by Moira Rogers
He wasn’t about to share the fact that he’d had Devi in his bed, not when an unacceptable amount of his attention was already devoted to how to get her back there. “If that happens, we’ll deal with it. But I don’t think she’s straying far from Cache right now, and Cache won’t leave Trip.”
Lorenzo conceded the point with a nod. “Not right now, she won’t.”
Zel hesitated before leaning closer. “If it comes to a question of character, would you stand for Cache? You’ve been in her head, and the council will trust you.”
“Is she really the one they’ll be most concerned about?”
Tension shot through him, and it was a struggle to keep from curling his fingers around the table until it bent under the pressure. “If they have a problem with Devi, I’ll handle it. But she’s not the one who’s going to be playing in the heart of our network.”
“And I don’t know if you’ve realized it, but Cache trusts Devi enough to follow her orders blindly. If total access to our network is what Devi wants, she can easily get it.”
Hailey slapped Zel’s arm and shot Lorenzo a glare. “Enough. This is a discussion for private, and may I remind you both that I am fully capable of vouching for Devi’s reliability?”
It would take a bigger fool than Zel to remind Hailey that her judgment was considered compromised, especially when he still wasn’t entirely sure her threats of premature labor had been a joke. “You’re right.”
Lorenzo wasn’t as quick to concede. “The council will accept my recommendation about Cache, but they’ll want to meet with Devi.”
They’d have to meet with her, if only to make trade arrangements, but the knowledge grated on Zel. For the first time his own people seemed like a threat—not the direct threat of a challenge from a fellow warrior, but something darker. More insidious. Even the cantankerous old artisan stirred gusts of irritation that could spin into a whirlwind of rage with little provocation.
The storm raged close to the surface today. Dangerously close, and there was nothing he could do to contain it short of giving in to the instincts born of demon blood.
Instinct wanted Devi. Safe, under him, her body his to pleasure as he wished.
Zel had seen the strength in her. She’d been aggressive in bed, challenging and ready to take what she wanted. It turned him on more than he was comfortable admitting…but he wasn’t just a man. He would never be just a man, and the tempest inside him fed on challenges.
Fingers brushed his arm. “Zel?”
Hailey. He identified her voice and the soft feel of her power. With his demonic instincts roused, he could taste the summoner blood in her, the heritage that made her vulnerable to demons and their offspring. For years that weakness had been muted, suppressed by her bond with her husband, but the mark of his magic was fading now, which meant Zel had a heavily pregnant second-in-command whose mind could be overpowered by any halfblood.
One more problem to add to the never-ending list. “I’m fine.”
One look at his face, and Lorenzo rose to dismiss the council. “We’ll reconvene in three days’ time. Make inventories of what you need, ranked in order of necessity and importance, and we’ll collect them for consideration.”
In an irritating turn, no one argued with Lorenzo. Instead, they milled about and filed out, grumbling quietly.
Lorenzo was infuriatingly businesslike. “They’ll be even easier to deal with once they see results from the runs, and Devi should have plenty of volunteers for them. Hell, I’d go myself if you could spare me.”
“Zel.” Hailey again, and this time her voice held a world of worry that scraped his nerves. “Are you all right?”
He had to get away from her. His chair scuffed across the floor, and he rose and measured the width of the room in four long strides. “We haven’t discussed your mark.”
“I don’t have a mark,” she replied in a steady voice. “I’m a widow.”
Zel pivoted and looked at Lorenzo. “Can you feel the difference now?”
He tipped his head in a slight nod of acknowledgment. “I can, but I’m not sure what it has to do with the matter at hand.”
It didn’t, except that noticing it at all was a symptom of the real problem. “I thought I had it locked down. I’m not so sure anymore.”
Lorenzo snorted. “Because we all try to fool ourselves, Zel. There’s no locking it down. You can hold the demon in for a while, but he’ll always break free.”
