Chapter 15 #2
“When I bought explosives from Selesos, he tried to sell me some nets. He also told me a crazy story about the inventor programming in a master code to piss off the company that fired him.” Dathan picked up the three net boxes.
“Needless to say, I didn’t believe Sel for a second.
Looks like he was right. Now, let’s go find my woman and the bitch who almost fried me to death for the second time this week. ”
Niklas raised his eyebrows. “Your woman?”
Dathan lifted one shoulder. God, it sounded right. “Yeah. For now.”
“You planning to keep her around?”
He felt skittish just thinking about it. He wasn’t a catch for a woman like Eos. They clashed as much as they aligned. He loved being with her, loved hearing the excitement in her voice when she saw something that amazed her, loved watching her eyes turn that molten gold as he pleasured her.
But he couldn’t forget that during her brief time with him, she’d been kidnapped three times. There was every chance she wouldn’t survive him.
“No. Eos doesn’t belong in my world.”
Nik just shot him an unreadable look.
“Let’s just get her back. Safe and alive.”
They kept in cover behind the rubble until the ruined temple came into view. An arched roof and its spire stood at one end. The remainder of the building was a collapsed ruin.
Dathan took a step toward the entrance when a booming disruptor blast reverberated through the area.
For a horrible second, he thought they were the target.
But he was still in one piece, his brothers beside him.
His gut dropped. “Eos!” Abandoning stealth, he ran.
It was so dark.
Eos stumbled along behind Darc. The hunter had a small, high-powered flashlight. Its thin beam speared into the tunnel, but it didn’t do much to help Eos see where she was putting her feet.
Her ears were still ringing from the disruptor Darc had fired into a wall. The woman knew how to make a point. Eos tugged at her earlobe.
The tunnel wasn’t much of an engineering feat. Rough-hewn walls and an undulating floor that had tripped her more than once. At first, she thought this tunnel under the altar couldn’t lead to the treasure, but then she realized that was what Hawkins had wanted people to think.
Her heartbeat was a loud, frenetic thump in her ears. The treasure was close. Now she knew what Dathan meant when he said he could sense it. It was like a pulse of solar radiation beating at her.
“Stop.” Darc came to an abrupt halt.
The tunnel widened out into a square chamber. All pretense of poor workmanship disappeared. The walls were smooth and precise, and carved with intricate images. The carvings were exquisite and all lit with lights. There must be some sort of inexhaustible energy source.
“By Suva’s grace.” Eos took a step forward, lured by the images of a past civilization long gone.
One was the skyline of a magnificent city.
Another showed three pyramids rising out of sand.
Another showed a man with a beard in some sort of workshop, working on a painting, inventions littered around him
Darc’s arm shot out, hitting Eos in the chest. “Don’t move.” She motioned to the floor.
All Eos saw was a pattern of mosaic tiles. “What?”
“That—” the hunter pointed to a dark square a few feet in front of them “—looks like a pressure sensor.”
To Eos, it looked like the other tiles, but it had a metallic sheen. Scanning the floor, she noted several other tiles of the darker color. “That does what?”
“I’m sure we don’t want to find out.”
Eos dragged her gaze from the floor and gave the beautiful carvings one more look of longing before focusing on what was set in the back wall. A huge, circular, metallic vault door.
She swallowed, unable to believe the treasure of the New Louvre could be just meters away from her. “I don’t know how to the get the vault door open.”
Darc arched a brow. “That happens to be my area of expertise.”
“Eos will be fine, Dath. She’s smart.”
Dathan stalked through the ruined church, wanting to believe Nik’s words. They’d searched for twenty agonizing minutes. In every shadow, he’d had expected to find Eos’ body, broken and bleeding.
Nik grabbed his shoulder. “Darc doesn’t use guns to kill. She likes her knives too much.”
Dathan jerked to a stop. “It was supposed to panic us?”
“Maybe. Or scare Eos.”
“Here!”
They ran over to where Zayn stood near the altar.
Dathan frowned at the carved stone. “What?”
“Down there.”
