Midnight's Seduction (22 page)

“A spiral and a trinity symbol on the horizontal portion. On the vertical there’s a triskelion and a spiral. Do you know what it means?”

“Nay.”

“Then we have a fifty-fifty chance of picking the right one.”

Camdyn looked at Saffron. “What do you think?”

“Vertical.”

“Vertical it is,” he said as he took the Tablet of Orn from her and slid it into the slot.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

Saffron’s heart raced, her blood pounded in her ears. All those times she had sat watching the adventure movies she loved so much saying she wished she could have a life like that seemed eons ago.

And now she knew she didn’t want a life like Indiana Jones because her heart simply couldn’t take the constant surprises and life-threatening episodes.

There was a soft click as the Tablet of Orn fit perfectly into the slot. Saffron looked down at the floor and hastily jumped to the wall.

“What is it?” Camdyn asked.

She shrugged as she stared at the floor, waiting for something to happen. “I’m tired of falling. I’m tired of the floor shifting beneath my feet. These Druids seem to have a thing about plunging people to their deaths.”

Camdyn licked his lips and hastily turned his head away to try and hide his smile. “I doona believe the floor will cave in this time.”

“You doona believe,” she repeated, mimicking his brogue. She gave a very unladylike snort that would have appalled her mother. “Well, I feel all better now.”

Saffron didn’t mean to allow her anxiety to show, but she was tired, cold, and wanted more than another PowerBar to eat. She was at her wit’s end with this entire ordeal, and she knew more was coming. That’s what scared her the most.

“I have been wondering why they supplied fire.”

She lifted her gaze to the four torches and cringed. “Now that you mention it, why would they? Nowhere else in this hell of a labyrinth has there been any light. Why now?”

“Why indeed?” Camdyn murmured as he peered closer at one of the torches.

“At least I can take one with me now and be able to see.” Saffron grasped the iron at the bottom of the torch and lifted.

Yet the torch didn’t budge. She thought it might be stuck, so she gave it a harder yank, but still nothing.

Finally, Camdyn tried to pull out the torch he was standing near. Not even his considerable strength could move it. He looked at Saffron and shrugged.

“Great. So the Druids won’t allow us to take the torches with us, and didn’t supply light earlier. This can’t be good.”

Camdyn shook his head. “Nay, I doona suppose it will be. And putting the Tablet of Orn into place didna do anything.”

“There aren’t any doors I can see, so it looks like we’re stuck again until we put the Tablet of Orn the right way.”

Saffron pulled out the cylinder and turned it horizontal. It made the same soft click as it had the first time as she pushed it into place.

When nothing happened, Saffron gave it a push to see if it was meant to go farther back. The cylinder didn’t move. Saffron slapped her hands on her legs in frustration and stalked away.

She stood against the far wall and watched as Camdyn walked to where the Tablet of Orn was held in the cross. He ran his fingers over the knotwork slowly.

“Do you see something?” Saffron asked.

“Maybe.”

When he tapped at something on the stone, Saffron straightened. “You did find something.”

Camdyn looked over his shoulder at her. “Come see.”

She hurried to him and looked to where he pointed. With the fire flickering on the walls, she had a hard time seeing anything clearly. And then she saw the thin, barely visible line.

Her finger traced it to a perfect circle around the cross. She stepped back, the lump of fear growing.

“We have to turn it,” Camdyn said. “I think the entire cross turns based on the line around it.”

“But which way? And which way do we put the cylinder?”

Camdyn’s nostrils flared as his eyes narrowed on the cross and the Tablet of Orn. “Only one way to find out.”

Saffron took another step back as Camdyn pulled out the cylinder and turned it so that it was once more vertical before he put it back in the cross.

With his hand still on the artifact, he glanced at Saffron before he turned it to the right.

Her eyes were drawn to the torches as they flared high overhead. She saw them shift toward her, and even though her mind screamed for her to move, it happened too fast for her to do anything.

Suddenly, she was hauled roughly to the side and shoved against the wall. Camdyn’s hard body blocked her from the flames as he bent over her, but the heat soon had sweat running down her face and between her breasts.

