by C. L. Quinn
“Okay, then, I’ll send Zia to you later on. Please, Will, be in your room and let her work with you. She’s incredibly powerful, you know that, and she should be able to help you. Please.” Following a pause, she leaned over to capture his gaze. “Will you?”
“Sure. Why not? I’ll be there. Getting drunk.”
Nodding, she lifted herself up and walked out of the dining room. Well, small victories. Willoughby was a strong-willed and extraordinarily powerful man. Honestly, she thought that if she refused him access to the cave, and right now, she did, he’d find a way to get it back. In the end, she was certain that she couldn’t keep him out. For now, she’d accept the win.
AT DEZ’S COMPOUND LATER THAT NIGHT
“Hey, gorgeous! It looks like I’m free to spend some extra quality time with you. It looks like Will doesn’t need my help anymore.”
Olivia downed a sip of wine and glanced up at Torin leaning across the table. Too bad, she thought. I have to tell my lover boy that I won’t need him anymore either. The question in her mind, though, was why Will didn’t need his monitor.
“Really? Is he finished?”
“For now. Ife pulled him out of the cave. It’s weird, but during the past two sessions, I think the earth or whatever he’s on with down there, is sucking him dry. I love the guy, and I couldn’t let him keep at it when I think that it’s hurting him. So for now, he’s banned.”
Hurting Will?
“What do you mean, hurting him? How?”
Torin shrugged. “I don’t know. This is all still pretty crazy to me. Will’s a big guy, strong, and when I met him, built like a bulldog. You know, meaty and ripped. But he’s losing mass and his color is pale. Also, his energy has changed, he’s almost a different person lately. Last night, Will couldn’t pull out of the merge, and, Olivia, he literally called out for me to help him like he was in trouble. And he was. He couldn’t stand, he couldn’t get up the ladder without my help. The crystal cave is fucking robbing that guy. He’s going to be fine, Ife and Zia’s going to work on him tonight.”
Torin scooted his chair back and skirted the table to drop next to Olivia, his knees on the floor and hands in her lap. “So, I’m all yours, vampiress.”
I’m not all yours. Olivia smiled into his eyes, spanned his face with her hands and kissed him gently on the lips.
“Ah, Tor, you are a darling, but this is bad timing. I’m heading home tomorrow night. My business needs me.”
“Not yet, Olivia. Please, we’re just getting to know each other. I haven’t even shown you all of my moves yet. You gotta give a guy a chance to impress you.”
“Tor, you do impress me. It’s not easy to do that when the woman you’re fucking is hundreds of years older than you, so rest assured, you satisfy me completely. But I do need to get home.” She slid a hand down lower to press against his crotch. “But we still have all night.”
He wasn’t happy, but he knew that nothing he said would change her plans, so he rose and lifted Olivia off her seat. “Then there isn’t a moment to waste. Can we order your first meal in your bedroom?”
“Ummm, that’s the best way to eat it.”
“I’m only aiming for the best tonight, my lady, so let’s go do this.”
Arms tight around Torin’s neck, Olivia laughed and realized that she would miss this energetic sexy man. Perhaps in the future when she got over this fascination for Will, she’d come back down and see if Torin was still available. Perhaps he’d like to visit her in Vegas.
Enough with musing about the future. It was something that vampires rarely did. Living in the moment was a default setting for immortals. Trying to deal with the current moment and those yet to come was exhausting and ultimately unsatisfying.
Carrying her down the stairs to her chambers, Torin entered Olivia’s rooms with energy to spare. Placing her on the bed, he rolled over and pinned her to the soft duvet.
“How do we get the food delivered?”
She lifted a hand to point. “Press that button, tell them what you want, and presto, here in twenty.”
Just as he reached for the button to order the obscene amount of food they would want, Torin’s fone chimed. Glancing at the screen, his brows came together.
“Huh. It’s Brigitte.”
“Answer call,” he said, and held it to his ear.
