by Ann Gimpel
“I was about to suggest the same thing. Do not get your hopes up, but we can familiarize ourselves with what we have to work with.”
“We fell a long way through that vortex thing, huh?”
Johan nodded. “I was working on calculating our rate of descent, and I believe we are three or four kilometers lower than we were.”
“No wonder it’s so warm.”
“But not warm enough for them to be naked.” He didn’t have to clarify whom he was talking about. “It was my first clue they had to be something other than human.” He copied my actions and slipped his arms out of the sleeves of his suit. “Come on.”
We walked the length of the large room with high, rounded ceilings. No wonder it was so big if it had to accommodate dragons. Now that my hood wasn’t in the way, I reached up with one hand and palpated the lump at the base of my skull. Dried blood had pooled beneath it, but it wasn’t particularly tender to touch, nor was it as big as I’d imagined.
Perhaps it had gone down in the days since it happened. More evidence I was alive, although I’d reluctantly abandoned my death theory in the face of all the evidence to the contrary.
We passed impressive multifaceted crystals and what might have been veins of gold and silver threaded through the walls. Was there even an “outside” here. “I understand we’re underground,” I began, not quite sure how to phrase the question in my mind.
“Ja, that explains the minerals in the walls. This chamber was hollowed out of rich ore veins, probably because dragons value gold, silver, and gemstones. Hey! I see stairs ahead.”
The idea of miles of dirt above me, pressing in on me, made me claustrophobic, but I’d felt that way the first few days aboard the Darya too. Obviously, not because of dirt but because the ship was small and the ocean impossibly big. We trotted up two flights of stairs. The next level up held what looked like a kitchen with a table, twenty chairs, and a stone countertop constructed in a U-shape along three walls.
“There must be more, erm, dragons.” I pointed at all the chairs.
“It would appear so, but where are their food stocks?” Johan strode the length of the room pulling mostly empty cupboards and drawers open.
“Why would they need them? Can’t they turn into dragons and kill whatever they need to sustain themselves?” I winced, not believing I was speculating about the culinary habits of dragon shifters.
Just like the level below, ore ran through the walls. Bright and shiny, it almost made up for the lack of windows. I had no idea where what appeared to be daylight was coming from. I hadn’t seen any lamps, yet both the lower level and this one were illuminated by some cunning means.
“All this light. Where’s it coming from?”
Johan unclipped his flashlight and played it over a wall. The surface sparkled. “Bioluminescence? Something in the walls both produces and reflects light. My guess is it’s some type of lifeform.”
I understood bioluminescence conceptually, but even single-celled organisms with reflective capability required an external light source. Absent one, there’d be nothing for them to mirror. Arguing was pointless. I didn’t know enough, and neither did Johan.
One of the core differences between the sexes was I’d be far more willing to admit my ignorance.
He left the kitchen and mounted the next flights of steps. Our second stop was a level that looked to have sleeping spaces. Several rooms opened off a central hall with skylights, suggesting we were close to a subterranean surface of some kind. Each room had a generous pallet spread across the floor. No blankets, but the dragons probably didn’t need anything to keep them warm.
Wooden chests lined the walls in two of the rooms. When Johan knelt and opened one, it was full of archaic clothing. He turned to me and held up a fur-trimmed tunic. “This suggests they leave here occasionally.”
“And that they know they need to be dressed to escape unwanted attention.”
I felt weird snooping through the dragons’ home, so I hustled back to the stairs. The next flight stopped abruptly in front of a double stone door. I expected it would be locked, but when I pushed on it, it opened easily, swinging outward on silent hinges. I had no idea what I thought I’d find. Surely not blue skies, yet what hung above me certainly looked like sky, but in a pale violet shade.
Grayish dirt spread in every direction, interrupted by occasional rocks and boulders. In the distance, the blue-green waters of a lake sparkled. I still couldn’t figure out where light was coming from. We were too far underground for the sun to penetrate, yet a dim, cozy purple glow surrounded us.
