Dark Heat: The Dark Kings Stories (22 page)

She looked away and down at her hands folded in her lap. “If I asked for your secret, would you tell me?”

A muscle in Con’s jaw twitched, the only sign that he didn’t like where the conversation was headed. “Aye,” he said tightly.

She exhaled loudly. “I don’t want your secret. I don’t want anything from you.” She turned on the couch and faced Guy. “But I’ll help. For you.”

“In the cave?” he asked.

“Yes, though I’m going to regret it. And my threat still holds, Guy. If I die there, I’m haunting you.”

While Con and Rhys were talking, Guy let his fingers touch Elena’s on the back of the couch.

CHAPTER
TEN

Elena asked herself for the hundredth time what she was doing back in the damned mountain. It didn’t matter that she was clipped in and connected to Guy, she was scared silly.

They’d been in the mountain for three hours, forty-seven minutes, and eighteen seconds. She knew because she kept looking at her watch.

What Elena discovered was she didn’t mind climbing up something as much as she hated climbing down. She’d managed to keep calm the deeper into the cave they went. Guy was always behind her, helping her up an incline or over something.

Rhys and Con were in front of her, but even they looked back often to check on her.

She’d had them tape her ankle securely and taken plenty of aspirin, but the pain was coming back. She dug into her pocket and pulled out two more aspirin and downed them with water.

“You’re hurting,” Guy said.

It wasn’t a question, so she shrugged and swallowed her water. “I’ll be all right.”

All three had helped to keep the majority of her weight off her injured leg, but that didn’t stop it from aching. As soon as the tape was off her ankle, it would be swollen once more.

“We’re here,” Con suddenly called.

Elena’s heart dropped to her feet like lead.
Here
meant where Sloan had fallen. And died.

“You doona have to do this.”

She looked at Guy and adjusted the strap of her helmet beneath her chin. “I do, and you know it.”

Elena put her back to the opening in the floor as Con and Rhys got everything ready for their descent. She touched Guy’s hand to get his attention.

When he looked at her, she wondered how she’d tell him what she’d found. Or if she should.

“Elena?” he asked, a frown marring his forehead. “What is it? Do you want to return to the house?”

She paused, contemplating if she should tell him. “I saw something, well a couple of somethings, as we were making our way here.”

“Rock?” he asked with a teasing grin.

“Smart-ass.” She couldn’t stop her smile, though. Her hand covered the marking behind her as she leaned back. She thought of the beautiful dragon tattooed on Guy’s body and of the markings.

“First, tell me what
Dreagan
means?”

Guy grew instantly still, all traces of teasing gone. “Why?”

“Please. Just tell me what the word means.”

“It’s Gaelic,” he said slowly. “It means ‘dragon.’”

Elena took a deep breath, excitement and fear mixing within her. She stepped aside to reveal the carving in the rock. It was about the size of a man’s hand, and would have been missed had her light not fallen upon it as she sat down.

“I’ve seen a couple of these today,” she said as Guy squatted beside the picture of a dragon in flight. “All of them are different. Some in flight, some sleeping, some with their wings spread.”

Guy still said nothing. He traced the drawing with his finger before he stood and faced her.

“Dragons. The meaning of your distillery. Your tat. The drawings in the mountain. It all comes back to you, doesn’t it? What does it mean?”

Indecision warred across his face. He glanced at his friends, and when his gaze returned to her, there was despair. “You’re no’ going to like my answer.”

“What? That you can’t tell me?”

“Do you keep an open mind about things?”

His tone was soft, his question serious. She thought of the way he’d loved her and held her. How he’d kissed her with more passion and need than she had ever known was possible.

“If you mean if I believe in ghosts, the answer is yes. Aliens, well, I’m not sure there. I don’t think we’re the only ones in the entire universe. There’s something else out there I’m sure of it.”

“And my immortality?”

She shrugged, growing more unsure of things as the conversation continued. “I don’t know how it’s possible or why. My first thought is to doubt you, but then I look at you. You aren’t like other men. There’s something … more … to you, Guy.”

“I want to tell you,” he whispered, and grasped her elbows as he pulled her closer. “I want you to know. Keep an open mind, Elena.
Keep looking
.”

