“Your combat skills.” Ria runs her hand over Silver’s well-defined biceps. “You’re very strong, and the way you killed that … that nasty thing today … it was impressive. You fight well.”
“Careful.” Silver smirks, letting her fingers wander lightly over Ria’s ass. “I’m very susceptible to flattery, and if you keep stroking me like that, my ego might start to swell.” She grabs Ria’s ass and squeezes.
At the sensation of an increasingly familiar rise of color on her face, Ria dips her head, nestling herself under Silver’s chin. “Do you miss it? The army, I mean.”
“I miss having a purpose.” Silver sighs. “I liked knowing that I was making a difference. I hated having to step down.”
“You resigned? Why?”
Not wanting to overcomplicate their developing relationship with the small matter of her pregnancy, Silver skirts the truth. “Medical reasons.”
“Are you all right?” Ria lifts her head back up, instantly concerned.
Silver nods. “I’m fine.” She strokes Ria’s cheek. “And the British military took my army anyway, so none of it really matters in the end.”
“Your army?” Ria picks up on her syntax.
“Oh, yeah. My army,” Silver boasts with a smile. “You’re in bed with an army general. How does that feel?” She waggles her eyebrows.
“Being in bed with you feels wonderful, but that has nothing to do with your rank.” Ria nuzzles Silver’s palm. “And for what it’s worth, you still do make a difference. I’ve only known you one day, and already you’ve changed my life.”
Feeling brave for a moment, she gives Silver a quick peck on the cheek, then rolls over so that they can spoon together.
This time, it’s Silver who makes an involuntary utterance of pleasure.
“Ooh.” She grips Ria’s hip, bringing their bodies together, something hard pressed between them. “Is that a gun in your pants?”
It is. Ria had forgotten all about Trevor’s gun tucked back there.
“Oops. Sorry.”
Silver pulls it out, reaching over Ria’s shoulder to deposit it on the ground. As she does so, Ria spies the other set of dog tags wrapped around her wrist. She’d seen them earlier, by the lake, and meant to ask:
“Who is this? Gabriel Maydevine,” she reads his name aloud.
“My father.” Silver lets her read them.
“He was killed in combat?” she assumes.
“Something like that.”
“My father was in the Russian army.” Ria hugs Silver’s arm around her. “He defected and went on the lam. That’s how my parents came to seek refuge in London.”
“Where is he now?”
“Dead.” It’s only one word, but Ria fills it with emotion.
“I’m sorry.” Silver huddles closer, spooning her bedmate.
Like the fire behind them, the conversation dies. They fall asleep in each other’s arms, the closeness between them feeling natural and comfortable.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
By the time morning rolls around, Silver’s lying on her back with Ria snuggled in her arms, half on top of her. Dead to the world, and completely unaware of their intimate position, Ria’s using one of Silver’s breasts as a pillow, her cheek smooshed on top of it. Silver’s other breast is beneath her hand, and, under the blanket, one of her legs is draped over Silver’s hip.
“Get up.” Carmen taps Silver’s ribs with the toe of her boot.
Already awake, but not in the mood to move, Silver opens one eye and looks up at her. “I didn’t wanna wake Ria until I had to.”
“Well, now you have to.” Both hands go to her hips. “It’s time to leave.”
“Fine.” Silver yawns.
“And you should take her hand off your breast. People are staring.”
By people, she means Mason. While everyone else is busy packing up, he’s watching them from the other side of the campsite, probably hoping to get an erection.
Ignoring him—and far from complying with Carmen’s suggestion—Silver leaves Ria’s hand where it is. She holds Ria tighter and pats her arm, trying to wake her gently.
“Wakey-wakey, sleepyhead.”
Ria stirs and shifts, murmurs contentedly, and kneads Silver’s breast, gyrating her hips against Silver’s pelvis.
Silver breaks into a grin. “Even though I’d dearly love to lie here all day with you and let you hump me and fondle my breast like that, the others are getting restless. Are you ready to get up?”
