Lord Dragon's Conquest. Sharon Ashwood
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her fingers clumsy as she unzipped her backpack and rummaged through it. Switzer was going to have a stroke when she, a mere junior prof, came back to camp with a find like this. The dig season hadn’t produced anything of note, and she was going to need to fight like a mountain cat to retain credit for the discovery. This could make your career. And yet part of her didn’t care. She was happy simply to find and share an amazing gift from the past. She stood, propping the flashlight on one of the large boulders. Then she positioned a ruler next to the paintings to establish scale. Then, with deep reverence, she raised the camera in her other hand and took a series of photos, the shutter loud and the flash blazing in the darkness.
The brightness was just fading when something scuffled behind her. Keltie wheeled around, blinking the brightness of the flash from her eyes. It took her a moment to find the still figure on the other side of the boulder-strewn space. She could only see him from the waist up—there were too many rocks in the way—but what she saw arrested her.
At six feet, Keltie could look most men in the eye, but she had to crane her neck to meet this one’s gaze. As she did, she noticed a set of broad shoulders in perfect proportion to his towering frame. Somewhere deep inside she felt a primitive twist of satisfaction that here, finally, was a man whose body would fit with hers, but caution quickly swept that feeling away. She was alone, he was a stranger, and there were no campgrounds this far into the mountains, to explain his presence.
“Who are you?” she demanded with businesslike authority.
No answer. He remained still for a long moment, camouflaged by the shadows, and then slowly began to move closer. Although he carried no light, he navigated the stony floor with graceful ease. Either he knew the cave well or had eyes like a bat. Uncertainty tugged at Keltie, and she slipped the camera she’d been using back into her pack and gripped the hard rubber handle of her flashlight. It would make a decent weapon.
He stopped when he was a dozen feet away, just at the edge of her light. His face was strong-boned, with straight brows and a long blade of a nose. Thick, dark hair swept back from a wide forehead. He might have been handsome, but his expression was too forceful. Somehow it put him beyond common good looks. The only softness was in the curve of his lip, a sensual fullness that sparked Keltie’s imagination. Who was this guy?
“Are you looking for Dr. Switzer’s team?” she asked, less self-assured this time. He didn’t look like someone in search of archaeologists, but what else would he be doing here? Her gaze worked its way up from his mouth to his eyes, and she felt hot prickles flood her skin. He was giving her the same once-over, eyes glittering in the uncertain light.
“I do not know Dr. Switzer,” he replied. He spoke softly, his voice low and clear. He had an unfamiliar accent—not French or German, but something in between. And sexy as hell.
For an instant, Switzer’s name meant nothing to her, either. Then she dragged her thoughts back into some sort of order. She sucked in a deep breath, suddenly needing air. “Then where are you camped? I didn’t think anyone else was up here.”
“I belong here,” he said. “I am Larkan.”
He stepped forward into her beam of light, and for the first time she noticed his clothes. They looked more homespun and leather than department store—issue, and he hadn’t bothered to button his shirt, leaving bare an expanse of muscular chest. She’d grown up on farms and in work camps and recognized this kind of build as one that came from hard work rather than a weight machine. Maybe he was one of those back-to-the-land types and he had a cabin somewhere deep in the forest.
She wet her lips, suddenly feeling the dryness of the cave. “I’m with the archaeological team. My name is Keltie Clarke.”
“Keltie,” he said the name experimentally, making it sound like an exotic dessert. Then he folded his arms across his chest. The gesture did things to his biceps that, for an entire thump of her heart, made her forget about the paintings.
Heat flooded her skin. She should be worrying about protecting the site. Diagramming. But instead she was staring like a tween at a man in a cave. A caveman. She had a horrible urge to laugh.
Green eyes held hers in a direct, considering regard. “Your team should leave.”
His words snapped her back to reality. “Why do you say that?”
He reached out a hand, his fingertips just shy of brushing her shoulder. “This place is perilous.”
“Oh? Where is your safety gear? You don’t even have a flashlight.”
A wry look crossed his face, almost as if she’d said something amusing. “I’m used to working in the dark.”
“Doing what?”
“You ask a great many questions.” He waved a hand toward the cave entrance. “I come here often for the view.”
“I thought you worked in the dark.”
“Ah. But on a clear day, it is possible to see all the way across the far valleys.”
This time he smiled widely, and it was heart-stopping. Even brain-stopping. Keltie’s tongue refused to work for long, painful seconds. This was awful—she hadn’t felt this awkward since she’d been twelve. Something save me! An avalanche would do.
Her curiosity came to her rescue. “Speaking of the view, do you know anything about these paintings?”
Larkan followed her pointing hand and shook his head, seeming completely uninterested. “They’re old. No one knows who made them.”
She was about to ask who he’d talked to, but a dry, slithering sound came from somewhere behind Larkan and made her jump. They both turned toward the deep shadows at the back of the cave. In the same instant a new scent filled the air. It was leathery, reminding Keltie of the worn pilot’s jacket her father used to wear. And then there was a scraping noise like bone against rock. Something in that rasp—so much like claws or the slide of fang on rib cage—sent panic jolting up her spine. She recoiled a step, her mind scrambling to put an image to that sound.
Larkan spun to face her, and before she could react he was pushing her back to the outer cave. “You must leave. Now.”
He was strong, but Keltie wasn’t about to be manhandled—not this way, anyhow. She shoved back. “Let go of me. What’s back there?”
“I said there was danger.”
Behind Larkan, she caught a glimpse of wings, webbed and angular like a prehistoric bird’s. They seemed huge, melding with the gloom of the cave as if they were made from shadows. From at least ten feet in the air ghastly yellow eyes glared into the beam of her flashlight. Keltie felt her jaw drop for an awful moment as every muscle froze in terrified astonishment. She’d faced down bulls, angry sows and even a bear, but this was more menacing. “What is that thing?”
“Run!” Larkan commanded.
This time she obeyed, snatching up her backpack. She spun and bolted for the passage to the outer cave, her pack banging against her side. She didn’t stop until she’d burst into the sunshine, feeling the heat of it surround her like armor. Whatever lived in that dark place wasn’t meant for the light of day. She was safe.
Or so she hoped. She ran and ran, making it halfway down the mountain before she realized that she was alone. Panting, Keltie stopped, letting her backpack slide to the grass. Where was Larkan? What had just happened? She remembered his command to run. Had he come with her partway and stopped somewhere along the winding trail?
And then...she recalled a faint glimpse of the man as he had turned to stand firmly in the path of the Thing. He had been between her and it, guarding her retreat.
Stunned, Keltie remained motionless as the soft mountain breeze swirled past, smelling at once of green leaves and distant snow. Then she dropped to her knees, suddenly overwhelmed. No one had ever done anything like that for her before. She wasn’t the delicate, fragile type that men rescued.
A rush of hot emotion flooded her—a mix of guilt,