by Amelia Jade
“Good job, Corde,” she muttered under her breath. “First day and you can’t even be bothered to show up. Some role model you are.”
A shadow fell across her clipboard as someone approached.
“I am here.”
Busy hunched over her clipboard, trying to decide who got the worst jobs, she didn’t bother to look up. “And you are?”
“Corde. You just called my name.”
His voice was deep, like the bone-vibrating bass of a thunderous snowcapped mountain avalanche as it raced downhill. Kylie had to immediately shut down her curiosity as to what the owner of such a speaking tone looked like. All she got was one impression. Huge.
“Great. Everything you need is on the table.” She waved at it with the pen-holding hand. “Grab a vest, bag, and picker. Start cleaning. That goes for the rest of you. Everyone is on garbage duty to start.”
A chorus of groans greeted her pronouncement, but Kylie just shrugged it all off. She didn’t care if they liked it or not. They had already done their crime, and now they were here to pay for it. Criminals were the same the world over, she’d decided. Very few of them were repentant of their crimes at first. But Kylie hoped that by going through her program and seeing the difference they were making in the community, perhaps she could reach some of them. Help them out, and show them the better path.
And sometimes that meant starting with something gross and nasty to get their attention.
It was about the time that she finished her notes for the day that Kylie realized the shadow was still there. She looked up at last. And up. And up.
“Can I help you?” she asked the pair of inquisitive graphite-colored eyes centered in a face full of strong, well-defined features. A powerful jaw and high cheekbones matched the steely gaze directed her way.
Before she could respond, Kylie realized that she knew the face before her. Sort of. He was the man that had looked at her so oddly two nights earlier at the coffee shop as the cops hauled him out in handcuffs. The one that had stared at her unblinking from the moment the chime had announced her arrival just ahead of the arriving squad cars. What was he doing here?
“My name is Corde. I’m supposed to report to you for community service.”
“You already did. I told you to grab a vest, bag and picker and get to work.”
He was clad in a tight fitting V-neck of light green and jeans of a dark blue wash that fit him perfectly. Thick leather workboots clad his feet, completing the ensemble. He was dressed to work, so why was he having such a hard time figuring it out?
“Yes. But I was wondering if you had any other tasks that needed doing. Anything more noble, perhaps?”
Kylie eyed him, trying to determine if he was giving her the runaround to set her up for a joke or not. But something about his demeanor, the way he held himself, told her that he was actually serious.
“Nobler? What’s more noble than cleaning up after those who consider themselves more important than anyone else?”
He shifted his weight from side to side, muscles in his core flexing and bulging slightly as he swayed in the nonexistent breeze. Kylie didn’t notice that though. Absolutely not. It would be completely unprofessional of her to drool over him. His blond hair fell to just above his eyes, and with a flick of his head he moved it out of the way while she watched. Watched. Not stared. Definitely not staring.
Shit. She was staring.
“Perhaps there is something that needs to be built? Or torn down? I’m good at those,” he proclaimed.
Kylie carefully did not roll her eyes at the giant of a man. Not when his forearms were bigger than her legs. That just seemed like a bad idea.
“No, that’s not what we’re here for. If you wanted to do that, you should have volunteered with one of the homes for humanity programs before you…” she rifled through her pages to see his form and what he’d been charged with. Her eyes grew dark and hooded. “Before you threatened people with assault with a deadly weapon.”
There was one particular type of criminal that Kylie had a hard time working with, and it was those who wielded guns and used them against others. The military was different, because their enemies often shot back. But criminals? They preyed on normal citizens, content with their invincibility with a gun in hand.
“I did not threaten anyone,” Corde protested, trying to explain himself.
She cut him off short. “Vest. Bag. Picker. Get to work. Please,” she added, not wanting to get on the bad side of the mass of muscle.
“There must be something else for me to do.”
“There is. Stop complaining and start collecting. What’s so hard about that?”
Corde looked at her, but the flinty gaze slid right off her. After nearly six years working with criminals and those who thought themselves above the law, Kylie had been stared at by some of the best. His was good, and the delicious show of muscles as his shirt tightened while he breathed angrily was both intoxicating and frightening at the same time, but it still didn’t intimidate her.
“Very well,” he said in clipped tones, seething so hard she could feel the anger pulsing off him.
“Excellent.”
He turned and walked over to the table. Almost as soon as his back was turned she breathed what she hoped was a silent sigh of relief, slumping slightly as the confrontation was averted. This Corde was going to be a tough one. He was a criminal who had the looks to go along with his lack of regard for others. This meant he was used to getting what he wanted, and she suspected telling him no was going to be difficult. But she wouldn’t give in.
Not again.
“Are you serious about this?” he grumbled from the table. “How are there no other tasks that need doing?”
Kylie did roll her eyes this time, putting on her best customer-service voice from her days in retail. “I’m so very sorry, but unfortunately those positions were already filled. Next time I suggest you show up on time or even early if you wish to be considered.” She gave him a sickly sweet smile on top of it.
