“If we can buy a little time,” Amos said, “we can gain the help of the other humans here. They won’t stand quietly by while Opiri work to destroy a human delegation.”
“Then it will be all-out war,” a new voice said.
Cassius, who had dismounted from his own horse, approached them with long, aggressive strides.
Instinctively, Timon positioned himself between Cassius and Jamie. “War the Riders have a duty to stop,” he said.
Cassius looked at him the same way he had in the Committee tent. “We will not be forced into the middle of this,” he said. “But we will have justice.” He signaled to the Riders behind and around him. “These people are to be taken into protective custody.”
Chapter 32
“This isn’t necessary,” Timon protested. “A few Riders on duty here will stop any outside interference.”
Cassius ignored him. “Gather your things, Councilman Parks. We will provide you with new accommodations near our headquarters, where no one can harm you.”
“Are we under arrest?” Parks asked calmly.
“You will be safe,” Cassius said.
“No,” Jamie said. “You can’t believe—”
“Jamie,” Timon said. He guided her away from the others. “Cassius won’t back down now. Fighting them will only turn all the Riders against you.”
“They aren’t against us already?”
“Cassius is our—their captain, but every one of them follows him by choice. If they see Cassius treating you with anything less than complete neutrality, there may be disagreements among them, to our benefit.”
“You called the Riders with that howl, didn’t you? You knew what would happen.”
“I knew there was no other choice but to have the protection of the Riders, one way or another. The Administrative Committee may have ordered this, in any case.”
“And you? What would you have done if you led the Riders?”
He held her gaze. “I would have taken you away from here.”
“Regardless of who might be guilty?”
Orpheus found them before he could answer and nodded briefly to Timon. “I’m sorry, Ms. McCullough. You must come with us.”
“We’re coming,” Timon said. He took a firm grip on Jamie’s arm and led her to the delegation members who stood waiting with their duffels and packs. Leading their horses between the tents, the Riders escorted Timon and the group through the human precinct to the central Hub. They continued on to the smaller of the two meeting tents.
“This will be your residence for the time being,” Cassius said, addressing Amos. “Guards will be assigned to this tent. You will be safe.” He then turned to Timon. “You have no place here.”
“I can choose my own place now,” Timon said.
Cassius gestured for Orpheus and another Rider to take charge of Timon.
“What will you do to him?” Jamie said.
“He will not be harmed, unless he resists,” Cassius said, turning to walk away.
“Don’t fight them,” Jamie said urgently to Timon. “Get outside. Try to find out what else you can.”
“I can’t leave you here.”
“And I can’t leave the others.”
“Come on, Timon,” Orpheus said. He looked at Jamie. “Don’t worry, Ms. McCullough. Timon still has friends.”
Timon took Jamie’s hand and squeezed. “I will be back,” he said.
To Timon’s considerable surprise, Orpheus let him go once they were out of the tent, and Timon wasted no time surveying the area.
Small groups of Opiri lingered in the daylight, muttering under their hoods, and humans moved among their various delegations, concern and anger in their voices.
As the day wore on, things began to change. Donor stations were closed down. Mounted Riders moved through both precincts and picked up both small groups of humans and of Opiri, herding them toward Rider headquarters. Word soon spread that humans and Opiri believed to be infected were being quarantined. The mood in the encampment deteriorated from suspicion and anger to a smothered sense of panic, with humans and Opiri lined up on opposite sides of the thoroughfare hurling taunts at one another.
No human had yet been charged with introducing the virus, not even Cahill...at least not publicly. But the Conclave was falling apart before Timon’s eyes. More Opiri were found dead. The first human fatality was discovered in the late afternoon, a man’s body with his throat torn out.
Timon had seen enough. He strode to the Wanderer’s camp, whose members were packing to leave, and spoke with Caridad. Within the hour he had traveling gear and enough food to last one human for at least two weeks.
Wearing his Rider’s jacket, he easily made it to the corral and separated Lazarus and one of the spare horses from the rest. He led them beneath the canopy that served as shade for the animals, saddled them and tied on the packs. Any Riders passing by afterward would assume that the horses were to be used in a foray away from the tent city. It wasn’t as easy getting near the Enclave’s new “quarters.” The tent had been set up to take in some of the quarantined humans, and Riders were everywhere. Timon donned a hooded daycoat as sunset approached and slipped among the Opiri and humans swarming around Rider headquarters, each group staying well apart from the others. Raised voices demanded answers and hurled accusations.
Then Timon waited outside Rider headquarters, watching for Orpheus. He’d almost given up hope of finding his friend when the Rider arrived at the Hub with three frightened humans. As he dismounted, other Riders took charge of the humans and led them away.
“Orpheus,” Timon hissed. “I need your help.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like this,” Orpheus said with a weary expression.
Timon had known the risk was considerable, but Orpheus heard him out. The Rider was obviously disturbed by the work he’d been assigned, rounding up humans and Opiri like cattle, and Timon’s worry that Orpheus might betray him quickly passed.
