Chapter 19

Zazie

Honestly, I hadn’t traveled much. After the fire, I’d grown up in New Orleans until I fled it for Baton Rouge. I’d followed Ryan and Zach on a trip to Texas a couple of times, but that was it. Now, I was on a plane for the first time in my life, and it wasn’t even in the economy section at the back. It was a private jet, specifically Caspian’s private jet, which meant that it was the lap of luxury. The seats were world-class leather, the wood hand-carved. The whole thing was a sleek capsule of extravagance that defied everything I knew about air travel. Even now, I lay there on a soft and comfy bed—you know, the kind you’d expect in a ritzy five-star hotel, not at thirty thousand feet.

As I peered out the window, the view was nothing short of breathtaking. The vast expanse of the ocean stretched out below, an endless canvas of deep blues and frothy whites, its surface dotted with the occasional glimmer of sunlight. It was beautiful.

Caspian slept peacefully beside me, his arm still wrapped around my waist, possessive of me even in sleep. His face, usually so animated and intense, was relaxed, the lines of stress and command smoothed away. It was kind of sweet, actually.

The door opened and Murtagh strode inside, a book clutched in his hand and a paper map in the other, like the kind I hadn’t seen in nearly two decades where you used to figure out directions the old-fashioned way.

“I’ve figured out the area,” he announced, the look of victory written all over his face even as he deposited a bag of chips into the trash upon entry. He glanced our way and didn’t really acknowledge the fact that Caspian and I were still lying in each other’s arms completely naked, like it was just a typical Tuesday for him, and Caspian’s seed definitely wasn’t leaking down the side of my thigh. Hell, the room smelled like sex.

“What?” Caspian drawled, his sleepiness apparent in every syllable that left his mouth. “You came in here to announce that?

“It sounded like you two were done,” he deadpanned back, a single eyebrow raised in mock amusement.

“Tell us what you figured out,” I whispered, pulling the covers up a bit as I shivered, curious despite the sudden interruption. My nipples hardened a little underneath the blanket. My whole body was sore, but the good kind of sore.

Murtagh stepped closer, the excitement in his eyes almost tangible. “The castle was fabled to be in about five different places, but I’ve been there, and there’s a lot of old poetry about Troy. A lot of it describes where it is. I should have been an archeologist,” he said, plopping books on the bed, his voice getting a little louder with his excitement.

Caspian shifted beside me, his earlier annoyance giving way to interest. “Go on,” he urged, his arm still possessively around my waist.

“I’ve been overlaying maps and cross-referencing them with several ancient texts. It’s all about the alignment of certain landmarks with a map of the stars,” Murtagh explained, his words tumbling out with enthusiasm. “We’re looking around G?bekli Tepe.”

“G?bekli Tepe?” I echoed, furrowing my brows together. I hadn’t exactly gone to college, and between watching documentaries on Netflix about serial killers and the new season of Is It Cake?, I’d never heard of it.

“It’s full of massive stone pillars, all intricately carved with animals and symbols. They think it was a place of worship or a social gathering site a long time ago. And there’s more. The region is scattered with other significant sites—like the Harran ruins, known for its unique beehive-shaped houses, and the ancient city of Sanliurfa, with its pool of sacred fish that are said to never age.”

Caspian looked out the window, his mind clearly processing the information. “Tell the pilot so we get as close as possible to this treasure trove,” he ordered him, although he could easily have done it. But I was beginning to realize that he really liked to be the director more than the doer.

But Murtagh confirmed with a nod. “Already done. We’re on course.”

“How much longer is the flight?” Caspian drawled, tracing his finger up and down the line of my shoulder.

“We’re looking at about another seven hours or so. It’s a long haul to Turkey.”

Caspian nodded, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. “Seven hours,” he mused. “Plenty of time to fuck our mate together then.” He grinned widely. “Don’t say I never share.”

“I like how your mind works.” Smiling, Murtagh climbed on top of the bed and then on top of me.

“I don’t need any more distractions!” I giggled.

“We’re not giving you a choice, little mate,” Murtagh growled and Caspian grinned.

They were right.

I didn’t have one, and I liked it that way.

Standing at the edge of G?bekli Tepe, I felt so small. The sun hung low in the sky, casting a golden glow over the sprawling complex of massive stone pillars and ruins that lay before us. It was a spectacular sight, the pillars rising up like sentinels of a forgotten world, each one intricately carved with different symbols whose meanings were lost to time.

Crunch. Munch, munch, munch. CRUNCH.

I looked over and Murtagh was eating some sort of cookie-like cracker labeled ?okonat, and he wasn’t eating quietly.