Zel had never given in to the true madness of the maelstrom. That implied a lack of control, which was intolerable. No, he’d always held a comfortable truce with the darker side of his nature, an agreement that the violence stayed locked up tight until he could use it. In the past, it had meant going out of the compound. Solitary hunting trips, where he fought and killed and reveled in the viciousness of his true nature.
Seven long months had passed since the last trip. Seven months with his skin growing tighter, and now here was Devi, stirring instincts he couldn’t control. “Fuck. Fuck.”
Lorenzo continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “My advice is to talk to her. She seems like a reasonable sort of woman.”
So she could run screaming? “Asking a woman to be reasonable about this is too damn much.”
“Bullshit.” Hailey didn’t sound worried anymore; she sounded pissed. She spun in her chair and leveled a finger at Zel, her delicate face alight with fierce anger. “I’d remind you, my great Lord Wetzel, that plenty of women climb into bed with halfblood warriors every day in your precious city. I bound myself to one. I gave him power over my body, mind and soul.”
“Hailey, I didn’t mean—”
She raised her voice and rode right over him. “I felt the violence inside him every day in a way no one else could, and I still loved him. I loved him, violence and all. So don’t you dare infantilize women! Don’t you dare make us all unreasonable cowards, you conceited ass—” Her voice cut off in a hiss of pain as she pressed a hand to the curve of her belly.
Lorenzo moved quickly to wrap an arm around her. “Come on, honey. It’s been a big day, and the kid needs his rest.”
“Our leader needs a boot to his ass.”
“Be that as it may,” Lorenzo laughed, “it’s not your job to supply it. Leave that to the rest of us.”
Hailey scowled in response, but she let Lorenzo help her to her feet and capitulated to his deft handling.
Women always did.
When they were gone, Zel turned his attention to the empty conference room. Battered leather chairs surrounded the scarred table, and he used the ritual of straightening each one to gather the tattered edges of his control. Under his fingers the leather seemed fragile, thin and worn, with fine cracks showing in spite of the meticulous repair.
Not unlike his town. They were struggling to patch up the places falling apart, but Rochester was showing the cracks of fifty years of use. The council was proof enough, old people chosen decades ago based on their skills and knowledge. Maybe at the time they’d been the right people for the job, but even the youngest remembered life before the Fall. They struggled to recreate the culture they’d lost, a miniature underground replica of a world too far gone to snatch back.
Zel had to live in the present. Had to deal with the reality of halfbloods and summoners and humans, living together and working alongside one another. Breeding, creating a new race with magic and power unlike anything humanity had seen. There was no place for the old world in Rochester.
Frustration arced through him and brought the simmering violence to the surface again. With a snarl, he jerked one of the leather chairs out and sank into it. He didn’t need the signal boost of VR glasses to connect to Rochester’s local network, so he closed his eyes and relaxed until he could make the mental leap.
The common area was deserted, and Trip stuck his head out of the spacious office he’d set off to one side. “Wasn’t expecting you until later.”
Zel bypassed the doors that led to various parts of Rochester�
��s virtual community and headed straight for Trip. “How are you doing? Getting Cache oriented to how things work?”
“No, I—”
A slender brunette popped out of the doorway, but it wasn’t Cache. “Hi, Zel,” Marci said brightly. “I was just about to ping you.”
In spite of her too-wide smile and her easy eyes, worry stole over him. “Nothing’s wrong, is it? You and Gabe are still safe in Hutchinson?”
“Absolutely.” Some of the light faded from her expression. “I should be finished with their network optimization in a few days, and we can head back.”
“No rush,” Trip interjected. “At least not on my account.”
“I want to be here,” she protested. “Be there. Whatever.”
For Trip, presumably, whose body remained comatose even though he’d resumed his daily activities inside the network. But Hutchinson was a long drive across barren territory. Gabe might be a halfblood, but his skills lent themselves more to diplomacy—or seduction—than battle and warfare.