Suddenly, Ria rises into full consciousness. When she sees where her hand is—and how freely and casually their limbs are entwined—she withdraws in a flash.
“Chyert voz’mi!” she blurts in Russian. “Shit, I’m so sorry.”
“It’s okay.” Silver laughs it off. “You can’t be held accountable for what you do while sleeping. It’s like being drunk: you get a free pass.”
Be that as it may, Ria notices Mason leering at them, and the unwanted interest leaves her feeling a hundred times worse.
“Oh, god.” Her cheeks start to burn. “He saw me touching you.”
“Forget about him.” Silver flips him off and returns his stare. “He’s not worth a second of your time.”
Mason spits in the dirt and meanders off, but his reluctant retreat comes much too late to alleviate the distress he’s caused.
Ria hides her face in her hands. “I touched your breast in public,” she whines into her palms. “I can’t believe I did that.”
“Public? It was only Mason.” Silver peels Ria’s hands away from her face. “Don’t worry about it. Do I look as if I mind?”
“I mind.” Ria swats at her lightly. “I’ve spent my whole life being so careful not to put myself in a dangerous position, and you … I’ve spent one day with you, and I groped your breast in front of others.”
“Don’t you think you’re being a little melodramatic?”
“You have no idea what it’s like.” Ria slithers out from under the blanket and puts on her boots. “You take it for granted that you can do whatever you like, wherever you like, with whomever you like, but I can’t.”
“Hey.” Silver slinks up behind her and pats her shoulder. “Calm down.”
“Stop. Please.” Ria shrugs away her hand. “I can’t do this.”
Silver can’t tell whether or not she’s crying. She spends the next few minutes by the edge of the lake, washing her face and obscuring her tears if there are any. She hardly says a word through breakfast—more venison, leftover from last night—and that sets the tone for the rest of the day.
They ride together, of course, but Silver keeps her hands to herself, and Ria offers nothing in the way of light banter. All in all, it’s a somber journey, and by the time they reach the compound shortly before sundown, they’ve exchanged only a few meaningless words about the weather and the price of polecat pelts.
As before, the facial recognition software at the D10 perimeter picks up the face of a complete stranger: Ria. She’s quickly labeled an unpermitted Russian Taint, and the perimeter guard draws his bow on her when he comes out to investigate.
“Your travel permit expired over a year ago.” His arrow is aimed at her head. “Whatchu still doing this far north?”
“I was kidnapped by the militia. Believe me, I never intended to be away from London this long, and all I want to do is return home.”
A year? Silver wonders if she heard that correctly. Could Ria have been away from home for over a year, held captive by the militia?
The perimeter guard motions for the others to pass through the gates on their horses, but keeps Fitch back. “Dismount.”
Silver does so first, helping Ria down after her.
“In.” He nods to Silver, indicating that she should lead Fitch through the gates.
She stays put. “What about Ria?”
“She ain’t welcome.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Silver squares up to him.
“We don’t want no trouble.” Hi
s eyes flit from Silver to Ria and back again. “No permit, no entry for the Russian. Thems the rules.”
“Go talk to Honey.” Silver folds her arms.
“What for?”
“Tit for tat. I brought Tomkin back, now you let my Russian rest here. For tonight at least. I’ll see to it that she gets on her way back to London.”
The guard looks conflicted, and finally lowers his bow. “Fine, I’ll ask. But the Russian waits here for now.”
“Then I’ll wait with her.” Silver stands defiantly by Ria’s side.
“Do what suits.” The guard takes Fitch’s reins and coaxes him inside.
“Silver.” Alex, now dismounted, is hovering at the gate. “I think you should—”
At the end of her tether already, Silver explodes with anger. “I swear to god, if I hear you say my name like that one more time, I will punch you out.”
Silence.
Immediately aware that her outburst was uncalled for, Silver takes a deep breath and quiets her rage, adding calmly: “I’m not leaving her alone.”
