by Angela White
Tiffany was starting to get the same uneasy feeling she’d had in Little Rock and suddenly wished they’d kept going. The lure of healthy men to impregnate their females had been impossible to resist, though, and the vote to try had been nearly unanimous. The expected sterility from the experiments had finally appeared and it was brutal.
“Our kind have been hunted for a long time and we always survive. We’ll take our chances.”
“And Angela will take your lives.”
Kenn waited for an answer and looked over to find that the snake woman had left the room. What the hell? He still wasn’t used to quiet females.
Kenn went to Ray, not sure if he was alive. “Hey, you okay?”
Ray glanced up, bruised face thick with misery. “No.”
Startled at the immediate answer, Kenn checked him visually for other signs of abuse, but only found red cheeks over pale skin. “What’s the problem?”
Ray’s lip quivered. “I’m not really an Eagle, am I?”
Kenn let out a breath in annoyance, glaring upward. “Not now, okay? I can only be so nice and then people get hurt.”
Ray took that as an answer, shoulders slumping. “Always knew, anyway. He told me–said I may never get what I wanted, no matter how hard I tried. He was right.”
Kenn settled into the chair across from Ray, glad the man’s arm was still bandaged, though dirty. “Don’t know how you figure that. You’ve got a set place that you’ve earned. Wasn’t it what you wanted?”
“I wanted to be accepted!” Ray snapped. “And for Dale to be accepted. That can’t happen now.”
Kenn began to realize the women had already abused Ray, that he was feeling guilty for betraying his lover.
“Don’t tell him, Ray. That’s all you have to do. It’s okay.”
Ray peered up with ears glimmering. “No, it’s not, you idiot. I couldn’t do it. I failed. I’m not worthy!”
“Even with the pill?” Kenn questioned in shock.
“I got sick,” Ray confessed miserably.
Kenn snorted ruefully. “Wish I had. Then maybe I could get that sound out of my brain…”
Ray had expected scorn and answered hesitantly. “They would have went away.”
Kenn didn’t like Ray beating himself up, but wasn’t sure what to make of that. He chose to examine it later. “No. If you’d serviced them, they’d have known it would work and taken more of us next time, then kept returning for raids. Not being able to perform goes in Safe Haven’s favor.”
Ray hadn’t considered that, but it wasn’t enough to relieve him of the failure. “I’ll hand in my jacket.”
“You’ll have to get it from the women first,” Kenn reminded. “I think it’s their totem or something.”
“Still hanging from their flagpole?”
“Just flapping there in a direct violation of Adrian’s rules. Made us want to open fire.”
That remark got more of Ray’s attention and began to pull him out of his misery. “Who’s out there?”
Kenn didn’t care if they were overheard. It wouldn’t matter. “Just Brady.”
Ray paled. He knew what that meant. “She’s willing to spill blood to get me back?”
“Yes. Did you doubt it?”
Ray’s voice was ashamed. “I expected to fight my way out when I realized I couldn’t do what they wanted.”
Kenn slowly stood up, hearing footsteps. “That may still be required. You feel up to it?”
Ray’s voice was full of depression. “I feel like dying.”
Kenn slung an arm around Ray’s strong shoulders, careful of the injury. “Then you’re gonna hate what I’m about to do, but if you don’t play along, I’ll hurt you.”
Kenn tightened his grip until Ray winced, and dragged them up and around to be facing the women as they came in.
Finding the two men so close, Ray clutching at Kenn, sent scowls across female faces.
“I told you!”
“Kill them both!”
“Wait.”
Kenn tugged Ray closer, pretending an affection that was more than friendship. “We’re ready to go home now, ladies. We can’t give you what you need. None of the men in our camp can.”
The females remembered that Kenn and Kevin had been able to, but before they could protest the lie, Kenn glanced at Ray.
Ray felt that spark, the heat that usually told him Dale was close, and blanched. He didn’t want to feel an attraction for Kenn, for any reason, but it was too late. That golden flow of magic swarmed over him and Ray was helpless to respond.
