Before the End (Beyond Series Ultimate Glom Edition)

by Kit Rocha

  Gideon was tattooing his men long before O'Kane formed his gang. Maybe Dallas had been inspired by the memorial tattoos—there was no denying the intimidating impact of a Rider with an arm full of ravens. But Mad preferred the promise of brotherhood inked around his wrists to the silent penance etched into Deacon's skin.

  Too many reminders of why he'd left. His shoulders tight, Mad checked his own pistol. "Let's go see Lincoln so we can get the hell home."

  They made it only a few blocks before an unmistakable sound drifted out of the darkness—a blade clearing a leather sheath.

  Mad spun, but his companion was faster. As the figure rushed from the shadows, Deacon surged in front of Mad. Silver glinted, but Deacon didn't even grunt as the knife slashed across his chest. He gripped his attacker's head, whispered something low and unintelligible, and snapped his neck with a vicious twist.

  Just like that—in less than a heartbeat—it was over.

  "Looks like Three." Deacon kicked the knife away before kneeling beside the dead man. His jacket had fallen open, revealing a tangle of gold chain, credit sticks, and the occasional jewel. "Must have gotten cocky, with none of the fancy folks fighting back."

  He spoke so casually, as if he wasn't bleeding from an entirely preventable wound. As if he wouldn't be going back to Sector One to receive another little black raven tattoo, penance Mad owed for dragging him over the wall to begin with.

  Mad retrieved the credit sticks and a couple of pieces of jewelry that looked easy to fence and shoved them in his pocket. Lincoln could use the credits to save a few more lives, to give a few more girls like Jade a chance at a future of their own choosing.

  Triage. That was all it ever felt like. But he kept trying, even in the face of relentless hopelessness.

  Maybe he was still a Rios at heart after all.

  Chapter Two

  The only bad thing about his new place was how empty it was.

  Dylan stood in the center of his loft and surveyed it critically. It was essentially one giant room—only the bathroom was separate from the rest of the cavernous space. There were no half-walls delineating the kitchen or sleeping areas, just an endless, open room nearly the size of the entire floor.

  It wasn't fancy—nothing in Sector Four outside of Dallas O'Kane's private bedroom was—but it was entirely livable. It didn't leak, and just one of the numerous windowpanes had been broken and repaired with tape instead of replaced. It had endless possibilities. It would be good for entertaining. He could set up weight machines and mats, even a boxing ring, a whole gym right in his living room.

  But somehow, as he paced in his bare feet over the scarred wood floor, all Dylan could think was how useful it would be as a morgue. There was plenty of room to lay out bodies, and everything more than six feet away from the fireplace was freezing cold. The only thing missing was the smell—chemicals and disinfectant. Death.

  He fumbled with the tin in his pocket. The metal was warm from his body heat, comforting, but not as comforting as the tiny tablet he slipped under his tongue. A half dose, and he mentally tallied them as the tab dissolved.

  One before breakfast. Two after lunch. One just now—four. Only two doses in an entire day. A personal record.

  He laughed.

  "Dylan?"

  The voice startled him. Not with fear, but with a shiver of heat down his spine. "Mad. I didn't hear you come in."

  And it was no wonder. The man could move silently when he wished, which was often. He stood just inside the door, dark. So dark. Dressed in black, his motorcycle helmet dangling from one gloved hand.

  Dark and haunted. His gaze was blank, but tension bracketed his eyes and showed in his stiff posture. "I know it's late…"

  "No. I'm glad you're here." He was just a man, one man, but he filled all the empty space somehow.

  Mad crossed to the table and set his helmet down with exaggerated care. "I was in Sector Two tonight."

  That always upset him, but this was something more. Dylan reached for Mad's jacket and eased it off his shoulders. "What happened?"

  Mad's shirt stretched tight over tense muscles as he clenched his fists. "One of my cousin's men was there with me."

  "Why?"

  "We were meeting a contact." Mad rolled his shoulders and didn't turn. "It was necessary. There's intel Dallas needs."

  "And you didn't answer my question." Dylan threw the jacket across the back of a chair and waited.

