Among Galactic Ruins (15 page)

She took in a shuddering breath and did as
he instructed. A second later, he yanked her up beside him. She let
out her breath.

“Keep moving,” Dathan urged. “No time to
rest.” He glanced behind them. “Fuck, never seen one like this in
my entire life.”

Damon gave the ugly, billowing storm a
single glance, then kept climbing, urging Lexa ahead of him.

The visibility decreased further and Damon’s
tingle was back. Desert wolves attacking in the day, a massive
sinkhole, and now a freak sandstorm bigger and faster than anything
Phoenix had seen.

Something was off. Someone, or something,
didn’t want them to find this temple.

“Up there.” Lexa pointed.

At first, he didn’t see anything, then he
spotted it. A dark opening, like a mouth against the sand and
rocks. “Go!”

The wind was a fierce wail now and the sand
hitting them felt like the bite of a thousand tiny whips.

They moved with renewed energy. Then Dathan
yelled, “Shit, it’s coming.”

A huge blast of sand-laden wind hit them.
Damon was knocked down. He heard Lexa yell, and he squinted to look
for her, barely able to make out her shadowy form in the dust.
Dathan rushed past him in a tumble.

But the cave entrance was close. Damon
focused on getting inside. Nothing else mattered. His concentration
narrowed, like it had on many missions before. He grabbed Lexa and
tossed her through the opening. He searched for Dathan, but didn’t
see him.
Shit
. Then Damon heard coughing.

Using the sound, he found the young man
clinging to a large rock and grabbed him. The wind was a constant
roar, now. They stumbled against the strength of it and a second
later, they staggered into the cave.

The sound immediately dimmed. They were all
breathing heavily. Lexa had moved deeper into the small space, and
was huddled against the wall, her hair and clothes disheveled.
Damon looked down at Dathan. The boy looked dazed, one cheek
covered in an abrasion from the sand, but other than that he was
fine. He helped Dathan sit, then turned to look out the cave
mouth.

The wind and sand was like the howl of a
screaming starship engine. Damon had experienced a sandstorm or two
on other desert planets, but he’d never seen anything like
this.

“That—” Dathan jabbed a finger at the storm
“—is not natural.”

Damon frowned. “Maybe the goddess doesn’t
want her temple or her treasure found.”

Lexa stirred. “On Earth, there were legends
of ancient cultures putting curses on their temples and tombs to
stop treasure hunters from plundering them.”

Damon looked again at the violent storm. He
wasn’t worried about millennia-old curses. He was worried about
more modern and dangerous threats. And the worst threat of all was
an unknown one, because you never saw it coming until it was too
late.

Lexa paced the small cave. “I think it’s
dying off.”

Damon raised an eyebrow. “It’s the same.” He
was sprawled against the cave wall, looking for all the world like
he was resting on a beach at the up-and-coming resort planet of
Duna.

She huffed out a breath and crossed the
narrow space again. Dathan was fast asleep, stretched out on the
rocky floor. The treasure hunter could apparently sleep
anywhere—she looked at the sand racing past the entrance—and
through anything.

Frustrated at being trapped, she wandered a
little deeper into the cave. She clicked on her ion light.

“Lexa.” A warning tone.

She waved a hand at him. “I’m not going to
tumble into some disaster or wrestle a cave monster.”

The cave narrowed a little, then widened
again. The walls were the same dark, smooth rock as the pillars
outside. She shone the light around. Nothing interesting; only a
few stalactites hanging from the ceiling that glittered with some
sort of mineral content.

She reached the back and turned to rejoin
the others.

Then her light passed over an arch of rock
hidden in the back corner of the cave. A tunnel!

She hurried over. Yes, there was a tunnel
leading farther into the rock. She moved the light around but it
barely penetrated the darkness. She stepped back. She had to tell
the others.

Then she noted the shape of the entrance to
the passage.

It was egg shaped. Coincidence? She didn’t
think so.

She hurried back to Damon. “Guess what I
found.”

“Hey, some of us are trying to sleep,”
Dathan grumbled.

“Well, you should have slept more last
night.”

Dathan grinned. “Like you did?”

