Omega

by Susannah Sandlin

  “Damn it.” Aidan was on his feet again, and Cage sat upright, ready to spring if he tried leaving. But Aidan simply paced the exit room.

  “We talked just after daysleep,” Cage continued. “She wanted me to check out the explosion, talk to you, report back to her.” He thought of her fierce expression, her determination to keep his identity a secret. “She’s a strong woman, as I guess you know.”

  Truth was, he hadn’t been able to get her off his mind all night, and getting hung up on a newly fanged Melissa Calvert was in the dictionary, illustrating exercise in futility.

  Aidan continued to pace, although he’d slowed down. “Is there any way to get her out of there without blowing your cover?”

  “I’ve been asking myself the same question all night, and I don’t think so.” Cage rubbed his eyes and wished he could leave all the stress behind, just for a few days. But he saw no end to it. “I’m the only new face in Penton, and the only other one who’s been in the sub-suites, or so Matthias says. He knows she isn’t strong enough as a new vampire to escape and get out on her own. If she comes out, I’m going to have to come out with her.”

  Aidan didn’t answer, only stared at the floor, deep in thought.

  “Oh, and one more thing you need to know,” Cage said. “Matthias had already figured out we had an underground bunker, but Mel told him about the hatch in the floor of the church. He’d been tormenting her and starving her, and she finally cracked. She’s horrified, afraid she caused someone to be killed and jeopardized all of us.”

  Aidan sat down again. “He’d have found it eventually, and we weren’t going to be able to use that exit under their noses anyway. How sure is he that we’re down here and not already escaped to Atlanta or China or anywhere but here?”

  Cage shook his head. “He’s not positive, but he has people in Atlanta who know the Tribunal’s offering big rewards for any information on the Penton scathe or its members—I mean, really big rewards. So far, with no word from them, he’s assuming we’re down here. And he’s sure he can wait us out.”

  Aidan stared at his hands a long time, flexing and unflexing his fingers. “You know I can’t leave her there. I know it’s the smart thing to do for the good of the scathe, but…I just can’t.”

  Cage had come to the same conclusion. “I agree. She’s strong, but Matthias is ruthless. Eventually, he’ll break her. We can’t let that happen.”

  Aidan gave him a steady look. “You sound like you’ve come to care about her, Cage. Make sure it’s just a friendship. Nothing good can come from it.”

  “I know.” And he did, but it didn’t keep him from admiring how strong she was to have held on this long. “You going to tell Mark she’s alive?”

  “Not yet.” Aidan clicked off the lantern closest to him. “Let’s get her out safely. Then I’ll figure out the best way to tell Mark the wife whose death he’s been grieving over is now a vampire.”

  A whoosh of filtered air came to her first, then the sensation of lying on a pillow. Or was it still Will’s chest? No, too soft. His chest had been firm, warm, not smushy. Definitely a pillow.

  Randa opened her eyes to a dimly lit room she’d never seen before, and panic drove enough adrenaline through her bloodstream to wake her up fully. Had Matthias found them and locked them up? If so, she needed to find Will and get out of here. Were there guards outside the door?

  She sat up, letting the sheet fall. Only then did she realize she was naked. Well, except for the granny panties the army issued to all female soldiers. Gray granny panties, white granny panties, or tan granny panties, plus matching sports bras. Those were the choices. Welcome to today’s army. They’d issued so many of the damned things she’d never wear them out, and it seemed a shame to waste them. Wasn’t like anyone but her ever saw them.

  In a frantic glance around the room, she spotted a familiar doctor’s bag—a small suitcase on wheels—on the floor near her bed. Randa relaxed as she recognized it. It belonged to Krys.

  She was in Omega, then. She’d been rescued by her people. Randa closed her eyes and let the adrenaline drain from her system, replaced by a warm gratitude.

  The room had four twin beds in it, and finally, she spotted Will in the bed directly across the room from hers. The room was lit by a single fluorescent lamp on its lowest setting, but Randa could make out a sink, cabinets, a rolling cart with some tools on it. The medical room.

