by Milly Taiden
The remaining guard was ready for the attack and ducked under the missile. On the go, Day chucked another vase behind them, hoping to slow them down. Didn’t really work, but whatever. They were at the door.
It was heavy, thick metal and he had to lean his weight into it to open it. A bullet dinged off the door close to his head. He bent forward, shoving his mate through the doorway. From the shelf beside the entrance, he snagged two flashlights and a cigarette lighter. That’s all he had time for. The door opened.
Training instincts kicked in and took out the guard. They were safe for the moment but he felt the floor vibrate from others running.
“I really hope you know what you’re doing,” Kari said. He handed her a flashlight and directed her down the center aisle. So do I, he thought.
“Trust me,” he said.
This would lead them to either safety or their deaths.
Chapter Thirteen
Kari hustled down the aisle in the dungeon. It was like she’d stepped back in time to medieval London. They had to have purposely made the cells so formidable since the palace was modern. The prince was quite the drama queen.
There were a few men among the cells, and they looked like skeletons. When she got out of this, she would make sure they were rescued for this hellhole.
Bryon pushed ahead of her and stopped at the rough-hewn rock wall.
“Now what?” she asked. “Where’s the door?”
He stood looking around. “Not sure.”
Panic zipped through her. Along with anger. “What?” He had to be joking. “You bring us down here not knowing how to get out? Are you crazy?” Her arms slapped down at her thighs. “We’re gonna die. That’s all there is to it.”
He sniffed along the wall. “Hush. Don’t be so overdramatic. That’s not becoming of an agent.”
She straightened up immediately. He was right. She wasn’t being professional at all. For pretending to be a girlfriend who was supposed to only walk around a lot, she sure was busy. And now she was going to die. All because she had to pee. Funny how life sucked.
“Got it.” Agent Day pushed against the rock and she saw a portion slide back. He gritted his teeth and the muscles popped out on his arms. His shirt sparkled in the low light from the dungeon. She would’ve giggled if not in this situation. The dungeon door opened and men’s voices echoed.
“Hurry.” She pushed against the section of wall like she was really helping. She had to do something. Shit. They were going to die! Day suddenly seized her hand and pulled her through a narrow opening. She sucked her belly into her chest. Her boobs were already big enough, she didn’t need this.
She breathed out as a flashlight lit the dark tunnel. Where were they? It looked like the escape tunnel El Chapo used in his getaway. Then it hit her. They were in the infamous tunnels that no one ever escaped. They existed. At least, one did.
Agent Day guided her through turn after turn, sometimes pausing before taking another direction. The tunnel was high enough for her co-agent to stand, and he was a lot taller than she was. The walls were far enough apart to almost walk side by side. The floor was somewhat smooth for being cut from rock. Probably from years of people traveling to and from this area.
Running into another dead end, they backed out. Now that she thought about it, the palace had to be purposely built where it was to have such access to an entrance. She wondered if the Nazis had a previous structure there and used the tunnels to hide things. Holy shit. There could be treasure somewhere down here.
They slid down another narrow passageway and stopped.
“What?” she asked. “Why did we stop?”
“I think we’re safe for a bit. We hit so many dead ends and made so many turns that the guards couldn’t have possibly followed us. You can rest while I search ahead for a way out.”
Once again, she did not believe his words. “You brought us into the fabled tunnels which have had all their exits bulldozed and blocked, and you don’t know the way out?”
He looked at her. “All the exits bulldozed?” he asked.
“Oh my freaking god.” She didn’t care if she was being unprofessional. They were definitely going to die. What was she going to do? She absolutely didn’t feel safe, like he’d thought. Acting in anger, she stomped down the trail and took the first turn she came to.
Everything was so dark. She could only see a narrow swath of the area that her flashlight landed on. This really creeped her out. If she had had claustrophobia, this would not have been the place for her.
The tunnel narrowed to a one-person passage. Her toe hit a rock in the middle of the path and she tripped forward, losing her balance. Her shirt was grabbed from behind and a breeze hit her face. What the hell? She straightened and turned around. Fixing her shirt, she scowled at the man. That was quite rude. “Agent Day,” she said, “there is no need to be manhandling me. I can take care of myself.”
His brow raised. “Call me Bryon. I’ll call your Kari.” He looked over her shoulder to whatever was behind her. “You can take care of yourself?” He shined his light past her and nodded for her to turn around.
She spun around and inches from her face was a metal spearhead. She screamed and jumped back. Bryon shined his light over the area. Not only was there one spearhead, but two dozen heads attached to wood boards that shot out from both sides of the wall. And to make matters worse, a partial skeleton hung from several of the spikes. Oh, fuck. She’d have been a shish kebab if he hadn’t snagged her shirt.
She looked at him. “How did you know?”
“I smelled a dead body and figured since it wasn’t on the ground, there could be a trap. As soon as you stepped on the trigger, I knew that was right,” he replied.
