Shadow Soldier (3 page)

Seven. Six. Five.

Even if she could escape, she’d lost her bag, all of her supplies, and she no longer had a weapon. It didn’t matter. She’d rather be unprepared in the woods than face the horrors of the city.

Four. Three. Two.

Roux opened her eyes, staring up at the ceiling of the cab with her hands fisted at her sides. Weakness, hopelessness, and defeat had no place in her mind or heart, and if she had to die, she’d take as many of them with her as she could.

One.

“I’m going to kill you.”

The female spoke calmly—a promise rather than a threat—and the hollowness in her tone dropped the temperature in the cab by twenty degrees. Gripping the steering wheel tighter, Deke stared straight ahead, focusing on the double lines that ran down the middle of the highway. The wipers rocked back and forth across the windshield, their slow, steady rhythm a contrast to his racing pulse.

“You can try,” he answered, his tone flat, devoid of inflection or emotion. “I think we both know how that would end.”

The rain had slowed, blanketing the town and surrounding forest in a dreary mist that saturated everything it touched. On any other night, he might have found the fog soothing, peaceful even, but the female in his backseat had changed everything.

“Where are you taking me?” she demanded.

Roux’s tone remained unwavering, but her racing pulse, along with the icy stench of fear that permeated the vehicle, belied her indifference. Deke admired her bravery, but her combative attitude would see her dead before sunrise.

“I’m taking you to the Bastille. You’ll get a shower, food, clothes, and then tomorrow, you’ll be given an aptitude test to determine employment.”

“You mean slavery,” Roux countered, disdain dripping from each word. “Call it what you like, but it’s not as if I have a choice.”

Deke sighed as he shifted in the driver’s seat. Every new batch of humans that came through were the same—all convinced of the evils of the Coalition.

“I’m trying to help you, Roux. It’s better than living in the woods and starving to death, isn’t it?”

“I’ll take my chances.”

They fell into silence again as the two-lane highway turned into a narrow, cobblestone road, lined on both sides by old-fashioned streetlamps. Though powered by solar energy, the lanterns flickered with the golden light of mock flames, casting shadows over the ornate wooden sign welcoming visitors to Trinity Grove.

Nestled on the edge of the Allegheny National Forest, the little Pennsylvania town had been his home, his solace, for nearly a decade before the Purge. While the Diavolos family had long governed the Gemini who inhabited the area, their reign had been just as quiet and unassuming as the town itself before the rise of the Coalition. Now, their rule stretched across four states, their laws absolute. Yet, they weren’t without mercy.

Stronger, faster, and some might say more evolved than humans, only the danger of being outnumbered had kept the paranormal world lurking in the shadows. With the fall of humanity, however, the ruling families had collectively agreed they’d hidden their existence long enough.

Some of the families had voted to eradicate the humans altogether. Others had speculated that left to their own devices, the humans would annihilate themselves, citing the Purge as evidence to their argument. In the end, it had been decided that with their depleted numbers, the humans posed only a negligent threat to the new world. They would be spared, but closely monitored.

Without an overseeing body of government, the treatment of mortals would be left to the leaders of each territory. The survivors living within vampire territories offered a valuable commodity—food, or more precisely, blood—and were therefore afforded a modicum of respect and kindness. Hapless souls who wandered into the werewolf-controlled parts of the world, however, found themselves subjected to cruel and vicious treatment. Vengeance, some called it, retaliation for the part humans played in the suffering of the wolves.

“Where were you headed?” he asked, looking at Roux through the rearview mirror.

Thoughts of the female being abducted by werewolves, or worse, Ravagers, simultaneously filled him with rage and anxiety. Deke gripped the steering wheel even tighter to stop the shaking in his hands, but he couldn’t banish the jitters completely.

When Roux didn’t answer him, he looked up again, watching her through the mirror. He didn’t need to see her to know she was grinding her teeth into powder, not when he could hear the scrape of her molars and the clicking in her jaw. However, since he’d found her lurking in the peach trees, he’d barely been able to take his eyes off her.

