“A mentula minuscula? Yes.”
Fulk moved his hand from the plant and eyed Deryn carefully. “Umm, I’ll be right back.”
The women waited until Fulk was clear of the area to start giggling. Ondrea turned Deryn to face the wall allowing Alejandro a view of the tattoo on her back. It was beautiful, black ink and covered the small of her back. “Ohmygod, Deryn, mentula minuscula? I can’t believe you came up with that on the spot. You’re going straight to hell for screwing with him.”
Deryn glanced over her shoulder in the direction Fulk had run off in. “Bet he’s washing his hands and umm, well, you know.”
“Deryn.”
“What?” She shrugged. “You can’t tell me that he hasn’t stood around making snide ass comments about us since the moment we arrived.”
She had a point. Fulk was notorious for that.
“Still, to toss the Latin phrase for little dick out as the name of the plant was just wrong. You need to tell him you were kidding. If he repeats that to other people he’ll be the laughingstock of the base.”
Little dick?
Alejandro tried and failed to hide his laughter. Issac seemed to have issues, too. A snort followed by a cough came from him. “Little dick.”
Ondrea nudged Deryn. “See. They’re already laughing at him.”
Fulk came back through the tree line, wiping his obviously wet hands on his pant leg. Deryn thumped her head against the temple wall, laughing hysterically. Issac fell into a fit of laughs, too.
She got hold of herself and smiled sweetly. “Umm, Lt. Rodriquez?”
“Yeah?”
“I misinformed you. The plant is not called mentula minuscule.”
Ondrea nodded. “That’s better.”
“It’s called mentula magnus.”
Alejandro couldn’t help but laugh on that one. She gone from little dick to big dick.
Ondrea lifted the piles of Dr. Murray’s hair and wrapped it in a twist of sorts. “Oh, queen of mean, could you hold your mane please?”
Lifting her hands to her head, Deryn winked at him and his heart thumped madly in his chest. The position left her cut off tank top riding up to just under her breasts. His cock throbbed painfully.
Ondrea ran her hand over another tattoo on the lower portion of the back of Deryn’s neck. It was too hard to get a good look at it from his vantage point but it looked to be about two inches high and about an inch wide. It too was done in black ink.
“What does this one mean because this is repeated on the other wall--the one you’re working by?” Ondrea asked.
“It means I’m the,” Deryn took a deep breath, “queen of mean.”
Ondrea smacked her lightly. “Deryn! I’m serious here.”
“Mmmhmm, so serious that you had time to get some fruit throwing action in. Yep. Serious.”
“All right, I’m sorry I tried to peg you in the head with the thing. It’s not like you’d have let it hit you.” Ondrea glanced back at him. “Hell, it’s not like the colonel would have ever let it near you. Now, tell me what this means and why does that look like a big cat? What breed is that?”
“You’re the cat shifter. You tell me. I’m just the lowly non-shifter.”
“I’m so going to bite you in like two seconds,” Ondrea said, snarling playfully.
Fulk groaned. “I would pay to see that, too.”
“Me, too,” Issac said.
Me, three.
Alejandro kept his opinion to himself and watched as Deryn began to shake her hips slightly again. Ondrea slapped her ass and a collective groan went throughout the men. “Deryn, hold still.”
“I am holding still.”
“No, you’re doing the ass thing again.”
Deryn stilled. “Oh, sorry. I can’t help it. Those drums and that thing making the snake charmer like music is hard not to move to.”
Alejandro glanced at his men with the unspoken question on his face. Did they hear anything? They shook they heads. Ondrea looked at them and her brow furrowed. “Umm, Deryn, what music and how long have you been hearing it?”
Deryn snorted. “Cute, Ondrea. I know you hear it. How can you not? It’s been steady and at a good volume all day, from the moment we got here.”
“Oh, that. I was sounding it out. It sounds so much like...” Ondrea paused, touching Deryn’s back. “Umm?”
Ondrea was lying, Alejandro could sense it.
“Remember the belly dancing classes we took?” Deryn asked.
“Yes.”
Deryn laughed. “Doesn’t it remind you of that? Like at any moment a snake is going to come out of a basket or some guy with a god complex is going to show up with a harem?”
