Love Starts With Z

by Tera Shanley

  She shouldn’t answer. Instead, she should forget about the feelings that churned inside of her, creating a hell for both of them and casting them into dangerous waters.

  “Soren,” he growled, stepping closer until the coming sunrise was blotted out by his imposing frame. “Do you care about me like I think you do?”

  “I shouldn’t.”

  His voice dipped low, deep and sensual. “But you do?”

  Unable to find her voice, she nodded.

  He placed a gentle finger under her chin and ran it over the strap of her muzzle. “You’re mine then.”

  “Yours?” Tears burned her eyes, and she blinked them away. “How could I ever be yours? I can’t even kiss you. Not really. I can’t be with you. I can’t touch you like I want to.”

  He cupped her face with the palm of his hand and kissed her forehead. His lips lingered there, and she closed her eyes and sighed. Nothing could touch her when he held her like this.

  “We’ll find a way to be together.”

  Shaking her head in denial, she whispered, “Not without the muzzle. We’re a package deal if you really want to be with me. I hate it. I hate wearing it, but I will if it’ll keep you safe.”

  Resting his forehead on hers, he squeezed his eyes tightly closed. “I miss seeing you. It feels like you’re hiding behind it. I don’t ever want you to hide from me.”

  Sliding his hand up the back of her neck and tugging her hair until she looked up at him, he searched her eyes before leaning forward and kissing her on the cheek. For such a hard man, his kiss was unexpected. His lips softened, hesitating for just a moment before he pulled away. When he eased back, his eyes seemed to question if what he was doing was all right. His grip on her hair tightened, and he dragged her waist to him with the other hand, then dipped his mouth to her neck, where he nibbled his way down the length of it.

  Frantically, she gripped the fabric of his shirt as his lips traveled down her collar bone. She was melting. At any moment, she’d disappear into him, and she couldn’t find it in her to care.

  Click. The snap on the back of her muzzle loosened, and the contraption fell away.

  “Kaegan,” she whispered against his neck. God, he smelled so good. “Kaegan?”

  “Mmm?” His teeth grazed her shoulder, and she bucked forward with a gasp.

  “Kaegan!” The word had come out a snarl, gravelly and inhuman, and she ducked his embrace and snatched the muzzle from the patch of weeds it had fallen into. As fast as her shaking hands could manage, she fastened it in place and rounded on him. “Don’t manipulate me again. I’m not asking for much. You can get the vaccine and have all of me, or you can deal with the muzzle. It’s your choice, but stop testing my strength. You don’t have any idea what I can and can’t handle, but I can tell you this.” She spun on her heel and said over her shoulder, “I can’t handle killing you.” She stomped off in a fog of worry and irritation. Did the man have a death wish?

  The others were easy enough to find because Colten and Mark were arguing over coordinates and maps.

  “You’re both wrong,” Adrianna said. “The goal’s to get to the Crow, right?”

  “What’s the Crow?” Soren asked as she leaned against the tree near Adrianna, who was tying her boot.

  “It’s what will get us the greatest distance the fastest.”

  “And safest,” Kaegan agreed, coming up behind her. “They got the trains running ten years back, but nobody rides them. They are just black market supply trains that run near some of the biggest colonies. They call it the Crow Train on account of all of the scavenger birds following the Deads attracted to the noise on the tracks. The conductors are all hellions and criminals, so how do you propose we convince them to board us? We have nothing of value to trade.”

  “Let me worry about that,” Adrianna said, standing. “First we have to get ourselves to the La Junta colony if we’re going to have a shot at jumping it. The trains have to stop there to refuel. And if we’re lucky, we can get one to take us within a few days’ walk of the coast.”

  “I don’t know,” Mark drawled. “If the Crow Train is black market, it will have attracted a seedy population. Are we sure we want to risk getting that close?”

  Adrianna sneered. “I suppose we could just walk the entire way, you wuss, but keep in mind, Deads aren’t the only dangers hunting in these woods. Not anymore. The longer we’re on foot, the bigger the risk.”