Dirty, malnourished bordering on emaciation, and reeking of blood, vodka, and sweat, nothing about her should have appealed to him. It wasn’t her appearance that had his heart pounding and his chest constricting, though. Thin, dry, and stretched too tightly over her small frame, Roux’s skin glowed beneath the layer of fresh mud. Not a glow like the streetlamps, not the metaphorical glow people used to describe happiness, but something almost ethereal.

So subtle he’d passed it off as a trick of the dim moonlight at first, the bluish-white luminescence shined much like he imagined an aura would, but alight from within instead of surrounding her. Deke had never encountered anything like it before, but he knew exactly what it meant. Now, he had to decide what to do about it.

“Please,” Roux implored, leaning closer to the mesh guard that separated them. “Let me go.” She dragged her fingertips over the wires, her breath fanning over the back of his neck. “No one else saw me. No one knows I’m here. Just let me go.”

Her quiet plea rang in his ears, and Deke lifted his foot from the accelerator without conscious decision. She was playing him, pretending to be the scared, weak little girl. He knew it. He’d witnessed her strength, her determination, and still, he’d nearly fallen for her manipulation. All because of who she was…what she meant to him.

Jerking the wheel to the right, Deke slammed down on the brake, skidding into a one-eighty spin. The engine revved as he sped out of town and back to the edge of the preserve. Pulling into the gravel parking lot of the small grocer where his unusual night had started, he killed the headlights and grabbed Roux’s belongings from the passenger seat. Without a word, he threw his door open and slid out into the night.

“Go,” he ordered, jerking open the back door and tossing Roux’s pack into her lap. “You have about eight minutes before the patrols circle this way again. Get back to the woods and head southwest.” His gut clenched, and the words tasted sour on his tongue, but Deke kept going. “There’s a place just outside of Pittsburgh. Someone will find you, and you’ll be safe there.”
If you make it.

He couldn’t think that way, though. Within the hierarchy of the new world, he had his place, a job to do, and he couldn’t afford distractions. No matter how much he hated it, he couldn’t do what needed to be done while worrying about Roux. While all excellent reasons to want her gone, in reality, it came down to whether or not he could keep her safe, and as it stood, he had little confidence in his ability.

The world had changed, become more brutal, less forgiving, and the newfound mate of a Coalition captain would be a coveted prize indeed. If anyone discovered what she meant to him—and someone would—she’d never be safe again. The sad truth was that she’d be better off in the Deadlands than she would be with him.

Of course, he didn’t want her in the Deadlands, either. While some cities and towns still thrived under the rule of the Coalition, many parts of the world had fallen into ruin. Places where no life existed, not even animals, stretches of land where raiders and worse terrorized everyone they encountered.

She’d be safe in Pittsburgh, though, and if she actually made it that far, he might even see her again one day.

Roux didn’t ask what had changed his mind. She didn’t feign confusion or gratitude, and she certainly didn’t hesitate. With a brisk nod, she jumped down from the SUV and slung the tattered bag over her right shoulder. After only half a dozen steps toward the highway, however, she stopped.

“My knife?” she asked without turning.

Sliding the KA-BAR out of the loop on the back of his belt, Deke weighed the hilt in his palm. “Military issue combat knife,” he muttered. He thumbed the edge of the blade, nodding at its sharpness. “Where did you get something like this?”

An audible sigh rose on the wind as Roux turned to face him with her right hand extended. “My father.”

Eying the human female, he pinched the end of the blade between his thumb and the knuckle of his index finger as he offered it to her. “Do you actually know how to use this thing?”

“I prefer if I don’t have to get that close,” she answered, gripping the handle of the knife with such force her knuckles cracked audibly. “If I have to, I can take care of myself.”

Under different circumstances, he might have believed her. If her enemies were fewer, if she only had to fight other humans, maybe she’d have a chance. As it stood, he likely sent her to her death.

“I know what I’m doing,” she repeated, turning her back on him. “I’m not going to thank you.”

“I hadn’t expected you to.”

He should let her go, let her walk away and forget he’d ever seen her. Nothing good would come from an association with him. Even alone, hungry, and weak, she stood a better chance on her own.

“Wait.”

He didn’t speak loudly, but Roux stopped walking and looked over her shoulder. “Clock’s ticking,” she reminded him.