“I want his job,” Fulk said, under his breath.
“Deryn, are you feeling okay? I mean, you’re not coming down with anything, are you?”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Why?” A second after she said, she looked past Alejandro at the tree line and touched Ondrea’s shoulder. “Do you feel that?”
“Spooky chick alert,” Fulk said, laughing slightly.
Ondrea glared at him. “Feel what, Deryn?”
Deryn locked gazes with him. “Nothing.” She instantly went to work sliding her tee shirt back on and tucking it into her pants.
Touching Deryn’s shoulder, Ondrea went to her tiptoes to whisper to her. Lucky for Alejandro his hearing was excellent. “Deryn, what are you sensing? Is it a threat?”
It was odd to hear a shifter asking a human that.
Deryn swallowed hard. “Umm, it’s nothing. You don’t hear the music, do you?”
“No, honey, I don’t, but I know better than to question your gut. You’ve saved my ass more times than I can count. Tell me the truth, what do you sense?”
“I don’t want to talk about this here. These men won’t understand me.”
“Deryn, I won’t let them hurt you. You know that. What do you sense?”
Sighing, she glanced high into the treetops. “That we’re being watched--stalked would be a better word. But the predator’s toying with us, seeing how close it can get before being detected. Almost like a test. It seems to want to test the colonel most of all.”
Something was stalking him? Alejandro zeroed his gifts on scanning his surroundings for danger but found none. Ondrea apparently did the same thing. She shook her head. “I’m not picking anything up and I don’t think we can start spouting off about something hunting these guys without ending up sitting in a padded cell. Keep your guard up, and, Deryn?”
“Yes?”
“You’re leaving some vital information out. I can see it in your face. What is it?”
Deryn ran her fingers over the symbols on the wall. “Ondrea, I really don’t think we should be here after dark.”
“Honey, they’ve been working double shifts on this site for seven months. They haven’t sensed.... Oh shit, they can’t sense it. Can they?”
The shrug that followed was small, as if she wasn’t sure how to answer that.
Ondrea ran her hand over Deryn’s lower back. “Tell me why you’re uneasy about the dark. You aren’t one who is normally scared of it.”
“The symbol you brought me over to see ... the one that is on my lower back, it means moon. This one here,” she pointed at another, “means darkness. That one means warriors. All of this is a big fat warning about them being more powerful after dark.”
“Them who?”
“I don’t know that yet, but I intend to find out.” She leaned in close to Ondrea. “I’ll come back after everyone leaves and look around.”
Alejandro had to bite back a ‘hell no you won’t.’
Ondrea shook her head. “No way. For one, this base is crawling with nothing but supernaturals. They’ve got vampires, Fae, shifters. A smorgasbord if you will. The last thing you need to be is alone in a jungle. I’m not saying any of them would hurt you but I’ve felt the call of the wild before. The thrill of the hunt. The knowledge that you’re stalking something
that can’t see you. It’s been seven months since most of the men have probably gotten to hunt enemies to satisfy their inborn need to kill.”
Deryn clutched onto the wall. “You make them sound like animals. They’re not. If they were animals, I wouldn’t be so nervous about being here. I’d know that they wouldn’t want me dead the second they....”
“Shh, Deryn, don’t get worked up. They’ll sense the change in your body chemistry. You know that. Kane’s explained it to you at least a thousand times that I’m aware of.”
The mention of Captain Kane Soto’s name made Alejandro’s ears perk. He couldn’t comment or he’d let on he could hear them whispering.
Ondrea continued, “Remember the time those snakes got loose in your office?”
Deryn shuddered. “I still yell at Marvin every chance I get for forgetting to put the lid back on them when he was done feeding them. What made my lab more attractive than his? Why did they migrate to me?” She shuddered again. “I don’t think I’ve ever screamed louder in my life. I screeched like a little girl. Kane’s face when he came busting through the door was priceless in a ‘scary guy whose eyes are flickering yellow’ kind of way.”
“Yeah, Deryn, that’s my point. You need to remember that at certain times, you’re more, well, you know, and during that time you send out signals we pick up on. Why do we keep having to go through this?”
