Blood of Eve

by Pam Godwin

  Sunlight streaked past us, and my eyes adjusted beyond the glowing stripe, searching the dark corners of the room for movement.

  Shea lay face down on the mattress, her head lifting, her eyes weighted with sleep.

  I let go of Jesse’s hand and scanned the shadowed cages lining the wall. The door stood open on the last one, a cage large enough to hold a lion.

  Roark was stretched out on the floor inside it, his arm hooked around a curled-up ball of fur and gauze.

  “Darwin?” I breathed, my heartbeat ricocheting through my chest.

  A shaggy head rose from beneath Roark’s arm, one ear flicking, and large dark eyes twinkling in the dim light.

  I sucked in a series of ragged breaths, my fingers shaking as I set the carbine on the nearest counter. Jesse rested a hand on my lower back, his smile pressing against my shoulder.

  Darwin pulled his legs beneath his body and clumsily pushed against Roark’s arm, trying to stand.

  Roark jerked to his knees, grabbing Darwin’s neck. “Whoa whoa whoa, boy.”

  There was something to be said about loyalty, adaptability, and sheer determination. I’d named him Darwin, after all, because he was the purest example of survival against nature.

  I’d witnessed his survival when I met him in Missouri’s Ozark Mountains, when he pulled me from my solitude and made me his. And I witnessed it now as his nails scratched across the concrete floor, driven by one thing. Devotion.

  Covered in bandages and stitches, he wrestled away from Roark and scrambled through the doorway of the cage. His legs gave out around the corner, sliding his rear across the floor.

  My heart lurched, and I ran toward him. “Darwin. Nein. Nein.”

  Ignoring my command, he wobbled, regaining his footing, and scrabbled toward me in a frantic slide of claws and shaky legs.

  I skidded across the floor to reach him and slammed to my knees. My arms flew around his neck, fingers stroking through his patchy coat, careful not to disturb the dressings. “Oh Darwin, what happened to you, huh? Why did you follow us?”

  His eyes found mine, communicating in a language I wished I understood. Then he pushed himself against me, flattening my back against cool concrete as he licked my face and rubbed his wet muzzle around my ears.

  “Did you need a hug? Is that it?” I gripped his head, my attention falling on the maimed hole where his ear used to be, the cartilage red and ugly and covered in black stitches.

  How had he lost the ear? A bear in the mountains? An aphid along his trek to find me? The thought made me want to hurt something. I slammed my molars together against the sudden rage, surprised my teeth didn't break in half.

  Jesse knelt beside me, his hands following mine. My chest clenched as our fingers encountered more stitches, bumps, and protruding ribs.

  Shea yanked the quilt from the window, and the light flooding the room illuminated Darwin’s sunken cheeks, mangy skin, and emaciated hip bones.

  Crouched beside us, she cocked her head and smiled at Darwin, her voice a whisper. “You made it.”

  So it had been touch and go then? My stomach sank. Good thing I hadn’t stayed the night in here. I would’ve been a fucking mess.

  Overwhelmed and so fucking grateful, I pulled away from Darwin and tackled Shea in a hug. “Thank you. You have no idea what this dog means to me.”

  She leaned back and flashed me a smile. “Oh, I think I do. Roark filled me in, and he might’ve threatened my life a few times during the night.” She narrowed her eyes at Roark. “Or more specifically, he threatened my…what was it? Oh yeah. My big filthy bum.”

  “Roark,” I said in a scolding tone, matching Shea’s narrowed glare.

  He really needed to do something about that mouth.

  He sat with his back against the wall, one leg bent at the knee, his hands laced behind his head, and eyes fixed on me. “Ah sure. All judgey and faultfindy, like. But while ye were on the porch snogging this guy”—he thrust his chin at Jesse—“who do ye think spooned your pup all night? That's right. Muggins here.”

  My face softened, and I climbed to my feet, leaving Darwin in Jesse’s embrace. I stepped into the cage and straddled the thigh of Roark’s outstretched leg.

  With my hands on his whiskery cheeks, I looked into his emerald peepers. “Does Muggins need a snog?”

  “Always, ye bleedin’ harpy.” He wrapped a hand in my hair, his other dragging my hips closer, as his mouth covered mine.