Moving silently to the back of the SUV, Deke opened the hatch and grabbed one of the three emergency packs from a plastic utility box. “Take this.” Rather than approaching her, he tossed the army-green canvas bag to her, smirking when she grunted from the heft of it. “It’s not much, but it’ll hold you. A few MREs, first aid supplies, matches, a blanket—general survival shit.”

Roux’s eyebrows arched toward her hairline, but she masked her surprise quickly. “I’m still not thanking you,” she muttered as she shouldered the extra pack.

Deke didn’t blame her. In fact, he hoped her suspicious nature would keep her breathing until she found refuge. “Stay off the roads, and do not go west past the state border. If you don’t want to go to Pittsburgh, then turn north.” He shuddered to think of her crossing through werewolf territory. “If you decide to go north, I suggest heading toward Ithaca.”

Watching him through narrowed eyes, Roux shifted her larger pack on her shoulder, clearly trying to decide whether or not to trust him. “Okay.” She nodded, her lips twisting as though the next words tasted bitter on her tongue. “Thank you.”

Despite himself, Deke laughed. “Good luck, Roux Jennings. I hope you make it.”

In another time, in another place, he would have died before he let her walk away. They didn’t live in that world anymore. Revealing the Gemini to what remained of civilization had seemed logical at the time. The survivors of the Purge needed order and stability, leaders willing to make hard decisions for the greater good.

Without a common enemy, however, the Gemini had taken to fighting amongst themselves, each faction warring for more territory, greater power. Vampires wanted more blood donors. Shifters argued that they needed more land to run and hunt. The werewolves simply desired free rein to seek their fruitless and never-ending revenge.

Everyone wanted something, and there seemed to be no end to the lengths they’d go to get it. Being linked to him didn’t just place Roux in the crossfire—it painted a giant target on her back.

Every part of him rebelled as he watched the female disappear across the highway and into the trees. Standing beneath the streetlamp in front of the grocer, Deke did something he hadn’t done in ages. He questioned himself.

Despite his arguments that she’d be safer on her own, it took everything in him to turn away and climb back into the driver’s seat. Once upon a time, a mate had been a coveted and cherished prize, a sacred treasure held above all else. Now, only approved unions were acknowledged by the Coalition, and only those deemed worthy fell under their protection.

A human female—a commodity for her blood alone—would never be granted such status.

Shoving away his depressing thoughts, Deke reached out to close the door. His patrol had ended at sunset, and normally, he wouldn’t have tagged along on a simple retrieval run for a handful of human rebels. When he’d heard from the informant that the group had a woman among them, however, he’d felt uneasy about leaving her in the hands of the other city guards.

He could just imagine Roux’s reaction if she learned one of her own had betrayed the group. The thought almost made him grin.

His left hand still rested on the handle of the door when the scream rent through the air. The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, his muscles tightened, and a slow-building rumble vibrated through his chest.

It wasn’t fear that propelled him out of the car or sent him sprinting across the highway and into the woods. A primal, unfettered rage coiled in the pit of his stomach, spurring him through the squelching mud that covered the forest floor. His heart pounded too hard, and his chest tightened when the next pained scream reached him.

Gripped by instincts he didn’t fully understand, Deke crashed through the low-hanging tree branches, following the sounds of Roux’s struggles. The skin on his neck and chest rippled while the veins crawled along his arm. His beast clawed just below the surface, demanding to be set free, but it would have to wait. He couldn’t afford the time it would take to shift.

A deep, masculine yell erupted through the night, followed by a vicious growl that chilled Deke’s blood. His nostrils flared, his upper lip curled above his fangs, and a red haze descended over his vision. A small voice in the back of his mind murmured in warning, but he could barely hear it over the roar of blood in his ears.

The clouds parted, and the rain slowed to a fine mist that clung to his overheated skin. Eventually, the trees began to thin, opening into a small clearing littered with fallen branches and moss-covered stones. Silvery moonlight filtered down through the canopy of sparse leaves, illuminating the fog and glinting off the raindrops that clung to the grass. On the edge of the circle, calling to him like a beacon, Roux struggled and screamed as her attacker dragged her through the mud by her hair.