Chapter Fourteen
Bryon pushed ahead of his mate. His pulse and mind had yet to slow to normal. He’d almost lost her. After years of waiting and praying, losing her before he even got to kiss her. That wouldn’t happen. He wouldn’t let it happen.
She was his mate, and he wanted to know everything about her. He smelled her anger, but wasn’t fazed. He’d win her over. What do women like to talk about?
“Kari, tell me something about yourself.”
“Myself?” she asked.
“Yeah. Something about your childhood or anything interesting,” he replied.
“There’s nothing interesting about me. I’m rather boring,” she said.
He laughed. He loved her modesty. “I doubt that. I bet you’re extremely fascinating.”
She snorted again. “You really don’t know me.”
That was the purpose of this conversation. He wanted to know what made her laugh, what made her cry, what made her love someone, what made her want to make love to someone.
“Well,” she started, “I almost died once.”
Panic shot through him. He didn’t want to know that.
“When I was twelve, one of my friends was toting me on the front of her bicycle. She hit a pothole and I flew over the handlebars.” A million horrific images flew through his mind. He looked back at her to make sure she was fine. He chastised himself: of course she was fine. But still . . .
“I don’t remember anything after that. Mom told me a while later. Supposedly, I hit the asphalt face first. My front two teeth were knocked out.” Her voice changed as if she were poking at her teeth as she talked about them.
He wondered about other things in her mouth. What did she taste like? How would her tongue feel gliding over his? How soft would her lips be? Shit. He adjusted his pants as he walked. Good thing he was in front of her. He turned when they came to another side opening.
She continued. “The skin on my chin and forehead was scraped off. And I’d managed to break my arm.”
“That doesn’t sound that bad,” he said. He could live with such minor injuries on her. Of course, he’d take care of her until she was perfect again. Then he wouldn’t have let her out of bed.
“The bad thing was the concussion,” she continued. His wolf flipped out. Their mate had gotten brain damage when he hadn’t been there to protect her, hadn’t been there to save her. Bryon reminded his animal they didn’t know her then. They were only fifteen or sixteen themselves.
“I was in the hospital for several days, in and out of consciousness. Mom said the tests the doctors took showed extensive damage to the left side of my brain. They said I could be partially paralyzed or challenged in some way.”
“Were you?”
They came to a sudden stop at a pile of rocks that blocked the tunnel. With a sigh, he turned her around to head back. Kari hadn’t said anything to his question. Her delayed replied couldn’t be good. What did he say?
“You make it sound like you can’t tell if I’m brain damaged or not. Is that what you think?” Her pitch rose with the last few words. He cringed.
“No. Of course, not,” he said with as much authority he could muster. “You’re extremely smart and beautiful and I’m keeping my mouth shut.”
She giggled. His heart lightened. Another hallway opened to the side. He sniffed the entrance, then went in to see where it led.
“Actually,” she continued, “I was damaged, but not in a bad way, really.”
He glanced back at her. Again, to make sure she was fine. What was wrong with him? Why was he worried she was injured? It was in the past. “What way?”
“Before the accident, I didn’t care much for math or numbers. Afterwards, answers to math problems appeared in my head. I didn’t have to think about the numbers. They just showed up. And were always right. My sophomore year in school, I discovered I knew how to play the piano even though I’d never taken lessons. After someone showed me how to read music one time, I could play Beethoven.”
“That would be pretty cool,” he said. “I always wanted to play an instrument in school. My one attempt with a trombone was disastrous. My siblings complained I sounded like a dying whale.” She laughed. The beautiful sound echoed in the tunnel. He wanted to listen to it all day. “Did the doctors give a reason why all that was happening to you?”
“They said that maybe since the left lobe was injured, the right lobe tried to compensate for the deficiency. Since the right side of the brain is the creative side, my brain rewired itself to do the left side’s job more creatively. Or something like that. So I’m able to visualize on the concept level better than most.”
Damn, dead-end wall. With a groan from both, they turned around to the previous path. “Anything else?” he asked.
“When I breezed through geometry, my teacher suggested I get a puzzle book with different kinds of visual riddles to see if I could do anything else easily. That’s when I found out I was really good at cryptograms. That led me to being a decoder in the FBI.”
FBI? He stopped. He’d been so caught up in getting his mate to safety, he hadn’t even thought about why she was here or who had sent her or anything. Damn, he was such a sorry mate. His wolf said he’d better get it together or it’d kick his ass.
“What?” She stopped behind him.
“You work for the FBI?” He had no idea his mate was so awesome. There were women in the department, but not many compared to men. He knew she wasn’t with ALFA since no women were training for a position.
When she stomped past him again, he realized he’d said something wrong. Now what? “Kari. What’s wrong.” She kept walking without saying a word. He sighed. “Whatever I said, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything negative. Just the opposite.” She must’ve heard them as a put down.
It wasn’t that he couldn’t believe she worked for the FBI. Women had every right and were highly qualified to work in that male-dominated world. He just never imagined his mate would be from something so prestigious.
He always thought of his wife as a hearty beauty who would rustle up the pups when time to eat and hose them down before bedtime. Not necessarily someone he could carry an intellectual conversation with. But that’s what he had gotten. How did he get so lucky?
“Yes, that’s exactly it. I meant just the opposite of how it must have sounded,” he pleaded.
She slowed, said “whatever,” then picked up her speed. No, she didn’t walk away from him. He wasn’t letting her. In a flash, he had his arm around her waist, lifting her off her feet.
“You’re going to listen to me whether you want to or not,” he growled. He breathed deeply and took in her sudden wetness; the growl intensified on its own. She was hot for him. Fuck him, goddammit. He wanted to take her here on the floor.
Then he noted the rock was damp. The humidity had risen quite a bit.
Ahead was a branch off the tunnel they were on. He carried her there. It turned out to be a small cavern or hole in the wall, but had a high ceiling with stalactites and straws. He sat her on a large rock so he wouldn’t be tempted to flatten her to the ground.
A strange vibration ran through his body. From the stone below his feet? It was like a train in the distance rumbling the ground as it approached. His wolf picked up on the scent of fresh water. He looked around for a pool, but the room was too small to have much of anything.
“You can’t just go walking off on your own,” he said. “You would be filled with holes right now if I hadn’t smelled a corpse back there.”
She crossed her arms over her chest. “Fine. You lead. I’ll follow.” She saw something on the wall behind him, but he wasn’t taking his eyes from her. “I’m sure that’s how you like it anyway. I know how you shifters are.”
How shifters are? What did she mean by that? He was about to retort when she got up and walked past him. He noticed what she’d seen behind him and his curiosity was piqued. He followed her up a steep ramp that put them several feet higher than the floor.
Stretched side to side before them was a stone shelf extending from the wall. At one end of the shelf stood a double-pan balance or dual-weight scale. It looked like a letter T with the top bar resting on a narrow rock. On the left side of the bar’s middle pivot point sat a bowl that appeared made from bone; on the far right side lay a rock about the size of a bowling ball.
He lifted the bowl and tilted it to see inside. The bar both items sat on see-sawed so the rock side slammed down. He quickly put the bowl back onto the bar, but the ball side didn’t rise to balance the bar again.
She slapped at his hand. “Didn’t your mother teach you not to touch strange things? You have no idea where that’s been.”
A loud crash shook the room. He spun around to see the ceiling above the door had crashed down, blocking the entrance. They were trapped inside.
The vibration he felt grew more intense. Water poured through the hole in the rock ceiling. He gawked at what was happening. Quickly, the floor at the bottom of the ramp was covered.
“Oh my god. Don’t you ever touch anything again. We’re going to drown if we don’t get out,” she yelled.