Page 39 of Dark Shaman: The Lost Treasure (The Children Of The Gods #98)

TAMIRA

T he tremors struck at precisely two o'clock in the morning. Tamira only knew the time because of the clock on her bedside table. The bed shook beneath her and Elias, a rolling motion that made the crystal perfume bottles on her vanity clink together like wind chimes.

Elias tensed beside her, his arm tightening instinctively around her waist. "What was that?"

"Just a tremor." Tamira placed a calming hand on his chest, feeling his heart racing beneath her palm. "We get them occasionally. The island supposedly sits on a volcanic foundation."

The heartbeat under her hand sped up. "Volcanic?" His voice carried a note of alarm.

"Dormant," she assured him, though in truth she didn't know if that was accurate.

The island had been their home for less than a century, and Lord Navuh controlled information as tightly as he controlled everything else.

"We've had tremors for as long as I've been here, which is almost a hundred years.

The structure was built to withstand them. "

The shaking subsided, leaving behind an eerie stillness. In the darkness, she could feel Elias's breath against her neck, still quick with adrenaline.

"We should go aboveground until we are sure this is over," he said. "Being trapped in an underground structure during an earthquake isn't a good idea."

"We're not trapped, and it's raining outside. I don't want to get wet."

He pulled her closer, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "Do you have an umbrella?"

"Have you ever tried to stay dry under an umbrella in a monsoon torrent?

" She turned in his arms to face him, the inner light from her immortal eyes illuminating his features.

"I'm surprised that a little tremor so easily rattles you.

I thought shamans were supposed to be one with the earth and all that. "

"Even shamans prefer when the earth stays still," he said dryly. "Especially when they're in an underground structure and there are people on all of its seven levels."

"Actually, there are eight levels, but no one lives in the lowest one.

" She feathered her fingers over his chest, avoiding the mysterious mark that he still wouldn't tell her about.

"There are seven residential levels in the pyramid, but the mechanical systems are located in the level below.

There might even be more levels that we don't know about.

I'm surprised that you haven't heard the noise when you were down on Level Seven. "

"I didn't notice. I probably thought that the noises were coming from elsewhere on Level Seven. It's a big space." His voice carried that careful neutrality she'd come to recognize—the tone he used when filing away information. "What else is housed below it?"

"As far as I know, all the mechanical systems. Water pumps, electrical generators, and the climate control that keeps us from roasting in this tropical heat. Also, storage, I believe, though I've never been down there. Only the maintenance crew and guards are allowed down there."

"Seems like a security risk, having all your critical systems in one place."

She laughed softly. "Everything about this place is a security risk. We have no choice but to believe that Lord Navuh wouldn't endanger us all by allowing subpar planning or construction. After all, Areana lives here and so does he, at least during the night."

"I don't know how this man finds love for his mate in his black heart."

She shrugged. "There is good and bad in everyone, and once they pass behind the veil, their good and bad deeds are weighed. Lord Navuh will need to do a lot of groveling when he gets there."

His thumb stroked along her cheekbone. "How do you do it? Live with such...acceptance?"

"What's the alternative? Rage against walls that won't break? Plot escapes that will only end in torture and death?" She turned her head to kiss his palm. "Eventually, you realize that acceptance is the only path to sanity."

"It's called learned helplessness."

The words stung, perhaps because they were true. "Is that what you think of me? That I'm helpless?"

"No." He shifted, rolling them so he hovered above her, his weight balanced on his forearms. "I think you're surviving the only way you know how. But what if the walls could break? What if escape didn't mean death?"

Sweet, naive Elias with his human lifespan and his belief that things would turn out okay in the end. "Then I'd probably be too institutionalized to leave. This is my world, Elias. It's all I've known for millennia, well, not this location specifically, but the harem structure."

"Where have you lived before?"

"Several locations. The first one was near Baalbek."

He smiled. "That's a much cooler place than this."

"Tell me about it." She pretended to wipe sweat off her forehead. "Am I imagining it, or is it more humid in here tonight?"