“Tor, I need your help.” Brigitte’s voice was calm, so he assumed there was no problem, but then she continued in the same calm voice. “Will and I had dinner and I lay down with him so that he could rest. He looks like shit. Anyway, I woke up a few minutes ago and I can’t find him. I think he’s gone to the cave alone. Ife has forbidden him to continue with the bonding and he agreed with her terms. I should have known he would do this. Hard-headed human.”
“I’ll come right away. Did you notify Ife?”
“That’s the thing. If she finds out he took off without any protection to do what she’d told him not to do, I think she’ll send him away. Tor, I’m not empathic on my own, not without channeling my sister, but I think it will destroy him to be separated from the crystals and this deep access to earth magic. I need you to help me get him back here before Ife gets involved.”
“I’m on my way.”
Torin laid his fone down and started dressing. “I need to find Will. He took off.”
“I heard Brigitte through the fone. I’m coming too.”
Using hyper-speed, Olivia was dressed, hair brushed and clipped back, perched on the edge of the bed as Torin pulled his shirt over his head.
“What is he thinking? You vampires are too powerful for him to think he can overrule you.”
“Will is used to doing what he wants. I suspect that the best way to ensure he does it is to tell him he can’t.”
Torin stilled to catch Olivia’s eyes. “He’s not well. You haven’t seen him this week, but he’s changed. I’m worried that this might be dangerous for him, and so is Ife. She barred him from visiting the cave for a very good reason, Liv, and yet he’s sneaking back.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll get him. We won’t let anything happen to Will.”
Torin didn’t know it, but Olivia would move hell and earth to protect that man.
“Let’s go. We’ll take a lift-car of course.”
Twenty minutes later, Torin led Olivia through the standing stones where Brigitte waited at the ladder above the crystal cave.
“Thank the gods you’re here. I just came back up. I know he’s down there, I know he is, but I can’t find him.”
“That doesn’t make any sense. He would be in the main chamber.”
“Yet he isn’t.”
“Are you sure he came here?”
“Tor, I know that man well, and I know why he disappeared without telling me. He’s here, I fucking tell you he is.”
“Let’s go down.”
Olivia wasn’t messing around. Like Brigitte, she believed that Will either came here or intended to, so they needed to search for him, and if he really wasn’t here, then they needed to look at alternative possibilities. This wasn’t the time for pointless discussion.
After climbing halfway down the ladder, impatient and worried, she pushed off and dropped the last half to land easily on her feet. She stepped away and headed down the corridor to the cavern using air displacement, and stood in the center of the cave turning a full 360 before she accepted Brigitte’s word that Will wasn’t present. The last time she’d been in this cave, the area had been lit by solar powered LED lamps as it was now, she assumed that Brigitte had turned them on. The only other thing she noticed out of place from that first visit were quite a few smaller crystals lying randomly on the ground, mostly toward the bottom of the walls, but spread over the entire space. It gave the sparkly cavern an untidy look after the stark perfection of that first trip weeks earlier.
She scanned one last time as Torin and Brigitte arrived at the outside perimeter of the chamber. Brigitte searched the space as Olivia just had.
“See?
Where the hell might he be? Tor?”
“Maybe he just went somewhere to cool off. It’s been a bitch of a week for him. Maybe he just needed some breathing room.”
“That tracks.” Olivia approached them. “Bi…Will is a solitary man. He isn’t comfortable around groups and this place is nothing but groups. If he’s ill, if he’s upset, he’d seek solace by going away from everyone. Either way, we still need to find him.”
“Wait.” Torin walked around the cave now, moving his feet carefully around the fallen stones. “What the hell is this? There are fragments and crystals all over the ground. This is not normal.” He turned to Brigitte. “Were these like this when you came in the first time?”
“I think so. Honestly, when I saw that Will wasn’t here, I didn’t pay much attention. I just went back up to wait for you.”
