Unchained (Men in Chains Book 3) (31 page)

Shayna, this isn’t nothing.

Turning toward him, she confessed that she’d seen this in a vision and her eyes filled with tears.

You’re overcome.

I am. But just wait until you see what lies beyond that wall.

Gabriel didn’t say anything. He just stepped up to the wall, moving with the same lithe, muscular grace that Marius did. Gabriel picked up the sledgehammer and smiled. He let the handle slide through his fingers to the end. “You might want to step away for this.”

Shayna felt Marius’s confusion as they both moved back about ten feet, but her own mounting anticipation almost had her floating.

Gabriel drew the hammer back then struck the wall. Just like that the thin layer of stone crumbled, revealing an arched doorway.

She was already in motion and stepped over the rubble to move inside. Everything was as it had been in the vision.

Marius’s voice sounded from behind her. “What the hell is this? Are these clay tablets?”

Gabriel’s gaze drifted slowly up the tall stack. “Our history.”

“You mean our written history?”

“Cuneiform,” Shayna said. “Like all those pics I’ve taken.”

Gabriel removed the nearest tablet from one of the shorter stacks and held it out for Shayna to inspect. She shook her head slowly from side to side. “This is absolutely amazing.”

She understood now that most modern vampires believed the symbols to be an ancient carving design, since so many of the stone patterns had names and origins.

Marius drew close. “So this is what you were talking about.”

“Yes, it is, like ancient Sumer.”

“Then this is our language.”

“The written word.” Shayna didn’t dare touch the tablet. Something this old, probably several millennia, needed to be handled with care.

“Where shall I put this?” Gabriel asked.

Shayna’s throat had grown very tight as she met Gabriel’s warm gaze. “On the table, please. I presume you have gloves I can use.”

He nodded, moving back into the room with all the tables and equipment. “I should have used them as well, but I was too impatient.” He carried the large, heavy tablet back into the workroom.

Shayna forgot about everything else, including Marius. She knew the men hovered and responded quickly to everything she requested, including additional lighting and a different chair, one that swiveled and rolled. She had them set two of the tables at right angles. She requested a computer and within a few minutes had a complete working setup because Gabriel said he would do anything she wanted and she took him at his administrative word. The man knew how to run an organization, just like Rumy.

Marius brought her a glass of iced tea. She caught his hand and looked into his eyes. She blinked rapidly. “This is beyond anything I’d ever expected or hoped to experience in the entire course of my life.”

“Good. I’m glad.”

He kissed her hand and, for a moment, she almost lost sight of her goal, which apparently involved finding the key to the old language as quickly as possible.

But Marius released her hand quickly and she resumed staring at the tablet now lying beneath the large magnifying glass.

She found that the same phrase repeated itself in the carvings in the various caves, which would make sense. Maybe it was a blessing, or perhaps a warning—she couldn’t be sure.

Hours passed.

After she had stretched her aching back for the tenth time, Marius rubbed her shoulders. “Dinner just arrived.”

She met his gaze over her shoulder. “I just realized I’m famished.” And that’s when she felt his need hitting her in a series of strong waves. The man was blood-starved.

She’d been so caught up in studying this incredible sealed-up find that she’d blocked all sensations flowing from him. But what she found beyond his hunger was something so close to affection, maybe even love, that she almost stumbled when she left her chair.

The earlier question took a new shape in her mind. Could she have a life with Marius, a real life full of love and belonging, in this hidden world?

*   *   *

Marius took Shayna’s hand and had started to lead her to the dining area when she caught sight of the doorway to the tablet room and stopped in her tracks.

“The debris is all gone. When did that happen?”

He squeezed her hand. “I think that was going on about the time you were exclaiming over the quality of the tablets and the clarity of each imprint.”

He could see she was about to expound on the same theme, so he reminded her that dinner was waiting.

“Right, yes, right. I really am starved.”

Marius seated her and poured her a glass of red wine.

“This is a feast and I don’t think I’ve seen this dish before.”

