Page 55 of The Interdimensional Lord's Earthly Delight
The flood had claimed its first victims.
Tynan kicked again and again and again. Another scream echoed in his ears, although the voice wasn’t his. But it might as well have been, that strange cry of dread and victory. He would not die again in the guts of this castle, not when somewhere onthe heights she was waiting for him, his lady.
The hatch popped open.
He threw himself down the narrower channel, scraping his shoulders against the stone. No time or space to turn and close off the access behind him. He wriggled forward.
And the water swirled in, icy from the mountaintop and smelling of stone.
For a moment, his big body acted like a cork in the confines of the pipe. But thewater was relentless. It seeped and swirled around him, and in another instant, he was submerged.
His lungs contracted, wanting to inhale at the shocking chill, but he resisted, twisting hard, clawing forward. Around him, the water gushed, blinding him with bubbles as it raced toward its escape. His jealousy was more bitter than the cold. He needed to escape too…
Then he saw it, a glint of lightthrough the raging current.
Tearing his nails against the smooth pipe, he scraped forward.
And wrapped his frozen, pained fingers around the bars of a blocking grate.
He’d reached the garden, but the gush of water pressed him against the grate, and though the exquisite air was just a hand’s breadth away, he was still drowning in the surge.
No! He would not die on this verge of being born again—
A heavy weight slammed against his boots, jamming him up against the grate.
And the jolt knocked the barrier loose.
He poured through the opening and was dumped into the deep, open trough that arrowed between the garden beds. The force of the water tumbled him a few more times before the pressure subsided and he fetched up against the side of the trough, coughing and shaking his head which hadslammed a time or two.
What had pushed him through?
He swiveled to see Radek stumbling to his feet, the current already subsiding to trickle out through the smaller side gutters where the overgrowth of jungle roots and vines sipped.
The younger male listed to one side, blood running from a scrape at his forehead.
But he had his blaster aimed at Tynan’s heart.
Which was easy enough to find,considering his shirt had been ripped away by his rough passage through the narrow pipe and the clawing metal of the grate. As if he wasn’t already at enough of an embarrassing disadvantage. Slowly, Tynan crooked one elbow over the lip of the trough to rise.
“No!” Radek’s voice was high, shaken. Tynan was reluctantly impressed to see the bore of the blaster didn’t move. “Stay there. I want youin the mud, like the worm you are, when I kill you.”
Tynan grimaced. “I’ve told you already, I’m not Blackworm.” He couldn’t hold back the timbre of exhaustion in the words.
Radek hissed, “My sister—”
“Was not my consort,” Tynan roared back, deeper than the flood. “I never knew the girl, and she was not my love.”
That did rattle the blaster. But Radek rallied. “You’ve already forgotten her,and she died trying to escape you.”
Briefly, Tynan closed his eyes. Of all the enemies to crawl through the hole after him, it couldn’t have been one of the mercs he might’ve bargained with? With a sigh, he looked up at the other male. “You must know the story of the Black Hole Brides.”
“I… So?”
“Then you know that Blackworm prized your sister enough to be disgraced by the other Azthronos nobles,enough to break all the laws of our people, the transgalactic council, and common sense, abducted closed-worlders and sacrificing them to the singularity in the hopes of summoning your sister back from the Lightlands.” Tynan narrowed his eyes. “And you think he’d deny her memory now just because you have a larfing blaster?”
Radek bit at the corner of his mouth, distressing pouring off him likethe cold water. “If Blackworm loved Adria so much, why did he…youlet her escape only to die?” The blaster wavered again, like his voice.
“I don’t know their tragedy.” Bracing one hand on the side of the trough (right next to a smallish but eminently throwable rock) Tynan rose while Radek stared at him in torment. “This place is a shrine to beloveds, and as old as it is, even it hasn’t heardevery story of love and loss and salvation.”