Something at the edge of the woods moved. Something larger than a critter. “What’s that?” she asked, tilting her head toward the spot. Zee narrowed his eyes in that direction.
He suddenly tugged on her and Wren. “Come, we need to keep climbing. We have to get to the other side.”
“What,” Lilah asked. “What do you see?”
“A couple of kappy scouts. Black magic surrounds them. Something I’ve not seen before.”
“Oh my god,” Wren whispered, “they’re the ones who set the wildfire. They’re still looking for us?” Zee squatted, the girls doing the same.
“I’m not sure,” he answered. “Over there,” he pointed to an opening in the rocks. “It could be a cave we can hide in until they’re gone.”
Keeping low to the ground, they made their way to the opening in the rock and slipped inside. Lilah peeked out. “I don’t think they saw us. They’re walking along the edge of the woods. When they’re out of sight, we can go.”
“Ow.” Zee smacked his bicep, pulled out a toothpick-like stick from his muscle, then fell to the ground. Wren was beside him in an instant.
The sound of pebbles sliding over rock turned her head. A huge male came out from farther inside the tunnel, followed by several more men. He said, “I suggest that you remain where you are, trespassers.” Swords left their sheaths with a fingernails-down-a-chalkboard scrape.
“Oh fuck,” Lilah whispered. This is so not good. But damn, that dude is huge.
Chapter Two
“Get your damn hands off me.” Lilah wrenched her arm out of the guard’s hold. He held a sword in his other hand. Where did he think she was going? The men marched her and her cousins down tunnels in the mountain, which equated to a maze. She would never find her way out of here.
Lilah glanced back. Daphne was behind her with her own sexy guard. Wren was behind Daph, holding Zee’s dangling hand. Zee was unconscious from the dart that hit his arm, and several men carried him.
The tunnels had been dark until their tour guide lit a torch. The walls and ceiling were level and straight, but rough. If she dragged her hand over the wall, it would be scratched. The ground, though, was as smooth as a concrete floor. She wondered how many feet had traveled this path.
The tunnel finally came to an end as they stepped into a hundred-foot-high cavern the size of a mall parking lot. Groups of men were scattered, each cluster doing something different: hand-to-hand combat, sword fighting, push-ups, and other soldier training stuff.
Here and there, she saw non-military people darting around. These beings wore what looked to be a mud-brown sheet over their heads, like a ghost on Halloween. One of the covered turned to her, and she saw a beautiful woman’s face peer at her. Were all the sheet-wearing folks women? It was a stark contrast to Xenos’s females who barely wore anything to cover their bodies.
The guards led them around the perimeter, staying close to the stone wall. Looking up, Lilah noted many arched openings carved into the walls, lined side by side and up and down, several rows high. Another material-covered woman carried a torch as she walked past several arches then stepped into one.
The space didn’t look very big in the fire’s light. Lilah could see some items in the room but couldn’t tell what they were. The woman placed her hand on the wall at the corner where the outside wall ended at the entrance. Then she pulled the rock wall to the other side like closing a sliding door or gliding a curtain over a wide window.
How the hell did the woman do that? They definitely were not human. Maybe a different kind of fae than the gnoleons who lived in the forest.
The sounds of grunting pulled her attention to the men gathered ahead. They looked to be warriors with thick heavy swords and round shields. Conan the Barbarian had nothing on these guys. Their every limb was toned to perfection with taut muscles and very little clothing to cover only their stuff. Yowzers, her panties were melting.
She squinted as she got closer to them. The light was brighter on this end of the cavern with more torches mounted on the wall. She glanced at the guard walking next to her. His skin tone was light red as if he had sunburned from staying on the beach too long with no sunblock.
That was interesting. The gnoleon forest fae were a chocolate brown like the soil their magic commanded. These had an eternal blush over their entire bodies. That must have meant these fae were different from their tree-dwelling friends. Shit, she hoped the two races weren’t enemies.
Xenos, Wren’s mate, had not said anything about mountain-living fae, friend, or foe. But the gnoleon’s original old home had been two days’ walk away. Perhaps the two races didn’t know of each other. Great. Complete strangers. She wondered if they could talk their way out of this. At least she and her cousins weren’t being hunted by a deadly animal here.
As she glanced over at the soldiers, one caught her eye. He was staring directly at her. He stood among the men who quickly noticed his attention had moved, and all looked at her as well. Feeling her face heat, she focused straight ahead toward another tunnel.
She felt his eyes on her, and her body grew hot. Her pussy tingled for the first time in a long time. The image of his face was implanted in her mind. She would never forget that clean-shaven jawline, those large dark eyes, and full lips. Seeing him in her mind’s eye made her stomach flip. God, she felt like a teenager with a crush on a movie star.
The light suddenly dimmed as her group entered another rock tunnel. Goosebumps popped up on her arms as the air became cooler the lower underground they went. On Earth, deep caves held a temperature in the sixties. Hopefully, they would be out of here before they found out what the average temp was.
After descending a few more minutes, a room cut into the rock came into view. Stepping inside, they were greeted with thick iron bars. It looked like a jail cell, except there was no door. How were they supposed to get in—
The guard wrapped his hands around two adjacent poles and bent them apart like they were ropes hanging from the rock ceiling. Astounded, Lilah stood gaping. A shove from behind got her moving past the bars, into the holding cell. Daphne was on her heels while their captors carried in Xenos and dropped him on the floor against the wall. Wren bundled her mate to herself, his head in her lap.
The guard bent the poles back to their straight position, then turned, and they all left. After a moment of silence, Lilah said, “Well, this sucks.”
“Agreed,” Daphne replied. Clueless on what to do, Lilah sat next to Wren and her unconscious mate.
Wren whispered with tears in her eyes. “Why would they want to hurt him?” She glanced down at the face on her lap. “We hadn’t done anything.”
Lilah scowled. “According to them, we were trespassing.”
“Whatever,” Daphne added. “Since when is a mountain private property?”
“You would be surprised,” Lilah said. “There are claims for all kinds of places you would think would be public domain.” In her line of legal work, she had seen a lot of crazy shit the law did and did not pass. Land claims being only the tip of the iceberg.
Wren brushed the hair from her mate’s face. “Zee hadn’t mentioned anything about crossing someone’s land. I wonder if he knew about these people.”