Page 110 of Evil Hearts

Eight

O riana had thought his warnings about treasure hunting were annoying, but it was his silence she truly couldn’t stand.

“So why do you camp up here, dress up like a pirate, and tell people not to hunt for treasure?” she asked.

That dark chuckle was enough to turn her mind blank. “I suppose because everyone has a purpose, and this has become mine.”

Not really an answer, so she pressed, “So you’re not just doing this to mess with the tourists?”

“I do not mess with tourists.”

Yet he’d made a point of following her, and warning her.

“So why follow me?”

The silence stretched again, as though he’d gone away, but he was still standing there. Finally, he said, “Because you asked for my help.”

When she’d tripped? Or when she’d laid the stone with her name on it on that altar? Was this guy the deity the locals had built a shrine to? “So you’re some sort of volcano god?”

Of course he couldn’t be. Even Oriana knew enough about this island’s history to know there had been no previous inhabitants before the English military base was set up here in the eighteen hundreds.

Another dark chuckle that did things to her insides. “No, I am not a god. Gods answer the prayers of the deserving, and I will not help you find Dampier’s treasure, as I have already told you.”

“Because you want to keep it for yourself?” Oriana guessed. For who would know more about Dampier’s treasure than an actual treasure hunter who didn’t want anyone else to find it? No wonder he’d warned her away.

“Something like that.”

She mulled that over for a moment. Swaran certainly had secrets, and they were probably none of her business. Except…she did know he wasn’t being entirely honest with her. “But you did help me. When I fell, you brought me back here. Why?”

She half expected him to say he’d dragged her back to his cave to ravish her, caveman style, and she had to admit she wasn’t entirely averse to the idea. Especially if he talked dirty to her in that voice.

He frowned. “There is something about you. The need to protect…and you asked for my help.” He stared at her, dark eyes attempting to read her soul. “What kind of woman would come to the top of a volcano so far from anywhere, to walk through these caves? Why do you need the treasure so?”

“For the last time, I’m not looking for some dead pirate’s treasure!” Oriana snapped. “I’m a scientist. A geologist.” God, it had been years since she’d said that aloud. She’d been teaching so long… “I like rocks and caves and volcanoes! I came here to see a freaking volcano and lava tubes and stand on top of it and see everything there is to see! Because maybe…if I can see the world clearly, then I can work out what the future holds for me, now everything else in my life has exploded like bloody Krakatoa!”

When he looked blank, she explained, “Krakatoa? The Indonesian volcanic island that erupted in the last nineteenth century, and the eruption was so huge that now there’s almost nothing left of it? Everyone learns about it at school, or at least they do back home.” Judging by Swaran’s accent, he likely hadn’t gone to school in Australia, so she probably shouldn’t assume the curriculum had been the same wherever he’d grown up.

But he nodded like perhaps he had learned about it. “That was before the air raid siren. Very large waves. It would have been good to have a warning, like today.”

Almost like he’d been here, watching the waves roll in, washing over Georgetown. But that wasn’t possible – that had been more than a century ago, and no one lived that long. Well, unless they were volcano deities, of course, and he was one of them.

“Are you sure you’re not a volcano god? Because if you are, and you’re in the mood to answer prayers, I could really do with some help right now,” she blurted out, then wished she hadn’t. He must think she was insane.

Oh, that chuckle. She wanted to record it so she could listen to it forever.

“I am no god. But that does not mean that I cannot help. As long as you are not seeking Captain Dampier’s treasure, perhaps I can help you.” He settled on the floor, with his back to the cave wall. “Miss Oriana, tell me your troubles.”

She stared at him for a long moment. He was a stranger, and a strange one at that, and she still wasn’t sure what he was, even if he wasn’t a volcano god (and she wasn’t certain about that, either, because if you were a secret volcano god, wouldn’t you deny it when people asked?), but there was something about him that made her want to talk. To trust him with her deepest, darkest secrets.

If he hadn’t brought her here to ravish her, and the rest of the town was on its way up the mountain soon…she may as well tell him everything. She was sick of lying to people about Hunter. Time someone knew the whole truth.