She was about to ask him what he wanted her to look for, when Rhys took her arm.

“It’s time, Elena. I need to get you secured to the line.”

She was so caught up in her conversation with Guy that she paid no attention to Con lowering himself into the hole. Not even when she found her feet dangling in the air and Rhys holding her did it bother her.

Rhys was talking, but she didn’t hear his words. It wasn’t until Guy took her hand that she was able to focus again.

“Elena,” he said.

She blinked and looked from Guy to Rhys. “I’m sorry.”

“You’re frightened. No one blames you,” Rhys said.

Elena let him believe the lie. She turned to Guy and took his hand.

“I’ll be right behind you,” he said. “Rhys is staying up here to watch everything. You’ll have both Con and me with you. You’ll be safe.”

“No one is safe if the bolts come out or the rope unties.”

Rhys laughed and rapped his knuckles atop her helmet before he began to lower her. “With us, you’re safe. You couldna be safer, lass.”

She told herself not to look down, but she did it anyway. She had to breathe out of her mouth as she grew nauseated. Her fingers ached inside her gloves, which gripped the rope.

“You’re almost here,” Con said from below. “You’re doing good, Elena.”

A compliment? From Con? Her fear must really show. Elena closed her eyes and put her forehead to her hands.

“Keep looking.”

Guy’s whispered words floated through the fog of her trepidation. She licked her lips and forced her head up and her eyes open.

She turned her head and thought she caught a glimpse of something bounce off her headlamp. Before she could ask Rhys to slow her descent, she gasped when her gaze landed on something shiny in the rock.

“What is it?” Guy asked from above.

A second later, and he was hanging beside her. Elena leaned toward the rock wall that was easily six feet from her, but even from that vantage point, there was no mistaking the small bit reflecting her light.

“It’s a gem.”

“A gem?” Con asked, unimpressed.

Elena grunted in answer as she squinted to get a better look. “I think it’s a yellow sapphire. Matter of fact, I’m almost positive it is.”

She was lowered more until she was even with Con. He hung on one side of her and Guy on the other. Elena could only gasp as she spotted even more sapphires in the rock.

“You’ve got a fortune down here,” she whispered in amazement. But it was Con and Guy’s lack of response that intrigued her. She looked at Guy. “You knew the gems were here?”

“Aye,” Con answered for Guy.

Elena turned her head to him. “Why haven’t you done anything?”

“Why? We doona need the money they’ll bring.”

“Nor do you want people on your land,” she said as understanding dawned.

Con inhaled, his nostrils flaring. “Do you think this is what caught Sloan’s interest?”

Elena looked around her and then up to where she could see Rhys. She tried to think back to when she was peering down at Sloan. At one point, she’d barely been able to hear Sloan.

“No,” Elena said. “She was farther down.”

Guy made a motion, and the next instant Elena was moving downward again. While Con and Guy controlled their own ropes, it was Rhys who had hers.

Every few minutes, they would stop so she could look around, but she had yet to find anything that would draw Sloan’s notice.

Until she saw the drawings.

“Stop!” she yelled to Rhys.

She lurched as she was instantly halted. Elena pointed to the drawings of multiple dragons on the stones, some in combat, and said, “That’s what Sloan was looking at.”

Con didn’t say anything, simply looked at the drawings. He looked at each one as if learning it in detail, and then he started the climb back up.

Elena looked at Guy. “This isn’t good, is it?”

“Nay,” Guy said.

“All the dragon … stuff. It involves you, all of you.” Everything kept pointing back to Guy, which had led her to this conclusion. But
how
was still a mystery.

“You’re no’ supposed to know.”

“I do. So tell me the rest.”

He shook his head slowly.

“Just tell me if the dragons somehow involve you,” she begged.

His pale brown eyes met hers. “And if I said aye?”

“I’d ask how.”

“And if I said I couldna tell you.”

“I’d ask if that was why all of you are so desperate for your privacy.”

He gave a single nod and glanced at Con, who was about to reach the opening. “Con willna be happy that you’re piecing it together.”

“Con doesn’t seem happy about much.”

“Come,” Guy said as they left the drawings behind.

