She stumbled to her feet and swayed before leaning against the wall. Hate burned in her eyes, and I watched her cautiously. Would she try to attack again?
The door burst open, and Matias rushed inside, only to be shoved back by Mike and blocked by Davis. “No one invited you,” Mike snarled. “The girls are having a chat.”
“Really?” Matias sneered. “Because it sounds like your girl is trying to kill mine.”
I snorted and shifted back to human. “That’s ridiculous. She came in here to attack me.”
Matias’s eyes flicked down my naked body, but I wasn’t going to cower in front of him. I stood tall and let a low growl escape my throat. His eyes returned to mine with an odd combination of lust and hate. “She came to make peace,” Matias lied.
Trevor moved as if he was going to stand in front of me, but I shot him a warning look. I
was the most dominant cat in here, and I wasn’t going to show weakness by allowing anyone to protect me. Rich handed me the dress I had discarded earlier, and I slipped into it casually without showing an ounce of shame. I had nothing to be embarrassed about.
“Even you don’t believe that,” I told Matias coldly. He avoided eye contact, and I laughed. “Was bringing me here some kind of an effort to get rid of me permanently?”
Matias’s dark eyes flashed. “You don’t belong here, and you don’t deserve to be one of us. You’re not even a full jaguar shifter.”
I smiled as if that hadn’t bothered me at all. “And so when my dear grandmother wanted me back, you decided to use the opportunity to get rid of me once and for all?”
Matias pushed past Mike to get to Ximena. Mike looked at me in question, but I waved a hand at them. “Let them go. She challenged me and lost.”
Matias picked Ximena and carried her out of the room, which was the ultimate sign of weakness. She could have preserved a little bit of her pride by walking away from the fight.
Davis slammed the door shut behind them, and I crossed my arms over my chest. “I don’t think that was the end. Next time, she won’t come at me directly, she’ll try an ambush.” “Luckily, you have us to watch your back,” Trevor grumbled.
“We have each other,” I corrected. I couldn’t wait until we could get out of here. My dear grandmother had better not be planning to double-cross us as well. “But we should probably sleep in shifts, so we don’t have any more surprises.”
“Looks like the fun and games are over for tonight,” Quinn quipped.
I sighed and tried to fall gracefully on one of the cushions. Now that my adrenaline was fading, I could feel soreness setting into my body. I yawned and curled up as the other guys drew lots for watch duty. I didn’t care what shift I got as long as I got to sleep at some point. All of us could use a good night’s sleep after spending several days traveling through the wilderness and pushing our bodies to the breaking point.
Chapter 30
I stood in front of the gilded vault door as my grandmother and five other jaguars in white dresses chanted. Magic swirled around all of us as it seeped out of the symbols carved into the vault door. I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, keeping my thoughts clear. I wanted to gain access to the vault to save my world, not for any selfish reasons.
A loud groan made my eyes snap back open to see the ancient door opening. I strode forward to be the first to step inside, the other guys not far behind me. I had wanted to be the only one to go inside, but my guys had strongly objected. I had been surprised and suspicious when my grandmother not only accepted the decision to let them in with me, she had acted as if it were a foregone conclusion. I had wondered if she had received a vision or some hint of the future, but if she had, she’d never admit it to me.
I took a step into the vault on bare feet. Hába Nábia had dressed all of us in traditional, plain white cotton clothing to show our purity before the goddess. We were also entering without weapons or any other defenses, which wasn’t my choice. Since we were going into an ancient treasure trove, I anticipated there being defenses – both physical and magical.
Once the six of us were inside, the door creaked closed behind us, sealing us inside of a dark corridor. One by one, magical torches on the walls lit themselves with an eerie blue flame.
The light led the way through a darkened archway ahead of us. “Ready?” I asked softly.
“Remember to let me go first, since I’m the most sensitive to magic.”
After a chorus of grunts and murmured agreement assured me that the guys would follow my instructions, I proceeded forward cautiously, looking for any hints as to what we would face. Symbols painted on the wall to my left made me hold up a hand to halt after only a few meters in. I walked along the stones against the wall as I attempted to puzzle them out. “I think this is a warning,” I called softly. “Some of these are similar to the ones on the vault door that we passed through.”
Rich took a couple steps forward to get closer, and the floor creaked beneath his feet. Before I could even shout a warning, the stones beneath his feet crumbled, and he started to fall. Davis and Trevor both lunged forward to grab for him, but only Trevor managed to get a hold of his arm.
“Stay there!” Mike called to me. “I think the stones that you just walked on are the only solid ones.”
I bit my lip as I looked down into the dark pit that Trevor was pulling Rich out of. The glint of metal at the bottom showed that the pit was lined with sharp spikes. If Rich had fallen, he would have been impaled. And if I hadn’t been distracted by the symbols on the wall, it would have been me that had fallen. No one would have been close enough to catch me.
Davis helped Trevor pull Rich back up, and Mike slapped him on the back once he was standing on solid ground. “Thanks for the quick reflexes,” Rich told Trevor. “You saved my ass.”