  Mad knelt to jerk at the laces on his boots. Disheveled black hair fell over his forehead, hiding his eyes. "I got the job done. Without a fucking scratch on me, because a Rios never has to bleed or kill when there's a Rider left standing."

  "It's a good thing I'm not competitive." Dylan gripped Mad's forearm and hauled him to his feet. Their faces—their mouths—were only inches apart. "Self-loathing is my thing, not yours."

  Mad took an unsteady breath, and finally something beyond empty blankness sparked to life in his gaze. Heat and hunger and a deeper, darker need. "No, it's mine," he whispered hoarsely. "Yours is self-destruction."

  "An excellent point." There were goose bumps on his arms, and Dylan traced them lightly. "Chilly?"

  "Aren't you?" Mad skated his fingers up Dylan's arm, then curled them around the back of his neck in a rough grip. "Why do you keep it so fucking cold in here?"

  Because he had to feel something, and the cold was safe, easy. He could endure it without having to reach for the tiny tablets of oblivion stashed in his pocket.

  Dylan bit back the words. "I was waiting for you to come and warm me up."

  "Liar," Mad rasped, before cutting off any chance of reply with a brutal kiss.

  Some nights were soft and slow, full of long, helpless groans and warmth. Others were like this, sharp bites and indrawn breaths, hard and punishing. Desperate.

  Dylan craved them all.

  He opened his mouth, seeking the wet heat of Mad's tongue as they moved toward the bed. No stumbling, because they both knew the way by now. It was second nature to cross the room blindly, too wrapped up in the pleasure of touch to break away.

  Mad twisted both hands in Dylan's T-shirt and jerked, tearing the fabric. Fingernails raked over his stomach, higher as Mad's lips found his ear. "You're just as bad as the Riders. You'd let me do anything to you."

  "Is that what you want? To ravage me?" He wound his fingers in Mad's hair, clenched tight, and pulled his head back. "Or do you want to be ravaged? Pinned down and fucked until you forget everything else?"

  Mad flexed his hands on Dylan's shoulders. Still rough, still pushing, but the words that tore out of him were more plea than command. "I want your lips around my cock."

  The words pulsed through him, heating his blood. Dylan shed his ruined T-shirt and reached for his belt, his gaze fixed on Mad. "Take off your clothes."

  He was as violent with his own clothes as he'd been with the T-shirt. His shirt ended up ripped and discarded. He kicked his boots off without breaking eye contact, then attacked his belt with clumsy hands.

  He was shaking by the time he stripped off his pants. He stood there, naked and hungry, and Dylan watched, mesmerized by the play of golden skin and ink over muscle.

  He stepped closer. Mad's cock jutted out, hard and ready, and Dylan soothed him with a single firm stroke. Mad hissed in a breath, but he didn't resist as Dylan shoved him back onto the bed.

  The fireplace was close enough to the bed to cast flickering shadows over Mad's skin, and Dylan stretched out beside him and gave in to the urge to trace the dancing shadows with his tongue.

  "Dylan—" Mad twisted a hand in his hair—tense, as if he wasn't sure whether to tug his head up or push it down.

  "No." Dylan arched away, relishing the zing of pain when Mad held tight. "You don't control this. Not tonight."

  Mad closed his eyes and dug his head back against the sheets. "What am I? Self-loathing or self-destruction?"

  "Neither." He was a chance to escape both, if only for a little while, a truth Dylan
realized with a jolt. Words wouldn't do, so he tried to convey it through touch—a kiss to Mad's collarbone, a slow, leisurely lick over his hip. His hand wrapped around the thick, rigid base of his cock.

  Groaning, Mad thrust up into his hand. "Then stop torturing me."

  Torture seemed like a strong word, at least until Dylan squeezed tighter. Mad's dick throbbed in his hand as a drop of moisture pearled at the tip. He licked it away, teasing more than soothing, and bit back his own groan when the man's salty, musky flavor spread over his tongue.

  "Yes." Mad's fingers tightened at the back of his head. "Harder."

  Dylan licked him again, from base to tip, then stopped with his lips an inch away, so that Mad could feel his breath as he spoke. "I'll give you what you want, but only if you tell me which one you're thinking about."

