6
He knew the moment she withdrew from him.
Brushing at his hands, Riley swam backward, cold water chasing over his skin where her body had been nestled. Glancing down, her cheeks stained with pink, she started wading toward the shore.
The smooth line of her back lifted out of the water, then her hips, the pear-shaped curve of her ass. A woman’s body, sleek and lithe, with just enough softness to it for a man to admire. In another time, another place, where the rationing of food wasn’t as strictly controlled, she might have held a fuller, hourglass figure. A thought, swiftly detailed, flashed into his mind of taking her there. South. Letting her eat and drink to her heart’s content, whilst he pushed her down amongst the pillows and made love to her.
A fool’s dream.
Lucius looked away, slapping the water with his knuckles. From the stiffness in her shoulders, he knew regret was coming in to ride her hard. She’d fucked a monster. And from the bite mark on his shoulder, the soft cries she’d whimpered in his ear, she’d liked it.
“No regrets,” he said softly. “This was your choice, darlin’.”
He’d made sure of that.
A withering glance over her shoulder stirred his anger. Both careless and yet fully aware of her nudity, she wrung out her panties and wiggled into them, giving him another view of that full ass. One hand cupped her breasts as she fought with the wet cotton, trying to drag it up over her long legs with one hand.
“Christ,” he muttered. “It ain’t as if I haven’t seen it... or had my fucking mouth all over it.”
Heat blistered her cheeks. “I don’t want to talk about it.”
Lucius stalked forward, the water sluicing off his body. She glanced down then tore her gaze away, and his scowl darkened. His cock bobbed like a battering ram, barely sated. Years without a taste of female flesh, and it wanted more.
Hell, he wanted more.
But more than this.
Good enough to fuck once, but not good enough to mean anything to her. And that thought was a damn minefield.
You knew this couldn’t be.
You know you can’t have a woman.
But the sudden yearning took him by surprise. Grief hit him like a punch to the throat, an emotion he thought he’d long since dealt with. He’d walked away from Abbie, from his family... from everything that had ever meant anything to him. He’d even put a gun in his mouth, and thought about pulling the trigger.
Eight years should have been long enough to come to terms with the choices he’d made. Taking the gun out, he’d changed his mind. He’d do it one day, he’d pledged, but he’d see McClain in Hell first. McClain, Colton and Cane.
Vengeance was all he had left to live for.
And then... what? He’d never thought about it before, but the thought was a sudden knife to the chest. Years of hunting for any sign of McClain, following whispers and rumors. Years of fending for himself, hunting alone. He’d gotten good at pretending he didn’t give a damn, but the human part of him – the man – longed for company.
And not just any company. He shot Riley a guarded look, horrified at the direction his thoughts were taking. One hit of human flesh and he was like a goddamn craver, strung out for the next hit. Wanting her to turn to him, to smile at him like she meant it, to stroke his face in a tender way. A need so strong it scraped him raw. Maybe this had been a mistake, for now he knew exactly what he was missing out on.
It wasn't just a dull memory anymore.
He choked the urge down ruthlessly. He had a job to do. There was no point even thinking about the future until McClain and the pair of wargs were dead, and no matter how much he liked her spirit, Riley wasn't going to be part of that future.
Riley dragged her shirt on – his shirt – and wrung the water out of her hair. The black cotton fell to mid-thigh, draping her lush curves in fabric. Lucius’s gaze ran down her. He could smell his own scent on her skin. Her throat was grazed from his teeth, and the rough stubble along his jaw. He couldn’t have marked her up any better. Some part of him had wanted his own brand on her.
A longing he’d best bury deep. It was time to focus his mind on the job in front of him. He’d thought it half-over, an ambush where he’d killed all of Cane’s men, then locked him and Colton inside a cabin. One flick of the match and the house had burned merrily. He’d even toasted a fucking rabbit in the coals. Got himself drunk-sick on the bottle of vodka he’d been saving for the occasion.
Obviously, they’d gotten out somehow. This time, he was going to put a bullet between their eyes, or better yet, take an axe and decapitate them both. Make sure they were dead.
