Part 8:

And if Eeros Orvino was going to discover her only way out, then she would rather be the one who chose the moment. Better to hand him a secret and buy his trust with it than have him take it and trust her less. Her hand rose toward the spine. She steadied herself and let it go. Os leaned in behind her. The words brushed the side of her neck low enough to feel like a touch.

Good girl. The book slid forward. Deep in the stone, the house answered. A low grind of weight shifting behind the wall, and a seam of black opened where there had been none. Eros looked into the opening and the corner of his mouth moved. Of course he did. He gave the darkness a small nod. Ladies first.

She stepped into the passage. He came in close behind her, the cold of the tunnel rising around them both. A few steps in, he moved past her to take the lead, his back turned. Now she spun and lunged for the closing gap, throwing her whole weight at it, one breath from sealing him in, and gone. An arm shot around her waist and ripped her back.

They hit the wall together hard. He pinned her there with his body, and in the last of the failing light, their faces were close enough to share the same air. “What did you think would happen, Anita?” His voice came low, almost amused, near enough that she felt the shape of the words. “Were you really going to lock me in my enemy’s walls?” His thumb dragged slow across her cheekbone, not soft, nothing kind in it.

Something that warned and wanted in the same motion. You do have a talent for bad ideas. She held still under the touch and refused to look away, and that only seemed to please him. He brought his mouth to her ear. There it is, that little mind of yours. The wall ground shut behind them. The dark dropped over everything.

total and took the room with it. She couldn’t see him now. She could only feel him. The warmth of his breath moving across her face. The leather and smoke of him filling the narrow space. His arms still locked around her, holding her there like he had no intention of letting go. “Let me go,” she got out. His hands opened. He stepped back and she lost him to the pitch black. “You don’t give up easy.

” His voice circled her close then closer. I’ll give you that. She lifted her chin to a face she couldn’t even see. I wouldn’t know unless I tried. A low laugh moved through the black. She heard him crouch feel along the floor and then a click and a torch through weak yellow light up between them. Aos turned the beam down the passage and took in the cut stone the old iron brackets the long throat of the tunnel running under the house. his lip curled.

Veto Ki built a palace and hid like a rat inside it. He swung the beam back to her. Now show me the way out. Isabella moved ahead of him. At the mouth of the tunnel she stopped and turned, and for a moment neither of them moved, his eyes already on her, hers steady on him. Oos tilted his head just slightly and his eyes narrowed like he could feel what was coming.

The corner of her lips curved and the words came teasing, almost playful. Find it yourself. And she bolted down the tunnel. Eros stood where she’d left him, the torch cutting across the edge of his smile as the dark swallowed the sound of her footsteps. He let the words go after her. Into the empty tunnel. Careful, Anita.

I’m starting to like you more than I should. Isabella ran. The tunnel stretched on under the whole house, branching, climbing, a stone maze built to lose a man. She kept to the line she knew, and ran for the corridor where the light should be. She found it, the light panel on the wall. She hit the switch. Nothing. Damn it.

The word came out of her in the dark, useless. Far back down the tunnel, a beam of light swung across the stone, and his voice came with it. Anita, calm, closer than she wanted. If my men find you first, I won’t be close enough to stop them from treating you like a threat. The plan was dead. She knew that now.

Knowing these tunnels was one thing. Finding her way through them blind was another. She turned toward where the exit had to be and ran. Her foot caught the floor dropped away. She was falling through the black, hands flying out, grabbing for anything. Nothing. Only air. Stone slammed up into her forehead. white and a ringing that swallowed everything.

The dark spun, and for a moment she didn’t know which way was up, only the cold of the floor against her cheek and a high wine in her ears. Pain tore through her skull. She shoved up onto her hands. The beam was closing in, and that was when she felt it. A deep throb above her brow. Something warm sliding down her face. She pushed the panic down and told herself what mattered. Find the exit.

Be fast. reach it before he reached her. She got to her feet and went on, one hand on the wall fast as the blind passage would let her. The exit door rose up out of the black in front of her, the glow still hung behind her. He was following. Back in the dark, OS closed his eyes a moment and let a smile cross his face.

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