Chapter Thirty-One
TALIK
The water was surprisingly warmer than Talik had expected.
Siltier as well. He kicked his legs out.
His uniform had not been designed for swimming, and they clung to him, restricting his movements.
His boots, steel-toed, were heavy and cumbersome.
Stretching out his arms, he tried to loosen his clothes by untucking his shirt.
He couldn’t do anything about the boots. Just grin and bear the extra weight.
He focused on the murky water, so dark it looked black, but it smelled like fresh running water and was clean despite the color.
The water had never scared him, had always felt like a second home, especially when he had nowhere to go as a youth.
Wading deeper, he continued the downward trajectory.
Below him, bioluminescent lights twinkled.
He wasn’t entirely sure what it was—flora or fauna—and wasn’t curious enough to find out.
The pale-blue light in black water reminded him of the night sky.
He swam slowly, careful not to disturb the silt or anything else that had decided it was trying to find its way out of the catacombs.
Khalida stood on the edge, the water at her waist, with a stubborn expression on her face.
Her hair glowed like a beacon in the crystal light; the silver was the perfect palette to highlight the twinkling lights.
Khalida looked uncomfortable, her eyes wider than normal, but somehow, she hadn’t quite lost the aristocratic stare she always defaulted to when she was somewhere she didn’t want to be.
The two swords were strapped to her back, and she still wore the backpack that carried the artifact.
Her shoulders were proudly held up high, as if she was about to go into battle.
He knew exactly how much concentration and energy it took.
The growing panic surrounding her was palpable, but with each passing second, it was settling.
Khalida would hate that anyone would notice it, but he knew how deep-seated her terror of water was.
As someone who had grown up in a village near the coast, he had never quite fathomed how someone could fear it as much as she did.
There wasn’t much he could do, but he could distract her. She had an unhealthy relationship with competition, but it suited him because he had a borderline obsession with seeing how the cards would fall. And he loved to win just as much as she did.
He looked at the ceiling. There was more debris falling now. They were small pieces of rock and sandstone, but not small enough to fill him with an assurance that the ceiling would hold up for much longer. “A little wager?”
“Like to be on a losing streak, do you?”
He slowly swam back to Khalida, standing just out of reach. “I believe we are even.”
Khalida looked him over. And for a moment, he forgot where they were as his aching body came alive.
“And what do you propose?” Her voice was thick, edged with a hint of dread. But there was a layer of curiosity.
“First one across wins.” It was simple—but it would get Khalida moving. There was one thing Khalida hated more than anything, and that was losing to him. And he was going to use it to his advantage. “I win, and the prize is a kiss of my choosing.”
Khalida took a step closer to him, close enough that he could feel her body warmth, and all good intentions—if he’d had any—for his bet went out the window as he forgot about his injury and why they were there.
She raised herself on her tiptoes, her mouth grazing his cheek.
This close, the scent of her desire was hard to miss.
A hint of peonies...it was intoxicating.
It made him want to push her up against the wall, strip her, and then hear her beg for more.
He stifled a groan.
“I want your Lamborghini.”
Talik blinked, not sure he had heard correctly. “My car.”
“Your favorite car,” Khalida slowly said as she took a step back, hands on her hips. “The one that is cherry red and goes really, really fast. Unless you think you are going to lose?”
“How do you know it is my favorite car?” He had already lost a bet to Sypha and owed them a car. And now Khalida was asking for one.
“You aren’t the only one with access to a spy network. Every guest that attended the Jimourt had a designated dossier,” Khalida answered. “Knowledge is power.”
It was a phrase that had been drummed into him when he had lived in Egypt. “If you wanted to keep tabs on me, all you had to do was call.”
Khalida hit him on the chest.
The jolt was enough to knock the wind out of him. “You don’t like cars.”
“I might.” Khalida tightened the straps of her backpack. “Deal?”
He closed his eyes, ignoring the twitch of his cock and her audacity. “Deal.”
She smiled.
And it was just like the first time she’d smiled at him—it hit him like a freight train. He was already too far gone.
Fuck.
***
KHALIDA
Khalida pushed through the water, her lungs burning as all thoughts centered on beating Talik.
She knew exactly what he was doing, and it had worked. Until now. In the silence, she was as much alone as if she was on the moon. The intrusive thoughts she had successfully pushed away, deep into the recesses of her mind, were resurfacing.
No.
Furiously kicking her legs, she glided through the liquid.
Each stroke closed the distance between her and the cliff.
The faster she was, the less time she would need to be in the water.
It was just like when she did laps in the pool, except she couldn’t see the bottom.
The extra resistance from the backpack was both a blessing and a curse.
It was slowing her down, but it was also a flotation device. She sensed movement beneath her.
Talik. His long hair swayed around him, more merperson than Atlantean, surfacing only when he needed to. Or to check on her.
There was no way she was going to let him beat her in a contest. It wasn’t about the car. She actually didn’t care about it. Instead, it was how she had reacted when he demanded a kiss for winning. The way her entire body had come alive, as if she had been given an electric shock.
She hit the wall hard, her hand slapping it triumphantly.
She quickly surfaced, treading water as she scanned the area, looking for anything that she could use to climb out of the water.
Being isolated in the water was far worse than swimming across the expanse.
There, to the left of her. She grabbed hold of a foothold and threw the bag over before she scrambled onto the small ledge, barely wide enough for her to stand on.
She kept the backpack between her legs as she crouched as best she could, half leaning over to search for any sign of him.
Where was Talik?