But McClain first.
Riley glanced over her shoulder as if she sensed him watching her, her dark eyes shadowed and oblique. Lucius realized he was standing there naked, just staring at her. Like a desperate man.
Forcing a dark little smile onto his face, he snatched his jeans off the sandy floor and shook them out before slowly dragging them over his wet legs. The worn denim was butter-soft and fit him like a glove. Taking extra care with the buttons, he kicked her own jeans up into his hand and held them out for her.
“It’s the least I can do,” he said, with mock gentility. “Considering I was cock-deep in you a few minutes ago.”
She snatched the jeans out of his hands with a thin-lipped look. “You’re an asshole.” She dragged them on, fumbling them over her tanned thighs.
Time to shake out of this mood. He’d fucked her. Gotten what he wanted. That was enough. It had to be. Still, his gaze stayed with her, enjoying the sight of her naked skin for as long as he could before he shrugged. “I’ve been called worse.”
“No doubt.”
She wiggled the jeans over her hips and that was the end of it. No sign of their encounter, beyond the red marks at her throat and the aching echo of her teeth in the heavy muscle of his shoulder.
Knotting her long hair into a plait, she tied it off with a strand of cotton she picked from the sleeve of her shirt. Brown eyes met his. “You don’t have to wait for me.”
“Your shirt’s gaping,” he told her, excuse enough. But the desire for human company – her company – lingered. Pathetic son of a bitch. He scraped a hand over his tired face. He obviously needed more sleep; the few hours he’d snatched were evidently not enough.
Riley made a growling sound in her throat and pushed past. “You breathe a word of this, and you’ll regret it.”
“Who am I goin’ to tell?” The sad fucking truth.
He followed her up the sandy passage, away from the pool and the play of memories.
The kid was awake, trying to drag himself into a sitting position with a wince. Bruises blackened both his eyes, and someone had broken his nose.
Lucius peered at him. “You look like a raccoon.”
The kid went red. Not a great look with his flaming hair. “Fuck you.”
A distant sound caught his attention. An engine. Lucius froze, the blood in his veins running ice-cold. Riley was bending over, trying to straighten the blankets, but she saw him still and her gaze lifted to his.
“What is it?”
He jerked the rifle into his hand and yanked a black cotton tank out of his bag. Tugging it over his head, he started for the mouth of the cavern. “I can hear cars. More than one.”
Riley gasped, then he heard her pumping the shotgun. “Jimmy, hold this,” she said. “I’ll get the binoculars.”
Lucius barely heard her, his gut trembling in anticipation. He eased against the mouth of the cave and peered out. A narrow dust cloud lined the plain below. Two jeeps heading straight for them. He jerked the rifle to his eye and peered through the sight, a frown dawning. Four men in each jeep, bristling with guns. But they were all human, and there was no sign of rust or gun turrets, like the vehicles he’d expected to see.
“They’re not reivers.”
“It’s McClain,” the kid said, just behind him.
Need swept through, white-hot and so
vicious it almost blinded him. McClain. His hands clenched on the gun. Finally. So close he could almost smell the bastard.
Then his brain caught up.
Lucius turned. “How’d you—”
The butt of the shotgun smashed into his face. He went down hard, the right side of his face burning with pain. White light exploded in his head. Need to move... But he couldn’t. Struggled up onto one elbow.
“Rigged up the two-way radio I found in a crate,” the kid said, his voice sounding a million miles away. “Sent an SOS through to Absolution while you were gone.” He smiled through the white haze and lifted the gun again. “Now who looks like a raccoon?”
The shotgun smashed down again.
Riley looked up as Wade went down, her heart leaping into her throat. Jimmy lifted the gun again, smashing Wade in the face. His body jerked and lay still, like a puppet whose strings had been cut.
“Jimmy,” she whispered, dropping the binoculars and racing to his side.
He lifted the gun again, a vicious look on his face. Riley didn’t think, just grabbed at it from behind. A quick knee to the back of his and she wrenched it from his hands, shoving him back against the cave wall as he fell.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she asked. A quick glance at Wade showed he still wasn’t moving. Lights out.