Once Elena had her feet back on the ground, she let out a laugh as she sank onto a boulder. The men turned to look at her with expressions of worry, amusement, and unease.

The more she looked at them, the harder she laughed. Every time she’d try to stop, she’d look at them and start laughing again. Now Guy and Con stood together with arms crossed, sharing an expression of exasperation while Rhys was smiling.

Finally Elena was able to pull it together. She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes and looked through the hole. “I feared that so very much. Now that it’s over, I can’t believe I was so scared.”

“Your boss died,” Con reminded her. “You were alone in a situation you didna know how to manage. From all Rhys and Guy told me, you handled yourself as well as could be expected.”

“Careful, you might actually start to like me,” she teased.

Guy’s frown grew, and he took a step that put him between her and Con. Rhys was instantly on alert. He dropped the rope he’d been rolling and waited.

“It was a joke, Guy,” she said.

But he didn’t respond.

Elena couldn’t see their faces, not even when she leaned to the side, but it was obvious something was going on.

“There’s entirely too much damned testosterone around here. Knock it off, you three,” she demanded.

Guy turned to face her. The fury she saw etched on his face instantly turned to desire. She had that second of warning before he hauled her up against his body and kissed her.

Deeply. Fully.

Completely.

They were both breathing heavy when he ended the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. Elena clung to him, her body shaking with need as he held her off the floor so as not to hurt her ankle.

“Guy,” Con said menacingly.

Elena moved her gaze to Con. “Leave him alone.”

Guy squeezed her as Rhys said something beneath his breath and turned away.

Con’s gaze narrowed on her. “You’d defend him?”

“To you. To anyone. Yes.”

“Interesting,” Con said, and turned on his heel to fade into the darkness.

Guy slowly set her on her feet. “I’m afraid you’re going to learn all the secrets you want to know.”

“Is that so bad?” she asked as a shiver of dread raced down her spine.

“For me, it is.”

CHAPTER
ELEVEN

“I already know you’re immortal.”

Elena’s words stopped Guy cold. He didn’t bother to look at Rhys, who had frozen in place as well. Guy clipped the length of rope onto Elena’s belt.

“You’d be wise no’ to inform Con of that bit,” Rhys said.

Elena frowned, her large, sage green eyes filled with concern. “I’m a big girl, Guy. I can handle whatever it is you don’t want me to know.”

He knew she could.
If
she cared for him more.
If
their feelings went deeper than just physical.

Rhys began down the path they had come, but Guy didn’t follow. He looked at Elena and drank in the sight of her. If he returned with her to the mansion, Con would want to talk to her as he had Cassie. Which couldn’t happen.

Then Con would demand to know if Elena loved Guy, which he knew she didn’t. She cared. That, he knew with certainty. By the way she touched him, kissed him. Defended him.

But what Guy truly feared was when Con would ask him how he felt about Elena. It wasn’t a question Guy could answer, because he didn’t know.

What he did know was that he couldn’t get enough of her. If she stayed any longer, he wasn’t sure he could let her go. Ever.

“Guy?” Rhys called.

Guy took one of Elena’s gloved hands in his. “I can take you back to the mansion, where Con might want you to stay even longer. Or I can take you out the way Sloan brought you in.”

“You don’t want me to go back with you?”

Her voice was soft, too soft.

“You know too much, Elena. To know more is to be confined to Dreagan as we are. You have a life out there, a career you’ve worked hard at.”

“Does my mortality have something to do with it?”

He snorted. “Never. I’m thinking of you.”

“I knew what was between us couldn’t last. It felt too good, too right.” She pulled her hand out of his. “If you don’t want me to go back with you, then I won’t.”

“She has to,” Rhys said from beside them. “We all need to get moving. Now!”

That’s when Guy felt the tremor in the mountain. He grabbed Elena’s hand. “Forget the pain of your foot. We need to cover a lot of ground.”

He heard her wince a couple of times, but she kept up with them as well as she could. Both he and Rhys shortened their strides to aid her.

What took them over three hours to trek going in took just over an hour returning. The cliff held them up only so long as it took Elena to climb on Guy’s back before he could descend down the rope.