Gwen Campbell - [Love from the Ashes 02]

by Recon [Shadowfire] (epub)

  Samantha returned his smile and he felt a little piece of himself melt. She sat down like she did everything else—with an effortless grace that made him think of summer picnics, dancing and so many simple pleasures they’d lost in the wake of the Great War.

  When he’d heard yesterday that she’d asked to meet with him, his heart had leapt at the chance to spend time with her. Now, in the face of her guileless smile, her warm, cinnamon eyes and that mouth he ached to feel against his own, he didn’t think it was such a good idea. But he’d never let her see that. He’d never burden her with his desire. He was her CO and thirteen years older than her. Hiding his emotions, he kept smiling, leaned his forearms on his desk, clasped his hands lightly and said, “It’s good to see you again, Corporal. How can I help you?”

  By way of answer, she drew a pale-blue envelope out of her breast pocket. He watched its progress with an envy that stabbed him in the gut. Once again he disciplined his features when she laid the envelope on the edge of his desk and looked up at him. He felt his head tip to one side. She wasn’t being transferred or promoted. As squadron CO, he okayed those moves. She wouldn’t be accepted into medical school for another twelve months.

  Samantha drew in a breath then, slowly, let it out. She schooled her emotions. As she did, she looked at Captain O’Reilly. He was tall, almost a foot taller than her and one of the most muscular men she’d ever seen. She’d always liked that about him. He was a good leader and smart and he just felt like a rock to her. Especially her first few months in the Corps. A scared kid, a thousand kilometers from home, wanting desperately to please and be accepted, he’d taught her those were secondary concerns and not to worry about them. They’d come in their own time. He’d taught her to focus on the safety and welfare of her platoon and the population at large. To learn. To be a human sponge and to work hard. She had and his teachings had made all the difference.

  The Captain wasn’t handsome in the traditional sense. But the muscles in his jaw were pronounced, giving his face a sculpted, rugged look. His nose was nice and, beneath his short, dark brown hair and straight brows, he had the most arresting, sky blue eyes she’d ever seen. They were framed perfectly by fringes of luxuriant, dark lashes that any woman would kill for. His mouth was firm but full with square corners that expressed more emotion with the single flick of a muscle than most people could in a hundred lines of poetry.

  She looked down at his hands for a moment. Compared to hers, they were massive. Powerful. Sculpted. Like the rest of him. His long fingers showed obvious signs of rough use. Unlike her, he’d grown up during the Great War. He’d survived. Not only that, he’d thrived. He was the smartest, most discerning person she knew, and the only person she’d thought of when she needed someone to talk to about her new orders.

  Samantha looked him directly in the eye and her voice was even and quiet. “I’ve been given new orders. RI.”

  Repopulation Imperative. David sat back hard in his chair. In the years following the Great War, young, child-bearing women were few and far between. Fallout had seen to that. But humans were resilient and the population was starting to come back. Except that some geneticists had found that certain genes had become scarce. Mostly ones carried through the maternal line. Governments the world over had adopted Repopulation Imperative initiatives. Carriers of key genes were identified and, when they turned nineteen, were asked to have kids. Some were asked more firmly than others and a few Eastern European governments had been overthrown because they’d orchestrated forced breeding programs. Here, in New North America, it was always the woman’s choice to have children.

  Except for those in the military. When you signed on, you agreed to work in hazardous conditions. To give up your life for the greater good of your country. In short, your ass was theirs. And in her case, Samantha’s womb was theirs as well.

  David admired the fact that Samantha didn’t flinch when he stared at her, his mind whirling. RI orders meant that, over the next ten years, she would be required to give birth to four children. Hopefully live ones. It would play hell with her medical training. Then a sudden thought brought all the others in his head to a screeching halt.

  “Why did you come to me?” he asked quietly. RI was a simple gig, really. Just go out and get yourself knocked up. The Army would grant you a leave of absence or modified duties, your choice. Or you could request a sample from an anonymous donor through a medical facility and knock yourself up with a turkey baster. David really hated the direction his thoughts had just taken. He quelled his growing excitement as he waited to find out just why she had come to him.