It was how I’ve always imagined a back-to-the-womb experience would be.
Johan burst through the door and hustled to my side. “Wow!” A long, low whistle escaped him. “I want to take a look at that lake. I am sure I mapped it, and once we are closer, I might know more or less where we are.”
We walked as fast as our clunky polar boots would allow, but the lake was farther away than it appeared. I was soaked to the skin from sweat by the time we got to it. Kneeling, I pulled off my gloves and tested the water with a couple of fingers. “It’s warm.”
“Of course. Everything down here is. It is also freshwater. Go ahead, lick your fingers.”
I did, not because I doubted him, but because I was curious. “Do you suppose it’s safe to swim in?”
He nodded. “I was considering the same thing, except I do not particularly want to be naked when our hosts return. And they will return. Look over there.” He jerked his chin to our right.
“What am I supposed to be looking at?”
“It used to be a tilled field, but the crops died a long time ago. If this were on the surface, the evidence would have been obliterated by wind and weather, but those are not a consideration here.”
I crouched by the water’s edge, still trailing one hand in the tepid lake. “I understand how anything subterranean is protected from weather, but how is it we can see? Your bioluminescent theory has holes in it. Big ones. Where is the light coming from? Did you figure out where we are?”
“Ja, we are roughly under Brown’s Point—a few degrees offset to the southeast. This is one of hundreds of lakes down here, but it is one of the larger ones. In terms of the illumination, I do not know. You might want to ask our hosts.”
“You mean our jailers.” I rolled back onto my butt. “Why did they drag us down here?”
Johan sat next to me. Rather than answering, he asked, “Do you have a working theory?”
“No, but the music seems related to them. It blasted me before I fell the first time, so I suspect they didn’t want me to leave the chromium dig.”
“Interesting. You did not mention that.”
“Yes, I did.”
“Perhaps so. A lot has happened in a short time.”
I shivered as the implication of us being here sank in. “What do you suppose would have happened if we hadn’t jumped through the vortex?”
“They would have met us in the crystal cave.” He blew out a noisy breath. “Because it appears to move around, it is probably a gateway to where we are.”
“What about the place on the other side of the cave? The one where I got so scared I couldn’t move, and you were preventing the entry from caving in. Were the dragons responsible for that too?”
“I am far from certain, but perhaps you trod too near another entrance, so they scared you off. That horrendous animal sound we could not identify had to be a dragon bugling.”
“So it was. I hate to agree with something that esoteric, but there’s nothing quite like hearing the same racket from a dragon standing ten feet away.” Another shiver clawed up my spine. “I don’t like any of this. They’ve been manipulating us ever since the Ruskies chucked us into the chromium dig site.”
“We need the dragons, Erin. Without them, we will never get out of here.”
His words pounded nails into a coffin I’d already acknowledged, but they were still tough to hear.
“You asked why they cap
tured us,” he went on. “I believe it is just the two of them. The dead field suggests they have had struggles here. The chairs in the kitchen indicate there were once more dragons in this location.”
“But why us?” I bit hard on my lower lip as I tried out reasons, discarding them as fast as they surfaced. None fit our situation well enough to examine further.
“I do not think it was us, specifically, but we showed up in a place that brought us to their attention. Rather than leaving us alone—something they must have done to countless Antarctic explorers—they zeroed in on us.”
“That doesn’t make me feel any better.”
“I am not trying to. Our task is to figure out as much as we can, so we will be prepared when they return.”
“Prepared for what?”
“They will offer us a proposal.” He hesitated. “We will have no choice but to accept it.”
I got to my feet. Sitting still was grating on me. I left my gloves where I’d dropped them and paced in a tight circle. “What do you mean by no choice? Will they kill us if we refuse?”
Johan shrugged. “I have no idea. I suppose it is a good thing neither of us has a spouse or children back home.”
Home. The thought of the Pacific Northwest with its greenery and perpetually gray skies made a thick place form in my throat. “Where are you from in the Netherlands?”
