by Alysha Ellis
“I’m fine,” he said, wishing she’d drop it but fearing she wouldn’t.
“No, you’re not,” she murmured “If you were yourself, the way you used to be, you’d tell me what’s wrong,”
“Nothing is wrong, okay?” he snapped. “Maybe I’ve grown up. Life is not one big adventure anymore, Eora. The risks you’re taking could endanger our people.”
“I’m not arguing about this with you.” She held out a hand. “There’s no need to sleep on the floor. The bed is huge. Come on.”
“Someone should keep watch,” he said stubbornly.
“Keep watch for what? No one is going to come in here in the middle of a storm. None of us is going anywhere.” She shrugged. “If you’re determined to distrust Elijah, you’ll need to be awake enough to escort him to the council. Come to bed.”
Ah, shit. He had to learn to say no to her, but not now. What was the point? The human slumbered on. The bastard was probably exhausted from all the ramming and pounding he’d done. Wearily, his legs feeling heavy, he clambered onto the bed on the opposite side to the human. Eora settled in between them. Her subtle perfume washed over him and her firm body brushed against his side. This torture he was used to. A hundred times a day Eora touched him, leaned on him, filled his senses.
Steeling himself against the familiar pain, he closed his eyes and willed sleep to take him.
He woke hours later to feel warm skin and the weight of another body draped across his chest. If he kept his eyes closed he could pretend he was still asleep and enjoy these few moments of closeness to Eora. He breathed in, ready to savor the familiar scent.
His eyes slammed open. He sat bolt upright, tipping Elijah onto the floor.
“Get off me, you perverted human,” he yelled.
“I wasn’t on you, you moron,” Elijah yelled back.
“Like hell you weren’t. You were all over me.”
“What’s going on?” Eora’s sleepy voice broke in.
“He was…he was…lying on me,” Nieko sputtered.
“I was not!” Elijah yelled. “Fuck! My shoulder hurts.”
“Because you fell on the floor when I pushed you off me,” Nieko retorted. “I couldn’t have done that if you hadn’t been on me in the first place.”
“What were you doing on the bed?” Elijah growled, rubbing his shoulder.
“I told him to get in.” Eora’s head and shoulders popped into view on the other side of Elijah. “It was stupid for him to spend the night on the floor.”
“It would have been better than waking up with him trying to have sex with me.”
“I wasn’t trying to have sex with you,” Elijah growled. “I didn’t even know you were next to me.”
“Good point.” Nieko glared at Eora. “You were supposed to be between us,” Nieko accused. “How did he get there?”
“I had to go to the toilet,” Eora said. “And when I came back, Elijah had rolled to the middle. It was easier to slip in on the outside. Why does it matter?”
“He attacked me.”
“He freaked out.”
The two men answered at the same time.
“I did not attack you—I was asleep,” Elijah yelled as Nieko growled, “I did not freak out—I pushed you off me.”
“You were fondling me,” Nieko accused.
“You sniffed me!” Elijah countered.
They glared at each other, Nieko on the bed, the covers pushed down to his waist, Elijah on the floor. Suddenly two pairs of male eyes widened, two fingers pointed and two voices chorused in unison. “You have a hard-on!”
“You were hugging me,” Nieko shouted.
“You had your bloody nose buried in my neck!”
The men were distracted by the sound of another body falling to the floor. Nieko rose to his knees, Elijah stood and they both looked down at Eora, who lay on the floor, totally naked, legs drawn up to her stomach, arms wrapped around them, rocking from side to side with uncontrollable laughter.
“I don’t see what’s so funny,” said Nieko, his attempt at dignity in contrast to the heat burning in his cheeks.
“Oh come on, Nieko,” she giggled. “You’re both guys. You must have had morning woodies since you hit puberty. The way you’re carrying on you’d think…” She dissolved into giggles again.
The men looked at each other in an unexpected moment of male-to-male sympathy.
“I wasn’t um…you know,” Elijah muttered.