“How do you think you can get away?” Orpheus asked when Timon finished sharing his plan.
“A distraction is all I ask. I’ll take my chances with the rest of it.”
Two hours after nightfall, Orpheus created the necessary distraction. Riders were pulled away from their posts, and people recently taken into custody took the opportunity to run off.
Carrying his Rider’s coat under his arm, Timon walked boldly through the milling crowd and ducked in between two quarreling Opiri at the last moment, running at a crouch toward the back of the quarantine tent. He pulled his knife and cut a slit in the back of the tent, just large enough for a person to pass through.
He squeezed through the opening and scanned the inside. It was overcrowded, and most of the humans remained with the groups they’d arrived with. Timon quickly spotted the San Francisco delegation.
Discarding his daycoat and hiding his jacket, he moved casually among the humans, none of whom paid him the slightest attention. Jamie and Amos were seated on one of the risers, locked deep in conversation.
“Jamie,” Timon whispered. “I need to speak to you.”
She broke off, glanced at Timon and touched Amos’s hand. “I’ll be back soon,” she said, climbing down from the riser. Timon took her hand and led her to the rear of the tent.
“We have to go outside,” he said. “Act normally. Don’t call any attention to yourself.”
“What’s going on, Timon?” she asked.
He pulled her through the tent’s slit without answering. Once they were outside, he shrugged into his jacket, seized her hand and started toward the Riders’ corral.
“Where are we going?” Jamie asked.
The area around the corral was one of the darkest in the tent city. A dozen Rider horses stomped and shifted uneasily inside the fence, disturbe
d by the noise and the tension in the air. Timon’s two horses were still tied beneath the canopy.
“We’re leaving the encampment,” he said, opening the gate.
Jamie held on to one of the gateposts. “I can’t leave. Not while Amos and—”
Timon swept her up in his arms, carried her to the spare horse and tossed her up onto the animal’s back. He was on Lazarus before she could dismount. He grabbed her horse’s reins and rode through the gate.
Jamie could have ruined it all by shouting for help. But she remained quiet, her face pale and set, while Timon guided both horses around the outside of the corral and turned north. He kicked his mount into a canter, and Jamie’s mount willingly followed.
After a moment she took control of her horse and caught up with him.
“What are you doing?” she asked. “We have to go back!”
“Not if you value your life,” he said. “I do.”
After an hour of fast riding and no sign of pursuit, Timon brought the horses to a halt. He lifted Jamie out of the saddle, left her near a tall cottonwood and walked the horses to cool them down and let them drink from the river.
“Here,” he said, offering Jamie his canteen. She turned her face away.
“We’re not going back,” he said roughly, “so you’d better resign yourself.”
She glared at him. “Why are you doing this?”
“Your life is in danger. I think that Cassius leaked the information about the virus to the camp, in order to create the chaos that’s tearing the Conclave apart.”
Her eyes widened. “How do you know that?”
“I honestly believed he could be trusted with knowledge of the virus and carry out a reasonable investigation. Instead he’s allowed the rumors to grow and become dangerous. He’s rounding up humans and Opiri, confining them under guard without explanation.” He hesitated. “He’s not the man I knew.”
“What could he have to gain by this?”
“I don’t know. It makes no sense to me.”
Jamie was quiet. “Do you think he was going to claim that I released the virus?”
“I think there’s a distinct possibility he’d put the blame on you, and on Cahill.”
“Do you have doubts that Greg is guilty?”
“I have doubts about everything, at this point.”
“Where is Greg?”
“I don’t know, but the fact that Cassius hasn’t released him is telling. My guess is that he planned to formally arrest you very soon.”
“To appease the Opiri?”
“It’s too late to stop what’s happening. But if he put you on trial, I don’t think all the other humans would stand by and let him mete out punishment, whatever the Committee’s agreement with the Riders. The chaos would only increase.” He crouched before Jamie. “I should never have trusted Cassius, Jamie. I won’t ask you to forgive me. But I do ask that you let me save you.”
Chapter 33
All the fight went out of Jamie...at least all the desire to fight Timon. She studied his face in the moonlight, remembering everything she had loved about him. And still loved. He had saved her life again.
“If you help me, if you go against the Riders, you can never go back to them,” she said at last.
“I know.” He offered her a canteen, and she drank. His gaze never left hers. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t still have friends among them. One helped us escape, and most of the others believe strongly in fairness and justice. If I can get to them—”
“And tell them what?” Jamie asked with a feeling of despair. “We still don’t know who did spread the virus. There must be a clue, somewhere...”
She reached inside her jacket’s inner pocket and withdrew her mother’s journal. With a sense of desperation and futility, she began searching through it again, straining to read Eileen’s minute handwriting on the pages before and after her notations about the virus.
“Let me look,” Timon said. He reached for the journal before she was ready to let it go, and for a moment each of them held one half of the cover. Jamie gasped as the binding tore, and the back cover was ripped off.
