Under His Guard (17 page)

I couldn't take it any longer. Reaching around him, I got a good grip on his hips and used that leverage to plunge into him. Leon howled. The hot spray of the shower splashed off his face like warm rain. Each thrust was all the way in and all the way out while he wailed and writhed and wrapped his hands around my ass to force me to go faster.

I dropped my mouth to his shoulder and licked up to his neck. “You feel so good, so good.”

His hands clawed at the wall in front of him. “
Ah!
You too.
Oh, oh…
”

“Don't you ever think I don't want you. Does this feel like I don't want you?” I sheathed my cock inside of him again.

He shook his head.

Wrapping my arms around Leon, I pulled him against me. The new languid pace of our fuck made my voice break around all the words I wanted to say. Words that came easier like this when nothing stood between us.

“Say it.”

“You…you want me.”

I nipped his ear. “I need you.”

“You need me.” He cried out as he came. I captured his seed in my palm, bringing it to my mouth, where I soaked it up with my tongue.

His clenching ass coaxed my orgasm with unbelievable force. I lunged inside of him a few last times as come spiraled out of me. The blinding climax almost dropped me to my knees.

When we'd toweled off and had something to eat, Leon sat propped on the bed, shirtless. He had that devil-may-care look on his face, yet thick tension rolled between us. I gathered the syringe and the vial, swabs doused in alcohol and the tourniquet. I set them beside him and then sat down.

I kissed the soft skin of his inner elbow, running my tongue down to his wrist, along his palm, and to his fingertip. Cradling his face in my hands, I kissed his lips. “I want you more than I ever wanted anyone, angel. And that scares the shit out of me.”

He took a deep breath. When he met my gaze, all the anger from the previous night was gone.
“D'ac.”

“Duck?” I frowned.

“
D'accord
. I get it.” His voice gentled, and his mouth moved to my neck. “I understand.”

“Good.”

As I prepared to administer the dose, I willed my hands to be steady. I couldn't allow myself to think about what would happen if it all went wrong. I had to believe there truly was magic in Raine's little vial—the magic I'd felt last night. It was our best hope, our only hope right now.

After cleaning the thin skin at the bend of Leon's elbow, I filled the syringe. I held his arm steady, my gaze darting between his eyes and the narrow blue vein I'd puncture. I licked my lips nervously as I set the needle against his skin. The point almost pierced him when loud banging sounded on our door for the second goddamn time in twelve hours.

The syringe skipped harmlessly across his skin. I held the needle aloft and shouted, “What the fuck now?”

Liz busted the door open and strode inside. Her eyes widened when she saw what I was about to do. “You can't!”

I placed the hypodermic carefully aside, wondering if it was contaminated.

She located my weapons, shoving them at me while I sat, completely confused. “Cutler. He's here. He's been sighted.”

“What?” I began to arm up.

“He was seen at the POW camp we nailed to the ground before he headed to the Corps compound, some kind of goodwill bullshit visit. We gotta jet.”

I halted and started stowing my guns away. “I can't.”

Liz dragged me aside. I didn't know why she bothered. She talked loud enough that fucking everyone had come to the open doorway, where they eyed her, me, and Leon playing patient on the bed.

“You can. You will.”

“Fuck off and no.”

“Go, Darke,” Leon called over. “Go. Get Cutler. Waste him. I'll wait.”

I rushed to Leon and dropped to my knees in front of him. “I'll stay.”

“Dat don' make sense. You can't stop the Revolution to look after me.”

“I'm not stopping to look after you. I'm staying because I—”

Pressing a kiss against my lips, Leon stole my words, stole my breath. He drew back. “I want you to fight. You're a warrior, not a nursemaid.”

“I would rather be with you,” I snarled.

“Den use that anger to cut Cutler's nuts off.” Leon wasn't as confident as he wanted to appear. His speech was unsteady.

“I swear to God, if you don't wait—”

He interrupted me. “Leave Raine behind. He can keep watch.”

Yeah, because I had so much faith in the shyster shaman.

Liz tapped me on the shoulder and I barked, “Gimme a damn minute, woman.”

The room emptied. I guided Leon to his feet. Grabbing him with shaking hands, I choked, “I haven't said everything I need to yet.”

His smile didn't reach his eyes. “There's still time.”

