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I startle awake to the sound of a splash, droplets of water hitting my face, and Jax cackling like he’s just seen something ridiculously funny. Roman gasps for breath, breaking the surface of the pool, dripping wet. He glares at Jax like whatever happened was his fault, but Jax just holds up his hands, palms out.

“Don’t look at me, man,” Jax says, still laughing. “You’re the one who freaked out when you realized–”

“Shut it, Indiana,” Roman growls.

“Oh, you think I’m like Indiana Jones, huh?” Jax grins and pretends to be slashing the air with a whip.

Roman narrows his eyes and climbs out of the pool. He’s still wearing his khaki shorts.

“Did you push him in?” I ask Jax, even though I know Jax was right beside me when I woke up.

“I fell,” Roman says curtly, before Jax can answer.

“ Yeah , you did.” There’s something teasing in Jax’s words, almost like an innuendo I don’t quite get .

“Okaayyy.” Deciding to drop it, I stretch, then stand up and make my way around the corner to the little room Bear and Archer found last night. We all agreed to set it up as a place to do our business—a little gross, but necessary.

After taking care of that, I check to see if my clothes are dry. We all washed at least a few garments last night, then hung them over the rocks near the fire. Roman is laying his wet pants out on a rock when I return. I slow my steps. He’s only wearing boxer briefs, the fabric damp and clinging to his body, emphasising the outline of his thick cock. The material is covered in little shovels. They’re so unexpected, I laugh.

Roman jumps and nearly falls into the pool again. Rather than glare at me like he normally would, he looks almost sheepish, maybe even apologetic. He grabs his dry shirt and edges as far away from me as possible.

“It’s fine,” I mutter to myself. “He can act like I have the plague if he wants to. I don’t care. We don’t have to be friends.”

“You okay, honey?” Bear asks.

“Oh, um, yeah.” I hadn’t realized he’d come up behind me. “Why?”

“You’re talking to yourself again.” His smile is indulgent.

“You noticed that, huh?” Usually I’d be embarrassed that someone noticed one of my quirks, but I’m too tired and too confused by Roman to care. “I just don’t know what to make of Dr. Roman Slate . I mean, we’re stuck down here. We should be working together, but he just jumped away from me like I’m a venomous snake. ”

“Give him time.” Bear looks over at Roman, who’s currently cleaning up our makeshift campsite. A good idea, since we don’t know how long we’ll be stuck down here.

I’m hopeful the rest of the team will recognize the signs of a cave-in once they get back from town and start digging, but that’s still another two days away. In the meantime, we may have to camp out here. A thought that should upset me more than it does. Except, more time in the temple means more opportunity to find Lunara’s relic. Though, I’m not sure how I’m supposed to do that without telling my mates how broken I am. Can I do that? Am I ready to?

Maybe I could tell Roman. He’s not my mate so he won’t have any personal investment. He could help me search the temple for what I need while the other guys look for a way out. Then again, I doubt he would help me, and I doubt my mates would let the two of us go off on our own.

Roman turns like he can sense us watching.

“I’m going to see if I can find a way out,” he calls from across the space.

My heart lurches. “We shouldn’t be wandering off alone.”

His brows pull down as his lips pinch together. “I won’t go far.”

I look around and realize Archer and Jax are nowhere to be seen either. “Where are the others?”

“Archer’s looking for more firewood, and Jax went to see if he can catch another snake for breakfast,” Bear says .

It makes me uneasy having all my men scattered about.

Roman isn’t yours.

My chest constricts when I remember that Roman won’t ever be mine, even if I want him to be. I thought we were at least making progress on the friend front, but if the way he’s acting this morning is any indication, I was dead wrong.

“Hey! Guys! I found something.” Archer’s excited shout reaches us right before he does. Roman halts his step.

“What is it?” Jax’s voice booms.

I startle at the sudden close proximity of him. Where the hell did he come from? When I look over my shoulder, he smiles and steps even closer, holding a very different kind of snake than last night, dripping wet. His hair is also drenched, wet droplets sliding down his bare chest to his?—

“You can’t walk around naked!” I gasp, covering my face with my hands, though I’m not sure why. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve seen his cock. And he’s my mate . But it’s just so unexpected, and so public .

“But I was swimming and I like being naked.” Jax peels my hands away from my face, then uses his grip on my wrists to pull me into his body. He’s hard against my stomach, and his scent is intoxicating. A whimper bubbles out of me, perfume scents the air. Jax moans. “Especially when it gets this kind of reaction out of you.”

“Cut it out,” Roman says, but there’s not the same bite in his reprimand that there was last night.