  “Psst. Will?”

  No answer, no movement. He was still unconscious.

  Randa climbed out of bed, wrapping a sheet around herself, wincing at the sore spots on her back. The projectile had been dug out of his cheek, and it was still red and angry, but healing. Her back probably looked the same way.

  The sheet covered him to his waist, and she couldn’t stop herself from looking. Couldn’t help but take advantage of a rare moment when neither one of them could open their mouths and say something insulting or inappropriate. She’d like to think they had moved past that stage, but really, it was in their natures. They both ratcheted up the smart-assery to hide their insecurities. One near-death experience probably wasn’t going to change that. It went all the way down to the bone.

  Her fingers twitched with the urge to slide over the smooth expanse of his chest and stomach. Vampires kept whatever skin they’d had as humans, and Will might have been a sixty-plus-year-old vampire, but at his turning, he’d been a beautiful, athletic twenty-two-year-old human, with tanned skin that took its definition from layers of muscle and bone. His forever-sun-streaked blond hair spilled onto the pillow with just a hint of curl, his cheekbones a perfect slant to set off full lips.

  The man was a work of art. And now she knew there was a real guy inside all that muscle and bad attitude. A decent guy. A brave guy. And despite what Matthias had brought him up to believe, a smart guy.

  Randa didn’t know what tomorrow would bring. She didn’t know if they’d survive the assault on Omega, or if the Tribunal would kill them all, or if they’d escape and scatter to far-flung places, breaking their bonds to Aidan and each other.

  But she had learned this from her close encounter with an M67 grenade: Even as a vampire, life could be shorter than you expected. If something was meaningful to you, take care of it. Respect it. Cherish it. If something you wanted was within your grasp, you shouldn’t assume time was unlimited.

  She wanted Will.

  She seriously doubted they’d have a great romance for the ages. She wasn’t a dewy-eyed teenager, and he’d never shown any inclination to even settle down with one feeder for very long. But they would be lovers. She knew that like she knew her name. She’d know the sensation of his skin against hers, his hands doing more than probing her pocket for a cell phone.

  One of his legs was under the sheet, but the other was…silver? She looked more closely and realized it was wrapped in silver duct tape and attached to a board below the knee. When they’d been pinned, he’d said he couldn’t feel his foot. What had happened?

  The overhead lights flickered on, and Randa whirled to see Krys in the doorway. “Mirren says he’ll be asleep for a while—he has a lot to heal.” Krys came to stand beside her. Had she noticed Randa giving Will a visual undressing? “He’s really gorgeous when he’s unconscious and can’t talk, isn’t he?”

  Oh yeah, she’d noticed. Randa considered crawling under the bed in humiliation, but why pretend? She’d been busted. “I was just thinking the same thing—maybe we should tape his mouth shut. How’s his leg?”

  Krys explained the break and the attempt to duplicate the injuries so he could heal properly. “We won’t know whether or not it’s healing until he comes out of daysleep tomorrow night and we untape it. I kind of hope he doesn’t wake up before then. It’ll hurt like hell. Mirren says it might even take longer to heal—another day.”

  After rubbing some cooling cream on Randa’s back, Krys stretched and yawned. “It’s almost dawn. You can go back to your room if you want. You’ll heal during daysleep. Some reall
y deep bruises have spread across the back of your legs—other than the projectile wounds, that’s all the injuries you had. It’s a miracle none of them hit your head.”

  Yeah, well, she definitely needed her head examined because she didn’t want to leave. She should go to her room, put on clothes, and take her daysleep in her own bed. And yet her feet didn’t move.

  “Or you could stay here and keep an eye on Will. If he does regain consciousness before dawn, well, you know where I am. Might be better if he’s not alone in that case so he doesn’t move.” Krys’s voice was calm and professional, but Randa caught the glint in her eye.

  Yeah, she was busted again, big-time. But as long as they were both pretending, she’d do her part. “Sure, I can stay here if you want. No problem.”

  “You need to feed, though. It’ll help the healing. Liv’s outside.”

