The Bride of Dagon Collection Read online

  “Loser licks,” laughed Sara. “So go on then, you naughty tart. Lick my arse!”

  “Ohhhh, yes,” moaned Megan, spreading Sara’s ass and rimming Sara’s tight arsehole.

  Sara rubbed furiously at her clit as Megan licked her arse, riding her firm cheeks back against Megan’s pretty face as her pleasure rose to a peak. Megan continued to moan, licking hungrily, thrusting her tongue up Sara’s hot little hole.

  “I’m cumming! Lick it! Lick my arse! Make me cummmmmm!” Sara wailed with pleasure, loud enough to beat out the rain as Megan furiously tongued Sara’s clenching arsehole. The more Megan’s hot tongue pushed into Sara’s tender pucker, the harder her orgasm shuddered through her body. Megan was a good girl, moaning with her own orgasm, breath hot in Sara’s crack and her tongue relentless.

  Sara’s fingers finally stopped on her clit and Megan gave Sara’s arse a few last, adoring licks. Megan kissed her way back out of Sara’s crack and gave the lovely treasure hunter’s bum a squeeze with both hands.

  “Now it’s my turn,” said Megan, rising from her red knees and giving Sara a passionate kiss. “And I want just as good as I gave. Tongue up my arse and all.”

  “Oh, of course, I wouldn’t dream of—“

  Sara’s cheeky reply was interrupted by the loud chiming of her phone. She fumbled in the dark shed and plucked the phone from her workout pants. The message was from Baxter, her chief researcher.

  She read the text aloud, “SOMETHING BIG! WHAT YOU’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR!”

  “Your pet boffin can wait,” said Megan, her brow furrowing with annoyance. She reached for the phone to take it from Sara, but another text message made Sara hold the phone out reach.

  “It’s the Dagger of Delight,” said Sara. “The little swot has found the bloody dagger.”

  “I’m not going to get my arse licked, am I?” Megan pouted.

  “Later, dear,” said Sara. She gave Megan a kiss and ran out into the rain completely nude. Sara was back inside the huge stone manor before Megan left the shed. She did not see that Megan was still pouting furiously.

  The beautiful treasure hunter changed into a pair of trousers and a white button-down shirt and hurried to the library to find Baxter hard at work. He was pasty-faced, with uncombed brown hair overly large blue eyes that made him look like a child even though he was well into his twenties. He might have been good looking if he took care of his skin and went to the gym once in a while, thought Sara.

  The small, skinny young man was hunched over a trio of laptop computers set up on a table in the middle of the library. Several high-end automatic cameras were working continuously to document a huge and very delicate looking scroll flattened under glass on another table.

  “You’ve found the Dagger of Delight?” Said Sara, finishing buttoning her shirt as she approached.

  “That’s right,” said Baxter, turning to look at her over his shoulder. Baxter’s face reddened as he caught sight of Sara’s creamy cleavage. “Um, yes, the dagger is, well… here…”

  He stepped aside so she could see the laptop he was working on most closely.

  “Is that the Yucatan?” She asked, zooming in on the map. “There are no temples for a hundred kilometers, at least. Something else?”

  “Yes,” said Baxter. “The text kept referring to ‘the low temple’ and I couldn’t suss it out… until I wrote an algorithm to analyze the satellite imagery. Look here…”

  He zoomed in on a dark spot on the jungle foliage. An almost perfect black circle was visible. Sara had seen these before.

  “It’s a cenote,” said Sara. “Not unusual for the area. The limestone gives way and reveals the groundwater. I’m afraid your algorithm failed you. And you interrupted something rather enjoyable.”

  “Sorry about that,” said Baxter, clearing his throat. “Have another look though. Zoom in all the way.”

  She pressed the key to zoom in on the satellite image until the black of the cenote filled the laptop’s screen. She was about to chastise him again for wasting her time when she saw the glint on the black circle.

  “Something rectangular,” she said, tracing the shape with her fingertip. “What is it? Submerged in the water?”