“Follow my path exactly,” I called to the others. “And only walk on the stones that touch the wall directly.”
The others followed in my footsteps, and we walked in a straight line. “Are you expecting more traps?” Quinn asked.
“Probably,” I said warily. “There’s a magic ward over the archway that we’re going to have to pass through, and I’m not sure what it does.” “Wonderful,” Quinn groaned.
“Relax,” I assured him as I knelt down. “The next one is something I recognize. The stone I stopped before was raised slightly, indicating that was something I would need to do to get past that point. I looked at the wall carefully to see small holes embedded in the wall ahead of where we were walking.
“I think it’s rigged to shoot arrows at us if we go further,” I murmured as I looked at the wall for clues. Hunting jaguars were carved into the wall in sharp relief, but I noticed something odd about the prey they were chasing. The carving around the capybara was deeper than the others. I pressed my fingers against it and held my breath as it depressed with the unpleasant sound of scraping stone. “I think that worked. Hopefully, I didn’t just activate it.”
Trevor pushed me behind him and took a step forward. “Hey!” I complained. Mike and Davis grabbed my arms to hold me back and I snarled at both of them as I struggled against their hold.
“It’s safe,” Trevor called from down the hall.
“Not cool,” I muttered as I yanked my arms back to my sides.
“We need you alive to find the traps,” Rich said with a reasonable tone in his voice. “If you go down, none of us will make it out.”
“You should have thought about that before you insisted on coming with me instead of waiting for me like I wanted.”
Mike rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to bother to reply to that.”
I stepped up to the archway and looked at the opaque golden shimmer that barricaded our way further. The symbols around the archway reminded me of the murals depicting judgment after death and I wondered if this was another test of our intentions or our worthiness to continue. There was only one way to find out.
I stepped forward, and the magic of the doorway sucked me
inside. Golden light surrounded me, and a female shimmered into existence. She cocked her head and I could feel her sharp intrusion into my mind.
“You think yourself worthy of entering the goddess’s sanctuary?” she asked without any inflection in her voice.
“I come not for myself, but for the sake of my world,” I forced out as her paralysis magic relaxed enough to let me speak.
“Yes,” she said softly. “I see that you do. As the guardian, I will pass judgment on you.
“What have you brought for the goddess?”
“My necklace,” I said softly. “My mother wore it every day before she died, and it is the only thing I value.”
“Not the only thing,” the guardian stated. “You have brought others with you. Will you offer them as sacrifices?”
My heart froze in my chest. “If a sacrifice is needed, I offer my own life.” The guys would be able to get the weapon back to Seaside, and Anna would find a way to use it without me. Grief caused my throat to close as I realized how much I would be giving up. I had just started to think of all the possibilities that a life in Seaside would provide for me. I’d lose everything - but at least the guys would survive.
“I see the truth in your statement,” the guardian informed me. “You would rather I take your life than theirs.”
“Yes,” I hissed out.
She nodded and stepped back with a smile. “I will allow you to pass and remove one thing from inside. But choose wisely.”
Both the woman and the magic disappeared, and I was able to move forward. The gold glow around me faded as I stepped into a room with brightly painted walls. There were chests filled with gold coins, life-sized statues made of gold and silver, ceramics with magic radiating from them, and figures of jaguars made of precious metals and embellished with valuable jewels.
I walked past all of it without hesitation. Wealth wasn’t what I had come here for. I needed something much more important. I passed by what was probably billions of dollars of treasure in frustration. Where was the spear I was looking for?
A large door was carved into one of the walls, and I walked over to it once I realized that what I needed was definitely not in this room. The door was massive, and the center had a large indentation as if something were missing. My memory sparked when I thought of the Gate of the Gods in Puerta de Haya Marca. Legend said that the Gate of the Gods would open once a gold medallion was placed in the center of the door – like a key. Was this door the same?
I looked around the room with newfound hope. The key had to be in here along with all of the other piles of gold. I hurriedly searched through chests and piles of gold coins and artifacts, looking for anything that would be the right size and shape. I finally found what I
wanted within a chest of gleaming gold coins, and my heart pounded as I walked up to the door with trepidation. What would I find on the other side? Would it be another storeroom where the spear I sought was housed?
I had to stand on my toes to press the key into the indentation, and bright light shot out and almost blinded me. My jaw dropped in shock when the door disappeared instead of opening, and I hesitated for a few moments before stepping forward.
I was still seeing spots in my eyes from the bright lights, and I didn’t want to go into the next room blind. Who knew what danger might lie within?
More magical torches burst to life when I finally stepped inside. This room was darker and lacking in treasure, but I smiled when I saw what was mounted on the wall. It was the spear that I had come here for. The spear that was going to save us all.
I crept forward cautiously, wary of more traps that would protect the most valuable thing in here. I didn’t relax when I was close enough to touch the spear, I put all my focus on examining the metal brace that attached it to the wall. What would happen if I picked up the spear? Would it set off more traps? I could feel a thrum of power emanating from it, and the faint glow of magic around it told me that it was under a layer of protection.