“It’s wonderful,” Marius said. “It’s a bulgur salad made of cracked wheat, tomatoes, onions, parsley, and an olive oil vinaigrette.”

She put a large spoonful on her plate and took a bite. “That’s heavenly.”

He sipped his wine and watched her for a few moments. He needed to feed from her vein badly because of the recent battle, but he wanted this time to be about Shayna.

And he wouldn’t have disturbed her, not even if he was close to death. He knew what the tablets had meant for her, the joy that such a tremendous discovery had been, something that Gabriel had kept secret for well over five hundred years, probably longer. He’d given her one of the finest experiences of her life by allowing her the privilege of a first look at the ancient treasure and history of the vampire world.

He understood that she was looking at the footings of his entire civilization.

And so did Gabriel.

But Gabriel’s motives weren’t entirely pure.

While Shayna had been busy exploring the tablets, Gabriel had told Marius that though the extinction weapon was no longer a threat, he knew Daniel had to be removed from power. He was hoping that something Shayna might learn, or perhaps had already learned, about their world would provide them with a clue as to how to unseat the most powerful vampire of the past two millennia.

Marius sampled the fare as well, savoring charred chicken kebabs cooked with onions and peppers, the salad, and a very fine hummus served with chunks of bread torn from a soft round loaf.

“Marius?”

He glanced up at her. “Yes?” He cut one of the chicken pieces in half, speared it with his fork, then added a slice of red pepper.

She had her elbow on the table and waved her fork in the air back and forth several times. “How did you do the split-self thing, the one with a primary self and a secondary one? Of all the things I’ve seen in your world, that single act astonished me the most. How can you battle as two people?”

He could do more than just battle, but he decided that was more than Shayna should have to deal with right now. He shrugged. “Actually, I’m not sure of the physiology of it and it’s not something all vampires can do.”

“But you can. And your brothers?”

“Yes.”

“Is there a working theory as to how the process functions?”

He sipped his wine. “Well, some think it might be a sort of super speed—being in one place but moving fast enough to appear as though you’re in two different locations.”

“Is that what it feels like to you?”

He shook his head. “I don’t know. Not exactly. I think it’s just a function of our world, like altered flight. It just is. We walk, we levitate, we fly, we have visions, we create strange intricate disguises, and some of us can split into two beings for short periods of time.”

She settled back in her chair appearing to absorb his answer. “You are a unique race.”

At that, he smiled. “Thank you. Now it’s my turn. So what do you think of the tablets? Is this a code you can break?”

“Historical linguistics isn’t my field of expertise,” she said, dragging a piece of bread through the hummus. “I’ve only had a couple of classes, though I am completely fascinated by the subject. Is there anyone in your world who knows the ancient language, who speaks it, and perhaps created a working alphabet?”

“You could start by surfing our Internet.”

She took a sip of wine and leaned back in her chair, her gaze sliding over the waterfall. “If I could just get that alphabet, I could work at a translation. Then I think I might have something for you.”

“I’ll see what I can find out as well.”

She met and held his gaze. “Thanks. Marius, I’m sorry I haven’t been paying attention to you and I do know that you need to, you know, hit my vein.”

The thrill that her choice of words created rocked his entire body. He had to take a really deep breath to keep from launching straight at her throat.

She leaned close and took his hand. “I wish I could have captured the look on your face right now.”

The scent of her sex suddenly permeated the air. Her response to him had been present almost from the beginning, something that had kept him on fire for her.

He squeezed her fingers, losing all appetite for the food on his plate. His desire to haul her into the bedroom intensified.

This time Shayna took a deep breath, another sip of wine, then turned her attention to her plate. After a bite of hummus and bread, she didn’t look at him when she said, “Eat.”

Marius picked up his fork and followed her lead. He took one forkful of the bulgur salad, then another. For what they’d both been through, she was right. They both should replenish their reserves.

“Do you really think I’ll be able to help by looking over these ancient tablets?”

