Chapter 44 Lucien
FORTY-FOUR
Lucien
As soon as Olivia was put back together—like fuck was I sharing a single glimpse of her looking like that with anyone but me—we called Shay and Dirge. They came jogging around the corner nearly ten minutes later, due to the sheer size of the temple.
Dirge slapped me on the back with a grin. “How’d you two get it open?”
“Don’t ask.”
He laughed, his keen eyes not missing Olivia’s rosy cheeks and slightly mussed ponytail. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” The wink he shot me would have made my hackles rise, except he walked around and slid his arm around his own mate, dropping a kiss on top of her head.
Dirge was a wolf content, whole, and I craved that feeling with every fiber of my being.
But at the same time, I didn’t hate where we were either.
It was nice to learn her slowly, in waves.
To take our time and wait for the moon. For the first time in my life, it felt like time was on my side.
And after getting captured and tortured, that was a luxury I thought I’d never experience again.
Time with my mate, time to grow this fledgling relationship into something sturdier, something lasting.
I was excited for our future. There were challenges ahead, but Olivia and I could face them together.
What we’d found was a rare, precious thing. And I didn’t intend to squander a moment of our future.
I slid my hand back into hers, and we led the way into the temple’s top level.
It was dim but not dark inside, though I couldn’t immediately spot the source of light. The archway we walked through led us into a hallway, stone walls on either side of us funneling us toward the middle of the building.
Building wasn’t quite the word for it, but that was all I had that fit. It felt like a maze, the walls taller than usual and closing in on the hallway.
Hieroglyphics lined the walls, but these weren’t your usual Egyptian drawings. No, these were of great, fiery birds, with humans worshipping at their feet.
As we walked, the entire life cycle of a phoenix played out on the walls, and I found myself slowing down to take in the details and absorb the beauty. Olivia was by my side, quietly taking it all in right along with me.
“Guys, look at this one.” Shay’s voice was reverent from a little farther down.
I hadn’t even noticed them stepping down a side hall, but the hieroglyph she pointed to was of a great, jewel-toned nest, a gleaming golden egg sitting in the middle.
“I think we’re close. As far as I can tell, the center of the ceiling is just over there.
But the path splits on that branch. Something about this place, though…
I don’t think we should separate again.”
She shuddered, and my wolf went on high alert. Her fae senses could pick up different magics than I could with my wolf’s keen senses, and while I only felt or scented inert stone around us… “Olivia, didn’t you say you sensed living plants inside?”
My mate nodded hesitantly. “I still do, but they could be in these rooms. It’s hard to say. I’m still not great at judging distance.”
“The fact that you were able to take brand-new power and save Gael’s life in the middle of a battle was incredible.
Normally, that kind of skill would take years of practice, especially based on what we learned about new powers in the fae court.
” Shay pointed over her shoulder to where her wings would be in her full form.
“It’s okay if it doesn’t all come to you at once. ”
Olivia nodded, seeming pleased by the praise.
Does my mate have a praise kink? Food for thought.
We continued walking, arriving at the fork in the hallway slash maze. There were no scents for our wolves to follow, no footsteps left after this place had been so long unattended. It was a toss-up.
“As long as we stay within earshot, we can go a little ways down each and see if one way looks more promising than the other. Neither path goes straight to the center.” Dirge pointed overhead, then followed the line down from the middle of the ceiling toward a spot off in the distance.
“We’ll take right, and we’ll both walk for”—he checked his watch-—“five minutes before turning around and deciding which path we want to take.”
“I’d say we’ll call, but my phone is a brick in here.” Olivia frowned as she held up her cell.
“Good old-fashioned way it is, then. No biggie.” Shay’s smile was tight and not at all believable.
“Five minutes.” I nodded at Dirge, checked my watch, and then Olivia and I turned left.
The hallway we’d chosen was plain. No paint adorned the walls, there were no doorways, and no additional lights that we could see. We did walk under a skylight way up above, though, so at least the question of where the light was coming from was answered.
“We definitely won’t be hanging out in here after dark. This place gives me the creeps.”
Oli laughed, the sound far too musical for our surroundings. “Really? I think it’s amazing. I feel like a real-life Indiana. Going on archaeological adventures, but without all the spiderwebs.”
I snorted. “You can always see the bright side, can’t you?”
“It’s one of my many talents, actually.” She turned and shot me a saucy look over her shoulder, when all the hair on the back of my neck stood up.
“Hellcat, something’s—”
The ground gave out beneath us, and then we were falling.
I woke to whimpering. My eyes were blurry, and I blinked a few times, only to realize that it was dust floating in the air making the light from above filter through the grime. Scratch that, way the hell above.
I didn’t know how far we’d fallen, but I had the sense we were deep, deep under this temple.
Another whimper snapped my focus back to the present.
“Olivia?” I kept my voice calm, scanning the rubble-filled space with my heart thundering at top speed, not at all calm. When she didn’t answer, I yelled her name.
“Here. I’m over here.”
Her voice was small, terrified, shaking, and in the two-point-five seconds it took me to scale the pile of broken rock between us, one million terrifying scenarios of her being hurt and maimed flashed through my mind.
Every last one would haunt my nightmares, I knew that like I knew I needed oxygen.
She was huddled on the floor, dirt dulling her fiery hair’s shine, and my nose picked up the coppery tang of blood in the air.
“Where are you hurt? How bad is it?”
I didn’t mean to bark at her, but my wolf was scratching and clawing for release. He needed to protect her, no matter that the foe was gravity and time.