“You promise me.” As I tried to keep my emotions in check, I felt as if my face would cave in under the strain. I was so close to losing it.

“I promise.”

Leon's back bowed beneath the force of my kiss. I touched his face, his neck, his chest, landing on his hips, steering him to me. I tasted his lips, his tongue, his earlobes. I drove into his mouth again, making sure he'd remember me, his promise, our passion.

“So much I want to tell you.”

“You will.” He clung to my shoulders. “You will.”

I dragged my hands away from him, finding my ammo, my boots, my shirt. All the while I regarded Leon, fighting the fear this might be the last time I saw him.

A
s we crammed into the desert Cruiser once again, I demoted Darwin to passenger and took the driver's seat. I needed something to stomp my foot on, even if it was just the gas pedal. My throat felt like someone had tightened a screw on it. My breaths coming short and fast, I concentrated on the cold, hard facts. Cutler was in Omega. Cutler needed to take a long dirt nap for all the evils he'd perpetrated on Leon.

Cannon slid in beside me. Turning the ignition, I looked back at the castle.

My wingman inspected my no-doubt-distraught visage with a long, slow, “Duuuude. Maybe you should stay.”

“Fuck off.”

Leaving Leon behind—with Raine—already twisted my heart up and wrung it dry as this desert earth. I did not need Cannon getting inside my head. As I'd been reminded every hop, skip, and jump of the way, our quest was twofold, and I was an emotional, sappy, sad-case fuckwit when it came to Leon. In the high beams of Cannon's scrutiny, I clamped up tight for the remainder of the drive.

An hour or so later, I braked gently on a sandy hillside just outside the Corps compound we'd landed at. Nathaniel rolled up beside us in the second vehicle, nodding through the window to Cannon. If they started getting kissy-face on the glass to each other, I was going to go ballistic. The nervous rumble in my belly winched tighter and tighter, a clear sign we had to proceed with caution.

“Nice rides,” Darwin said, nodding out the rear window at the foursome of dune buggies racing in our direction.

Cannon hooked his head around for a look. “Sure beats a camel.”

Scanning the low-riding, high-powered transports, I felt a loosening in my taut nerves. “Our backup is here. Look lively, people.”

Each of us armed to our eyeballs, we disembarked from our vehicles, hidden behind the hillock. Shehu and his band of warriors cruised to a stop, barely disrupting the swirling sand. Greetings were exchanged between our two groups before Shehu and I convened.

“You are unsettled.” His glossy black eyes pinned me.

“You're less than relaxed yourself.”

“I must apologize for allowing your people to be taken.” He bowed, the long Mohawk-style braid dripping over his shoulder.

The chieftain of the Karesh Freelanders didn't need to show me such deference. “We know the risks.”

“I am responsible for all in my care, as are you. Where is the young Leon today?”

“He…” I made sure my back was turned to the others. “I cannot endanger his life like this.”

Stroking the long blade of his deadly machete, Shehu gave off the impression of a predator on the hunt. “The risks will get higher today.”

“That is the fate of our venture.”

He raised his voice. “To war?”

“To war!” Around the two of us, soldiers and warriors, our combined Freelanders and Territorians, raised their firearms in a gesture of solidarity.

As a unit, we moved across the hot, prickling sand to the topside of the mound shielding our vehicles from view.

Weapons were drawn. Binoculars were pressed to eyes. Then hisses sounded all around.

Cannon broke the ugly spell to curse, “
Fuuuckin'
A.”

Really, there were no other words to describe the scene we came upon. It was impossible to believe any sight could be as repulsive as the one we'd witnessed at the POW camp or as viscerally horrifying as the Beta Corps's brutal ambush of my own militia not quite a year ago. I rubbed my eyes, hoping grit and sand had blurred my vision to the point of delirium.

Sure enough, my eyes maintained the same gruesome visual. Zoomed in, the open-sided makeshift combat hospital was heavily guarded. What made us all squirm in the sand were the patients housed inside on plastic-wrapped cots. Except these sick people didn't look like war-wounded soldiers but innocent civilians. They didn't wear Corps insignia but the rigor of cadavers on their strained features.

The worst part was, they seemed aware of the disintegration of their flesh from the inside out. They hadn't been drugged up, doped up, or given any reprieve. Even the ones walking around in jerky, zombified movements had a sick pallid alertness about them.

Dark horses of death galloped at their gravesides.