“We’ve been here for weeks and not one crystal has ever fallen off the walls or ceiling. I don’t…”
The slight tremor beneath their feet didn’t alarm any of the three at first, the movement so minute, they weren’t completely sure they’d felt it. A split second later a low rumble preceded a stronger wave and doubt disappeared. When a third even more powerful quake shook loose more crystals, falling like tiny torpedoes around their heads, Torin grabbed Brigitte’s hand and held the other out for Olivia. “We have to get out of here now!”
Brigitte started down the corridor as Torin waited for Olivia, but he watched helplessly as she moved her foot on shaky ground to speed to him, but tipped backward as the earth beneath her feet split and dumped her against the wall.
Before she could regain her feet, the ground beneath her body tore open and she felt air beneath her body as she fell into where the floor of the cave used to be. She thought she heard Torin scream through the cracking earth, but she was gone, falling, falling, and all she could hear then was the rush of air, sight lost as darkness replaced the lighted place she’d fallen from. Her skills were useless because there was nothing to push against, no idea where she was or when she’d stop. Fear barely registered since she knew that, as vampire, very little would kill her, but pain was real, and as she passed jagged stone too close, something ripped her side. What felt like minutes was likely much less, but when she finally landed on a solid surface, her breath knocked from her, her head striking hard, consciousness faltered and she thought she was going out. Tiny explosions and sudden strikes on her skin and head resulted as soil, rock, and crystals fell down the crevasse with her.
But once the cracking stopped, silence and complete blackness surrounding her, Olivia lay still, her head exactly where it dropped, eyes closed again, and struggled to recover her breath. Motionless, eventually her respiration calmed and she opened her eyes to look up. Nothing to see, there was no light down here this deep beneath the surface of the world. Once she regained her senses, she would be able to assess how hurt she was and try to determine how fucked she was.
For now, she didn’t move, but focused on controlling panic. Panic was useless, it messed up thought processes and she needed her wits about her. For now, she was safe, nothing was falling and she’d survived. For now.
Several long minutes passed, her eyes wide to blackness, she squinted to see if there was any fraction of light anywhere, but her landing point was devoid of it. Could she create light such as the earth warriors did? They fed off each other to do so, but maybe a fourth gen first blood could pull it off. Carefully lifting her arms, the damage to her right midsection stinging, she mirrored the motion she’d seen them do. Nothing. What she could do was create a flame, she’d done that before, so when she rose, she’d light up at least a small space to get a glimpse of what she had fallen into.
Finally ready to try to sit up, Olivia pressed her hands into soft dry ground, and pushed when a glow began to her left. Sitting now, she watched as the glow brightened, then a dark form moved through it to resolve into the shape of a man.
“Olivia?”
Will. It was Will!
“Biker!” she called, her voice still weak.
He was beside her in seconds, shirtless, the glow following him, enough light to easily see his worried face. Knees on the ground, he hovered over her, his fingers moving against her waist.
“Olivia, are you hurt?”
Pale, butter-colored light glowed unnaturally all around them as Will’s fingers moved over her.
“Not really. Well, not my arms or legs. I think something scraped me as I fell down this rabbit hole, but it isn’t serious. Not for me, anyway. Will, how did you get down here? Did you fall in as well?”
“She drew me down. The mother planet opened up and swallowed me. My landing was softer than yours, I imagine. I’m sorry, Olivia, you weren’t meant to be here.”
Olivia processed his comment before she asked her next question. “But you were?”
He nodded as he slipped his fingers along her side to check out her wound. “I was. I always was meant to be here in this chamber of power. Olivia, you’re bleeding.”
The warmth of Will’s fingers moving across her skin distracted Olivia, and she pressed her own fingers over his.
“It’s okay. I’m vampire, remember?”
“I remember, but this is deep.”
“It will heal.” Her eyes had adjusted to the limited light that came into the darkness with Will. “Are you bringing the light?”
Nodding again, Will looked up at the soft illumination.
“Earth magic. I don’t think anything is more powerful. I don’t actually have the power to do this, but I have the ability to channel the power of the planet beneath us.”
