From the Ashes

by Angela White

  Kyle watched her thin the rookie herd in admiration. The three men who hadn’t spoken up were exchanging satisfied looks that Angela encouraged with her low words when the others were gone. “After your shift, have a good meal and some extra water; add another hour of sleep so that you can build up a tolerance.”

  Kyle grinned as she joined them. “You just made their day.”

  Angela lit a smoke. “It was a good two hours. They’ve chosen to spend a few minutes alone, practicing here. You three are welcome to go in, but please remember to observe only. They know what they’re doing or I wouldn’t have them doing it yet.”

  Angela, exhausted, headed for the tent across from them. She slid inside and stopped. She’d hoped to find Marc or even Zack but Adrian was running the workout canvas tonight and she hesitated.

  Adrian didn’t look up from his clipboard. “Brace for a pulse, gentlemen.”

  Angela needed the refill. Directing the weak, wild teenagers had drained her. She inhaled greedily, openly, and the teams stiffened at the draw.

  Adrian blocked the stream, not sending any of his light.

  Angela was grateful.

  She was also disappointed.

  5

  Kyle led Seth and Cynthia into the tent, not sure what to expect. It wasn’t four quietly working teenagers.

  “Too hard,” Charlie muttered, wincing. “Don’t get my fingers.”

  “Too bright!” Jennifer protested. “Ease off some.”

  Matt put his head on the desk. “Stop thinking about that.”

  Becky giggled. “I smell him. Sorry.”

  “That’s disgusting,” Matt moaned.

  Now Jennifer laughed and Charlie groaned, “No more, please. We give. Right, Matt?”

  “Yes,” Matt surrendered. “We’ll take the first shift.”

  Jennifer laughed again, making Kyle’s heart clench. It was a beautiful sound.

  “Nice job,” Jennifer stated.

  “I agree,” Becky affirmed. “We make a good team.”

  “I think I know what else me and Bec…Rebecca were supposed to understand.” Matt stood up, feeling better than he had in a while. “You guys need us for energy, but for strength, too. You couldn’t have kept the doors open without our concentration.”

  Their first exercise had been boys vs girls–one trying to open the line, while the others tried to close it.

  Kyle and Seth were surprised at the cooperation, but Cynthia was shocked. Matt was laughing, getting along, and fitting it. It was amazing.

  “We owe him,” Cynthia murmured lowly. “He’s a genius.”

  Kyle and Seth gently eased Cynthia from the tent. “Not him, her. This is Angela’s project.”

  “She’s the genius this time,” Seth reinforced. “And you’re on her team.”

  Cynthia got the point. “I’ll make sure she knows how much we appreciate it.”

  Kyle felt Jennifer come to the flap. “Tell her our gratitude will extend to Marc, as well.”

  Seth added another layer, watching Becky and Jennifer joke as if they’d been friends for a lot longer. “We’d also like to know some personal things, like her favorite color, scent, and book, so we can deliver them with chocolate and wine sauce.”

  Cynthia laughed and the two men grinned at her. Each of them had an anti-social teenager to care for, but now, they also had a support group. The kids, and the adults.

  “I need to practice. Will you help me?”

  Becky’s question to Seth was repeated by the two other eager teens, and Cynthia quickly spoke up. “We could go to my tent and make pizzas during. I have a few boxes of mix stashed.”

  “Yeah!”

  “Sure.”

  The group moved away together, leaving Charlie standing by himself. Instead of feeling forgotten, he was full of pride and eager nervousness. They’d voted him team leader. His mom had given him one of his secret wishes. Team leader and Tracy went hand-in-hand. He wouldn’t get one without the other.

  Charlie looked over his shoulder to see his mom now leaning against the outside of the training tent. Before he could thank her, she directed his attention to the lone female stepping into the back of the mess supply truck.

  Charlie’s heart thudded painfully as Adrian entered the truck a few seconds later.