“Leiden. It is south of Amsterdam.”
“I’ve been through there. It’s a beautiful old city.”
Johan smiled softly. “It is, indeed. I miss it. I taught at the university in addition to working for Leistadt, my engineering firm.”
I took a chance, although not much of one. I’d avoided personal relationships with everyone aboard the Darya. I didn’t plan to be there beyond my six-month stint, and I didn’t want complications.
Wimp.
I looked away so my expression wouldn’t give me away. I’d been on the rebound from a predictable breakup when I boarded the ship, and I didn’t want to be tempted into anyone’s bed. Not that I’d been brokenhearted or anything, but it was simpler not to start something with someone who lived hallway around the globe from me. I’d been doing fine with my “ask me no questions, and I’ll tell you no lies” stance—until I was kidnapped.
“It’s none of my business, but how is it you don’t have a wife and little ones waiting in Leiden?” I asked.
“There was never any time. I am away for more months of the year than I am home. Most women prefer a partner who is more present. I told myself I would stick closer to the Netherlands, but an intriguing proposal would present itself, and off I would go.” He shrugged. “Years have a way of passing. To borrow one of your American phrases, I dug myself into a rut.”
“You must not have wanted out very badly.”
He laughed. “I was under the impression you were a surgeon, not a psychiatrist.”
I laughed too. It broke the tension that had been sitting on my shoulders like a million-pound weight. I looked at the water again. I hadn’t had a bath in months, and my last shower was nearly a week ago. “I’m going to take a swim. If the dragons come back, I’ll cut it short.”
“I shall join you. I can smell myself. My clothes will not be any cleaner, but at least I will be.”
I sat on the shore and levered off my boots. Next I peeled off two layers of stinky socks. My suit came next, and then my down layer. And then the two layers beneath the down pants and jacket. I’d never thought much about all the garments I’d become used to wearing, but there were a lot of them. The pile next to me grew until I was down to a sports bra and panties. I decided to keep them on.
Next to me, Johan was buck naked. He stood and walked into the water until it eddied just below his shoulders. “Christ, it feels heavenly.”
I changed my mind about my underwear. I’d rinse it once I got out. As bare as him, I charged into the water. It closed around me, surrounding me with warmth. Tilting my head back, I let water stream down my filthy hair. I should have taken the braid out, but this was good enough for now.
Johan set off in an efficient crawl, swimming laps back and forth, but remaining within about fifty feet of the shoreline. I joined him. It felt good to move my body without all the clothing weighing me down.
He ducked and swam beneath the surface. When his head popped up, he showed me a black, wriggling fish clasped in one hand.
“What is it?”
“Near as I can tell, a relative of the Mexican blind cave fish. They will be good to eat. Dive with me. Lots of them down there.”
Half an hour later, we crawled out of the water next to a respectable pile of fish. We hadn’t been greedy. We’d only taken enough to feed us a meal or two. Gritty dirt stuck to my wet skin, and I sacrificed one of my long john shirts to use as a towel. My clothing smelled like stale sweat. Fear sweat was the worst. Bitter and rotten, but if I washed my shirts and pants, I’d have nothing else to wear. I did rinse out my underwear. Once my bra and panties dried, I’d put them back on.
The clothing chests.
They were full of possibilities, but I couldn’t help myself to garments that didn’t belong to me. Resigned, I pulled my clothes back on, a layer at a time, stopping after the down items. I couldn’t bring myself to drag my heavy insulated one-piece suit on.
“Ready?” Johan stood and tossed his outer suit over one arm. He’d washed out his shorts, and laid them over his suit.
“Yeah.” I bent and gathered the fish.
“I can take some of them.”
“Nah. They’re not heavy. I hope there’s a heat source in that kitchen. I didn’t see one.”
A snort burbled past Johan’s lips. “Dragons make their own fire.”