He dropped his head in shame. He liked to be in control in his relationships, but the best sex he’d ever had was before the War, with a powerful man who hadn’t been afraid to handle him.
“Enough!” Tiffany commanded angrily. “We don’t care. When the drugs take effect, both of you will give us service.”
Kenn dropped his arm, but kept his big body pressed against Ray’s hip. “Okay.”
Tiffany stared in surprise at the quick agreement. “What?”
Kenn got set. “We will provide you a service.”
Tiffany’s scale-covered face relaxed a bit. “Good. Okay, then. We’ll bring you a pill.”
As soon as they were gone, Kenn nudged Ray toward the unbarred window. “Stay low.”
Kenn shoved Ray through the screen, not listening to him hit the ground. If he didn’t get out here, he might puke.
Marc saw Ray hit the ground and quickly waved him toward the sparse trees, out of the way. A second later, female shouts came and Marc knew the time for choosing had come and gone. He was here, he would protect his man.
Kenn’s big frame didn’t appear in the window and the women running after Ray stopped as soon as Marc began to pepper their feet with shots.
Marc aimed and fired, reloaded. Where was Kenn?
Ray made it to Marc’s side a few seconds later, panting. “He’s still… in there.”
Marc motioned him to get down, then stood up. He could see someone struggling in the lobby behind the door and knew what had to be done.
Marc came from his hiding place with a Colt in each hand.
6
“Let him go. Now!”
Marc’s angry voice outside the main door made Kenn go still. “You got him to come out. You’re all dead now.”
Tiffany slapped him. “Shut up!”
Kenn growled at her and the sound was menacing.
She quickly retreated a step.
“I’m counting to three…”
Marc’s warning was followed by a blurred count and then all hell broke loose.
Bullets slammed into the wooden door, causing women to duck and Kenn to hit the floor to clear a line of fire.
Marc used a sharp kick to take out the door.
His voice was set in stone. “Surrender or die.”
Tiffany raised her gun and Marc shot her in the throat.
He looked around with a deep glower of resentment as she slid to the dusty floor. “Next?”
There was silence and stillness for the space of five seconds. Then the females chose to fight.
The woman behind the door lifted her gun to Marc’s chest and fired.
Grunting with pain and effort, Ray shoved Marc out of the way and took the trim himself.
Kenn grabbed Ray and shoved him down when he would have peered. That Ray had returned to help wasn’t surprising. When he grabbed a fallen gun and began firing left-handed to cover Marc, that was.
Bang! Bang!
Those Colts snapped out death and punishment with each sharp bark, and Kenn herded Ray outside. No need to draw Brady’s fire.
Ray followed Kenn’s lead and didn’t get involved any further in the one-sided fight. Brady was no match for these weak females and the snake women were realizing it too late.
Marc picked them off before they could get under cover, their horses long gone in the chaos. He didn’t pause, even when they began to flee in terror. He took out anything that moved, the demon in charge of his
guns.
Kenn listened to the crashing with a growing worry. Would Angela be pissed that he’d forced that side of Marc into the light?
He’d thought to be the one out there doing the killing. He honestly hadn’t thought it would work. Too late now. Kenn waved Ray toward camp.
“Stay low and go straight to Angela. Tell her there was a small gunfight, then they let us go and left. If you don’t, Brady will know.”
Ray paled, hearing the screams as Marc massacred the remaining women. They’d refused to leave or surrender, and they’d intended to take him and Kenn when they fled, but did it justify this?
Kenn wasn’t thinking that, but he was considering how important Marc was to the camp. If Brady lost that edge, the good man inside, it would hurt Adrian’s dream.
Kenn reluctantly stood up and interfered. “Brady! She’s calling us!”
Kenn was relieved when Marc calmly reloaded and slid his smoking Colts into their holsters. The few wounded around him didn’t even cower in pain as he strode by, desperate to escape his notice.