Bear tosses Jax the jeans he’d left on the rocks, which land half on my shoulder as I step back. As Jax takes them, he leans in and whispers, “Later.”

He steps his feet in the pants and pulls them up while I’m left wondering what he’s suggesting with that one heated word.

“What’d you find, Arch?” Bear’s question reminds me why we’re all gathered around, and I’m shocked I’d forgotten.

“A book!” Archer exclaims. Holding up a worn tome.

“Not sure I’ve ever been that excited over a book before.” Bear’s gruff voice holds fondness in his tone.

“It’s not just a book,” Archer chastises. “I think it’s a journal, or a manual? There are symbols I’ve never seen before, and some, um, some?—”

“Some what?” I ask.

“Just look.” Archer brings the tome over to a clean, flat rock, and places it on the surface before stepping back so the rest of us can see it.

The worn leather cover spans nearly half the surface of the rock. When I hold my hands up to it, it's wider than both of them side by side, shaped more like a square than a modern book would be. But what catches my eye immediately is the symbol gracing the front of it. A golden shine twinkles from a debossed groove, telling me this book was precious.

“Lunara’s rune.” I whisper in awe.

“The same one we saw on the floor?” Roman asks. He’s standing a good ten feet away. Odd. He’s usually the first to crowd close to an artifact.

“Yeah, but this is more well preserved than any I’ve ever seen. ”

Reaching forward, I run my fingertips reverently over the rune before gently opening the book. Only a few hieroglyphs sit before me, none that I recognize, so I turn the page. A smile forms on my lips when I see a drawing of an ethereal woman, her beauty and power translated to the paper. Below her is the rune of Lunara.

“I think this is a depiction of the goddess.” I say to the group.

Archer takes his glasses off and wipes them on his shirt before leaning around Bear to get a closer look.

Turning the fragile page, I stifle a gasp as I take in the image of the same woman being ravished by four men. Worshiping her. Bringing her pleasure.

“Looks like fun,” Jax says, leaning over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Roman asks, still standing too far away. His posture is even stiffer than normal.

“Come over and find out.” Jax slings his arm around my shoulder.

“There’s a place for you here.” Bear takes a half step to the side. There’s something soft in his tone that has me looking up at him before looking back at Roman.

“I’m…” Roman shakes his head. Something passes between the two men that I don’t understand. Bear gives a brief nod, then steps close to me again. He turns the page, and I see something else I recognize.

“There! I’ve seen that symbol before. It means ‘fertility.’” I say, then point at another. “And this one means ‘health.’” I study the other two symbols for a moment, trying to place them, but it’s no use. “I can’t decipher these others, but maybe the rest of the book will give us something to work with. ”

Eagerly turning to the next page, I suck in a breath at what I see. People of all genders writhe on the floor, connecting bodies in any way they can. Some with one partner, some with four or five, in every combination you can think of. An orgy. It’s a frickin’ orgy. I was right!

“You were right.” Archer echoes my thoughts with a touch of wonder in his tone.

The same hieroglyphs surround the edges of the drawing. Fertility, health, and the ones I can’t read.

“Is that the goddess there?” Bear points to a woman in the center who looks a lot like the image of Lunara from the page before. But it’s difficult to make her out in the crowd of bodies.

“I think so?” My fingers gently trace the picture. We shouldn’t be touching this without gloves. Pages this old should be falling apart, but the book is in remarkable shape, mysteriously preserved beyond what should be natural. And I can’t hold back. Something about being stuck down here in these circumstances makes this feel more like an adventure than an archeological dig. Like stepping back into the past and living it, rather than just excavating it.

Archer reaches around me to turn the page again, revealing a closer look at the goddess—almost a zoomed in version of the page before. A glint catches my eye.

“What’s that?” Jax points at Lunara’s neck, where a gold necklace sits. Well, more of a choker than a necklace.

“Pfft. You would see the gold thing first, treasure hunter,” Bear teases.

“I’ve never seen this before.” I lean closer to get a better look. “None of the renderings of Lunara in my studies showed her wearing this.”

“What is it?” Roman asks again.

“If you want to see, you can stop being a mopey child and come join us.” I glare at him. But he doesn’t budge. With furrowed brows, he rubs his stubbled chin, refusing to meet my eyes. I wish I knew what was going on in his head.

“If they took the time and effort to gild this on the page, it must be important, right?” Archer asks, possibly trying to break up the tension and tempt Roman over with honey rather than ire.

Chills rush up my spine as I take in the stunning craftsmanship of the one and only gilded thing on the page—in the whole book so far, other than the cover. Could this be Lunara’s relic? Proof that the legends are true and it actually exists? Could this be what I’m looking for? A way to fix me?