Dangerous Mating (A.L.F.A., #3)(27)

He whispered, “I meant it when I said I didn’t want you following. I’d rather have you in front of me.”

She giggled, thinking about watching his ass. “What? To see my ass wiggle?” She slapped a hand over her mouth. Her face felt on fire. “Sorry,” she said, hand still over mouth.

He laughed . . . hard. With a huge smile she couldn’t erase, she hit his arm. “All right, get over it.” She fanned her face with her hand. When she turned to hide her face, she saw black marks on the wall. “Hey, bring the torch over here.”

Bryon stepped closer. “Is that writing? What are those pictures of?”

Kari examined the script. “It looks like hieroglyphics mixed with something else.”

Bryon grunted. “By chance, read Egyptian?” He was joking.

“I actually do,” she said. “I was fascinated with this stuff after the accident and picked up on it quickly.”

A warm body snuggled behind her. “I knew you were amazing.” He kissed the top of her head. A happy feeling flowed through her. Maybe he really did care for her more than just a job hazard. Maybe she could fall for this man in a heartbeat.

She refocused on the wall. “See this umbrella with two poles,” he nodded, “that represents the Underworld or the Land of the Dead.”

“So this is probably some warning to scare us off?” he asked.

She kept studying the drawings. “Maybe. This bird thing isbBa, which we call soul or personality. It leaves the body when it dies. This line with a split bottom is called a was; it’s a symbol of power, more like a scepter carried by royalty. Then the square without a top is ka.”

“Ka?” Bryon asked. “As in someone’s spirit?”

“That’s it. You’re pretty smart yourself,” she said.

“No, I just know ka from somewhere,” he corrected.

“Then this last symbol is ra, which is the sun god representing resurrection.” She stood back and let the images mix in her mind. “It’s talking about the royals, so in our case, the prince. Then we have two symbols that mention the soul or personality; souls can resurrect or they can go to places like the underworld.” The idea that came to her was so crazy, she didn’t want to voice it, so she waited for another answer.

“What do you think?” he asked. “Sounds like our prince died, went to hell, and came back.”

Startled, she looked at him. “You really got that?” He nodded. “Well, this may not sound so crazy then. What I’m getting is the one who rules the land, his personality is taken away like when the body dies, but a ka from the underworld resurrects the body.”

Bryon looked at her. “You mean the prince is possessed by a demon ka.”

Yeah, that sounded ridiculous to her too. She leaned toward the last symbol of ra which was the image of a single eyeball. When the fire light was just right, she thought she saw red paint in the eyeball circle. Her mind recalled the red flashes in the prince’s eyes she’d seen on several occasions. Had to be just coincidence. Maybe a hereditary issue dealing with the retina.

“That’s exactly what this means, but it couldn’t be the current prince,” Kari said. “It must be myths from ancestors because this was put here possibly two thousand years ago.” She stepped back. “Demonic possession doesn’t exist. Science proved diseases were the cause of weird things in humans. Not demons.”





Chapter Eighteen




Bryon mulled over these new ideas in his noggin as they continued through the tunnels. He took her hand wanting to feel her close. They came to another fork in the road.

“Which way?” he asked.

“Whichever way has fewer spider webs,” she answered. That would be straight ahead.

“You scared of spiders?” he asked.

“Eh,” she replied, “I wouldn’t say scared. But I definitely don’t want to give them something to stand on and bite. But less spider webs could mean the path had more travelers to keep spiders away. But given how old all this is, it’s probably a moot point.”

He nodded. Why hadn’t he come to that conclusion? It seemed a lot of her thoughts were common sense that wasn’t common until someone else said it. Then you’re like, duh. Their pups would be freakin’ geniuses.

“You know,” Kari said, “I don’t know anything about you. Not even what kind of shifter you are. How did you get into ALFA?”

He could easily talk about that. “I’m a wolf shifter. My pack is rather big compared to most. We live within a community, or a town, I guess, that is all shifters.”

“All shifters,” she asked. “How many?”

“Our population is several thousand. Other shifter places across the U.S. vary depending on who’s there.”

“Wow, I had no idea.”

“Yeah, we keep a low profile. Believe it or not, the government actually helps with that,” he said.

“How so?”

“ALFA is short for Alpha League Federal Agency. Basically, a long time ago, shifters were ‘discovered’ by the military. Our kind is much stronger than normal humans and can do things humans can’t. So when the military decided they wanted to harness that strength for themselves, they decided to approach us with a deal.”