“I’ve wanted you since I first laid eyes on you.” Silver flops onto her back, sighing at the ceiling. “Damn, it’s been so long since I’ve felt this way about a woman. I don’t wanna mess this up.”
“Do you even know what this is?” Ria rests her head on her elbow, tracing invisible patterns over Silver’s arm and shoulder.
“I know what I want it to be.” Silver captures her roving hand and kisses her palm. “I know that if we’d met in Amaranthe, I’d have taken you home with me in a heartbeat.”
“Is that so?” Ria does her best to ignore the deluge between her thighs.
“Within hours,” Silver proclaims assuredly.
“Then talk to your husband in the morning before we leave.” Ria leans in for a kiss. “I don’t have enough self-control to keep fending off your amorous advances.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Silver wakes with Ria in her arms, draped over her chest for the third morning in a row. She extricates herself slowly, careful not to disturb her, and rises to shower, dress, and pack. When she’s done, she returns to the bed to fawn over her new mate.
“You’re stunning,” she says to Ria’s unconscious form, not realizing that she’s awake.
“Dobroe utro.” Ria stirs, mooning up at her would-be lover. “Good morning.”
“What’s with the Russian all of a sudden? Not that I’m complaining, I like it. I’ve never heard anyone speak another language before.”
“I try not to in public, but it has a tendency to slip off my tongue when I’m around someone I feel comfortable with.” She notices that Silver’s fully dressed. “You’re up already?”
Silver nods, tucking loose strands of hair behind Ria’s ear. “I’m gonna go see Alex, I just haven’t been able to rip myself away from you yet.”
Ria hides her relief. She’d half wondered if Silver would change her mind come morning, with her emotions no longer fueled by endorphins.
“Ya tebya obozhayu.” She reaches for Silver’s face. “Give me your lips again.”
They kiss.
Shortly thereafter, while Ria enjoys a long, hot shower, Silver slips away to the infirmary, finding Alex embroiled in a fierce game of tic-tac-toe with Carmen’s hospitalized young friend, Seven.
“Damnit!” He loses again. “Best of thirteen?”
Seven giggles, but her lips downturn quickly when she sees Silver. Nervous on account of all the stories Carmen’s imparted, she shuffles back to her own bed, taking the pen and tic-tac-toe paper with her.
“I know what you’re gonna say.” Alex sighs, watching Silver pull up a chair.
“Do you?” She spins the chair around and straddles it, leaning her arms over the back. “If that’s true, you must be magic, ‘cause I don’t even know what I’m gonna say yet.”
Alex scoops his breakfast bowl off the bedside table—porridge with cinnamon and raisins—and picks at it with a child’s plastic spoon.
Then, “Are you in love with her?”
“It’s been three days, Alex.”
“So?” He cherry-picks the raisins out of his bowl. “I fell in love with you before I met you.” He reassesses that statement. “As an adult, I mean. I wasn’t in love with you when you were five. I was totally into thirteen-year-olds, back then. You know, ‘cause I was eleven and I thought older women were hot.”
Silver cracks a smile. “When did you fall in love with me, then? How?”
“You don’t remember? The entire Division was interested in you. Everyone wanted to know how good the Hunter General’s daughter was in combat.”
“Wanted to see if I could live up to my lineage?”
“Pretty much.” Alex digs in his bowl for more raisins. “Someone in the Hunter Division Academy’s records department would make copies of all your end-of-unit assessment videos and sneak them into the Hunter Division lounge. For a little money, that same person would make private copies for some of the more desperate Hunters to take home and jerk off to.”
“Ewww.” Silver wrinkles up her face.
Alex holds up both hands. “Not me, I swear, but I must’ve seen at least a dozen of your tapes in the lounge. I hated that watching you aroused me, but it did. You were fifteen years old, and I felt like a fucking pervert, but I wanted you so badly.”
“I bet you thought you’d hit the jackpot when my father sent you and your Hunter unit out to drag me home when I broke curfew to get shitfaced with my friends on a school night.”
