by Cherry Adair
The tremors were still peaking through her as he surged up her body, then made a raw, primitive sound as he filled her, moving until she swore she felt him touch the bottom of her heart. And still, it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Wanted him to be so deep that he’d never find his way out again. In that wild half-second when all she could feel was his length pumping inside her, she knew that she’d always loved this man. Would always love him. No tragedy, no misunderstanding would ever change that.
He gripped her hips and held her still. The sensation of their joining was so intense, so sharp, neither dared move. His head swooped down the few inches separating them, and he took her mouth savagely, as if he couldn’t get enough of her.
She wanted to scream. To beg him to stop moving inside her. She needed a moment to catch her breath, a few minutes for her body to calm down. She wanted to make him stop. She wanted it to last forever.
Too much. She was going to shatter and break apart.
He continued to rock his body into hers. His fingers continued to work that small nubbin that was now over-sensitized. He prolonged her multiple orgasms beyond endurance. Sara’s body shuddered and quaked under the onslaught as he let one climax roll into the next and the next.
She didn’t know where his body ended and hers began. Any second now, she was going to shatter into a gazillion pieces.
“Finish,” Sara begged, her nails digging into his back.
“I’ll never be finished with you,” Jack muttered, “Come again.”
“N—” Yes! Sparklers and rainbows. Shooting stars and fiery waterfalls. He could still make her earth move.
She came again, riding that last blast of sensation along with Jack, who finally surrendered and gave himself up to the climax that had been clawing at him all night.
She smelled the roses as soon as they breached the edge of the sleeping bag and came up for air. The shimmering glow of a thousand candles reflected off the ice walls, turning frosty blue into molten gold. The freezing surfaces were softened by hundreds of cut-crystal vases filled with deep-claret-colored roses in full, magnificent bloom. The entire room wavered. “Oh, damn it, Jack.”
“Wrong color?”
“Perfect,” she whispered, turning back to face him. “In every way.” As close as they were lying, she still had to touch him. Sara brushed his hair out of his eyes, then trailed her fingertips down the side of his face, from smooth to rough. His jaw was bristly under her fingers, and she could still feel the delicious, faint abrasions on her skin from her forehead to her toes where he’d thoroughly rediscovered her body. She traced a finger down the slightly crooked bump on his nose where his father had hit him, and over the scar on the underside of his chin that he’d gotten when he was eight and had fallen off his skateboard.
Kissing him lightly on the lips, she snuggled against him. “I forgot to ask.” She combed her fingers between his, palm to palm. They used to lie like this after making love, touching all the time, even if it was just holding hands. “What else was in the box Rojas gave you?”
“Wanna see it?”
She gave him a naughty smile. “The box?”
“Well, yeah.” He laughed. “You’ve just spent considerable time looking at other things, maybe a break is in order?”
She tweaked his nipple gently, and he mock-growled. “You have this box on you? You feel pretty naked to me.”
“I put it in the psionic safe. I can call it.” He shifted when she shivered with cold. Moments later, she was sitting between his spread knees, her back warmed by his chest. Wrapping his arms around her, he rested his chin on her hair. She smiled as he tucked the sleeping bag around her shoulders, protecting her from the biting cold.
Jack, his arms and shoulders exposed, seemed impervious to the several-degrees-below-freezing air. Their breath hung in front of their faces as they spoke.
“Stop feeling me up.” She elbowed his belly, her voice husky, as his penis did the happy dance against the curve of her ass. “Call it.”
“You have a one-track mind, woman. Look. It’s here.”
A two-foot-square box shimmered and glowed as it hovered a few feet above her lap. “Is it always ice, or is that just because it’s thirty below in here?”
“Always ice.” He murmured unintelligible words softly, and the front of the cube opened.
“Because cold is your power to ca—” She coughed. “Good grief.” She waved her hand to dissipate the almost fluorescent lime-green smoke eddying out of the icy safe to hover over it, almost protectively.
Jack reached inside and removed the long, thin box given to him by the village elder.