I reached out for the spear as the little hairs on the back of my neck prickled. I whirled around in alarm when I felt someone watching me. I could feel a heavy gaze on me, but there was no one else in the room. The only other object was the statue of a sleeping woman, made of some kind of dark stone that I’d never seen before.
The surge of irrational fear that overcame me was overwhelming. Staring at the spear wouldn’t suddenly reveal anything that I hadn’t already seen, and all of my instincts were telling me that I needed to get out of here now.
My breath was shaky as I exhaled and tried to think rationally. The spear would be covered in protection spells, and what better spell would there be than to make everyone run away from here in terror? That had to be what this was.
I eyed the magic I could see around the spear and gently picked at the web. The whole thing glowed in warning, and it took all of my inner strength to beat back the terror that was building inside me. Sweat beaded on my face as I tugged at the strands of magic that protected the spear from people like me. My hands shook with the effort of my task, and I clenched my fists tightly. I wasn’t walking away from here empty-handed. I was going to win my battle against this spell.
The web that I was unraveling abruptly contracted and then exploded out in a burst that caused me to stumble back. I braced myself against the wall until I could catch my breath and steady my shaking body. I took a couple cautious steps back towards the spear, but when the intense fear that had been caused by the protection spell before didn’t return, I decided it was safe to approach. My body was still flooded with adrenaline, and my senses were on high alert.
I extended a hand to the spear and let out a relieved breath when I touched the cool metal, and nothing happed. From behind me, magic sparked and started to grow into something I couldn’t identify. Was this a different spell that had been activated?
I hurriedly snatched the spear and made a run for it. I sprinted right to the golden enshrouded archway where I had entered and prayed that I would be allowed to leave. I breathed out a sigh of relief as I skidded right through and crashed into Trevor.
“That was quick,” he said as he held me back and looked me over. “Good, you’re unharmed.”
“And you have the spear,” Davis said with a grin.
“Fantastic,” Quinn said drily. “Can we get the fuck out of here now? My Spidey senses are tingling.”
“Yes,” I said enthusiastically. “Let’s go.”
Before we could make it back to the vault door, all of the torches blinked out in a whoosh. I blinked to let my eyes adjust to the darkness and extended the other senses that I had. We were no longer alone in this space.
My heart pounded, and the sound was deafening in the silence that echoed between the stone walls. I could hear the others breathing, but no one moved, not wanting to give away our positions if there was an enemy in here with us.
The golden archway glowed softly as a woman stepped out. She was tall, with dark gold skin and hair as black as the deepest part of night. Her eyes gleamed gold and blinked sleepily. The power radiating off her was beyond anything I’d ever experienced before, and I immediately knew who this was. This was the elusive Jaguar Goddess who I had thought was nothing but a myth. Had she been what I had thought was the statue of the sleeping woman? Fear flooded through me. I hadn’t been prepared to deal with the wrath of a goddess.
“My child, you have come to awaken me?” she asked me.
I knew my mouth was open in shock, but I quickly recovered. “No, mother,” I said meekly as I lowered my head in subservience and sank to one knee. “I came to retrieve a weapon that I hoped I might use in the battle against our enemies.”
I hurriedly nudged the other guys to follow my lead. I hadn’t thought that anything on this earth would have been powerful enough to make me bow before it, but I wasn’t going to risk angering this entity just yet. At least not until we decided if she was ally or enemy.
The woman’s eyes narrowed as she scanned over the r
est of our group. “And you come accompanied by the children of Lycaon?”
I stilled. “They accompanied me on my quest to find you, mother. They are friends and allies.”
“And lovers,” the goddess murmured.
She strode over to me and placed her hand over my head. Fear flooded through me as a wave of magic crashed over us. I tried to move, but I found that my body was frozen in place. I struggled to break free and sweat dripped down my face from fruitless exertion. A presence invaded my mind and her ancient magic sharply probed my memories. I tried to struggle against her, but it was a hopeless battle. My fear only grew when I realized what she was looking for. Memories from the stories my mother would tell me about the jaguars was brought to the forefront. That was the knowledge she was looking for, she wanted to know what had come of the people she considered to be hers.
A primal scream echoed through the room and pain seared through me, right down to the marrow of my bones.
As the pain subsided and my vision returned, I saw that the goddess’s garment had gone from a dress of pure white to battle gear of leather and gold.
“They chased my people from my land,” she hissed. “Forced my guardians and worshippers to hide on the slopes of the mountain. No more. Vengeance shall be theirs.”
She disappeared in a swirl of gold, and the magic that had been keeping my body frozen released me from its hold.
I raised her shaking hands to my pale face. “Guys,” I said with wide eyes. “I think we just made things worse.”
“Much worse,” Trevor said darkly. “We just released an all-powerful goddess to go on a killing spree.”
“Shit,” Davis cursed. “We came here to save the world, not fuck it up even more.”
“We need to warn people,” I said with determination. “The Kogi and the other tribes that stayed loyal to her will be safe, but everyone else…”
Rich rubbed his hands over his face. “Yeah, let’s get out of here and find a clear spot to get signal on the satellite phone. Austin will know what we need to do to get the word out.”
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