Deryn smiled. “Because the second I make the ‘I’m lost’ face you and Kane launch into lecture mode. Ugg, like I don’t understand pheromones and the fact you are sensitive to spikes in heart rates, breathing, any sort of adrenaline gland secretion. You can pick up on variances in the amount of....”
Ondrea put her hand up, stopping Deryn. “Kane’s been ‘trying’ to get you to understand it for years. Something tells me you should be teaching him. Why do you let him think he’s teaching you ... oh.” She pointed and laughed. “Very smart, Deryn. Make him feel needed, manly, in control.”
“He’s so cute when he’s getting spiders out of corners that I can’t help myself. You have to admit that watching him climbing up, in his barely there underwear, on my bed to get them out of high points is worth it.”
Underwear? Her bed?
Clearly, she knew Kane personally. Alejandro made a mental note to talk with his longtime friend about it and hoped it wasn’t true. Kane had a way with women and the thought of the sexy young doctor wrapping her long legs around one of his team members while she cried out in ecstasy didn’t sit well with him at all.
Ondrea sighed. “Oh gods, I can just imagine what he must look like doing that. Tell me about his tattoo. I bet it ripples when he moves, doesn’t it?”
Laughing, Deryn nodded. “It is nice.”
“Nice? Just nice? I know for a fact that he walks around you naked without a second thought and all you have to say is, it’s nice? Do not spoil a girl’s fantasy. Tell me it’s better than nice.”
Alejandro wanted to shoot something, preferably his longtime friend, Kane.
Deryn’s lip twitched. “The dragon tattoo on his back,” she arched a brow, “goes all the way down and wraps around his leg. That’s why he wears pants all year round.”
“Is that why he’s so picky about who does and who doesn’t get to see him naked?”
Snickering, Deryn nodded. “He has issues with how close it comes to his, uhh, family jewels.”
Ondrea gasped. Alejandro wanted to lob a grenade at his friend. Too bad he wasn’t back from Earth yet. It wasn’t like Alejandro had any reason to be jealous. Deryn didn’t belong to him.
“How close does the tattoo come to his jewels?”
Deryn winked. “Let’s just say that his is closer to certain areas than the one I have.” She glanced down towards her crotch and Alejandro felt a light sheen of sweat break out on his brow.
The woman clearly had an array of tattoos, each one in a provocative position. He never thought himself a man to be overly turned on by a woman covered in them but seeing Deryn and seeing how tactful and fitting hers seemed to be, he was fast changing his mind.
Ondrea rolled her body in a quick motion that said just how horny the thought of Kane’s tattoos made her and then pointed to the wall. “Okay, that means what again?”
“Moon,” Deryn said, shaking her head slightly. “We need Kane here to say for sure what the rest of it means. My skills when it comes to ancient dialects are rusty at best. Besides this is more like the language used by the Avatars. So, Kane would be the expert here, not me. I’m just his shadow. His,” she put her hands up and laughed, “underappreciated assistant.”
“Kane?” Alejandro asked, needing to hear it from her mouth just how close they were.
Deryn smiled. “Yes, Captain Kane Soto. You know, adorable smile, dark eyes, dragon tattoo, nice ass. I could keep going but I’m guessing you’d rather not hear the rest.”
She had no idea just how much he didn’t want to hear her go on and on about Kane.
“The Avatars? What do you mean?” Issac asked, taking a sudden interest in the findings.
Deryn smiled. “You know, the first embodiments of power. The original gods, for lack of a better description.” She skimmed the tips of her fingers over the markings and seemed to go off in a dream-like state for a moment. “I think the temple was created to honor them. It might even be a burial ground.” She drew in a sharp breath. “That would explain the ceremonial music I ... err, yeah.”
Ondrea winked. “Stick to your field, Doctor, and leave this sort of stuff up to Kane and I.”
Deryn didn’t seem taken aback back by Ondrea’s comment. In fact, she looked as though she found it rather amusing. That piqued Alejandro’s interest. “So, what exactly is your specialty, Doctor?”
