Page 13 of Traveling with Gentlemen (Tempting Monsters #1.1)

THE TOMB OF KING BIRSHA

A cool hand stroked around my ankle and I shivered in my swaying seat on the camel, glancing down to smile at Booker where he walked next to me.

Ahead of me, Amon's padding footsteps slowed and my donkey mount let out a brief plaintive complaint as we neared my enormous sphinx, the natural understanding of being too near a powerful predator.

We headed south of Jerusalem after Sofia's party and our trade, then east around the Dead Sea, finding ourselves in the rosy, rocky mountains and valleys of the Ottoman Empire.

Some days we traveled like tourists together, exploring the incredible scenery.

Others we traveled quietly by night, aware that Birsha might already be aware of our destination.

"Ahead," Amon said softly, nodding toward the high shadows of a rock wall rising to the left of us.

"There's something in the air here," Auguste whispered, seated on his own donkey, appearing at my side.

"Death," Mr. Tanner said.

Auguste shook his head slowly. "No. But something similar."

My hands clenched around the reins but as Amon padded forward, Auguste, Ezra, and I nudged our beasts into motion, Booker and Mr. Tanner following suit on foot.

We were nestled in the dark between two mountains, and the moon had yet to show her face.

It was dark and ominous here, but peaceful too. Almost sacred.

As we neared the outcropping, the mass of shadow began to reveal detail.

This wasn't just a craggy rock face but an ornamental and imposing threshold into the mountain.

Six pillars rose up from the dry earth, blue in the subtle starlight, twice as tall as Mr. Tanner and just as broad, topped with carvings like a crown.

Perhaps in the daylight it was beautiful but in the night it made an inky and impenetrable black shield to the entrance.

We paused together, Ezra dismounting first and lifting me from my seat.

Amon turned and rose to standing from his sphinx form, smoothing out the linens of his clothes absently. "Esther, I think you should wait outside with the others while Jonathon and I investigate."

"I'm going in with you," Auguste said, wincing as he watched Mr. Tanner relinquish his body to Jonathon's.

"We all go in together," Booker said, before I had to.

Ezra nodded. "He's right. She's safest with us all at her side. Even if it's in there," he added, a dubious gaze pointed toward the murky dark of the entrance.

Amon's sigh was heavy and Jonathon patted him on the shoulder nodding. "It was worth a try. Very well, everyone. Keep close together."

Auguste collected the lamps from the saddle bags as Ezra tethered our donkeys to a pillar. I wrapped my arm around Booker's and we stood in the center of our party.

"We don't know what we'll face inside. What traps Birsha has set for those brave enough to enter," Amon warned, gaze glowing as he looked over his shoulder to each of us in turn. "If I decide the danger is too great and tell you to turn back, you do so. Please."

Ezra snorted softly behind me and Jonathon's lips pursed at the order but we all nodded our assent.

Amon raised his lantern high and we walked forward as one, into the black.

Light was swallowed immediately, like the burning wick of a candle smothered under glass.

Booker's hand covered mine on his arm and I reached out with my free hand to clutch the draped fabric of Amon's coat.

I crossed over the threshold and the last blue glow of the night sky vanished, my vision coated in a thick nothingness.

I shivered, grateful for the warmth of Amon's coat in my grip, the strength of Booker's arm to hold onto.

With my shiver, a touch crawled over my shoulder, the pressure of thin fingertips, the slide of long digits, until a hand was clasped in place, holding onto me just as I held onto Amon and Booker.

Ezra was at my back, it could've been his touch, but I knew his hands, the way they felt as they touched me, as well as I knew my own. This was not my lover.

"Does anyone else…" I trailed off. My words were murky, muffled in cotton, and the air on my tongue was fuzzy and uncomfortable.

I sealed my lips shut as the grip on my shoulder tightened, and seemed to drag behind me like dead weight.

I ignored its force, followed the gentle tug of Amon's coat, the steady momentum of Booker at my side.

A warm touch grappled at my waist and this time it was familiar, Ezra latching onto me in the dark.

I sighed, ignored the pinching pain on my shoulder and held tight to safety even as the minutes seemed to drag on.

Were we moving at all or had we come to a stop?

My feet were moving, but the sensation of them was lost, disconnected from my body.

My hand gripping fabric grew numb, and then my arm around Booker's.

Soon, all I felt was the deep ache of the touch on my shoulder, bony fingers clamping and digging.

