Not for the first time, he wondered what Angulus saw in her. Kaika wasn’t unattractive by any means, but she wasn’t a real beauty, either, and as king, he could have anyone in the kingdom at the wave of a hand. He probably got plenty of feminine attention even without waving anything. Vann supposed that a woman who knew what she wanted and didn’t play games could be appealing to someone like him. Probably rare for him to encounter too.
“Well, if you are interested in her, and you can keep from scaring her away with your temper and standoffishness, I think she might be a good match for you.”
Vann meant to say that his temper and standoffishness weren’t topics that a captain should be bringing up with a senior officer, but what came out was, “You do?”
“She doesn’t seem to be scared of you, for starters.”
“I don’t go out of my way to intimidate women, Captain,” he said dryly.
“Maybe not, but you’re scary in general.”
“Has Angulus mentioned how appealing your bluntness is?”
“Yes.”
Vann paused, not having expected that answer. “Was he lying?”
“I don’t think so.”
“Remarkable.”
Kaika snorted. “I believe we were talking about Professor Lilah and that she’d be good for you, assuming you could control yourself and be good for her.”
“I’ve never not controlled myself with a woman,” he growled. How had he allowed himself to be drawn into this conversation? Just because he’d known Kaika a long time didn’t mean she should be advising him on his love life. Still, he found himself wanting to share this information, just in case she was also chatting about him to Lilah. “You pummel men. You protect women. Those are the rules.”
“Oh? Did your mother teach you that growing up?”
He fought back a snarl. Unlike Lilah, Kaika did not know what had happened to his mother. That was not a story he told often.
“I learned that from her, yes,” he said, forcing himself to answer calmly.
“Maybe if you mounted someone regularly, you wouldn’t feel the need to pummel men so much, either.” Kaika stood up and dusted her hands off.
“I’m not exactly virginal, Captain,” he said stiffly. The advice-giving had grown a little too personal.
“Fine, maybe if you mounted someone you cared about regularly, it would help your outlook on life.”
Vann held back a sigh. There might be something to that.
“I can’t believe General Chason aroused warm cozy feelings in you,” she added while pulling out a match. “She’s got a reputation for eviscerating privates who don’t bring her morning coffee quickly enough.”
Vann stared. How in all the levels of hell had she known about that relationship? She wasn’t even on base that often.
“She used to brag around the officers’ club that she had you on a leash,” Kaika added. Surprisingly, she wasn’t grinning as she said it. She actually appeared annoyed. On his behalf? Huh, he hadn’t realized she cared. “Shall we blow up these rocks? Then you and the professor can go exploring together.”
“And will you and Bosmont then go exploring together too?” He gave her an arch look.
“Not the same kind of exploring. I told Angulus I’d be a good girl unless I got my dragon chance.”
“Does he demand goodness?” Vann asked, somewhat curious about their relationship, even if he didn’t normally care two nucros who Kaika slept with. Angulus was a good man and his king.
“No, he doesn’t demand anything. He’s been very clear about that, but I know he’d be hurt, even if he didn’t say anything. That’s why I’m scheming to lure the dragon back for both of us.” Her eyes crinkled with something akin to glee.
Vann couldn’t keep from curling his lip in disgust. Or maybe distress. “I don’t want to hear about that.”
“You better stay up here in this hole then, because if I get a dragon into bed, I’m telling everyone.”
“Just don’t pick that one that thinks he’s a god.”
“No? I thought he might be my most likely bet. Have you seen him in human form? He’s gorgeous. You’d want to get him into bed too.”
“I highly doubt that.”
“We’ve got all of the fossils dug out,” Bosmont called, peeking down the tunnel.
“Thank the gods.” Vann hustled away before Kaika could go into lurid details about her fantasy. It was impossible not to choke on the idea of their staid and proper king having a threesome with a dragon. “Blow up those rocks, Captain.”
“Gladly, sir,” Kaika said, sounding entirely too chipper.
• • • • •
“Is this good, ma’am?” Corporal Hetty lifted a lumpy rock with dragon vertebrae half carved out of it.