Her face scrunched. “What trigger?” Then she remembered. The rock she’d tripped on in the first place. “Never mind.”
Bryon stood close to the spears and sniffed. “This trap has caught more than one person. It must reset itself somehow,” he said.
“How could it do that?”
He shrugged. “Could use gravity to eventually pull down a rock attached to a pulley to yank a rope to pull it back. Something like that.”
“You mean we have to wait for this to open before we continue through?” she asked. Patience wasn’t a virtue right now. The guards could still be behind them. Bryon put a hand on each piece of wood and pushed out. Nothing happened for a second, then slowly, the boards moved. When his arms were fully stretched, the spears were spread enough for her to pass through. Which she did. He slid his hands across to the other side then jumped out when close to the far side.
Kari swiped her light along the path in front of them and wondered what other traps lay ahead.
Chapter Fourteen
Bryon pushed ahead of his mate. His pulse and mind had yet to slow to normal. He’d almost lost her. After years of waiting and praying, losing her before he even got to kiss her. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen.
She was his mate, and he wanted to know everything about her. He smelled her anger, but wasn’t fazed. He’d win her over. What do women like to talk about?
“Kari, tell me something about yourself.”
“Myself?” she asked.
“Yeah. Something about your childhood or anything interesting,” he replied.
“There’s nothing interesting about me. I’m rather boring,” she said.
He laughed. He loved her modesty. “I doubt that. I bet you’re extremely fascinating.”
She snorted again. “You really don’t know me.”
That was the purpose of this conversation. He wanted to know what made her laugh, what made her cry, what made her love someone, what made her want to make love to someone.
“Well,” she started, “I almost died once.”
Panic shot through him. He didn’t want to know that.
“When I was twelve, one of my friends was toting me on the front of her bicycle. She hit a pothole and I flew over the handlebars.” A million horrific images flew through his mind. He looked back at her to make sure she was fine. He chastised himself: of course she was fine. But still . . .
“I don’t remember anything after that. Mom told me a while later. Supposedly, I hit the asphalt face first. My front two teeth were knocked out.” Her voice changed as if she were poking at her teeth as she talked about them.
He wondered about other things in her mouth. What did she taste like? How would her tongue feel gliding over his? How soft would her lips be? Shit. He adjusted his pants as he walked. Good thing he was in front of her. He turned when they came to another side opening.
She continued. “The skin on my chin and forehead was scraped off. And I’d managed to break my arm.”
“That doesn’t sound that bad,” he said. He could live with such minor injuries on her. Of course, he’d take care of her until she was perfect again. Then he wouldn’t have let her out of bed.
“The bad thing was the concussion,” she continued. His wolf flipped out. Their mate had gotten brain damage when he hadn’t been there to protect her, hadn’t been there to save her. Bryon reminded his animal they didn’t know her then. They were only fifteen or sixteen themselves.
“I was in the hospital for several days, in and out of consciousness. Mom said the tests the doctors took showed extensive damage to the left side of my brain. They said I could be partially paralyzed or challenged in some way.”
“Were you?”
They came to a sudden stop at a pile of rocks that blocked the tunnel. With a sigh, he turned her around to head back. Kari hadn’t said anything to his question. Her delayed replied couldn’t be good. What did he say?
“You make it sound like you can’t tell if I’m brain damaged or not. Is that what you think?” Her pitch rose with the last few words. He cringed.
“No. Of course, not,” he said with as much authority he could muster. “You’re extremely smart and beautiful and I’m keeping my mouth shut.”
She giggled. His heart lightened. Another hallway opened to the side. He sniffed the entrance, then went in to see where it led.
“Actually,” she continued, “I was damaged, but not in a bad way, really.”
He glanced back at her. Again, to make sure she was fine. What was wrong with him? Why was he worried she was injured? It was in the past. “What way?”
“Before the accident, I didn’t care much for math or numbers. Afterwards, answers to math problems appeared in my head. I didn’t have to think about the numbers. They just showed up. And were always right. My sophomore year in school, I discovered I knew how to play the piano even though I’d never taken lessons. After someone showed me how to read music one time, I could play Beethoven.”
“That would be pretty cool,” he said. “I always wanted to play an instrument in school. My one attempt with a trombone was disastrous. My siblings complained I sounded like a dying whale.” She laughed. The beautiful sound echoed in the tunnel. He wanted to listen to it all day. “Did the doctors give a reason why all that was happening to you?”
“They said that maybe since the left lobe was injured, the right lobe tried to compensate for the deficiency. Since the right side of the brain is the creative side, my brain rewired itself to do the left side’s job more creatively. Or something like that. So I’m able to visualize on the concept level better than most.”
Damn, dead-end wall. With a groan from both, they turned around to the previous path. “Anything else?” he asked.
“When I breezed through geometry, my teacher suggested I get a puzzle book with different kinds of visual riddles to see if I could do anything else easily. That’s when I found out I was really good at cryptograms. That led me to being a decoder in the FBI.”