When she didn’t answer, I dropped to my knees, nearly sighing with relief when I saw the grazes on her palms, a few small nicks on her shins.
Not life-threatening. Not maimed. Not dying.
I took my first full inhalation since coming to and held her to my chest, looking around for an escape route.
My eyes were starting to adjust with help from my wolf, and I could see the grayscale outline of a small room.
An empty bench lined one wall, and it looked like there was an outline of a doorway, unfortunately behind the pile of flooring stones we’d fallen through.
“It’s going to be okay. I can see a door over there.
We must have just found a weak spot in the floor.
” I chafed her arms with my hands, but she didn’t respond.
“Hellcat? Olivia?” I resisted the urge to shake her, in case she had a concussion or something that her shifter healing was still battling.
“Can you tell me where it hurts? Anything, little mate.”
“Too-oo small. Don’t like tight spaces.”
Shit. “You’re claustrophobic?”
She nodded, finally looking up at me, her face white as a sheet. She was pale normally, but this was as if all the blood had drained from her face and she was about to pass out.
“I’m going to get you out of here, okay?
I promise it’s going to be fine. But I’ve got to get you out of the way so I can move the rocks.
” I scooped her off the ground, her terrified tremors making me move faster.
To my relief, there was a dusty but solid chair in the corner of the room.
When I tried to set her down, though, she clung to my shirt.
“Please don’t leave me,” she begged in a distressed whisper.
My wolf was not happy. Frankly, the man wasn’t too happy either. I was pretty sure I had a goose egg on the back of my skull from that landing.
“Shhh. I’m never leaving you again, hellcat. You’re mine. You know that? As soon as the full moon is here, I’m going to leave my bite on this beautiful skin. Where do you think you want it?”
It was not at all the appropriate time to choose where we wanted our bites, but I hoped the topic might distract her.
I had less than zero experience dealing with claustrophobia, so I was shooting from the hip.
“I would be happy…” She shuddered, trying to focus on something besides the fear that held her in its tightly clenched fist. “I would be happy to wear your bite anywhere.”
Her voice rose at the end, determination as she tried to rise out of it.
“That’s because you’re such a good mate.
You know that? The Goddess made a mistake giving somebody as perfect as you to somebody as busted up as I am, but we’re absolutely not going to tell her that, okay?
Because now that I’ve seen what life is like with you?
I can’t go back. I’m addicted.” I smiled, stroking her cheek and holding her gaze.
She seemed to draw strength from the words, from my steadiness. After a moment, she shook her head. “I’m far from perfect, Luce. And I’m not sure I’ll really believe you’re mine until the bite is on my neck to prove it.” She fingered the area above her collarbone, and I leaned down to kiss it.
“Believe it, hellcat. You’ve been claimed by an alpha, and alphas don’t ever let go.”
“It didn’t stop my mother.” I almost didn’t catch her whisper, and confusion filled me at her words.
“What do you mean?”
She shook her head, closing her eyes, and I felt her panic start to descend again, her scent acrid with the weight of it.
Shit.
I had to change tactics, and quick.
“You told me you sensed plants in here before. Are there any close by?”
She squinched up her eyebrows, concentrating. “I’m not sure. It’s hard to tell. The power doesn’t want to talk.”
“Yeah? I bet you could find out what’s around. Why don’t you close your eyes and focus on that? You tell me every single plant you can reach in the area. I want every name.”
She closed her eyes immediately, and my wolf rumbled his pleasure at her submission. Wolves are so damn predictable.
“Every plant, you promise me?” I dropped a kiss on her forehead.
“The palms from outside are annoyed at us again.”
I chuckled, letting go of my grip on her jaw, slowly backing away at first, then more quickly turning toward the pile that stood between us and freedom. “Again? What did we do to the bastards to piss ’em off the first time?”
“I called them average palm trees. Apparently, they’re quite rare.”
“Who knew trees could be uppity,” I huffed, moving chunks of rock at top speed, piling them in the far corner, where there was no chance they could roll and hit my girl.
“Very uppity. There are also water lilies. I love lilies. Their scent is so sweet. It reminds me of summer.”
The way my heart clenched at the reference to lilies, I nearly faltered in my task. But then I remembered that Lilly was long gone, and Olivia needed me right now.
I’m going to fail her.
I shook it off and kept working, urging Olivia on any time she slowed in reciting the various plants. I could tell she was good and into it when she started telling me their scientific names a few minutes in.
“Oh shit, Dirge, I think they’re in that hole!
” Shay’s voice rang out overhead, and I froze, looking up, finally gauging how incredibly far we’d fallen.
It was a miracle we hadn’t both broken all our bones.
I eyed the dangling roof material overhead, realizing the ancient leather had probably saved our lives.
“Stay back from the edge! If more rocks fall, we don’t have any cover!” I shouted, chucking the rock I was still holding to the corner and bracing myself over Olivia.
“We won’t come any closer. Are you injured?” Dirge shouted down, the sound getting swallowed up by the vast chasm of space between us.
“Just bumps and bruises. There’s a door in this room, and we’re nearly out.”
“That’s good, because the other path was a dead end. If we can’t get past here, I’m not sure we can make it any deeper into the temple.”
“We’ve got a door. Now we just have to figure a way back out.”
“We’ll keep looking from the outside. Do you have a flashlight?”
“Yeah, in my pack,” Olivia supplied, not yelling. Her eyes were still screwed tightly shut, her knuckles bone white where she gripped the seat of her chair.
“We’re good.”
As long as we weren’t trapped. Please, Goddess, don’t let us be trapped.