Page 53 of Welcome to Bone Town

“The same one we saw on the floor?” Roman asks. He’s standing a good ten feet away. Odd. He’s usually the first to crowd close to an artifact.

“Yeah, but this is more well preserved than any I’ve ever seen.”

Reaching forward, I run my fingertips reverently over the rune before gently opening the book. Only a few hieroglyphs sit before me, none that I recognize, so I turn the page. A smile forms on my lips when I see a drawing of an ethereal woman, her beauty and power translated to the paper. Below her is the rune of Lunara.

“I think this is a depiction of the goddess.” I say to the group.

Archer takes his glasses off and wipes them on his shirt before leaning around Bear to get a closer look.

Turning the fragile page, I stifle a gasp as I take in the image of the same woman being ravished by four men. Worshiping her. Bringing her pleasure.

“Looks like fun,” Jax says, leaning over my shoulder.

“What is it?” Roman asks, still standing too far away. His posture is even stiffer than normal.

“Come over and find out.” Jax slings his arm around my shoulder.

“There’s a place for you here.” Bear takes a half step to the side. There’s something soft in his tone that has me looking up at him before looking back at Roman.

“I’m…” Roman shakes his head. Something passes between the two men that I don’t understand. Bear gives a brief nod, then steps close to me again. He turns the page, and I see something else I recognize.

“There! I’ve seen that symbol before. It means ‘fertility.’” I say, then point at another. “And this one means ‘health.’” I study the other two symbols for a moment, trying to place them, but it’s no use. “I can’t decipher these others, but maybe the rest of the book will give us something to work with.”

Eagerly turning to the next page, I suck in a breath at what I see. People of all genders writhe on the floor, connecting bodies in any way they can. Some with one partner, some with four or five, in every combination you can think of. An orgy. It’s a frickin’ orgy. I was right!

“You were right.” Archer echoes my thoughts with a touch of wonder in his tone.

The same hieroglyphs surround the edges of the drawing. Fertility, health, and the ones I can’t read.

“Is that the goddess there?” Bear points to a woman in the center who looks a lot like the image of Lunara from the page before. But it’s difficult to make her out in the crowd of bodies.

“I think so?” My fingers gently trace the picture. We shouldn’t be touching this without gloves. Pages this old should be falling apart, but the book is in remarkable shape, mysteriously preserved beyond what should be natural. And I can’t hold back. Something about being stuck down here in these circumstances makes this feel more like an adventure than an archeological dig. Like stepping back into the past and living it, rather than just excavating it.

Archer reaches around me to turn the page again, revealing a closer look at the goddess—almost a zoomed in version of the page before. A glint catches my eye.

“What’s that?” Jax points at Lunara’s neck, where a gold necklace sits. Well, more of a choker than a necklace.

“Pfft. You would see the gold thing first, treasure hunter,” Bear teases.

“I’ve never seen this before.” I lean closer to get abetter look. “None of the renderings of Lunara in my studies showed her wearing this.”

“What is it?” Roman asks again.

“If you want to see, you can stop being a mopey child and come join us.” I glare at him. But he doesn’t budge. With furrowed brows, he rubs his stubbled chin, refusing to meet my eyes. I wish I knew what was going on in his head.

“If they took the time and effort to gild this on the page, it must be important, right?” Archer asks, possibly trying to break up the tension and tempt Roman over with honey rather than ire.

Chills rush up my spine as I take in the stunning craftsmanship of the one and only gilded thing on the page—in the whole book so far, other than the cover. Could this be Lunara’s relic? Proof that the legends are true and it actually exists? Could this be what I’m looking for? A way to fix me?

43

My little mate is so smart. But seeing all these sexy images is making me think of Cora’s sweet, sweet pussy again. I only got a taste of her exquisite nectar, and I’m desperate for more.

My focus bounces between the erotic images and my mate’s excited face as she flips through the rest of the book. One page makes me pause to take it in. The goddess Lunara touching the forehead of a heavily pregnant omega. My cock hardens as I replace the omega on the page with my mate. I can't wait to see her swollen with my child. Fuck, she’ll be so sexy.

The smell of Cora’s arousal blooms, but before I can try to convince her to let me take care of it for her, she turns back to the group. “We need to find this necklace.”

“What necklace?” The professor growls. I throw a rock at him. Our mate needs him to get his act together. It’s not a big rock. Just a pebble really.

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