Saffron Read Online Free PDF Page B

hadn’t a clue how. The motor ground slowly to a stop, leaving them submerged in the basket.
    “Shade?” he asked in the radio. “What’s going on?”
    “Motor’s overheated, Boss. It’ll be a bit before we get you up. Hang on, we’re working on it.”
    He bit off a curse even as he reached out to bring Saffron closer, not caring one whit that Cole was there and could see. She didn’t protest, but he did see the questioning glance she sent him. His hand curled about her waist as he leaned his head down to her ear.
    “You okay?”
    “Fine,” she responded. “Your man Cole doesn’t look so good, though. Maybe you should engage him in conversation so he keeps his mind off being suspended in the air.”
    Sliding his gaze to his friend and co-worker, he found that his face had a pasty sheen to it. Sweat beaded along his brow and his throat worked as he swallowed over and over.
    “Hang in there, Cole. We’ll be up in no time.”
    “Sorry, Boss. I… I’m fine so long as we keep moving.”
    “Nothing to apologise for. Talk to me, man.”
    He watched Cole sink to the floor of the lift and do his best to hide the tremors flowing through him. Kenric sat as well and smiled when Saffron followed suit, brushing their knees together.
     
    Saffron left her physical likeness there in the semi-dark with the two men and took herself back down to the tunnels. She ran swiftly along until she reached the fissure she’d seen before. She slipped through and followed it down into a large cavern. Hovering in the air, she frowned as she spotted all the magma down there. Many more blasts and this would be allowed to escape up even sooner than nature intended.
    She took herself to the cavern that held the natural gas they were after—they were off the mark by a good bit. At the rate they were digging and blasting, they would do much more damage before they found what they were after.
    Saffron picked up on the sound of the lift moving and blinked herself back into her likeness in time to hear Kenric speak.
    “You okay, Doc? Come on, we’re moving. Stand up.”
    She wasn’t sure how much time had passed while she’d done what she’d been doing so she just got to her feet and said, “I must have dozed off.”
    The look he gave her told her he didn’t fully believe that. Luckily he didn’t pursue her statement. When they reached the surface, she discovered that most of the men from the compound had arrived. Flare had brought her stuff from her room and she thanked him before heading to her provided tent. Once there she looked over her maps while they took care of the murdered men.
    She marked the place she’d seen the magma and the spot where she’d seen the gas. It would be a tricky extraction or one hell of a big explosion. She’d just closed the map when the tent flap opened and Kenric stepped through, a bedroll in one hand. He tossed it to the floor and stared at her, his gaze a mixture of desire and pain and loss.
    Biting back her abrasive attitude she asked, “Is there anything I can do to help out?”
    He raked a hand through his hair and sighed with exhaustion. “Can you help them fix some food?”
    “Of course,” she replied. She stood and waited for him to move out of her way. He didn’t. “Something else?”
    “What happened to you in the lift? Don’t tell me you were sleeping. I nudged you a few times and got nothing. It’s like you had turned to stone.”
    Shit! “Perhaps I am like that when I sleep.”
    His eyes flashed. “I don’t think so, darlin’. You forget I’ve slept with you in my arms. There was nothing like that then. So I’ll ask again. What the hell happened?”
    She didn’t know what to do. It’s not like she could tell him the truth—that she was a goddess who’d once been known as Qetesh. Could she? Tell him she knew his thoughts, witnessed the passion he had for her in his dreams? That she had powers and could do many things that would be beyond the human scope of possibility.