No Shelter Trilogy (Omnibus, Books 1-3)

by T. S. Welti

  “Are you okay?”

  I nod. “Don’t stop.”

  I take a deep breath and the pain subsides as my body relaxes. The look of utter bliss on his face when he’s fully inside me makes me smile. He moves gently… rhythmically… sinking in and out of me.

  I can’t believe this is really happening. There is no way I’ll regret this.

  CHAPTER 14

  “We have to hunt today,” Isaac says, when I open my eyes and find him staring at me. “I can’t let you starve.”

  He kisses my forehead before he rolls out of the sleeping bag. He’s still naked. I sit up and realize I’m still naked too. I cover my chest as he sets my clothes on the floor in front of me.

  He turns away from me. “I won’t look.”

  I untangle my bra from my shirt and quickly slip it on. I can’t help but gawk at his body as he gets dressed. He makes no effort to hide himself. I finish hooking my bra and I stand.

  “Isaac?” I whisper and he turns around.

  He sees me standing in just my bra and he quickly turns away. “Sorry.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I say, tapping him on the shoulder.

  He turns his head slowly and he looks me up and down.

  “I don’t want to be afraid anymore,” I say. “I trust you.”

  I’m freezing but I’m not shivering.

  He plants a quick kiss on my lips. “Get dressed. It’s freezing.”

  I manage to surprise a hawk as it munches on an owl and we feast on the remains of the owl first. Isaac butchers the hawk and roasts it for us to eat as we continue our hike toward the mountains.

  “We have to move faster,” I say at mile fifteen. “He’s in the mountains by now.”

  Isaac doesn’t say anything.

  “Do you want me to carry the backpack for a while?” I ask. “I’m feeling better now.”

  “No, Nada, I don’t need you to carry the backpack,” Isaac replies sounding slightly annoyed.

  “You don’t understand,” I say. “Daedric can outpace us for miles unless we speed up.”

  Isaac shakes his head. “Why are you so worried about him? He ditched us. He obviously didn’t care enough about you to stick around.”

  “He was hurt,” I reply. “And he obviously trusted you would take care of me. He left us his sleeping bag!”

  “We shouldn’t be arguing about this,” he says. “I’m sorry. I’m just frustrated. How long ago did you all leave the cabin?”

  I try to remember how many nights it’s been since we left. I follow the path of my memory and I glimpse all those nights sleeping next to Daedric. I land inside the final night Daedric and I shared his sleeping bag. I swallow hard and hope Isaac can’t see what I’m thinking.

  “I don’t know… four maybe five weeks,” I reply.

  I stop as he steps in front of me. “What was that?” he asks.

  “What was what?”

  “That?” he says, pointing at my face. “That look on your face?”

  “What look?”

  “Did you and Daedric… Were you two… together?”

  “What do you mean by together?”

  “You know what I mean, Nada?”

  I pretend to be speechless for a moment. “What? You’re asking if Daedric and I had sex?”

  Isaac tilts his head as he tries to figure out if I’m hiding something.

  “Why would I say I didn’t want to die a virgin if I’d already had sex with Daedric? Do you really think I’d do something like that?”

  Isaac’s lips curl into a smile. “You’re right. That was stupid. Sorry. I didn’t mean to imply anything.”

  I roll my eyes. “Yeah, that was pretty stupid. Anyway, what I did or didn’t do with Daedric is my business.”

  He grabs both my hands. “I just don’t want to share you.”

  “Isaac, please don’t start getting possessive.”

  I let go of his hands and start walking.

  “Not wanting to share you with Daedric is being possessive?”

  “You know what I mean,” I reply. “I’m not yours to share or not share.”

  “Nada, it’s perfectly normal to not want to share your girlfriend with another guy. Don’t make me out to be some kind of jealous freak.”

  Girlfriend?

  I’m not stupid enough to believe I’m Isaac’s first anything. The way he worked his charms on the Guardians at Whitmore and on me after we escaped the fire, I knew he was experienced by the time we met. I wonder if he ever called Mary his girlfriend when they were together. It doesn’t matter if he did. We weren’t together then.