  Kaegan clicked on a flashlight and pointed the beam down a mountain pass on the plastic protected map. “There’s our best bet to get to La Junta then. It’s the right season for traveling it, and we won’t be scaling any hills on the way down.”

  Colten turned the map and set a handheld compass on the edge. With a frown of concentration, he pointed east. “This way, but we’ll have to be quiet about it. The monsters will be looking for an easy way up and down this mountain too, and this is a natural trail.”

  Mark folded the map, and Soren sidestepped the group and led the way through the brush. She could almost feel Kaegan’s gaze on her back. If she’d angered him earlier, she didn’t know, nor did she purport to know the inner workings of a normal red-blooded man.

  All she knew was he scared her, now more than ever.

  Chapter Fourteen

  ADRIANNA STOOD ABOVE SOREN, pulling her hair back with one hand and swatting at a mosquito with the other. River water rushed through Soren’s fingers as she refilled her canteen, refreshing after the long afternoon of walking. On the edge of civilization, or the remnants of it, they’d stopped to rest before making their way through the Dead zone. The monsters still hung around old cities. Maybe they had lived there once, and when food became scarce, they migrated back to where their instincts deemed comfortable. Or perhaps it was the disease telling the deteriorating brain the best chance for finding food was around buildings built by the meat bags they dined on. Either way, the ruins of the damned housed horrors, and they were on a war path to blaze directly through the fray.

  “Do you hear that?” Colten asked from his seated position against a towering pine.

  “No,” Adrianna said, then took a long drag from the canteen Soren handed her.

  “You shouldn’t drink after that,” Mark said.

  “Well, given that I’ve been drinking after her since I took the vaccine when I was seven, I’m pretty sure if I haven’t croaked and turned into a moaner by now, I’m good.”

  Ben kneeled beside his pack, zipping up the largest compartment. “Whatever that sound is, it’s creepy. Do you think it’s from a colony?”

  Low metallic groaning echoed off the mountain, stopped, then screeched to life again like some haunting apparition singing her discontent with her demise.

  “Have you ever been to the cities before?” Soren asked.

  Shaking his head, Ben said, “Never. I was born in a colony up north and only traveled to the Denver colony for training. We didn’t see any cities on the way in. Have you?”

  “My dad and Sean took us on supply runs when we were old enough. I’ve seen the Denver ruins but that’s it.”

  “Mark,” Kaegan said coldly, “If you call Soren that again, I’m going to lob your head off.” If it weren’t for the calculating expression on his stony face, Soren would’ve thought he was joking.

  He arched an eyebrow. Nope, not kidding.

  Mark stood, his dark eyes narrowing to slits. “I don’t get you. Of all of the virile women on the planet, you pick a genetic dead end. She’s not even hot, Kaegan. She looks like one of those corpses we’re always braining. You can’t tell me when you look at her you see someone attractive.”

  Kaegan’s jaw ticked. “Keep talking, Mark.”

  “It’s the muzzle isn’t it? It adds a little mystery? A little danger? Or maybe you like banging murderers, I don’t know. I can’t figure—”

  Kaegan’s fist connected with Mark’s nose, and a disgusting crack of broken bone filled the clearing. Mark hit the ground hard, and Kaegan was right there, pu
mmeling him before Soren could even register that he’d moved from his casual stance yards away. Gads, he was fast. Cobra strike fast, and if she didn’t do something, he was going to kill the insulting little weasel.

  Apparently Ben and Adrianna thought the same because all three of them dove for Kaegan at the same time. Ben was bucked off easily, but even through a haze of blood lust, Kaegan seemed to have enough of his head that he didn’t fling her or Adrianna with the same brute strength.

  “Stop. Stop it!” she said, steel in her voice. “Let him say what he wants. They’re just words.”

