An Unyielding Desire (After The End Book 2) (32 page)

“Okay.” Coop hated the way she flinched. “I was angry and a little repulsed.”

Something close to triumph gleamed in her eyes before giving way to despair. “I knew you weren’t being honest. No one is that understanding.”

“It took me a little bit to accept it. I wanted to keep believing you had just been manipulated. The idea of you actually caring for Shane after everything he’d done was repellant.” He forced himself to ignore the tears in her eyes. “It didn’t take me long to get past that nonsense, Mina.”

She looked up, confusion clear in her expression. “I don’t understand.”

“I soon realized I was being an ass.” He rubbed his rough knuckles self-consciously against the blanket, remembering his spectacular temper tantrum with the tree and cringing from the shame. “I understand I have no right to feel threatened or angry that you had cared for him, regardless of why you did. He is in your past, and I want to be your future. I don’t care what went on between the two of you beyond the fact that he hurt you. I said it before, but I truly mean it now. It doesn’t matter, and I don’t feel any traces of disgust or anger. I love you, Mina.”

Hope flared in her gaze, but flickered away almost immediately. “If that’s true, why have you been avoiding me?”

He managed a small smile. “At first, it was so you wouldn’t see the mess I’d made of my knuckles on the losing side of an argument with a tree. It wasn’t a fitting substitute for Shane’s face.” He laughed. “And then it was because I knew I couldn’t trust myself around you. After I’d nearly ravished you while half-asleep, I knew I couldn’t risk being alone with you until I knew you were completely ready for lovemaking.”

Mina scowled. “I was ready to make love with you that morning
, until you freaked me out with your love declaration. I have been waiting since our last talk.” Her voice dropped to a shy whisper. “I’ve been impatient for you to come to me, but when you didn’t, I was sure you didn’t want me any longer.”

He groaned, both from a sharp stab of pain in his shoulder as he shifted to hold her awkwardly and from the way he’d behaved. “I’m sorry. I never intended to make you feel that way. I didn’t want to rush you.”

“You could have just told me,” she muttered, glaring at him.

He nodded. “I should have, but I was trying to protect you. I’m sorry.” He held his breath while she considered his words, relief rushing through him when she nodded and relaxed into his embrace. “Speaking of conversations, what the hell were you trying to tell me this morning?”

She buried her face against his chest, making her words difficult to discern. “I was giving you permission to move on with Holly. I didn’t want you to feel guilty for leaving me when you clearly didn’t want me. I just wanted you to know I wasn’t suicidal or anything.”

“I know that.”

She looked up at him, her chin resting on his chest. “I had decided I deserve to be happy, and that you’d have to be willing to accept everything that had happened, or you weren’t the one for me.” Her lips twisted ruefully. “All that drivel went out the window as soon as I found out you were hurt. I just wanted to be with you so badly, even if you didn’t want me.”

“I do want you though. I want you so much it hurts.” He gestured at his shoulder. “If it wouldn’t hurt more to show you, I’d spend the rest of the night doing so.” Coop cupped her cheek again. “As soon as I’m able to, I’m going to keep you in this bed and make love to you until neither one of us can walk right for a week. Maybe two.”

She giggled, looking so much like the Mina that had first captivated him that his heart swelled, leaving a phantom ache in his chest. Holding her against him, he was confident for the first time that they would move beyond the obstacles that had kept them apart, that she would recover, and she would be his. He was already hers and had been from that first morning in the chicken coop. Shane hadn’t destroyed her or their chances of happiness, and the bastard would never get another chance to do so.

*****

Shane woke roughly, his alarm clock a kick to the ribs. Swearing, he rolled into a ball instinctively, glaring up at Les. “What the fuck, man?”

“Get up.” He snarled the order.

Mind racing, Shane slowly got to his knees, freezing when Les pointed his gun at his forehead. Striving to sound calm, he asked, “What’s going on, Les?”