She rolled her eyes at him and reached down
to tug Damon’s arm. “Come on. I found a tunnel back there. A
passageway that leads deeper into the hill. And I think it was
built by the priestesses.” She saw Damon’s mouth open. “And no, Mr.
Over Protective, I didn’t go inside it.”

His eyes glinted. “All right. Let’s take a
look.”

The three of them reached the tunnel
entrance. They all clicked on their ion lights.

“Looks stable,” Dathan said.

Damon nodded. “Let’s check it out. But any
sign of danger, we head back here.”

It was so narrow they had to follow each
other. After a brief argument on who would lead, Damon won. Lexa
followed, poking her tongue out at his back and Dathan brought up
the rear.

The tunnel led straight ahead before
starting to slope gently downward.

“Dathan, I don’t think you need to shine
your light on my ass,” she said drily.

“Why not? It’s a very fine one.”

Cheeky upstart
. She fought back a
smile.

Damon made a short sound and the light moved
upward.

Lexa kept trying to peer around Damon. “Do
you see anything?”

“Yes.”

“What?” Her breath hitched.

“Rock and darkness.”

“Smart ass,” she muttered.

But a minute later, he held a hand up for
them to stop. “I think I see something. There’s light ahead.”

They moved on and Lexa wanted to urge him to
hurry, but she knew he was too careful for that.

As they moved farther in, they discovered
the source of the light was the sun, breaking through the
now-dissipating sandstorm and spearing into the tunnel.

“We came right through the hill.” Lexa
stared down below. More sand dunes and more spiky rocks of the
Dragon’s Spine. No temple in sight. Her shoulders sagged.

Dathan swore. “This temple does not want to
be found.”

Lexa stared at the rocks. Maybe the goddess
was
protecting her place of worship and her egg? Then Lexa
realized her gaze kept returning to a particular set of rocks. She
blinked. They looked like the rest, long, jagged fingers spearing
upward.

But they were arranged in a perfect
oval.

Around an egg-shaped rock set right in the
center.

“Tell me I’m not imagining things,” she
said.

The men followed her gaze.

“I would have missed it,” Dathan murmured.
“Nice work, Lexa.”

Damon grinned at her. “Go.”

She stepped out and skidded down the hill
through the sand and rocks. She stepped into the circle of standing
stones.

Lexa imagined she sensed a hum of power in
the air. The rocks were all similar sizes, worn down through time,
and a couple had fallen over but they were definitely organized in
an oval.

The Temple of the Divine Goddess. This
had
to be it.

She wandered the circle, letting her hand
touch the smooth stone. “There’s probably some astronomical
alignment.” She pulled out her Sync and set it to scan. She could
look up the databases and star charts and see what fit. She knew
the priestesses had associated the goddess with numerous stars and
constellations.

“Holy stars, look at this.” Dathan walked
toward her. In his hands, he held a carved statue of a woman. “It
was half buried in the sand.”

She was tall and slim, her hands clutching a
sword. Lexa frowned. Her garments didn’t look like the priestesses’
dress. This woman wore tight pants with some sort of vest. She
looked more like a warrior than an Orphic priestess.

Lexa’s Sync beeped and she stared at the
shiny surface. Her stomach dropped. “It can’t be—”

“What?” Damon asked, frowning.

“It isn’t old enough.” She stared blindly at
the standing stones.

“What?” Dathan said.

“It’s only a few hundred years old.” She
sagged against the rocks. “Two hundred, at most.”

Now Dathan was scowling. “There was no one
out here a few hundred years ago. And this looks much older than a
few centuries. That makes no sense.” He thrust out the statue.
“What about this?”

She scanned it with the Sync. She couldn’t
believe the results. She snatched it from him, turned and swung it
against the nearest standing stone.

“Lexa, no!” Dathan yelled.

The statue shattered, leaving her holding a
very shiny and very modern wire mesh form.

“Fuck!” Dathan’s face turned red with rage.
He spun and stalked off.

Dazed, Lexa dropped to her knees on the
ground. “Maybe the vase and its map were a hoax. A big joke
supposed to suck someone like me into it.” She laughed bitterly.
“My father will have a field day with this.”

Damon leaned a shoulder against one of the
standing stones, watching her.

