The Captive King_A Royal States Novel Read online

  The onslaught of flattery and questions about Mexica tribe culture led me to believe he wanted more than sex from me, and translations topped my list of suspicions. While I choked down rice brutally tortured with chili peppers, he talked, and he rambled about the site’s architecture, a classic blend of Nahua and Maya.

  While listening to him regurgitate everything I already knew, I considered what he wasn’t telling me: the reason the Maya temple was so close to the Nahua palace.

  I doubted Sebastian had half a clue about the real reasons why anything happened at one of the blended sites, and he confirmed it when he asked, “Why would they have so many of these discs in an auxiliary temple dedicated to an opposing culture?”

  I wrinkled my nose at the misconception that Nahua and Maya cultures opposed; they shared a lot of traits. The Maya had a reputation of being more peaceful than many other tribes, but I had seen enough evidence to realize they were just as violent and mired in human sacrifice as the Nahua.

  They just approached life—and human sacrifice—in different ways.

  Sebastian scowled. “Come on, Summer. Don’t retreat into your happy place now. It’s driving us all insane.”

  I was so tempted to let him stew while I finished eating the nuclear waste thinly disguised as food. “It depends on a lot of things.”

  “Like what?”

  I shoveled more rice into my mouth so I wouldn’t smack him with the metal plate for asking stupid questions. Swallowing, I grabbed my canteen and took a swallow, which only made the heat worse. “What the discs say. I’ll look at them in the morning.”

  “Not going to be lured into having a look tonight? We’re curious. You should mix work and play tonight.”

  “While I’m tired, I’m completely willing to bury you neck deep, Sebastian. And yes, approach my tent tonight at your own peril.”

  “So cruel.”

  Damned whiner. “Please go back to your own tent.”

  Sebastian took the hint, although it didn’t erase his cocky grin. “You’ve had a long day. I’m sure you’ll find me more charming in the morning. I won’t linger—for now.”

  “Wise.” I set my dinner aside and glared at him until he crawled out of my tent. Once certain he was gone, I reached through the flap and pressed my palm to the mud, closed my eyes, and concentrated on the ground around me.

  I’d been right; I had felt something beneath the dirt pile, a small temple if I judged by its feel and shape.

  Blood left its mark on the Earth, and a lot of it had been spilled long ago.

  The dump site was only five or six feet deep, and the temple was only a couple of feet beneath it, which made me laugh. How long had the team been sleeping atop another ruin, completely unaware? Unless I damaged the site, it would limit the traps I could set, but I’d make do.

  I smiled at the thought of Sebastian waking up in the morning to discover my tent perched above a new temple he hadn’t found. The rain made my work easier, and the ground moved at my thought, my hand warming as my talent flowed through me. I formed a channel to drain the liquefying mud, draining it away from the temple below. I dug a trench deep enough to reach the temple’s upper level, made it five feet wide to give diggers room to work, and refilled it with oozing mud. The excess flowed over the camp, but I tried to be courteous; I directed most of the muck to the jungle.

  In the morning, assuming no one bothered me, I’d clean up after myself and show Sebastian my find.

  No one bothered me. True to Sebastian’s prediction, the weather continued to rage. The rain fell in a torrent, and without his waveweaving talent, the deluge would’ve drowned us. As it was, the water filled my trench.

  Other archaeologists would’ve been dismayed; a flooded dig site could turn treacherous. I loved it. It made my work so much easier. Poking my head out of my tent, I examined my moat, giggling at the rain splashing into the mud. Reaching out, I dipped my finger into the water and concentrated for a better feel of the temple beneath me.

  It had three steps, and I could sense five sacrificial altars, one at the apex of the temple, and four at the cardinal points of the second tier, separated by stone steps. While Sebastian wondered about his stone discs, I wanted to know why one small temple had five altars.

  When it came to human sacrifice, the tribes were meticulous; they believed the blood of a live sacrifice protected the world from destruction. To the Nahua and the Maya, their rituals were a matter of survival.