Black shadows marred his skin, and a cut tore through his brow. The devil looked remarkably vulnerable lying there like that.
Jimmy shoved himself to his feet, staring at her in surprise. “I got him, Riley. I got the warg.” Like he too couldn’t believe what he’d done.
“You idiot!” She darted to the mouth of the cave. “What about the Reivers?”
“They aren’t Reivers. It’s McClain.” Confidence puffed out his shoulders. “There’s an old radio in his supply store. I used it to SOS them when you two were fetching water and washing.” His mouth split into a grin, broken tooth still snarled. The movement made him wince. “We’re safe, Riley. We’ve got him.”
The jeeps sprayed to a halt, armored men pouring out of them. Riley looked down in dismay. What was she going to do? She’d made a mistake in the pool – a desperate, skin-hungry mistake – but she’d never meant for this to happen.
Wake up. She nudged Wade with her foot, but he only groaned.
There was no way she could get him out of there, no way he could escape. Why’d the son of a bitch have to drop his guard now?
“Jimmy!” A commanding voice she knew too well.
Riley flinched and spun on her heel. McClain stopped in the mouth of the cavern, his broad shoulders framed by the endless blue sky. She saw him four times a year at the trading fairs. Heard his rough-as-gravel voice on the radio.
But the sight of him still took her breath away.
Six and a half feet of solid muscle, more heavily set than Wade. He wore a black shirt rolled up at the sleeves, revealing bronzed forearms sprinkled with golden hair. An ammo belt tugged tight over his chest, and a pair of faded old jeans hugged his thighs. The black felt of a ten-gallon hat was pulled down low over his eyes, but she knew he was staring at her. She could feel it on her skin. Underneath her skin. Itching.
“Riley.” His voice was husky. He looked down, raked the scene with a hard glance. Probably saw more than she did in that quick look. “Are you all right?”
“Course I am,” she managed to say.
He nodded then gestured to the men following him. “Tie him up, then shove him in the warg cage. I want the perimeter secure. Where’s Eden? Get her up here to check on ‘em.”
Eden was his sister, a healer. The one McClain Riley tended to get along with. She felt her shoulders droop in relief.
A slim young woman bounded up the narrow incline, dressed in a loose white shirt rolled to her elbows and a pair of jeans. She had the same dark brows and intense grey-green stare as McClain, but where her brother was all arrogance and command, Eden had a gentler nature.
Eden winced when she saw Jimmy’s face. “Well, don’t you look a sight?”
McClain grabbed her arm, turning her toward Riley. His whole posture was tense, voice hard. The pair of them shared a look. “Her first.”
“I’m fine.” Riley frowned. “The worst thing I have is blisters.”
McClain didn’t even bother to look at her. “Check her out,” he commanded, then turned and went to oversee Wade’s incarceration.
Eden stepped closer, and Riley went up on her tiptoes to see over her shoulder. One of the men grabbed Wade by the boot and started dragging him across the sand. His hands had been bound so tightly they were already going white.
“Oh, thank God!” Eden wrapped her arms around Riley and hugged her. “When you didn’t come home that night, your folks radioed Absolution. We’ve been out hunting ever since. Adam’s been unbearable.”
“That’s nothing new,” she grumbled. He hadn’t listened to her protests that she was fine, simply overrode her like he usually did. As if her opinion wasn’t as valid as his.
A faint smile tugged at Eden’s lips. “Come on,” she said, taking Riley by the hand. “Come sit and we’ll have a look at you.”
Easing her onto a rock in a strangely gentle way, Eden knelt in front of her.
Riley caught her hand. “Seriously, Eden. There’s nothing wrong with me that a good meal and a night’s rest won’t cure.”
“The boy said you’d been kidnapped.” A question flickered in her pretty eyes. “By a warg. We were out searching anyway, but as soon as Adam heard who the warg was, he insisted on racing here. I thought we were going to flip one of the jeeps.”
“It wasn’t... that bad.”
She could see that Eden didn’t believe her. The healer patted her knee as a grim little smile edged her lips. “It’s okay. Won’t be long, and we’ll be back at Absolution. You can rest up, take your time....”