“Hell, no.” Alex plucks a few grapes from a bunch on the bedside table and tosses them in his porridge. “I said I didn’t wanna do it.”
“Really? Why?” Silver’s stomach grumbles at the thought of food. “Surely that was your big chance to inject yourself into my life.”
“Are you kidding? I didn’t want to be in love with you. Of all the people in the city, I should’ve kept my hands off my boss’s virgin daughter.”
“But you didn’t.”
“I couldn’t. I took one look at you and realized I was completely head over heels.” He notices Silver eyeing his porridge and passes it to her. “I was in love with this reckless, punk-looking, drunken, cigarette smoking fifteen-year-old who had two fingers buried inside this whimpering hottie from the Medical Sciences Academy. So then I thought I was in love with a lesbian, which was just depressing.”
Recalling that night with perfect clarity, Silver laughs. “She was a complete stranger. I didn’t even know her name.”
“She knew yours. She was screaming it as she came all over your hand.” He plucks a few more grapes. “The point is: I know you like women. I think you like women more than you like men for the most part, and I’ve always let you have what you wanted.”
“This is different, Alex.” Silver talks with her mouth full.
“I know it is. She can go to bed with you and I can’t.”
“Don’t twist this around.” Silver jabs the spoon at him. “Ria isn’t our problem. She didn’t start this.”
“She’s exacerbating it.”
“Bullshit.” Silver digs in the porridge. “You’ve never been jealous of my dalliances before.”
“Is that what this is? A dalliance.”
Silver keeps focused on the porridge, refraining from giving him a direct answer. “You know our problems don’t stem from me wanting to go to bed with a woman. They stem from you thinking I screwed Luka.” She finishes the porridge in silence, sliding the empty bowl onto the bedside table. “I have to go.”
Alex nods. “I think some time apart might be good for us.”
“Since when?”
“We have issues, Silver.”
“No, Alex. We don’t have issues, you have issues.” She pokes at his leg. “You’re the one who thinks I cheated on you, you’re the one who thinks you’re not our baby’s father, and you’re the one who wants to remain infected with a virus even though it means you can’t fuck your own wife. So if you need some time alone to help figure that shit out, good luck to you.”
And that’s that.
She leaves without bothering to say goodbye.
In the courtyard, she finds Carmen and Ria all packed and raring to go. Carmen’s pacing back and forth impatiently, while Ria’s seated at a picnic table with their belongings beside her, eating a bowl of porridge. She’s wearing the dress again, her hair still damp from the shower, and Silver has to remind herself to remain at a socially acceptable distance.
“They’re readying the horses.” Carmen points toward the stables. “You’ve got about five minutes if there’s anything you still need to get done.”
Silver glances fondly at Ria. “I think we’re set.”
Detecting the obvious, Carmen bobs her eyes to and fro between them. “Are you shagging her now?”
“Not yet.” Silver pulls her eyes away. “Have you eaten?”
“Yes, mummy. I widdled, too.”
“Good girl.” Silver pats her shoulder. “Now go check on the animals.”
“Just say if you
want to be alone with your girlfriend,” Carmen cracks childishly, walking away.
“Grow up.” Silver boots her lightly in the ass.
Watching from the picnic table, Ria sets aside her empty bowl and beckons Silver over. “So how did it go with your husband?”
“How do you say ‘everything’s going to be all right’ in Russian?”
“Vsye budet khorosho.”
Silver tries to repeat it, butchers it, and makes Ria laugh.
“Teaching you Russian might take a while.”
“Well …” Silver pulls her up and holds her waist, mindful not to bring her too close. “We’ve got time. We’re in the clear, and I’m all yours.”
“All?” Ria wants her to say it again, hopeful that she’s not misunderstanding.
“All,” Silver repeats. “Every little bit.”
Ria grabs fistfuls of her shirt, needing a kiss, but not brave enough to take it. “And you’re absolutely certain you want to do this?” She looks pained. “I don’t want to be the cause of any regrets.”
