Book of the Lost: AAV-07d25-11: (A reverse harem, post-pandemic, slow-burn romance) (The JAK2 Cycle, Book 3)

by V. E. S. Pullen

  “I still need to clean up Azzie’s head and arm,” Sev informed them, getting everyone’s attention. “Did you not notice you were cut up?”

  It took me a second, then I remembered getting hit by flying bits of concrete when the bullet bounced off the sidewalk and looked down at my arm. Sure enough, my sleeve had a bunch of small tears in it, and spatters of blood. I reached up and touched the side of my head, and my fingers came away bloody. “Had other things on my mind,” I shrugged.

  “The cuts are small, but they’re still bleeding,” he chided me gently. I stuck my tongue out at him. “Super mature, Azzie. Close your eyes.” I flared my eyes at him and stuck my tongue out farther. He sighed, dabbing at my face with an alcohol swab. The fumes coming off the pad made my eyes start to water, and I quickly shut them while he chuckled. “And don’t stick it out unless you plan to use it.”

  “Who says I don’t?” I muttered under my breath and his hand froze. I bit my lip to keep from giggling. “Or was all that talk about dirtying me up just that? Talk?”

  His hand dropped away from my face, and then his fingers were under my chin, tilting it up. “No, keep those eyes closed,” he ordered, voice low but rough. Stern. Goosebumps formed on my arms. He leaned in, his heat enveloping me, his breath tickling my ear. “When we get you back to the compound, I’m going to show you exactly what I can do with a length of rope, little girl,” he whispered so low that I knew no one else could hear. “I’m going to do something called bunny ears… sounds cute, right? It’s when I get both your arms bent at the elbow and bound together behind your head, elbows straight up. Then I’m going to frog tie your bent legs, and I might connect them then, wrists to ankles behind your back, so you’ll be spread out for me and unable to move. I can do anything to you then, all bound up like that. I’m going to find out exactly how good your pussy tastes,” he hummed in my ear as something seemed to detonate in my belly, sending shivers all over my body. I clenched my pelvic muscles, feeling a slick wetness leak out between my legs. “Then I’ll teach you exactly how to use that tongue, how I like my cock sucked. Yeah? Is that dirty enough or do you want more?”

  “No more, Sev,” I shook my head, eyes still closed but my brow furrowed. Sev hissed in a breath and began to pull away, and I felt lightheaded, but somehow disconnected like someone else had taken over my body, was talking through me. I popped open one eye and glared at him. “Not unless you step it up a bit, give me some fucking details. That— that was just a goddamn tease!”

  I gave him some serious side-eye, frowning like I was disappointed. He went from hurt and embarrassed to a state in-between wanting to throttle me and pounce on me. I bit down on my bottom lip again, trying to keep a straight face as he shook his head, nostrils flaring. “I’m going to get you back for that, Azzie. I thought you— I thought I went too far, you were gonna— you’re so evil!” He spluttered out, so twisted up that he couldn’t get a complete sentence out.

  “Well, that’s not any better,” I said, totally deadpan. “Couldn’t you have at least threatened me with a spanking like Luka does? Put me over your knee, smack my ass until it’s all red and heated?”

  “I— I— YOU—”

  “Shhhh… you’re being really loud,” I shook my head in disapproval, squirming because he was hanging by a thread and about knock me to the ground and drag me off like a caveman. “Which just goes to show you’re all talk— vanilla talk at that.”

  “You two cut it out!” Sasha stormed up and loomed over us, genuinely pissed. “You’re making a lot of noise— what the fuck is wrong with you, Sev? Are you having a stroke?”

  “Not sure there’s enough blood going to his brain to clot,” I said, scurrying to get behind Sasha, “unless you can have a dick stroke?”

  Sev leapt at me but Sasha got in the way, pushing him back away a good ten feet. Sev started to rage at him in muffled whispers, then Sasha said something, and Sev talked more while Sasha’s head tilted and he frowned.

  I got suddenly very worried when they both looked over at me with raised eyebrows and smug expressions. Sev grinned at me, said something else to Sasha who began to chuckle darkly. This… this wasn’t good at all.

