by Bec McMaster
And it was because he threatened her guarded heart, because of the sheer intensity of the passion between them, that she'd refused to paint herself within the picture she'd offered him.
"Fuck," she whispered, because that word was somehow completely apropos.
Everything had happened quickly.
That didn't mean what she felt for him wasn't real. She'd been battling for days, trying to fix a label to what he meant to her. Trying to somehow fit him into the order of her life, in a nice, safe fashion.
You're attracted to him, but that's okay because maybe he wasn't the monster you thought he was.
You had sex with him, but that's okay because you're under a shit-ton of stress.
She'd made excuses for everything that had happened between them, so she didn't have to examine the root cause of why she couldn't deny this man.
You have feelings for him.
It would be very, very easy to fall in love with him.
She had a sudden brief flash of a future, this time with herself woven through the tapestry.
Lazy mornings in his arms in bed. Soft kisses. The smell of sizzling bacon when she woke because he'd banned her from the kitchen, and taken over those duties himself. Arms slipping around her waist from behind, and kisses nuzzling her neck, as he pulled her from her work and reminded her she'd been at it all day. Someone to talk to about her daily frustrations. Someone to listen to. A baby on her shoulder, one with black, black hair and beautiful olive skin. And a smile on his face when he returned from his own work during the day; the smile of a man at peace with himself.
It wasn't just a future created for Johnny, to fill the hollows in his heart, but one for her too.
It was, if she let herself believe it, a possible future that brightened all the cold moments of her own life, and filled the void she'd barely even realized was there.
And it frightened her so much a shiver of cold ran through her.
Not because she knew he'd break her heart—but because she was afraid to give him the chance to try.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
CORTEZ CITY LOOMED out of the grasslands like an iron behemoth, the wall that stretched between it and its fellow city-states running like a ruler across the land. Built to keep out the wargs, the reivers, and probably the Wastelanders, it was solid concrete that stretched twenty feet high.
A dam shimmered beneath the sun to the north of the city. The wall enclosed Cortez. Eden squatted at Johnny's side and handed Arik's binoculars back to him. They'd settled into a wary sort of truce again, and she hadn't been able to say a damned word with Arik and Lincoln at his side.
"You're right. There's no way in."
"Not through the front gates, anyway," Arik muttered.
"Okay, Captain Man-bun," she muttered. "How do we get in?"
Arik crouched low as he crossed the ground to where they'd left their packs. "Same way I got out. Follow me."
Scrambling north toward the dam, he kept the pace up. Eden's breath came in harsh pants, and she noticed Johnny followed on her heels, almost as if was prepared to catch her if she fell. Eden didn't know if her fitness sucked or if she was simply worn out after most of the week on foot, but by the time they got within range of the dam, she was struggling to put one foot after the other.
"Water break," Johnny called, forcing the two wargs ahead of her to stop.
"I know what you're doing. You don't have to stop for my sake," she said, though she bent over and rested both palms on her upper thighs. "I can do this."
Johnny helped her ease the pack off her shoulders. He'd packed them, and she'd noticed hers was suspiciously lighter this morning. "I don't doubt you can. But the three of us aren't human, Eden, and you shouldn't be trying to keep up with us."
Eden. She almost missed the "angel."
But it was her own damn fault.
"I hate being weak."
"It's not weak," he pointed out. "It's playing to your strengths. I'm sure when we get to the lab, you're going to be thinking circles around me. I'll just be there to lift heavy things and shoot people."
She couldn't help laughing, and it cut through the tension between them. Shattered it. "You're a little handier than that."
Johnny's mouth softened as if he could sense the olive branch she was extending.
"I also give great oral," he said, waggling his eyebrows up and down, and Eden lost it.
"True."
He offered her his water flask, and she tipped it to her lips and drank thirstily. Climbing the escarpment had knocked the wind out of her sails. Everything ached, from her calves to the tips of her ears. Mostly her calves.
All the tension from the morning had vanished. She didn't have the energy to fight with him.