  His tongue was absent of its usual whiskey flavor, his taste raw and male and all Roark. He kissed me slowly, exploring my mouth with lazy caresses, his breaths dragging across my lips.

  It wasn’t a kiss fueled with urgency or arousal. With his tongue trailing along the inner side of my bottom lip and his thumb stroking gentle circles against my scalp, he was simply saying, Good Morning. I missed you. I love you.

  Did he wonder what happened between Jesse and me last night? Was he concerned we’d had sex and tempted the prophecy? Or was he afraid a change in my relationship with Jesse would leave him out in the cold?

  He was the most laid-back of my guardians and probably wasn’t thinking about any of those things. But I reassured him anyway, with my hands tangled in his braids, my tongue rubbing lovingly against his, and my smile curving against his mouth.

  Behind me, Shea updated Jesse on Darwin’s injuries. At the edges of my concentration, beyond the sweeping bliss of Roark’s tongue, I listened to her concerns about blood loss and malnutrition. She didn’t have fresh blood to administer a transfusion, but her supply of antibiotics would fight the infection.

  I nuzzled Roark’s lips, relieved, almost happy. I’d feel better once we arrived in the mountains with Shea and Darwin safely in tow.

  “No broken bones?” Jesse’s timbre rose over the sound of Darwin’s heavy panting. “Damaged organs?”

  Shea hummed a sigh. “No. A fight with a lion, and he damned near walked away. Pretty amazing, if you ask me.”

  I sucked on Roark’s tongue, kissed each corner of his mouth, and leaned back, taking in the sight of his swollen lips. “Better?”

  “Me plums could use some love.” He pointed a look at the crotch of his workout shorts. “Your sinful mouth can have a go a’ the whole lot.”

  Insatiable as ever. I adored how unapologetic he was about his sexuality, such a paradox with his vow, even when he was teasing. Which he was doing now. He wasn’t even hard.

  The conversation behind me quieted, so I sat back and spoke loud enough for Shea to hear. “Without Tallis and Georges…” I breathed deeply and continued. “What do you think about taking Shea to the mountains before we continue west?”

  Roark’s brows pulled down, and his eyes flicked to Jesse. Calloused fingers absently caressed the skin above my waistband, and a moment of silence passed between the two men.

  Then Roark slid those jade eyes back to me. “I’m up for that. It’s the safest place for her.”

  I looked over my shoulder and met Shea’s eyes.

  She glanced at Roark, then Jesse, and stared down at her hands. “You need a doctor with you. I can feed and take care of myself now. And treat your injuries if needed. I won’t be a burden…”

  “Hey,” Jesse said softly, his fingers scratching behind Darwin’s good ear as he waited for her to look at him. “We need you alive more than we need a doctor.”

  She was a smart woman. I didn’t need to read her expression to know she was mulling over her lack of weapons training and inexperience with aphids, and more than that, her role in the future of mankind.

  She stood, hands on her hips. Her curves looked remarkably fuller this morning, her ribs less pronounced beneath her thin shirt.

  Black hair framed her round face in frizzy curls. Her lips pursed, dark and sensual, as she looked at us with intelligent brown eyes. “Okay. I’ll go wherever you send me. When do we leave?”

  Beautiful. Fierce. Amazing woman. If I were a guy, I’d hit that hard and often. Which was a huge fucking reason why
we needed to hide her away. Naalnish and Badger would help her find men who deserved her. Hell, she wouldn’t have to look further than my handsome Lakota friends.

  Jesse gently scooped up Darwin and turned toward the door. “We leave within the hour, and until we reach the mountains, we stay within eyeshot of each other. No exceptions.”

  As instructed, the four of us ate canned chicken, fed Darwin, shit in the woods, and packed the truck side by side. We worked efficiently, and thankfully, there wasn’t a flicker of aphids.

  Without Georges to work his magic on the motor, I waited beside the bumper with sweaty palms as Roark put the key in the ignition.

  After a few rattling groans of gears, the engine purred blissfully to life.

  One less problem to worry about.

