Empire of Shadows (Raiders of the Arcana, #1)

by Jacquelyn Benson

attained if not for the plague. With horror, Salavert wondered whether martyrdom at the hand of a female would even count in the eyes of God.

It was just one little riot.

Im going to like her!

At that tender age, it had never occurred to Ellie that the life she wanted was an impossibility—that no amount of intelligence and determination would ever overcome the handicap of her gender.

Marriage would mean the end of any occupation for her besides managing the household—a fate even less desirable than being eaten alive by a boa constrictor.

“Just one little arrest,” Ellie offered cheerfully, “which they aren’t even pressing charges for. It’s not as though I was denying half the population of the United Kingdom one of their most basic and essential civil rights, consigning them to a life of virtual slavery thinly disguised as ‘domestic bliss’ and forbidding them from any meaningful or profitable employment.”

She yanked her boots back on with breathless urgency, exposing a scandalous amount of ankle in the process. “Good God!” one of the tea drinkers mumbled.

“No yellow, see?” he said. “She’s a snail sucker, not a coral snake. Harmless—aren’t you, lil’ darling?” He turned the animal’s face toward his own and gave it an affectionate little wiggle. The man was entirely insane.

Bates had gone quiet. He wasn’t looking at the medallion anymore. His eyes were on Ellie. She was consumed by a familiar, uncomfortable fear. She was doing it again—rattling off an instinctive stream of knowledge in a way that usually ended with people looking at her as though she had just fallen out of the sky.

Ellie fought the urge to flinch. In her experience, men were often particularly ungracious when confronted with the reality that a woman might be as well informed as they were on a subject—or better.

The tension rose. As it did, something shifted in the tone of it—something that made her mouth go a bit dry. She swallowed thickly, conscious of the slow throb of her heart, the sweat lightly glazing her back, and the way the shadows danced across Bates’s jaw with the flicker of the lamplight.

Sounds like lust to me...

Ellie was aghast. “Are you telling me that the future of this endeavor depends upon whether or not I am a virgin?” she demanded. Bates blushed.

She slipped a bit on the tiles. Adam caught her. She fit against him nicely. He set that thought firmly aside and jumped down to the far side of the fence.

“I don’t like pretending to be something I’m not,” he finally replied, his tone short. “I don’t like looking for ways to take advantage of people. When I get to the end of my day, I don’t want to worry about what connections I should be making or which of my friends might be out to get me. I just want to take off my boots and watch the sky change for a little while.”

Perhaps she was wrong. Perhaps there was some hope that she had not inadvertently run off into the wilderness of a remote colony with her stepbrother’s old school chum.

Of course she did!

Adam found that he didn’t really want to be added to the list of men who assumed they knew better than she did. He’d let her keep her map until she was good and ready to share it. What did it matter if it cost them a few extra days?

“But you speak Latin,” Ellie pressed. She was having trouble wrapping her mind around it. Books were like breathing for her—an extension of her being. She hardly had to think about the fact that she was reading when she did it. The words melted into a stream of beautiful knowledge pouring into her mind.

Amen.

Ellie had the uncomfortable feeling that she had unwittingly brushed up against one of Bates’s soft spots.

“I just… think it might be my fault,” he confessed. “Your fault?” Ellie echoed with shock. He turned his head and met her gaze with a look as devastated as the broken pots at her feet. “I make the maps,” he helplessly replied. Something inside Ellie’s chest twisted tightly.

“Great, big ole’ X,” Bates continued, barely stifling a snort. “X marks the spot.” Ellie fought a wave of both anger and a hot mortification. “Are you quite done?” she prompted thinly. Bates coughed back whatever remaining laughter was in his chest and rose to collect his own maps.

“Fight with me,” Bates abruptly ordered. Ellie looked up with surprise. “What?” she blurted. “Fight with me,” he repeated, calling out the words over the relentless cascade. “Tell me why we should keep going.”

“Knife’s gone a bit…” he started. He lifted his head to gaze down across his torso. Ellie followed the direction of his look, and her own eyes widened with surprise. The leather sheath danced away from his thigh, pulling out toward the dense foliage. Bates poked at it curiously, shoving the blade back down an inch. As he removed his hand, it sprang back up again. “That’s awkward,” he commented.

That feeling—trust—was quite foreign. The enormity of it made Ellie feel a bit solemn, even as the rum still danced in her veins.

Ellie’s gaze locked onto the place where the curve of his well-muscled forearm was revealed by the rolled-up sleeve of his shirt. There was something deeply, wildly appealing about that forearm. Her mouth was dry. She needed… she wanted… She wanted. The realization struck her with all the force of a blow to the head. She wanted him.

Ellie didn’t move. She barely breathed as that coiled, ravenous beast inside of her hissed its low demands until she was finally graced with oblivion.

“You know, what’d really help with that hangover is taking the last couple swallows of the rum,” he suggested. “If you bring that bottle near me, I will beat you with it,” Ellie calmly replied. “More coconuts then,” he concluded with a cheerful toss of his machete. ⸻

“Lemme guess,” Adam offered. “You read a book about it.” Ellie glared at him. Adam raised his hands defensively. “Probably a really great book,” he added. “Because books are great.”

“And did you enjoy your stay with us?” Kuyoc prompted. “Very much so,” Ellie returned. “The village is beautiful, and you have a wonderful community here. I’m very grateful to you for sharing it with us.” “Did it live up to what you read in your books?” the priest pressed as his eyes twinkled mischievously. Ellie’s cheeks flushed a little. “I should say that the books were rather incomplete,” she carefully returned.

“I think it will be better when the purview of academic knowledge is open to the entire globe instead of just a single class and gender in a tiny corner of it,” she declared firmly.

“No,” Ellie admitted glumly. “I don’t. But it would have been the reasonable thing to do.” “I guess it’s a good thing for you that I’m unreasonable, then.” “Honorable,” she returned automatically.

Adam glanced down at Ellie again—this time with all the sharp focus of a promise. “I’ll be back,” he said, then left her alone in a field of white stone.

Ive got a bad feeling...

Adam had a lot of respect for his gut. Listening to it had saved his skin more times than he could count.

In his experience, men got more dangerous the more fervently they believed in something—and Dawson was still the one in the room with a gun.

The mask that Lopez had hurriedly shoved back into place slipped loose, crashed to the ground, and shattered. Adam winced. Ellie was gonna kill him for that. Survive first. Get chewed out later.

“Sure we are, Princess,” he said. He said it with a smile—but it wasn’t his usual reckless, charming grin. It was smaller and ever so slightly sad. A sharp, cold panic flared to life in Ellie’s chest. “Oh no,” she said. “You are not allowed to do that. You are not allowed to give up!” “Ellie…” he started. He sounded tired. No… it was worse than that. He sounded hopeless.

hand slipped to her rear. Ellie gasped out an incoherent plea. It might have been harder. Or simply yes. It could even have been in Latin. Ellie wasn’t entirely sure and did not in the least bit care.

“If I’m going to take you… every perfect, infuriating inch of you,” he elaborated as his eyes moved over her in a way that felt as intense as a touch. “I’m not going to do it like this.” “Every inch?” Ellie echoed roughly.

“Princess. Please,” he rasped. “I am really not sure that I agree with you,” Ellie countered uncertainly, still clinging to him. “This seems like a perfectly nice place to me.” “We’re standing in a damned well.” “Maybe you are,” Ellie pointed out.

Jesus i love them

“I have become inordinately fond of you, you know,” Ellie abruptly admitted. “Well, then, we’re gonna have to do our damnedest not to die,” Adam replied as he gazed down at her warmly—very warmly.