He had enough confidence to walk into an alley with five Redcaps and an unknown person, so he’d had some training, but the fact that he didn’t know he was totally outgunned meant his training wasn’t that great. Or that he was extremely cocky.
Both characteristics fit what she knew of the Blades. Neither was good for his longevity. And if he was a Blade, being near him could be bad for hers.
She wasn’t sure how the Blades decided that a hunter needed to be put down. She might clear the nest and kill the queen only to be executed by the guy who was supposed to have her back. Or he might do something stupid and get them both killed.
Walking into a Redcap nest with another hunter was one thing. She knew they’d be on the same page when it came to dwellers. But going in with a Blade?
She needed to be sure, and doubted Marcus would give her a straight answer if she asked—using words, anyway. She had an idea of how to convince him to open up.
“I need some air.” She jumped to the ground next to him, paying a lot more attention to every detail she could.
Brand new clothes. Shining boots. No blood stains, not that the black fabric would show any. No tears, rips, or even worn spots. Broad chest. Really broad. Amazing shoulders…
That wasn’t what she was supposed to be thinking about. She brought her mind back to task.
“We still have a few minutes,” Tessa said. “Want to show me more of that bike of yours?”
“Sure.” Marcus only hesitated a moment when she gestured for him to go first. No hunter would casually turn their back to someone that fast.
She let him take two steps so she had room to work, then dropped into a crouch and sprang up at him, rocketing into his ribs with the full strength of her legs. She caught him with her shoulder, spreading the impact over her body and hopefully knocking the wind out of him.
He staggered to the side—toward the dirt and away from the street, as she intended. With him off-balance, she dropped again, this time sweeping the back of his knee with a kick that brought him to the ground. He rolled over, but she was right there.
Her knees dug into the dirt on either side of his head, pinning his face between her thighs. For good measure, she pulled out the knife she kept in her right boot, holding it close enough to his neck to keep him from getting any ideas, but not so close that she was putting him in real danger. She grabbed a fistful of his hair to keep his head steady, just in case.
“You’re not a hunter,” she said.
His lips twitched away from his teeth in a barely-suppressed snarl. For a brief moment, she wished she had grabbed the silver knife in her other boot. Her heart was hammering in her chest.
Misjudging him as a Blade instead of a hunter would result in an awkward conversation. If he was a werewolf…
I’d already be dead.
She shook the thought away and pressed the knife closer, let him feel the coolness of the metal but not the sharpness of its edge. “You’re one of the Blades of Janus.”
He let out a breath, relaxing a bit beneath her. “I never said I wasn’t.”
Just like he’d never said he didn’t know about Redcaps. Lies of omission—letting her assume what she wanted. He was clever, which was annoying.
She hissed out a frustrated breath. “How many more times are you planning to use that line?”
“At least once.”
A laugh escaped her before she could stop it. She leaned back and slid the knife into its sheath in her boot. “Damn, you’re cocky.”
“That’s only going to get worse the longer you sit on my face.”
She laughed again.
For a moment, she wondered how bad it would be to hook up with a Blade. She’d only been with other hunters or civilians before. Guys who understood it wasn’t a permanent thing. She had three days in every town she visited. Three days. If she stayed any longer…
Sticking around wasn’t an option. The past always had a way of catching up with her—and her past wasn’t pretty.
She stood and offered Marcus her hand to help him up. He took it, but she didn’t feel any of his weight as he rose. She did notice the raging hard-on that his cargo pants couldn’t begin to hide.
Yeah, he had plenty of resources.
“You really know how to tempt a girl.”
She managed to force her gaze back to his face, wishing she knew what he was thinking. Those damned glasses made it impossible to make out his eyes clearly. The lenses seemed to have ultra-reflective surfaces for some reason.
“Be quiet,” he said.
“Excuse me?”
A muscle was twitching in his jaw. He answered her through clenched teeth. Again.
“Earpiece.”
She couldn’t believe it. The whole time they’d been together, he already had a partner.
She’d been excited to have someone at her side for a single night. He never had to go it alone, always had backup. No wonder he seemed to space out periodically. He had someone talking in his ear.
“You’ve got to be kidding me.” She let out a disgusted snort and shook her head. “This is the problem with you Blades. You have no idea what it’s like to be a real hunter.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You come out here to fight bad guys with your fancy bikes and earpieces, then go home to a comfy bed at night. Probably have a hot meal with your pals. We’re in the thick of it every minute of every day. You think you get to police hunters and that monsters should have rights. Well, guess what? If a werewolf wants to retain a lawyer, it eats him.”
She knew she was baiting him, testing him. The nagging doubt in the back of her mind wouldn’t go away. It was messing with her head.
“They call themselves dwellers,” he said.
“At least you know that much.”
She was glad she wouldn’t have to be as careful with the words she chose. Most hunters went with the generic term, “monster”. Her experience went well beyond just killing dwellers, though. If another hunter found out how involved she was in the dweller community, they would definitely try to put her down. She wouldn’t even blame them.
“We also know that not all dwellers are evil.”
She snorted. “That’s news to me.”