  A snarl vibrated up out of Mad's chest. "Fuck you, Dylan."

  Yes, fuck me. "Tell me, love."

  This time his groan was pure surrender. "Scarlet. I saw Scarlet tonight."

  Of course. Scarlet and her lover were sexy as hell, and both appealed to Mad—and, if he was being brutally honest with himself, to Dylan, as well. But Jade was softer, sweeter. Lusting after her, longing for her, never seemed to put this vicious edge on Mad's hunger the way Scarlet did.

  Dylan hummed encouragingly and sucked Mad's dick into his mouth.

  Mad's hips jerked up, and he bit off a curse. "You're an evil bastard."

  Dylan tightened his hand but lifted his head. "I guess you want me to stop, then."

  "God fucking damn—" The firelight clung lovingly to the muscles in Mad's arms when he clenched his fists in the blankets. "She smelled like cinnamon and vanilla. She smelled like she'd just crawled out of Jade's bed."

  The scent was as familiar to Dylan as Mad's or his own. Thinking about it made his balls ache as he turned his attentions back to Mad's dick and grazed his teeth lightly over the head. "And?"

  "And she touched— Fuck." He was trembling already, need and guilt twisting him up so tight he was helpless as Dylan swallowed him deep. "She touched my face. I had her backed up against a bench. I could have fucked her on it."

  Could have—but didn't. Between the denial and the guilt, no wonder he was so wound up, close to coming even though Dylan had barely touched him.

  He didn't have to prompt anymore. Mad knew this game and only resisted it with the first touches. He was lost in it now, breathing heavily, his eyes closed. "Fast. Fast and hard. She wouldn't let me go slow the first time."

  Not a fucking chance. She did everything that way, wide open, and sex would be no exception. Dylan found himself sucking harder, matching the quick rhythm Scarlet would demand.

  Mad lifted his hips, pushing deeper as his hand found the back of Dylan's head again. "I want to hear the sounds she makes. I want to hear—"

  Dylan pulled free but kept his fist pumping over Mad's cock. "She already has a lover."

  "I know." Mad's groan was desperate. "Just like I know her lover's the one you want in your bed."

  Jade, with her endless curves and her sweet scent. Her haunted eyes. He'd found out by accident—with a murmured, offhand command while she was helping him tend to a patient. But something had flared in her then, a single moment of relief so bright and palpable that it had followed him for weeks.

  He wondered if Scarlet ever gave her that subtle, quiet domination. If she even knew Jade needed it.

  He leaned up and stared down at Mad, whose dark eyes were full of hesitation now as well as lust. "And Jade wants you. She must. Or don't you know why Scarlet tries to tempt you?"

  It was a line too far—or one temptation too many. Mad upended them in a surge of strong muscles and slammed Dylan back to the bed. He settled astride him, his hands rough and hurried as he dragged open his pants. "This is a twisted fucking game."

  "You get off on it." Mad's erection ground against his thigh, still slick from his mouth, and Dylan reached for it.

  "Maybe I'm twisted, too." Mad shifted out of reach, sliding down Dylan's body, hauling his pants with him. He tossed them off the bed and crawled back up until his mouth hovered over Dylan's aching cock. "Isn't that what you like about this?"

  "If it helps." Dylan tangled his fingers in the other man's hair. Sex was a way to pass the time. Games could be fun or frustrating. But Mad—he was beautiful. He burned with life and righteousness, burned so hot you could feel it even through the anguish and guilt.

  Tonight he burned with something else, too. He was determined as he closed his mouth around the head of Dylan's erection. No teasing, no patience. Just lips and tongue and sucking hard as he worked his way lower.

  The drugs could numb Dylan to everything else, but not this. Not the sheer animal pleasure of Mad's mouth or the heat of his desire. He welcomed both, let the waves roll over him until he couldn't stop himself from thrusting up, seeking more.

  Mad moved up with him, staying tauntingly out of reach. "Tell me which one you're thinking about."

  His answer tore free, uncensored. Raw. "You."

  With a groan, Mad surged up his body and claimed his mouth. Hot, deep, his teeth scraping Dylan's lip as their tongues met, tangled. It was perfect, an intimacy even more gut-wrenching than the man's mouth on his dick.

