Beautiful Sacrifice

center for the lowland Maya, especially after the Spanish came. Philip dredged the cenote for a sample of what was on the bottom. He recorded the length and type of bones, the variety of artifacts, and then threw the bones back.”
    “Surprised he didn’t study them.”
    “Some of the villagers were angry at Philip’s ‘violation’ of the cenote, so he returned the bones, concentrated on ruins, and everyone settled down.”
    The sound of more voices came on the wind.
    “Busy place,” Hunter murmured.
    “The wheel of time turns tonight. The Long Count ends and the Fourteenth Baktun begins. It will be a lot more quiet after that. Until then”—she shrugged—“we’ll leave the cenote to the villagers. It costs us nothing and pleases them.”
    “And they’ll be in church on Sundays and holy days.”
    “Their lives, their choices.”
    “A very modern point of view,” Hunter said quietly as he eased back undercover. “Neither the Maya nor the Spanish were so broad-minded. For a lot of cultures, religion is a blood sport.”
    Lina followed Hunter’s move to leave. As she started to go back, her body stroked over his. Even if the trail hadn’t forcedthem close, she still would have touched him. She’d wanted him since her first breath this morning. Face-to-face with him, she paused, absorbed in how the silver in his eyes reflected the green shadows of the enclosing plants.
    The voices from the other side of the cenote became louder, then faded, absorbed by the jungle.
    “We haven’t really been alone since we left the estate,” Hunter said quietly in English. “That’s why we’re not finding out just how hard a limestone mattress is.”
    She hesitated, not even a breath away from him, and switched to English. “We’re being followed?”
    “Does your neck itch?”
    “No more than usual in the jungle,” she said wryly. “Getting used to the insects takes me a week or two.”
    He nodded. “But you know that we’re being watched. Not by the same people, but we’re never alone for more than a few minutes at a time.”
    She shrugged. “There are three villages within several kilometers. Cenote de Balam is sacred, and this is a big holy day for the Maya. I’d be surprised if there weren’t people gathering around the area. Plus, I’m a Reyes Balam with a strange male at my side. Naturally they would look out for me.”
    For a long moment Hunter weighed what Lina had said. Then he nodded. “So much for my fantasies of jungle sex.”
    Lina smiled. “C’mon. Maybe we’ll get lucky in the ruins.”
    “You’re laughing at me.”
    “I’ve never had so much fun in my life,” she admitted.
    “Will you enjoy it as much when you figure out it’s not a game?” he asked softly.
    Before she could find an answer, Hunter was moving down the trail, away from the cenote.
    And Lina.

C HAPTER N INETEEN
     
    H UNTER STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE SMALL CLEARING where Lina had parked the Bronco. The vehicle looked undisturbed, yet they had rarely been without the presence of voices on the wind.
    “Wait,” Hunter said as Lina headed for the Bronco.
    He circled the vehicle, saw nothing suspicious, and waved her over. After they got in, he watched Lina back the Bronco until she found a place to turn. She hadn’t said a word since the cenote.
    “You drive very well,” he said.
    “I thought you were mad at me.”
    “I’m mad at the situation, not you.”
    She got the vehicle straightened out and gave him a long look.
    He smiled gently.
    After a moment she put the Bronco in gear and headed back toward the main road.
    “I’ve been driving estate roads since I was old enough to see over the dashboard,” she said. “Philip liked having someone to run errands for him on the digs. That way he didn’t have to leave a site for months at a time.”
    “The villagers don’t drive?”
    “Once a dig is set up, Philip doesn’t allow any vehicle but his own in the area.”
    Hunter smiled thinly. “That puts the brakes on the size and quantity of what people can steal.”
    “We have very little theft here.”
    Crutchfeldt’s words about grave robbers at work on Reyes Balam lands echoed in Hunter’s mind, but he didn’t say anything. Whoever or whatever El Maya was, he terrified people to the point that outside artifact poachers apparently didn’t set foot on Reyes Balam lands—or if they did, they died.
    “Loyalty is good,” Hunter said, “but not all humans are.”
    “If theft occurs, it’s