“Gabriel seems to think it’s worth a shot, and I would count on his opinion for that. He’s been an Ancestral as well as part of the policy-making sector of our world for a long time. Daniel has tried to off him several times, but he seems to stay one step ahead of the bastard.

“He helped develop the courts, which Daniel recently undermined and took over. No one in our world has had enough raw power to match Daniel. And over the years, a lot of our most influential leaders have had to go underground in order to survive. Many, of course, were assassinated through the years.”

She dabbed at the hummus. “So in your opinion, Daniel has been working for a good long while to consolidate his power, including trying to take possession of a working extinction weapon.”

Marius nodded. “A year ago, when he arrested Adrien, Lucian, and myself, he launched this particular nightmare. Before that, we’d worked hard to keep his ambitions in check. We patrolled the world nightly and battled his forces when they tried to strong-arm our leaders or engage in kidnapping and torture. As soon as he took over the Council of Ancestrals, and afterward our five main courts, he arrested us and sent us to the Himalayan prison. At least half the Council went into hiding at the same time.”

She fell silent and continued to eat steadily, but her eyes flitted about in that searching way of hers as though seeking answers to questions she hadn’t yet posed.

“I hope I can help,” she stated at last.

“You’ve already done so much. But please, don’t feel obligated to stay. You’ve done what we set out to do, to capture the weapon. This”—and he waved in the direction of the workroom—“well, I’m sure there are experts in our world who can take over.”

At that, she turned toward him, laughing. “Obligated?” She gestured with an arm flung in the same direction as his. “I’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime, my deepest heart’s desire. No, Marius, I don’t feel obligated. More like, I’m wondering how I’ll ever leave.”

The words struck Marius to the core of his being and that same thrill returned, riding his nerves like an electric storm. Desire hit next all over again, so that this time he was on his feet and didn’t hold back.

He sensed her own responsive need for him and clattered her fork on her plate. She rose at the same time, stretching her arms out to him so that he’d caught her up in a tight embrace before he realized it.

The feeling, the desire, was damn mutual. “I want to take you to bed and make love to you. How does that sound?”

“You’d better,” she murmured, then kissed him hard. When she parted her lips he drove his tongue inside so that he felt her body weaken against his.

He caught her up in his arms and carried her to the bedroom. But as he turned toward the bed, he laughed. “I wondered why Gabriel had gone in here just before he left. The man’s a romantic.” The covers were pulled back and three long-stemmed white roses lay on the dark-blue silk sheets.

Shayna leaned her head against the crook of his neck. “He thinks we’re lovers.”

Marius turned her just enough to look into her eyes. “Aren’t we?”

She shivered. “Oh, yes, we are at least that.”

And right now, he wanted what he’d never thought to have in his entire life: He wanted Shayna to be
his woman.

*   *   *

Shayna lay facedown on the bed, one of the thornless roses clutched in her hand, the intoxicating rich scent adding yet another layer of pleasure.

Her clothes were gone and just before Marius had told her to stretch out on her stomach, she’d caught a glimpse of his naked body. All that sheer masculine brawn had made her more than willing to do whatever he wanted her to do.

That, and she trusted him.

She felt his hands first on the backs of her thighs, his thumbs kneading the swell of each of her buns. He pressed his fingers into the outside of her thighs, massaging gently.

She released a sigh. The man could touch her anywhere and she’d grow limp and yielding, just wanting more.

Her fingers played over the white velvety petals as he swept his hands lower and pushed her legs apart. She felt the mattress move so she knew he’d climbed between.

It was exciting to know he was behind her—but she couldn’t see all of him, just glimpses now and then when she craned her neck. He’d lit a single candle, a very bright spot given how well she could see, but it had the advantage of casting light and shadow over his muscles.

He planted his hands on either side of her shoulders and she felt his stiff cock as he slowly slid it up her crack all the way to her waist, letting her feel him.

All that maleness made her hips rock, pushing into the mattress.