  “I think you’re seeing a reflection,” said Baxter. I believe they carved out a space next to the water down in that cenote and built their temple.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone seen this before?” She asked. “This is less than two hours from Chichen Itza.”

  “No modern explorer has explored that cenote,” said Baxter. “No divers. No treasure hunters. Nobody. But I found a reference to it from the journal of Simon de Grange, an explorer from the 15th century, who described a reclusive ‘cult’ of ‘pleasure mad Indians’ that worshipped in a temple at a lake underground. He described stairs down to the temple and that they, well, they had women do things to him for days before he could escape. The stairs are gone.”

  “I suspect the women will be gone as well,” said Sara. “Good work, Baxter.”

  “Really?” Megan sounded surprised as she walked into the library drying her hair in a towel. “What did the nerd do?”

  “He found what I’ve been looking for,” said Sara, turning to leave. “I’m going to Mexico.”

  “We’re going to Mexico,” said Megan, following behind her.

  “Baxter,” said Sara, stopping in the doorway. “You can draw a reward from the fishbowl.”

  He hopped up from his computer chair and scurried over to the fishbowl Sara had placed on one of the shelves. It was full of tightly folded pieces of paper. The last time Baxter had impressed Sara he had been allowed to draw something out of the fishbowl and had received a brand new Lamborghini Murciélago. Which he totaled a week later skidding off the road and flipping the car in a shepherd’s field. He had sworn to himself that if he ever won another supercar from Sara Chambers he was going to put it up for auction the next day.

  “Go on then,” said Megan, watching him curiously. “Let’s see what you get.”

  Both women lingered at the doorway, leaning to get a better view as Baxter dipped a hand into the glass fishbowl and chose a folded piece of paper. He took it out and unfolded it. His excitement turned to bitter disappointment as he read what was on the paper.

  “What is it?” Megan asked with a hint of mocking amusement in her voice.

  Baxter held the unfolded paper up so that Megan and Sara could see what was written on it in blue pen.

  “A ruddy sandwich,” he said, devastated by the words, “Sara’s Favorite Sandwich.”

  Megan burst into laughter, covering her mouth to hide it.

  “Lucky draw,” said Sara. “I’ll whip one up for you when we return from Mexico.”

  Sara offered him thumbs up and Megan offered a sympathetic pat on the shoulder before the two women departed, leaving Baxter alone with his profoundly disappointing slip of paper. It was particularly disappointing since he was fairly certain Sara’s favorite sandwich was a Nutella and banana on toast. Not bad, but certainly no Lamborghini.

  Back in her spacious private suite, Sara placed a call to her pilot, Lindsay, to have her jet gassed up and ready for transcontinental travel.

  “You got it, boss,” said Lindsay with a Texas twang in her voice.

  Sara hung up the call and opened her closet full of weapons and treasure hunting gear. She began to carefully assemble her kit, preparing for any eventuality she could conceive. By the time she was done, she had two crash-proof shipping cases full of clothing and gear, along with a collapsible hang gliding pack and a sniper rifle.

  “Mmmm, perhaps not the sniper rifle,” she said, pushing the case back into her closet.

  Even without it, she had enough firepower to take on a small army.

  More than once on her expeditions, she had.

  Yucatan Jungle, Mexico

  The old gray helicopter flying over the dense jungle bore the red-white-and-green triangle markings of the Mexican Navy. Lindsay was behind the controls, calmly surveying the jungle canopy below for the location of the cenote marked on the GPS. The helicopter thumped low over the treetops, air rushing in through the open side door and blowing locks of Sara’s hair from beneath her crash helmet. The wash of the engines seemed no hotter than the tropical air blowing in her face. She was ready, poised to jump, but Megan looked worried.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Sara into her helmet microphone. “You don’t have to prove anything to me.”

  Megan gave her hang-glider pack a final adjustment and clambered to the other side of the open door. Her hands gripped the door frame like iron claws. Locks of her silky black hair blew loose from her helmet. Her goggles were partially fogged up despite being vented.

  “I’m doing this,” she said, sounding more like she was reassuring herself than refuting Sara.

  Lindsay’s voice cut in over the intercom, “Coming up on the location. I’ll slow it to a hover.”

