Pretty.” She jerked from the contact, only to find her arm bent behind her as the man held her in place. His hand came back up and trailed over her once again. She shuddered in revulsion, even as earthy power filled the air and made the tiny hairs on her arm stand up. Head down as if in defeat, she flicked her gaze over to Santos. The yellowish-green glow of pure pissed off jaguar beneath his thick lashes met hers. She sagged against the man at her back in relief.

“I want her, Brett.”

“Later.” The blonde, Brett, snapped. “First I want to know where the treasure is bitch.”

The insults were getting old and a surge of anger scorched through her blood. “Hello? We stepped foot in this place not twenty minutes before everyone began dropping like flies. I haven’t come across any treasure. I haven’t seen any treasure and I’m telling you there is no treasure.”

“You lie!”

“You think so? Then let me tell you a truth, Brett. Those cuffs? They only work on
wolf
shifters, and only before the initial change. After the first shift, the animal has taken root inside their counterpart. Man and beast are now one. Unshakeable and completely inseparable. Maybe you need to learn more about what you’re after before you go after it.
Think
before you do, because what you find isn’t always what you thought it was.”

And in her case, she’d discovered a treasure beyond compare. Not a thing, but in a person. People. Family. Love.

Never having felt that emotion before, wasn’t it ironic that, faced with death, she only now realized that warm glow in her chest whenever she thought or saw Santos was love. It made her want to bite something.

When Brett’s brows furrowed, Ria pressed on, her gums beginning to burn and fury to rise at the unfairness of it all. “Wondering if I’m telling the truth and if I am, how the hell would I know? Let me tell you how I know. The
sorcerer
you stole the cuffs from, Kalin, that’s my great-grandfather. Oh. And by the way, you aren’t the only vampire in the room, asshole.”

With that, Ria unleashed her wrath, and her fangs, giving Brett and the man next to him a glimpse of hell descending before hunching down in a quick spin, yanking her arm free with a painful wrench from Lee’s grasp. Utilizing her momentum and super strength, she flung the thug through the air to smack into Brett, knocking them both to the ground.

From out of the tunnel came a terrifying growl and a dark shadow leapt. At the same time, twin showering lightshows illuminated the cave for a split second before two huge jaguars vaulted into the air.

Smart enough to get out of the way, Ria stumbled back against the wall, her shoulder screaming in agony. Blinking at the tears that blinded her, she tried to see the battle that raged between cats, humans and vampire, but all she saw was watery blurs of movement and moments of darkness as the pain in her shoulder threatened to take her under. She did hear the growls, curses and screams of pain though, and at that she decided it best she couldn’t see.