WarriorsandLovers (12 page)

“What were you doing on the bed?” Elijah growled, rubbing
his shoulder.

“I told him to get in.” Eora’s head and shoulders popped
into view on the other side of Elijah. “It was stupid for him to spend the
night on the floor.”

“It would have been better than waking up with him trying to
have sex with me.”

“I wasn’t trying to have sex with you,” Elijah growled. “I
didn’t even know you were next to me.”

“Good point.” Nieko glared at Eora. “You were supposed to be
between us,” Nieko accused. “How did
he
get there?”

“I had to go to the toilet,” Eora said. “And when I came
back, Elijah had rolled to the middle. It was easier to slip in on the outside.
Why does it matter?”

“He attacked me.”

“He freaked out.”

The two men answered at the same time.

“I did not attack you—I was asleep,” Elijah yelled as Nieko
growled, “I did not freak out—I pushed you off me.”

“You were fondling me,” Nieko accused.

“You sniffed me!” Elijah countered.

They glared at each other, Nieko on the bed, the covers
pushed down to his waist, Elijah on the floor. Suddenly two pairs of male eyes
widened, two fingers pointed and two voices chorused in unison. “You have a
hard-on!”

“You were hugging me,” Nieko shouted.

“You had your bloody nose buried in my neck!”

The men were distracted by the sound of another body falling
to the floor. Nieko rose to his knees, Elijah stood and they both looked down
at Eora, who lay on the floor, totally naked, legs drawn up to her stomach,
arms wrapped around them, rocking from side to side with uncontrollable
laughter.

“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Nieko, his attempt at
dignity in contrast to the heat burning in his cheeks.

“Oh come on, Nieko,” she giggled. “You’re both guys. You
must have had morning woodies since you hit puberty. The way you’re carrying on
you’d think…” She dissolved into giggles again.

The men looked at each other in an unexpected moment of
male-to-male sympathy.

“I wasn’t um…you know,” Elijah muttered.

“I might have overreacted,” Nieko replied.

They scrambled into their clothes, Elijah donning his
effeminate shirt with a defiant shrug of the shoulders, and stood keeping a
wide distance between them.

Eora stopped chortling for long enough pull on her own
clothes. “I think it would have been hot.”

Both men stared at her, mouths agape. Nieko recovered first.
“Two men? Together? It’s unheard of. Unthinkable!”

“To most Dvalinn it is,” Eora agreed. “But not to humans. Is
it, Elijah?”

Nieko swung his head to look at Elijah, waiting for an
answer. From the fiery color in his cheeks, Nieko fully expected the human to
deny it. The answer, then, came as a shock. “It’s quite common.”

“And it’s accepted?” Nieko asked. “Astonishing.”

“It wasn’t always,” Elijah replied. “And some people still
don’t.” He looked at the ground, not making eye contact with either of the
Dvalinn. Nieko was pretty sure he knew what that meant.

“You don’t accept it, do you?” He didn’t need to ask the
human. He’d seen his anger.

Elijah scrubbed a hand across his face. “I… It’s difficult.
Some people close to me were adamant it was wrong. I’d rather not discuss it.
Besides, if the Dvalinn are so dead against it, I’m surprised
you
want
to talk about it.”

Eora’s face lit with enthusiasm and Nieko groaned inwardly.
The damn human didn’t know what he’d started. Once Eora got going with her
fascination with human society and all its ways, she could go on for hours.

“The Dvalinn consider a lot of things unthinkable. Recent
events have proved we’re wrong.”

Nieko jolted back to attention. This was new. “We’re wrong?”
he asked.

“We have to be wrong,” Eora stated. “Tybor, Huon and the
human female prove that. We were taught there is no sexual interaction between
men…that’s wrong. We were taught there is no such thing as love…that’s wrong
too. Why else would the three of them be prepared to give up everything to be
together?”

Nieko sagged back against the wall, his shaky knees refusing
to support him. “You believe in love?”

Eora shrugged. “I’m not sure what it really means, but in theory,
yes. I’ve studied human psychology and history enough to know how important
love is to them. Huon and Tybor proved it happens to Dvalinn too.”

“Who are these people you keep talking about?” Elijah asked.
“Did you say a human?”