Kenn did a rough count and came up with forty. Another dozen lay inside. The rough estimate he’d stated had come close.
“I warned them,” he muttered, noting that Ray had stopped just out of sight. “They should have listened.”
Marc walked by Kenn like nothing was amiss, but the Marine knew better than to trust the pretense.
“Hang on. We have to burn this–all of it.”
Marc was in the fog of bloodlust, barely able to think. “Burn what?”
“The bodies, the town–all of it.”
Marc’s haze slowly began to clear. He took stock of the carnage and gave a curt agreement. “I’ll gather. You find the necessaries.”
Kenn didn’t argue. They’d done this once in Afghanistan, though those bodies had all been male, and he knew Marc would do things exactly as they had then. They’d cover up the mess and Marc would bury the memory. Angela, a woman, wouldn’t want details, only to know that it had been accomplished.
Marc listened to Kenn’s steps fade, then forced himself to face what he’d done. He expected overwhelming regret and pain, but there was only cold, hard satisfaction as he viewed the carnage.
“This is your doing!” he accused the demon.
There was no answer.
Of course the evil side had done this. The good Brady wouldn’t have been able to fire the first shot, but that inner man was tired of letting dangerous threats live. These women were that, though untrained. In time, they would have been terrorizing every area they traveled through. Slave traders weren’t the only ones who deserved to die and Marc was finally at a point in the aftermath that he no longer put right and wrong first.
The remaining women had fled the instant his attention had been distracted by Kenn, and Marc gathered their fallen guns and ammunition, and other valuables as he dragged their bodies to the stairs of the town hall. All those arson scenes he’d witnessed on the way here no longer appeared completely mysterious to him now.
And the soul? Marc questioned himself ruthlessly, needing to get it out before he saw Angela.
“It’s bruised, but intact,” the demon replied. “It cannot be crushed by doing the only thing you can to keep living.”
Marc didn’t agree, but he’d given up his afterlife long before the War. All he wanted now was to be with Angie until he died. Who cared what happened after he was split from her?
7
Within an hour of finding Ray, the entire town was engulfed in a blaze that the old world would have been hard-pressed to save from the wind-driven flames. No one else would know what had happened.
Ray was waiting on the edges of the camp, out of sight and hearing, but in view of tent tops.
Kenn instantly understood why Ray was lurking. “You’re no actor, are you?”
Snapped out of his pain, Ray stiffened. “Fuck you.”
“That’s your need, not mine.” Kenn sneered, still pissed. He’d known Ray would respond to his pull, but to feel it! Hadn’t Cara’s memory been enough?
Ray only stared in confused longing, waiting to be told what to do, and Marc barked out a hard laugh.
“Go tell her exactly what you were told, then go to Dale.”
Ray paled further.
Kenn snorted. “She’ll know everything if we send him in.”
“She needs to,” Marc stated harshly. “She thinks I’m not like the rest of you. It’s time she knew better.”
“You’d hurt her that way?” Ray asked, shocked.
Marc paused. “Hurt her, how?”
Ray scowled. “She worships you. Even I know that. She’ll be crushed.”
Marc’s feet moved again. “Maybe she needs to be.”
Kenn didn’t swing Marc around by his arm like he was tempted to do. He no longer had a death-wish.
It was Ray who jumped in front of Brady, voice hard. “No.”
Marc shoved Ray aside and was surprised to find himself on the ground, looking up.
Ray planted his feet firmly, ready to protect himself as best he could. “I’m the one who failed, who made you have to do all that. You take it out on me and leave her alone! She’s got enough to handle.”
Marc stared stupidly, fighting the rage. Ray was defending this? It snapped Marc out of the haze and he slowly stood up.
Ray immediately flinched.
Kenn actually wanted Marc to go over the edge, but he also wanted Adrian’s dreams intact and he interrupted again. “I agree with Ray.”
Marc detoured around them. “I’m not lying to her.”
“Again, you mean?”
Ray’s words had Marc spinning on his heel. “What’s that mean?”