  “Stiff competition,” Angela stated carefully, aware that they were feeling roughly the same pain.

  Charlie understood. He didn’t want to sympathize with her on this one, but with his own emotions boiling, it was hard not to.

  Angela left the mental doors open, needing him to see that she didn’t want to feel like this either. “You fight or give in,” she told him tiredly. “I love your dad. There’s never been any other choice for me.”

  “I want her in the same ways I feel between you two, but I don’t understand love,” Charlie answered reluctantly.

  “You’re scared of it,” Angela guessed, turning her back as the truck rocked sharply. “Want and need are always there, sometimes even with people you hate. With love, you’d die to be near them.”

  Charlie followed her slow retreat. “But you care for him so much!”

  “Stop.” Angela couldn’t stand to hear it, not from her mouth or his. “Human hearts are not confined by man’s laws, Charlie. You can’t set a limit on how many people you care for. If fate says to...love someone, you do.”

  Angela held the flap up on her tent. “The only thing that matters is reaction. I have a commitment, willingly made, and I would never break it.”

  Angela got him settled with a bottle of water and a bag of apple chips. “You don’t have any limits. The female you’re looking at isn’t claimed or bound to someone. She’s fair game, with no challenge or dishonor.”

  Charlie was relieved to find that his mom knew his secret, but wasn’t flipping. He hadn’t been sure. “What does she want?”

  Angela leaned back in her seat. “Funny you should ask. I picked up a couple things a few nights back.”

  Angela didn’t feel guilty about the weaknesses she was set to reveal. The realization that her son was in love had brought a lot of thoughts out, but the most important was how to help him get what he needed. Today had reminded her of that goal and provided a perfect opportunity to deliver it.

  “She wants to be needed all the time, not just when a man wants to play with her.”

  Another parent might have shut it down already, and Angela thought she would have gone that way too, if not for a conversation she’d overheard.

  “I was on duty outside the showers. My girls haven’t adjusted for the female Eagles on duty being able to get closer. I took advantage.”

  “And what you heard helped her?”

  Angela nodded, giving her approval. “It swung me in her favor.” Angela connected them; let him hear the words for himself.

  “He put a flower in your tent again.”

  Tracy sighed wistfully over the lightly running water. “That little man needs to grow up faster.”

  Leslie understood what that meant and gasped, “No way Angie goes for it! Get it out of your mind now.”

  “I don’t think he plans to tell her,” Tracy confided lowly.

  “You’re encouraging him?” Leslie asked in surprise. “You better stop it now. He’s getting serious.”

  Tracy’s miserable sigh echoed. “I know. He’s too young until October.”

  “Young, hell. He’s going to be a leader here, Tracy. He can’t have a whore for his mate”

  Silence fell for a moment, tense, and Angela was forced to consider her own bias.

  “I’ll let him down soon,” Tracy confirmed unhappily. “And that’s the only reason why. I won’t hurt the dream.”

  Leslie didn’t understand. “You have Adrian, among others. Why would you want little Charlie?”

  Angela stiffened at the confirmation, breath held in silence as she waited for the answer.

  “They don’t really need me, not like Charlie. He already craves time with me, and it�
�s never been sexual. When we...if we ever got that close, I might...”

  “What?” Leslie pushed. “Fall in love with him?”

  “How could anyone not love that Sweetheart” Tracy scoffed softly, thinking of the trinkets and poems she’d found on her pillow over the last month. They meant nothing compared to the way he looked at her. “It’s more of a satisfaction issue. He’ll please me, instead of the other way around. And I don’t mean sex.”

  Leslie was shocked. “You can’t pick Charlie in any way, and then go service Adrian. It would break Charlie’s heart.”

  Tracy stunned both women with the answer.

  “Maybe, if I had him, I wouldn’t want to do that for these men anymore. I’d want to change.”

  Angela had finished the shift in deep contemplation. When it was over, she’d found herself looking for the right way to give them both what they wanted.