  Sara leaned out the open door and she could see the void in the jungle canopy. As they passed directly above it she could see nothing but darkness. Was this definitely the correct cenote? Had Baxter’s reflection theory been an artifact of digital imagery?

  The time for worrying about such things was behind her. She reached out across the opening and grasped Megan on the shoulder. The engine grew louder and more labored as Lindsay moved into a low hover over the opening.

  “I will jump first!” Sara had to shout even over the headset. “Follow my path and we should hit dry land. You are skilled with the gliders. I have seen you.”

  “Right,” said Megan, looking as though she was about to be sick.

  “If you hit the water,” continued Sara, “hit your flotation switch. If those fail, hit your release. Do you understand?”

&nbs
p; “Flotation switch and then release. Got it.” Megan gave Sara a week smile, hair whipping and swirling across her face from the downwash.

  “On three, love,” said Sara. “You will be fine. One… two… three!”

  Sara leaped from the open door of the helicopter, sailing into the hot jungle air and out of the turbulence. She stole a look over her shoulder and saw Megan had followed her, although the young woman was in a tumble which she needed to steady out before they cleared the jungle line. Sara used her body as a brake and Megan caught up to her, rolling and twisting in midair and trying to flatten her body.

  Sara grabbed Megan by her harness, risking losing a couple fingers as she pulled Megan closer and turned her face-down. She held her steady until she had bled off her rotational energy. Sara gave her thumbs up, but she had to push away. They cleared the tree level and their gliders were timed to open in seconds.

  The frame popped open and the pack pulled at Sara’s body as the wings of the glider found lift. She took hold of the steering bars and began to guide the glider in a graceful, curving trajectory down into the dark hole in the earth. Megan was even with her, struggling with the glider, but managing to keep roughly on Sara’s wingtip.

  They passed ground level and Sara dropped several float lights to mark the surface of the water. The hole was deep. They glided three hundred meters down from the jungle into the bedrock and into a world with just a small circle of light visible above. Ten meters above the pitch black surface of the cenote’s water, Sara saw the cave entrance and an arched structure that seemed manmade. She steered her glider towards the cave and landed just inside, her feet scuffing lightly against the rocks and the cave plunging into deep darkness ahead of her.

  “Bugger!” Megan cried out and splashed into the water and sent the floating lights bobbing wildly.

  Megan fought frantically with her pack and managed to trigger her floatation device. A moment later, she hit the release and fell out of her pack as it inflated, slipping into the dark, cold water of the cenote. Her clothes were saturated and her lean body lacked buoyancy. She was a good swimmer, but in darkness, in this strange environment, she began to panic.

  Sara shed her pack at the water’s edge, kicked off her boots, and dove headfirst into the dark, cold water. The water had an unpleasant, decayed smell from fallen leaves and dead animals that took many years to decay in the cold, airless depths of the cenote. Sara’s fit body and calm swimming cut swiftly through the water. Megan was panicked and thrashing wildly. Sara caught her under the arms and fought her to shore.

  “It’s alright, Megan,” she said, her voice echoing in the vast chamber of the cenote. “I have you. I have you now. Come on. Onto the shore.”

  Sara heaved Megan out of the water and onto the slippery bank. She made sure the young woman was breathing and then turned back to fish her floating pack out of the dark waters. She pushed it onto the shore and finally climbed out of the water, her jumpsuit soaked completely through with the cold water.

  “Get your clothes off,” said Sara. “Get something dry out of your pack. It’s ten degrees Celsius down here.”

  “R-right,” said Megan, rolling upright and still breathless. She watched as Sara undressed shamelessly, her body pale in the dim glow of the floating lights, her nipples stiff and her arms and legs prickled with gooseflesh. Sara pulled on fresh socks, a pair of shorts, sports bra, and a tank top. Her boots were dry. Megan was taking a long time, trembling and almost in shock. Sara helped her dress and covered her in an emergency blanket.

  “Stay here,” said Sara.