His lips curled away from his teeth. His reassuringly human-looking teeth.
“If a dweller is capable of reasoning and isn’t hurting anyone, it has a right to be left alone.”
She laughed again, the sound harsh and brittle to her ears. “I don’t care how harmless a dweller might seem. These things want to breed. Eventually, that urge will surface. The Blades have been dealing with dwellers for a few years. Hunters have been doing it for centuries. You’re so far removed from reality. You don’t have a fucking clue what the world is really like.”
“Yeah? And you know everything?”
Tessa stepped right up to him, her body inches from his, wanting to get in his face. She wanted…too many things. From this close, his lips looked soft. She could easily wrap her arms around him and put that hard-on to good use.
Dammit, she needed to get it together.
Anger was her constant companion. She called on it to keep herself from doing anything stupid.
“I’ve been to a dweller dinner party,” she said, hoping the memory would help shift her focus away from the heat coming off of him. “And you can bet the steaks they were eating didn’t come from a cow. So yeah, I know what I’m talking about.”
He did that sort of half-snarl again and grabbed her shoulders, lightning-quick. Instead of throwing her to the ground or striking her, he slammed her against his chest. His lips were on hers before her brain could even process it. Her body, however, didn’t need or want her brain’s help.
Frissons of pleasure snaked through her, all the way to her toes. The warmth of his chest made her want to melt into him. Her hands curled against his narrow hips, then slid around to cup his ass and press him harder against her.
He let out a low growl as he gr
ound himself against her. If he’d just loosen his grip, she could jump up and wrap her legs around his waist. She squeezed his ass tighter to keep herself from undoing his pants. She opened her mouth as his tongue drove into her, claiming her, demanding a satisfaction that part of her was only too happy to give.
But only part.
The rest of her—the rational her—knew they had a nest to clear and that the sun was rising. Plus a Blade would come with complications she couldn’t afford, no matter how soft his lips or firm his ass.
He didn’t seem eager to stop, so she’d have to be the one to put on the brakes. She pressed her hands against his stomach and he shifted a little to give her space. He probably thought she was heading for his dick.
If only.
Instead, she used the opening to push her arms up against his chest and shove him, hard. He didn’t budge. His grip on her shoulders tightened enough that she let out a little grunt.
He let go of her suddenly, as if she was made of lava, and staggered back a pace. He was panting, and she could make out how wide his eyes were even with the glasses. The light was reflecting strangely again, making them almost seem to glow gold.
The butterflies she’d felt in anticipation of…whatever she thought was going to happen, turned to wasps stinging her stomach. Her heart pounded in her chest.
She had not just made out with a werewolf. Marcus couldn’t be one. Werewolves always hunted in packs. Always. They didn’t bother with earpieces to communicate and they didn’t wear dusters or ride sleek motorcycles.
And—most telling—if he was a werewolf, he would have killed her by now. How many times was she going to have to remind herself of that before she believed it?
She tried to curb her own panting, to bring her body back under control. Even with her bizarre fears, even knowing he was a Blade, she still wanted him. She couldn’t remember ever wanting someone so much.
Which was what made him most dangerous.
“Come on, Blade,” she said. “You know so much about dwellers, you should know that Redcaps are weakest at dawn. We don’t have much time.”
Chapter Six
Several minutes passed before Marcus felt safe following Tessa into her van. He’d lost control a few times since he was colonized, but never like that.
He knew he should stay outside, but couldn’t stand the thought of being that far from her. He climbed into the van and hunched over next to her, his shoulders brushing the rust-spotted ceiling.
“We’re not going to talk about what happened?” he said.
“We have other things to discuss. Important things.”
As if what had happened between them wasn’t? He barely managed to stifle a growl.
He’d never kissed someone before. Anyone. He’d never been tempted to. But the way she’d been staring at his lips, combined with the scent she was putting off and the way she was challenging him… It was overwhelming.
His dweller whispered to him, almost as if it was hoping Marcus wouldn’t notice. But it was kind of hard to miss thoughts floating through his own mind.
“She’s ours.”
“Fuck you.” Marcus felt the strongest surge of rage he’d ever felt toward his dweller. “She’s mine.”
His response surprised him. But it felt too potent to dismiss, came too naturally to ignore. She was his.
No. No way. Feelings this strong didn’t happen so fast. It had to be his dweller.
“It’s because of what you are.” His dweller laughed. “It’s in our nature. Accept it.”
Marcus shook his head. The only physical activities he’d been interested in since he was colonized were directly related to becoming the most effective Blade he possibly could—and keeping his dweller somewhat satisfied.
His work was his life. Keeping people safe was all that mattered to him. People in general. Not just this one.
“Are you sure?”
“Tell whoever’s talking to you to shut up,” Tessa said.
“What?”
“You’ve been standing there derping at me for the last two minutes. I don’t know what they’re saying that’s pissing you off so bad, but tell them to shut up.”
She was right. He needed to get control of his thoughts—of himself. Kissing her was one thing, but if he let himself get too carried away, he could hurt her. And even if he could interact…physically…with her safely, he wouldn’t want anything more to happen until she knew that he was a werewolf, which came with its own set of challenges.