I folded my lips between my teeth to keep from crying out, and blinked my eyes as acidic tears rolled down my cheeks.

If I turn back, the others will follow , a weak and frightened part of me thought. If there was real danger, Amon would turn back , I reminded myself.

And with that thought, a flicker and then a bloom of light appeared in front of me.

Amon's lamp! It glowed again as if it had never been snuffed out, just buried from our view.

Relief arrived with a gusting breath, my forgotten feet stumbling forward and landing me against Amon's broad back.

He too was heaving with breath, Jonathon kneeling down, his head hanging from his shoulders.

"Well, that was suitably awful," Jonathon whispered.

"Just as a cursed tomb ought to be," Auguste agreed, sliding down to the floor and skirting away from the darkness that hovered at our backs.

Ezra arrived, collapsing into me, so that he, Amon, and I nearly went toppling forward if not for Booker's steady hands catching us.

My arm slid around Amon's chest, and his fingers grabbed onto me as fiercely as the haunted grip that had now vanished from my shoulder.

But his touch was infinitely more welcome.

"You're well, my star?" Amon asked.

Ezra righted us both and my eyes opened wide as I took in the vast antechamber we'd arrived in.

The room was rounded and as large as Sofia's broad courtyard.

The walls rose up carved with archaic symbols and figures, formed on the interior of the mountain, narrowing the higher they went.

Monstrous arms and hands held torches in their grasp, the fire burning there an eerie and sour yellow shade, sapping the room of any color.

Four archways were spaced evenly around the edge of the room, still figures of statues seated inside, and in the center sat a large platform.

No. A stone coffin. Birsha's supposed grave.

If only he had stayed in it.

"Esther?" Amon prompted again, reaching for me.

I flinched as he grasped my shoulder, covering the spot with my hand and he drew me closer, pushing my collar aside.

"Something held me in the dark," I murmured, mouth still a little fuzzy.

Amon nodded, and I reached for his face, the view of him so welcome after the endless shadow. "I nearly dropped the lamp," he answered, lifting his hand to show me the bruising on his wrist. I bent my head, kissing the mark.

"Let's get a little farther away from the horrifying hallway, if we don't mind," Ezra cued, nudging my back.

"Cheeky ass," Auguste murmured, smiling and rising from the floor, helping Jonathon.

"That's where the shadow monsters grabbed me," Ezra replied with a wink.

I burst out in a sudden, slightly delirious laugh, and the sound rang throughout the room, bouncing against the carved walls. It was the wrong place entirely for such a laugh, but it seemed to brighten the expressions of my gentlemen.

"What first?" Booker asked as we moved deeper into the room.

"I want to know what exactly is in that tomb," Jonathon said, nodding toward the enormous stone box in the heart of the space.

"No doubt something just as terrible as the last trap we walked into," Ezra muttered in my ear.

I bumped my hip to his and he grinned at me, slinging an arm over my shoulders and kissing my temple.

"You all right?" I asked.

Jonathon, Booker, and Amon were approaching the tomb, and my gaze slid to Auguste who stood still, eyes scanning the surroundings, nostrils flaring slightly.

"All right enough. Better when we're done here," Ezra said and I nodded in agreement.

"We did promise we'd have adventures," I mused.

Ezra hummed in thought and then stepped around me. "Auguste?"

Auguste's eyes were growing black, his body tense and watchful. He raised the lantern in his hand, ignoring Ezra's question, and paced away from us to one of the archways.

"Vampire," he said, the word barely breathed.

Ezra's hand slipped into mine and we followed after Auguste, my eyes on the statue tucked into the alcove. It wasn't until Auguste was only feet away, the normal orangey glow of the flame in the lantern cutting through the eerie yellow light, that the figure hidden there became clearer.

My free hand flew up to cover my gasp as I stared.

The seated man was dressed in robes, his skin as white as Booker's marble, hollow cheeked and clearly starved.

And just right of center on his skeletal chest, was a red and shocking open wound.

The same wound I'd seen on Auguste as he was trapped beneath Rooksgrave with Birsha.

"Why isn't… Is he—"

I screamed, cutting off my own questions, the sound barely muffled behind my fingers as the man's eyes flashed open. His pupils were as black as Auguste's, his gaze wild on me, but he didn't move or flinch at all.

"Preserved," Amon said, and I jumped slightly, sagging with relief as I realized we'd drawn the others over to us. Amon pointed to carvings on the wall. "Spells to hold."