“We followed those fuckers for hours, but lost them.”

He struggled to hide his relief, which wasn’t hard to do, since fear was gnawing away at his innards. “You want me to head out and try to find them or something? It’s the middle of the night.”

“I think you can help us find them,” muttered Les. He nodded to someone standing behind Shane.

He twisted to look behind him just as Les thumped him on the side of the head with the butt of his pistol. Stars exploded behind his eyes, and his ears rang. He was vaguely aware of Hardy or Spam binding his hands with zip ties and tried to resist. His attempts were futile, and he ended up sitting in a camp chair near the fire, his hands under his buttocks, and his legs zip-tied to the chair. “What the hell is going on?”

“We spent a lot of time behind that fucking
Humvee, West. Enough time for me to realize they had almost the same plates as ours, both from the National Guard. Same paint jobs. Well, fuck, it was a coincidence, I thought. How many Humvees could there have been when The End happened? Even with most disabled, the government must have had at least a few hundred hardened vehicles scattered throughout the country.”

Shane nodded warily, making his head spin again. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he wasn’t sure if it was from the heat of the fire or anxiety.

“But then Spam pointed out something to me, West. You hit two of those fuckers, but not fatally. I’ve seen you shoot. You could hit a fly at a thousand yards, if you wanted.” With sudden viciousness, Les punched him in the face. “That leaves me thinking you were deliberately avoiding fatal shots. So I have to ask myself why you’d do that? You know what I concluded?”

Shane didn’t bother to answer as he turned his head to spit out a mouthful of saliva tinged with blood. His mouth throbbed.

“I figured you must know them.” Les hit him again. “Why the fuck didn’t you tell me that when that bastard shot Antaya?”

Shane shook his head to clear blood from his left eye, though the action made him woozy. “I don’t know that guy.”

“Hmm. But you did know the others, didn’t you?”

Shane remained silent, even when Les hit him again.

“You think you’re going to be strong?” Les gave a harsh laugh. “Do you really think you’re going to be able to withhold information?”

He was sweating heavily now, but still refused to answer. His bowels felt like jelly when he saw
Antaya coming nearer, her knife held in almost a playful pose. He strove to keep his expression blank as the madwoman stood beside her equally crazy lover. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He spat more blood.

Les backhanded him again, making his ear ring harder on that side. “You told us your group fell apart, but who was in your group? Where were they?”

Les looked mad as a hatter, but it was the cold anger in Antaya’s gaze that really worried him. He’d seen what she could do with that damned blade. Shane clenched his fist, determined not to betray anything that would lead them to Ty or Mina. He wanted to remain silent, but his screams soon echoed throughout the clearing where they had set up camp.

*****

Shane must have blacked out, because it was mid-morning when he came to, and only Spam was in sight. One of his eyes was swollen shut, his mouth ached, his bruised ribs made it difficult to draw in a deep breath, the slash marks on his chest burned constantly, and he was pretty sure he’d pissed himself at some point. At least he hadn’t betrayed their location. He wasn’t sure if they’d finally believed he knew nothing, or if they had just gotten tired of taking turns beating him.

Shane opened his mouth to catch Spam’s attention, but his throat wouldn’t work. He tried to create some saliva and got a heavy copper taste coating his tongue. Hacking, he managed to expectorate a mouthful of the red saliva, wincing as the motion made his entire body ache. “Fuck,” he rasped.

Spam drifted over, a bottle of water in his hand. With a shitty grin, he seemed to take great delight in drinking it in front of Shane. “You look like crap, West.”

“Water.” When the other man took a long drink, Shane couldn’t help the compulsion to lunge forward. The ties on his feet kept him pinned to the camp chair, but he abruptly realized the zip tie on his hand
s had broken. He shifted slightly, trying to hide a wince as the burn of returning circulation filled the hands he’d been sitting on for hours.

