Reed (Nano Wolves #4) - Donna McDonald Page 0,65

gold to Sugar’s eyes. The artifact was an absolutely fascinating form of ancient metallurgy. This discovery would definitely count as an archaeological, career-making find.

“Physical evaluation completed. No impediments detected. Merge protocol activated.”

Great, Sugar thought, looking around her in the dark. She was back to hearing the talking in her head. Oxygen—she obviously needed oxygen.

When her palms started to sweat again, Sugar laughed at the strange statements.

Merge protocol? Where the hell had that craziness come from in her brain?

She’d just made the freaking archaeological find of a lifetime. She refused to be afraid of her own hallucinations.

Narrowing her eyes, she glared at the blade. “Listen here, artifact. Nobody merges with Sugar Jennings unless she damn well wants them to.”

As the significance of her words hit her, Sugar rolled her eyes in the dark.

“Oh, for goodness sake, I can’t believe I’m actually talking to a… a thing. That’s definitely enough carbon monoxide sniffing for me. I have got to get out of here while I still have some brain cells left. Back you go into your pretty little box.”

Sugar was trying unsuccessfully to return the blade to its former resting place when strange utterances began rapidly coming from the blade itself.

She brought it close again. What the hell? Did it have a speaker in it? Was this thing some clever geek’s idea of a joke?

But wait… the voice in her head had been communicating in English. She sure wasn’t hearing English now.

She lifted the blade to her ear and listened as closely as she could. The artifact was definitely making sounds that seemed like language of some sort.

The words sounded like… what? Sugar couldn’t decide. The utterances were rhythmic, spaced equally apart, and…

“Holy shit. Are you doing some sort of a countdown?”

Sugar warily held the blade at arm’s length as survival panic hit her full force. Her instincts took over and excitement over her find fled. For all she knew, what she’d found could be some sort of homemade bomb.

She needed to get out of the cave. She needed to do it now.

Sugar tried once more to return the blade to the golden box—only the freaking thing no longer fit. Was the box shrinking? How could that be possible?

She was still pondering things when the blade suddenly ceased its uttering and switched to emitting a loud, steady hum that seemed to be increasing in resonance.

“Okay. I’m fucking done with this shit. Money and fame are not worth getting blown up,” Sugar yelled as she glared at the blade.

Before she could put the artifact down on the stones and make her escape, the damn thing exploded in her hand and sent out blinding white light in all directions. The impact of the explosion knocked her to her knees.

Sugar glanced around the dark cave but couldn’t see where the blade had gone. Her palm where it had been was on fire. She suspected a burn but there was no light now to check.

Then an excruciating pain in her chest made itself known and shut out all other thoughts and concerns.

“Merge initiated. Symbiosis now in progress.”

Unclear about what she heard, Sugar wanted to ask the voice in her head to repeat what it had said. Only a pain-filled gasp actually escaped her burning throat when she tried to talk.

She must have fallen after the explosion. Her entire body felt like she’d been punctured with hundreds of flaming needles. Everything hurt.

The darkness of the cave soon descended on Sugar’s mind, but as she went under she could have sworn she heard the blade speaking more of its strange language.

2

Six hours later…

With her head throbbing from some sort of fall that had left her lying on the dirty cave floor in total darkness, Sugar fought to push her still aching body upright but didn’t get far. She groaned loudly with the struggle. Her hand swept out across the floor and luckily found the flashlight she’d brought with her.

Sugar flicked it on and spun the light around to see where she was. She found she was lying at the bottom of a large pile of carefully stacked stones.

Why in the hell hadn’t her freaking flashlight been on the whole time? Without it, she must have run into the stone cairn in the dark and knocked herself out.

Sugar pushed the rest of the way to her knees and felt her aching body wobble with the effort. Her head felt like it was going to roll off her shoulders.

Then… wow… she put a hand to her forehead as she suddenly