  “I feel…” I say, but I’m unable to find the words to describe what I’m feeling.

  “What?” he says.

  “I feel like… the last two and a half years were just pretend.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  I shake my head. “Nothing.”

  “Don’t do that, Nada. Talk to me.”

  “I don’t know,” I say. “I guess I just feel like after my mom died I kind of fell asleep and last night… you woke me up.”

  Isaac appears frightened by the weight of my words for a moment before he grabs my hand and pulls me toward him. He kisses me firmly until I’m forced to pull away to come up for air.

  “Whoa… what was that for?” I say, as I try not to go limp in his arms.

  “Just trying to make sure you don’t fall back to sleep, Sleeping Beauty,” he says.

  He ruffles my hair and sprints away toward the mountains. I chase him for no more than a few seconds before he stops.

  “Tired already?” I ask, when I catch up to him.

  His face is grim. “Be quiet,” he whispers. “I think I saw something.”

  “Something or someone?” I whisper.

  He shushes me as he tiptoes toward a giant Mexican Palm tree. “Stay behind me,” he whispers.

  The tree is twice as wide as it is tall with spiky palm fronds projecting in all directions. We get closer and I can definitely see the boot of someone squatting inside the branches of the tree.

  “Who’s in there?” Isaac calls out.

  “Isaac?” a female voice calls out.

  Isaac and I look at each other before we race toward the voice. I try not to get skewered as I fight my way through the fronds to the center of the palm tree. Mary is perched on the branch holding her machete in front of her.

  “Put the knife down, Mary,” I say.

  Isaac and his long limbs have more trouble weeding through the prickly fronds. Mary’s eyes widen with panic at the sound of him rustling in the branches of the tree. He finally makes it through and Mary lowers her knife.

  “Are you two alone?” she whispers.

  “We’re alone,” Isaac says. “Put the knife away.”

  Isaac helps Mary down from the tree and we extract ourselves from its spiny grip.

  “Where’s Qiana?” I ask, as she holsters her machete.

  “You jerk!” Mary shouts as she punches Isaac in the arm. “Why didn’t you tell us about Umbra?”

  “Calm down,” Isaac says, rubbing his arm. “Where the hell is Qiana?”

  “Don’t change the subject,” she says, placing her fingers on the handle of her machete.

  I’ve never seen Mary so angry with Isaac before. She normally shies away from all confrontation with him and shrinks at his criticism. This is a side of Mary I’ve never seen, and I find it highly entertaining.

  “They took her, didn’t they?” Isaac says, as he paces the patchy snow covering the desert floor.

  “Why didn’t you tell us?” Mary demands, then she rounds on me. “Did he tell you? Is that why you tried to ditch us?”

  “What are you talking about?” I reply. “We’ve been looking for you for days!”

  “Oh, yeah. Then where’s Daedric?” Mary shoots back. “How convenient that you two are the only ones left.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Daedric left us!” I shout. “We’ve been
killing ourselves trying to find you while trying to catch up with him at the same time.”

  Mary shakes her head as if she’s having a hard time believing my story. “I thought you left,” she says to Isaac.

  “What did Qiana tell you?” Isaac demands. “Did her memory come back?”

  Mary narrows her eyes at him. “I’m going to let you figure that out on your own.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Mary.”

  It appears as though Mary’s going to back down then she straightens her back and looks Isaac in the eye. “Let’s just say that she and I had some very interesting conversations.”

  “What is she talking about?” I ask Isaac.

  “Don’t listen to her,” he says, grabbing my hand as he starts toward the mountains.

  I jerk my hand away and sit cross-legged on a patch of sandy soil. “Isaac, you’d better tell me everything about Qiana and Umbra or I’ll sit right here until the Guardians come for me.”

  Isaac glares at Mary before he reaches his hand out to me. “I’ll tell you everything when we reach the mountains.”