He followed Zayn’s finger, and saw a fresh scratch mark on the floor. Like something heavy had slid over it. Like the altar stone had retracted recently.
Dathan smoothed a hand along the altar edge. “There must be an entrance here.” Be okay, Eos. Please be okay. His fingers touched the smallest of pressure sensors. He pressed the button.
The altar stone slid back. It didn’t make a noise, just the faintest whirr of whatever equipment was embedded in the stone.
Darkness cloaked a steep tunnel. All three of them flicked their flashlights on.
Dathan took the lead, moving at a fast pace. The tunnel evened out, but the floor was rough and bumpy. They rounded a corner, and in the distance, he heard the murmur of female voices.
She was alive! His sense of relief was greater than anything he’d felt before.
He and Eos were going to have a long discussion on staying out of the hands of nefarious treasure hunters.
He was going to be the only treasure hunter whose hands she had anything to do with.
“Weapon,” he whispered to Nik. His older brother drew a laser pistol.
Zayn, as always, refused to carry a weapon. He stepped back behind them. With his hand-to-hand combat training, he was still deadly.
They moved forward.
“Holy hell,” Niklas murmured.
Dathan took it all in in seconds. The carvings, the vault door, Darc crouched in front of it. Eos stood to the side with her wrists secured with a plas-tie.
“Dammit.” Darc thumped a fist against the metal. “That should have been it.”
“Having some trouble, Darc?” Dathan drawled.
The hunter spun on one knee, lifting her disruptor. Niklas stepped forward, his laser pistol aimed at her heart. “Put it down. That’s your only warning.” His voice was as hard as the stone around them.
Darc hesitated, her gaze on his face. Then she laid the weapon on the floor. “I wouldn’t come any closer. There are pressure sensors in the floor.”
Dathan glanced down, grimaced. “She’s telling the truth.”
Nik grunted. “That’s a first.”
Darc lifted her head. “Not everything I say is a lie.”
Dathan maneuvered closer, dodging the dark sensors. “Eos, you okay?”
“I’m fine. She was trying to crack the vault door, but no luck.”
When he got within arm’s reach, he yanked her to him. She kissed him, and he felt the tension inside him ease.
They pulled back, foreheads pressed together. “You sure you’re okay?”
She nodded. “You?”
“A few plasma burns but we’ve had worse.” He cut her bindings off.
Her hands gripped his wrist and stroked the striped markings on his skin. “Plasma nets?”
“Darc tried to detain us.”
Eos shot the hunter a venomous look. Niklas was now behind her, his pistol pressed to the back of her neck.
“What will we do with her?” Eos asked.
Zayn moved forward. “Plenty of people in the quadrant want her dead or in chains.”
Dathan nodded. “I hear Lord Garmin Peltor really likes you, Darc. Wants to add you to his harem. Think we might drop her off at his palace.”
The hunter’s face paled. The only reaction he’d ever seen from her. “I’ll be no one’s slave.”
She exploded upward, smacking her head into Niklas’ chin. He fell backward, and she was on him in a flash, grabbing at his weapon.
Shit, Dathan couldn’t get a clear shot. Niklas used his heavier weight to try to pin her, but Darc was quick and fought dirty.
The wrestling ended with both of them on their knees, Darc holding the pistol to Nik’s chest, and Nik holding his backup laser blade to the side of her neck.
Standoff. Not good.
Eos’ fingers gripped Dathan’s arm like talons. He caught Zayn’s eye, warning him to be ready.
“We both know you won’t kill me, Nera,” Nik said.
“You don’t know me.” She pressed the gun deeper into his chest. “You have no idea what I’m capable of.”
Great, Nik was just going to sit there and let the bitch kill him. Dathan flicked a look at Eos, then the vault, then back to his brother.
Screw this. He lifted a foot and brought it down.
On a pressure sensor.
There was a faint buzz as an energy field shimmered to life at the opening to the tunnel. The ground beneath them trembled.
Darc and Niklas both looked up.
“What the fuck have you done?” Darc demanded.
A whooshing sound filled the cavern.
From holes at the top of the walls, sand rushed into the room like waterfalls.