Wild Sign (Alpha & Omega #6)(86)

She breathed death and caught—something else, too, something that smelled like the depths of the ocean and the heart of a mountain. She had no idea what either of those would smell like—and she smelled them anyway.

She looked for something to distract both of them with. “How did you get a mattress down that tunnel?” she asked—and then thought that maybe a discussion about that bed wasn’t where she wanted to take his attention, either.

The bed was covered with a pair of sleeping bags, unzipped so that they functioned more like giant blankets, one that you were supposed to lie on, one to cover you up. There were two pillows and two more electric lanterns that Zander had switched on while she had still been coming down the tunnel.

He grinned.

“There’s not a mattress,” he said. And lifted the corner of the sleeping bags to reveal a two-inch foam pad laid over a raised stone platform, as if nature had created a king-sized mattress here.

Or something else had, she thought, and didn’t know why the thought was so compelling.

Anna hid her rising unease with a smile.

Because when she had wanted to get out of the moving car, and when she had told him, “This has been a fun hike and all, but I think I am done,” he’d twisted her thinking so she suddenly decided it was a good idea to go along with him after all. And she didn’t want him to do it again.

“You need to wait in here for me,” Zander said. He leaned forward and kissed her, lightly at first and then openmouthed.

She didn’t fight him—and that was an effort. But she wanted him to go away. Letting him kiss her seemed like the fastest way to that end.

She was also starting to feel panicky about the things that her nose was telling her. She had a bad feeling about what was going to happen in this cave that smelled of some primordial ocean. And death.

But she couldn’t make herself kiss him back.

He pulled away and gave her a quizzical look. “Tough nut,” he said, touching her bottom lip with his thumb. He’d figured out that she was starting to think for herself. Before she could decide what to do about that, he pulled her against him, as if they were slow dancing, and began to sing.

She could feel him aroused against her—and that focused her attention. She didn’t want this—whatever this was. She needed to get out of here.

She was very much afraid that meant she needed to figure out what was beyond this room. What it was that smelled like death, and what smelled of magic and old power.

Wait.

If she had listened to that inner voice in the first place, if she’d run when they got out of the Suburban, she might be back in that hotel by the river. She thought of the miles they had driven and amended herself. She would at least be on the way to the river by now—though an odd part of her remained convinced she could have made it to the river.

He stepped back and shook his head, then walked over to a dark corner of the room and pulled out an instrument case. If he hadn’t been standing between her and the tunnel, she’d have taken her chances. But without a head start, she wasn’t going to be able to get far enough into the tunnel fast enough that he couldn’t simply grab her ankles and drag her out.

She wondered why he’d brought her here. The kisses—and that bed—were making her very uncomfortable.

Wait.

He pulled out a mandolin that was a lot older than the case it was stored in. As he began tuning, he said, “You are not going to be hurt, Anna.”

She’d had a dentist who used to say that right before he stuck the needle in. It was a lie then—and it was a lie now. Even if he thought he was telling the truth.

And then he began to play. She loved music—it spoke to her, and always had. It gave her joy when she was sad and comforted her when she was afraid. And she had been so afraid.

After a while he put the mandolin back in its case.

“Hello, Anna,” he said.

“Hey, Zander.” She gave him a shy smile.

“How old are you?”

She laughed. “Jailbait for you. Seventeen.”

“Good,” he said. “Would you go sit on the bed and wait for me? I won’t be a long time. Maybe a half hour.”

She didn’t mind waiting. She liked to use downtime to work through the solo that she was going to play for auditions for Northwestern. There were a couple of spots that weren’t as smooth as they could be. And she still wasn’t sure that slowing down that movement in the middle a little more wouldn’t make the music better, even if it might mean that the adjudicators thought she was doing it to make the piece easier.

He gave her a soft kiss she didn’t pay much attention to and then gently propelled her to the bed. She couldn’t help wrinkling her nose. The sleeping bags had been here long enough to absorb the smell of death and whatever that other weird scent was. It wasn’t a pleasant smell. Her instincts told her not to react. There was something wrong here, and she needed him to go away.

“All right?” he asked.

She wished he’d shut up; she wanted to work on her music. If she’d been a mathematician, she would have solved equations or counted in prime numbers or something. Music would clear her head.

She gave him a perfunctory smile. “Yes, fine.”

He watched her for a second, then he nodded and walked out.

As soon as he was out of sight, something rose out of the hollow place inside her, something vibrating with life and strength and rage. Her hands curled and every muscle in her body tensed. She needed to get out of here. Her head was foggy as all hell, but she knew that much.