Lockdown: A Veiled Alliance Story Read online

  His gaze flickered over her chest, and his mouth thinned.

  Wishing her long-sleeved tee was thicker and appalled at her body’s betrayal, Lani reached for her seat harness and stepped into it, jerking it up her hips. She adjusted the loops around the tops of her thighs and cinched it closed around her waist. Then she picked up the vertical pack and slid her arms through the straps.

  When he reached for the strap at her waist, she forgot how to breathe. Pulling it tight, he buckled the ends together and the backs of his knuckles grazed her belly.

  So close now that his lips were level with her gaze, Lani swallowed.

  “Later,” he whispered.

  After one step backward and a deep, ragged breath, she turned sharply on her heels and headed back to the cave.

  “Lani!”

  She wanted to resist his command, but she halted and looked over her shoulder. Her yellow helmet sailed toward her, and she grabbed it.

  “I’ll be right behind you,” he said, his dark gaze steady and his square jaw clamped tight.

  She turned away and tipped her baseball cap back, letting it fall to the ground, and then slammed her helmet on her head and adjusted her chinstrap.

  “Hey, was Sheriff Chavez hittin’ on you?” Randy stood so close she jumped.

  “Course not,” she lied, flashing him an incredulous look. “He thinks he wants to go down there with us.”

  His blue eyes narrowed. “Let me know if you want him to make an air rappel.”

  Relieved Randy was there to buffer her anxiety, Lani dug her elbow into his ribs. “You can’t push him over a ledge. He’s too damn big to carry back up.”

  She made a quick inspection of the anchor wrapped around the tree, and then followed the line to the cave entrance, looking for abrasions and dirt—anything that might compromise the strength of the rope she’d dangle from.

  Randy dogged her steps all the way to the mouth of the cave. “It’s all good, right?”

  “Perfect.” Lani picked up the coiled end of the rope and flipped on the lamp on her helmet. “Get the Stokes litter and some blankets and follow me down.” With one look at the sheriff who trailed behind them, and a nod to the crew who’d keep watch from outside the cave, Lani knelt and crawled through the opening.

  Inside, she stood and flung the coil in front of her. She tugged on her gloves, and then lifted the rope and let it feed through her hand at her side as she moved forward, the gravel and sand shifting beneath her feet.

  Once she stepped beyond the meager light that spilled through the opening of the cave, she paused, listening to the silence, breathing in the cool, moist air that wrapped around her like a blanket. Already, she felt the tension in her shoulders release. She stood taller, stronger—comforted by the darkness beyond her lamp. And free.

  Lani knew some cavers did it for the thrill, but to her the dark, confined spaces meant comfort, peace. She lived for the moments she clung to a rope, descending into a black pit or wriggling through a narrow opening on her belly, clawing at rock and dirt to inch her way to the next dark hole.

  Humid, musty air, inky darkness, spaces so tight the sound of her breathing couldn’t echo. Except for the chill, like a mother’s womb.

  With no time to savor her environment, Lani kept moving until she’d reached the end of the spill of rock and gravel. Some long ago cave-in had likely closed the entrance behind her. The solid rock beneath her feet and the surrounding formations that glistened like ghostly pillars where her light touched were very different from the debris around the mouth of the cave.

  The walls of the cavern to her left and right were curtained with calcified rock that rippled like drapery. Stalactites hung like icicles, and curved pedestals of rock on the cavern floor reached toward the ceiling.

  She continued forward, filing her observations, already planning return trips to this underground wonderland. But for now, she had a boy to find.

  The shuffle of rock behind her reminded her she wasn’t alone. Another step and she stood poised on a ledge that overlooked a deep, black abyss. Needing a stronger light, she unclipped a flashlight from the side of her pack and shined it downward. The light barely penetrated the gloom, like it was sucked into a celestial black hole.

  “Matt!” she shouted, but her voice didn’t echo back. The sounds of her feet scraping rock, even of her breath, hung in the air next to her.

  “Lani!” Randy called.

  She turned, surprised again by how close he stood.

  He dropped the Stokes on the ground. “I was shouting at you. Didn’t you hear me?” The sound of his voice was muffled as if her ears were stuffed with cotton.

  She shook her head. “Sound doesn’t seem to carry in this place.”

  Randy’s forehead scrunched. “Weird place. Have you heard of anything like this before?”

  Lani shrugged, puzzled herself. “No. It’s like the cave is…super-insulated.”

  He stepped to the edge of the drop-off. “Man, I can’t see the bottom.”

  Lani’s gaze slipped beyond Randy’s shoulder to the sheriff. His swarthy skin was sickly pale. “You shouldn’t have come.”

  “I’m fine.” He nodded to the pit. “That’s where you’re going?”

  “Looks like it.”

  His jaw tightened. “We need more men down here.”

  “Probably, but first I need to find the boy and assess what equipment we’ll need.”