“Yes. The three of them are the reason Nieko and I are
here.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “Well, the reason I’m here. Nieko is
here because he thinks a) I’m going to get into trouble and b) if I do he can
do something to get me out of it.”

“You’re already in trouble,” Nieko said. “I have no idea how
any
of us are going to get out of it, but don’t let that stop you. Maybe
if you hear yourself say it out loud you’ll realize how stupid this whole thing
has been.”

“Tybor, Huon and the human, Judie, are heroes,” she went on,
pausing only to poke her tongue out at Nieko. So much for hoping she might see
the seriousness of the mess they’d gotten themselves into. “Tybor and Huon
risked their lives to save our people from destruction.”

She suddenly sobered. Nothing much ever marred Eora’s happy
disposition, but even someone who didn’t know her as well as Nieko did couldn’t
have mistaken the mingled sorrow and horror that drew her lips into a harsh
white line and carved deep lines between her brows. “There was a human,” she
said. “He trapped our people when they went to the surface. He locked on to
them like a parasite and forced them to transport him to the underworld. He
killed his hosts, attacked three of our cities and murdered the inhabitants.
Then he fled back to the surface world. Tybor and Huon made it their mission to
track him down, to destroy him and the organization that supported him.”

Elijah made a choking noise. Nieko turned to look at him.
His face had gone ashy gray.

“Most Dvalinn hate the humans now. We’re all forbidden to
visit the surface. But I
don’t
think all humans are evil,” Eora said.
“The Gatekeepers were an aberrant group. We can coexist with humans if we
overcome the hatred.” She turned her head and looked straight into Nieko’s eyes.
“Although there are
some
who insist no human is to be trusted.”

Nieko was about to answer her when something caught his
attention. Or rather the absence of something. The swirling pressure in his
head had eased, a sure sign that the thermo-magnetic disturbance had
dissipated. “The storm’s over,” he said.

Elijah’s head snapped up. “Can we get out of here?”

“Not straight away,” Eora replied. “It will take a while for
the rocks to cool down again, but soon.”

“How long do you think?” Elijah asked.

“You’re not going anywhere except to appear before the
council.” Nieko folded his arms across his chest.

“You really don’t have an alternative,” Eora added. “You
don’t know how you got here in the first place. You can’t teleport, so we’ll
all have to walk back to the city. Maybe someone there will know how to get you
home.”

“Because you don’t have any idea how to do it, do you?”
Nieko asked, making no attempt to disguise his suspicion.

“I told you I don’t know,” Elijah responded. “I guess we
keep on waiting until it’s safe to leave.”

“For the city,” Nieko reiterated.

“Yeah. Right,” Elijah muttered. Nieko wondered how two words
of agreement could sound so much like a denial.

Nieko resumed his position on the floor, back to the wall,
hands dangling over his knees. For some reason the human sat opposite, his
position mirroring Nieko’s. Every so often he would look up from his
contemplation of the floor between his knees and his gaze would meet Nieko’s.
It must have been the tension or mistrust that tightened Nieko’s chest and sent
the blood thumping through his veins so loudly he could hear it every time he
felt the smoky brown scrutiny.

A couple of times Eora tried to initiate a conversation by
asking questions about the surface, but Nieko didn’t care what the hell rain
was like. Elijah grunted “It’s wet,” and returned to his silent reverie.

Every half an hour or so Eora consulted the temperature
indicator on the wall. The fourth time, she tapped it with her forefinger.

“That won’t make it go down any faster,” Nieko told her.
“All you’ll do is end up breaking it.”

She sat down again, then surged to her feet and paced back
and forth across the limited space. “I can’t stand this.” She strode back to
the indicator. “I could survive out there. It won’t be comfortable but it won’t
kill us either.”

“We could wait a little longer,” Nieko said. “We don’t want
to injure the human.”

“I can stand it if you can,” Elijah said. “I’m a firefighter.
I probably know more about surviving heat than you ever will.”

“Okay, then,” Eora said. “Let’s do this.”

Nieko picked up his pack. As soon as he’d shouldered it,
Eora hit the button to open the door.