“I might have overreacted,” Nieko replied.
They scrambled into their clothes, Elijah donning his effeminate shirt with a defiant shrug of the shoulders, and stood keeping a wide distance between them.
Eora stopped chortling for long enough pull on her own clothes. “I think it would have been hot.”
Both men stared at her, mouths agape. Nieko recovered first. “Two men? Together? It’s unheard of. Unthinkable!”
“To most Dvalinn it is,” Eora agreed. “But not to humans. Is it, Elijah?”
Nieko swung his head to look at Elijah, waiting for an answer. From the fiery color in his cheeks, Nieko fully expected the human to deny it. The answer, then, came as a shock. “It’s quite common.”
“And it’s accepted?” Nieko asked. “Astonishing.”
“It wasn’t always,” Elijah replied. “And some people still don’t.” He looked at the ground, not making eye contact with either of the Dvalinn. Nieko was pretty sure he knew what that meant.
“You don’t accept it, do you?” He didn’t need to ask the human. He’d seen his anger.
Elijah scrubbed a hand across his face. “I… It’s difficult. Some people close to me were adamant it was wrong. I’d rather not discuss it. Besides, if the Dvalinn are so dead against it, I’m surprised you want to talk about it.”
Eora’s face lit with enthusiasm and Nieko groaned inwardly. The damn human didn’t know what he’d started. Once Eora got going with her fascination with human society and all its ways, she could go on for hours.
“The Dvalinn consider a lot of things unthinkable. Recent events have proved we’re wrong.”
Nieko jolted back to attention. This was new. “We’re wrong?” he asked.
“We have to be wrong,” Eora stated. “Tybor, Huon and the human female prove that. We were taught there is no sexual interaction between men…that’s wrong. We were taught there is no such thing as love…that’s wrong too. Why else would the three of them be prepared to give up everything to be together?”
Nieko sagged back against the wall, his shaky knees refusing to support him. “You believe in love?”
Eora shrugged. “I’m not sure what it really means, but in theory, yes. I’ve studied human psychology and history enough to know how important love is to them. Huon and Tybor proved it happens to Dvalinn too.”
“Who are these people you keep talking about?” Elijah asked. “Did you say a human?”
“Yes. The three of them are the reason Nieko and I are here.” She waved her hand in dismissal. “Well, the reason I’m here. Nieko is here because he thinks a) I’m going to get into trouble and b) if I do he can do something to get me out of it.”
“You’re already in trouble,” Nieko said. “I have no idea how any of us are going to get out of it, but don’t let that stop you. Maybe if you hear yourself say it out loud you’ll realize how stupid this whole thing has been.”
“Tybor, Huon and the human, Judie, are heroes,” she went on, pausing only to poke her tongue out at Nieko. So much for hoping she might see the seriousness of the mess they’d gotten themselves into. “Tybor and Huon risked their lives to save our people from destruction.”
She suddenly sobered. Nothing much ever marred Eora’s happy disposition, but even someone who didn’t know her as well as Nieko did couldn’t have mistaken the mingled sorrow and horror that drew her lips into a harsh white line and carved deep lines between her brows. “There was a human,” she said. “He trapped our people when they went to the surface. He locked on to them lik
e a parasite and forced them to transport him to the underworld. He killed his hosts, attacked three of our cities and murdered the inhabitants. Then he fled back to the surface world. Tybor and Huon made it their mission to track him down, to destroy him and the organization that supported him.”
Elijah made a choking noise. Nieko turned to look at him. His face had gone ashy gray.
“Most Dvalinn hate the humans now. We’re all forbidden to visit the surface. But I don’t think all humans are evil,” Eora said. “The Gatekeepers were an aberrant group. We can coexist with humans if we overcome the hatred.” She turned her head and looked straight into Nieko’s eyes. “Although there are some who insist no human is to be trusted.”
Nieko was about to answer her when something caught his attention. Or rather the absence of something. The swirling pressure in his head had eased, a sure sign that the thermo-magnetic disturbance had dissipated. “The storm’s over,” he said.