  Charlie caught most of it through their connection and Angela regarded him tenderly. “You’re a good son. I couldn’t be prouder of you. If she’s what you want, you have my blessing to try.”

  Charlie was stunned to find out that he’d been making progress. “Thank you.”

  “Need her for more than fun, and you’ll have a bond that will last.” As she said it, Angela reluctantly accepted that she shared the same connection with Adrian. And after only months, it was unbreakable.

  6

  Samantha concentrated, falling into that beautiful place where only she and nature existed. Called the zone or a groove, she sometimes wished she could stay there forever.

  The buzzing got louder, and Sam steeled herself. What she was doing would probably get her stung, but she was curious as to how the shield would react. They could make it go up with enough worry and keep it from going up if one of them was out of the perimeter, but how did it pick those boundaries? Did it recognize the caution tape? That was today’s question to be answered.

  Sam had brought two female rookies with her. She’d had them adjust the caution tape to include the tree she was standing under and then made them get clear so they wouldn’t be hurt. On one of the low branches of the tree, an enormous beehive was alive with violently protected activity.

  When she tapped the hive, the mental concern from her and her witnesses should trigger the shield. They’d been instructed to observe, one each, the tape and the perimeter line, to discover where the shield came up.

  Am I ready? Sam was strangely ecstatic to be doing such a stupid thing. “Born that way.”

  She sent out her senses, searching, reading what nature had to say. It was easy to pick up the unease of the bees as she stood below them. Samantha quickly jumped up and punched the branch, not crazy enough to hit the hive directly.

  As she touched the ground, the bees exploded from the hive, and Sam found herself being jerked away from them and pushed into the creek that she’d planned to jump into if chased.

  Jeremy dove in after her, grabbing her arm and pulling her body tightly up against his. As the bees flew over, he hit the button on his air horn.

  The blast sent the bees away, and Jeremy lumbered to his feet, dragging Sam up. He pulled them onto the bank, ready to defend them against the things that sometimes came out of the water.

  Sam gasped air into her lungs, coughing. She’d hit the water with her mouth open in surprise.

  Jeremy waved the rookie females back as they came to the bank. “Keep the camp away. Tell them someone fell in the creek and we fished them out. No danger.”

  The two women left with slightly envious glances as Jeremy gave her a rough shake.

  “Stop being crazy, and do it right now!”

  Samantha, who thought she’d had things under control until he interfered, surprised them both by laughing.

  Jeremy was instantly offended, and it broke through the cool reserve he’d been treating her with. He jerked her forward and kissed her.

  Samantha had chosen Neil by the lines that he and Adrian had noticed, but the deciding factor had been one they hadn’t known to use because they were men. Pleasure was easy for them, but in her life, few men had roused true passion in Samantha. Rick, her shame, and Neil, her light, were two of only four men she’d ever felt lust for. At this moment, with Jeremy breaking the rules and tasting her as if she was the best dessert he’d ever had (His small groans were enough to tighten her chest and send heat into her stomach.) he became the fifth. She’d sensed it all along, that they were more than a match physically.

  Samantha curled her arms around his neck, and caught a fiery gasp with her mouth. When she kissed him back, he shuddered against her hip and sealed her decision. She would have them both.

  Jeremy drew back, expression wild. “What do you want from me?”

  Sam swallowed the pity. In this new world, she made the future.

  “Friendship.” She wrapped her arms tighter around him, letting him feel that impossible-to-fight lure of a woman determined to have her way. “And relief.”

  It was a line he’d recently used, successfully, on a camp groupie, but hadn’t followed through.

  Sam waited, letting the temptation of her being in his arms do the heavy work.

  Jeremy fought…for seconds, and then he caved. He wanted her too much to refuse whatever she would give. He’d never been so lonely.

  “How does this work? He and I alternate nights and start fighting again?”

  Samantha let her hair brush against his cheek and saw his jaw muscle tighten. “How does it usually work when two Eagles pick the same female friend?”