“I’m a Jill-of-all-trades, Colonel. Though, I’m currently working on ruling out radioactive concerns in this realm, carbon dating various artifacts your teams have found. I think I’m going to have to do potassium or uranium isotope testing because I can only go so far back on the carbon. Everything I’ve seen from the previous findings tells me that this stuff is older than that. Oh, and I’m trying to remember if I left my coffeepot on back at my place. I wish it was easy to check--pick up a phone and call. Somehow I don’t think it works that way though.”
Alejandro chuckled. “No. It doesn’t quite work that way.”
Ondrea huffed and wiped the light sheen of sweat from her brow. “Deryn is a good luck charm. It’s genetic. She’s versed in almost all aspects of what this program deals with but physics tends to be where she excels the most. Just don’t ask her to cook something for you. She seems to do nothing but screw that up.”
“Hey, I’ll have you know that I’m doing much better,” Deryn said, laughing softly. The sound was so divine that it left Alejandro feeling giddy.
Fuck, giddy? I might be in over my head here.
“Please don’t start going all safe and gourmet on me, Deryn.” Ondrea winked. “I love it when you catch your kitchen on fire and all those hunky men come rushing in to make it right again.”
Deryn rolled her eyes and shook her head. “The fire department has only had to come twice.”
“Yes and both times were wonderful, don’t you think? If you left your coffeepot on they might show up a third time. Hey, what was that one firefighter’s name? The one you dated for awhile? You know, tall, sexy, had the long hair?”
“I don’t remember.” She bit her lower lip and as her nose crinkled.
Alejandro watched silently as the women talked and worked. The last thing he wanted to hear about was Deryn’s ex-boyfriends.
Ondrea laughed. “What do you remember about him?”
Grinning from ear to ear, Deryn winked, sending a stab of jealousy through Alejandro. He cleared his throat. “Ladies, how is the translation coming?”
“It’s coming just about as slow and infrequently as Deryn has been lately.” Ondrea bumped her hip into her friend and giggled. “Find anyone to cuddle with yet?”
Pl
ease say no.
“No, and if I do, you have my permission to behead him. I hate the ones who want to hang on me. I don’t need another appendage. They never go with my shoes.”
Ondrea burst into laughter. “Was that a knock on my shoe fetish? Huh? For a girl who hates men to hang on her, you sure don’t push Kane away whenever he wants to hold you.”
Alejandro tightened his grip on his M-16. Wonderful, it’s official. She’s dating one of my closest friends and all I can think about is fucking her.
“This means to rest,” Deryn said, changing the subject and touching another portion of the wall. “It could be taken as sleeping or death. I’m not sure. Kane will know.”
“Kane will know,” Ondrea mocked. “Have you handed your individual thought processes over to him along with everything else?”
“As a matter of fact, I did. I walked to my Kane shrine, dropped to my knees and prayed that he would forever be there to tie my shoes, tell me when I need to sleep, eat, go sit down, stay out of trouble, stop talking about gamma waves, stop doing this, stop doing that, put more clothes on and don’t wear makeup. The list goes on.” She groaned. “I keep waiting for him to present me with adoption papers and tell me to call him daddy.”
“Oh, that’s just sick,” Ondrea said, laughing. “But you do have a point. He does tend to be a little overprotective when it comes to you.”
“He says it’s because he loves me but sometimes I wonder if he’s not really just trying to drive me insane.” She traced the edges of another symbol.
Love?
Ondrea’s brow furrowed. “Deryn, you give Kane more than enough reason to worry about you. I worry, too.”
“Then you’re both crazy.” Shrugging, Deryn pointed at another spot on the wall. “This means watcher. Combine it with this area and you’ve got watchers of the moon or watchers by the moon. The other portion is warriors of darkness. I think. Kane would need to sort that out. There is a big difference. Neither is exactly what you want to be unsealing but I could talk until I’m blue in the face. The government wants to know it all. But too much knowledge can prove fatal.”
“Deryn, I know that you of all people have some expertise when it comes to this stuff but I don’t see how it’s possible for the Avatars to be here, too. This is another realm,” Ondrea said, tracing the edges of another marking. “What makes you think it’s Avatarian?”
Shifter Fated Mates: Boxed Set Page 57