Done arguing with her, Alex snatches a blanket from Fitch’s saddlebag and chucks it at her. “Don’t freeze.”
The gates close behind him, leaving Silver and Ria alone at the side of the road.
“We might be out here all night.” Silver sighs, looking up at the darkening sky. “I’ll make us a fire.”
She tosses the blanket down beside a nearby rock and sets about it, while Ria, feeling the chill of the air already, pulls her sleeves down over her hands and looks for somewhere to sit.
“Why are you doing this?” she asks meekly, unsure why Silver still wants to stick by her after her morning panic attack.
“If nobody stands up for people who’re being mistreated, there’s no reason for the mistreatment to stop.” Silver starts gathering up sticks. “Sometimes people have to be forced to understand that they’re being assholes.”
Ria brushes forest debris off the rock and sits down. “They’re being kind, considering they’d be well within their rights to call the police and have me arrested. Thankfully, Deltas hate the law more than they hate my ilk, and they like to take care of their own business.”
“What about this whole gay thing?” Silver dumps the sticks down in a pile. “How did this country get so fucked up about something so innocuous?”
“It’s been this way for generations. Our government is unapologetically homophobic—and racist, among other things—and they exploited the end of the last epoch to legalize their prejudices.”
“Let me guess.” Silver scoops some dead leaves off the forest floor, snagging some moss along with them. “Their political agenda sounded something like: Repopulate, repopulate, repopulate. Get married, settle down, don’t use birth control, and whatever you do, don’t fuck someone of your own gender ‘cause that’s not how babies are made.”
“Exactly. The law they passed is called the Indecency Act, and I think the famous poster was: Homosexuality threatens the future of Great Britain; Homosexuality threatens humanity; Homosexuality threatens YOU.”
“Fucking bullshit.” Silver adds the leaves and moss to the pile of sticks and starts organizing it. “I don’t know how you can live like that.”
“It’s not so bad in Haringey, the Russian district in London. It’s decidedly more tolerant there than in the rest of the city. The only other place you can feel even remotely safe being gay is in Delta territory, but as you can see, I’m not exactly welcome here for other reasons.” She watches Silver intently. “Can you really make fire from nothing?”
“No”—Silver pulls out her gun—“but I can cheat.”
She employs her old trick of emptying the gunpowder from a bullet casing onto the moss and leaves beneath a crisscrossed tent of twigs, then searches for two palm-sized stones.
“So what makes Haringey different?” She grabs the first two stones she finds and sits back down. “Cultural differences, or what?”
“History.” Ria leans forward on her elbows, intrigued by Silver’s efforts to create warmth. “Many of the original Russian refugees moved to London when Russia passed an anti-gay law not long before the end of the last epoch. At that time, gay marriage was perfectly legal in England. Many gay couples and families, and parents with gay children, fled Russia to be in a more supportive environment. Consequently, the following generations grew up in very sympathetic households, even after the new law came into effect.”
Silver hits the two stones together and … nothing. The more she repeats this, the more skeptical Ria starts to look, but then …
Aha!
A spark jumps onto the moss and catches immediately. As the dry leaves around it ignite, Ria gives her a small round of applause.
“Strong and capable.” She smiles coyly. “You’re making me gush.”
Despite longing to find out whether or not that statement’s true, Silver pokes at the fire with a stick and keeps her eyes down. “Are you flirting with me again now?”
Ria’s insecure smile fades. “I’m sorry if I seemed frosty this morning.” She flicks an intrepid ant off her kicksies. “I wish you could understand how difficult it is for me, though. You’ve been able to love who you want your whole life, but I haven’t. I need to hide who I am. It’s awful, and I hate saying it, but it’s the truth.”
Oddly enough, Silver can relate somewhat.
“I do understand, actually. Not to the same degree maybe—the stakes are very different—but I get the gist of it.” She adds the stick to the fire and joins Ria on the rock. “In the Hunter Division, Commanders are forbidden to engage in personal relationships with other Hunters. It’s always been that way, and when I was first promoted, Alex said he’d tender his resignation.”
