11. Naeris
Xandros planted his boots like he was ready to physically block the entire plateau. “Enough. I’m shutting this down. All females back to the shuttle, now. This site is compromised.”
Ella’s head snapped up from her probe, her eyes bright with discovery.
“Wait! I found something. Just below one of the narrower tunnels. A structural weakness where I can blow a controlled hole and drop straight into what looks like an intact chamber. We’re literally only a few yards away if that much! ”
“Not happening,” Zapharos contradicted instantly, his golden aura flaring bright as he suddenly aligned with the Superior Commander.
“We’re all too big for those tunnels. The Pandraxians, too. And they’re still crawling with rebels.” He added a bit softer. Or what would qualify for a male like him as soft.
I crossed my arms, watching the argument unfold. Not my harvest, not my reaping, I told myself firmly. This wasn’t my fight. These weren’t my people. I had my own rebellion waiting back among the stars.
But Ella wasn’t backing down. She straightened, dust streaking her cheek, and looked straight at Zapharos with pure determination. “This is what we came for. We’re so close. I know you can keep us safe, you always do. Please.”
Nadine stepped up beside her. “The resonance readings are strongest right there. We blow one small hole, drop sensors first, and we’ll know exactly what we’re dealing with.”
Dravok’s shadows coiled tighter around him, voice a low warning. “No.”
Ashley wiped sweat and dust from her brow and holstered her blaster. “Look, I’ll going with them. I’ll keep them safe.”
Zapharos started to protest. “No offense, little warrior, I’ve seen you fight, and you’re more than capable, but this is my Aelyth?—”
“I’ll go too,” I offered.
The words left my mouth before I could stop them. I took a double-take. I will? When in the void had I decided that?
But it was true. I was intrigued beyond intrigue.
This was the cradle of Ashera’s line. The place my blood remembered.
And despite every instinct that told me to stay detached, I felt a strange, growing pull toward these three human women.
They fought for answers the same way I fought for freedom. It felt… familiar.
Thyros’ head whipped toward me. “By the darkness, no. Not happening.”
I turned slowly and met his burning crimson-gold stare. The golden thread between us yanked hard, but I refused to flinch.
“Excuse me,” I glared at him. “Last I checked, I don’t owe you anything. I go where I choose.”
His jaw tightened, his aura flared with frustration and something darker, something that looked a lot like fear for me.
The bond pulsed between us, hot and insistent, reminding me exactly how aware my body still was of him from the shuttle and the fight.
Not to mention how hot he looked right then. All bothered god and energy.
Ella’s face lit up with hope. “Naeris, you’d really come?”
I gave a single sharp nod, even as part of me wondered what by the seven suns I was doing. “If there’s anything left of my ancestors down there… I want to see it.”
Xandros muttered a curse under his breath. Ashley grinned like she’d just won a bet. Nadine was already checking power cells on her scanner.
Thyros stepped closer, his voice dropped to a rough growl only I could hear. “You are going to be the death of me, little rebel.”
I lifted my chin, ignoring the way my pulse jumped at the low timbre of his voice. “Good. That’ll keep you out of my way.”
But even as the words left my mouth, I knew I didn’t mean them. The truth was the universe would seem a lot more boring without his overbearing presence.
I watched the four massive males face off—three golden gods and one Supreme Commander of the Imperial Forces—and almost laughed at how ridiculous they looked, all puffed up and glowering like someone had stolen their favorite weapons.
“If we’re doing this,” I said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “then my men come too. Rylan, Jax, Marek, gear up. You’re with us.”
Thyros muttered a dark curse behind me. I didn’t bother turning around.
Ella’s face lit up with pure glee. “Great! Where are the explosives?”
Ashley was already moving toward a supply crate, shaking her head with a grin. “I’ve got them. I’ll set a clean breach charge. No cave-ins, I promise.”
Zapharos, Dravok, Xandros, and Thyros stared at each other in heavy silence for a long beat.
Zapharos finally broke it. “Are we really going to let them do this?”
Dravok’s shadows lashed. “Into tunnels still crawling with hostiles. While we stand up here like helpless statues.”
Xandros rubbed the back of his neck. “My mekarry is not reckless, but this…”
Ashley’s head snapped up. “Wow. I’m going to pretend I didn’t just hear the word let come out of any of your mouths.”
Ella hid a smile behind her hand. Nadine coughed behind her hand. I thought I heard the word Chauvinist, but I wasn't sure.
Thyros stepped closer to me, voice low and vibrating with barely contained anger. “You are not going down there.”
I turned slowly and met his burning gaze head-on. “And what are you exactly going to do about it, big guy?”
His crimson-gold aura flared brighter. For a second, I could practically see him calculating whether he could physically haul me back to the shuttle. “By the darkness, Naeris?—”
“You can try to stop me, Thyros,” I cut him off, stepping right into his space. “But you won’t survive it. God or not.”
The air between us crackled. Electricity sparked as much as anger. My traitorous body remembered exactly how good his arm had felt around me… and I hated how much I wanted to feel it again.
Thyros’ jaw flexed. He didn’t back down, but he also didn’t grab me. None of them did.
Because they knew—gods or not, Supreme Commander or not—they had to live with us afterward. Xandros finally exhaled a long, defeated breath. “We are not forcing anything. We all have to sleep next to these females tonight.”
Zapharos growled. “I am aware.”
Dravok just muttered something that sounded suspiciously like a prayer for patience.
Ella was already practically vibrating with excitement. “So… explosives?”
Ashley patted the charge in her hands. “On it. Let’s make this quick and clean before these big idiots change their minds.”
I glanced at Thyros one last time. His eyes were locked on me, furious, protective, and burning with something far more dangerous than anger.