“Not going with you would be a regret.” Silver coaxes her an inch or two closer. “Are you absolutely certain you’ll be safe once we reach London?”
Ria nods. “Assuming I can get past the border without being arrested for traveling on an expired permit. That part’s tricky, but even serving a bit of prison time would be better than ending up back in bed with Luther.”
“Has he no control in London?”
“He wouldn’t dare set foot outside of Mercia.”
“Silver.” Luka touches her shoulder. “You weren’t gonna ride out of here without saying goodbye, were you?”
“Why not?” She fakes apathy. “Goodbyes suck.”
“Are you adamant you don’t want me to come with you?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely. Being a branded Delta puts you at risk.” She catches him looking at Carmen. “You only wanna go so you can drool over my little sidekick some more anyway.”
“Oh …” Ria tries to look sympathetic. “I think she’s gay.”
“Goddamnit,” Luka crabs. “How can you tell?”
Ria shrugs. “The way she looks at Silver. It’s different from the way she looks at you. It’s subtle, but when your life depends upon relying on faint clues like that, you get good at picking them up.”
“What do you care anyway?” Silver shoves Luka’s chest. “She’s going back to London, you big goof.”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
Ria looks at the ground, awash with guilt and uncertainty—neither of which Silver seems to share. Though she remains silent, her touch doesn’t weaken.
“Are you coming back, El?” Luka persists. “Or did Alex fuck it up really badly this time?”
Ria raises her eyes, quite interested to know the answer to that as well.
But she doesn’t get one.
Neither of them does.
“Hey!” One of the stable boys waves to them from the other side of the courtyard. “They’re ready for you!”
The first thing Silver notices is that there’s only one spare horse. Their two Delta escorts each have one, so does Carmen, and there’s one more: Fitch.
“Can you not count?” Silver confronts them. “There’s two of us.”
The stable manager—a gruff, round man in his early fifties—extends a chubby finger in Ria’s direction. “Your Russian can walk.”
“Fucking pricks,” Silver growls, ready to start a fight.
“Don’t bother.” Ria stops her. “I’d rather ride with you anyway.”
They start walking away together, but Luka catches Silver’s elbow.
“Be careful, okay?”
Silver never gets to make that promise. Straight away, two things happen: Luka is summoned by the twins he slept with the night before, and Silver inhales the scent of cigarette smoke.
Alex.
Sure enough, he’s watching them from the northern end of the courtyard. Back in civilian clothing, he’s wearing jeans and a t-shirt, his arms bandaged. He looks out of place. Mind you—Silver takes a gander at her own jeans, white tank top and Hunter Division shirt—they’re all dressed like outliers.
“Your husband’s watching.” Ria strokes Silver’s arm. “Do you want to go over there? He’s probably worried about you.”
Silver doesn’t get a moment to consider it. No sooner have the words left Ria’s mouth and Linx materializes beside him. She looks like a cat that’s just been handed enough cream to drown itself in: she’s happy to see Silver go.
“I don’t think I have any more words for him.” Silver turns her back, refusing to gawp.
“He’s been spending a lot of time with that young girl.” Ria peers at them over her shoulder, letting Silver lead her away. “She seems very keen on him.”
Silver greets Fitch with a nose rub, making him nicker.
“Does it bother you?” Ria pushes the topic. “How close they are.”
“I don’t know if I’m allowed to be bothered by it.” Silver helps Ria up onto Fitch’s back, then climbs on behind her.
“What do you mean?”
“I tried to fuck you last night.” She settles into the saddle, wrapping her arm around Ria, their pelvises pushed together. “So I’m not exactly in a position to be uppity about his wandering eyes.”
“Speaking of eyes …” Ria cranks her head to take one more look. “Why are Linx’s violets always flashed? I understand why your husband’s are, because he was infected with a foreign strain of the Taint virus, but what happened to her?”
“I’m not sure. The militia infected her with some black market version of the Taint virus. I don’t fucking know. I didn’t give enough of a shit to listen.”
