Redemption (11 page)

She tried to twist in his arms, but gave up when she realized she couldn’t see anything anyway. “You’re scared of him?”

“He’s stronger. I couldn’t protect you from him. Even if I won in a fight against him, the queen would have me hunted down and slaughtered.”

“Maybe if we talk to the queen first?”

Iada? No one begged leniency of their queen. He laughed. “Ah, no. Trust me when I say the queen is not the more sympathetic partner in that pairing.”

And she did. She still trusted him, after everything. Of course, he should have realized, as scared and angry as she was, she never would have taken him again if she hadn’t trusted him on some level. The realization was shocking and incredibly humbling. “Alright then.”

She sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. Drained by rough sex and soothed by the warmth from the water, she would sleep soon and then he could get to work finding the stone. He traced over the scar that started beneath her arm, sliced across her breast and covered most of her abdomen. It would have been extremely painful, difficult for a human woman to bear especially when human men were such singularly visual creatures.

He didn’t mind it at all. To his kind, scars were symbols of strength, the will to survive. She was awake enough to realize the direction his fingers were drifting.

“I didn’t want you to see them.”

“There’s a liana in the jungle,” he told her, tracing over the rippled skin with a light touch. He wondered how much feeling she still had there. Or would it be more sensitive? “It’s only a small vine but it can wrap itself around the mightiest of trees to strangle them slowly.” He pressed a kiss to her hair. “Just because she died doesn’t mean you stop living.”

She stiffened in his arms and he wanted to take the words back. But he couldn’t. He didn’t. She turned around, floating back, drifting away from him until her back brushed the far side of the pool. She stood. “Let’s go find this treasure.”

Jaguar. Yaguara. Adriano.
Sophie decided to focus on the last one as she sank up to her shoulders in the water. Still, the fact he was a shape-shifter kept circling around in her brain, kicking up fear, disbelief, superstition and lust like silt from a stirred pond.

“So where is this obelisk exactly? I don’t see it here but there’s no way out either. I assume that’s why your friend thought he needed to trap you down here to fetch it for him. He seemed pretty sure you’d be able to find it.”

Adriano’s eyes met hers. “This is the first in a series of interconnecting tunnels. I don’t know if the passages are still intact. You stay here.” His expression softened. “You’ll be sore, I imagine and I…”

He reached for her but she pulled away, slipping deeper into the pool and moving her arms in lazy circles to steady herself. “You don’t need to apologize. A little rough sex won’t break me. I was thinking…do we really need to play this game? Sean’s an idiot but if neither of us comes back, he’ll send someone out to look for us.”

Adriano’s black brows lifted mockingly. “And you think they’ll look here? This place they don’t even know exists?”

“We can make noise. Will you hear them coming? I bet we can make a racket if we put our minds to it.”

“We already tried that.”

She blushed. “They’ll search the grounds. Surely they’ll notice strangers hovering around the Rocas. Especially by dawn when they plan to cart off an obelisk.”

“The wolf will go to Sean as one of my workers with some excuse that we’ve run off, or that I found you sick and took you into town to find a doctor. Any number of placating lies will do. It’s what I would do. Sean doesn’t know one of my men from another.”

True. The rest of what he’d said sunk in and she looked at him sharply. “Wolf?”

Adriano nodded. “The American is a wolf. Genetically, he and I are the same but shifters key in to the largest predator in their environment. It’s stable by puberty. But we also tend to be territorial creatures who stick with our own kind which is why it’s so unusual that a wolf would be working with a Yaguara.”

“What does it mean?”

He shrugged and water glistened across those broad, sculpted shoulders with the movement. “Probably just that the money was good enough. There are plenty of people who’ve been cast out for one reason or another. This isn’t the only mercenary band I’ve come across.”

She wanted to ask him if he was an outcast too, but maybe there were some things she didn’t need to know. She looked around the cavern and said, “So how do we get to the stone?”

He hesitated a moment before answering. “We pass under the wall through the water. First was earth.” He jerked his chin up to indicate the stone sealing them in. “Then water. Air. And finally…fire.”

“That’s the code they were talking about?”

“It’s a simple cleansing ritual. All of our oldest temples were constructed with similar principles in mind. There will be tunnels that branch to other levels, living quarters for the priests and priestesses but any Yaguara raised with an understanding of the old ways would be able to find his way. It wasn’t meant to keep
us
out.” He paused. “You stay here, Sophie. These tunnels are meant to be crossed in jaguar form. I don’t even know if you’ll be able to pass.”