Ray paled further, but made himself speak. “Dale’s been helping the vet. He told me about Dog.”
Marc winced and Kenn took note of the fact.
When Marc didn’t argue, Kenn vowed to find out every detail of that story.
Marc once again headed for camp, but his stride was no longer as angry or determined. Dale knew. Ray and Kenn knew. How long before Angie did?
Marc didn’t stop and Ray and Kenn were both relieved when he went toward the main camp, instead of the QZ.
“Will he be okay?”
“If he keeps his mouth shut,” Kenn answered. “If she finds out he’s lying to her? Not a chance he’ll come through it alive.”
“She wouldn’t kill Marc,” Ray protested.
Kenn got them moving. “When she’s finished, it will feel like she did. You take care of Dale. I’ll handle our new leader until Brady’s ready to.”
Ray didn’t like turning it over to Kenn, but Marc clearly wasn’t able. “Be careful. She sees so much now!”
Kenn grunted. “Not if you give her something else to inspect. It’s all about distraction. You have to know which bomb to put in her path first.”
Ray didn’t think it would work for long, but if it bought them a little time, that was good enough. Angela couldn’t find out that her man had massacred an entire group of females by himself. She’d never view him the same and everything would suffer for it.
8
“She got a minute?”
Kevin saw Brady stalking toward the showers and Ray vanish into the QZ tent that Dale was snoozing in. John’s sedative should be wearing off about now.
Kevin reluctantly waved Kenn to go on.
Kenn ducked into the tent after a quick tap.
Angela glanced up from the notebook page as Kenn dropped the flap. “It’s done?”
Kenn was startled for a minute, by how much she sounded like Adrian. “Yeah, it’s over. No more problems there.”
Angela looked down. “That won’t keep me out. What happened to the rage that blocked me for so long?”
Kenn blinked, blurry teenage concerns crumbling under her prying. He’d ever felt anything as strong as her mental fingers opening the doors in his mind.
Angela waited for him to resist, ready to hurt him to know the truth, but
he only grunted unhappily.
“You won’t like it.”
“I don’t expect to. Would you rather tell me?”
“No.”
If he tried to explain, it would come out wrong. Better that she got to view the danger they’d been in–that Safe Haven would have eventually been in.
Angela read it as deeply as she needed to, but in her heart, she’d already known who had spilled blood. Marc’s Colts were impossible to mistake once they began to crash.
Kenn felt her withdraw from his mind and was relieved. He once again had secrets that she wasn’t allowed to know.
Angela picked up the thought and immediately got angry. “Don’t cross me.”
“Not unless Adrian tells me to,” Kenn answered carefully, feeling the chill.
Angela had to be satisfied with that. She didn’t want to ruin Kenn by breaking him down to discover what he was hiding. It would be ugly.
Kenn caught the top sentence of the page she was on–Lying is not only wrong, it’s absolutely necessary. Without lying, a leader will never be able to control his flock–and quickly looked away. He didn’t remember all of the instructions and lessons he’d read through while Adrian was handling the Slavers, but that one, he did. It had made him feel better because that was how he already lived his life. For Angela, it had to be difficult.
“She’s the one remaining Eagle who might hesitate to pull the trigger, to kill.”
Marc’s words had been laced with contempt and Kenn now recognized the remark for what it was. Brady had a conscious that was crying out.
Angela asked herself if it mattered beyond what she’d already considered, and found only silence. She wasn’t sure. The thought of trying to view Marc that way frightening. Even the images she’d seen felt like a dream. That couldn’t have been her Brady.
“I’m good. Get some rest before your shift.”
Kenn heard the dismissal and left the tent before she changed her mind and tried to get further into his.
Angela listened to the Witch cackle, confused and sad. She’d sent them out to kill and they had. She bore the sin of this, not Marc.
Once that sank in, Angela felt under control and tugged her jacket over that unused wrist blade. It had never felt heavier than when she stepped outside and found Marc coming from the shower.
Their eyes locked over the camp.