A wave of heat washed over them but after the first shock
passed Nieko realized Eora was right. They could stand it. Anything was better
than being shut up in the safe room together. The tension had wound them all
too tight. Nieko didn’t want to see what would happen if one of them snapped.

He let Eora step outside first, then he gestured for Elijah
to follow. He left the safe room last.

Elijah stood as if he were strung together with wires,
muscles tight, head up, alert and nervous. Not that Nieko blamed him. This must
all be challenging for him.

“Which way do we go?” Elijah asked.

“That way,” Eora replied, pointing back the way she and
Nieko had come. “The other way is Ogof. We were originally planning to go there
to see if we could find Tybor and Huon and their woman, but we have to take you
back to the coun —”

She broke off as Elijah pushed her aside and took off
running, down the passageway in the direction of Ogof. He bent down as he ran,
scooping something off the floor, but his pace didn’t slow.

For one stupefied moment Nieko watched him go, then he
gathered his wits and took off in pursuit, Eora no more than a step behind him.

He heard her call out to Elijah to stop, but Elijah ran as
if he hadn’t heard her. Nieko didn’t bother to waste his breath to tell her the
human wasn’t going to come back because she’d asked him to.

Damn. He’d known he shouldn’t have trusted the bastard. He
should have tied his wrists and shackled his ankles before he let Eora open the
door, but he’d been so eager to escape the space and its proximity to the
unsettling human that he’d lost his ability to think.

And now he was paying the price for his stupidity.

The human had run the instant Eora had indicated the way to
Ogof. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said he could handle heat. Nieko pounded
along, sweat dripping down his torso, his lungs burning with the in-and-out
rush of air. Ahead of him, he could see rivulets of sweat trickling down
Elijah’s neck, making dark wet patches on his shirt, but it didn’t slow him
down. Nieko lunged, trying to wrap his fist in the trailing shirttails, but
Elijah put on a burst of pace and eluded him.

Nieko leaped, diving to the left, trying to tackle the
human’s legs out from under him, but Elijah lurched to the right before Nieko
reached him. Hands outstretched, Nieko slid along the rock floor, heat and
stone abrading his palms, fury searing his brain.

He knew! The damn human knew what Nieko planned before he
moved. He was using telepathic powers—there was no other explanation for it.
Nieko dragged himself to his feet and ran again. For the second time he’d let
his guard slip. The second time the human had been able to read him.

He hauled himself to his feet and sprinted along the
passageway. Elijah had used Nieko’s fall to pull ahead. His pace was fast and
sustained, but this was Nieko’s territory. His muscles were fueled by rage. His
fists clenched and he itched with the need to pound them into Elijah’s too-pretty
face.

Ahead of him, Elijah disappeared around a corner. Nieko
ignored the pain in his chest and the fire in his legs.

He raced through the curve. Ahead of him the tunnel branched
in two, both paths empty as far as he could see. Nieko hesitated. Which way?
Then the slap of feet against rock in the right-hand diversion made the
decision for him. He chased after the sound.

Within seconds the walls around him showed signs of
decoration. In his determined pursuit, Nieko hadn’t realized they had come
quite so close to the city. Elijah couldn’t have slowed down for even an
instant to choose a direction back at the junction. Had it been a lucky choice
or had he known which branch to take? Known because he’d been here before,
remembered the paintings on the wall and remembered how to get back?

The road straightened and Nieko caught sight of Elijah for a
brief moment. He kept running, no hesitation in his stride. In fact he seemed
to know exactly where he was heading—toward the city center square. It had all been
lies when he’d said he didn’t remember. When Nieko finally caught up with him
he was going to beat the truth out of him without waiting for the council.

Nieko burst into the square and skidded to a halt, the
breath rushing from his lungs in shock as he took in the astonishing scene
before him.

Elijah’s eyes were wide and bulging as he looked frantically
back at Nieko. His mouth opened and shut but no sound emerged. It couldn’t,
because a large, meaty forearm was hooked around his throat, squeezing tightly.
Nieko’s stunned gaze followed the line of muscle and sinew up until he looked
into the hard, grim face of a seasoned warrior. Tybor.

Next to Tybor, a paler, slender but still dangerous-looking
younger man wrenched the backpack from Elijah’s shoulders. So that was what he
had stopped to pick up as he fled the safe room!