  CHAPTER 15

  Isaac scours the forest for a secure location to confess all his sins. Finally, he decides he will have to settle for the slight privacy of the thick forest. I peel off my mittens as Mary and I take a seat on a hollow log. Isaac paces the forest floor in front of us preparing to bare his soul.

  “I met Qiana in the marketplace,” Isaac begins. “She was trading leather goods and her hunting gloves caught my eye right away.”

  “Sure, the hunting gloves caught your eye,” Mary says with a snort.

  Isaac ignores the comment and continues. “This was right after you killed that cougar,” he says to me. “I asked her how much the gloves were and she said, ‘Twelve gallons.’”

  “Twelve gallons!” I cry.

  “I didn’t give her twelve gallons,” Isaac insists. “We couldn’t afford it and there’s no way I could even carry twelve gallons of water to the marketplace.”

  “Then how did you get the gloves?” I ask.

  Isaac takes a deep breath. “She told me if I helped her make another pair of gloves and a few other things she could trade that she would give me the gloves for free.”

  “That’s awfully generous,” Mary remarks with a smirk.

  “It was,” Isaac replies. “I followed her back to her hideout—it was a few miles past the marketplace—and I helped her for a few hours before I left. I went back a few days later to finish helping her, because I really wanted to get you those gloves, and that’s when she started telling me more about herself.”

  He pauses. I can’t tell if he’s trying to collect himself or if he’s trying to concoct more details for his story.

  “She told me about how she used to live in Umbra and the way things are in there,” he says. “She said everything was great until they tried to force her to live with a guy she’d never met. This was after her father died. They do that to consolidate living space.”

  “Arranged marriages in Umbra?” I say. “Are you kidding me?”

  Isaac shakes his head. “It makes sense. There’s only so much space and, with all that food and water, the people in there aren’t dying fast enough. They’re not allowed to live alone. If a family member dies and leaves you alone you have to pair off with another single.”

  “Isn’t there some way around that? Like, maybe you could just get a roommate or something?” I ask.

  “No,” he says. “They don’t have the luxury of moving people from one domicile to another because of the limited space. When a potential mate comes along they pair you up.”

  “That sounds like a nightmare,” I whisper.

  “In Qiana’s case,” Isaac continues, “her father died four months before they found her a mate. She had four months to think of what she would do and she decided to escape. That’s when she found out she wasn’t the first to leave Umbra by choice.”

  “Aren’t you leaving something out?” Mary says.

  Isaac takes a seat next to me on the log. “Nada.”

  “What?”

  It takes him a moment before he speaks again. “Qiana and I…”

  “You made gloves?” Mary says with a grin. “Was that before or after you made gloves with me?”

  Isaac takes my hand. “It was only once, Nada.”

  I yank my hand back and stand from the log. “I don’t care what you did with Qiana.”

  Now I’m pacing the forest floor. Isaac gets up and stands in front of me. I squirm around him and sit back on the log.

  “So… did you sleep with her for the gloves or so she could tell you how to get into Umbra?” I ask, tucking my bare hands into my coat pockets.

  “Neither,” Isaac says. “I already told you… she told me how to get into Umbra when she helped me get away from Vic… the day I stole back the necklace for you. I didn’t know until we got to the Salton Sea that Vic had taken her prisoner.”

  “She bares her soul to you and gets a one-night-stand in return. Then she’s taken prisoner after helping you escape the Guardians. Then three days ago you almost abandon her, and me, and now the Guardians have taken her again. Is that right?” I say. “You really know how to treat a girl, Isaac?”

  “If you want to simplify it like that go ahead, but life isn’t that simple, Nada,” he says. “Nothing is simple anymore.”

  “And you made sure of that,” I reply.

  “Can we focus on what’s important right now? We need to find Qiana before Vic takes her back to Umbra.”

  “Great way to change the subject,” Mary mutters.

  “Where do you think he took her?” I ask, rubbing my hands together to try to warm them up.