Elijah’s head snapped up. “Can we get out of here?”
“Not straight away,” Eora replied. “It will take a while for the rocks to cool down again, but soon.”
“How long do you think?” Elijah asked.
“You’re not going anywhere except to appear before the council.” Nieko folded his arms across his chest.
“You really don’t have an alternative,” Eora added. “You don’t know how you got here in the first place. You can’t teleport, so we’ll all have to walk back to the city. Maybe someone there will know how to get you home.”
“Because you don’t have any idea how to do it, do you?” Nieko asked, making no attempt to disguise his suspicion.
“I told you I don’t know,” Elijah responded. “I guess we keep on waiting until it’s safe to leave.”
“For the city,” Nieko reiterated.
“Yeah. Right,” Elijah muttered. Nieko wondered how two words of agreement could sound so much like a denial.
Nieko resumed his position on the floor, back to the wall, hands dangling over his knees. For some reason the human sat opposite, his position mirroring Nieko’s. Every so often he would look up from his contemplation of the floor between his knees and his gaze would meet Nieko’s. It must have been the tension or mistrust that tightened Nieko’s chest and sent the blood thumping through his veins so loudly he could hear it every time he felt the smoky brown scrutiny.
A couple of times Eora tried to initiate a conversation by asking questions about the surface, but Nieko didn’t care what the hell rain was like. Elijah grunted “It’s wet,” and returned to his silent reverie.
Every half an hour or so Eora consulted the temperature indicator on the wall. The fourth time, she tapped it with her forefinger.
“That won’t make it go down any faster,” Nieko told her. “All you’ll do is end up breaking it.”
She sat down again, then surged to her feet and paced back and forth across the limited space. “I can’t stand this.” She strode back to the indicator. “I could survive out there. It won’t be comfortable but it won’t kill us either.”
“We could wait a little longer,” Nieko said. “We don’t want to injure the human.”
“I can stand it if you can,” Elijah said. “I’m a firefighter. I probably know more about surviving heat than you ever will.”
“Okay, then,” Eora said. “Let’s do this.”
Nieko picked up his pack. As soon as he’d shouldered it, Eora hit the button to open the door.
A wave of heat washed over them but after the first shock passed Nieko realized Eora was right. They could stand it. Anything was better than being shut up in the safe room together. The tension had wound them all too tight. Nieko didn’t want to see what would happen if one of them snapped.
He let Eora step outside first, then he gestured for Elijah to follow. He left the safe room last.
Elijah stood as if he were strung together with wires, muscles tight, head up, alert and nervous. Not that Nieko blamed him. This must all be challenging for him.
“Which way do we go?” Elijah asked.
“That way,” Eora replied, pointing back the way she and Nieko had come. “The other way is Ogof. We were originally planning to go there to see if we could find Tybor and Huon and their woman, but we have to take you back to the coun —”
She broke off as Elijah pushed her aside and took off running, down the passageway in the direction of Ogof. He bent down as he ran, scooping something off the floor, but his pace didn’t slow.
For one stupefied moment Nieko watched him go, then he gathered his wits and took off in pursuit, Eora no more than a step behind him.
He heard her call out to Elijah to stop, but Elijah ran as if he hadn’t heard her. Nieko didn’t bother to waste his breath to tell her the human wasn’t going to come back because she’d asked him to.
Damn. He’d known he shouldn’t have trusted the bastard. He should have tied his wrists and shackled his ankles before he let Eora open the door, but he’d been so eager to escape the space and its proximity to the unsettling human that he’d lost his ability to think.
And now he was paying the price for his stupidity.
The human had run the instant Eora had indicated the way to Ogof. He hadn’t been joking when he’d said he could handle heat. Nieko pounded along, sweat dripping down his torso, his lungs burning with the in-and-out rush of air. Ahead of him, he could see rivulets of sweat trickling down Elijah’s neck, making dark wet patches on his shirt, but it didn’t slow him down. Nieko lunged, trying to wrap his fist in the trailing shirttails, but Elijah put on a burst of pace and eluded him.