  Samantha smiled thinly and, for the first time, looked away. “Permission to pace the floor, sir,” she said but there was an unmistakable trace of humor in her voice. Not happy humor, but humor nonetheless.

  David nodded quietly. “Of course, Corporal. Under the circumstances, it’s the least you deserve.” He grinned when her smile widened and he let her take the conversation in the direction she chose. He watched her walk slowly past the front of his desk. Her arms folded beneath her full breasts. Her eyes on the floor in front of her.

  It was a long moment before she spoke. “They probably identified me as an RI candidate when I joined up. Blood tests and screening,” she added, perhaps more for her benefit than his. “I turned nineteen two weeks ago.”

  David nodded but didn’t open his mouth. He knew when her birthday was. He’d almost bought her a card but had forced himself to step away from the display rack and walk out of the canteen before he did.

  “The problem is, sir, that I don’t know...” Her voice dried up and his heart ached for her when she glanced up at him shyly before resuming her pacing. Then she stopped, squared her shoulders and turned toward him. “The problem is in two parts, sir,” she said evenly, rallying her focus with obvious effort. “One, I’ve never been with a man. Two, how do I choose who to father this child I’m supposed to conceive?”

  David blinked. Hard. It took him a moment to find his voice. “You received RI orders and you’re a virgin,” he stated quietly. He had to shift in his chair so his cock, which had suddenly sprung to attention, wouldn’t snap in half.

  “In a nutshell, yes,” Samantha said.

  Oh he really wished she hadn’t used the word nut. Now another part of him was aching. David forced himself to get a grip—on his thoughts and his inappropriate reaction to her.

  She sat down again and, with the tip of a single, slender finger, turned the slip of blue paper in a slow, hypnotic circle on the surface of his desk. “I need someone to talk this through with. I can’t ask my friends—they’re all too young. I can’t ask the other two women in my platoon. They’re both dykes and whenever the conversation turns to anything remotely related to sex, they offer to jump me. And I’m so not going there.”

  David tried to hide his grin and was only partially successful. When Samantha looked back up at him, she caught his look and the corner of her full, delectable mouth turned up. She shrugged lightly. “You were there for me, sir. My first months in the Corps. I’m not trying to brownnose but you’re the best teacher I ever had. And I need...advice. Someone with some life experience behind them to talk this through with. Maybe just to listen to me talk it through. I don’t know,” she added quietly and stopped playing with her orders. She sat back in his guest chair, visibly calming herself and crossing one lean thigh over the other.

  Despite her fatigues, she was still sexy as hell.

  He exhaled slowly...mostly to buy himself time to make sure his voice didn’t break when he spoke. As it was, it came out deeper than usual. “All right,” he agreed quietly. “Tomorrow afternoon? After you finish your rotation in the clinic in town.”

  Jeez would she notice how improbable it was that the squadron commander knew what a second-year Corporal’s work schedule was?

  “Take one of the medic Jeeps and we’ll meet at the deserted sheep farm just off Route Eighteen. I’m assuming here, Corporal, that you’d like to spea
k in private. Where you won’t have to keep one eye on the clock and the other on the door?”

  Samantha blushed and it was perhaps the loveliest thing he’d ever seen.

  “Yes,” she admitted readily, stood, picked up her orders and replaced them neatly inside her breast pocket. She saluted him, turned on her heel and left when he dismissed her.

  David watched her twitching ass as she walked away, completely unable to stop himself from looking. Not sure he even wanted to.

  You may also like When a Pack Dies by Gwen Campbell, the first book in the paranormal werewolf contemporary Wyoming Wild series.

  Can a young werewolf who’s lost everything learn to trust enough to love again?