  I’d already done the hard part; I’d found—and uncovered—the temple.

  Sebastian would just have to cope with the job of making sense of my discovery, and if he knew what was good for him, he’d give me the proper credit. Until I had my doctorate, I’d be lucky if I get a footnote mention in a scientific journal.

  “Damn it, Summer!” Sebastian bellowed. “Can’t you go to a single one of my sites without adding to my work?”

  If he didn’t want me adding to his work, he needed to get his ass in gear and stop leaving interesting ruins for me to find. “For that, you owe me credit. It’s not my fault you didn’t run a scanner under your camp. I’m even helping you dig.”

  To show him how helpful I was, I broke the retaining wall keeping the goopy mud and standing water contained in the moat. It drained out, tearing chunks of dirt away from the carved stones beneath. The released muck flooded through the camp, and as I wasn’t above having a little fun with the camp, I avoided only the tents and kept it below knee deep.

  A little mud wouldn’t hurt anyone, especially when I made a point of diverting the full force of the flood away from the men I taunted with my magic.

  “Would you stop that? You’ve already dumped six inches of mud everywhere. Do you really have to add to it?”

  I flipped my middle fingers at him, slipped back into the tent, and got changed, putting on Landen’s dress shirt along with a white bra as return fire. Sebastian couldn’t touch me. Sebastian’s team couldn’t touch me.

  I’d remind them women were swords, sharp and ready to fight.

  It would remind them I could be attractive and work in the mud—and protect myself. The team knew I could work my talent as I claimed. They wouldn’t risk their lives for a little action, not even the more aggressive men.

  I’d never killed anyone, but I’d gotten close once—and no one had tried anything since.

  I emerged from the tent and stood in the rain.

  “Whose shirt is that?” Sebastian demanded.

  Jealous made Sebastian an ugly man, and he wasn’t all that pretty on a good day. “A man I’d like to take home with me. In short, none of your business.”

  Landen’s shirt was as much of a shield as my magic; it sent an important message there was someone out there I liked. Landen’s shirt didn’t fit me well, and it was just worn enough to be obvious it belonged to someone else.

  I concentrated on the temple beneath me, pulling more mud away from the stones below, binding the stickier clay together into an arch capable of supporting my weight. Striding across, I joined Sebastian on the other side of the trench before releasing my talent.

  The arch stubbornly resisted the deluge, and I helped it along so it wouldn’t stay as a permanent reminder of my presence in the camp.

  “Could you please refrain from rearranging my dig site?”

  “You should be grateful I found a temple for you.”

  “I wanted to leave this hellhole sometime this year.”

  I canted my head and lifted a brow. “Not prestigious enough for you?”

  Sebastian glared at me. “You don’t have to get nasty about it.”

  “You have a new temple and a gold body. How much more prestigious do you need? It doesn’t get any better than this.”

  “It’s not Egypt—it’s not the true myths and lore. I want to discover something important. Atlantis. The Holy Grail. The Greek gods. Something more than this.”

  While I thought he was insane, I accepted what I couldn’t change with a shrug. “I’ll he
lp you uncover the temple, but you’re crediting me with the find and the translation work—and a good credit, not a last page footnote claiming I was there. An actual credit for the discovery.”

  I wanted more, too—and I was certain he’d find a way to screw me out of my prize, probably by listing me absolutely last on the credit find and tossing in the grunt labor before me to ensure I stayed off the radar of those in the archaeological community.

  The University of Florida didn’t want to lose its best earthweaver with a knack for finding new things. It also didn’t want to pay me fairly, either.

  I wanted to hate Landen for shoving the truth in my face, but I couldn’t. He’d been right.

  “You play hardball. You know you’ll save me months here, so you’re going to hold me by the balls on this.”

  I shuddered. “I don’t want anything to do with your balls. You want out of here, I want my talent, expertise, and discoveries credited. It’s not a bad deal for you.”

  “It won’t help you defend your dissertation.”

