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Eden's Embers

Page 18

by Helena Maeve


  Jackson stroked her hair, afterward, and her heart swelled with unspeakable tenderness for him. He was so careful when he slid free, walking his fingers across her hole as though to check that he hadn’t damaged her in some way. As if she’d let him.

  “So,” she started, swallowing down gulps of air into her starved lungs.

  “So,” Jackson echoed. “Good?”

  Alana nodded, her cheek scraping the sheets. She couldn’t conceal her grin for very long. “Consider this your happy birthday treat.” To be repeated as soon as they had a moment to themselves. They didn’t need a pretext to make love.

  Jackson huffed out a spent, exhausted laugh. “How do they even know it’s my birthday?”

  “Remember that twenty-twenty calendar?” They had found it in an abandoned schoolhouse a few months back and even though it must have been about half a century old, the girls still embraced it as an accurate method of timekeeping.

  Alana and Jackson allowed it, because distractions were few and far between in their world.

  He nodded, smiling up at the ceiling. “I bet it was Mai’s doing.” She was their eldest, born just nine months after her parents had left Haven, when food was scarce and Alana had worried that the pregnancy would kill them both.

  By some miracle, it hadn’t. Eight years later, Maity was actively conspiring to impose order to a world that had been delivered to chaos long before her birth. She was a force to be reckoned with, much like her namesake.

  “I’m sure it was Jackie,” Alana said, walking her fingers over the shelf of Jackson’s jaw. “It’s always the quiet ones who take over the world.”

  He caught her fingers easily, bringing her hand to his lips. ”I can well believe that…”

  They wallowed in post-orgasmic bliss until the sun began to creep through the overhead hatch. There was no smoke rising from the galley as Alana dressed, which she took to be a good sign.

  “So,” she started. “Ready to go home?”

  Jackson looked up from where he was slotting his legs through a loose-fitting pair of slacks, soft from many washings, slightly worn in one knee. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”

  She didn’t rise to the bait, knowing that his barb came from a place of affection and playfulness. “Leona and Finn are coming in. And Siggy—”

  “I think a better question would be are you looking forward to going home?” Jackson wondered, smiling softly. “I think I know the answer.”

  “I promised Siggy I’d be there for the birth.” And it hadn’t come out of nowhere, that request. Siggy had been there to hold Alana’s hand when she had had both of her children. This was merely a way to return the favor and settle a debt. Alana had long learned that was the drifter way.

  Jackson drew himself up to full height and slid both hands around her waist. Her belly wasn’t as firm as it had once been—age and the birth of her two children had changed her in myriad ways—but he’d never complained. He never seemed less than delighted to go to his knees or rest his head in her lap. “In that case… Let us go home, wife.”

  Alana rose up on tiptoe and planted a kiss to his lips. She wore no ring and there had been no ceremony, but she was his in every way that mattered.

  Home didn’t need a name to be waiting for them beyond the horizon.

  Also available from Totally Bound Publishing:

  Collision Course

  Helena Maeve

  Excerpt

  Chapter One

  Off the top of her head, Eve could conjure sixteen distinct ways she would rather have spent her last two weeks on Earth. There were the usual suspects—lazing about in bed all day, taking hour-long baths, dyeing her hair pink—and the more adolescent fantasies of knocking over a liquor store or a jeweler’s and getting away like some iconic cat burglar. She even gave a passing consideration to digging up what was left of her itinerant blood-kin and renewing ties before the whole world went to hell.

  Anything would’ve been preferable to spending another night in a deserted museum, locked inside her tiny, blast-proof cubicle and further isolated from the remains of the city.

  She stretched out her legs, pinning each heel on the desk in blatant disregard of regulations. No one was left to complain, anyway. Rumor had it that management had fled for the Caymans on the first boat—more fool them, because the most recent calculations from NASA put the Caribbean in the path of the first shower. Of course, NASA had revised their predictions six times now, going from declaring the Pacific Northwest a safe zone to citing it among the ten likeliest places to be hit. So, really, trusting soothsayers and astrologers was just as realistic at this point.

  Maybe her runaway employers would survive A-Day after all. Eve certainly didn’t wish them harm. Seeing as she only ever worked the night shift, she had only met the people in HR twice—first when she was hired and again, later, when they wanted her to do an employee satisfaction survey. She had some idea that Mr Lowell, who had inherited the collection of bones and bricks and sundry other artifacts from his eccentric uncles was a big, portly guy with a Santa-like beard, but that might have been her imagination at work.