The scent she was putting off was amazing, though. It filled the small space, saturating his senses. He could feel her heat, the currents of air she stirred as she moved around the van. He wanted to bend her over the front seat and—
“For fuck’s sake.” She spun around, then grabbed his head and turned it so she could yell into his ear. “Stop distracting him so I can tell him how to not get us both killed.”
He winced as the decibel level of her voice rose to a painful intensity.
“The earpiece is on the other side,” he said. “And that isn’t what’s distracting me.”
“What is it, then?”
“I’m having some trouble…adapting to your proximity.”
She looked him up and down, her gaze getting stuck on his crotch for a moment. Her breath hitched, but then she tightened her lips in a grimace.
“We don’t have time to mess around.” Under her breath, she added, “Maybe later.”
He chuckled quietly. “Now I have something to live for.”
Her mouth dropped open. He probably shouldn’t have let her know that he heard her whisper. But then her lips twitched into a brief smirk. She turned back to her storage compartments.
“I’m guessing with your talk of swords, you already know that decapitation kills a lot of things. Fire kills more. But Redcaps ride the dead and eat the living. They’re like…spider-headed zombies. You see a body walking around, but the actual monster is sitting on the corpse’s neck. That’s one of the reasons their bodies can take so much damage before they vaporize.”
She opened the middle storage compartment—which was the longest—and started pulling out weapons. Rifles, knives, swords, chains, lengths of pipe, and some things Marcus couldn’t even name started piling up on the floor of the van. He had to sit down on her pantry to get out of the way for her personal arsenal.
“What’s standard issue for the Blades of Janus?”
“It’s pronounced ‘yah-noose’,” he said.
She arched an eyebrow at him over her shoulder. “You think decapitating a Redcap kills it, but the real priority is how to correctly pronounce ‘Janus’? Is that part of your field training?”
He kept himself from bristling at yet another challenge from her. Barely.
“What are you packing, Blade of Janus?” She mispronounced the name again—deliberately.
He ignored it.
His favorite weapons were his hands. Somehow, he didn’t think sharing that would go over well.
“A stingray,” he said.
“What the hell is that?”
“It’s like a shock gun. It disrupts electrical signals in just about anything, stunning them.”
She let out a snort. “I can see where that would be useful for a Blade. But in this fight, you need something good for squishing. Aha!” She lifted a rusty hatchet and flipped it in the air, catching it by the handle. “I’m guessing you’re up on your shots. You want this or my bat?”
“I’ll take the bat.”
“Suit yourself.” As she reloaded the storage compartment, she kept talking. “Like I said, Redcaps are these kind of spider-things. They have black eyes on stalks like a crab and they’ve got the pincers going on.”
“I’ve seen that.”
“Good. Most hunters don’t take time to notice that kind of thing. What you may not have seen are the tendrils that they burrow into the bodies they ride, connecting to the corpse’s nerves so they can steer it. You ever notice how a Redcap’s movements d
on’t seem quite natural?”
“Yeah, they’re sluggish and kind of clumsy.”
“That’s because they’re controlling a body that isn’t their own,” she said.
If it wasn’t for the amount of damage Redcaps could take, they wouldn’t be too dangerous. Well, that and their appetites. They were voracious carnivores. Body counts didn’t go up when Redcaps settled in a town—unlike with dwellers who killed for sport. But missing persons reports did.
Redcaps were one of the few dweller species that had a kill order out. Destroy on sight.
“Most hunters just lop off their heads and call it a day.” She kept rummaging around in her storage compartment as she spoke. “They think the heads self-destruct along with the bodies. But the thing is, the head is the Redcap. Decapitate them, and yeah, you’ve severed a bunch of their tendrils, but those grow back. You have to squish them to kill them, and those bastards are fast when they’re not attached to something. They like storm drains for escape routes, especially since their nests are full of tunnels and caves they dig underground.”
She pulled out a small box half-full of olive green, egg-shaped…
“Are those grenades?” Marcus stood up so fast, he hit his head on the top of her van. He was lucky he didn’t knock a hole in the decrepit thing.
She grinned at him. “Don’t worry, I store them separate from the flamethrower.” She took three from the padding inside the box, paused briefly, then put one back, mumbling to herself. “Two should do it. I’m running low.”
“Grenades seem like overkill.”
“For Redcaps, yes. But not for their queen.”
He sat back down. “I’m still wrapping my head around Redcaps…just being heads. What the hell is their queen?”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again, a grim expression settling over her features.
“That bad, huh?” he said.
She sat next to him on the small bench seat. He made an extra effort to concentrate on what she was saying and not her closeness—or the subtle way her scent was shifting from arousal to what he guessed was preparation for violence. He hated to admit it, but he liked both.
“The plan is simple,” she said. “We go into the nest, kill any Redcaps that get in our way, fry the queen with my flamethrower till it’s nice and crispy, then shove a couple of grenades down its throat and call it a day. Once the queen is dead, its brood die as well.”
Pack Page 6