He was sort of ruining the majesty.

Caspian was the one that turned to him. “Maybe you can eat that a little louder,” he seethed.

Murtagh grinned at him, shrugged, and did crunch much louder.

Caspian frowned and shook his head with annoyance. “You’re not even eating good Turkish food. You just hit the convenience store as fast as you could,” he snipped peevishly.

“This is good Turkish food. I can’t get this in the States easily,” he replied around another mouthful.

Shaking his head again with disapproval, Caspian stepped up to me and wound his arm around my waist to pull me in close.

“It’s rare I visit a place that’s older than me,” he said softly, and Murtagh nodded beside him.

“Which way do we go?” Caspian asked, his voice low.

Murtagh surveyed the landscape, his eyes narrowing as he considered our options. “The texts mentioned alignments with the stars,” he mused. “Perhaps the answer lies in the layout of these pillars.”

I scanned the area, feeling an inexplicable pull towards a particular section of the ruins. I didn’t question it. I just followed it.

“It’s this way,” I said. Guided by an inner compass I didn’t fully understand, I led them through the maze of towering pillars and carved stones.

After several minutes of navigating the labyrinth of ruins, we arrived at a less trodden area. I couldn’t see anyone; we seemed like we were in an alcove long forgotten. The ground here was covered in a mix of dirt and sand. I knelt down, my hands brushing away the layers of time, revealing what appeared to be an intricately carved stone trap door hidden beneath. Sure, it didn’t look like a trapdoor, but my spidey-sense was telling me to open it like it was a bathroom cupboard.

“Caspian, Murtagh, look at this,” I called out, my voice a mix of excitement and disbelief. As they approached, I pointed at it and said, “This has got to be a trap door.”

After securing an empty wrapper in his pocket, Murtagh crouched beside me, reaching out towards the stone. His fingers transformed quickly, revealing the black claws that he cut apart my bra with just the other night. He pushed his claws towards the edges, then gripped the edge of the heavy stone door, and with a grunt of effort, he lifted it, revealing a dark passage leading down into the depths of the ruins.

“Well, if this doesn’t look a bit foreboding…” I whispered, looking over the edge and down into the tunnel. It looked like spider city down there, and I could smell dust in the air as well as something musty.

“I’m not wearing the right type of shoes for this,” Caspian muttered.

“You’re always a bit overdressed for everything,” Murtagh said with a roll of his eyes, and maneuvered his massive body into the tunnel. It looked like his head was just towards the top. He looked up through the tunnel. “Nothing’s down here. Looks safe… enough.” He looked around him once again, then looked towards us and told Caspian, “Lower her down to me.” He put up his hands like Caspian was going to hand him a shoebox.

I frowned, suddenly not wanting to go down into the hole. I was confident the diamond was down there, but I was also confident that there would be a spider in my hair by the end of the day, and I wasn’t sure how I was going to handle that on an emotional level.

“Don’t worry,” Murtagh said, his hands still up as if to catch me. “Caspian and I are tougher and stronger than we look. We’re not going to let anything happen to you. He’ll be to the back of you, me to the front.”

I smirked, wanting to make a sex joke here, of course, but I was too nervous to pull it off. Finally, with a resolved sigh, I looked up at Caspian and put out my arms like a kid who wanted to be picked up. He put his arms gently around me then lowered me down to Murtagh, who grabbed me at the ass and gently lowered me down on the ground, patting my bottom as he released me. I looked around.

After Caspian lowered himself down, he looked right in front of him and saw a torch. He picked it up, as if to say, “Look what I found!” before breathing fire on it.

Yep. He breathed fire.

I was thinking that that was just part of dragon folklore, but nope…

I watched him do that with a blank face because that wasn’t even the craziest part of my week.

I jumped back. Torches had a lot more fire on them than I had anticipated. He passed it to Murtagh, who went in front of us, but I was honestly unimpressed by the amount of light that came off of it.

The narrow tunnel opened into a vast underground chamber, its walls etched with more of the enigmatic carvings we’d seen above. The air was thick with a musty smell and our footsteps echoed in the eerie silence. Murtagh lowered the torch down to a furrowed ditch in the ground. All of a sudden, lines of fire ignited along the walls, lighting up the whole room with flickering flames in a loud whoosh.

It was creepy, really, like we were in our own personal Indiana Jones flick, only it was twisted into some sort of horror movie like The Mummy.

I felt like a whole army of mummies were going to pop out at any second.

At least I’d be able to see them this time. It was much easier to see where the hell we were going.