With a long, regretful sigh, Spam finally
crouched down a bit. “I guess I’d better give you a drink. Les isn’t done with you yet, and Antaya has only begun her knife play, my friend.” He extended the bottle so that the tiniest dribble of water hit Shane’s lips.

It turned his stomach to drink after the other man, but his body demanded water. He played the game of licking up the trickle a few times bef
ore asking in a tone that was less croaky, “Where are the nutjobs and their entourage?”

“Hunting.”

Hunting Shane’s people, no doubt. His throat clogged as he recalled they weren’t his people, not any longer. “And they left you all alone to guard me?”

Spam quirked a shaggy black brow. “I’m in no danger from you, West. You couldn’t kill a
bunny in your current state.”

When Spam offered the bottle again, Shane made his move. He deliberately threw his body toward him, and they crashed to th
e ground, landing heavily. His shoulders ached in protest, but Shane blocked out the pain as he brought his unbound hands around to grasp Spam’s throat. He clung and squeezed with all his strength as the other man fought feebly for longer than a minute. His face was purple before he sagged underneath Shane, but he still didn’t let go for another minute.

With ruthless precision, Shane took Spam’s knife and slit his throat to be sure the deed was done. It gave him no pleasure, but it didn’t make his conscience twinge either. Every one of Les’s followers dead was one less he’d have to face on his way back to Mina.

And he was going after her. Ty too, if he got the chance. He wanted to save them both before Les’s group descended
en masse
and wiped out every last trace of the Marsden family and their associates.

With quick glances, he cut the ties binding his legs and slumped forward onto his knees. Circulation was slower to return, accompanied by that burning agony
that made tears prickle behind his eyes. “Fuck,” he rasped as he finally got to his feet. He was weak and shaky, and it was a damned miracle no one else lurked around the camp. Since joining their group and receiving their Les-bestowed nicknames, Worm, Hobbit, Kerm, Jones, and Dag had been lazy fuckers. Apparently, Les had found the proper motivation to get them involved in hunting for that black guy and the farm group.

He was thankful for the small miracle, because Shane was not yet in a state to face more than one. If he hadn’t taken Spam by surprise, he wouldn’t have been able to best him either.

Shane went first to the flat of bottled water, taking one out and gulping it down greedily in seconds despite the burning pain his throat produced with each swallow. The second bottle was only a little slower to go down. He tipped most of a third bottle over his head to make himself more alert, and then used the remains poured on an old T-shirt to daub at some of the dried blood covering his chest and leg.

Antaya
had spent a fruitless half-hour playing with him, barely asking any questions. Instead, she had focused on introducing her blade to his chest to sketch random designs in his skin before drawing a shallow line parallel to his femoral artery. A half-millimeter closer, and she would have killed him before she could have continued the interrogation. At the time, he would have welcomed that escape, but was now thankful he hadn’t died.

Yet. If they caught up with him, or he had to face them on his way back to the farm, he was a dead man. There were still nine in the group, and that would have been steep odds when he was in top form. Still, he had to try. He couldn’t just let Mina die, and he was certain Les and
Antaya were driven enough to keep searching until they found the refuge housing that black guy who had robbed them of something they’d held precious. They wouldn’t let it go and would eventually stumble across the farm or run across the group on another scavenging mission. He couldn’t leave her there.

Shane had always planned to go back for her, but not under these circumstances, and not in this weakened state. Mina herself might be able to kick his ass if they faced
off right then. He’d have to extract her in a way that incapacitated her until they were far enough away from the farm that she wouldn’t be able to make it back easily if she managed to escape on foot. If he could secure Ty, that would almost surely buy her compliance, because she wouldn’t be able to walk away from her nephew. Then he could keep them both safe.

Which brought him to the issue of transportation. The farm was a few hours
east with a vehicle, but days—maybe weeks in his current state—if he traveled by foot. Of course the Humvee was gone, as were the two motorcycles Dingle had managed to get going again via bypassing their electronic systems before his demise.