Anger, disgust, disinterest, any of those were the normal reaction she expected to get in response to her comment. Instead Corde started to laugh.
“Very well, I will be.”
“That’s great. Now get to work.”
The giant of a man lifted his eyebrows, gazing back and forth between her and the field of men with plastic grabber claws and trash bags. “They all appear to be doing the same thing. Where are the other jobs?”
“Well, you can’t tell from here, but one of them is actually the lead garbage-picker,” she said, emphasizing the importance of the fake title, like she might to a child.
Corde waited for her to continue. When it became clear she wasn’t going to say more, he snatched up a vest and put it on. He pushed one muscled arm through the hole, and then another. But when he shrugged it up over his shoulders and let his arms drop, the entire thing split down the back.
She giggled despite herself, the image of his face filled with disgust as he wore two bright green and orange donuts around his arms too much to resist. Corde shot her a look that said he was less than impressed, but to his credit he didn’t take them off.
The huge man moved off into the field. They were cleaning a large section of open field today, near a busy freeway exit. It’s where they would be spending the next few days. They had to clean the field, and then the exit itself, along with the nearby section of freeway.
After her initial interaction with Corde the rest of the day seemed to pass uneventfully. Throughout the morning and into the early afternoon she found herself constantly sneaking glances at him. At first it was to ensure that he was, in fact, doing work. But when it became clear that he was trying his best to not do any work, she started monitoring his progress.
He wasn’t working very hard. Most of the others had collected two or even three bags worth of trash, and he was still on his first. As the biggest and most physically impressive person there, she’d expected him to lead the charge. Instead,
he was lagging far, far behind. That was saying something as well, since none of the attendees were trying very hard to begin with.
Kylie realized she was going to have to teach him a lesson, to ensure that he got the point that he was here to do work, and not just show up. That wasn’t good enough for her and her program. None of them were going to learn anything if they just stood around. Only with some hard work and realization of what their efforts could accomplish could any of them potentially be changed, to the point that they wouldn’t commit an even worse crime next time around.
“Hey Miss, let’s have us a break now, okay? We’re getting hungry!”
She turned to see Jose, one of her least favorites and the biggest troublemaker approach. Cursing herself for paying too much attention to Corde and allowing him to walk right up to her unseen, she snapped at him.
“Jose, get back to work. You know lunchtime is at two o’clock. Stop trying to play nice.”
The tattooed career minor criminal gave her a kissy face. “Aww come on, Miss. Why you gotta be that way? I’m just trying to be nice.”
“Get back to work,” she ordered. “And just for that, you’re here for another ten hours.”
She knew that was punishing herself just as much, but maybe an extra ten hours of Jose’s “flirting” would teach her to get too preoccupied with one prisoner.
Turning around she saw Corde staring at her angrily. Was he pissed that she wasn’t letting them break early too?
Can this day be over yet?
Chapter Three
Corde
He angrily stabbed another piece of garbage and shook the grabber until it fell free in the bag.
“Vanek would never let me down if he could see this,” he grumbled. “Me, Corde, picking up trash? Unbelievable.”
He’d been fuming all morning. Such tasks were not suited to him. He was capable of so much more. A warrior of renown, he’d charged into battle alongside his brethren time and time again, wielding his mighty greatsword of fire, striking down his enemies and helping to win the day. What sort of champion was he now, reduced to picking up the droppings of others?
It angered him greatly, to know that he was here to find a mate, so that he might then fight for the humans in their battle against the Outsiders, but was unable to tell anyone. If only he could up and tell Kylie that he was a great hero, for whom songs would be sung and thanks given. She would then see to it that he was given better treatment.
Perhaps he could be her bodyguard, so that the likes of Jose would not bother him again. He’d had to fight the flames that burned brightly in his soul when another man spoke to his mate so derogatorily. His first instinct had been to march over there and wring him by his neck.
That wouldn’t do, however, and Corde knew it. This was a different world than the one he’d left, and his actions the night before had driven that point home in a way that no lesson on a screen could have. If anyone had asked Corde, he would have told them that what he’d done was stupid and not acceptable. But in the heat of the moment he’d fallen back on the old ways, on habit, and it had landed him in big trouble with a lot of people.
But it had also shown him his mate.
Looking over his shoulder now, he contemplated her. She was short, though almost everyone was compared to him. He towered over her by a foot, though it was less with the shoes she had on now, their heels elevating her a couple of inches closer. The long hair with its beige tones was no longer falling freely, but instead held up in a high ponytail, though it still fell to her mid-back it was so long.
In addition to her black shoes she wore dark green pants that hugged her wondrously thick legs, rising above her hips and sitting high on her waist. A loose-fitting top of such a faint pink it was nearly white sat on her upper body, helping to conceal her breasts, though it did little to hide the outlines of her overall figure. Corde was having a hard time focusing on his job with her standing around like that, black purse over one shoulder.