  Fina had a life, a family, a future until a pack of rogue werewolves showed up and killed everyone she’d ever loved. Escaping with the only other survivor, a six-year old boy named Ryan, Fina crash lands in Wyoming, in the middle of a huge pack led by a sheriff with a streak of bad-ass that goes bone deep. Weres, especially young and on the run ones, need the safety of a pack and when the sheriff gets his first whiff of little miss hellfire from back east, decides for her that his pack is where she’ll be staying for good. Problem is, the sheriff’s equally yummy brother wants Fina too. Fina’s safe for now…that is until the rogues come sniffing around, demanding the return of their woman. And they’re willing to kidnap Fina’s best human friend and threaten to change her unless Fina comes trotting back home.

  Here is a short excerpt of When a Pack Dies.

  “Higher, Fina!” Ryan yelled out as he pumped his legs forward and forced the swing to move faster.

  “Here it comes,” Fina warned him with a laugh and pushed the swing harder. She laughed again when Ryan shrieked with joy. There were some moments like this—when Ryan’s exuberance surfaced and Fina’s rose to meet his. There were some moments when they emerged from their pain, anger, loneliness and vapidness...some but not many.

  They’d been on the road over two weeks now, moving in random patterns and sometimes circling back for a day or two...but always, gradually, moving further and further west. Something about that direction still pulled at Fina and she’d stopped wondering why.

  “Let’s find a motel early today, Fina,” Ryan begged after he’d tired of the swing. It was just before noon and they’d pulled into a rustic, roadside café to eat. It had a big parking lot—even though it was on a road made almost redundant by a nearby interstate—shaded picnic tables and a large, children’s play area. Ryan wove his hands into Fina’s, held on tight and let her lift him and flip him in a complete circle until he landed back on his feet with his arms stretched taut behind him. He leaned forward and squealed happily, trusting his weight to Fina’s slender arms before hopping, letting go and standing up.

  He ran toward the café entrance and the promise of lunch. Fina raced after him, grabbed him, swung him into the air and when his striped t-shirt lifted up, blew a raspberry kiss into his exposed belly. Ryan giggled wildly and pushed her head away. By now they were both sweating a little and they ran into the restaurant’s air-conditioned foyer.

  “Let’s find one with a pool again and can we stay two nights can we please, please, Fina?” Ryan pleaded.

  Grinning, Fina opened her mouth to say yes then stood up very straight. The air in the café was full of the delicious smells of fried chicken and baking but beneath that was the unmistakable smell of wolf. Her hand shot out, reaching for Ryan and she started backing up toward the door. They’d traveled through a few communities with werewolf populations. It would have been almost impossible not to. They hadn’t stopped in any of them and she always made sure the gas tank never got below half full so they wouldn’t be forced to stop anywhere she wasn’t comfortable. During the past two weeks, Fina’s ability to think rationally had improved from the near catatonia she’d experienced immediately following the death of her pack. She’d rationalized that, as a female about to enter her prime breeding years, she wasn’t likely to be chased off by another pack. Maybe she’d even be invited to join. She couldn’t be absolutely certain of Ryan’s welcome. Even though he was a child, he was male. Packs usually didn’t accept outside males.

  The door behind her swung open and a man walked in. He was big—huge—stood at least six-two and had a chest wide enough to qualify for two zip codes with shoulders to match. The flat stomach and lean hips that sat above and below his thick gun belt told Fina that every impressive inch of him was solid muscle, not flab. He looked to be in his late twenties, wore a dark police uniform and scented like a werewolf with a streak of badass that went bone deep.

  Fina caught a whiff of urine and one look told her that Ryan was staring up at the man in terror, pushing flat against the wall like he was trying to back right through it to get outside. A dark stain spread across the front of his shorts and a thin stream of urine was sliding down his leg and puddling around his sneaker.

  “Oh poor poppet.”

  Fina’s head spun around to a fifty-something woman walking into the foyer from the café. She was dressed in an unflattering and rather silly looking alpine-style dress with an apron tied around her generous waist. She clucked her tongue gently, looked down at Ryan with gentle eyes and held out a slightly wrinkled, pudgy hand to him.