  It hardly mattered. Tomorrow morning at eight, this place would officially stop being her problem. Eve greeted the thought with a sip of Darjeeling tea so bitter it made her whole face crinkle like parchment. She had rummaged through cupboards in search of coffee, but none was left. Rationing had dried up about a week before, with the military overwhelmed by mass desertion and public despair. Six mass shootings later and no one in green and brown uniform was crazy enough to venture into the cities anymore.

  It was no use trying to get coffee from the grocery store down the road, either. Most shops had already been ransacked by optimists convinced that they’d survive long to make good use of their overflowing pantries.

  Eve didn’t share their conviction. Her instincts were telling her to run, to get out of St. Louis as fast as she could. NASA had designated them a high-risk zone and despite some flip-flopping on the west coast and Florida, they seemed pretty convinced that Missouri was going down.

  And not a moment too soon, Eve mused, blowing on the surface of her cup to dispel the eddying steam. Twelve hours from now she’d have enough cash in her pocket to buy her way out of Dodge.

  It was lucky that her employers had fully automated the payroll system before the whole world went to shit or else she would’ve been forced to track them down to settle accounts. As it stood, a computer recorded her fingerprint and performed a retinal scan when she came in and scanned her out when the shift ended. Every minute was tallied and accounted for. No more unpaid overtime, no more runaway absenteeism.

  The task of finding a cash machine that hadn’t been bled dry would be slightly harder to accomplish, but Eve had her eye on a couple of potentials.

  She knew she shouldn’t have left it so late. Purse snatchers had gone pro and the price of losing a wallet could well be on par with losing a life.

  At least she was safe in that regard. Had she been any less decent, she would’ve taken up the call of thievery herself. It seemed a profitable way to save one’s neck—morally bankrupt, sure, but also profitable. It was disheartening to think that the people who stood the best chance of pulling through the upcoming crucible were likely to be criminals and interlopers—not exactly the cream of the crop or the kinds of folks who could pull together to guarantee the survival of humankind in the aftermath of tragedy.

  If all works out, Eve thought, I’ll find me a nice deserted corner of a mountain somewhere and live on wild game and spring water. The Rockies appealed for exactly that reason.

  She glanced at the clock for the umpteenth time that morning. Only five minutes had elapsed since her last check. She still had seven hours and forty-two minutes to go. At this rate, they would feel like four hundred. The thought filled her with weariness. She had pulled through nine months on this job. She could handle another seven hours.

  The tea was too much, though.

  Eve slid
back her chair and rose creakily to her feet. There was no movement on the monitors—there never was—and she didn’t think it a problem to step away for a few seconds to rinse out her cup. Technically, tidiness had no purpose in a world about to end, but Eve couldn’t give up the habit now. She needed the sense of stability, of continuity.

  If she started shedding her quirks and idiosyncrasies like snakeskin, she was sure to turn into one of those roving miscreants breaking into liquor stores and hoarding coffee just because they could. She was just a step away from turning feral on a good day.

  Besides, the washroom was barely ten feet away, in a nook with a metal toilet that hadn’t flushed properly in the nine months that Eve had been employed by the museum and a sink barely wide enough to wash one hand at the time. That it still had running water was pretty miraculous. Most of the mains had been shut down when the water company was beset by mass panic and rampant dereliction of duty—nothing unusual in that. Most big businesses had closed up shop when it became clear that there was no way to send a team of all-American Joes to nuke their way into martyrdom.

  Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, Eve told herself. Just enjoy the sponge baths and the comforts of modern plumbing. You won’t have them for long. And because karma worked in mysterious ways, no sooner was her back turned than the alarm shrilled awake with a foghorn-dull noise.

  Eve felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. One moment of inattention was all it took. The cup in her hands slipped and shattered into the sink, splinters of cheap porcelain cascading down to the floor like sleet.

  “God damn it!” Eve snarled, but there was no one she could direct her venom toward, only the slate-gray walls on either side of her and the blast-proof windows gleaming red as the alarm howled merrily away.

  Eve rushed to shut it off. She’d been forced to do it before—cats were just curious enough to venture into the perimeter uninvited and the rats that lived in the basement of the museum found prowling through the stacks far too appealing to let high-pitched buzzing get in their way. It was never anything important. Eve brought up the map of the perimeter and cross-checked it with the live feed from the motion detectors and CCTV. All the equipment was first-class. There was absolutely no way anyone could sneak in without tripping up at least one sensor.

  As far as she could tell, no one was trying to. Two red dots lit up her screen—one in the Paleolithic exhibit and another just outside the main gate. The security cameras in the former must have malfunctioned, because nothing of what was happening in Hall D was showing up on screen. The latter was easier to deal with. Eve brought up the live feed onto the main screen. She could just about make out a man fiddling with something in his backpack.