I turned away before the golden thread could pull me any closer. Not my harvest, not my reaping, I reminded myself again. As if it had done me any good the first time.
Because here I was, walking straight into the tunnels with three human women, my own crew, and four overprotective alien males breathing down our necks. And the worst part?
Some reckless piece of me was actually looking forward to it.
I went first, landing lightly in the narrow tunnel below. The air was cooler, thicker, laced with the scent of old earth and stale sweat. My men dropped down after me, followed by Ella and Nadine, while Ashley made up the rear.
Rylan landed behind me, dusted off his hands with a cocky grin, and actually elbowed me into the side. “Just like old times, eh, Commander?”
I turned on him so fast he took a half-step back. “This is the last time I’m telling you this,” I snarled. “Shut. The. Fuck. Up. Or you’re staying topside with the big angry aliens.”
He grumbled something under his breath but wisely shut his mouth. His survival instincts were stronger than his smarts.
The tunnel was painfully narrow. Even my three human crew members had to turn sideways in places, their shoulders scraped against the rough walls now and then, loosening dark dirt.
I could only imagine how impossible it would have been for Thyros, Zapharos, Dravok, or any of the Pandraxians.
They never would have fit. The thought gave me a small, petty flicker of satisfaction.
Silver drones hummed ahead of us, casting clean blue-white light along the cramped passage. Ella was in front, palmtop glowing in her hands, practically vibrating with excitement as she led the way.
“Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re about to find a lost civilization millions of years old,” she whispered, half-laughing, half-reverent.
“Can you imagine? We’re going to be the first people to see their culture in two and a half million years.
The first to breathe this air, the first to touch whatever they left behind… ”
She kept going, her voice bubbled with pure archaeological joy.
I tuned her out after the first thirty seconds, more interested in our surroundings.
This wasn’t a proper structure. It was flimsy, half-assed, hasty reinforcements slapped together with scavenged metal and crumbling stone.
Support beams looked like they’d been cut from whatever was handy.
It was amazing that the whole thing hadn’t collapsed years ago.
Whatever these rebels were, they were neither organized nor bright.
Ella suddenly stopped. “Here,” she exclaimed. “The resonance is off the charts. The chamber should be right down here.”
I stepped up beside Ashley, eyeing the cracked floor and the way the walls bowed inward.
“I don’t know about this,” I confided quietly, low enough so Ella and Nadine couldn’t hear us. “This whole tunnel could collapse on top of us.”
Ashley grinned with that reckless soldier sparkle in her eyes I’d seen too many times before, generally right before a mission went sideways. “And here I thought you were the adventurous type.”
“Adventurous, yes,” I shot back. “Suicidal? No.”
She laughed softly and patted the small charge in her hand. “Trust me. I’ve done tighter breaches than this.”
I shook my head, already regretting every life choice that had led me here. “I’m so going to regret this.”
Behind us, Nadine murmured, “Readings are strong.”
Ella looked back at all of us, eyes shining in the drone light like a kid on her birthday. “Ready?”
I exhaled slowly, flexing my fingers on the grip of my blaster, almost wishing for more rebels to show up.
I’d rather fight them here than have Ashley blow a hole into this ground.
I’d never told a soul, but I abhorred small, confined, dark spaces.
The golden thread in my chest tugged sharply as if Thyros, somewhere far above, could feel my discomfort.
He was no doubt pacing like a caged beast and cursing my name. That thought perked me up a bit.
“Let’s do it.” I could hardly believe I was encouraging this.
Ashley dug a small hole and pressed the charge into the dirt. “Fire in the hole!”
We all turned our faces away. A small, anticlimactic poof followed—more dust than explosion—and a neat, perfectly circular hole appeared in the tunnel floor. Just big enough for a person to drop through.
Ashley was already uncoiling a thin, high-tension rope from her pack. She scanned the ceiling for an anchor point. I stepped up beside her without being asked, grabbing the other end and helping her loop it securely around a reinforced beam that looked marginally less likely to collapse.
The drones hummed forward and dropped through the hole one after another, their blue-white lights flooding the space below.
Ella bounced on her toes. “Let me go first! Please, this is my dig?—”
“Not a chance, archaeologist,” Ashley declined with a grin, already clipping into the rope. “I go first, then you. Standard order.”
Ella made a pitiful sound but didn’t argue. Ashley gave the rope a sharp tug, then disappeared smoothly down into the darkness. One by one, we followed.
Nadine went next, then Ella, still muttering excitedly about first contact with a two-and-a-half-million-year-old culture. I sent Jax and Marek down after the women, then waited while Rylan clipped in.
The moment all the women and two of my men were safely below, Rylan—being Rylan—decided to play hero. He paused at the edge, looking back at the tunnel ceiling with a cocky smirk. “Bet I can bring a few of those loose rocks down to block the tunnel behind us. Make sure nothing follows.”
My stomach dropped. “Rylan, don’t?—”
Too late.
He fired a single low-power shot into a cracked support beam. A low crack echoed, followed by the sickening groan of overstressed earth.
“Dumb ass!” I cried.
The tunnel gave a violent shudder. Dust and small stones rained down as the ceiling began to collapse behind us.
“Get down there!” I snarled, shoving Rylan hard toward the hole.
He dropped with a startled yelp. I didn’t wait, grabbed the rope, and jumped after him, half-sliding, half-falling as the tunnel roared behind me.
Rocks and dirt cascaded down in a deafening rush.
I hit the chamber floor hard, rolling to absorb the impact as a thick cloud of dust exploded over us.
The rope went slack above as the tunnel entrance disappeared under tons of rubble.
What followed was a shower of rocks and more dust. I felt a tug from Ashley as she moved me away from the avalanche from hell.