This was easy, to slip into a discussion of the practical, a plan to find the obelisk, a plan to escape. She could ignore the fact that her world was not the place she’d thought for the last twenty-four years. And Adriano. No. She had no desire to poke around in the tangle of emotions that threatened to choke her whenever he touched her. Best to keep her distance for now. He watched her carefully. She hadn’t missed the cast of pity in his eyes when he’d told her there might be fire.

“You really think I’d stay here and…soak while you go off to find the treasure?” She gave a sharp shake of her head. “Not happening.”

The corner of his mouth tugged up into a halfhearted smile. “I had a feeling you might say that. You’ll do as I say at every turn.”

She wanted to refuse out of principle but nodded in agreement, knowing she needed to concede something. “Are there booby traps?”

“Booby traps,” he repeated, bemused. “You think this is the Temple of Doom? Damn if you don’t sound excited by that.”

“I just want to know what to expect.”

He gave her a smile that made her want to kick him. “You’re adorable,
gata,
you know that? Of course there are no booby traps. Only a symbolic passage for priest and penitent, never meant to be particularly dangerous. The danger’s in the state of the caves and tunnels, especially since the earthquake. It will be dark. You won’t be able to see much of anything. If I had some sapo, I could dose you with it.”

“The frog spit Ethan was babbling about?”

“You should listen to Ethan sometimes. He doesn’t get everything right but he doesn’t get everything wrong either. We could use it to dilate your eyes so that you might see better. I may need to shift. My senses are sharper in jaguar form.” He watched her intently for reaction. “Are you sure you can handle that?”

She wasn’t sure about anything anymore. But she wanted to see him again as a jaguar. She’d never been closer to one than a zoo allowed and wondered if he would let her touch him. He’d looked so large and powerful in his animal form, deadly. What would it be like to have a tame jaguar walking at her side? She looked at Adriano as he stood, water sluicing from his hard body and baring all that smooth, golden skin. She swallowed hard. Well, maybe tame wasn’t the right word. Already, he was growing hard.

She nodded. “I’m ready. Under the wall and I’ll meet you on the other side. You’ll have to find me.”

His eyes searched her face a moment longer. “I’ll shift back to human form at least once every level so we can discuss our next move. You’re sure about this?”

“Yes.”

He ducked under the water, probably hoping that she wouldn’t follow. She was right behind him, taking a huge breath and plunging in, stretching her hands out in front of her and bumping up against the wall, feeling when it curved under. She pulled herself inside the black underwater tunnel and then she panicked. Her chest locked tight and all she wanted to do was go back. Her eyes were open but it was dark. If she didn’t emerge on the other side, would Adriano come find her? She didn’t think so. He’d probably think she’d chickened out and be relieved. He’d go find his treasure and come back in an hour or so to see her bloated, blue corpse floating in…

Fingertips brushed against her wrist and then closed around it tight, propelling her forward and up. Into complete darkness and cold still air.

“One down,” Adriano said, his voice loud in the echoing silence. He released her hand and she instinctively reached out to press her fingertips against his chest. “You okay, Sophie?”

She took a deep breath. “Yeah. Sure. I’m fine. What’s next?”

The water rocked against her stomach as he turned and there was a small splash. “This way.” He gave a shaky laugh. “It’s just as well that you can’t see this.”

“What is it?”

He ignored her, climbing out of the water and reaching down to help her up. “Don’t move.”

The roof of this cavern was lower than the last but it was bottomless. It couldn’t be, he knew. Great columns of stone rose up from the earth like the trees of the forest and a narrow, winding path spanned the cavern. On either side of that path, the ground dropped into a chasm. He could only see twenty or thirty feet in this darkness. It might only be a forty-foot drop but that was little comfort. There were wide paths stretching from the pool to the right and left. Most people entering this cavern would assume one of those paths led to the temple. The jaguar head carved into the far wall, gap-jawed with emerald-set eyes, said otherwise. He glanced over at Sophie. Her eyes were unfocused but her jaw was firm. Maybe she would let him carry her. Probably not. He could already feel her pushing him away again.

This time he wouldn’t try to stop her. He had his own decisions to make. No matter what happened, he couldn’t let the wolves have the obelisk. He wanted it, yes, to buy his way back home but he had no intention of handing it over to a hostile tribe. If it were only him, the choice would be simple. He’d destroy the stone and when the wolves came to claim it, Adriano would do his best to take as many of them out with him. An honorable death. But here was Sophie, vulnerable, human and not any part of this.

He could remain down here without food or water for weeks. She wouldn’t last as long. There had to be another way. His mind kept searching for an answer but hadn’t found one yet. He couldn’t decide what to do but knew he couldn’t fail. He tossed a stone into the pit to test its depth.