  I edged away, closer to Tai and Spider, who were repacking the first aid supplies into the right bags.

  “Hey, uh, you guys don’t want to see anything bad happen to me, right?” I asked them, eyeing Sasha and Sev who were now both standing there with boots planted and arms crossed, watching me.

  “Of course not, sunshine,” Tai said, not really paying attention. Spider looked up, followed my nervous glances, and cocked a brow up at me.

  “What did you do, Azzie?”

  “Why do you assume I did something?!”

  Tai stopped what he was doing and looked up now too, glancing at his brother, then over at Sasha and Sev, then back to me. “Does the phrase don’t poke the tiger mean anything to you?”

  I managed to suppress my amusement at the tiger-poking innuendo — which was not easy — and shifted back behind them, looking around for my cocoa dragon. He was sitting against a tree, eyes closed, mouth open, lightly snoring, and no fucking help at all.

  I grabbed Tai’s arm, his massive tree trunk of an arm, and cowered against him. “You’ll protect me, right, Tai?”

  He resumed packing away the supplies. “Probably not. I’m guessing you deserve whatever they’re planning for you.”

  I sucked in a shocked-and-appalled breath, recoiling away from him. “Unfair! And untrue!”

  “We might even want in on whatever’s going down,” Spider said, and I tried really hard not to giggle at the going down part but it leaked out, and then I was imagining all of them teaming up to punish me and knew my resistance was completely and utterly fake. And also I’m a twelve year old boy.

  “Did you seriously just giggle because I said going down?” Spider asked, incredulous, and I had to slap a hand over my mouth as another giggle burst out. “You totally did it again!”

  I shook my head, denying everything, but I had to back away from them because I was about to explode. Spider stared straight into my eye, and said “Penis.”

  That was it, I was done. I crashed to the ground, both hands over my mouth trying to keep quiet as I completely lost my shit, I was laughing so hard it hurt. I rolled to my side, kicking one leg, howling into my shirt that I had yanked up and stuffed into my mouth, trying so hard not to make any sound.

  Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t breathe. My stomach was cramping, and still I couldn’t stop laughing.

  I finally got some control, able to take deep, wheezing breaths. I stretched out onto my back, my hands on my sore stomach, and blinked up at five large men standing over me, in various shades of amusement and disbelief. And confusion — Luka was completely baffled by what was going on.

  “Is she having a seizure? Should we do something?”

  “She’s fine.”

  “What the fuck is going on?”

  “Azzie? Want to explain?”

  I shook my head, squeezing my lips together and tucking them between my teeth.

  “No, seriously,” Luka was starting to sound pissed, “what the fuck was that? Azzie, are you sick?”

  “I—” I coughed, my throat raw and dry from suppressing all of that. “I’m— I’m fine.” I locked my mouth shut again.

  “What exactly did you say to her, Spider?”

  I shook my head frantically, begging him silently through wide-open eyes not to say it.

  “It’s not worth repeating.” He narrowed his eyes at me. You owe me.

  I nodded.

  “So why did I wake up to her rolling on the ground in agony, unable to breathe? Crying? Somebody needs to start fucking talking!” He hissed out the last part rather than yell it.

  “I— I wasn’t—”

  “She was laughing,” Tai said, disapproval thick in his voice. “Because Spider said penis.”

  I choked, slapping both hands over my mouth again, an
d glared at Tai. Traitor!

  “See? She just did it again.”

  “Oh. My. GOD! Seriously?!” Now Luka was glaring at me like I’d tricked him into thinking I was hurt or something.

  “It wasn’t— it wasn’t just that,” I spat out, coughing again. “It was how he said it. And what the two of them—”

  “The two of us?!” Tai leaned forward, totally pissy now. “I didn’t—”

  “You said poke the tiger!” I shot back, annoyed.

  He closed his eyes as if in pain and backed away, throwing up his hands. “Yes, I suppose I did.”

  “Then Spider said going down! Twice!” I pointed my finger at him. “J’accuse!”