  Isaac swipes my mittens off the log and hands them to me. “Put these back on.”

  “I know where they took her,” Mary says. “But I’m not going.”

  “Where did they take her?” I ask.

  Mary is silent for a moment. “They took her to the cabin to wait for you,” she says to Isaac. “And Daedric too… I think their plan is to kill you both so they can each take a girl to Umbra and live happily ever after.”

  CHAPTER 16

  “That’s why they’ve been waiting in the shadows,” I say. “They want us to make it back to the cabin.”

  “They tried to take me, too, but I got away from them,” Mary says with a faraway look in her eyes.

  I have a sudden urge to comfort Mary, but I know she’ll just roll her eyes at me. I place my hand on her shoulder.

  “Did they… hurt you?” I ask.

  She glares at me before she throws my hand off her shoulder. “No, Nada, they didn’t hurt me,” she says. “And if they did, it’s not like I’d tell you.”

  What did Isaac ever see in Mary? It takes every ounce of self-control in me not to wrap my fingers around her throat.

  “How charming,” Isaac remarks.

  “Not the first time I’ve heard that from you,” Mary says with a smirk.

  “But I can guarantee you it’s the last,” he replies.

  Her smirk dissolves as the pain of Isaac’s rejection is carved into every corner of her face.

  I shake my head. “This isn’t helping,” I say. “And there’s still one thing I don’t understand. Why haven’t the Guardians killed you yet?”

  “Because they’ve been waiting for me to slip up and tell you where the entrance to Umbra is,” he replies. “Qiana’s amnesia and my refusal to talk was the only thing keeping us alive in the Salton Sea and until now.”

  “So what do we do now?” I ask. “If Qiana is getting her memory back, they either already know how to get to Umbra or it’s just a matter of time before she remembers and they kill you.”

  “We have to go to the cabin to get Eve and Qiana back,” he says.

  “And Elysia,” I add.

  “And Daedric,” he adds, with a roll of his eyes.

  Mary sneers as she looks back and forth between Isaac and me. “I can’t believe you
two?” she says, wagging her finger at us.

  The expression of victory on her face sickens me. It’s as if she gets pleasure in knowing I’ve given myself to Isaac because, in her mind, he’s just going to dump me like he did her.

  “Yes, Mary, it happened,” I say. “Get over it.”

  Mary doesn’t appear amused. “I’m still not going back with you two. Vic isn’t taking me to Umbra. He wants me dead,” she says. “I’m going back to the cave. If they find me there I stand a better chance. If we go back to that cabin we’re just walking into their trap.”

  “She’s right,” I say, as much as I hate to admit it. “If they don’t kill you on the way, we’re still screwed once we get there. They have guns.”

  “Guns didn’t stop you before,” Isaac says. “We can outsmart them.”

  Mary has a hair-tie between her teeth as she pulls her hair back into a ponytail.

  I stand from the log and look directly at her. “We can’t do it without you.”

  No one can wield a knife like Mary. I don’t want to subject her to anymore than she’s already endured, and I certainly don’t want to get her killed, but we need her.

  Mary gawks at me as if I’ve just told her I’ve become a vegetarian. It appears as though she’s going to say something then she closes her mouth. She looks at Isaac. She wants to know that he agrees with me. She wants to hear it from him.

  Isaac looks away from her.

  I shove him. “What the hell?”

  He rolls his eyes before he turns to Mary. “You know we can’t do it without you, and you’re wrong if you think I’m going to beg—”

  I punch his arm to stop him. Isaac always knows what to say, even when he’s angry or emotional. This isn’t like him. Maybe what happened last night did change everything?

  “We need you,” Isaac mutters, as he takes a deep breath and looks her in the eye. “I need you, Mary. I can’t make it to the cabin alive without you… I’ll beg if I have to.”

  That’s the Isaac Mary fell in love with, and the same Isaac that makes my stomach roil. Mary looks torn between making a condescending comment and throwing her arms around Isaac’s neck. She decides instead to stare at her feet.