Chapter 63: Trapped in the Archives
AYLA
I could not believe him!
The image of Ares’ mouth on Willow’s kept playing behind my eyelids and I wanted to scream.
What was wrong with him? Willow? Really?
He had the wrong idea if he thought it was within his right to be mad at me.
I wasn’t the one who up and left right after mating without so much as a goodbye.
"My brother can be an idiot." Damon’s voice cut through my spiraling thoughts.
"I can see that." I shot back, crossing my arms. "It seems to run in the family."
Damon glanced at me, his lips twitching. "Yeah, we all can be little pricks but he just..."
"Do not speak for him, Damon." I cut him off, my voice rising. "If he has a problem with me, then he should come right out and say it, not stick his tongue down Willow’s throat. I do not know why I am even discussing this. I do not care what he does with his tongue."
Of course, I cared what he did with his tongue... it was my tongue!
I straightened my back.
"You know what? We have bigger things to worry about." I said. "Like how we are getting into the archives room."
A slow grin spread across Damon’s face. "Oh, it is simple. We use the tunnels."
I blinked. "The what?"
"Tunnels, Ayla. I discovered one as a child that leads straight to the archives room. We use that."
"You told no one about it? Not Cassian or Ares?"
"No. This was my own thing. Besides, they would have shut it down if I told them. My father would have sealed it up immediately."
I stared at him. "You had a secret tunnel leading to the most restricted room in the pack, and you never once used it to look at the records?"
"I was a child, Ayla. I did not care about records. I cared about hiding from my tutors and eavesdropping on the council meetings."
He put his hand out to me. "Come with me."
His palm was open and waiting and I took it.
Immediately his fingers closed around mine, a jolt shot up my spine. I clamped it down immediately.
This is Damon, I reminded myself. He may be helping but I do not like him.
But I knew I was deceiving myself. Somehow, somewhere along the way, Damon had gotten under my skin.
If anyone had been told weeks ago that I would entrust such a secret about myself to him, I would have laughed in their face and told them to jump off a bridge but here I was, holding his hand as we walked and trusting him not to tell anyone.
Damon led me round the back of the princes quarters and into the kitchen.
The maids stared at our joined hands, whispering amongst themselves while my face reddened with embarrassment.
He took the second door to the left and we came to a very obscure pathway.
I had never seen it before.
Damon walked right in, pulling me with him.
It was darker now but he knew where he was going and he held me close to him, guiding me.
We finally stopped in front of a wall.
It looked solid to me but Damon pressed his palm flat against a particular stone and I heard a click.
A section of the wall swung inward, revealing a dark opening.
I gaped.
It was not a tunnel so much as a crawl space which was both narrow and dark.
"I do not recall it being this small but you should be able to fit," Damon said, eyeing the opening. "It will require some effort on my end though."
Before I could tell him I did not fancy tight spaces, his arm wrapped around my waist. He lifted me easily, guiding me toward the hole. I felt the heat of his body press against my back, and my breath caught.
"In you go," he murmured against my ear.
I crouched and crawled into the darkness.
The space was tighter than I had expected. Stone scraped against my shoulders on either side. The darkness pressed in from all directions and my heart was beginning to pound in my chest.
But I felt Damon behind me, his body sliding into the crawl space after mine. The heat of him filled the narrow gap between us, and I forgot, for one dizzying moment, that I did not fancy dark and tight spaces. His breath brushed against my ear as he settled into position, and a shiver rolled down my spine.
"Go on, I am right behind you."
I began to crawl.
The passage was longer than I had expected. My knees ached against the stone floor but I kept moving, driven by the sound of Damon’s breathing behind me and the warmth of his body at my back.
My hand touched metal.
"I found something," I whispered.
Damon stopped behind me. "That is the grate. Push it open."
I tried, but it would not budge. I shoved harder, grunting with effort, but the metal did not move.
"It is stuck."
"Let me."
I felt his hands on my waist, guiding me to lie flat on my belly. Then his body shifted, pressing against me as he reached over my head to grip the grate. His chest was against my back. His thighs bracketed my hips. And his...I felt it, pressed firmly against my ass.
It twitched.
"Sorry," Damon muttered, his voice rough.
"Umm, yeah. It is nothing."
But it was not nothing. My whole body heated as he shoved at the metal, his hips moving against me with each effort. The friction sent sparks of sensation through me, pooling low in my belly.
A moan slipped out of my throat before I could stop it.
I froze.
I prayed to the Moon Goddess that he had not heard me, but I knew he had. I could feel it in the way his body stilled against mine and the way his breath hitched. I could feel him grow harder.
He shoved at the grate one final time, and it swung open with a groan.
I scrambled out of the crawl space and into the archive room, my face burning. Damon emerged a moment later, brushing dust from his clothes.
He cleared his throat awkwardly. "It was not that hard when I used it as a child."
"Yeah, probably been a long time since you used it" I muttered.
"Right."
We stared at each other, my heart hammering in my chest. I could see the amber hues in Damon’s eyes glowing in the darkness.
A sound however jolted us.
I tilted my head to hear better.
It was the sound of keys jangling in the keyhole.
Someone was trying to get in!