  “I sure did,” he agreed, biting his lip and shaking his head at me.

  “Then— then when he knew I was about to lose my shit, then he said it!” I looked around at them, frustrated how they didn’t seem to get that I was the injured party here, I was set up! “You set me up!”

  “You’re right, Azzie, it’s all a conspiracy against you,” Spider agreed, but he didn’t really mean it, the jerk-face, the sarcasm was so thick I could taste it and the taste was sour.

  “I’m glad you admit it,” I said smugly, ignoring his feeble attempts to mask the truth. “You were probably in on it with Sev, getting me all worked up was a total setup, and then—”

  “Wait, what do you mean all worked up?” Luka narrowed his eyes at me then looked at his brother.

  “Dirty talk,” I hissed, giving Sev an intimidating glare. “Total filth! Knowing what it would do to me!”

  “Which was?” Sasha spoke for the first time, stern and forbidding. Challenging me. I squirmed, sucking in a breath, and he saw it all. The corner of his mouth twitched.

  Challenge. Accepted.

  I glared at him. “What do you think? He described how he wanted to tie me up so I was helpless and at his mercy, then he was going to teach me how to suck his cock the way he likes it. After he finds out how my pussy tastes. Like candy, by the way. You can ask Luka or Spider, both of them have gone down on me,” I said to Sev. Five men jerked in place. Eyes and nostrils flared. Fists clenched. Teeth ground. I don’t know how I managed it, but I kept my expression totally neutral. “I think I came about five times between the two of them, Spider did this thing with his fingers, I thought I was going to lose my mind.” Someone growled in the back of his throat. I squirmed again, clenching my thighs together. “Needless to say… not fair to tease someone after you get them all worked up.”

  “You’re the devil,” Sasha growled.

  “Can we—?”

  “No. No time.”

  “Motherfucker!”

  “Devil!”

  “I’m scouting ahead.”

  “I need a minute.”

  “I’ll be in my bunk.”

  “NO TIME.”

  “Someone gag her.”

  “With your cock?” I asked innocently.

  “I’M DONE!”

  “We can’t—?”

  “NO TIME.”

  “DEVIL!”

  Four of them stormed off, leaving only Luka behind. “I love you, Azzie-pie. So much.”

  “Right back atcha, Luka.” I winked at him and he chuckled, helping me to my feet and brushing the dirt and pine needles off my clothes and out of my hair. If it seemed like there was a lot of dirt on my ass and boobs, well, I liked that he was so thorough.

  Chapter Twenty

  Luka

  I love my girlfriend.

  I knew from the moment I saw her, pedaling along on that bike — long legs pumping, tight ass flexing, crimson braids flying back behind her — I knew that I was going to bang her eventually. And when she scowled at us, smacking down on the truck and flashing us the bird, I knew that we were going to be best friends too because she was the cutest little ball of attitude and rage, and I needed that in my life.

  I never expected this.

  I never expected that little red-headed spitfire to become the center of my world, the sun that I orbit around. I never expected to willingly share my cocoa with any girl.

  My whole life, I thought it was my brothers who completed me, the three of us a single soul broken into thirds and only whole when we’re together. I never thought there was a fourth part, the framework that our pieces fit into — hehehehe — the girl that holds us all together. We could still be complete without her, but everything is so much easier with her, everything fits together better. We can relax and just be, because she stabilizes us. Gives us structure.

  And somehow Tai and Spider fit too. I can’t remember a time when it wasn’t the six of us together, five planets circling the same life-giving sun.

  Are we as vast as the universe? Or all stuffed into a single chamber of her heart? Do I care if I’m mixing my metaphors? No, I give no fucks, all that matters is that she’s my world, and she is life. It’s just how it is.

  As I contemplated the metaphysical wonder that is Azzie, tromping along behind my brothers with her at my side in a strange city in the middle of the night, I realized that we were super close to the rendezvous point. It wouldn’t be long before the rest of my family met my Azzie, and I couldn’t wait. Dad was going to love her.