“You are remarkable, Biker. I knew that from the first moment I saw you.”
Instantly, erotic images surged in her mind and her body reacted with moisture. Not good, she thought, the two of us trapped here together. They really had to get out of there. “Let me get up from here and we’ll see about escape from our little earthy cell.”
“Let me lift you up.”
“Will, I can do it myse…ow!”
Pushing away from the ground, the tear in her side hurt so much worse than she expected. Finally on her feet, Olivia lifted her shirt to see about a six inch gash on her right side from just below her breast to her waist. The blood had begun to clot, it was only seeping, but it was clear that she’d sustained more damage than she thought.
“Olivia…” Will whispered, his eyes on the torn flesh. “You need blood to help you heal.”
Not from him, oh, hell no, never from Will!
“No, it’ll just take a little longer, that’s all. See, I can walk.”
She could, but her pace would be slow. Her injury hurt even more than it looked like it did, but enduring it was a much better idea than a blood-draw from this man. Just his touch was almost too much since she’d desired him for such a long time, un-satiated.
Will watched Olivia struggle with moving along the narrow corridor provided by the crystals that would lead her to another cave. Since the walls of the corridor were close, at least they provided support.
He smiled to himself. Olivia was as stubborn and determined as he was not to reveal her feelings. Although he had committed to the relationship with Brigitte, for the time being, she wasn’t unaware of his intense reactions to Olivia.
Or hers to him.
It seemed that right from that first night, the night when his world had changed forever, for the worst and for the best, their timing had been off. She’d refused him during those first few days when their sexual chemistry threatened to create an explosion, and now, a year later, he was bound by honor to remain faithful to another woman. At least until this unfortunate event had, literally, dropped her into his lap.
“It’s only about twenty feet ahead. Just take it slow. Believe me, it’s worth the journey.”
“I just hope there’s a nice place to rest for a moment. And by the gods, is there any chance we can get some water? I’m parched. It’s almost like I fell through half a mile of earth.”
> “Ha, ha. Olivia, I think you’ll be properly pleased.”
Rounding a final turn, Olivia felt like the narrow corridor spilled her out into paradise. The cavern wasn’t as large as the sparkling one she’d just fallen from, but it was majestic, filled with clear crystals in different shapes. Long chandeliers made of shining spikes of crystal hung from the geode coated ceiling, pointing toward stacks of stones covered with glittering patterns formed in delicate lace-like crystals splattered everywhere on the ground that looked like it was made of glass. Along the back wall multiple paths of water trickled down another wall of crystals and emptied into a bubbling pool of water lit from below with the same infusive pale yellow light.
“Oh, Biker. I don’t think the word beautiful begins to describe this. How is this here? Why are we here? What does this mean? And oh, God, I want some of that water. Is it clean?”
“Whoa, lady. I will answer your questions, but let’s get you into that pool so you can get a drink. It’s also filled with healing minerals, which you need, plus I’ll warm it using my abilities. You can just relax and soak.”
“Are you sure, Will? You are that certain of what you’ve been brought to down here.”
He shouldn’t, he knew it, but he did it anyway. Will moved close and took her face in his hands, which felt right in ways he didn’t want to explore. “I am that certain. My journey, my destiny, it’s here. This is what I’ve been brought to South America to do…to reveal this wealth to your community and ultimately bring it to the entire world. All here is pure, is right, is good. Get in the pool and let the waters restore you. I feel guilty, it’s my fault you’re here in the first place. You came to look for me, didn’t you?”
“Yes, but I wasn’t alone, Will. Brigitte and Torin came too, but they were on the other side of the cave when the earthquakes broke out the ground beneath my feet. I hope they are safe.”
“No one has been hurt in these caves. Other than your injury in the fall, I mean. Olivia, please, get into the pool.”
The nagging pain in her side brought her eyes back to the inviting bubbling water, and while it was compelling, she couldn’t take her clothes off around Will. That would be only slightly less dangerous than giving him a blood draw.