  Jeremy didn’t want to answer.

  Sam did it for him. “It’s my choice as to who or when. It always has been.”

  Jeremy was layered in the humiliation of cheap use. Like the camp whores must feel, he realized with shame that he hadn’t known he should be carrying. He would never treat them the same way again. “Has he agreed?”

  “About as much as you have,” Sam grunted, not moving out of his arms even though she knew the two males were now locked in eye-to-eye combat over her shoulder. Neil was the senior guard over this area. It was one of the reasons that she’d chosen to do the experiment today. She’d felt safer, knowing Neil would be here.

  She heard Neil leave them in peace and was flooded with shame and elation in equal measures. She finished the scene as gently as she could. “I’m greedy, Jeremy, and it’s so wrong for me to ask this of you. If you can’t handle it, I understand, and I’d never hold it–”

  Jeremy kissed her again, unable to take the rest of the speech that each of the Eagles had given to their chosen relief source at one time or another. It was humiliating. And, he couldn’t wait to be called to serve.

  Jeremy drew back. “What were you doing?”

  Sam sighed, resting her head on his shoulder instead of letting him put space between them. “Bubble range test.”

  Jeremy chuckled, arms tightening. “It follows our perimeter, meaning the Eagles, not the tape. Next time, just ask. Adrian and Angela have been running tests on the shield since it appeared.”

  “I should have known!” Samantha groaned.

  “Yes, you should have,” Jeremy agreed jokingly. “But rookies take time to come to the understanding.”

  “The understanding?”

  Jeremy placed a kiss on her head. “That Adrian has it covered. If it could help or hurt these people, he and Angela have considered it.”

  “Makes it seem like they’re gods and they don’t need help from the camp or the Eagles,” Sam commented, testing his line a bit.

  “Actually, it means they need us more than if they were powerless,” Jeremy stated, tone implying a double meaning. “You need us.”

  “How do you figure?” Sam asked, still not moving from his strong arms.

  “Because it’s never safe,” he stated pointedly. “As long as you guys have power, someone will always want it. Without protection, you’d spend all your time just trying to survive and we wouldn’t get these amazing results.”

  Sam
hadn’t thought of it that way and she nuzzled Jeremy’s jaw, loving the openness of their embrace. “Thank you.”

  Jeremy let her happiness do battle with his unease over the situation, and was pleased when she won. He kissed her cheek. And then her kips. It was official now and Jeremy had no plans to hold himself back any longer. “You’re welcome, baby.”

  Samantha melted.

  Part Three

  Provocation: an action or words likely to cause physical retaliation.

  Chapter Nineteen

  5 miles West of Little Rock

  June 27th

  1

  “She fits my qualifications.”

  Angela stared back at the seven furious, stunned, confused faces without sympathy. Her team list had come out an hour ago, and they’d all come to express their displeasure. She had indicated they should wait.

  Now that the final piece–her new XO and escort–had just come in, Angela stood up. “I chose based on the things I need. Organization, communication, willingness to follow my moral lines, and the devotion to follow orders.”

  Many of the females started to protest, but Angela interrupted. “To some degree, all of you have that, which is why you made the cut in the first place. To be honored with my right, however, you have to be overflowing with that last one. And frankly, you guys can’t give me that.”

  “What makes you think she can?” Leslie sneered, used to fighting dirty to get what she wanted. “Hell, she might die squeezing out those Mexican puppies!”

  Angela spun around.

  Thud!

  Leslie fell backwards and landed on the canvas floor, holding her bloody nose. “Oww!”

  “Three strikes and you’re gone. That’s one.” Angela didn’t think any of them would need demonstration this again, but if they did, she could handle it now. “The same goes for everyone. If I have to hit you that many times, you’re too dumb for what I need.”

  She had their attention now, over personal concerns, and the Eagles outside the flap grinned and crowded each other for listening room.