  After the bridge — and shit almost went terribly wrong there — and after we regrouped in the woods just south of it, we realized we were on the edge of a golf course. A golf course that was being maintained, no less. It made for easy walking, and we covered almost two miles in less than a half hour before it spit us out at the edge of an apartment complex that was showing lights in some windows, so we crossed the main road we’d been walking parallel to, and ended up in a nature preserve.

  Staying under the trees was ideal — it wasn’t just being seen or potential vehicles along the road, we were worried about aerial surveillance as well, like drones and shit, so having so much continuous cover was extremely lucky.

  It was a weird fucking city. There were so many parks and wooded areas that even before neighborhoods started getting abandoned, the map showed you could walk almost the entire length of the city through green spaces, only leaving them to cross major roads. You could definitely walk the entire width, all you had to do was follow the river.

  In the future, I figure city blocks interspersed with stretches of woodland would become more common than not; if things kept going the way they were, neighborhoods would empty out either deliberately or through attrition, and nature would take back control.

  People were both clustering together and isolating themselves — survival depended on working together and sharing resources, but interactions needed to stay contained. Out in rural areas, it seemed like everyone forms into groups or communities, and only designated individuals — the strongest, the healthiest — have contact with outsiders to trade for supplies, or to contract services. Sometimes to negotiate treaties.

  When it first appeared, the virus spread like crazy in heavily populated areas. Everyone was told to isolate in place — we’d been through a practice run with COVID-19 a few years before, but that was nowhere near as virulent or as deadly; lessons learned then were lost on too many people who thought they knew better.

  I remember English class, the concept of personification: you attribute human qualities on something that isn’t human. People treated that virus like it was something with an agenda other than to spread and feed, as if it was personally attacking their lifestyle instead of simply acting out the basest desires of any creature, to survive and propagate. It wasn’t personal, and no one got a free pass for being rich, or famous, or the biggest bully around — except when those qualities could give you an edge, allow you to use others to do the things that put you at risk.

  When JANUS hit, too many people acted like it was COVID all over again, rolling the dice and taking their chances. It wasn’t. Applying those same patterns of behavior was a fatal error.

  Urban areas were hit hard and fast. Within the first year, big cities were gutted, especially those dependent on public
transportation like D.C. The government that remained was a skeleton crew.

  With the U.S. hit so hard and the population decimated, fears that foreign powers would take advantage of the situation and invade were not unfounded — the Japanese took Hawaii in what felt like ten damn minutes, and they didn’t even have an army. All foreign bases were shut down, all of the branches of the military were called back and fused together into one large force under the “commander-in-chief” to hold our borders.

  The result? We had a military concentrated along the coasts and borders, and only a fraction of the government, but also only a fraction of the population. With the exception of Hawaii though, the area we inhabited didn’t change; we occupied the same square miles as always. And first responders — especially law enforcement — were among the earliest casualties, which meant that “governance” was more of an abstract concept than hands-on leadership.

  Rural areas had learned a thing or two during the earlier pandemic, when the upper classes fled the cities and brought the virus with them, and the smart ones closed their doors to outsiders. Small communities banded together to share resources and lock out interlopers: roadblocks kept people away, stores wouldn’t sell supplies to strangers, and community members patrolled the streets and sometimes attacked vehicles from out of town if they tried to stop.

  By a year into JANUS’s reign, we had a country where the rich and powerful had either self-destructed or were in hiding. With the military focused on securing our borders, local law enforcement was a figurehead at best, without any backup and no centralized support. Urban areas, particularly those at the poverty level, had been wiped out almost completely… including the gangs. Which is ironic, because the world was suddenly a very friendly place for insular groups with an established hierarchy that were used to working together toward a common goal, regardless of whether those goals were legal or not. And that’s where we came in.

  Motorcycle clubs thrived in the new world order.

  Clubs like the Hellspawn, already nationwide, created a network of allied communities to respond to any need or threat. Even before the pandemic, we had what amounted to secure compounds and closed societies that prioritized protecting family above all else; we had income streams and supply chains for in-demand goods like weapons, pharmaceuticals, and pot. We had skilled mechanics and machinists, and transportation was never an issue.