Page 35 of The Delver (The Vrix #2)

Resisting his desire with the scent of Callie’s pheromones lingering in his nostrils and the ghost of her essence upon his tongue was torture for Urkot.

Before long, his claspers ached with the strain of keeping his throbbing stem behind his slit.

He distracted himself by braiding a thin cord of silk for her top to replace the lacing he’d cut.

Though he wanted her to rest, he was relieved when she awoke after only a brief slumber. She drank more water at his insistence—and he at hers—and they resumed their journey. Moving gave him something else to focus on, allowing him to finally set aside that yearning.

Mostly, anyway.

He glanced back to check on her often. Her unease remained clear in her expression, but she kept calm, even through the tightest, most difficult sections of the tunnel. His chest swelled with pride and admiration, which did nothing to ease his passage through those narrow spots.

It felt as though the tunnel would wind endlessly into the deepest, darkest parts of the world, until the shadows were so thick that even the sun would not have been able to penetrate them. Only the continued airflow gave him hope that they would eventually find a way out.

When he first saw light ahead, it seemed unreal, impossible after the tunnel had been dark for so long. Perhaps it was reflections on gem deposits upon the walls? He and Callie covered the glowstones they were using to illuminate their path.

The light down the tunnel persisted.

With newfound energy and caution, Urkot and Callie strode onward. The light grew brighter and clearer with their every step. The tunnel sloped gently upward as it neared an opening, through which that bluish glow spilled.

Sounds carried to Urkot. The burbling of running water, the erratic scrapes and clacks of tools, and hints of harsh voices made indistinct by distance and a mild echo.

His fine hairs rose, and something heavy sank in his belly. He stalked forward, keeping low until he reached the crest of the path and peered over it.

The narrow ledge he now found himself upon overlooked a vast cavern.

Glowing crystals, luminescent plants, and glowworms bathed the space in blue, leaving deep shadows on the ceiling from which pointed rock formations jutted down like jagged, irregular fangs.

A winding stream divided the cavern unevenly; for much of its length, the right bank was only a few segments wide, cluttered with plants, rocks, and boulders.

To the stream’s left was a wide patch of fairly level ground that led to the cavern wall, which had been shaped into tiers connected by sloping paths and worn climbing spots. Many, many openings were carved along those tiers, some with their own dim lights shining within.

Dens. They were dens. Homes to the spiritstriders who, with their glowing hides, stood everywhere around those tiers. A hundred, at least, perhaps twice that.

“Shaper, unmake me,” Urkot rasped. “Fuck.”

The vrix were conversing, working, and eating below, sometimes raising their voices and snapping at each other. Occasional clicking echoed through the chamber when spiritstriders navigated the space.

Callie moved up beside Urkot.

He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, covered her mouth, and drew her against his side. She put a hand over his but made no effort to pull it away. Together, they sank lower, nearly flattening themselves atop the ledge.

Urkot surveyed the cavern. The stream continued to the far end, where the walls tapered into a dark crevasse.

Several larger openings scattered around had the look of passageways and tunnels.

There could’ve been eighty ways in and out of this place for all Urkot knew—and there was no way to be sure where any of them led.

The airflow was diluted due to the cavern’s size, making it difficult to determine its source, but he guessed it was coming from somewhere across the cave. That narrowed the choices down to any of five or six openings.

Rushin roolet.

He really, really disliked this game.

Callie gently drew his hand down from her mouth. Voice so soft that he barely heard it, she whispered, “It’s…a hive.”

Hive . That was an apt word. Yet though he did not doubt the spiritstriders would swarm were they to discover his and Callie’s presence, they were not mindless insects. They were vrix.

And that made them very, very dangerous.

Callie turned her head toward Urkot and met his gaze. The lighting made her eyes appear much darker than usual, enhancing their usual depth. “What do we do?”

He looked around the cavern again, mandibles falling.

His friends would’ve come up with some clever plan and carried it out with confidence.

Despite all he had in common with them, he sometimes felt as though they perceived the world in ways he would never understand.