FBI? He stopped. He’d been so caught up in getting his mate to safety, he hadn’t even thought about why she was here or who had sent her or anything. Damn, he was such a sorry mate. His wolf said he’d better get it together or it’d kick his ass.
“What?” She stopped behind him.
“You work for the FBI?” He had no idea his mate was so awesome. There were women in the department, but not many compared to men. He knew she wasn’t with ALFA since no women were training for a position.
When she stomped past him again, he realized he’d said something wrong. Now what? “Kari. What’s wrong.” She kept walking without saying a word. He sighed. “Whatever I said, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything negative. Just the opposite.” She must’ve heard them as a put down.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t believe she worked for the FBI. Women had every right and were highly qualified to work in that male-dominated world. He just never imagined his mate would be from something so prestigious.
He always thought of his wife as a hearty beauty who would rustle up the pups when time to eat and hose them down before bedtime. Not necessarily someone he could carry an intellectual conversation with. But that’s what he had gotten. How did he get so lucky?
“Yes, that’s exactly it. I meant just the opposite of how it must have sounded,” he pleaded.
She slowed, said “whatever,” then picked up her speed. No, she didn’t walk away from him. He wasn’t letting her. In a flash, he had his arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet.
“You’re going to listen to me whether you want to or not,” he growled. He breathed deeply and took in her sudden wetness; the growl intensified on its own. She was hot for him. Fuck him, goddammit. He wanted to take her here on the floor.
Then he noted the rock was damp. The humidity had risen quite a bit.
Ahead was a branch off the tunnel they were on. He carried her there. It turned out to be a small cavern or hole in the wall, but had a high ceiling with stalactites and straws. He sat her on a large rock so he wouldn’t be tempted to flatten her to the ground.
A strange vibration ran through his body. From the stone below his feet? It was like a train in the distance rumbling the ground as it approached. His wolf picked up on the scent of fresh water. He looked around for a pool, but the room was too small to have much of anything.
“You can’t just go walking off on your own,” he said. “You would be filled with holes right now if I hadn’t smelled a corpse back there.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. You lead. I’ll follow.” She saw something on the wall behind him, but he wasn’t taking his eyes from her. “I’m sure that’s how you like it anyway. I know how you shifters are.”
How shifters are? What did she mean by that? He was about to retort when she got up and walked past him. He noticed what she’d seen behind him and his curiosity was piqued. He followed her up a steep ramp that put them several feet higher than the floor.
Stretched side to side before them was a stone shelf extending from the wall. At one end of the shelf stood a double-pan balance or dual-weight scale. It looked like a letter T with the top bar resting on a narrow rock. On the left side of the bar’s middle pivot point sat a bowl that appeared made from bone; on the far right side lay a rock about the size of a bowling ball.
He lifted the bowl and tilted it to see inside. The bar both items sat on see-sawed so the rock side slammed down. He quickly put the bowl back onto the bar, but the ball side didn’t rise to balance the bar again.
She slapped at his hand. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to touch strange things? You have no idea where that’s been.”
A loud crash shook the room. He spun around to see the ceiling above the door had crashed down, blocking the entrance. They were trapped inside.
The vibration he felt grew more intense. Water poured through the hole in the rock ceiling. He gawked at what was happening. Quickly, the floor at the bottom of the ramp was covered.
“Oh my god. Don�
��t you ever touch anything again. We’re going to drown if we don’t get out,” she yelled.
Chapter Fifteen
Kari stood at the top of the ramp that would lead to their watery deaths if they didn’t find a way out of the room quickly. She watched Bryon pull a small boulder from the rock pile in front of the blocked door and toss it aside. That would work . . . about an hour after the room filled.
She turned back to the scale. It had started when he’d touched it. Maybe that was how to stop it also.
Next to the bowl side of the scale sat two other bone bowls: one slightly smaller than the bowl on the weight and one just over half the weight bowl’s size. A large pile of pea gravel sat at the other end. The solution looked rather obvious to her. She had to fill the big container on the weight so the sides balanced again.
She scooped handfuls of rock into the small bowl and dumped it into the big bowl. Two scoops filled it a little over halfway. When pouring in the third batch, the half of the bar that held the bowl twisted, letting the bowl slide off and spill. What the hell? She repeated the same process, and again, when she poured out half of her third deposit, the bar twisted and dumped.
The water was at her knees. Bryon was still throwing boulders into the middle of the space from the door. The ten-foot-square room was quickly filling.
Alright. The small bowl didn’t work, so she filled the middle-sized bowl and dumped it in. The weight bowl was almost full, but not completely. She put several scoops of pebbles in the middle bowl and poured it in. Again, while filling it, the bar turned and emptied the contents. Damn. What was the issue?
Bryon hollered behind her, “Having fun playing with the rocks?”
“Yeah, I am.” Jerk. “Seeing how this is the way out, I’m having a fucking blast.” With that statement, he waded to her.