“Yes, be very careful as you get closer to the fossil,” Lilah said.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Next to him, Private Boxcar worked in silence, slicing away stone with precise strokes of a chipping hammer. He had extricated three fossils from their granite prisons in the time Hetty had done half of one. Who knew some brutish soldier with a neck the size of a tree trunk would have a deft hand for this? Neither of the men was older than her average student, but they called her ma’am and kept their glances at her bosom to a minimum. She found herself wishing she had some soldiers enrolled in her classes.
“This reminds me of Time Trek,” Boxcar announced out of nowhere. He hadn’t spoken a word to Lilah, so this random statement surprised her.
Hetty groaned. “Not your comics again, Boxcar.”
“They’re not comics. They’re books. Novels. There aren’t even any pictures.”
“I’m familiar with them,” Lilah said, smiling at the big man.
He fumbled the hammer, almost dropping it. “You’ve read them, ma’am?”
“I have.”
“All of them?”
“I have the latest one in my room back at the outpost. I was hoping to read it on the way out here, but apparently, I get queasy when I’m in the back of a flier, so I haven’t had a chance yet.”
“I’ve heard that happens to a lot of people who ride with General Zirkander.” Hetty grinned evilly and glanced toward the tunnel where Kaika and Vann were working.
Lilah didn’t bother informing him that she had ridden with Lieutenant Sleepy. She wondered which one of the officers had prompted the grin—she hadn’t noticed that Kaika had been green or wobbly-kneed when she had hopped out of Ridge’s flier.
“The last book is cracking, ma’am,” Boxcar said. “My mom sent it to me in a care package. I just finished.”
“Don’t tell me the ending, please. I’m waiting to see if Sashi finally captures the Cofah time wizard.”
“I won’t say a word, ma’am.”
Vann and Kaika jogged out of the tunnel, Kaika wearing a grin. Vann wore his usual stony facade of determination. He looked toward Lilah as they came out, nodding as he met her eyes. She nodded back. Before she could wonder if he and Kaika had been discussing anything in particular in the back of that tunnel, an explosion rattled the mountainside. A cloud of dust flew out of the passage, and rocks clattered down from the cliffs above.
Lilah jumped to her feet, the rockslide that had wiped out the trail fresh in her mind. The area they were working around was flatter and much wider than the trail, but she could still envision it being buried in rubble.
Boxcar also leaped up. He placed himself between her and the rocks, resting a hand on her shoulder and putting his back to the mountainside. She wasn’t a short woman, but her head only came to his collarbone, so he made an effective shield.
A couple of boulders tumbled down, and smaller rocks clattered off the ground like hail, but nothing more dangerous happened. When the dust cleared, Lilah found Vann standing next to her and giving Boxcar a flat look. The private let go of her shoulder.
“We’re helping the professor, sir.”
“I’m sure.”
“She’s real nice to work
with. And she’s read Time Trek.”
Vann blinked. “What?”
Lilah felt her cheeks warm. “They’re novels. They’re popular on campus.” Usually more with the students than the professors, but there was no need to mention that. It wasn’t as if she went to the costume parties.
“A team of soldiers and scientists use a time machine to go back a thousand years to use modern technology to drive back the Cofah invasion, so that Iskandia was never taken over,” Boxcar said, speaking more in that sentence than he had since Lilah had met him. “There’s adventures, and romance, and Commander Asylon gets his own dragon in the third book.”
Vann stared at the young soldier as if a third eye had sprouted from his forehead, then he raised an eyebrow at Lilah. “You’ve read these?”
“Yes, the author comes and speaks at the university from time to time,” she said, refusing to feel silly for liking them. “They’re quite well written.”
“The romance doesn’t involve the dragon, does it?” Vann’s lip curled as he looked toward Kaika. She was peering into the tunnel as the dust settled and did not notice.
“No, sir,” Boxcar said. “It’s been Commander Asylon and the scientist he works for—Sashi Silverton.”
Lilah rubbed her face, not sure she would have done quite so much summarizing for someone who hadn’t read the books.