“Absolution?” Riley frowned. “No. I want to go home. To Haven.”
The faintest of hesitations.
Riley grabbed Eden’s hand. “What is it?”
Eden shook her head. “When they heard you’d been taken, Peg and Jem radioed Adam. He said it wasn’t safe anymore. That they needed to come to Absolution where he could protect them—”
Her chest tightened. “That son of a bitch. I was gone three days!” She jerked to her feet. “Where is he?”
Eden tried to grab her, but Riley pushed past. “McClain!”
His head turned but he stayed where he was, arms crossed over his chest as he watched them shove Wade into the cage. Wade was starting to stir now. At the sound of her voice, he grabbed for the bars, then jerked his hand back as it touched the silver.
Riley scrambled down the slope, slipping and sliding on the gravelly soil. “You arrogant bastard! I turn my back for a second and you’re there, trying to overrule me! You knew we wanted to stay at Haven!”
“It’s not safe.” Intense green eyes met hers, the hat’s shadow carving half his face into darkness. His jaw was scraped clean, the skin smooth and tanned. Shadows lingered in the dip above his firm mouth as it thinned. “Your council agreed.”
She got in his face, fists clenched. “Of course they did. Peg and Jem have wanted to leave all year. Madi and Dr. Rawlins didn’t. I was the deciding vote. With you breathing down their necks, they wouldn’t have been able to fight the order. It's our home, damn it, McClain!”
A flicker of frustration filled his eyes, though his voice stayed calm. “The reivers burned New Hope to the ground, Riley. Who did you think was next? Us? We’ve got rock walls fifteen feet high. You’ve got a timber fence.”
“And they’ve never gotten past it,” she reminded him with a nasty grin. “Haven’s got high visibility and good defensive towers. Our stockpile can keep us under siege for over six months, and we’ve got shooters. We’ve killed more reivers than New Hope and Isolation did together.”
He grabbed her by the shoulders with warm hands. Turned her to the west. A tiny pall of dark shadows blurred the hor
izon.
“Haven burned, Riley. This morning, I’d say.”
The shock of it tore a gasp from her throat. “No.” But the proof was on the horizon. She shook her head. “No, it can’t have burned.” It was her home. She’d lived there all her life, in her father’s house. The only reminder she had left of him.
“We got everyone out yesterday, thank God....”
Riley spun on her heel and drove her fist into his gut. The impact bruised her knuckles, but she snapped up with her elbow, under his chin. “You bastard!” she screamed. “Of course they burned it!” Someone grabbed her from behind, tore her off him. She tried to kick out, but missed. “There was nobody there! Nobody to defend it! It was defensible, McClain! It wouldn’t have burned if you hadn’t taken everyone. You just want to control us! Like the rest of your little clan of sheep!” Tears blurred her vision and she yanked hard, trying to break free of the grip someone had on her.
“Riley! Riley.” Soothing hands cupped her face, and then Eden was there. “Calm down. We’re doing the best we can. Your council voted, it isn’t Adam’s fault.”
“I took your people in,” he pointed out.
Riley went crazy again, kicking and tearing. Hot tears burned her skin, but the arrogant prick just watched, like he’d done them a fucking favor. “This is your fault,” she told him. “You look!” She stabbed a finger out toward the horizon, toward the dirty smudge where her home had been. “That’s on you.” Turning, she brushed at the hands holding her. One of McClain’s men. “Get your hands off me. I’m not going to go after him.”
Wrenching out of the grip, she turned back to the cave. Jimmy watched with wide eyes, but she stormed past, into the cool shadows. He tried to touch her shoulder, but she shook him off with a snarl. Even he’d betrayed her.
Collapsing in the corner of the cave, she tucked her knees up in front of her and wept. It was gone. All of it. Her whole life just torn apart and smashed, and McClain had the gall to stand there and tell her he’d taken them in. Done them a favor.
Tears tore through her, a hacking wrench in her chest. How she wished she hadn’t woken up this morning. Then this day would never have happened.
Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection Page 18