I can explore as many caves as I have articles of clothing.
If only the problem of Killan was so easily solved.
Killan
Some distance away, Lydia tips her head back, tracking the pattern of kameen crystal in the ceiling with her gaze. She has been like this for hours, and she spent most of yesterday the same—exploring caves with the special pleasure that comes with it being her first time down here.
I remember feeling that same way as a child.
I cannot keep my eyes off her, relishing the awe with which she examines my home planet. Even separated by the vast expanse of this cave and hidden in the shadows, I am mesmerized by the way her brow creases as she studies the lines of crystal. The distracted and careless way she pushes her too-long hairs away from her face. The way her shoulders slope forward, ever so slightly, when she is calm and loose-limbed.
I pretend she is looking at me like that—her eyes heavy-lidded, her bottom lip trapped between her blunt teeth. My cock twitches in response.
The silence of the underground is suddenly oppressive. I swear every strained breath of mine echoes off the walls, and I freeze, convinced Lydia will turn around and see me spying on her, my head filled with perverse thoughts of how I would like to press her against the nearest stalagmite and fuck her senseless.
Would she be able to read my thoughts in my expression? Would she take one look at me, across the vast expanse of the cave, and know exactly how completely I crave her touch?
“What the hell?” Lydia’s voice is edged with sharpness.
Renewed tension grabs me, but she has not sighted me. Instead, she has her hands on her hips and is still staring at the cave ceiling where the lines of kameen crystal are thickest, bands of light through the otherwise black rock. The crystals havealways reminded me of algae, a web of threads tangled together, and the ceiling of this particular cave is covered in them, leaving hardly any space free for stalactites to form.
Is it…moving? But that is not possible. It must be a trick of the shadows. Crystal does not move. Rock walls certainly do not move, not ones four stories underground.
Unless…
Dust drifts lazily through the air, and Lydia raises a hand, as if to catch the particles on her palm.
I surge forward.
Chapter Sixteen
Lydia
Ifrown at the ceiling, watching as the cracks in which the crystal has formed slowly widen. Only by an inch or so, nothing too dramatic. Stones don’t come tumbling down from the ceiling or anything dangerous like that. It still freaks me out a bit, mainly because it’s followed by a rolling, rumbling sound, like what you’d hear at the beach when a great wave of water is rushing toward you.
Rock dust sparkles in the light, looking like glitter. Or snow. I raise a hand to catch some. Unfortunately, they aren’t soft like snow. They actually feel more like sandpaper, chafing my skin when I close my hand into a fist. I try blowing them away, even as more land on my hair and catch in my eyelashes.
I take a hasty step back, but there’s dust falling from the ceiling everywhere I look and nowhere to shelter. I cup a hand over my mouth and nose, suddenly thinking about how dust gives me asthma, and I grab my torch in my other hand, intending to beat a hasty exit out of here, right as more movement catches my attention.
There’s something in the darkness, something big. Something…person shaped.
“Killan?” I’m still trying to work out if it’s really him as he comes charging into the circle of my light. I don’t have time to say anything else before he wraps all three arms around me.
My heart leaps into my mouth, and for one wild moment I think he’s going to kiss me again. But his momentum doesn’t slow, and my feet leave the floor as he pushes me backward, slamming us against the cave wall.
The air whooshes out of my lungs with the force, and pain radiates along my back, where the uneven rock digs into my hips. But all that is forgotten as black water erupts from the ceiling.
Killan
Water slams against my back, and I hunch further over, shielding Lydia from the impact. Stalactites are torn from the ceiling, raining down on us as if they too are water, and the stalagmites are crushed under their combined weight.
I shield my head with a hand, clutching Lydia to my chest with my other two. I think she screams. Or mayhaps I only imagine that she does. It is impossible to hear anything over the water, as it rushes through the newly expanded crack in the ceiling. It is already as high as my calves, and then something much harder strikes me, and my knees nearly give way as pain lances through my skull.
I keep upright by sheer force of will, my head spinning and water dragging on my legs like a thousand hands desperate to pull us under.
It stops as fast as it started, and Lydia catches me as I keel over. She is not strong enough to hold me up, though, and she staggers under my weight. I tell myself to straighten. I tell myself to step away from her, but nothing happens. It is as if my thoughts get lost on their way down to my legs.
“Killan? Killan!” Lydia is breathless. Water has glued her pink hairs to the sides of her face and throat. For a second, it looks like blood, but only because my vision is blurry. Was it a stalactite that hit my head, or a stone, finally dislodged from the ceiling by the deluge of water?
