Page 62 of Broken Fate
“Ready?” Kiel asked as the third and final crate was opened.
We would be in a crate. Together. Had he planned that? Was it his intention? After all his attempts to keep us from being so close, now we would be shoved into a wooden box for hours on end. Face to face. Naked body to naked body …
While covered in dragon shit.
Maybe there wasn’t anything to it after all. Perhaps Kiel was with me because I was the youngest, the newest, and the least experienced member of his team, and he wanted to keep an eye on me. That was probably it.
“Sure,” I said, shrugging out of my robe and, with one last breath of ‘fresh’ air, climbing in.
Kiel joined me, the confines of the crate meaning our bodies were right up against one another, his cock resting against my inner thigh, my nipples tickling his chest. Our mouths inches apart—
And breathing in the putrid air of dragon shit.
Chapter Thirty
“Shouldn’t we wait for night?” I whispered, crouching low in the sewer, avoiding the rays of sunlight that shone through the slats of the nearby grate. Having our entire mission spoiled because someone spotted us while dumping a load of their nightly ablutions would be a rather ignoble ending to it all.
Making it past the inspectors, we were now in the city sewers, continuing our mission.
Kiel glanced at me. His face was closed off and all business as it had been since we’d entered the crate. Even without the mood-killing stench of dragon shit, washed off only with a concoction of acidic fruit juices that requiredanothershower to eliminate the stickiness, he’d been stern and distant from the second the lid closed on us.
Not once had he commented on our proximity. No slight shifting of body parts to try to get closer, to brush up against my breasts, or place his cock between my thighs. Just nothing at all.
“No,” he replied in low tones that barely reached my ear. “They’ll be more on guard at night. Besides, we can’t wait. The longer they have Gralk, the higher the chances they’ll break him. They may have already done so.”
“What happens if they have?” I asked nervously.
“Then we’ve failed,” he said bluntly. “We cause as much havoc as possible in Helisson and draw their attention away while one of us gets the evacuation message back to them. And we start over.”
“Let’s hope we’re in time, then.”
Kiel only nodded, settling in to wait. It had been like that the entire time. We’d met a local guide at the entrance to the sewers, one of the few members of the Helisson cell who hadn’t been rounded up. He would go ahead, scouting alone, then come and take us to the next section. Rinse and repeat as we neared the Alpha’s palace.
I’d seen the stone edifice of the palace briefly from our safe house before we’d gone underground. It was grandly decorated but much smaller than Arcadus’. Although Helisson might have a larger commercial heart, much of its space was dedicated to the warehouses necessary to hold the flow of goods in and out. In terms of the overall population, it was barely two-thirds that of my home of Arcadia.
“Come,” our guide, a scrawny, elderly woman named Tinya, hissed, appearing suddenly around the corner, beckoning with one wizened finger.
I exhaled, as did the others. Every time it was like that. One moment she wasn’t there, and the next, she was gone. It certainly kept us on our toes.
“The walls,” Tinya whispered, pointing upward as she led us forward. “We’re crossing under them now.”
I tensed. Nearby, Andi took in a breath, her eyes flitting around, watching for any signs of activity. Given how thoroughly the Helisson cell had been outed and destroyed without any warning, we had no choice but to trust that Tinya was on our side. There was no one left that Kiel knew to corroborate her loyalty.
Which meant that she could very well be leading us into a trap. The closer to the palace we got, the more likely it was to spring shut around us.
At the front, Tinya suddenly held up a hand, stopping us all in place. Then she gestured for us to back up around the last corner. Moving quietly, we darted back around the corner.
A low voice reached us from the intersection of tunnels we’d been approaching. It was male. Hard.
Patrol, Kiel mouthed, holding up his hand to indicate two guards.
I frowned. They moved with stealth, which meant that whoever was in charge of the patrols was smart. The men in the sewer didn’t wear armor. It left them more vulnerable to attack, but it also meant we couldn’t hear them coming from a mile away.
My heart thudded a little heavier against my ribs as the added layer of tension heightened everything. It seemed impossible that we could enter the palace and grab Gralk without being spotted. The patrols aboveground were even worse. They were everywhere, stopping anyone who even so much as looked like they might be hiding something.
Martial Law, Kiel had called it. The soldiers were in charge, and the citizens of Helisson no longer had any rights. No wonder the captain of our ship had been nervous about smuggling us in. If he’d been caught, they would have tried him right alongside the rest of us. Of course, when we came back, the same would apply.
Once the patrol was sufficiently past, we crept forward, moving deeper into the palace’s sewers.