“Maybe they’ll show up in time to provide cooking materials.” I set a reasonably quick pace for the house. Before we got there, light flared in front of us. I stopped dead, not as surprised as I would have been before, but a familiar tightening in my gut told me it would take a lot more than a few hours before I developed a comfort zone around supernatural creatures.
Things that shouldn’t exist.
Sure enough, Konstantin and Katya emerged from the brilliance. No longer frozen with fear, I took a good look at both of them. Konstantin was a beautiful man with hair the same copper shade as his sister’s. Where hers fell to her waist, his ended at his broad shoulders. The glow Johan had noticed was more pronounced, setting off defined musculature rippling beneath his golden skin. His Greek-god chest led to a flat stomach and long, well-shaped legs. Between them, nestled in a mat of copper curls, was an enticing phallus. It hung far enough down to suggest it would be enormous erect.
The direction of my thoughts added to the tightening in my stomach, but this time apprehension wasn’t the driving force.
“Erin?” Johan glanced back at me, and I realized I’d stopped dead.
“Be right there,” I called and yanked my gaze away from Konstantin. The last thing I needed in my life was a roll in the hay with him.
We’d eat something, bide our time, figure out what the dragons wanted, and hopefully talk them into returning us to the surface. No time to lose. Another month or two, and the season would turn first to autumn, and then to the three months of dark that marked Antarctic winters. It would be far more difficult to get home once winter set in.
Perhaps impossible.
My nipples rubbed against my long john top. My thighs were slick against each other as I walked. Come on, move past this, I urged silently. If there was ever a time not to get lost in misplaced lust, this was it.
Konstantin and Katya did not look overly pleased. Johan had reached them, and they pointed at me.
“What?” I trotted to where they stood, my clunky boots making sucking sounds as they slapped the dirt.
“You have violated our lake,” Konstantin said.
“Sorry, we won’t swim in it again,” I murmured.
“Swimming isn’t the problem. It’s the fish,” Katya clarified.
�
�We cannot put them back. They are already dead,” Johan spoke up, adding, “We were hungry.”
“We will provide for you. Why did you leave the house?” Konstantin asked.
Pretty man or not, my anger flared. “We have a right to look around.”
“Whatever rules you used to live by”—he nailed me with those odd eyes of his—“none of them apply here. Inside. Both of you.”
“Leave the fish,” Katya instructed. Before I could lodge a protest, a jolt of something hit me, and the fish flew through the air, landing at her feet.
It pissed me off. “Next time,” I bristled. “Ask, don’t just take.”
She looked at me as if I were an intriguing specimen pinned beneath a microscope. “This was more efficient.” The glow around her expanded to include the fish, and they began to wriggle again. My skin prickled like it would have if I’d walked next to a high voltage wire, and the fish vanished.
My mouth gaped open. “What? Where?” I stammered
Johan grabbed my arm and angled his head toward the stone doors. I got the message. Don’t ask questions. Don’t talk back. Don’t piss them off. Arranging my face in what I hoped were neutral planes, I let him steer me back inside. The fish had reanimated—and disappeared. For some reason, it rattled me more than when Konstantin had turned into a dragon.
Chapter 7
A short while earlier
Konstantin’s dragon was delighted. After months of being quashed, he was flying again. And killing. Life didn’t get much better than that. When they took to the skies with Katya aboard, he decided to show off, swooping and plucking a nice, fat seal from the water.
His human half didn’t rebuke him, but one seal was enough. Chewing, swallowing, and flying consumed the next span of time. A few choice bits fell into the sea, but not many. By Y Ddraigh Goch, it felt right to stretch his wings, to sink his teeth into tender flesh and savor hot, salty blood splashing down his throat. So long as he was on a roll, he sent out a mental summons, bugling through time, space, and other worlds, to Katya’s missing dragon.
She might be in a snit, but she couldn’t evade her human partner forever. The bond was permanent, not something to toy with. She had to come back sometime, and it may as well be sooner rather than later.