  Dylan wrapped one arm around Mad's flexing back, holding him close, and slipped his other hand between them. "Come with me," he whispered.

  Mad's fingers joined his, warm and eager as they wrapped around Dylan's shaft. They stroked together, faster and rougher, until Mad stiffened and moaned into his mouth. His grip tightened almost painfully, and Dylan followed him into oblivion, coming all over Mad's belly, his own, and their desperate, grasping hands.

  "Fuck." Panting, Mad pressed his forehead to Dylan's. "Fucking hell."

  "Stay." It came from that same raw place, the place where Dylan couldn't close his eyes without hearing Mad's quiet voice.

  "I shouldn't," he replied, the words wrapped in reluctance. "Dallas needs to know what's happening in Two."

  "Tomorrow."

  The fight went out of him, and that was how Dylan knew it was bad. Mad never stopped fighting. "Okay."

  "You deserve this." Dylan caught his chin and forced him to meet his eyes in the dim light. "One night that's just yours."

  The smile was slow to come, but it softened Mad's expression and warmed his gaze. "Will you turn on the damn heat for me?"

  "Mmm, for you." He fumbled for the control on his nightstand and flicked the screen. It took only a few seconds to activate the heating system, and a handful more for the chill in the air to begin to dissipate.

  Soon, the loft was as warm as the bed, and Dylan let it wrap around him, blocking out the rest of the world. There was no more suffering, no political maneuvering, just the steady, reassuring thump of Mad's heart.

  It was enough. More than enough. It was everything.

  Chapter Three

  Lex was the only person in the meeting room when Jade arrived with a basket of warm muffins and her tablet. "These are from Lili." She set the food down in front of the tired-looking queen of Sector Four. "She and Jared got in late last night."

  Lex didn't look up from the map spread across the table—a perfect representation, drawn in Ace's meticulous hand, of Sector Two. "Did you ever think you'd get out, and then have to spend this much time thinking about that fucking place?"

  "No," Jade admitted, because it was the truth. Getting out and never looking back had been the plan from the first day her mother had returned to Rose House, broken-hearted and slowly dying, with Jade's tiny hand clutched in hers. Only seven years old, and Jade had already been too aware of how little security life in Sector Two offered.

  Too aware, and still not aware enough.

  "Eden wants something," Lex murmured. "They've pressed Cerys before, but it's never gone this far."

  Jade slipped into the chair beside Lex's and reached for a muffin. "Two years ago was the worst," she said as she carefully peeled the paper liner from
her breakfast. Focusing on the small, meticulous details of the task gave her the distance to keep her voice flat. "Eden cut our network connection for two weeks, until Cerys agreed to...compromise on their request."

  "What did they want that time? More money, or more girls?"

  It was always one or the other. "More girls. The second-tier bureaucrats wanted the same quality of free companionship that the Council enjoyed." They wanted her, or other girls like her. Jade had been forced to watch, sick with dread, as girls without her emotional protections were marched into Eden like lambs sent to nothing as merciful as a quick slaughter.

  "Of course they did." Lex's chair screeched over the floor as she pushed it back and rose. "Cerys managed to keep that quiet. The fact that we're hearing so much shit now has me worried."

  "Cerys had more control two years ago." The muffin smelled delicious, but Jade's stomach was too unsettled to eat. She set it down and looked up at Lex instead. "How many girls have left now besides me, besides Mia? Cerys keeps her power because of the secrets her girls collect, and there are fewer left who can do the job than ever before."

  "Maybe. But Two's real security has always run deeper." Lex stabbed one red fingernail down on the map, right on the checkpoint coming out of the city. "It's a little bit of Eden out in the sectors."

  "It was," said a low voice from the door. Dallas stepped into the room, his expression grim, but it was the man behind him who made Jade's pulse stutter.

  Adrian Maddox was a beautiful man by the standards of almost any time period. Jade recognized that the same way she objectively recognized her own attractiveness. Classic bone structure, symmetry of features—meaningless things they'd both been born with. They even shared similar coloring—black hair, brown eyes, brown skin, though Mad's was lighter than her own, and so much of it was covered in vivid, beautiful ink.