“Cutler did this.” My voice came out gravelly.

“Total annihilation.” Nathaniel grimaced. “Leave it to Father.”

Liz didn't handle binocs but used her CheyTac rifle to dial closer. “Mass extermination. Cutler's infected more, hasn't he?”

“If that motherfucker's even here…” Cannon spat.

“Who put us into play here?” I asked.

“Raine reported it. This.” With a snarl, Linc narrowed his eyes at the tent.

Before we had a chance to regroup, we noticed a group of brick-faced soldiers herding the civilians who were still mobile toward a big transport.

Shehu slid forward with the ease of one accustomed to this landscape and the ways in which to blend in. He dodged behind scrubby brush barely big enough to conceal his mass, but his painted face and slithering tactics made him invisible to the enemy. Two of his warriors followed him.

Darwin hauled in a hasty breath the same time I saw the scar-faced, scruffy commander stroll between his troopers, shouting orders. The same man who'd put Darwin through her paces when we'd touched down in this Territory. His eye patch today was embroidered with the InterNations standard.

“Stand down, soldier,” I whispered to the Alpha Elite woman while maintaining a read on Shehu and his men creeping closer to the backside of the Corps hospital.

With my attention split, Darwin decided to go balls-out blazing. Barreling across the terrain, she laid tracks toward the trucks.

My entire crew, and Shehu's warriors, too, pounced to their feet with me. Talk about putting up a red flare to our whereabouts. I hunched low, hoping their instincts would kick in and they'd follow suit. Lo and behold, the hotheads hit the sand beside me.

“You, you, you,
and
you don't need to be ID'd.” I met the flinty glares of Cannon, Nathaniel, Linc, and Liz, aka personae non gratae to the millionth degree. “Stay put and cover us.”

I turned to Shehu's remaining warriors. “Back up your chieftain.”

I didn't wait for replies. I was off and running after Darwin. Fuck me, that woman had more balls than brains. I dodged behind her footsteps. My longer legs almost overtook her fast footfalls, and then we were there. With no plan, little artillery support—nothing but her mouth gunning off.

The Omega Commander's craggy face turned in our direction with a look of pure bewilderment. “Flight Captain Darwin, you've been cited as MIA.”

“What the fuck are you doing?” Apparently Darwin didn't give two shits about
all
the weapons cocked, aimed, and one trigger away from party time with our brain matter. She went bared-teeth and bald-faced bitch in her former commander's face.

Confusion scuttling across his face, the commander jerked up his creased tan pants. Sweat dripped from his temple.

“What is this?” He pointed at me as if I were three-day-old trash no one had taken to the dung heap.

“
This
is Darke. A Freelander. My bodyguard.” Faced with extreme danger, Darwin braved a grin.

“You are one step away from being court-martialed, hanged, or worse.”

“And you're about two-dozen meters from being stretched out naked on the hot tarmac of the landing zone and having your nuts poached.” As Darwin talked, the commander blanched, and eight severely pissed off troopers took aim at us.

It was like we were in the middle of a pressure cooker placed on top of an open fire. Darwin kept stoking the flames with her feisty attitude.

The kill-or-be-killed instinct rushed over me, but before I had the chance to push the bad end of my S&W 500s into the leader's empty eye socket, we were surrounded on all sides by glinting, gleaming, sharpened steel.

Shehu had marshaled his forces as silently as a reaper.

The troopers took precision aim at the Freelander newcomers.

With a clipped voice, Shehu advised, “You can stand down or get run through. Your choice.”

“Ease off, soldiers,” Eye Patch ordered. Once his command was followed, Shehu's people gave a little leeway from their encroaching circle. Eye Patch turned to Darwin. “What the hell is the meaning of this?”

“I'm asking you the same thing.”

“This?” He glanced disinterestedly at the dying civilians.

Some of them had stopped their march to the transport, and the close-up view was even worse than I'd imagined. The skin of their faces was not just hollow and sunken, but shrunken and sticking to their skulls. Their droopy eyes dripped a thick yellow substance. Mouths gaped open, and I knew the stench of their breath would be that of fetid disease.

“It's Cutler's new plan to root out insurgents or kill 'em before the real virus even goes live.” Eye Patch smiled.

“These are innocents.” I craned forward.