Nieko leaped, diving to the left, trying to tackle the human’s legs out from under him, but Elijah lurched to the right before Nieko reached him. Hands outstretched, Nieko slid along the rock floor, heat and stone abrading his palms, fury searing his brain.
He knew! The damn human knew what Nieko planned before he moved. He was using telepathic powers—there was no other explanation for it. Nieko dragged himself to his feet and ran again. For the second time he’d let his guard slip. The second time the human had been able to read him.
He hauled himself to his feet and sprinted along the passageway. Elijah had used Nieko’s fall to pull ahead. His pace was fast and sustained, but this was Nieko’s territory. His muscles were fueled by rage. His fists clenched and he itched with the need to pound them into Elijah’s too-pretty face.
Ahead of him, Elijah disappeared around a corner. Nieko ignored the pain in his chest and the fire in his legs.
He raced through the curve. Ahead of him the tunnel branched in two, both paths empty as far as he could see. Nieko hesitated. Which way? Then the slap of feet against rock in the right-hand diversion made the decision for him. He chased after the sound.
Within seconds the walls around him showed signs of decoration. In his determined pursuit, Nieko hadn’t realized they had come quite so close to the city. Elijah couldn’t have slowed down for even an instant to choose a direction back at the junction. Had it been a lucky choice or had he known which branch to take? Known because he’d been here before, remembered the paintings on the wall and remembered how to get back?
The road straightened and Nieko caught sight of Elijah for a brief moment. He kept running, no hesitation in his stride. In fact he seemed to know exactly where he was heading—toward the city center square. It had all been lies when he’d said he didn’t remember. When Nieko finally caught up with him he was going to beat the truth out of him without waiting for the council.
Nieko burst into the square and skidded to a halt, the breath rushing from his lungs in shock as he took in the astonishing scene before him.
Elijah’s eyes were wide and bulging as he looked frantically back at Nieko. His mouth opened and shut but no sound emerged. It couldn’t, because a large, meaty forearm was hooked around his throat, squeezing tightly. Nieko’s stunned gaze followed the line of muscle and sinew up until he looked into the hard, grim face of a seasoned warrior. Tybor
.
Next to Tybor, a paler, slender but still dangerous-looking younger man wrenched the backpack from Elijah’s shoulders. So that was what he had stopped to pick up as he fled the safe room!
“Are you with this fucker?” Tybor asked, his voice low and calm and more threatening because of it. The younger man, Huon, stood and took a step toward Nieko.
“I’m not with him. I’m trying to catch him to take him to the council. He’s a human.”
“He’s a fucking Gatekeeper!” Tybor growled.
“No!” Eora screamed as she came up to stand shoulder to shoulder with Nieko. “He can’t be.”
Elijah scrabbled at Tybor’s arm, trying to dislodge it. His face was red, getting deeper, shading toward purple.
Tybor flexed his shoulders and eased his grip enough to let Elijah take a gulping, whooshing breath. “I’m going to kill you,” he said, contempt curling his lip. “Slowly and painfully.”
Huon reached into Elijah’s backpack and pulled out a small black box. He held it up. “It’s here.”
Elijah’s eyes closed. The raspy wheeze of his breath stopped.
“What is it?” Eora asked.
“It’s a remote control for a detonator,” another voice replied. A woman stepped out from behind Tybor. She looked older than both men, but her dark hair was long and glossy. The hard line of her lips and the cold expression in her eyes told Nieko that Elijah’s troubles had escalated. “I have no objection to you killing him, my love,” she said to Tybor, “but not until we get some information out of him.” She walked up to Huon and took the remote out of his hand. Huon gave it up without question, put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her in against him. They stood together, and even in this crisis Nieko could see how they took strength from one another.
Then she stepped away and with a few deft movements pulled the black device apart. Her brows snapped together. She walked up to Elijah. “Where did you get this?”