  “N-no,” said Megan. “I’m going—“

  “Damn it, Megan, you proved yourself. That was an unlucky jump. Could have happened to me.” Sara stood up and belted on the pistols she favored. “Wait here for Lindsay to return. We can climb out together.”

  “Right,” said Megan.

  “May radio won’t reach the surface in that cave and I might help,” said Sara, trying to soften the blow of abandoning her friend and trainer. “Be ready. If I call you, then come and rescue me.”

  Megan smiled graciously, her teeth clicking as she chattered against the cold.

  “Good luck, boss,” she said, cradling her radio in her lap.

  “There’s a thermos in my pack,” said Sara, gesturing to the heavy pack she intended to leave behind. “Winston made us some of his orange mint tea. Just a hint of cream and sugar.”

  “Oh, bless him,” moaned Megan, reaching for the pack.

  Sara smiled and turned her attention back to her expedition. She switched on a torch and approached the crumbling archway she had seen when she landed. It was about three times her height, sturdy at the base and fragile near the top of the arch. This was the structure Baxter’s algorithm had picked up on the satellite imagery. The arch might have been naturally occurring, except for the last fading Inyakan pictographs left by the builders. Sara recognized a serpent and a flower and a few other symbols, but so much had faded away that she could not make sense of it.

  She shined her torch through the arch and down the path into the cave. She was surprised to see a canal of black water divided by a narrow path of crumbling stone. In places, the cave’s walls jutted into the canal or formed a ledge of collapsed rock, but the only real way forward was down the narrow path.

  The stones were slimy with moisture and the going proved much more precarious than she had expected. She nearly pitched over into the canal in her first dozen steps, which did not bother her unduly until another dozen steps, when she noticed something large moving within the water. A serpentine body and a spiny fin appeared for a moment before disappearing back beneath the surface of the black water. Cenotes rarely supported large fish and whatever that was seemed enormous.

  Sara proceeded more cautiously. After another dozen paces, the stone path eroded and she had to take a running jump over the gap. She landed poorly on the other side, skidding for half a pace and losing her balance. She landed hard, folding one leg onto the stone path and dropping the other leg over the edge and into the water. She gasped as she almost immediately felt something large brush against her submerged leg. She pulled her leg out and the water churned violently a moment later. She caught sight of the spiny fin again and a tapered head with red eyes.

  “What the hell is it?” She hissed, as the pale, serpentine body disappeared again. The head looked big enough for the creature to swallow her arm or leg and the body was at least five meters from head to tail. A giant eel? Some sort of massive carp? Sara was not sure, but she knew she wanted to avoid the canal’s black water.

  Another hundred paces – along with two more leaps across perilous gaps – and Sara reached the temple she had hoped to see. It was a stepped pyramid in the Inyakan style, stones glistening with moisture and a dark entrance visible at the base. Sara swept her torch’s beam over the entrance and could make out Inyakan pictographs.

  Unfortunately, she could not easily get closer to read them. The path through the canal had stopped and the temple overlooked a wide lagoon of the dark water. She shined her light down into the water and saw the serpentine movement of the creature. Its spiny dorsal fins stuck out almost completely and never fully submerged in the lagoon, suggesting that the water was fairly shallow.

  Sara knew that if she tried to swim, this creature would easily overtake her, but maybe, she reasoned, she could simply run across the lagoon. She observed the movements of the creature for several minutes before deciding that the entire lagoon was shallow. Its fins only submerged near the mouth of the canal.

  She waited until the creature was near the mouth of the canal and tossed a rock as far as she could behind her into the canal’s dark waters. The creature reacted at once, swimming at great speed down the canal. Sara took a running leap and jumped into the lagoon. Her legs plunged into the cold water up to her thighs. Her boots contacted the slick bottom of the canal and she almost lost her footing.

  Sara heard the creature thrash for a moment in the canal behind her and then there was silence. It was coming for her. She began to move as fast as she could. The water was deeper than she had hoped and she could not reach anything approaching a running speed. She glanced back and saw the fin surface behind her as the creature entered the shallows of the lagoon. Ten meters! Her heart pounded as she struggled through the cold water towards the opposite shore of the lagoon.