Two T-Rexes fighting a ridiculously huge snake should also be impossible, but I sure as shit watched that happen. Impossible, it seems, is a frame of mind. I snort, and then cough as I choke on more dust.

The images aren’t friendly ones. No, not at all. There’s the snake, which seems to be a theme of this swamp-ass planet, but it’s not eating the friendly neighborhood dinosaur.

No. It’s eating something with arms and legs and a Suevan shaped body.

Fuuuck.

“Kanuz,” I say, quiet dread flooding me. Water drips from my hair to the floor, loud in his sudden silence. “Where did you take us?”

“Wife, do not touch anything here,” Kanuz says. “There are many signs and statues, look at all the letters!”

I sigh in annoyance and frustration. Stupid translator.

“Why is this snake eating people?” I ask him, knowing I’m not going to get an answer. One I understand, in any case. I continue to rub away the accumulation of dirt and dust, stepping carefully around the random debris.

The carvings continue beneath a thick vine, and I tug at it, curious about what the hell this place is. The vine falls away easily under my hand, releasing an herbal fragrance as it gives way. It’s a big improvement on the smell of the swamp. Massive. Huge. I inhale deeply, trying to resuscitate my sense of smell. Olfactory CPR.

Kanuz crowds behind me, so close the heat from his body warms my bare back. I expected him to be cool to the touch, at first, like a reptile. But he’s not, he’s warmer even than me, a fact I haven’t taken for granted when the nights turn cold. “This is not human place, snake worship eat chicken.”

“Thanks,” I say. “Great.”

I’d much rather think about what the story is behind this temple than chase the same depressing thoughts like a hamster on a wheel.

A snake statue protrudes from the wall, dipping in and out of it. Here, the wall is carved to resemble a pool of water, rippling around where the body of the stone snake disappears into it.

“Oh, wow.” Each scale is so neatly articulated, and as I run my fingers over it, the grime gives way to something polished and shining. It’s not stone at all, but some kind of gem.

“This is gorgeous.” A thrill goes through me at finding something so unexpectedly beautiful. As I scrub the dust and leaf debris away, a deep, shimmering purple is revealed, each scale carved so carefully it almost seems real. “Not real sure I can get down with the giant snake worship or whatever you have going on here, but this is cool all the same.”

The exasperated sound Kanuz makes is so human, I can’t help but snort as I glance over my shoulder at him. His long thick hair’s braided back, and it drips wet across his chest, where it glistens as it runs down the deep furrows of his insanely ripped abs.

I have got to stop ogling his bod. Kanuz is not an alien object of worship, unlike the purple snake under my fingers.

Oh god. Purple snake. No doubt Bex, the resident monster-fucker reader on our crew, would have some thoughts about that. I stifle a laugh, biting my cheeks in a lackluster attempt to keep it in.

“So, uh, Kanuz, the snake here, this big, thick, purple snake… it’s not, like, a symbol for something else, is it? Like, does it mean something?”

What would Bex say? This time the laugh erupts out of me, and it feels so good to imagine what the over-the-top tech specialist would say about finding a big, ridged purple snake in the alien jungle that it nearly eclipses the overwhelming worry that chases the thought.

My laughter dies quickly at the thought, and I sober, gnawing at my lower lip.

I hope they’re all right. I hope that Niki and the other six of our crew aren’t being terrorized by dinosaurs. Fuck. I even hope Bex is living her monster fucker dream and getting it on with the locals.

Better than the alternative, that they’re—

I take a deep breath and refuse to let myself even think it.

The carved snake’s head juts from the wall ahead, and I continue running my fingers along the sinuous body, stepping over a tree root to get a better look at the work of art that’s the head.

“Holy hell,” I breathe, rubbing the polished orb of the eye. “Is this… a diamond?” Under the smooth exterior, the eye’s been cut into a million fractured facets, and as I wipe away the dirt crusting it, it catches the light from the opening in the roof.

A brilliant prism flashes across the temple, a hundred tiny rainbows suddenly cutting through the gloom of the ruin. A shiver runs down my spine. The effect is breath-taking and eerie all at once.

“Wow,” I say. “And here I was, thinking the roof just fell in. It already had a hole in it, didn’t it?”

“Time is not a forgiving entity, even for mother Sueva,” Kanuz says.

I tug at my ear lobe. “You know, that almost made sense.” I peer up at him in surprise, my fingers still rubbing the surface of the eye of the snake.

It depresses under my fingers, and a loud click reverberates off the stone.

“Oh, shit,” I say. Did I break it? Stupid, stupid, stupid—

The ground rumbles under my feet, a horrible grating noise sounding. Leaves fall to the floor from the tree that’s taken up residence in the ruin.

“Is it an earthquake?” I yell, my eyes wide. I brace my feet, trying to remain upright. “Sueva quake?”

That’s just what I need, for a fucking earthquake to take me out.

No sooner has the thought flashed through my mind than the floor gives way under my feet.

I’m so shocked I can’t even scream. A strong, taloned hand grips my bicep, and Kanuz yanks me against him.

Then I’m free-falling, cocooned between his scaled chest and tree-trunk like arms.

OceanofPDF.com

CHAPTER SIX

OceanofPDF.com

KANUZ

This is going to hurt.

Still, I would much rather bear the brunt of the fall than allow my mate to absorb the impact with her soft human flesh. I barely know the female, and yet I find the thought of any injury to her body completely abhorrent.

I refuse to let it happen, so I cradle her to me. Her body is tense with terror at first, a normal reaction to falling suddenly, but then she goes loose and soft against me.

Good. It will be better if she’s fainted.

“Fuck,” she says, and surprise widens my eyes. “This is gonna be bad enough without whiplash.”

Brilliant female.

The ground slams into us. Pain jolts up my tail at the impact. Water splashes in the dark, and then we’re sinking fast.

It was a trap door. It wasn’t ground at all, but another flowing pool. My relief is short-lived, my need to get out of the water and breathe warring with the worry of what else might be in this pool—in this ruined temple.

There is no telling.

With one arm around Gen’s chest, I kick, and for a horror filled moment, I pray to the mother goddess that the direction I’ve blindly chosen is indeed up, and that I’m not driving us further into the deep water.

Finally, air breaks around us, and Gen gasps, then coughs, wriggling against me like a caught fish. “What the fuck was that?”

“Trap door,” I say automatically. I tread water with her pressed against me, and my body responds to her nearness, the adrenaline melting way to something much more pleasurable.

“Trap door?” she repeats.

Exhilaration courses through me, despite the seriousness of our latest dangerous predicament.

“Did you understand me?” I begin swimming, carrying her on top of me, knowing that the edge of this underground pool is somewhere around us. The ancients did not construct their puzzle boxes of worship as death traps. Well, not all of them, at the very least.

I send up another quick prayer that this temple is not one of those. But the goddess is called many-faced for a reason, and it is just as likely this temple pays respects to one of her more violent aspects as it is to be dedicated to a motherly one.