  “No!” Kaegan said, pushing off Mark’s coughing frame. “They aren’t just words to me. I’ve had to watch people talk to you like this since the day I met you. We left Dead Run River, and I thought we’d be clear of it, but then Colten mouths off too much for his own damned good…”

  “Hey,” Colten said halfheartedly. He still hadn’t moved from his seated position by the bank, like Kaegan beating the peas out of someone was just another Tuesday.

  “…And now I have to listen to this asshole insult you? No. I’m not doing it anymore, and anyone who doesn’t like it can turn back.” He jammed an accusing finger at Mark. “This team isn’t a team if you’re relentlessly bashing what you perceive as the weakest link. Which she’s not, by the way. I’ve watched her fight—you haven’t had the privilege yet. Your taunts are on borrowed time, my friend, because she could gut you quicker than you can snap your damned fingers, and if she doesn’t feel like it, I’ll do it myself if I have to hear you cutting her down at every turn.” His voice dipped to a growl. “Don’t…test me.”

  Adrianna had dug an apple from her pack and crunched into it. Around the bite, she said, “Soren, your boyfriend is hot.”

  “He’s not my—”

  Kaegan threw her the coldest glare over his shoulder. Oh, hang it then.

  “You broke my nose!” Mark clutched the injury with two cupped, blood covered hands.

  “Surely you see you had that coming, right?” Adrianna asked. “When a furious looking giant tells you to keep talking, it’s a warning, not a dare.”

  “If you knew the truth about Soren, you wouldn’t defend her!” Blood gushed from Mark’s nose as he used his hands to push him up.

  “Mark,” Adrianna warned, stepping toward him.

  “No, I want to hear this,” Colten said, dusting leaves from his pants as he stood.

  “You should. All of you should know exactly what you’re traveling with. What you’re sleeping next to and trusting with your lives in battle.”

  Kaegan turned, his throat working as his eyes landed on her.

  Horrified, she whispered, “Stop.”

  “When we were little, vaccines were scarce. The only people vaccinated were experiments to determine the side effects, so most of us were still exposed to the virus—to Soren. Drew Jacobs was a kid, a ten-year-old boy, and you turned him. We knew what you were, what you were capable of, because the teacher talked to us all about you in meetings each year before school started. She talked like you were special, but you weren’t. You were just a killer they were warning us to stay away from.”

  “Please,” she breathed, shaking her head against the onslaught of memories.

  “I found her,” Mark said, voice cracking as his eyes rimmed with moisture. “I came to find Drew because we always walked home together, and she was eating him from the neck in. Her mouth was covered in his blood, and he was staring at the sky with this horrified look. I’ll never get his expression out of my head as long as I live. He was terrified when he died. I screamed for the teacher, and she told me to run and get help, but I knew he was already gone. He woke up and turned the teacher, a mother of two and the nicest lady in the world. She killed two of her students who’d lingered in the school yard, and they killed their friends. All kids in my class.” A single tear streaked through the gore on his face. “I can still hear the echo of the shots as the guards put down my friends, my teacher. If that’s who you want, Kaegan, you’re just as messed up as she is.”

  The taste of him. Soren still remembered what he tasted like. It was the only thing she’d put in her mouth that tasted right. The horror on everyone’s face as they realized what she’d done had tainted the taste and sealed her fate as a monster, deserving of human scorn. Drew’s empty gaze still haunted her. He’d pleaded after she’d nicked his jugular, but there was nothing she could do. He’d gone violently, and at the memory of it she swallowed bile that threatened to grapple its way up the back of her throat.

  Staring at the riverbank pebbles near the toes of her boots, she bit her lip against the sting of shame and wished she could be anywhere but here, under the appalled stares of teammates who would never accept her now.

  And Kaegan. Kaegan. The affectionate feelings he had would be tainted with the bloody knowledge of those children’s deaths. Of the children of the teacher, Mrs. Parker, who had to grow up motherless because a monster had killed their parent. They’d thought they were safe inside those cement fences, but they hadn’t realized the real threat walked among them.