“This isn’t fabric.” Sara reached out and lightly ran her fingers over the hard surface of the box as Jack held it on the flat of his palm. Tipping her head back against his shoulder, she stroked the slightly textured top “It is the same crystallized snakeskin that the amulets at the cave are made of.”
“Looks like. Yeah, let’s hope it opens. There’s no clasp or sign of a lock on this thing.” He turned it this way and that. The surface caught the candlelight and refracted the golden luminosity into thousands of brilliant pinpoint prisms on the translucent blue-white ice walls. The tiny rainbows reflected in the icy sides of the hovering psionic safe.
“There isn’t even a seam. Maybe it’s not supposed to open,” she suggested, smiling her thanks as Jack adjusted the warm sleeping bag higher to cover her bare shoulder.
Instantly, the top half of the box snapped open. “Wow. I’m impressed,” she said.
“I touched you.”
In every way that counts. “Yeah. I got that. Turn it around, let’s see what’s—oh, Jack,” she whispered with awe. “It’s exquisite. Look at the incredibly detailed workmanship on this.” A slim, clear dagger rested on a bed of lush black velvet. The fabric ate the light, but the sharp double edges of the blade glinted and glistened, throwing off giant prisms, filling the entire room with dancing rainbows. “Beautiful. Is it made of ice?”
Jack reached into the narrow box and reverently lifted the twelve-inch dagger, balancing it across his palm. “Not ice—crystal. Hell. Touch it.”
“Is that like saying, ‘This tastes gross, you try it?’”
He smiled. “It’s almost … alive.”
“It’s not going to turn into a freaking snake, is it? Because, seriously, Jackson, if it does, you’re toast.”
“I’m not going to bring a snake into bed with us. No guts, no glory. Go on, I double-dare you to touch it.”
Sara grinned. She never had been able to refuse a double dare. She ran a cautious finger along the dagger, then yanked her hand away as a sharp shock buzzed all the way from her finger through her shoulder. She turned her head to frown at him. “Thanks for the heads-up,” she said dryly. “Electricity?”
“No idea. The sensation’s unlike anything I’ve experienced before when touching crystals. And I’ve worked with endless varieties in the course of my career. Nothing has ever had this kind of punch.”
She touched it again, this time prepared for the energy. “I can feel the power running through it.”
“Yeah. Feel familiar?”
“No, not really.” She closed her eyes, letting the soft vibrating current flow through her. “Yes. It’s the same power as the leyline in the jungle when we were on the way to the village yesterday.”
“Yeah. It’s as if a ley has been transformed into a tangible object.” She felt the rapid pounding of his heart against her back. Jack loved this stuff, lived for it. Another connection to leylines must be music to his ears.
Taking her finger off the dagger, she rested her head in the curve of his shoulder. A perfect fit. “What’s it for?”
He stroked the blade again. “Primarily, daggers are used for stabbing or thrusting. See the razor-sharp double-edged blade?”
“It’s ceremonial, though, right? Look at all the intricate carvings along the blade and hilt.” She knew she didn’t need to point out the obvious. Jack wasn’t
blind. The almost transparent surface was covered with intricate carvings, all right—of snakes. They twined around the handle and slithered down both sides of the blade, eerily realistic despite being carved in crystal.
The dagger was a fascinating study in triangulation. The eight-inch blade contained a triangular void, and was itself shaped like a long triangle, coming to a pinpoint tip. The hilt was a pair of twined snakes in an intricate triangle of spikes emanating perpendicularly outward from the eye sockets of an open-mouthed snake skull. As incredible as the workmanship was, just looking at it gave Sara the willies. Her shudder had nothing to do with being naked in a room made of ice.
“The longer I hold it, the more I’m convinced that it’s an ancient power source. It’s practically vibrating in my hand. Rojas knew we’re Aequitas. So, no,” he said against her hair, “I don’t think he gave us a ceremonial dagger. Though I wish to hell that were so. I think we’re supposed to kill something or someone with it.”
Her heartbeat picked up speed, galloping uncomfortably against her breastbone. She had to swallow several times before she managed to push out a word. “Who?”
