Moon - New Moon Part 20

"It's dangerous."

"Why? Does it spread disease?"

"Someone could attack. Or something."

"What do you mean, something?"

"A Sucker could have found this place. One of the mind vampires."

A connection suddenly clicked in his head. "A mind vampire?" He stared at her. "You were there when we fought Boralas, weren't you."

"Yes."

He studied her with new understanding. "I didn't get a good look at you. And your hair was shorter."

"Yes. Falcone had it cut-to punish me." She stopped short, looking like she wished she hadn't shared that bit of information.

He didn't press her on that. "Why didn't you tell me we'd... met."

"We didn't. Not really." She lifted her chin. "Was it important?"

"You know it was." He kept his arms at his sides, when he wanted to reach for her. "You've learned not to trust anyone."

"I trust Haig," she shot back.

"But not me?"

"I hardly know you."

"But you saved my life. You could have left me in that trap. At the river, you could have flown away."

"I couldn't leave you to die. Not when that trap was meant for me in the first place."

"Like when you were under attack, and I stopped the soldiers from shooting. Does that count for something?"

She swallowed. "Yes."

"But?"

"Trust is hard for me."

"Then I'll earn it," he promised.

He reached for her hand, and felt her give a little start as he knit his fingers with hers.

When she tried to pull away, he kept her hand in his grasp. "If it's dangerous here, we must stay together."

She stopped arguing and he cast her a sideways glance as he led her toward the back of the building. He didn't mind the view of her naked body, but he suspected she hated the situation.

At the rear of the structure, he found a flight of stone stairs leading to the bas.e.m.e.nt.

"We might as well go down."

"We could get trapped."

"But you can walk through walls."

She snorted. "You mean at the cave?"

He nodded.

"That's not exactly what it seemed. Haig set up a field that looked like a stone wall. It wasn't really solid."

"Haig did it?"

"He has a lot of talents," she said with a hitch in her voice. "And he would have stayed with me-if he could."

Changing the subject, he said, "What about the portal? You said they closed it."

"We may be able to find another one," she said, but she didn't sound too hopeful.

"Explain the portals to me."

She sighed. "I don't understand it well myself. I think there are some naturally weak places in the plates between the worlds. If you find one, it's not too hard to open, with the right powers. With more power, you can open a portal almost anyplace. Theoretically," she added.

"Theoretically?"

"It wouldn't take a lot of energy. From more than one adept."

"So you can't do it by yourself?"

"No."

"If we can't get through a portal, we need to find a place to hole up," he said.

She nodded, and he held the lamp high as they went down, then stopped short when he saw mud on the floor. "Somebody's been down here."

He took a quick look through some of the empty rooms and saw nothing, but it was obvious that there were too many chambers to search quickly.

Rinna looked around nervously. "I want to make sure there's another way out."

"Yeah."

He led her along the hallway, his senses on alert. When he saw another flight of steps going up, he stopped.

"We'll go-up and make sure we can get out, then come-back and find a place to camp out," he said.

"Okay."