A life of dirt and stone had taught him rigid rules, had taught him responsibility, but things like this…

He’d always relied upon Ketahn’s judgment, Rekosh’s cunning, and Telok’s experience in such matters.

What do we do?

The only answer that came to mind was push forward .

Turning around again would do no good. The other path likely led past the long abandoned shadowstalker dens and right to this place, and he and Callie would have to backtrack a long, long way to find an alternate passage that had any reasonable chance of bringing them to the surface.

And though they could forage more food, it would not long sustain them, especially Callie.

According to Diego, humans required varied foods to remain healthy.

That was not an option down here, not without Callie taking risks on potentially harmful foods.

Yet continuing through this cavern would be more dangerous than anything they’d done so far. He had no idea if he could outrun all these spiritstriders, but he knew he could not fight them all off.

What would his friends have done?

That does not matter. They are not here.

All that mattered was what he would do. He and Callie needed to keep moving, and for a delver, the path forward was often through.

His hearts beat a little faster and heavier as he returned his attention to Callie. He knew that to protect his mate, he would sometimes have to bring her into danger. How could that notion both adhere to and oppose his instincts when it came to her?

“We go through,” he whispered.

Callie’s eyes rounded, her eyebrows rose, and her lips parted. She turned slightly onto her side to face him. “That’s…Urkot, we can’t?—”

He quieted her with the press of a finger over her lips. Beckoning Callie with another hand, he retreated from the edge, stood up, and reentered the tunnel. She followed. Once they were several segments from the ledge, he directed her to turn, opened her pack, and took out the damp blanket.

Draping the blanket over their heads, he sank onto the joints of his bent forelegs, pulling her down to kneel before him. The light of a crystal illuminated her face from below, casting odd shadows upon it.

“Is this to dampen our voices?” she asked, words barely audible.

Urkot nodded. He held her gaze and settled his upper hands on her shoulders. “We must go through, Callie.”

“Urkot, that’s sooiside . We can just double back.” She gestured in the direction from which they’d first come. “There were a lot of other paths we can try, weren’t there?”

But the crease between her brows and the way her features had fallen suggested that she already knew what Urkot did—there was no going back.

“Shit.” She closed her eyes and took a slow, deep breath. “Okay. Okay…”

He gently squeezed her shoulders and tipped his headcrest against her forehead.

After a few more breaths, Callie opened her eyes. “You’re sure about this? There are a lot of them.”

Urkot slid one hand to her neck, thumb trailing along her jaw. “Yes.”

“A fuck of a lot of them, Urkot.”

His mandibles twitched up, and he barely held back a chitter. “Yes. I fear too. But we will escape.”

Callie nodded without pulling back, making her soft skin brush against his hard hide.

“Yeah, okay. The spiritstriders…they seem to have underdeveloped eyes. Poor vision, very sensitive to light. They’re using some form of echolocation, so they likely have excellent hearing, and their sense of smell seems comparable to yours.

We can assume they’re also sensitive to vibrations and airflow like you are. They’re adapted to this environment.

“But there’s already some ambient sound down there, and I would guess enough scents on the air that they won’t notice ours immediately. And it’s likely that they won’t expect anything to just stroll into their hive, so their guard should be down. If we keep absolutely silent and far enough away…”

He knew Callie well enough to understand that she’d said all that aloud not to inform him, but to collect her own thoughts, to talk herself through her concerns. To convince herself of a course of action.

“They will never know we are here,” said Urkot.

“Right. Hopefully. And if they do find us…” Shifting her bag to her front, she reached in an pulled out the collapsed lantern. “This should buy us a few seconds to run if any of them get too close.”

She opened his pouch and slipped the lantern inside.

“Good, female.” Urkot wrapped his lower arm around her waist and pressed his mouth to hers in a prolonged kiss. She slipped an arm around his neck and leaned into it, holding him tight.

It was a moment of ecstasy, pure and radiant, untainted by the surrounding darkness.

He was fast collecting such moments in his memory, each of which he wished he could lengthen into blissful eternity. But that would only keep him from experiencing all the new moments that awaited in the murky waters of the future.