“More like what. Rojas said it was the guardian of the crystal cave. Just a guess, but based on these carvings, I think it might have something to do with killing that giant snake you saw.”
“Now you believe me?”
“Yeah. But, trust me, I tried damned hard not to.”
A shudder of revulsion traveled up and down her spine. Visions of the enormous yellow eyes and rainbow tongue flickered behind her eyelids, somehow making the refractions of rainbow light against the ice walls malevolent rather than beautiful. She turned away from the dagger.
“I’m putting it away now.” Understanding, laced with a pinch of amusement, filled his voice. Carefully, he laid the dagger back into its case. The lid immediately snapped shut, and it floated to the open psionic safe, then hovered just outside the opening.
“Uh-oh. Why can’t it go back inside?”
“The way is blocked.”
Sara sat up a bit straighter to peer inside the ice safe. “I don’t see anything—” A small leather-bound book floated out over the box holding the dagger. “Where did that come from?”
“It was inside. Put out your hands, see if it’ll come to you,” Jack said softly against her ear. “It weighs about fifty pounds, so brace yourself.”
“How can a little book weigh fifty—yikes. No kidding!” The weight of the book made her hands drop to the sleeping bag.
“Jesus. It came to you.”
Sara stared at it in fascination. It looked hundreds, if not thousands, of years old, the leather cover dark with age and wear. Although there were no air currents in the room, the pages started flipping over, creating their own breeze. “You told me to hold it.”
“Yeah, but I honest to God didn’t think it would allow you to. It’s been in my family for thousands of years.”
The pages were turning in a blur of papyrus and gold leaf. “Ah … Jack. Is it supposed to be doing this?”
“It’ll stop in a minute.”
It was a long minute. More pages than the book seemed to contain kept turning. Suddenly they stopped, and she remembered to breathe. Black letters floated randomly from the pages of the open book, settling a few inches above the papyrus surface. They rotated and righted themselves to form a sentence.
“‘EREBUS NOVEM TWO ARE ONE TO INFINITY IF NOT STOPPED.’ What the hell does it mean?” She jumped when the book slammed shut, then watched it, narrow-eyed, as it drifted over to the floating psionic safe. The book led the way inside, followed by the box. Spatially, neither should have been able to fit inside. The door clicked shut, and the safe vanished.
“Erebus is the name of the Omnivatic equivalent of the Wizard Council, or the Aequitas Archon. Unless it’s someone’s name. Novem is the number nine in Latin.”
“Okay. And?”
Jack kissed the side of her neck. “Don’t have a clue. But whatever it means will be revealed when we need to know.”
“I want to know now.”
“Yeah. I hear you. But experience has taught me to have patience. That said, can’t let the candles and roses go to waste.” Jack turned her in his arms, kissing her gently on the mouth as he stretched out beside her. “Where did we leave off?”
Chapter Seventeen
They were back in her office at the hacienda, having spent the rest of the night in the Icehotel, alternately making love and sleeping. By silent agreement, they hadn’t talked about anything inflammatory—not the crystal dagger, or snakes, or Baltzer, or the cryptic message.
And especially not the other elephant in the room. The baby.
It was cowardly, but Sara wanted to keep the détente and their fragile status quo for a little while longer.
Minutes after they materialized, her cell phone rang. Thank God it wasn’t Grant. She wasn’t ready to deal with him right now. She let out a little sigh of relief when she heard the senior nurse at one of the hospitals in San Cristóbal asking for Detective Temple. Sara perched on the edge of her desk to talk to her.
Jack’s nibbling on her neck made concentrating on the conversation a little difficult. After a few minutes, she closed her phone and gave him a gentle shove. “That was the hospital. The young woman who was in a coma woke up. I’d like to go into San Cristóbal to talk to her. Want to come?”
“Yeah, sure,” he said easily, dropping into her desk chair and grinning wickedly. “We’ll stop and see Duncan on our way back.”