“He works for her, eh?” Vann asked.
“Well, it’s a joint expedition between the military and the university, but Sashi always ends up knowing more than the commander, so she’s kind of in charge.”
“Are they written by a civilian?” Vann asked, his tone dry.
“What, you wouldn’t be willing to work for me?” Lilah asked, glad he sounded amused rather than derisive. She had encountered numerous negative reactions at work. Most of her colleagues dismissed the books as juvenile.
“I suppose it would depend on what kind of remuneration was involved.” The corners of his eyes crinkled.
“How is it that you can use big words like remuneration but not little ones like please and thank you?”
“It’s the mystery of me.”
“Bos, come check this out with me,” Kaika called, waving toward the dwindling dust cloud.
“Why don’t we wait a few minutes to see if those cursed fossils get twitchy and cause additional cave-ins?” Bosmont asked. “It’s been a whole six hours since anything creepy happened. We might be due.”
“I’ll take my chances. I can always blow myself out.” Kaika patted the pouches on her utility belt, then ambled into the tunnel.
“She better be careful if she wants to live long enough to seduce that dragon,” Vann said.
Lilah grinned and swatted his arm. She much preferred Vann-with-a-sense-of-humor to Grumpy-Vann. He looked down at where she had swatted him, raised his eyebrows, then wriggled them at her. It was the first flirtatious look he had given her, and a tingle of warmth flushed her body. Playful-Vann was something she hadn’t seen before, but she promptly decided she wanted more of it.
“Sir?” came Kaika’s call from the back of the tunnel. “You and the professor may want to see this.”
Vann nodded at Bosmont. “Think it’s safe to take her back there?”
“I don’t think it’s safe anywhere on this mountain, sir,” Bosmont said.
“In that case, we might as well go exploring,” Lilah said.
Vann snorted but did not disagree. He grabbed a canteen and a pack with food tins in it, slinging both over his shoulder to hang next to his rifle and sword. Curious as to what he expected to find back there, Lilah trailed after him. She assumed it would just be more cleared rock, but maybe he had an inkling of something else?
He grabbed a lantern on the way in and strode toward the back of the tunnel. Dust lingered inside, dulling the light of his flame, but Lilah could see surprisingly well. A faint yellowish-white light came from the back, from what had been nothing but a dead end before.
Kaika came into view amid piles of rock. She pushed a boulder aside, and more light flooded into the tunnel. If Lilah hadn’t been warned that Referatu tunnels filled the mountain, along with whatever artifacts they’d left behind when they had died, she would have been flummoxed.
“Is that a power crystal?” Vann asked.
“Yes, sir.” Kaika leaned against the gray wall, a wall that now extended much farther, and pointed around the rubble pile that took up most of the tunnel. Vann would have to flatten all of his muscles to squeeze past. “I can see two of them. They’re just hanging on the ceiling down there. General Zirkander will be so pleased with you.”
A rumble came from Vann’s throat at Ridge’s name. “Zirkander can suck my—” he glanced back at Lilah, “—toe.”
“What a treat that would be,” Kaika said, then squirmed out of sight, disappearing between the wall and the top of the boulder pile. Rocks shifted, tumbling and clacking on the other side.
Without hesitating, Lilah climbed up to the opening and squeezed through after her.
“Lilah,” Vann protested. “It’s going to be dangerous back there. Don’t you want to wait back in camp while the soldiers investigate?”
“Not in the least,” she called back, excitement dancing through her veins as a wide tunnel came into view, a completely intact tunnel.
Long ago, a portion of the ceiling had collapsed, dropping granite boulders to block the passage, but after about twenty feet, the ceiling continued, as flat and gray as the walls and floors. Lilah patted one of those walls, again noticing the smoothness. She wondered if the Referatu had melted the existing rock of the mountain somehow to create the tunnels. Though the gray was oddly uniform, the passage reminded her of lava tubes, such as she had clambered through on her way to the crater in Mt. Mastmonsoro that she had told the others about.