  OK, in case she wasn’t already embarrassed enough. “No. I, uh, fed…earlier.”

  “Huh?” Krys looked at Randa, then shifted her gaze down to Will. She didn’t even try to keep the grin off her face. “Oh. I see. Well.” She burst into a low, husky laugh—an infectious laugh. People had a hard time being around Krys when she lost it. You always wanted to laugh with her. Even if she was laughing at you.

  “Please don’t tell anybody you caught me ogling Will while he was unconscious.” Randa bit her lower lip to keep from laughing herself. “Especially don’t tell him. I’d never live it down.”

  Krys laughed harder. “I didn’t see a thing. Not a single thing. Enjoy your daysleep.”

  She flipped the overhead switch on her way out, returning the room to the soft darkness of the small lamp.

  Will’s leg throbbed like a son of a bitch. He hadn’t been able to feel the damned thing for so long it had freaked him out, but now he longed for the numbness again. Randa’s head was still tucked under his chin, and he turned his head toward her scent, floral and soft even in this muck. Why had Aidan and Mirren not found them yet?

  Randa stirred and he wrapped his arms around her. “Don’t move, remember?”

  “Will, open your eyes.”

  “I have dirt in them. They’re…” He blinked, shifting his eyes around the shadowy room and doing a quick mental reshuffle. They were back in Omega, then, coming out of daysleep. He slid his hands up Randa’s back, and it was smooth, healed—and bare. Will had never been a praying man, but he wanted to thank someone.

  “We’re OK,” she whispered against his cheek, then moved her lips across his jawline. “We made it.”

  Will wanted to ask why she was still lying on top of him, then thought better of it. The last thing he wanted was for her to get up. He liked her exactly where she was.

  She hovered her mouth over his. “Say something.”

  Uh-uh. His mouth got him in trouble when he used it to talk. He could do other things with it, though. He raised his head and caught her lower lip between his teeth, tugging her down into a soft, warm kiss. Her breasts pressed against his chest, and he slid his hand between them. He paused before his fingers reached her. Her boundaries were a mystery to him.

  “Touch me.” She shifted to the side so he could take her tight nipple between his fingers while his mouth claimed hers again, his tongue promising what else he wanted to do.

  He slid eager hands down to her waist, kneading soft skin with his fingertips as she deepened the kiss, her hands sliding over his shoulders and tugging at his hair. He slid his hands lower and…What the hell? Will hated to interrupt the enthusiastic assault she’d begun on his earlobe, but he couldn’t help it. “What are you wearing?”

  She moaned something and bit him hard on his ear.

  “Ow.” Laughing, he tugged on the waistband of what he swore were the kind of panties old ladies in nursing homes wore—not that he’d seen many old ladies in nursing homes, especially in their underwear, but he was pretty damned sure they wore these things. “Seriously, what are you wearing?”

  “Oh hell.” Randa sat astride him, and the sight of those beautiful full breasts made him want to bite off his own tongue and never open his mouth again except to make her moan. “They’re granny panties. The army makes us wear them.” Defiance leaked out of her every pore, and her eyes dared him to comment.

  He stared at the high-waisted white monstrosities and swallowed hard. If he laughed at her, he might never get his mouth on those breasts. “Um. Well.” He cleared his throat. “Are you still in the army?”

  She squinted at him. “Well, no. But I don’t much like to go shopping at night, you know?”

  He hooked a finger on each side of the waistband and tugged the panties down as far as he could. She had a pierced belly button, and suddenly, his mouth had a new spot it wanted to visit. “You could always go commando. And I need to introduce you to this wonderful invention called the Internet. It’ll rock your world. You can shop naked at three a.m.”

  He hiked an eyebrow at her and pulled her back onto his chest by tugging forward on the elastic of the world’s ugliest panties. “Come back here and I’ll help you get rid of them.”

  Laughing, she kissed him again, and he eased the offensive things over her hips. Randa rolled to one side to help him along, and he screamed when her right leg brushed his left.