Camdyn grunted, his body stiff and his hands braced on either side of her head. But none of the flames touched her. After a moment, the torches went back to normal as if nothing had happened.

Saffron lifted her head from Camdyn’s chest to see him staring at her. Smoke filled the small area and wafted around them, and she smelled something burning. It dawned on her then exactly what Camdyn had done.

“You’re hurt.”

He shrugged, and she saw the pain that caused him. “I will heal.”

“Immortal or not, I don’t like the idea of you getting hurt.” She couldn’t stand the heat anymore and shrugged out of her jacket.

He pushed away from the wall, and what was left of his T-shirt fell to the floor. Saffron saw the scorch marks around the edges of the shirt and knew he had suffered terribly.

Because even though a Warrior always healed, they felt the wounds.

She gently touched his face, her heart aching. “Thank you.”

“You’re a Druid, someone to be protected. There are so few of you left.”

“So you did it out of obligation?” She really hated how much the idea of that hurt.

He let out a breath. “I gave you my vow that I would keep you safe.”

She nodded and he turned away. Saffron covered her mouth with her hand when she glimpsed the extent of the burns that covered his back. His back was a mass of burned flesh twisted and misshapen. His back was already healing, but she knew he had to be in considerable pain.

Camdyn walked back to the cross. “Ready for another try?”

“No.”

He smiled then, a lopsided half smile, but a smile. And it melted her heart.

Saffron’s lungs seized, her world tilted. Because that small smile made the already handsome Camdyn into a devilishly good-looking rake. And if her heart had been in danger before, there was no question of it now.

“Stay there,” he cautioned as he moved the cylinder back to its original position.

Saffron gripped the stones behind her and found herself praying it was the correct way. She met Camdyn’s gaze as he turned the cross to the left.

Once more the flames leaped upward, but this time they didn’t shift toward her. The flames continued as the Tablet of Orn sank farther into the stone.

“Give me the other cylinder,” Camdyn said as he held out his hand.

Saffron hurried to her jacket and yanked it out of the pocket and placed it in his hands. “What is it?”

“I think both are supposed to go here. See how the first sank farther back in the wall? It leaves room for the other one.”

She shrugged. “Try it.”

His gaze met hers before he fit the second, smaller cylinder into the open slot on the cross. As soon as he did, the cross turned on its own, making a complete circle.

When it was upright again, both artifacts were gone. Of a sudden, the flames flickered out and the entire chamber began to move in a circle.

Saffron squatted down, her nails chipping as she clung to the stones. In two strides Camdyn was beside her. His arms wrapped around her.

As abruptly as the room had begun to move, it stopped. They both found themselves looking at the same doorway they had entered earlier.

“That looks to be our way out.”

Saffron shook her head. “There is nothing for us if we retrace our steps.”

“I have a feeling we willna be retracing our steps,” Camdyn said as he pulled her to her feet.

Sure enough, as soon as they stepped into the hallway, they could tell they were in a different location. No more water ran down the walls, but they were covered in even more spiderwebs.

Saffron walked with her shoulders hunched forward in the middle of the tunnel so she wouldn’t have to touch the walls. She didn’t look down, not even when she felt something crunch beneath her foot.

“Duck,” Camdyn warned her.

Saffron didn’t look up, just did as he told her. She bent as low to the ground as she could without actually touching the stones beneath her feet.

“You can stand now.”

She could feel the terror fill her, the absolute spine-tingling chills that raced along her skin. Because there were spiders.

Camdyn took her hand and they began to run down the tunnel. She should have cautioned him about booby traps, but all she wanted to do was get as far from the spiders as she could.

A glance upward showed there were spiders hanging on the walls and from the ceiling. Huge spiders, small spiders. It didn’t matter the size, they were spiders.

The tunnel led them to the left, right, left, right, and left again until Camdyn skidded to a halt. Saffron was out of breath, but she would have run for days if it got her away from her fear.