  “Don’t worry about a thing, little honey,” the woman cooed gently. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

  Fina’s wolf jumped to the fore when the woman stepped between her and Ryan. The wolf in her shoved the woman back and made a grab for Ryan, ready to bowl right through the big cop if she had to get the child outside and safe.

  Sheriff Cutler Powell stared at the slender, auburn-headed mad woman standing in the foyer of the best—and only—café on his pack’s land. She was small, maybe five-four, and had satiny skin turned a pale gold from the sun. The spray of freckles across her pert little nose made his cock twitch...she was just that pretty. The scent coming off her made him harden instantly. It was like breathing in pure lust and there was nothing pure about his reaction to it. The wolf inside him raised its head and in a low, satisfied rumble, spoke one word.

  Mine.

  Only little miss pure lust was currently assaulting a senior, respected, female member of his pack. With a smooth, controlled movement, he stepped forward, put his hands on the most enthralling woman he’d ever come across and lifted her. The kid came up with her, hauled upward by her hold on his arm. She let go and the kid dropped back down onto his feet and started shaking all over. Holding her beneath her arms, Sheriff Powell pinned her back against the wall with her nose level with his. He had to bite down on his tongue before he did something stupid like shove it into her mouth then ask if she had any plans for the rest of her life.

  Where the hell had that thought come from?

  Cutler was pretty sure the flailing banshee in his hands wasn’t the kid’s mother. She probably wasn’t even related to him. But their scents told him they were from the same pack and he could see from the way she’d reacted to Dorothea stepping between her and the child that she cared for him as if he were her own pup.

  “No one in my pack would ever harm a child.” Cutler spoke quietly and clearly. The woman stopped slamming her fists into his chest. She hung between his hands, the fire and rage draining out of her blue eyes. She looked at him warily. She was young, although her eyes looked older than her face, and she couldn’t be more than twenty. He breathed in her scent again, wanting a full picture of her health, strength and status. The information he picked up was all contradictory. She was strong yet she wasn’t. She smelled of youth yet there was a smell to her that was either age, pain or fear. She was unmated yet there was no innocence left in her. But by then, Cutler was sporting a raging hard-on and decided the prudent thing to do would be to put her down before the wolf inside him took over and dragged her out back for a quick fuck—then another—and probably one more after that.

  *

  Despite Ryan’s instinctive terror and her own blind, maternal rage, Fina believed
the big policeman. Maybe it was the uniform? When he stepped back and set her on her feet, Ryan rushed forward, wrapped his slight body around her leg and trembled.

  Cutler noticed Dorothea Pike adjusting her waitress uniform. She cleared her throat quietly. “The washrooms are back here,” Dorothea said, “I’ll give you a hand with some washcloths if you’d like.” She made the offer politely despite her obviously jangled nerves. Cutler saw Dorothea’s hand flex and knew she was resisting the urge to rub the middle of her chest where the much younger, much stronger woman had straight-armed her after she’d made the mistake of stepping between a mother and her frightened pup. If their positions were reversed and Dorothea had found herself in the middle of a strange pack, she’d probably have done the same thing. “Do you have a change of clothes for him?” Dorothea asked quietly.

  Fina looked at the pudgy gray-haired waitress with the gentle, blue eyes. She’d never felt so guilty in her life but she also knew she didn’t dare apologize. In werewolf packs, the strong ruled so she held back the ingrained and heartfelt apology sitting on her tongue. It was far better to appear arrogant than weak...especially when she and Ryan were alone and defenseless.

  “Yes,” Fina replied evenly. She fished her keys out of her pocket with one hand and reached for Ryan’s hand with the other. “I’ll go get them.”

  The huge cop had tugged the keys out of her hand even before she realized he was pulling on them. “Allow me, Miss...?”

  Sheriff Powell gave the spitfire his best friendly-guy smile. She and the boy were werewolves. Natural born too from the smell of them, probably from somewhere back east. His instincts told him the minute he let her walk out the door, she’d simply drive off and never come back. He just couldn’t let something that smelled like forever get away. Even if her scent did confuse the hell out of him.