Page 259 of Evil Hearts

She marched forward and hoisted up the lid.

But instead of gold and jewels or anything that glittered, all she saw were books, and a couple of folded shirts, like the one he’d been wearing yesterday. Most of the books looked battered but recently printed, includingA New Voyage Round the Worldby none other than William Dampier, but wedged between a copy of theKama Sutraand a torn Dan Brown paperback, was a cracked brown spine that didn’t look like the others.

It had no title on the spine, for a start, though it was as thick as theKama Sutra, and someone had wrapped a piece of twine around it, presumably to keep the cracked leather from falling apart any further. Oriana was no history buff, but she itched to open this book, if only to see what it contained.

Half expecting it to be his answer to the Kama Sutra, with notes or sketches making up the Volcano God’s Guide to Driving Women Wild in Bed, she was surprised to see it was mostly looped cursive, interspersed with landscape drawings of islandsand coastlines, as seen from the sea. And the dates…the earliest entries were dated 1699, with some large gaps, until the final entries in 1701 coincided with sketches of an island that looked very similar to the bay where she’d landed, though without the present-day buildings.

This must be Dampier’s lost journal, the one from the trip where he’d been shipwrecked here. Did that mean it also told where his treasure was buried? For if Swaran had it, he had to be a treasure hunter.

Which meant if he found the treasure, he’d likely hide it away the same way he had with this journal, and perhaps even keep it to himself. When a discovery like that was the property of the whole world, not one man, and loath though she was to agree with Indiana Jones, historical artefacts like pirate treasure definitely belonged in a museum.

She had to get this to the island’s museum, so it could be properly preserved. A bit of string holding the cracked leather together was damn near criminal, when this journal should be lovingly restored and preserved, and scanned for everyone to see, just in case.

Dawn was approaching, and it was almost light enough outside to see. If she headed back down to town now, she’d be able to see her way to the road, and hopefully flag someone down who’d give her a ride the rest of the way back. The short siren that had woken her must have been the all clear, because she couldn’t see any traffic between town and the mountain, so it must be safe now.

Oriana dressed, stuffed her things back in her pack, then wrapped the journal carefully in her jacket and placed it at the top of her backpack, before heading down the mountain.

Outside the cave mouth, a steep, narrow track led into a thicket of scrub, and she was barely halfway to the thicket before her steps turned into a slip, then a slide, and she was barrellingdown faster than was safe, right into a stand of bamboo, before the world went from green to black for the second time.

Twelve

This time, Orianawoke up in her enormous bed in the honeymoon suite, as if none of it had ever happened. She might have even believed it, if not for the glowering, shirtless man standing over her at the end of the bed, holding Dampier’s journal.

Oh shit.

“That belongs in a museum. I was taking it to the museum in town,” Oriana said.

“You had no right to take it,” he growled. “This journal is mine.”

“Like hell it is. History belongs to everyone, and it should be protected and preserved in a museum where everyone can see it. Dampier would want his journal on display. Why else would he write that book about his voyages?”

“Dampier could do whatever he liked with his own journal. I gave him mine once, and he promised he would write a book and make both of us rich, yet my name wasn’t mentioned even once in his book. He said if I stayed behind to protect his treasure, he would return to collect it with me, and we would both be rich men. Yet he never returned, and while we should both now be dead men, here I still stand, protecting everything I promised, long after he is dead and gone!” He pointed an accusing finger at Oriana. “I let him steal my journal once, with his lies, but I will not be fooled again, least of all by a woman!”

None of it made sense. Oriana might have hit her head and just woken up, but she was still certain that even on her most sober, alert day, she wouldn’t be able to make sense of what Swaran had just said.

Unless he really was a volcano god.

And…

“How did you even get here? On the ship, and inside my cabin?” she demanded.

“I flew, carrying you,” he said, spreading a pair of honest to goodness, freaking huge wings out so wide, they touched both the ceiling and the floor at the same time. “The other people on the ship thought I was your husband, and helped me bring you here.”

The husband she didn’t have, and no one had seen. Until now.

Before she’d stolen the journal from him, she’d have said she’d prefer Swaran as a husband over Hunter any day (and ten times at night, because…the man was a sex god, even without wings), but now…

“So now you have your journal back, you’re just going to fly back to your volcano lair, and I’ll never see you again?” she asked, her heart sinking at the thought.

“I wish it could be so, but I cannot. You have seen the journal, and I cannot be sure how much of it you remember. Now, I must watch over you, until I am certain Captain Dampier’s treasure is safe.”

“Why?” Not that she was complaining, but it still didn’t make sense. Why would a volcano god care about some pirate’s treasure?

“Because the spell that binds me to this form demands that I protect Dampier’s treasure from all who might steal it. I swore an oath and I will not break it, even if Dampier himself is dead. I will keep his treasure safe from thieves like you!”

“So you’re not a volcano god, just under a spell that’s let you live for more than three hundred years?” She couldn’t believe she was saying such a thing. “What are you?”

“Dampier’s spell turned me into a foundation sacrifice, a protector bound to serve. A gargoyle, they call such things in his country. The spell trapped my spirit in a body of living stone, which binds me as the protector of his treasure until it is safe. I cannot be defeated or destroyed, only slowed by sunlight. I do not need water or sleep or sustenance, existing only to protect, until the spell is broken.”

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