One, two, three...she counted the seconds as she held her breath. Searching the dark water for any telltale signs of bubbles or a ripple, anything that would indicate where Talik was.
“Looking for me, princess?” Talik asked as he scaled the closest wall, reaching out above his head to a ledge that protruded five feet from the wall.
His shoulders bunched through his wet shirt as he pulled himself over before looking at her.
At some point, Talik’s hair had escaped his hair tie, again, and now it lay in waves around his face. He looked like a dark-haired Norse god.
Relief flooded her—not that she would let him know.
“I believe it was a tie,” he continued.
She scowled at his words as she followed his path along the wall, easily finding the small grooves for her fingers as she made the eleven-foot climb.
Directly underneath the ledge, she swatted his helping hand as she gripped the edge, grinding her teeth together as she pulled herself over it.
Scrambling to her knees, she gave Talik a haughty look, ignoring the fact that water dripped from her face and every part of her, and she likely resembled a drowned cat.
Talik held up his hands as he stood, giving her room. “Don’t believe me?”
Slowly standing, she shrugged as she tried not to think about his side of the wager.
Or that the stupid bet had actually worked—she had swum to the other side of the canal.
“I still get the car if it’s a tie. You can deliver it to House Azaes.
I am going to enjoy driving it through the streets of Cairo. ”
Talik laughed. The sound spread warmth through her and heat between her legs.
“It appears we chose an opportune time to leave.”
She followed the direction of his gaze and gasped.
The causeway they had been standing on only minutes before was already flooded.
The water continued to rocket upward. She looked at the ledge.
It would only exist for another twenty minutes at this rate, before it was entirely submerged underwater.
Searching for the green crystal she had used as a marker, she found it halfway between her and Talik but still fifty feet up.
Eyeing the cliff face, she mentally berated herself for not making her markers clearer.
It wasn’t a hard climb—slightly more technical than she would have liked, especially without gloves and in wet clothing.
She picked up the backpack and put it on, tightening the straps. “We need to move.”
“Who would have thought Rome had this much underground water?” Talik mused.
It was just their luck.
He moved gracefully, but there was a hint of slowness and lack of precision compared to when he was at one hundred percent. Khalida hesitated, then hoisted herself up the cliff and began to climb. Time was not on their side. And there was no way she was getting back into the water.
Talik holstered his blasters before he tied up his wet hair. “I’ll give you a head start, princess.”
“I told you not to call me princess,” she said, with less heat than she intended. Glancing at the rising water and back up at Talik, she smiled, showcasing all her teeth. Two could play this game. “Try not to fall.”
***
TALIK
Talik pulled himself up on the last part, hauling himself into the opening Khalida had pointed out.
It was barely big enough for him to crawl onto.
He hit the ground with a thump, landing on the blasters.
His legs half stuck out as he tried to catch his breath, chewing his lower lip as every jagged piece of rock within a one-mile radius dug into him.
All his nerve endings were on fire, and it felt like each individual cell was sending him an electrical shock with every breath he took.
It was taking all his concentration to keep moving, to ignore the pain that was steadily increasing.
The damn venom was still coursing through his system. The adrenaline and movement had triggered another bout. He clenched his fists as sweat beaded down his face. He did not want to alert Khalida to his worsening state. Not that they could do anything about it but keep moving forward.
The cool metal of the blasters bit into his side as he tried to adjust his position into something slightly more comfortable, but it was getting harder to breathe.
Up ahead, Khalida moved silently. He didn’t think she was doing it on purpose—it was probably a combination of instinct and training—but his raging headache was highly appreciative.
Below them, the water was continuing to rise. It would be a couple of hours, but the cavern would be entirely submerged. He clenched his teeth as he continued to look at the rising waters. There was no going back.
He pushed onto his elbows, turning as he cursed every one of his ancestors—if he was going to be Atlantean, couldn’t he have at least inherited their damn enhanced eyesight? He took a deep breath, hoping Khalida couldn’t hear him, or she would demand they rest.
The rising waters would argue against it.
“Fuck,” Khalida whispered, her voice filled with dejection. The word was barely audible, but it went right through him and pierced his heart.
He pulled his blaster out, lowering it as he waited for Khalida to say something else. A glance at the charge level informed him Blanche was less than twenty percent.
Khalida remained silent.
He holstered Blanche and crawled toward her. Each time he moved, a flash of pain jolted through him, each one worse than the last.
It didn’t take long to find her. Khalida had found a small entrance, an enclave that burrowed deeper into the wall.
He hunched his body, trying not to brush up against the narrowing walls as he half crawled, half slid toward her.
After nine feet, it widened out to a small opening that was large enough for him to kneel in without scraping his head on the ceiling.
Sitting crossed legged, Khalida stared at the wall of rocks in front of her.
Anger almost drowned out the hint of hopelessness that surrounded her.
“It’s supposed to be our way out. It led to a bigger cavern,” she hissed as she threw her hands up in the air.
Rage rolled off her. “But this—one of the aftershocks must have triggered a rockslide.”
Talik patiently waited for her to continue.
She took a breath as she looked up at the ceiling, barely an inch away from her head.
She reached out and touched a small rock, gently pulling it out as if it was the most precious thing.
Pieces of the ceiling sprinkled onto them, and the chunks were getting bigger.
She gently returned it. “We can’t use it.
The rocks are too unstable, and we will create the conditions for another landslide if we move them.
” She looked at him, eyes wide with regret.
“We’re stuck, Talik. I led us to a dead end. ”