As we ventured further into the chamber, we encountered what appeared to be an ancient drawbridge, its end raised, separating us from the other side. The mechanism to lower it was not immediately apparent, and the gap it spanned was way too wide to jump. I looked down and I couldn’t see the bottom. In all likelihood, it was probably lined with pointed sticks or something that would end in certain death.

Hooray.

“I’ve read about these,” Murtagh murmured, examining the edges of the bridge and the walls on either side. “They were often rigged with counterweights hidden within the walls.”

Caspian’s eyes sparkled with excitement. “So, if we find and release the counterweight, the bridge should lower,” he deduced.

Murtagh glanced at the raised drawbridge and then back at us with a determined look. “I have an idea,” he said, his voice taking on a deep, resonant quality.

Before our eyes, Murtagh began to transform. His body grew larger, muscles bulging and expanding. The sound of fabric tearing filled the chamber as his shirt gave way under the strain of his enlarging frame. Black scales, with a rich velvety sheen, emerged on his skin, shimmering slightly even in the dim light of the chamber.

Murtagh was turning into a dragon. His flesh was splitting apart, bulging out in some places and caving in at others. It looked almost like a puzzle box. But then, there he was. A dragon.

I hadn’t seen him like this before. While they were creating the tunnels, they had supposedly spent most of their time in this form, but they didn’t want me down there while they were digging in case it was too dangerous for me. I could have asked to see this, I’m sure, to see them in their true forms, but I hadn’t wanted to. I’d felt like it was going to be too much, and I’d just crumple into the fetal position with another existential crisis.

He wasn’t a fuzzy dragon, he didn’t look like the dragons from that cartoon movie with the Vikings. No, this was definitely the type of dragon that no hobbit wanted to tickle.

And I’m proud to say, I was strangely cool with this. Not just cool with it—I have to admit, I was in awe. I wondered if I had ever seen anything so breathtakingly gorgeous. It was like dragons were just too amazing to even live in the world.

I watched Murtagh, with a powerful grace that belied his size, as he extended his newly formed wings, a wide magnificent span of beautiful black scales that seemed to absorb the light around them. He crouched, and with a mighty leap, propelled himself all the way across the gap. The sound of his wings beating against the air was like thunder in the enclosed space.

Landing deftly on the other side, he quickly surveyed the area while Caspian and I watched.

I narrowed my eyes, searching the space beyond. I was good at finding things, after all. I could see Murtagh’s ancient, beautiful, and long dragon face with huge, yellow eyes looking quizzically at the wall, but I found what we were looking for before we really knew what we were looking for.

There was a lever on the far wall.

“Over there!” I called out, pointing my hand in that direction.

With a swift motion of his powerful, clawed hand, he pulled it, and the mechanism groaned to life. I watched in awe as the drawbridge slowly lowered with a loud creak. Once the bridge was secured, Murtagh reverted back to his human form, though his shirt remained in tatters. He gave us a nod, signaling that it was safe to cross.

As soon as I stepped onto the bridge, something clicked.

“Shit,” I swore, freezing in place.

Caspian, who was just behind me, tensed. “What is it?”

“A trap, I think,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper. “I felt something move under my foot.”

“Don’t move,” Murtagh cautioned. “These ancient places are littered with traps. It could be anything from spikes to a collapse mechanism.”

I could feel my heart pounding in my chest, the sound deafening in the silence of the chamber. “Great, just what we needed. Any bright ideas on how to get out of this?”

Caspian scanned the bridge and the walls around us. “We need to distribute the weight evenly. If it’s pressure-activated, we might be able to cross if we’re careful.”

“Or we trigger it and hope for the best,” Murtagh added grimly.

I let out a shaky laugh. “I vote against triggering ancient traps.”

Carefully, Caspian stepped onto the bridge, distributing his weight as evenly as possible.

“On three… One… Two… Three,” Caspian said, and the two of us moved in unison, slow and deliberate, painfully aware that one wrong step could be our last.

Halfway across, the bridge groaned ominously, but held.

“Almost there,” Murtagh murmured. “Stay focused.”

Finally, I reached the other side, and I let out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding. Caspian closed in on my side and his arm wrapped around my waist.

“We need to be more careful,” Caspian said, his usual confidence replaced with a note of caution.

I nodded, glancing back at the perilous bridge. “Lesson learned. Let’s hope that’s the last of the surprises.”

“Next time, I vote we fly over the gap and don’t use the bridge,” Murtagh said, his voice strained.

“I agree,” I quipped, trying to lighten the mood despite my lingering anxiety.

“I think we go that way,” Caspian said, pointing to where the flames extended on into the darkness.

“Yeah, you’re right,” I offered, and I waited for Murtagh to go first.