“Not anymore. The minute the bleeding manifests, after they're released in the streets of Omega's bazaars, they're homegrown killers. Kind of perfect, beautiful human bombs.”

“What do you mean, when the bleeding manifests?” Darwin asked.

“That's how this new one spreads. Airborne toxicity from some kind of—” He stopped and scratched a finger under the bars-and-stripes eye patch. “Whatever. They're gonna start leaking blood. That blood contains the contaminant. From there…it's unstoppable.”

“A death sentence to all in Omega.” Shehu twirled his machete so its shiny blade reflected the sun in diamond patterns.

“Oh, probably all the Territories after Cutler sees this thing go live. We were chosen to undertake the test subjects, to see if it was a success.” Pride seeped from his skin like tainted oil. “I'm thinking it will be.”

“Hey, Commander? I'm pretty sure it won't.” The razor edge to Darwin's soft voice should've been his warning. “Ever heard of the Reformed Corps? You're looking at them.”

There was no saluting or sweet-talking from her this time. She drew her gun and bored a hole into his brain before he even had a chance to say a prayer.

His deadweight slumped to the sand, and Darwin used his lifeless body as a stepping-stone to his shocked and shitting-in-their-britches soldiers. I guessed I wasn't much needed as her supposed bodyguard, but I did a clean sweep with my weapons around the quivering idiots to make sure no one got high-and-mighty ideas about becoming a hero. Shehu and his men moved with us.

Darwin launched herself at the lieutenant with her gun at his temple. “Here are your options, sir.” She spat the word with venom that shook her body. Her hand remained steady. “Join up or die on the spot.”

The douche bag shook in his boots for a full ten seconds before capitulating. He gestured his men—his troopers to command now—to follow his deed and decree to the Reformed Corps by removing his Corps insignia and tossing it to the ground.

The arrival of Liz and Linc, Cannon and Nate, Sebastian and Farrow heralded the end of our tête-à-tête. Taking charge with Bas and Farrow beside her, Darwin ordered the defecting troopers toward the barracks, where they'd get the rest of the battalion on board double-time or go another round of dead-dead-dead.

Shehu and his men hung close to them, tightening the feeling of Freelanders and Revolutionaries with one specific goal: to unite in the fight for freedom.

Left beside the idling truck, I huddled with the people I'd made this journey with. They ignored me to take a closer gander at the infected civilians who were aimlessly wandering. To say my comrades were visibly unsettled was an understatement.

“What now?” Linc asked.

“We can't let them spread the disease.” Liz popped her knuckles one by one.

“We have to kill them.” As soon as the words left my mouth, I felt my knees buckle, but I managed to remain on my feet.

“That's drastic.” Nathaniel slipped a hand through his hair.

“So's your fucking father,” I replied. “Do you think I take this decision lightly? Do you think I will sleep in peace ever again if we do this? There's no other choice.”

“Kill the few to save the thousands?” For the first time, Cannon looked unsure.

“They have to die,” Linc whispered.

Whipping toward her husband, Liz hissed, “That's a bit fucking cavalier!”

“Why are you surprised? You know what I am, what I've done.” Linc grabbed Liz's shoulders. “You said yourself we can't let the infection get out.”

“I didn't mean we had to murder them.”

“If it were Leon?” Nathaniel looked at me, his voice cutting through the maelstrom of emotion. “Would you decide the same?”

If it were Leon…My heart stopped. I swayed because I'd closed my eyes and lost that one compass point to all this endless misery. If he had to die, I would be right behind him. Very few got second chances at life. No one, least of all me, deserved a third. I would honor our…love…and go at peace to be with him forever.

“If he dies, I die.”

“What about the cure?” Liz spun toward me. “Raine has it ready.”

“It's too late, Liz. It's too fucking late for that.” Linc hooked her chin so she focused on the infected. “These people are gone.”

“There's not enough time, even if it works,” I said. “We have to replicate it, and they're already in the advanced stages.” The sense of my argument didn't make the reality of what we had to do any easier.

I watched a tear slip down Liz's cheek. I felt as helpless as the people whose fate we were about to decide.

One of the infected approached us.

“Do it. Kill me.” The black-haired woman appeared wraith-like before me. Her skin was nothing more than thin parchment over bleached bone. “I don't want to be responsible for”—her bone-rattling cough full of phlegm bent her in two before she straightened—“the deaths of others.”