He had noticed that she kept one hand close to it anytime one of the program members approached. She must have a weapon of some sort in there for her personal protection. Even now her hand clutched it a little tighter as she saw him looking at her. The rosy-red cheeks lost some of their natural beauty as she frowned in his direction.
Corde forced himself to look away, lest she grow uncomfortable with him, returning reluctantly to picking up trash, even as his mind continued to wander elsewhere.
It amazed him sometimes how fate worked. He had committed an egregious error the night before, and yet amidst it all, he’d been shown his mate. Fate, though, was a cruel mistress—giving, and then taking away as he was arrested. Yet it was never to be denied, and now he’d found himself here, with his mate, destined to be near her for the next few months as he completed his five hundred hours of community service.
It seemed Kylie hated him because of what he’d done. To the point she wouldn’t even let him explain that it wasn’t at all what it seemed. Instead he was to be judged and found guilty on the spot. Still, he intended to do whatever he could to change things. Whatever it would take to get him out of this terribly demeaning job.
“Lunch break. Thirty minutes!” Kylie called, her voice warm and soothing, like the noise of a brook as it bubbled and splashed around a rock in its midst on a beautiful summer afternoon.
He marched back to the pile of bags and snagged his, thankful that Vanek had told him to prepare ahead, otherwise he would have gone hungry all day, leaving him in a terrible mood. Corde smiled. He’d learned that humans had a wonderful word to describe how he got without food. Hangry. A combination of hungry and angry, it was such a perfect fit he couldn’t believe he’d never thought of it before.
As he passed by Kylie he inhaled deeply, desperately hanging on to the smell of eucalyptus and warm fresh breeze for as long as possible. It certainly beat the smell of asphalt and freshly disturbed garbage all piled together. He closed his eyes and imagined lying with Kylie in a mountain meadow, surrounded by nature and completely alone, sucking in her scent, and tasting her for the first time.
Maybe in the future. For now he had a lot of work to do to prove to her that he wasn’t some mindless thug who wanted to hurt other people. He could sense a lot of resentment from her toward all of them, especially him, and wondered what had pushed her into this line of work in the first place if she was so disdainful of them all. It seemed… not a very good match.
Setting himself down apart from the others, but still close enough to Kylie that he could intervene if necessary, Corde opened his lunchbox and set about deciding which tasty morsel he was going to feast upon first. There was a sandwich, made with beef and some cheeses, a side of chicken, crispy things called crackers, an apple, a banana, and three cookies, a newfound weakness of his. The vanilla filling between chocolate wafer ones were his favorite.
Deciding on the sandwich he began to unwrap it, salivating over the first bite. As he bit down, his eyes were drawn to the crowd of others, noting how most of them were giving him unpleasant looks. Some were covertly glaring, while others, the self-proclaimed “tough guys” weren’t even bothering to hide it.
Corde smiled and took another bite, ripping off a hunk of bread with gusto. Screw them, they were real criminals. He had just made a mistake, something he would be sure not to do in the future. They deserved to be here, he didn’t.
“You know,” a voice said at the same moment a body eclipsed the sun that was shining down on him, “I’m not sure you should get a lunch break.”
He looked up with disinterest, uncaring what anyone else had to say. When he noticed it was the same wannabe thug who kept harassing Kylie though, his attention was abruptly distracted from the sandwich.
“You haven’t even filled one bag yet. The rest of us are on our second or third ones. Why do you deserve a lunch?”
Corde just stared, wondering if the speaker realized how easily he could snap his neck, or otherwise inflict extreme amounts of pain without eve
n trying. So far he was up to seventeen, no, eighteen different things he could do, and that was without standing up. The miscreant was so far beneath him that Corde didn’t bother to reply. Instead he looked at his sandwich and went in for another bite.
“I’m talking to you,” the thug snarled. Jose, that was his name. Jose reached out to try and swat away the sandwich.
Until that point Corde had been content to let him talk, to act tough in front of the others and gain face. None of it meant a thing to him. He wanted his mate and nothing more. The rest could rot, for all he cared. She was what was important. That being said, while he would have happily ignored the talking, he wasn’t about to let himself be trampled over either.
His legs uncrossed and one of them swept out, depositing Jose on his back with painful ease. As the breath rushed out of him Corde pulled back and his foot shot toward his agitator’s face. He stopped it an inch short, the massive boot hovering an inch away, making it very clear that he could have busted his teeth in or worse without much in the way of effort.
Then he let the boot drop and grabbed a bite, content that Jose had learned his lesson.
A tingle on the back of his neck clued him in that someone was watching him. A quick look around didn’t show any threats, but when he glanced at Kylie, he was surprised to see disappointment and frustration on her face before she looked away.
What the hell? He’d dispatched Jose with care, doing little more than bruising his tailbone, ego, and making him short of breath for a few minutes. Compared to all of the far nastier things that he could have done it was nothing. In fact, he’d done it that way so that she could see that he was dealing with things calmly, that he didn’t always leap to violence, even if it was his first instinct.
And yet, he’d screwed up. Again.