They had air-conditioning and dehumidifiers, and the climate control was usually perfectly balanced; however, this was the wet season, so perhaps some additional calibration was needed.

"I don't feel it." He got that mischievous gleam in his eyes. "Maybe you are just hot and bothered and need me to do something about it."

"How did you guess?"

"I'm perceptive like that." He kissed her, deep and searching, as if he could pour all his hope and determination into her through that connection.

"My goddess," he whispered as his hands moved over her body with the reverence of a worshipper at an altar, each touch designed to drive thought from her mind and replace it with sensation.

She arched beneath him as he traced the curve of her hip, the dip of her waist, the sensitive skin where her neck met her shoulder.

He knew her body so well by now, had mapped every responsive zone with the dedication of a cartographer charting new territory.

When his lips followed the path his hands had taken, she gasped, fingers tangling in his hair.

"You're so breathtakingly beautiful," he murmured against her skin. "So strong. You deserve so much more than this."

"I have you," she said, the words escaping before she could stop them. "For now, that's enough."

He lifted his head to look at her, his gaze intense in the darkness. "Is it?"

Rather than answer, she pulled him down for another kiss.

Some facts were too dangerous to speak aloud, even in the supposed privacy of her chambers.

The fact that he'd awakened something in her she'd thought long dead.

The fact that she was falling in love with him despite every rational argument against it.

The fact that when he inevitably left—through death or escape or simple loss of interest—it would destroy something fundamental inside her.

His body joined with hers in that perfect synchronization they'd found from the very beginning, and coherent thought scattered like startled butterflies.

This was what she needed—this connection that transcended words and fears and her reality.

In these moments, she could pretend they were somewhere else.

Not in an underground harem on a private island, but in a home of their own choosing, free to love without consequence or fear.

He moved within her with passionate tenderness, each thrust a promise he couldn't keep, each kiss a vow that would inevitably be broken. She met him stroke for stroke, trying to tell him with her body what she couldn't say with words.

When release came, she cried out his name and felt him shudder above her. For a moment, they existed outside of time, outside of the prison that held them, outside of everything but this perfect moment.

Reality returned slowly, seeping back like water through cracks in a dam. His weight pressed her into the mattress. The humid air clung to their sweat-dampened skin, heavier than usual, carrying the green scent of growing things and something else—a mineral tang that seemed out of place.

"You are right. It is more humid than normal," Elias said. "Maybe the dehumidifier stopped working."

"It's monsoon season," she said, though it had also been monsoon season yesterday and the day before, and it hadn't been this humid in her room. The air felt thick, almost oppressive. "The rains have been particularly heavy this year."

He rolled to the side, keeping one arm draped across her stomach. "I noticed. The garden has been challenging to maintain with all the water. I've had to work on the drainage to save my herbs from rotting."

"Perhaps that's affecting things down here as well. All that water has to go somewhere."

"Into the water table, ideally. Though with volcanic rock.

.." He trailed off, and she could practically hear him thinking.

"The geology here must be complex. Volcanic islands often have unusual underground water systems—aquifers trapped between rock layers, underground streams following old lava tubes. "

"How do you know so much about geology?"

"I know a lot about many things." He tickled her ribs. "I'm like a sponge. I absorb information. I've traveled through many volcanic regions, like the Caucasus, parts of Turkey, and the Mediterranean islands."

Always an explanation. Always plausible. Never quite satisfying.

"The pyramid must have been a massive undertaking," he said, once again deflecting. "How was it built?"

She allowed the change of subject, too content in the afterglow to pursue his secrets.

"I don't know the details. It was already here when we arrived.

Navuh built it for us. The design is ingenious, really.

Each level is smaller than the one below.

Natural light wells hidden in the structure bring sunlight down to the first level during the day. "

"But not to the lower levels."

"No. Those of us on the second level have windows to the interior garden, but that's artificial light. The servants below us have no windows at all. Just endless artificial day and night, regulated by timers and routines."