To Hell and Back by L.B. Gilbert

Chapter Twenty

Valeria would have been a terrible poker player.

The human card game was very popular among his men. They had learned it three decades ago, and like any endeavor requiring skill and money, they had mastered it.

Rhys wasn’t the best in the clan, but his subordinates insisted his ‘poker face’ was superior to theirs. His guest didn’t have one. Or, if she did, it did not occur to her to use it with him. He found that comforting.

“What happened?” she asked in a solemn tone.

He shouldn’t say. The story revealed their vulnerability, something he’d drummed into his men’s heads never to do. But keeping anything from Valeria was futile. If she wished to know something, he would tell her, even if the memories drew blood.

“We arrived when the civilizations on this world were young, primitive. It would have been safe enough to sleep. But we had learned the lessons taught by fire and bloodshed,” he said. “Our clan leader, Markus, knew that things could change in a blink, our safety compromised.”

She blinked rapidly. “You weren’t the leader?”

“No, I served as second as Naveen serves now,” Rhys said. “When Markus gathered our people here, he told us that the rest of us could sleep. He would stay awake to guard us during our sleep, to protect us in our most vulnerable state.”

“But you didn’t sleep.” It was a statement, not a question.

“Not then. Not right away. We had seen too much for me to feel comfortable leaving without keeping tabs on the humans around us. I was the one who suggested that more should stay awake—one to stay on the mountain to guard the sleepers and two or three who would go out in the world and interact with the local inhabitants.”

“That sounds reasonable,” she murmured.

He lifted a shoulder. “We had seen civilizations become stagnant and wither away, but also grow in leaps and bounds. It could happen overnight, I argued. We had to keep abreast of human advances.”

“To monitor them for threats?” she asked.

“Yes,” he confirmed. “And to better emulate them if and when we chose to move among them.”

There was a hint of amusement in her voice. “And perhaps to hunt for treasure?”

Valeria did understand his kind. He nodded. “That and we were not averse to exploration in and of itself. We like the variety—mountains, valleys, deserts, and vast oceans. Such diversity is uncommon in the cosmos.”

She absorbed that for a moment. “What changed?”

“Not much, not for a long time. Most of our people slept, waking for a few years, but always going back to sleep in large numbers. Only a handful of us was awake at one time.” He took his hand off the lid of the sarcophagus, his anger climbing suddenly but tightly controlled.

“I was one of the few who went out into the world. I enjoyed the exploration. There were many interesting sights to see, though I could not avoid the city centers when they developed.”

“Much as you wanted to,” she added.

He shrugged. “I have some issues with mankind, but mainly that’s because I see them repeating our mistakes.”

Rhys glanced down at the sarcophagus, his hand hovering over it as if he was contemplating smashing it with his bare hands.

“I made a mistake,” he said, his voice flat. “We were so concerned with threats from the outside, we forgot to look for the rot within.”

“You had a traitor?”

His facial muscles tightened. He felt as if they’d frozen into stone, the same kind they’d carved their sarcophagi. “Not exactly.”

He studied her face. Such a familiar stranger. Although it was bizarre how much stronger she seemed than the fragile beauty he remembered.

She’s been tempered in a crucible. Well, they had that in common.

“Markus. He’d been our leader a long time. He brought us through endless war, times of scarcity to eras of prosperity, and back again. Then here, when we were finally at peace, but broken…we left him alone too long, ignored the signs of his madness.”

He wasn’t looking at her, but he heard her sharp intake of breath.

She covered her face with her hands. “He killed them while they were sleeping, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

* * *

Rhys frozewhen she wrapped her arms around him, but she held on.

This frustrating rigid man, she thought. Despite his secretiveness and the continued mystery of the unnamed woman, Valeria couldn’t stifle the impulse to comfort him. So, she pressed herself against him, her forehead resting on his back, hugging him around the middle with all her strength.

He craned his neck in a futile attempt to look back. But he didn’t shove her arms off. It was the first time she’d touched him willingly.