“But he didn’t?”
Silver shakes her head. “We had to sneak around like a couple of school kids hiding from our parents.” She reaches for Ria’s hand. “I know it’s not the same as what you have to deal with, but I do know how it feels to have to hide your feelings from the world.” She scoops up Ria’s other hand. “Geez, you’re icy cold.”
Silver rubs her hands over Ria’s, enticing warmth back into her fingers.
“I love how free you are with your affections,” Ria confesses, leaning against Silver’s shoulder. “It’s exhilarating. I don’t think you realize how you make me feel with every look and every touch.”
“So tell me.”
“I can’t.” Ria looks away, afraid of exposing herself too much. “You’d think me frightfully silly.”
“Try me.” Silver kisses her fingertips. “Please.”
At the sensation of Silver’s lips on her fingers, Ria’s heart flutters.
“You make me feel as though I’m worth dying for.” She looks briefly into Silver’s eyes, then retreats. “Like touching me is worth the risk of execution.” Aware of a tremor in her hands, she pulls them back into her own lap. “I know that’s not your intention, but for me—for someone who’s so used to being concealed and confined and hidden away—your open flirtation is dangerously seductive. I’m entranced by you, I’m aroused by you, and I’m so bloody petrified.”
“What is it that you’re afraid of?” Silver strokes her back. “Me, or the law?”
“Both.” Ria backhands a tear away from her cheek. “I’m afraid you’ll touch me in the wrong place at the wrong time—I’m afraid that I’ll let you—then the CPS will have us arrested and sent for a stretching.”
“A stretching?”
Ria nods. “That’s how executions are performed: public hangings.” She sniffs back more tears. “The short, sharp drop. Does it not frighten you at all?”
“The only emotion your stupid law evokes in me is anger, and I’m not used to rolling over and toeing the line with any government policy that violates basic human rights. Where I’m from, I’m known for bucking authority, no matter what the risk.”
“That’s admirable.”
“Maybe, but if my lack of respect for the rules of y
our country makes you feel uncomfortable, I’ll understand if you don’t want to get that close to me.”
Ria opens her mouth to object, but Silver puts a finger to her lips.
“I’m belligerent, stubborn, and self-destructively single-minded,” she continues. “Honestly, I think that’s partly why my marriage is circling the drain. Alex hates how I do things without considering my own safety first, and—”
“Why are you telling me this?” Ria cuts her off.
“Because I don’t want to hurt you. I am the way I am, and if that’s going to cause you grief …” Though Silver hates having to ask, she forces the question out. “Do you want me to stop?”
“Stop what? Courting me?” Ria appears hurt by the notion.
“If that’s what you—”
“No!” She doesn’t want to sound desperate, but it comes out in her voice anyway. “I’m very much enjoying being courted by you.” She rubs her arms up and down, still chilly, despite the fire. “It’s been so long since I’ve felt this desired. I like it.”
“You don’t have a girlfriend waiting for you at home, then?” Silver fishes.
“No.” Ria simpers, pleased that she asked.
Just then, Silver reaches an arm around her, leaning in close. Thinking she’s moving in for a kiss, Ria parts her lips and angles her head to one side, closing her eyes in expectation of intimacy. Unfortunately, she’s mistaken.
Silver picks the blanket up from behind the rock, then hovers within kissing distance, not knowing quite what to do.
“This is slightly awkward.” She states the obvious.
When Ria opens her eyes and sees the blanket, she realizes her blunder.
“Now I’m foolish.” She looks down into her lap, fidgeting with a broken fingernail.
“Not at all.” Silver pulls the blanket around her shoulders, warming her. “You just jumped one step ahead of me.” She lifts Ria’s chin, forcing her gaze up. “One very small step.”
Cupping Ria’s face in her hand, she trails the tip of her thumb over Ria’s bottom lip, admiring her soft, crimson mouth for a few seconds before leaning slowly forward and teasing her with the prospect of a kiss.
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