“Ya znal eto!” Ria grumbles, fuming quietly. “Svoloch’!”
Silver frowns. “I haven’t got the faintest idea what you just said, but I can tell those weren’t happy noises. What’s the problem?”
“I was told the back market Taint virus was a myth.” Ria rubs Fitch’s neck, distracting her mind by braiding a small section of his mane. “It’s not important now.”
Silver doubts that last statement, but this isn’t the time to get into it. She flashes Luka a last minute wink and a lopsided a smile as they walk their horses through the gates and out of D10, led by their two Delta escorts: Bentley and Chapin.
They’re twins. In their mid-twenties, both have naturally platinum blonde hair and blue eyes. Bentley’s appearance is pixie-like, with short tousled locks and prominent ears. He doesn’t look particularly strong, but Silver’s been assured that he’s a sharp aim with a bow and arrow. Chapin, on the other hand, has shoulder-length hair scattered with thin braids, and she might not be a great shot, but she’s a survivalist: an expert at finding edible berries and drinkable water, and avoiding predators.
Brother and sister are the same height and dressed similarly—each wearing the trousers and waistcoats that Silver’s come to expect—but Chapin’s clothing is tailored to hug her slender, feminine body, and she has a variety of hunting knives holstered at her waist. With her sleeves rolled up to the elbows, she looks ready for a fight at the drop of a hat.
She’s also the one in charge of plotting their course, and she leads them south, skirting the D10 boundary en route to the Delta outpost at Trefaldwyn, where they’ll cross into Mercia. Along the way, the land alternates from deep forest near Llanrwst, to wide open fields and barren, rocky mountains, back to denser greenery the further south they travel.
In places, there are paved roads. Elsewhere, they travel on dirt tracks, or directly through the grassland. Fields are divided into large sections by barbed wire fences, keeping sheep contained in certain areas. Shepherd’s huts have been erected in the wildest parts, so anyone out checking on the roaming flocks has shelter should the weather turn. All the while, though, Silver sees not a single person.
“Is all your land like this?” she asks the Deltas.
“What?” Bentley admires the lush landscape.
“Green?”
“Deserted.”
Bentley laughs, shaking his head. “City folks.”
“Inhabited clusters are few and far between outside the compound,” Chapin explains. “Only a few scattered cottages.”
They come to a halt to let a herd of feral goats cross the paved road. One billy goat, appearing to be in no particular hurry, stands there staring at them, slowly chewing a mouthful of grass and urinating until Chapin shoos him on.
According to Bentley, goats are a big target for Mercian poachers. Their meat brings a good price at market, or they can be captured live and kept for their milk, and they’re small enough to transport easily. Otters and polecats are frequent victims, too. They’re caught in barbaric traps and butchered for their pelts.
At first, Silver is fascinated by these lessons in the local flora and fauna, and the geography of this rich land, and the Deltas are happy to brag about their home. After nine hours on horseback, however, everyone’s patience is beginning to wane.
The Deltas start to get cranky, so Silver stops asking questions, and Carmen isn’t interested in giving up any details about her personal life, so making small talk with her is difficult. Ria, too, is being unusually quiet.
“Are you comfortable?” Silver kisses the side of her head.
“With you? Always.” She sighs contentedly. “I feel very safe.” She notices Silver’s head is dipped. “Are you tired?”
“Enjoying the view.” Silver nibbles on Ria’s shoulder, watching her breasts bounce with every hoofstep.
To aid that venture, Ria leans back against her, making it easier for her to get an eyeful. “Better?”
“Much.” Silver tightens her grip around Ria’s warm body, but the closeness doesn’t last.
Up front, Bentley and Chapin laugh and joke with one another, glancing back at Ria two or three times before bursting out in laughter again.
“I wonder what they’re saying about me.” Ria leans her head on Silver’s shoulder and closes her eyes. “They keep looking.”
“Shall we give them something to look at?” Silver pinches the lower part of Ria’s dress between her fingers and pulls it up enough to slip her hand underneath.
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