“I think we’re past it now,” Camdyn said as he looked at her.

She could feel his gaze searching her face. Saffron nodded. “Yes. Thank you.”

He turned and looked around them.

“Where are we?” she asked as she ran her hands up and down her arms, wishing for her jacket once more. She should have known better than to forget it, but the maze with its magic was sending her emotions on a never-ending roller coaster ride.

“Looks like we need to decide whether to go left or right.”

“We have one more artifact,” she said.

He gave a single nod and touched his pocket where the key rested. “One more, then we awaken Laria.”

Saffron smoothed the hair away from her eyes with her hand and tried to keep a tight rein on her anger and frustration that were slowly mounting. If she didn’t get out of the maze soon she was going to erupt like Mount Vesuvius.

“You decide,” she told him, and put her hand against the wall.

Instead of her hand propping her up, she felt herself falling.

“Camdyn!” she screamed as the wall turned and she tumbled into a darkened room.

She turned and pounded on the wall, hoping she could get back to Camdyn.

“Camdyn! Camdyn, can you hear me!”

She shouted until her throat was raw, but not once did he answer her. But even worse, she heard the unmistakable sound of spiders.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FIVE

Camdyn tried to reach Saffron before the wall turned, but he missed her. He shoved his shoulder into the wall twice to try and move it as it had for her.

“Saffron! Saffron, are you all right?”

Her scream echoed in his head, reminding him he had failed to protect her. His god raged inside him, and Camdyn didn’t bother to try and tamp him down. He released his god, and threw back his head with a roar.

“Saffron!”

When she didn’t answer, he punched the wall, kicked the wall, and even scoured the stones with his claws. But nothing would make it budge.

Camdyn splayed his hands on the wall, and that’s when he felt the thrum of magic. “Damned Druids,” he muttered.

He had no idea where Saffron was or if she was injured. But he wouldn’t give up finding her. He told himself it was because of obligation and his promise to her, but he suspected it went much deeper than that.

Camdyn moved along the wall until the steady feel of magic began to fade. Then he balled his fist and rammed it into the wall. The stones crumbled around him.

He peeled back his lips over his fangs and growled as he began to tear down the wall stone by stone. If it took him dismantling the maze in order to find Saffron he’d do it.

“I’m coming, Saffron!” he bellowed. “Doona give up!”

He shoved aside another weighty stone. “Doona give up,” he muttered. “I’ll find you.”

*   *   *

The fear held Saffron in its steely grip. She couldn’t move, even though she knew spiders were all around her. All she had to do was run, to step on them, but her body was frozen.

She couldn’t see the spiders, but she knew they were there. Thousands of them, and they were all coming toward her. Her breathing was ragged, her heart pounding like a drum in her ear, and her blood had turned to ice.

Saffron hated the terror inside her, the anxiety and fright, but the years of Declan torturing her with spiders had only expanded her arachnophobia into something more than just a fear.

It paralyzed her.

“Is this your fear?”
a voice like dozens of people speaking at once whispered.

Saffron felt the tears run down her cheeks as a spider dangled in front of her face. All she had to do was swipe it away and step on it.

If she could only move.

“You are a Druid. With magic.”

Saffron screamed when a spider landed on her arm from above and bit her. That scream released her from her paralysis and she screamed and screamed and screamed.

All those years of holding everything in so Declan wouldn’t know she was terrified, all those years of hiding how hurt she was by her mother’s indifference. All those years of pretending she was fine by herself exploded.

She threw out her arms and magic erupted from her hands. Saffron moved her hands everywhere she thought there were spiders. She might be too afraid to get near them, but her magic could do it for her.

The more she used her magic to kill the spiders, the more her fear began to fade. Everything she had held in all those years dissipated until the spiders were no longer giants in her subconscious ruling her life.

The magic was healing her, and it felt glorious. Saffron closed her eyes and let the magic pour from her, surround her.

Take her.

*   *   *

Camdyn’s stomach plummeted to his feet when he heard Saffron’s screams. He bellowed her name and clawed through the stones faster and faster.