  Lani didn’t like the look of the sweat beading on his forehead. He looked ready to puke or pass out. “You better sit.”

  “It’s so damn…close in here,” he said, tugging at his collar.

  “Dammit, Rafe,” she said. “Just sit down.”

  One corner of his mouth lifted in a crooked smile.

  Did he think her saying his name was some kind of endearment? She stared, feeling as though her heart were lodged in her throat. Hell, she did care. But she couldn’t love him. He deserved better than her.

  Lani turned away and removed her pack. Time to get to work.

  Randy, under her direction, formed a loop at the end of the rope and knotted it, and then clipped on a carabiner.

  Lani pulled out the other rope with the brake bar rack, attached it to the carabiner clip, and tossed the end over the ledge. Then she removed extra rigging from her pack, attached it to her seat harness, and clipped it to the rope. She stuffed an ascender device into a side pocket of her pants. “Randy, drape a blanket over the edge beneath the rope.”

  “Sure you don’t want me to belay you down?” Randy asked.

  Lani didn’t want to wait to attach the extra hitches and pulleys. Besides, she preferred to control her own descent. “You go ahead and prepare the hitches we’ll need for the belay when I take the basket down. I’ll be faster making this trip on my own.”

  Randy shrugged. “You’re in charge. Got your whistle?”

  Lani tugged the cord from beneath her shirt. “Yeah, I’ve got it.” Backing up to the edge, she leaned against the rope to test for any give in her equipment. She took another step backward, gave the two men a nod, and leaned back into the air. Then she bent her knees and simultaneously pushed off the edge, releasing the lock on her descending device to glide slowly downward into the darkness.

  Once over the lip of rock, the wall receded, and she lost the advantage of a solid surface against her feet to control the direction of her descent. She twisted in a slow circle, her helmet lamp touching pale, limestone wall, a series of slanting ledges, a cavern so deep radiance found no boundary, then back again to the wall.

  Deeper she descended, directing her light downward. She wondered whether she had enough rope to reach the bottom and despaired for the fate of the boy. She doubted there was any way in hell he’d survived the long fall.

  Around and around she slowly spun, when suddenly her lamp caught the glitter of something shining from a rock ledge. She braked on the rope and waited another turn, until the light glanced upon a figure perched at the edge. When she spun away,
she blinked, sure she’d only imagined what she’d seen.

  One more full turn, and her breath stopped. Hunkered on all fours stood a large golden mountain lion, dark eyes gleaming like mirrors reflecting the lamplight. Beside him lay the still body of the boy.

  About the Author

  Delilah Devlin is a New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling author with a rapidly expanding reputation for writing deliciously edgy stories with complex characters. She has published nearly two hundred stories in multiple genres and lengths, and she is published by Atria/Strebor, Avon, Berkley, Black Lace, Cleis Press, Ellora’s Cave, Entangled, Grand Central, Harlequin Spice, HarperCollins: Mischief, Kensington, Kindle, Montlake Romance, Running Press, and Samhain Publishing.

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  Also by Delilah Devlin

  Night Fall

  Sm{B}itten (#1)

  Truly, Madly…Deadly (#2)

  Knight in Transition (#3)

  Wolf in Plain Sight (#4)

  Knight Edition (#5)

  Night Fall on Dark Mountain (#6)

  Frannie and the Private Dick (#7)

  Sweet Succubus (#8)

  Truly, Madly…Werely (#9)

  Bad to the Bone (#10)

  Long Howl Good Night (#11)

  First Knight (#12)

  Big Bad Wolf (#13)

  Montana Bounty Hunters

  Reaper (#1)

  Dagger (#2)

  Reaper’s Ride (#3)

  Cochise (#4)

  Hook (#5)

  Wolf (#6)

  Uncharted SEALs

  Watch Over Me (#1)

  Her Next Breath (#2)

  Through Her Eyes (#3)

  Dream of Me (#4)

  Baby, It's You (#5)

  Before We Kiss (#6)

  Between a SEAL and a Hard Place (#7)

  Heart of a SEAL (#8)

  Hard SEAL to Love (#9)

  Big Sky SEAL (#10)

  Head Over SEAL (#11)

  SEAL Escort (#12)

  Texas Cowboys

  Wearing His Brand (#1)

  The Cowboys and the Widow (#2)

  Soldier Boy (#3)

  Bound & Determined (#4)

  Slow Rider (#5)

  Night Watch (#6)

  Triplehorn Brand

  Laying Down the Law (#1)

  In Too Deep (#2)

  A Long, Hot Summer (#3)

  Texas Billionaires Club

  Tarzan & Janine (#1)

  Something To Talk About (#2)

  Who’s Your Daddy (#3)

  Love & War (#4)

  * * *

  Some Standalone Stories

  Begging For It

  Hot Blooded

  Raw Silk

  Warrior’s Conquest

  Rogues

  Enslaved by the Viking Short Story

  Conquests

  Smokin’ Hot Firemen