As we cautiously followed the direction Caspian had suggested, the narrow corridor opened into a larger chamber. The air was cooler here, and the walls echoed our footsteps back to us. Suddenly, Caspian held up a hand, signaling us to stop.

“Do you see that?” he whispered, pointing to the floor ahead where a series of tiles were intricately patterned, different from the surrounding stone.

We looked to the left and right, and we saw a few skeletons. Old ones; with spiders on them. After a tenth of a second, my brain realized what I was looking at, and I jump back straight against Caspian’s chest.

He put an arm around me, soothing me until I calmed down. “Shh. It’s okay. That’s not going to be you,” he assured me.

Murtagh knelt down for a closer look. “Pressure plates,” he deduced. “Step on the wrong one, and who knows what kind of trap we’ll set off. The ceiling is too low for us to fly, too.”

Caspian crouched beside him, examining the pattern. “There must be a safe path across,” he mused. “But how do we figure out which tiles are safe?”

We studied the tiles, looking for differences in color and realizing that there were stones sticking out of the tile. Some were in diamond, some in emerald, some in amethyst. Some didn’t have anything on them at all.

“Step on the ones with nothing,” I said before the thought had fully even popped into my mind. I knew it didn’t make sense when it came out of my mouth—I wanted to walk on the diamond ones, honestly. And then I wanted to take the diamond ones home and use them for decoration.

“How do you know?” Caspian asked me.

I passed him a weary expression. “I didn’t come with an informational guide. Maybe I’ve watched too many movies,” I added humbly, shrugging. “But as crazy as it sounds, the gems don’t want us to step on them.”

We studied the tiles until slowly, a path began to emerge, and I could see a winding route across the chamber with blank stone tiles.

“I think you’re right. Smart thinking, little girl,” Murtagh praised, and I smiled.

“Not it,” I said first, pressing my finger to my nose.

Caspian chuckled and quickly followed suit. Murtagh sighed like we were the most ridiculous people in the world.

“One at a time,” Murtagh said. “That way, if something happens, it’s only one of us in danger.”

Murtagh went first, carefully stepping from one tile to the next, his focus unwavering. Caspian followed, and then it was my turn. My heart raced as I moved cautiously, afraid I was going to take a wrong step at any given moment.

When I reached the other side, a massive sense of relief washed over me.

“We make a good team,” I said, smiling at them both.

Caspian came behind me, hopping from one tile to the next, until he suddenly lost balance and stepped onto the wrong tile.

A sudden spike shot out of the wall. He moved fast, but it still grazed his side before he hopped away from it, onto another tile and then to us.

He looked down at his suit, which had no blood stain on it, but he swore and pulled his shirt tight against his skin. “Damn it. It’s across the grain.” He sighed, inspecting the shirt. “There’s no fixing this.”

I laughed and patted his chest. “We’ll give it a funeral when we get back.”

He looked at me and smiled toothily, then laughed. “Keep going, smart ass,” he teased, swatting me. “Let’s keep moving.”

“I can feel it, we’re getting closer,” I offered.

Caspian and Murtagh exchanged a look, a mix of skepticism and trust in their eyes. “You can feel it?” Caspian asked, his tone curious.

I nodded, unable to fully explain the sensation. I’d tried to explain it to my brother and to Ryan on a multitude of occasions, and it always fell short. To me, where these things were seemed stupidly intuitive, like how one finds plates in the kitchen. I dismissively waved my hand in a forward motion. “It’s like a pull, a tug in my gut. Ever since we entered these ruins, I’ve felt it. It’s getting stronger the deeper we go.”

Taking the lead, I began walking through the winding passages of the ancient structure. The air grew heavier, the silence around us more eerie. Then, we passed through a narrow hallway before it opened up into another vast chamber, and I gasped at the sight waiting for me.

The room was filled with treasures beyond imagination. Gold and jewels glittered in the dim light, casting breathtaking kaleidoscopic patterns on the walls. There were piles of coins from civilizations long forgotten, ornate jewelry that must have been worn by ancient royalty, and artifacts whose significance was lost to time but whose beauty remained undeniable.

There were gems everywhere.

My eyes were drawn to a corner where a life-sized golden statue stood covered in beautiful stones. Next to it, a chest overflowed with pearls and diamonds, their luster still beautifully vibrant.

I felt an overwhelming urge to touch everything, to feel the weight of the gold and the smoothness of the gems. It was as if the treasure called to me. I reached out, my fingers hovering over a delicate golden bracelet with glittering sapphires and diamonds.

Then, I grabbed it.

And everything went to shit.