More rocks shifted, this time behind her. Grumbling as he squeezed through the gap, Vann scraped his way up to join Lilah, the tip of his sword scabbard and the muzzle of his rifle thumping and clanking against the rocks. Kaika had already reached the end of the cave-in and stood on the gray floor, looking up at an angular crystal mounted to the ceiling. It provided so much light that no shadows remained in the passage.
“This is wonderful.” Lilah gripped Vann’s hand, wanting to smooth the irritated crease on his forehead. “An unexplored historical site. What a gift.”
“We’ll see how much of a gift it is. This mountain hasn’t treated us well lately.” Despite his gruffness, his brow did, indeed, smooth in the face of her unfeigned enthusiasm.
“If these are just hanging around, stuck to the ceiling, we might get a whole ton of them, sir,” Kaika said, now dangling from the light fixture with one hand while she prodded at the seam with a dagger. “You might get that toe-sucking after all.”
Vann’s lip curled again, and Lilah laughed.
A thump and a pained grunt came from behind them. Bosmont was almost as big as Vann, if not quite as brawny, and he would have a hard time pulling himself through too.
“Captain,” Vann said. “Grab a couple of the men and most of our supplies. We’ll take a look around in here and see if we can extricate a few preliminary energy crystals to take back. Leave a few people to guard the camp. Tell them not to touch the professor’s fossils while she’s not there to watch them. And also tell them not to get scared and run off again.”
“I’ll relay the message, sir,” Bosmont said.
“Leave them some explosives too,” Vann added. “In case there’s another rockfall, I’d like someone back there who can dig us out.”
“Uh, are you sure you want them to do that? Corporal Hetty is the highest-ranking one, and I doubt he’s ever used dynamite. Certainly not any of the more sophisticated stuff that Kaika brought.”
“Are you volunteering to stay behind, Bosmont?”
“It would be an honor to extricate you from a cave-in, sir.” Judging by the sound of his voice, Bosmont was already retreating.
“Uh huh.” Vann met L
ilah’s eyes. “I better keep you with me. I think he’d let me stay buried in the cave-in, but I’m reasonably certain he’ll go through great lengths to rescue Zirkander’s cousin.”
“It’s not too late to say something nice to him so he wants to rescue you too.”
Vann sighed. “I don’t know what nice thing I would say that would be sincere. Nice thoughts don’t pop into my head.”
“As a teacher, I have to get creative to find them in mine sometimes,” she admitted.
He smiled slightly. “Are you married, Lilah?”
Her mouth dropped open. Where had that come from? True, she had been thinking that she should let him know that she wasn’t, but she doubted he was a mind reader.
“Got it,” Kaika announced before Lilah could answer. She dropped to the ground with the foot-long energy crystal—the foot-long lamp—cradled in her arms. She saluted them with her dagger, then strolled toward the next crystal.
“We might want to leave some of those until we’re on our way out,” Vann commented as the shadows around them deepened.
“Yes, sir,” Kaika said without looking back, “but I thought you might like some soft mood lighting.”
Vann grunted. More rocks scraped beyond the granite pile, and Lilah remembered that he’d told Bosmont to send some of the soldiers along.
Lilah started after Kaika, waving for Vann to walk beside her.
“I was married,” she said. “My husband and my father passed away at the same time five years ago.” Passed away. Such a bland euphemism for that fiery death. “It was a vehicle accident. My father was driving.” She didn’t usually tell people that, but Vann had told her about his vile father. If anyone would understand how disappointing her own father had been, it would be he. The man had not possessed any mean blood in his veins, but he’d been so worthless, leaving her mother to raise her and her brothers by herself while he spent his days tinkering with steam vehicles and drinking at the pub.
“I’d say I’m sorry, but it would be a lie,” Vann said, “and I already told you that insincerity doesn’t come easily to me.”
Lilah wasn’t sure whether to find his honesty endearing or alarming. His bluntness aside, it secretly pleased her that he wanted her to be unmarried. Available. But in the future, she would have to make sure never to ask him a question she didn’t want a sincere answer to.
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