If trouble with Nicollet broke open, he didn’t want the two of them caught in the open with no shelter. “Why don’t you stay where you are for another week? Things are unsettled enough to warrant a little caution.”
She wanted to argue, but she sighed and nodded. “I’ll tell Gabe.”
One worry off the table, at least. “Good. And everything else is going smoothly? They have the hardware parts Trip wanted you to bring back?”
“Everything, even a few extras I managed to negotiate in exchange for some new custom avatars.”
Marci was wide eyed. Excited. Not so long ago she’d been in Devi’s shoes, a woman torn from life in the city and thrust into the world of outcasts. But Marci had never been human. She’d given up a life of terror for one of freedom.
Devi was giving up freedom for something else. For Cache. For him.
He needed to be worth it, which meant he needed to clear his damn head. “Can you spare Trip for a few minutes? I need him to set me up with a training scenario.”
Trip squinted at him. “The usual, or something more intense?”
The usual involved all-out warfare against a demon raiding party, which would hold an unpleasant edge of self-hatred under the current circumstances. “Surprise me. Didn’t you find some scary monsters in that box of second-gen games we traded for?”
That garnered a laugh from Marci. “In the mood to slay some dragons?”
His skin itched, even in the network. “With my bare fucking hands.”
Trip looked down at the ever-present data pad in his hand. “How about a broadsword instead?”
The garage bustled with activity as men from the settlement loaded and secured cargo under Juliet’s direction. Devi yawned and watched Tanner go over his pre-trip checklist. “Zel said there were more volunteers than you could take on five trips.”
“Mmm.” He glanced up from the sturdy tablet in his hand and tilted his head toward the trucks. “Not to mention the mother lode of medical supplies these people are sitting on. Ruiz and Cache hit their contacts hard and came up with enough offers in twenty-four hours to keep us in runs for six months, just off the surplus Rochester’s willing to get rid of.”
More than enough for them to rake in the money, even if they took a discounted commission. “I already spoke to Juliet. Are you okay with making this our base of operations for now?”
He didn’t answer right away. His gaze fell once more to his handheld, his fingers tapping something on the screen as if buying time to think. Only the slight tightening of his jaw and his white-knuckled grip on the electronics gave away his tension. “You’ve earned the right to ask personal questions. They haven’t. If crashing here between runs means answering them, I may have to move along after this one.”
She wanted to ask what he could possibly have to answer to any of them about, but she only nodded. “If you decide to go, I want you to take one of the trucks. Start your own crew.”
That got his attention. “Shit, Dev. Are you settling down or something?”
“No,” she denied quickly, her cheeks heating. “But Juliet and I can only run one truck. No need in the other rotting when it could be of use.”
The answer didn’t seem to appease him but he didn’t push, only gave a short nod and gestured with the data pad in his hand. “Cache said she’ll be checking in with us, but I kinda doubt she’ll remember. I’ve never seen her like this before.”
She’d been focused on Trip and his situation to the literal exclusion of almost everything else. “Not surprising. She needs this the way you need the road, Tanner.”
“Needs to be needed, you mean?” The corner of his mouth kicked up in a tiny smile. “Lights her up. Thought I saw hints of the old Nell in there, hiding under all the hard Cache edges. Not surprising you wanna keep her here.”
If only it were that simple. “She wants to stay. I wouldn’t try to make her if she didn’t.”
“I know, Devi. Didn’t mean it like that. I meant…” A shrug. “I get it, okay?”
“Yeah.” Devi knew herself well enough. “I want to stay. For now, just—just to see. But if there was the slightest chance Cache only wanted to stay because I do, I’d be leaving with you guys.”
“Never doubted it.” If it was a lie, it was a good one. Tanner smiled easily and executed one of his inimitable changes in topic. “Anyway, I’m better off with you here. There are some fine-looking ladies among our volunteers, and I don’t need you running off the possible mother of my children with stories of my many flaws.”