And truth be told, he'd promised to shelve any future discussions, and simply reverted to his flirtatious, devil-may-care self.
She could pretend too.
"So I know the no-touching law is fully in place, but.... I could help ease some of your aches and pains."
"What do you have in mind?" she asked warily.
Hands softened on her shoulders, and Johnny rubbed the spot just above her shoulder blades. Eden groaned as he worked tense muscles. "I think I'm going to melt if you keep doing that."
"Maybe I should save these magic hands for later?" he teased.
"If you just hit on me, I should warn you I don't have the strength to even reciprocate in the near future." All that sleek, sexy muscle would be wasted on her tonight.
Possibly tomorrow too.
"Besides," she muttered, "that's against the rules."
"I'm already breaking one."
"I'm pretty sure you're planning on breaking more than one."
"Only a rub-down, Eden." He leaned closer, his voice softening. "I'm not interested in just sex. Maybe it's my turn to say, if you want more then you have to give more."
There were a thousand complications in that sentence. She looked at him helplessly.
Could she trust him?
"Don't overthink it," he said, no doubt reading her like a book.
"You have met me."
"Yes." He grinned. "Kind of think I'm getting to know you intimately by now."
She blushed. And that was weird too, because she felt a little bit like a girl with a crush.
What was happening to her?
"Can I ask you a question?" she blurted.
"Yeah."
"It contains a bit of a confession too," she admitted, as his hands kept rubbing her neck, thumbs sliding along the sore muscles there.
"Now I'm curious."
"You know that letter that fell out of your pocket the night you were injured?"
"Yeah," he said, his voice roughening.
"I stole it when you were asleep and looked at it."
Eden glanced behind her as Johnny's hands came to a complete rest on her shoulders.
His face remained neutral.
"It was my letter," she whispered. "One I wrote to Adam, years ago. I know you took off with his bag when you slipped away after Rust city, but I guess... I guess I'm curious as to why you kept my letters."
A sudden chill swept over her, as the heat of his hands dropped away. Now he was reaching for his flask.
"Johnny?"
He took a mouthful of water, the muscles in his throat working. With a sigh, he lowered the flask, scrubbing a hand up the back of his neck. "What do you want me to say? I didn't realize they were in the bag until it was too late. I meant to burn them. I tried once or twice, but somehow I couldn't do it. I never forgot you. And sometimes it gets lonely out there on the Rim." Dark eyes flashed to hers. "Sometimes I used to read them, and pretend we hadn't met the way we did."
Her heart broke a little for him.
A smile curled over his mouth. "Mind you, I remembered you as this sweet, young girl who loved her brother, and hated my ass. I could picture you through your letters. Loving. Generous. Frustrated with a brother who wouldn't come home. Reminding him of everything
he had waiting for him. I had this whole image of you in my head. My angel. Then you threatened to Taser my balls, and I kind of realized the Eden McClain I thought I knew was nothing like the real thing."
"Ha, ha." Her heart thrilled a little. "You had a thing for me."
"Darlin', I've had a thing for you since the moment I met you," he pointed out dryly, tipping the flask to his lips again. The smile vanished from his face. "Just never expected you'd ever look at me the way you did that night in Shadow Rock. Or kiss me back."
Butterflies took flight in her stomach.
"And I know it scares you, so I guess... What you do with that information is up to you."
Arik loped back down toward them. "How are you feeling?" he asked, in the carefully mild tone of a man who wanted to get the hell out of here. "Not a good place to stop, sorry. Got an hour to the tunnel, Eden. Can you do it?"
Right now, she felt like she could float away, those damned butterflies were fluttering so hard.
Walking though?
Maybe.
She took a deep breath and held her arms out so Johnny could slip the pack onto her back. "I've got this."
"We're getting close to patrolled territory now. Keep an eye on the sky for drones," Arik said, mostly to Johnny and Lincoln. "They sound like a swarm of bees, have heat-seeking abilities, and miniature rocket launchers attached to them. Heat-seeking range is generally two hundred feet, so we can't afford to be surprised. They're all run by AI back in Cortez—"
"A-what?" Johnny asked.
