Read Online Seduce Me in Flames by Jacquelyn Frank - Free Book Online Page B

was below substandard and not at all dependable. It flickered if it worked at all, the electrical connections buzzing unsteadily andnoisily. Every last wall gleamed with wetness, small rivers having formed at the creases where the walls met the floors. All the tunnels graded downward, so the water was running that way as well. There were the telltale squeaks of hair rats, and before long the creatures were dashing side to side over their feet and under her skirt. Everything in her wanted to scream at the idea of the filthy rodents coming near her, but she was even more afraid of further two-legged dangers than she was of the four-legged ones, so she swallowed her would-be cries and danced quickly around the vile little creatures. She assumed that Suna was equally determined because her companion didn’t bat an eye, pausing only to kick one of the critters off her shoe with such violence that they heard it smack into the wet wall.
    They met no further human intervention, however. That didn’t surprise her because the tunnel they had chosen was clearly unused and had fallen into heavy disrepair. Furniture littered the hallway where it had been shoved out of the way into temporary or permanent storage.
    It began to rain as they moved deeper into the bowels of the catacombs, the walls so wet that the ceilings dripped heavily. The small rivers on either side of them now melded into one large one. Before long their feet were entirely under water.
    Ambrea couldn’t take it any longer. She had to know.
    “Where are we going? How can we possibly escape this way?”
    That earned her a smile that wasn’t exactly directed toward her and wasn’t exactly not, either. It was hard to tell in the increasing darkness and with all of his attention facing forward.
    “What do you see around you, Blue Eyes?”
    She was being baited. She decided to bite. What else did she have on her plate at that moment?
    “Darkness. Cold. Wet.”
    “And it smells like some of those hair rats have died down here, too,” Suna joined in. Ambrea didn’t correct her about that being a smell, not something she could actually see, as he had requested.
    “Wet. A lot of wet. And it’s all going in the same direction,” he noted. “Makes you wonder why these tunnels don’t all just fill up and drown out every last room, doesn’t it?”
    It was such a simple point, one she ought to have considered on her own. She was smart enough for that. Unfortunately, she wasn’t exactly functioning in her comfort zone.
    “The aqueducts. Allay is made up of solid bedrock with natural aqueducts networking through it. The aqueducts are probably what formed all of these lower tunnels. They bored through the stone over many thousands of years and have changed their path over time. When the upper tunnels were originally dug out for the catacombs, the workers stumbled onto the lower tunnels and decided to connect all of the tunnels. But the pressure of the aqueducts all around them and the coldness of the water is why the walls are constantly wet down here and why they can never be made warm enough no matter what kind of technology is tried to regulate it.”
    “Not that the gaolers are interested in the comfort of their guests or anything,” Suna noted dryly.
    “More likely it was an effort to make the guards more comfortable. Can’t imagine many people lining up to volunteer at working the catacombs,” the Tarian mused.
    “This is the duty you get when you’re new and just starting to make an impression on your superiors, or older and having screwed up at your last posting,” said Ambrea.
    “At least that’s the case under the current regime,” the Tarian noted.
    And that was when they stumbled into foot-deep water. It rapidly became knee high and then mid-thigh as they took a few more steps. The Tarian shouldered his stunner and then looked around.
    He closed his eyes for a moment, almost as if he were doing an internal check of his own brain. Then he pointed