  My talent promised an obsidian sacrificial dagger waited somewhere in the temple I’d unveiled, and I was so tempted to excavate it, clear off the nearest altar, and bend Sebastian over it. “It’ll build my reputation, so when I quit school, I’ll have prospects. I’m filing my withdrawal as soon as I’m near civilization.”

  His eyes widened. “What? Why?”

  “I’m being used, and everyone knows it.”

  The moment he realized I meant it, that the game was up, he grimaced. “Fair enough.”

  I wasn’t going to let him get off lightly for being an activate participant in it, either. “I’m tired of receiving a low stipend, being deliberately failed so I can be cheap labor, and frankly, I’ll apply to a different university to finish my PhD.”

  “You’re not going to try to defend your dissertation? It’s coming up soon.”

  “No, I’m not.” If I ever saw Landen again, I’d thank him for voicing so many of my concerns, none of which I’d been brave enough to talk about to anyone. “If I’m going to be stuck digging, I want fair pay and credit.”

  With my talent, I could work almost any site I wanted. With a doctorate—any doctorate—I’d have the required education to be involved with the site planning. I’d never lead the team, but something was better than nothing.

  “Give me four hours today, and I’ll get you the credits you want—and tell Owen I barred you from leaving because of the weather. You’re useful to no one dead.”

  It was the best I’d get, and we both knew it. “Deal.”

  I regretted my decision the instant I saw the primary dig site.

  If I murdered Sebastian, my career would end, but would anyone really blame me? The haphazard excavation promised death or injury to any worker stupid enough to climb into the unreinforced trench to work at the temple’s partially cleared levels. Worse, enough loose dirt clung to the upper levels that one bad sneeze—or some excess rain—might bring the whole thing down, filling the trench.

  What sort of idiot dug from the bottom up?

  Why? Why? Why?

  That I didn’t have an answer infuriated me so much my talent boiled under my skin and escaped to wreak havoc on the subject of my loathing.

  Dirt exploded into the torrential rains and fell in clumps of mud and stone. I diverted the larger rocks away from the site workers, although I was tempted to pelt Sebastian with the entire mess of it to teach him a few lessons about site safety.

  The ground trembled, and the earth burying most of the temple fled from my fury.

  I longed to smother the ass responsible for burrowing to reach the good parts of the site. Instead of entombing Dr. Sebastian Hoover, Crown Prince of Assholes, I relocated the dirt to the end of the road and created a twenty-found mound.

  After the flaring came the fainting, a fate I deserved for losing my temper in the first place. I had no memory of tumbling into the trench, although the throb in my skull warned I’d hit something on the way down.

  Sebastian was a reckless moron, but I was an incurable idiot.

  There was only one piece of good news. I hadn’t stayed unconscious for long; Sebastian hadn’t reached me before I’d come to terms with my stupidity.

  “I didn’t mean for you to do all four hours at once, you… you…”

  As I deserved a stern lecture and insults aplenty thrown my way, I waited out the storm, which involved a great deal of spluttering, foot stomping, and exasperated sighs.

  I counted the throbbing beat in my skull to judge time.

  Five minutes after reaching me, Sebastian snarled a few curses before asking, “Are you all right?”

  “I’m just dandy,” I lied, and as he seemed ready to embrace coherency, I began testing my wrists and ankles to confirm I hadn’t broken them on my way down. The twinges in my left wrist and right foot indicated I’d done something, but it didn’t hurt enough for a break, so I judged the injuries mild sprains at worse. I’d shut the hell up and keep my head low about it. Unless I couldn’t walk, I’d pretend they didn’t exist.

  I could nurse my injured pride—and my sprains—in private. With a bit of effort and some patience, I could even fashion mud casts for myself, far better than what hospitals had to offer.

  “Next time, dig out the damned temple properly.” I considered shackling him with some of the natural stones littering the dig site. If I shackled him, I could have my way with his site, set it up so everyone could work in safety, and crow over his captive ass until he learned his lesson. Did the man want me to publicly humiliate him?