He put up a good front, but she saw through it. “I’d be more likely to find the future mother of your children knitting or making soap than climbing on one of our trucks for an adventure.”
“And that’s why you’ll never be bouncing one of my brats on your knee.” Tanner held out a hand. “Take care, Dev. Of yourself too.”
“Same to you. Don’t let Juliet trample all over you.”
“But her tiny little boot prints look so sexy running up and down my back.”
He was impossible. Devi rolled her eyes and waved him away. “Get your ass in the truck.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He tossed her a cocky salute before turning to stride to the nearer truck.
Devi’s strongest instinct was to take over preparations, make sure everything was ready before the trucks rolled out into the morning sun. But that wasn’t her job, not right now.
So she headed for the exit to the stairs, silently reciting the path through the tunnel system to keep from losing her way. Four corridors later, she turned the corner and crashed into Zel.
He caught her with a hand on her hip and another on her shoulder, and a slow, warm smile curved his lips. “I was just coming up there to look for you. Everything look good?”
“What? Yes.” His smile—and his proximity—made it hard to breathe. “They’re finishing preparations now. Not much for me to do at this point but stand on the sidelines.”
“They can call if they need you. All the soldiers know how to get in touch with me.” Zel put his hands on her shoulders and turned her. “I’ve got something else for you to look at.”
“Really? And what’s that?”
“Rochester.”
He seemed so proud, and she smiled as his excitement warmed her. “Time for the grand tour?”
“Or an abbreviated version.” The next turn led to a shallow staircase, and he guided her to the wide doors at the bottom. “It goes on for miles down here. The main buildings were part of a clinic, but there were hotels, shops, businesses… A whole underground city.”
“Do you use these areas now?”
“We have to. We used to have a lot of room to spread out, but after fifty years down here…” He paused, his hand hovering just over the scanner. “Well, that first decade, all anyone did was have babies, I think.”
“Not surprising.” The relief and desperation that came along with surviving a near-apocalypse would do it. Add in the isolation and need for co
mfort, and she’d have been shocked to hear of anyone not reaching out for solace in another’s arms. “That’s why most of the cities have instituted mandatory contraception.”
“Involuntary contraception, you mean.” He pressed his hand to the small panel, and the door locks disengaged with a quiet click. “Way I’ve heard it, only the newly minted upper class is allowed to pass on their genes.”
“You have to have sufficient resources and training, in theory.” In reality, those who wanted children had to be prepared to pay the right officials under the table. “It’s not something I think about a lot. My job is too dangerous. They’d never give me a license, no matter who I bribed.”
Something odd flickered through his eyes, something almost like longing, but it disappeared as he dropped his hand to the door. “Things are different here” was all he said as he pushed it wide.
It opened onto a long, broad hallway lined with shops and stands. Some bore row after row of colorful fruits and vegetables heaped in woven baskets or strings of fish and smoked meats. Others were laden with cloth and shoes, even jewelry.
It was early, and merchants were still pushing carts and building displays, but the hall was filling fast with people, chattering as they browsed and bartered. It was nothing like the well-ordered stores in Nicollet, self-contained and sanitized, and Devi found herself smiling.
The scents of cooking rose and mingled in the air. “Are you going to feed me breakfast, Zel?”
“Whatever you want.” His hand settled at the small of her back and urged her into the chaos. “We have hydroponic gardens and a few fish ponds, and warriors make effective hunting parties. For being so far off the grid, we do pretty well, I think.”
The pride that had colored his voice earlier now radiated undeniably from him. “There are a lot of things here I can’t even get in Nicollet.”
“How do you feel about omelets?”
“Delicious, when I can get them.” They passed a row of plucked and cleaned chickens. “Which domestic animals do you raise?”
“Chickens and goats. We mostly keep them for milk and eggs as well as for meat. This was farm country too. Lot of livestock went feral, and we’ve been hunting them for years.”