“I’m going to carry you across,” he told her. “Put your arms around my neck, wrap your legs around my waist and hold on tight.”

Her lips twitched. “I can handle that.”

At least she still had a sense of humor. He took her hand and pulled it over his shoulder, turning as her other hand touched his back.

Taking a deep breath, he looked out across the cavern. The pebble still hadn’t hit bottom. His ancestors wouldn’t have intentionally built the temple over such a gaping hole, would they? “Please don’t do anything…distracting, Sophie,” he told her, wondering how she could ever be anything but distracting to him. “I don’t need any surprises here.”

“I hate this. Not being able to see.”

Of course she would. She hated giving up control, even to him. It made her every concession so sweet. “This cave’s meant to represent passage through air. I thought it might be a jump but…it’s not.”

He hooked his hands around her knees and pulled them tighter around his waist, giving her a little bounce to shift her weight higher on his back. Beneath all that bravado, she was scared. He smelled it on her, felt the tremor of her muscles beneath smooth skin. But she wasn’t backing down, not even when forced to depend on him so completely.

He felt his way forward with his feet. With Sophie clinging to his back, he couldn’t bend far enough forward to watch as he placed his foot without risking toppling them both over the side. The path was about a foot wide although crumbled in places to only a few inches.

“What exactly is it then? You’re sweating. Oh God,
you’re
scared.”

“I’m not scared. Be quiet and let me focus.” Halfway there. Far below, he heard the clatter of stone. The one he tossed? He sincerely hoped so. He didn’t like the alternative, that there was something alive down there, slowly creeping up the walls to see what disturbed its slumber. And Sophie
was
quiet until one of the bats he’d heard rustling overhead dropped from its perch.

She tensed and whispered, “What was that?”

He hesitated. Humans could be strangely fearful about the most mundane creatures. Sophie was different. Surely she wouldn’t be frightened. “Only a bat. It’s flying down. There must be a way out but its nowhere we can get to without climbing gear.”

“Bat,” she repeated weakly as her arm tightened around his neck, threatening to cut off his air supply.

“Already gone,” he reassured her.

She’d just started to loosen her death grip when something woke up the rest of them. There was a great rush of air like an oncoming storm and Sophie squeaked, burying her face against his shoulder. Her body shook but she held on. He braced himself as well as he could and watched as the seething mass of black bodies stretched their leathery wings and descended on them, knocking into each other as they flew toward the low hidden tunnel. Sophie jerked and then whimpered. He hoped she’d only been hit and not bitten. Rabies, infection—a bite would be bad down here where he wouldn’t be able to treat it right away. How was he going to get her out of this safely?

The stragglers swirled around their heads, waiting for an opening. The edge of a wing brushed his cheek even as the rush of noise and wind began to fade away. Patting Sophie’s knee, he hurried them across the rest of the bridge.

There was a little bit of a step up to reach the floor level of the next cavern, really just a narrow ledge and then beyond that, a natural split in the rock wall that must be the entrance to the final cavern. Almost there. He hopped onto the ledge and grabbed Sophie’s wrists to help her down. The stone moved beneath his foot and tipped over.

They fell. Sophie screamed and her arms tightened around his neck in a spasm of panic. They were sliding into that black pit and he roared as he scrambled for something to hold onto, rock and loose earth breaking away in his hands. Sophie’s weight on his back pulled them both backward. Before they were completely lost, his fingertips snagged on rope and he closed his hand into a fist, flexing his arm at the same time to draw them back up against the cliff’s face.

He pressed his forehead to the rock for a moment, panting, listening to Sophie’s breath sharp and harsh in his ear and the clatter of rock until he couldn’t hear even an echo. His toes, digging into the split of a narrow vertical crevice started to cramp and he looked for the first time at what he held. Not rope but some kind of dried out old vine, still tough despite its age and set into the wall like a handhold. He cursed and then started to laugh even as he reached up with his other hand to feel for the top. They’d only fallen a few feet though it had seemed like an eternity as it happened.

“What?”

He ignored the question. First things first. “You’ll have to climb onto my shoulders and grab the lip to haul yourself up.”

“I can’t see a thing.”

“It’s just above my head. Follow my arm.”

He could feel her hesitate and then gather up her courage. She released her hold on his neck to stretch upward. Like a monkey, she scrambled up his body and once she was clear, he heaved himself up after her.

She was still shaking when he slid over to her and gathered her body in his arms. He didn’t know what to do to soothe her. His kind learned early to control any outward expression of fear. He was frightened too…worried for her, but he would never let anyone know it. He was Academy-trained where the first law, the only law, was strength. The first rule of training was never to expose weaknesses, not even to your friends.