  Shea climbed in the rear of the truck with Darwin, her eyes hidden behind a pair of sunglasses. If she was remorseful about leaving her home, she didn’t show it. The three of us had hovered over her as she packed practical clothes, enough for her and me, and abandoned her makeup, hair products, and other girly things without a backward look.

  But there was one thing I couldn’t leave without doing.

  With a heavy heart and a can of spray paint I’d found in the shed, I scrawled a message across the door of the animal clinic.

  Michio

  We stayed 7 days

  Returned to Lakota

  Evie

  I even drew a heart beneath my name.

  Because love made people soft and squishy, crazy and weak.

  Which scared the ever-loving shit out of me.

  I tossed the can of paint and pushed my boots forward, toward the two men waiting in the truck, their eyes on the landscape, watching, always protecting.

  Because love made people vigilant and selfless, crazy and strong.

  Like my guardians, I fought and killed viciously and without hesitancy to defend those I loved. But when Darwin lay on that counter, bleeding and whining with pain, I went from tough to weak in a blink of an eye. I did the only thing I could. I put his life in more capable hands and hid on the porch with my grief.

  Love softened the heart when it needed to be weak and hardened it when it needed to be strong.

  Which was why mankind would endure. The human race was capable of so much love, and that love would not end with us.

  I felt that conviction in every step to the truck, in every mile toward West Virginia, and in every aching muscle cramp as we climbed the mountains in search of the Lakota camp.

  Twenty-six days passed. If I went by weather patterns, I figured it was July or August. But to circle a day on a calendar was anyone’s guess.

  The morning we left the animal reserve, I started tracking the days with grains of rice from a box none of us had the energy to cook. Every morning, I added a new grain to the outer pocket of my backpack.

  This morning there were twenty-six grains in the pocket, some sticking together from the goddamned humidity. And I might’ve dropped a few along the way.

  We’d been traveling about a month, and it had only rained once, leaving behind a sweltering haze of misery. The truck ran out of gas fifteen miles before we reached the mountains, forcing us to walk the barren interstate in search of fuel with no luck. So we walked, snatching an hour of sleep here and there, holing up in broken-down cars, barns, and gas stations.

  Darwin couldn’t tread long distances, let alone repel the mountainous inclines. Shea was no better, given the lingering affliction of her mutation.

  We lost time while Jesse made a simple litter to carry Darwin, crafted from branches and blankets. We were further delayed as Jesse and I carried that stretcher over the rough terrain.

  And Roark carried Shea. It injured her pride to allow it, but she didn’t have the muscle strength or endurance to keep our pace.

  We’d spent fourteen of those twenty-six days in the Allegheny Mountains. As I crested another peak, my lips cracked from the heat, and my shoulders jerked against the stinging bites of a gazillon flies. And still no sign of the Lakota.

  I juggled Darwin’s stretcher between my arm and thigh to free a hand. “Hold up.”

  Jesse stopped, breathing heavily, as he glanced back at me. A sunburn reddened his nose and cheeks, and his eyes creased with fatigue.

  I swiped the itchy sweat from my upper lip, somehow managing to smear more dirt and salt into my pores. Flies swarmed my face, maddening in their assault. I waved a hand around my head, useless in my attempt to scatter them. Fucking irritating bastards. Fuck!

  “How bloody long have we been hiking in this heat?” Roark griped behind me. “Good thing me last bath was with a baby wipe, because I’m about to finish this walk through the valley of the shadow of death in me fecking birthday suit.”

  Jesse hissed through his teeth. “Shut the fuck up, Roark. And for the love of God, keep your damned clothes on.”

  Twenty-six days, the toiling uphill hike, the heat, the fucking flies, all of it was more than I’d bargained for.

  This was a mistake. We could’ve delayed the hike, waited until Shea and Darwin were at full health. Only we didn’t have a home, didn’t have a hideout that could be safeguarded for more than a day or two by our exhausted group of four.

  And forget about sleeping. Jesse and Roark talked, walked, and breathed on a tripwire of edginess. It was the two of them against a brutal world of men who still believed women were extinct.

  None of us wanted to find out what would happen if Shea and I were discovered. Jesse and Roark weren’t prepared to take on a gang of hard dicks.