"Artificial Intelligence," Arik replied. "It’s all computer controlled, but they're designed to alert enforcement should they go down, or spot anything. If that alert gets sent, we'll be knee-deep in drones and enforcement will send a squad out to check. It's the last thing we want."
Eden stumbled forward, her thighs groaning.
And of course they were going up a small slope.
"You were a Confederacy prisoner?" she asked Arik, to take her mind off things as they trooped along a narrow track that looked like something goats would use.
He hauled his pack higher. "Yes."
Lincoln caught her eye and shook his head as if to say, don't go there.
But Arik surprised her. "They captured Nnedi when we were eighteen. The alpha at the time refused to go after them, so I headed for Cortez. My family practically raised her, so I couldn't just move on the way everyone else expected. Knew I couldn't sneak into the city, so I walked up to the gates. They took me down, and I woke up in Camp Ragnarök. Head shaved, barcode on my wrist, chained and naked. Took me three months to find her. The women have their own barracks."
"Took you another three years to get out," Lincoln muttered.
No wonder Arik pissed dominance and bled arrogance, as Johnny had muttered to her at lunch.
"But we did get out," Arik replied. "I got her back; that's all that matters."
"I'm surprised she didn't want to come along," Eden said.
Arik's shoulders stiffened.
"That's why he brought me," Lincoln replied. "If he took himself out of the equation, I'm the next warg who can rule the pack, which means if we're both not there...."
"Nnedi had to stay behind," Johnny muttered. "Bet that went down well. Nothing like being told you should stay behind so you don't get hurt."
She looked at him.
Johnny arched a brow.
Despite their conversation, she still felt uneasy at the thought of what she was leading him into.
"There's the dam," Arik said, crouching as he paused on the top of a hill next to some sagebrush. He pointed to the base of the wall. "We go in through there. There are all sorts of service tunnels and water drainage pipes. It's not going to be fun, but you can do it if you're strong enough. And the enforcers patrol the top of the dam, but they're not really keeping an eye on the drains."
"Lead the way, Cap," she said, before her aching body could talk her out of it.
They were so close to Cortez City and her cure, that she could almost feel it in her hands.
Tick tock.
"YOU EVER GET the feeling this is too easy?" Eden muttered, as she landed in a tunnel.
Johnny had dropped her through the grate. Water splashed around her ankles. Or at least she hoped it was water.
Johnny landed beside her, water skating up her jeans. Above them, light bled through the grate, but the tunnels were black.
"Wait for it," Arik warned. "The best bit's ahead."
Light bloomed as Johnny lit a torch. Its flame hissed in the near dark, but at least she could see.
"Excellent," she muttered. "A billion steps?"
"Not... quite."
They sloshed through the tunnels, with Arik in the lead. Eden's feet began to numb. She'd never been in water this cold. Most of the time in the Wastelands, water was warm.
A trickle of light began to take the edge off the darkness, along with the rushing sound of water. It sounded like... a waterfall.
And Arik headed straight for it.
"We don't have to jump off anything, do we?"
"Nope."
A sheet of water broke the tunnel ahead of them, and light filtered through it. Arik vanished under the spray. Then Lincoln. Eden squealed under her breath as she darted through it, getting instantly soaked.
Light broke over them as she found herself on a narrow ledge in a man-made cavern of some description. No, a hollow tower. Far above them, she could see the sky. Below them, the water vanished into nothingness.
"How good are you at climbing?" Arik called, peering up through the hollow tower. Water sloshed down its sides, as if they opened grates to change the level of the dam above them.
And wasn't that a thought? All that water, the concrete groaning against its weight....
"I used to climb the tors as a girl," she admitted, a little breathlessly. "Hunting rocs where they nest. But that was a long time ago."
And her thighs and calves were already aching.
Arik and Johnny exchanged glances.