Timon let go immediately. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t—” He broke off and stared at the ground. On the weedy clay soil lay a tightly rolled and flattened piece of paper that had fallen out of the journal’s damaged spine.
Snatching it up, Jamie unfolded it with shaking fingers. “It’s from my mother,” she said, her gaze sweeping over the page.
“What is it?” Timon asked, leaning toward her.
“Take it,” she said.
He accepted the browned paper carefully and read the notes. “Your mother had access to a sample of the virus after it was supposedly destroyed,” he said slowly. “We already knew that. But here it says that she gave it to the Erebusians so that they could formulate a cure should the virus ever be recreated.” He met Jamie’s eyes. “She wasn’t the only one who had it all this time.”
“Maybe the Erebusians did invent a cure,” she said, getting to her feet. “Timon, a majority of Erebusians have always opposed peace. They suffered when the Enclave cut off their supply of blood-serfs, but they wouldn’t settle for any compromise. What if they had something to do with the deaths in the Conclave?”
“Killing their own kind?” Timon said, rising to face her.
“Except for a brief time when a more liberal government took over,” she said, “Erebus has always lived by the traditional rules of Opiri—challenging, killing and being killed in order to rise in rank and power. If they could justify it, they might return to the old ways of raiding human settlements for blood. Why shouldn’t they kill to put an end to a peace they don’t want?”
Timon stared at her. “You know what you’re implying?”
“Yes. Maybe we’ve been looking for the culprit in the wrong place.” She took the paper from him, folded it up again and grabbed both his hands. “Think, Timon. The Riders travel all over the West. Have you been to Erebus recently?”
His breath erupted in a curse. “Yes. Four months ago, my band traveled to Erebus with a message from the Citadel of Ambrus in old Arizona. We didn’t know the contents of the message, but we spent several days camping outside the walls.”
“Was there anything strange about your stay there?”
“Yes. The Erebusian government had released about fifty of their serfs and had given them a settlement outside the Citadel where they could live in relative freedom. They were still asked to share their blood, but they weren’t living as slaves.”
“That is completely out of character for them,” Jamie said. “The Bloodlords would never voluntarily give up their serfs.”
“It seemed so to me. But these humans offered blood to my band. Including me.”
Jamie blinked. “If Erebus had access to the virus...”
Timon finished her sentence. “They could have infected the humans, and by extension infected the Riders, as well, knowing that half-bloods would become carriers without suffering any ill effects.”
“And if you were infected at Erebus, you could have infected me, Timon. Considering that our delegates have been contributing blood at the donor stations, it’s possible that they didn’t get the virus directly at the Enclave.”
“You’re right, Jamie,” Timon said, moving his hands to her shoulders. “Now we have something concrete to work with.”
With a grin she couldn’t suppress, Jamie flung her arms around Timon. She felt his instant of hesitation, and then his arms were around her, as well, and he was kissing her. The flood of relief turned to raw desire, and she ground her mouth against his.
Like the last time, there was urgency in their lovemaking. They were still fugitives, and might be found any time.
Jamie didn’t care. She wriggled out of her clothes as qu
ickly as she could, and soon both she and Timon were naked.
She pushed him down onto his back and knelt with her knees to either side of his thighs, taking his cock in both hands. She caressed the satiny head with her thumb, and Timon groaned.
“You like that,” she said, a little shyly.
“Do you want me to prove it to you?” he asked, beginning to sit up.
She forced him back down with her hands on his shoulders. “I like it this way,” she said, keeping her grip on him as she leaned over, her breasts brushing his chest, the tip of his cock stroking her stomach.
“Do you like this?” she asked, trapping his cock between them as she offered him her breast.
He caught her nipple in his mouth and suckled hungrily. Jamie felt in control and yet helpless, feeling as though she couldn’t get enough of the sensation of his tongue on her nipple, the licking and tugging as his hands came up to cradle her breast.
She adjusted her position, sliding forward so that his cock came to rest between her spread thighs. The friction was intensely pleasurable. Just a little shift, a little movement on Timon’s part...
He raised his hips, and his cock pushed inside her, impaling her as she settled on top of him. It was different than the other times, a strange and heady feeling of dominance. She lifted her body and came down on him again, accepting him deep inside.
They worked in tandem, refining their rhythm until they seemed like a single being. When he moved too fast, she slowed him down by easing away; she teased him by hovering over him, only to impale herself again. He kissed her, thrusting his tongue inside her mouth when she bent over him, and he cupped her breasts in his hands when she leaned back again.
She recognized when she was coming close to completion and felt the tension in his body that gave him away. But she didn’t want it to end so soon. As if he’d heard her thoughts, Timon grasped her waist and lifted her off, rolling to the side until he was on top.
But he didn’t stop there. He lifted her again and positioned her facedown, on her hands and knees. She knew immediately what was to come, and the idea of him dominating her made her even wetter. He knelt behind her, caressing her buttocks, bending to kiss and lick them. Then his finger was inside her, testing her, making her ready.
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