  “All right, all right. Point taken.”

  “We’re never going to discuss this incident ever again.” I clacked my teeth together so I wouldn’t groan and got up with a little help from a nearby boulder, a victim of my temper tantrum.

  Had it hit someone, I would’ve killed them. Only my subconscious desire to preserve the site had made the damned thing fall where it had; any farther in any direction, and I would’ve crushed part of the ruins.

  I really needed to do a better job of keeping my anger corked when it came to Sebastian and his lack of work ethics. I could’ve told him exactly why he wasn’t in Egypt, and it involved his tendency to cut corners because the grunt work wasn’t prestigious enough for him.

  The sky grumbled curses, and I glared up at the dark clouds. “How long is this damned storm going to last?”

  “Tomorrow night. I already told you I’d tell Owen why you’re late.”

  “If you need any actual hours, you’re going to have to bribe me. You got a fair run,” I declared, pointing at my handiwork.

  The twenty footer was closer to forty feet, and without a shroud of mud covering it, anyone with a functioning pair of eyes would recognize it as a treasure. Carvings covered it from base to tip, a fortune of runes waiting to be translated by an industrious linguist.

  I didn’t even have to look long to confirm there was a mixed hat of languages; the Nahuatl and Mayan I expected, but there was another set of runes in a language I didn’t recognize. I tested my ankle to confirm it could hold my weight before stepping closer to investigate.

  While my focus was on Nahuatl and Mayan, I’d explored most languages used by ancient Mexica tribes, and none of them had the same flare, focus on curves, and style of pictures. It was as though someone had started using the Mexica languages as a base and transformed it into art—art they’d then encrusted with cinnabar to turn it a vibrant, lethal red.

  “Cinnabar,” I warned, pointing at the runes. Skin contact could lead to rashes, and if it got into the airways, it became a brutal way to die. While cinnabar, mercury sulfite, wasn’t nearly as lethal as elemental mercury, dead was dead.

  The shaking started in my hands, and if I made the mistake of closing my eyes, I’d remember Sam, Will, and Daniel. They’d insisted on going into the temple at Site C first. I’d tapped my talent out making the structure safe.

  I’d warned them there was cinnabar inside in quan
tity enough I could readily detect.

  They hadn’t listened, and when they’d fallen through a trap door, they’d been completely submerged in the brilliant red powder. I’d heard them scream, and I’d used the last scraps of my strength to move the cinnabar, but too late.

  They had died. I’d been covered head to toe in vermillion pigment. My talent had kept it from getting into my lungs or bloodstream, but it hadn’t spared me from the rashes.

  “That’s definitely cinnabar. How the hell did your talent preserve it?” Sebastian joined me, leaning over for a better look at the writing on the stones. “Has anyone ever told you that your talent is absolutely ridiculous?”

  Considering I had a middling talent, no one had, but I wouldn’t let Sebastian think he was the first. “Not to my face.”

  “Smart. I’ll show you the discs and the body, then you can sleep it off in my tent. No one will bother you, not even me. Promise. It’s large enough for two, and for some reason, I don’t think you’ll be making it to yours without a ladder and an intervention.”

  “Thanks, but no. If I can’t reach my tent, I’ll make a fort in my dirt pile, just hook me up with a sleeping bag.”

  “My tent would be more comfortable.”

  “I have an allergy to sharing a tent with men.”

  “Yet you’re wearing another man’s shirt.”

  “I’ll take an antihistamine if he shows up.”

  Landen wouldn’t, and I was happy enough with that. We’d had a happy ending, I’d left with a fond memory, and he’d given me hope there were still good men left in the world. I just had to look a little harder to find them.

  The climb winded me, but it gave me a good view of the ancient city. The so-called palace wasn’t nearly large enough to be a real palace; the one at Site C was three times the size, which told me one thing: Sebastian hadn’t found Los Horcones’s palace.