"I can haul her up if we harness us together," Johnny replied.
Arik nodded shortly. Clearly it would have to do. He and Lincoln began tugging an assortment of ropes out of their packs.
Johnny held the harness out, allowing her to step into it. Arik had supplied the climbing equipment. Apparently it was what teens in Shadow Rock did for fun before they became adults and were expected to climb freestyle.
Johnny's tanned hands snapped the harness into place around her waist and thighs, testing the give in it. He worked the carabiners efficiently, and hooked the pair of them together with a thick, stretchy rope that had about twenty feet in it. "If you fall, I've got you."
"Who's got you?" she snorted, rubbing her hands together nervously.
A faint smile flickered over his mouth. She loved this particular smile of his; a droll ha-ha on the surface, with a shyer undertone of shared amusement. Johnny held up his hand, forcing his claws to extend. "Trust me, darlin'. I won't fall."
It was kind of gross.
In a fascinating, unusual sort of way.
Adam couldn't manage the partial shift; he'd spent years denying his nature. She'd seen Luc go claws out once or twice, but never up close. Eden sucked in a breath, staring at Johnny's suddenly monstrous hands. His fingers were covered in thick, dark fur, and his claws gleamed like obsidian.
He stiffened as he noticed her interest.
Eden reached out slowly, brushing her fingertips over the sleek fur. It thinned out where his hand met his wrist, becoming nothing more than the dark hairs on his arms. Softer than she'd expected.
"I've never seen a warg up close," she admitted.
Silver streaks flared out around his pupils like a corona in the dark field of space. "Trust me, you don't want to."
I know. But she turned his hand over, curious about the difference in anatomy.
Something so hateful, she'd spent her entire life running from it.
It was merely a set of claws.
"Let's do this," Arik muttered, staring up at the inside of the hollow tower. There was a narrow ladder embedded in the wall, but it started about fifteen feet up. Water sluiced over it.
Johnny's claws retracted, the hair absorbing back into his skin, revealing a normal hand once more.
Lincoln knelt, cupping his hands together. His brother stepped into them, and Lincoln threw him up into the air. Arik only just caught the bottom rung of the steel bars embedded into the concrete. Biceps flexing, he hauled himself up with pure arm strength, catching the next rung. Pulling himself up, arm over arm, he began the climb.
Oh, heck.
In Absolution, Eden managed to run several mornings a week, purely for stress relief. It had been several weeks since she'd fit one of her runs in though—thanks to her sudden busy workload—and as she stared up through the hollow core of the concrete tower, doubt began to creep through her lower abdomen.
Eden knew three things: A, it was a long way up; B, she was a human, not a warg; and C, while the strength and precision of her hands was undisputed, particularly with a scalpel, her upper arm strength had been crafted purely from lifting a spoon of cake to her mouth.
She liked cake.
"I don't know if I can make it. My arm strength isn't my best quality."
"Sure you can," Johnny replied. "You're going to go in front of me, and I can help you when your arms start getting heavy. Once we hit the ladder, you can use your legs too. You'll be fine. The one thing I don't doubt is your determination."
Eden wiped her sweaty palms on her cargo shorts. She stared up at the first rung. It was a long way away.
"Ladies first," Lincoln muttered, holding his cupped hands out for her.
"Just remember, angel. Your cure's at the top," Johnny muttered.
Right. She could do this.
"MOTHERFUCKER," Eden groaned quietly.
Not the first curse word that had come from her in the past few minutes. When Eden swore, he knew she was reaching the end of her endurance. Johnny climbed up behind her, his body curving around hers. "Need a break?"
Reaching around her, he grabbed the rungs and clenched.
Eden let go, her weight pressing against his chest. He breathed out, feeling the slow burn in his biceps. It had to be hurting her. Not once had she complained when they crossed the Great Divide. She'd gritted her teeth on the way up the escarpment, but didn't whine. No, when Eden was struggling, she tended to get quiet, turning that significant focus inward until her body was merely a machine pumping blood through its systems.