“Okay.” Sara slid her freezing hand into his, receiving a boost of comfort as his warm fingers closed around hers. She met his deep blue eyes. “Is the world going to hell?” she whispered, her voice cracking.
“Not if we can help it, honey. Not if we can fucking well help it.”
She hoped he was right. Spotting several feet of Harry across the room, Sara let go of Jack’s hand and strolled in his general direction. She picked up several wallpaper books, ostensibly to put them away. She’d never been bothered by Harry, but now she didn’t want to be anywhere near him. She contained a shudder of distaste.
God, why did the damn snake have to be waiting for her in her office when she was with Jack? It was almost as though the blasted boa knew Jack—and now Sara—didn’t like snakes, and was determined to freak him out at every turn. A snake, Sara reminded herself, was a snake, just a snake. Even Harry. And while it wasn’t his fault she’d suddenly developed this phobia, he still had to go.
“How do you feel?” Jack stretched his legs, crossed his ankles, and stacked his hands behind his head, the picture of a content man.
Sliding the large books into place, she willed the boa to slither all the way under the table, out of sight. “Perfect.” She stretched her arms above her head and gave him a feline smile. “Fantastic. Well loved. How do you feel?” She tried to nudge Harry beneath the table skirt with her toe. She really was going to have to talk to William about his pet running loose all over the house.
“Same.” Jack grinned, standing up and coming over to her. “All that. Headache?”
“Not at all.” She loved how he slid his big hands around her waist when she wrapped her arms around his neck. “Why?” she asked, nibbling his lower lip. “Do I look like I have a headache?” Actually, she felt as though she could leap tall buildings in a single bound and fly to the moon and back.
“No, just the opposite. You look sexy and like a well-loved woman. That said, I hate like hell to spoil this, but … do something for me, would you please? Think about your folks and the fire for a minute.”
She disengaged her arms and sighed. “Oh, Jack, I hate to—” She pressed two fingers to her temple, where an instantaneous spearing headache pulsed. “I have that headache now. Thanks.”
“We’re back at the hacienda. Sara, that damned headache only comes when we’re anywhere around Baltzer.”
“He’s nowhere near here, Jack.” Harry’s tail vanished completely under the tableclot
h. “He’s in Lima.” In Lima, where another young woman claimed she’d been raped by a giant snake. He’d been in Colombia when three young women there had disappeared. He’d been in San Cristóbal when—
God! Don’t go there. Grant can get any woman he wants. And he does. And how could he possibly be a giant snake anyway? Besides, hadn’t William been in those places too? William had Harry and the tattoo, the whole weird fascination with snakes.
“How about William, Jack? Yesterday at lunch, I’d swear his eyes turned yellow and had elliptical pupils.”
“What?”
“It was my imagination, Jackson. Just my imagination.”
“I’m not going to fucking well discount anything about either of them. What happened with Roe?”
“I told you. That whole thing with Sarulu freaked me out, and I had a flashback or something.”
“What you mean is you just tried to use sleight of hand to distract me from Baltzer.”
It was disloyal, but she was going to have to tell Jack her suspicions. Even while she hoped and prayed she was wrong. Not only did she have to tell him, she was bound as an Aequitas—even a half Aequitas—to report this to the Wizard Council.
She hoped like hell she was wrong.
“As a matter of fact, I’m leaning that way.”
“You’re leaning … what way?”
Her headache pulsed, and the brilliant morning sunlight streaming into her office made it even worse. She’d also gone from almost euphoric to irritable and cranky in just a few minutes. “I think you’re right. I think there’s somethi—ow, God, that hurts.” She pressed the heels of both hands hard against her temples. “I want to change. Come with me?” She started for the door, then turned when Jack stayed where he was. “Are you coming?”
“It’s Baltzer or me, Sara. Your call.”
God, he was infuriating. She’d been about to tell him … whatever the hell it was that had now been completely obliterated by the pain. “We’ve had this damned conversation, Jack.” But why were they rehashing it again? Why now? Sara rubbed her palm over her aching forehead, where the headache was like a tightening vise.