Lexa scrubbed her hands over her face. “I’ll
be a laughingstock among my colleagues.” Not that she really cared
about that. The sneering, pitying glances wouldn’t be anywhere as
bad as her father’s knowing, smug look. “I should never have set
foot out of the museum.”

“You finished?”

She frowned. “What?”

“You finished with your pity party?”

Her head snapped up. She couldn’t have heard
right. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me. Now, are you done?”

She shot to her feet. “I’m having a crisis
here, Malik. All this is fake! There’s no temple, no treasure,
nothing. Where is your sympathy?”

He waved a lazy hand in the air. “You don’t
need it.”

She threw her hands up, despair changing to
anger. “I’ve trekked halfway across the galaxy, and for what? To
fail. I’ve wasted Marius’ e-creds, risked people’s lives, and on
top of that, proven my father massively right.”

“This isn’t you, Lexa. Having a hissy fit
and giving in. You’ve proven your father wrong for years by paving
your own way and making your own choices. Who cares what he
thinks?”

That ugly bitterness inside her exploded.
“What would you know? Your father was some street trash who didn’t
hang around long enough to see you born.”

Silence fell between them.

Damon’s face smoothed out and he
straightened. “You’re smart, confident and insanely intelligent.
What your father thinks shouldn’t matter.” Damon stepped away from
the rock. “And I’m starting to think having a no-name absentee
father was the better option.” He walked away.

Lexa froze, unable to move. Remorse was a
choking sensation in her throat.
God
. She dropped her head
into her hands. Everything was out of control and now she’d just
been a bitch to the one man who’d ever believed in her
unconditionally.

***

Damon sat on the rock ledge looking out
across the desert sands. You’d never guess by looking at the smooth
dunes and blue sky that a sandstorm had raged here not long
ago.

He could hear Dathan nearby, swearing to
himself. The kid was mad with himself for leading Lexa to what was
clearly a hoax. A big elaborate fake. It wasn’t just a blow to her,
but a blow to the young man trying to build his reputation.

Damon considered. Or a big deliberate
misdirection.

Which also made him think of their
unfortunate, abnormal mishaps. Could it all be someone’s concerted
effort to keep them from finding the temple?

But who?

And how far would they go?

Damon heard her footsteps on the rock. Not
her usual confident stride. These were much more hesitant.

She sat beside him. “I’m sorry.”

Straight to the point. Lexa would always be
honest and admit when she was wrong. “Nothing to be sorry
about.”

“Yes, there is. I lost it over this—” she
waved her hand behind them “—and I shouldn’t have taken it out on
you.”

“Lexa, my father was likely some
drug-addicted gangbanger. A piece of street trash. You said nothing
but the truth. So, I may not be an expert on fathers, but I know
that anyone who makes you feel less than worthy, especially someone
who I believe is supposed to love and protect you, is not worth
your effort.”

She nodded, her eyes so incredibly sad.
“You’re right. Most of the time I think I’ve shaken it off.” A
harsh laugh. “God, a grown woman with daddy issues. It’s so…lame.”
She shrugged. “I guess some kids never grow out of wanting to
please their parents.” Now she hunched her shoulders. “Whenever I
hit a low, it’s his voice I hear.”

Damon tipped her chin up. He wanted to punch
Baron Carter in the face for not cherishing this beautiful woman
he’d been blessed with. Damon ran his thumb over her full lips.

She smiled, although it was a little
lopsided. “So, you think I’m smart and confident?”

“Yes. And sassy, and a trouble magnet, and
often a pain in my ass.”

She smacked him lightly on the chest, but he
caught her hand and yanked her in close for a kiss. Like it always
was with her, a kiss he’d intended to be short and comforting
turned hot and potent in a blink.

“Damn, woman. You should come with a
warning.” He was happy to see the sadness fading from her eyes.
“You’re also determined as hell, Lexa. I saw that particular trait
when you campaigned for this treasure hunt.” He tilted his head.
“Why aren’t you back there—” he jerked a thumb over his shoulder at
the temple “—showing those priestesses you mean business?”

She breathed in a long breath. “I’m not sure
it’s real. What if I’m chasing a dream and wasting everyone’s
time?”