Page 3 of Her Two Dragons

“Come on, Khal. You don’t get to keep the prettiest grad student here occupied all by yourself.” Darius smiled, his eyes focused on Michelle’s face.

“Now I know this is a joke,” she muttered.

Khalid and Darius exchanged glances. “We just thought you could use some company.”

“Great.” Michelle rolled her eyes and grabbed her water bottles and her tray. “Enjoy your lunch, boys. I think I’ve just lost my appetite.”

She strode away from the table with her head held high, defiant even, and made her way to another table, far from the one she’d just vacated. Whoever those guys were, they could take their over-protective, over-domineering attitudes elsewhere. No way was she letting two guys, no matter how gorgeous, interfere with her chance at being a real part of this dig. Her chance at finding something unseen for centuries, just waiting for her to shine a light on it.

* * *

For the next several days,it felt like Michelle couldn’t escape Darius and Khalid, no matter what she tried.

Every time she turned around, whether it was to find a different tool, or get a drink of water, it seemed like one or the other was right there. Even heading to the bathroom wasn’t safe, as they seemed to pop up on route, or just outside the door when she was done.

Even in her dreams, they seemed to haunt her. Awake, she could ignore them, push them out of her head. But asleep, they lingered too long, got too close. It seemed like night after night, the dreams got hotter, sexier. Sometimes, it was just one of them, but the last couple nights, it had been both.

Sleeplessness and frustration seemed to abound.

Eventually, she just started wearing headphones and drowning them out. They could be her shadows all they wanted. They weren’t going to stop her work.

And if they tried to steal whatever she found, she’d make sure they met Anubis and Osiris.

At least they kept her canteens filled and made sure there was always plenty of shade where they could. It was almost sweet, but a little creepy to suddenly have two big, burly guys with tattoos watching over her, when they didn’t seem the least bit interested in anyone else in camp. In fact, Michelle wasn’t sure she’d seen either of them even interact with anyone else, almost as if they were figments of her imagination, conjured up due to heat and dehydration.

If that were the case, she probably would’ve dropped days ago.

Today, though, she was up early. Something told her that today was going to be an important day, maybe the day she found exactly what she was looking for. She couldn’t wait to get started.

The dig site was almost eerie in the early morning light, before the sun was fully up and the din of other archaeologists filled the air. Lowering down into her area, Michelle unrolled her tool kit and started dusting away.

It didn’t take long for her brush to dip into a crevice she hadn’t noticed before.

Again and again, she swept over the spot, expanding outward along the straight stone edge, until she had an entire doorway framed out.

“What have you got there?”

Darius’s voice almost made her drop her tools.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be, I don’t know, harassing someone else for a change?” God, why did he always manage to show up at the worst times, like he was watching her?

He sat on the edge of her gridded area, his thick, muscled legs dangling into the space. “I like visiting you.” He pointed at the wall behind her. “Now, are you going to show me what you found, or not?”

“Fine.” She stepped away from the space, trying not to give too much away. If he didn’t know what he was looking at, she definitely wasn’t about to tell him.

“Is that a doorway?” He hopped down, running his fingers along the ridge where the stone was clearly cut out. “You should go tell Dr. Brighton about this right away.”

Michelle rolled her eyes. “And leave you to excavate any more of it alone? Yeah, right. This is my find, buddy. Not yours.”

Darius leaned into it a little, and they both gasped as it gave way, swinging forward into the dark unknown.

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