  The heat signature on the infrared sensors reported him as human and the device in his hand—the very same one he pressed onto the blast-proof door—as equally warm. No, warmer.

  A lot warmer.

  “What the…?” Eve watched as the figure sprinted away with almost girlish steps and took cover behind a parked van. She couldn’t say whether it was his or just another forgotten vehicle, its owners either lost to suicide or lucky enough to have skipped town through other means.

  An explosion shattered the main exit, shaking the camera. White smoke rose from the source of the blast, scattering chips of metal and wood splinters all across the front steps. It was horrific to witness—and also slightly impressive, in the way that all destruction is impressive.

  It took Eve a moment to realize that she was expected to intervene. Not much good being a security guard otherwise.

  She grabbed her stun gun and radio off the desk in a flurry of motion. The pages of glossy magazines and the paperwork she would now never get through fluttered in the sudden breeze, overlapping toothpaste-ad smiles and HR-printed checklists. She wasn’t going to need the radio—there was no backup left this side of hell—but training had been drilled into her that she had to maintain the possibility to call for help.

  It was a short journey from her post to the main door, but Eve slowed her steps, proceeding with caution. She wasn’t afraid for herself, but she didn’t want to shoot anyone by accident. Or any other way.

  “Stop right there!” she shouted when the arsonist came into view. Was he still an arsonist if he set his fires with explosives? Eve swallowed in a dry throat. “This is private property, bub. You come any closer and I will shoot you.”

  The man didn’t even jump at the sight of her. He was dressed all in black, though his hoodie seemed somewhat faded from too many turns in the washing machine. He was wearing jeans—a totally nondescript pair with no logos or tears. He looked as though he’d dressed to be forgettable. And Eve might’ve done just that, if it weren’t for the detonation that had cleaved through her perfectly quiet evening.

  “I’m unarmed,” the man called out, slowly holding up his hands.

  “After that pyrotechnics show, I find that hard to believe,” Eve shot back. She didn’t lower her stun gun as she advanced toward him with slow steps. “We may be a step away from total annihilation, but you’re still trespassing, kid. I suggest you—”

  “Kid?” The man barked an incredulous guffaw. “Okay, first of all—ouch. That’s just cruel. Second of all…” He canted his head with an owlish tilt. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?”

  Eve flexed her hands around the stun gun. “Save the pick-up lines for someone who cares. This is your last warning. Leave. Now.”

  “Or else what?” The man smirked. He had a wide mouth and a squarish jaw. His cheeks were slightly sunken, whether out of starvation or genetic misfortune, giving the half of his face that Eve could see a slightly feminine quality. The rest of it was hidden behind black, bulbous night goggles.

  Or at least it had been, before the guy reached for the mask and pushed it up his forehead into sandy-brown hair. His eyes were very blue, lashes long and feathery over jutting cheekbones. They were also very, very familiar.

  Eve balked, her gun arm trembling. “Neil?”

  “I know this is shaping up to be one of those of all the gin joints moments, but I’m actually here to work, Evey. So if it’s not too much to ask,” he said, “get out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours.”

  For a guy who had once communicated through brooding silence, he had certainly grown up lippy.

  “What…?” Eve cut herself off. She didn’t want to know what he was doing in St. Louis.

  The last she’d heard—and it must’ve been a couple of years back, upon returning to the city—Neil had left to apprentice overseas. Word had it he’d taken off not long after she had made for the Briars. Eve had always assumed he’d stayed there. The potion-stirring community was well represented in London and Paris, and there were far fewer initiatives on the books to get warlocks to register like sex offenders.

  There was nothing to make Neil return to the States. Nothing at all. “I meant it when I said you’re trespassing,” Eve said, steeling herself against the urge to drop her gun.

  Neil pursed his lips and sighed. “You’re going to give me shit about private property? You?”

  “People change,” Eve countered. “We can’t all take up burglarizing.” Not that the thought hadn’t crossed her mind.

  “You don’t honestly believe I’m here to steal human skulls, do you?”

  Order your copy here

  About the Author

  Helena Maeve has always been globe trotter with a fondness for adventure, but only recently has she started putting to paper the many stories she’s collected in her excursions. When she isn’t writing erotic romance novels, she can usually be found in an airport or on a plane, furiously penning in her trusty little notebook.

  Email: helenamaeve@outlook.com

  Helena loves to hear from readers. You can find her contact information, website and author biography at http://www.totallybound.com.

  Also by Helena Maeve

  A Touch of Spice

  Courting Treason

  Collisio
n Course

  Misfit Hearts

  Totally Bound Publishing

 

 

 


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