  So we hid every time we smelled, heard, and saw human life. And barbarous men were out there, everywhere, the trappings of their existence in the bullet holes covering fresh human corpses, in the scent of nearby fires, and in the distant shouts and booms of gunshots.

  And the aphids… The numbers we’d fought off to reach this far had beat us into spiritless shells. Those ugly green fuckers came at us at all hours of the day and night.

  I was down to my last two magazines of ammo.

  And that was before we began the hike up the mountain.

  The safety of the Lakota camp was the only thing that kept us going. Safety in the isolation of backwoods mountain country. Safety with men we trusted.

  Exhaustion burned through my muscles and burrowed deep into my bones. Slopes and branches tripped my feet. And the unrelenting heat turned my body into a thermal current, breaking me down, step after grueling step.

  Shea was more vocal in her discomfort. For the last hour, she lagged behind with Roark on her heels, opting to walk to give him a reprieve.

  “I’ve changed my mind. I can’t live here.” She piled her sopping hair on her head, her armpits dripping rings of sweat to her waistband. “Let’s go to Alaska. Or the Antarctic. I bet aphids hate glaciers.”

  Roark scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder, his cassock tossed off and left on the trail behind us. Cotton shorts clung to his narrow hips, the brawn of his chest flexing beneath a sheen of moisture.

  Had he lost weight? I guessed we all had.

  He tramped past us, muttering, “Mouthy woman is mad out of it.”

  Darwin wagged his tail weakly, curled on his side and confined by the wooden sides of the litter, as flies circled his head and crawled around his eyes.

  Jesse balanced the stretcher, wobbling the opposite end in my hands. He angled his profile in my direction, droplets trickling over his stubble and clinging to the tip of his nose.

  “I should’ve seen tracks by now. I would’ve thought…” He made a hocking noise in his throat and spit a loogie in the cracked dirt. “The Lakota haven’t hunted in this area since the last rain.”

  I dragged my sandpaper tongue against the roof of my mouth, feeling the sudden urge to spit, too. Instead, I wriggled a water bottle from my pocket and finished it off.

  We used our canned foods sparingly, and our water filter and nearby streams kept us hydrated, but… “How long since it’s rained here?�
�

  He stared at the ground, the surrounding trees, and the canopy above. “Two weeks. Maybe three. Their camp has to be close.”

  I dropped the empty bottle beside Darwin’s sleeping body and adjusted my hands on the branches that supported his stretcher. “How close?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  His jaw locked down tight, and a thundercloud rolled across his face. “I follow the tracks. And there aren’t any fucking tracks!”

  Geesh, he was crabby. Maybe exhaustion had impaired his tracking skills. But in the back of my mind slithered a horrendous thought, one that would explain why Darwin left the mountains and why the Lakota hadn’t followed him.

  At the top of the hill, Roark’s lumbering steps froze. Turning slowly, he lowered Shea to her feet, steadying her with a hand on her arm as his other hand lifted the sword. Then his eyes found Jesse.

  Roark didn’t speak, and his stone-cold silence shivered across my overheated skin, raising hairs in its path. It was the kind of silence that rang alarms in my head. Every muscle in my body snapped into maximum readiness.

  “What?” Jesse mouthed at Roark.

  Roark covered his nose and shook his head. Shea did the same, her face twisted in disgust.

  I sniffed the air, filling my lungs with loam and vegetation and the ripe odor of my own funk. Whatever they scented hadn’t reached my nose.

  Jesse crouched, bringing Darwin’s stretcher to the ground, and I followed his lead. Wordlessly, he pulled his bow off his back, and I lifted the carbine from mine.

  Darwin scrambled off the stretcher and stalked toward Roark, his muzzle to the ground. He’d recovered enough to walk short distances, but he was in no shape to protect himself.

  “Hier,” I whispered.

  Darwin paused, his scraggly face looking back at me, his body poised to turn around and obey.

  “No.” Jesse said, quietly, shooing him with a hand. “Go on.”

  Shit. I clenched my hands against a rising tide of fear. I didn’t like this, not one bit, but Jesse was right. Darwin knew these woods better than any of us, and the twitch of his ear and rise of his hackles were invaluable gauges of the dangers that lurked here.