  “Goddamn! What happened? My fucking leg is on fire!” He expected to see flames erupt from his lower limb at any second. He closed his eyes and tried to move his leg to relieve the agony, but it wouldn’t budge. Trying to move it made the sharp, hot pain grow hotter and sharper.

  “Shit. Shit. Shit.” He covered his face with his hands and tried to convince himself the pain was lessening. It was twelve on a pain scale of one to ten. OK, maybe it was down to ten now. He could breathe without wanting to cry, at least.

  “Oh my God. Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’ve been trying to stay away from it.” Randa rolled off him and got to her feet, hitching up the underwear. Will was sure at some point he’d think all this was funny, but right now, it felt like a bulldozer was laying waste to his lower leg.

  He struggled to a sitting position and stared at his mangled limb. It looked like it had endured a hard night at a BDSM club. Tape was neatly wrapped around it in four or five places, and the skin had turned four funky shades of purple. The whole thing had been strapped to a freaking two-by-four and lay propped on a pillow.

  He looked up at Randa. “Why?”

  She’d pulled a sheet off another bed and wrapped it around her. “I’m going to get Krys.”

  “Wait, tell me what happened first.”

  “They had to—”

  “It healed wrong when it was pinned under that beam, so we had to rebreak it.” Aidan strode through the door, followed by Krys. They were both rosy cheeked and recently fed, which was fine for them. Didn’t help his leg any.

  Randa had sidled toward the door clutching her sheet, and Will caught her eye. She smiled at him, full of promise that he’d see those army panties again, and slipped into the hallway. At some point, he’d revisit that look. Now, not so much.

  Will turned his attention back to Krys, who was cutting tape away from his leg. As she pulled it away, he had the pain of leg hairs being ripped out, along with the top layer of skin. “Why don’t you just shoot my ass while you’re at it? Shouldn’t it have healed during daysleep? Why is it the color of an eggplant?”

  “It has healed some, but it’s slow.” Krys’s brow wrinkled in a frown. “I wonder why.”

  Great. Those were not reassuring words coming from Penton’s only doctor.

  “A wound this severe is probably going to take longer to heal. I think that’s what Mirren said.” She looked up at Aidan. “Do you know?”

  Aidan shook his head and turned back toward the hallway. “I’ll find Mirren. He’s our expert on injuries—not many he hasn’t either had himself or given to somebody else. Krys, while I’m gone, fill Will in on…you know.”

  You know? OK, first Will had woken up with an almost-naked woman in his bed. Then his leg had caught on fire
just when things were starting to get interesting. Now his scathe master was off to consult a semiretired executioner about his injury, and they wanted him to play guessing games?

  He flopped back on his pillow, gritting his teeth at the pain that shot through his leg at the movement. “Does morphine work on vampires?”

  Krys pursed her lips. “That’s a good question. I brought some down here. Want me to try it? I think the worst that could happen is, well, that nothing would happen.”

  “Please. It’s more than ten hours until another daysleep, and it’s throbbing like it might explode.” He’d welcome an explosion. If it exploded, it couldn’t throb.

  “One morphine cocktail coming right up.” Krys opened her medical bag, selected a vial and syringe, and turned back to him with a grin. “I always thought you had a fine ass. Now I’ll get to see it.”

  “You can look at it all you want as long as you stick that needle in it.” Will rolled toward the wall enough to give her access to his butt without jarring his leg. “That’s as far as I can move, so you’re gonna have to make do.”

  “Here it comes.” A sharp pain in his ass cheek was nothing compared to the jolt of agony from his leg when he shifted back onto the pillow. Man, being a vampire turned a guy into a pansy. He’d played football in school and dislocated a shoulder. He hadn’t screamed like a banshee at that. Vampires were spoiled by their quick healing.

  “If the morphine works, it’ll work fast, I promise.” Krys crossed her arms and watched him like he was a lab experiment. “I gave you a double dose.”

  Will took a deep breath as the pain eased, then eased some more. It still hurt, but it was a bearable three or four. “Oh yeah. That’s better. Muuuuch better.” Was he slurring his words?