“Don’t dragons hug when they want to comfort each other?” she asked, her mouth muffled against his muscular back.

There was a hesitation as if he were thinking about it. “The women.”

“But not the men?”

“Maybe as children. It’s been so long that I no longer remember.”

Moving her hand up the carved surface of his chest, she covered his heart with her palm.

His voice was whisper soft. “It’s lower and to the left on us.”

Adjusting accordingly, she lifted her head away a fraction, surprised at the powerful drum under her fingers. “Does it always beat this fast?”

“No. But I don’t think it will calm enough for you to learn its normal rhythm.”

She rubbed her cheek against his vest. Today it was some sort of suede, not leather. “I don’t understand.”

“My heart won’t settle into a normal rhythm unless you let go. But it will speed back up if you touch me again. A Catch-22.”

Damn. Now she wanted to squeeze him harder, an impossibility given the unyielding density of his muscles. “Did you read Heller?”

His hand came to rest on top of hers tentatively, as if he was concerned their touch wasn’t reciprocal and his would somehow be unwelcome. “I may not be entirely comfortable around humans, but I do like many of the books they write.”

She turned her head, rubbing her face against his back to rest her other cheek against him. Aware she was rubbing against him like a cat, she stopped. “Tell me about Markus,” she said quietly.

“He was the oldest of us. He was the model for everything I wanted to be. We trusted him implicitly, and why not? He had proven himself again and again in battle.”

“But when you came here, things were different. You no longer had a war to fight.”

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” he mused, his voice like sandpaper. “How the mind grows accustomed to strife and blood, but can’t handle the quiet.”

He shifted, but not enough to break her hold. “Only three of us were awake when he…back then. Naveen and I were traveling. He was exploring in Australia. I was in Vienna.”

His hand closed over her waist, fingers convulsing. It was too tight, but before she could complain, he relaxed them slowly as if it took a great effort.

“For the first time since coming to Earth, I was happy. I had found something in Vienna—the greatest treasure of my life. But then Naveen and I received word that all was not well at home.”

“From who?”

Rhys turned and took a deep breath, one so expansive his chest touched hers briefly. “It doesn’t matter.”

“All right,” she said, hating the look in his eyes. Half of her contemplated shutting up, but she couldn’t. And it wasn’t curiosity but that damnable instinct of hers. It was telling her to keep pushing. Because he needed to talk about it.

“Then what happened?”

Rhys’ gaze swept the chamber. “He was down here. The lids were off, the boxes overturned, and—”

He broke off. “We made the mistake of putting our most vulnerable together in the center. Our old wise ones were not infirm. Not as you would define it…but they were no match for him.”

“Did they wake up and put a fight?”

“Some. When the threat finally registered. But it was too late. The somnara is hard to shake off. It takes days to fully wake, sometimes weeks. Our few younglings were already dead. Their bodies were too fragile.”

“Oh, God.” Her hands flew up to cover her mouth.

Valeria wasn’t sure she wanted to hear anymore, but the words kept spilling out of him now as if he were purging them from his soul.

“There were only three women among our number, but he had already killed one. I supposed it was a blessing that he was working his way from the inside out. Else he would have killed Sanaa. That would have been devastating. She is the clan’s little sister, and she occupies a special place in the hearts of many of our warriors. Her berth was next when I came in.”

His voice was low, but it seemed to vibrate in this huge, lifeless chamber, an echo of the past.

“You killed him.”

“I had no choice.”

She reached out to touch the lid of the carved coffin in front of her. “Is he here?”

“Only his heart.”

Valeria flinched, but Rhys knew it couldn’t be helped. He would not hide that side of him, the part that did not forgive.

“He was our leader, and he led true for many years. But his mind became diseased. It lies with his bones, elsewhere, in an unmarked grave.”

This time when she hugged him, she rested her head against his heart.

“I’m sorry.”

He couldn’t help stroking the silk strands of her hair. “So am I…you have no idea how much.”