  She’d wanted to tell Kaegan, but not like this. Honesty was important, but this should’ve come from her. Unable to look at him, she shouldered her satchel and said gruffly, “Now you know why I wear the muzzle,” then sidled past the imposing man who would now be a stranger.

  Adrianna squeezed her shoulder as she passed, but she shrugged it off. She didn’t deserve comfort for something like that. Mark had a right to be mad. She’d ruined a lot of lives, and his was apparently one of them. The others followed slowly, and she was glad to be in front. She couldn’t bear to see the disgust on their faces.

  She was so lost in her own turmoil, she didn’t realize the eerie noise was getting louder until she broke through the clearing. An old farmhouse with a collapsed roof stood in the shadow of a windmill. The blades turned, influenced by the breeze, and sang a haunting song of the ghosts who used to live in the ruined house behind it. Chills lifted the hair on her forearm. Six Deads stood under the windmill, looking up to where the sound was coming from. Just staring.

  None moaned or moved. Maybe they’d been there for months, drawn to the noise. The wind dropped, and the blades quieted, and the Deads dropped their empty gazes until the wind picked up again.

  “Do you want to leave them?” Adrianna asked, sympathy lacing her voice.

  Leave them to this empty life of waiting for the breeze to make a melody? “No. It’s war, right?” she asked in a flat tone. “Every Dead at the end of our blades now is one less threat later. I’ll do it. You wait here for the others.”

  Grass tickled her waist and flowed like river waves as air currents caressed it, urging her forward. The clearing stank of rot, but other than the walking corpses, this place was probably once beautiful. A paradise. She ran her hands over the soft blades of pasture and closed her eyes for a moment, imagining what the home looked like before the end of the world. Children playing in the yard, hanging from the frayed rope swing that still clung stubbornly to a giant oak out front. The paint had been stripped by Mother Nature, but maybe it was white before. Perhaps pastel blue to match the sky. A cloud covered the sun, dimming the field and casting gray over everything.

  One of the Deads, a man with a missing eye and stringy hair down to his shoulders, turned at her approach. His clothes hung in tatters, and his skin had turned a greenish hue. Strips of flesh were missing from his neck and face, and his ribs were exposed, like he hadn’t turned fast enough before another ate him. Poor sod. What an awful way to go. A flash of Drew’s face on the Dead made her stomach clench, and she pulled her knife from its sheath on her leg.

  She’d sat there shivering after Drew had died, knowing she should kill him completely before he woke up, but she’d been too shocked. Too weak. There was no more room for fragility now. The Dead stumbled toward her, attracting the attention of the others, who then followed him. At least they weren’t waiting on the wind anymore. And soon, very soon
, they’d be put to rest, like what should’ve happened the day they died. Killing them was an act of kindness; she just hadn’t realized it until this moment.

  Drawing her blade back, she thrust it into the Dead’s temple and kicked him away. Jamming the knife upward, she caught the next through the jaw and pulled her battle blade with her free hand. The blade shone in the remnants of hidden sunlight as it arced against the neck of a female Dead who looked on the verge of starvation. Recovering the blade from the limp Dead, she spun and hit the next two in the throats as they lined up, and she gritted her teeth as her blade sunk to the hilt in the skull of a young girl, taken too young by a disease that should not have existed.

  It wasn’t until she stood panting over the bodies that she noticed the rope tied from the girl’s wrist to a woman, whose severed head stared back at her, teeth clacking rhythmically. Kneeling, she touched the blood stained rope and frowned. Any similarity between the two Deads had faded over the years of their decay, but they had to be related. Mother and daughter, perhaps, who’d got in a bad spot somewhere and been cornered. Tied themselves together so they’d stay side by side forever.

  She wanted to weep for them.

  Instead, she drew her dagger upward and freed the mother’s snapping jaws from an unfair afterlife.

  She didn’t know how he’d approached so quietly, but Kaegan unhooked the small shovel from her satchel and started digging without a word. Dropping to her knees, she scooped dirt with her hands until there was a shallow grave made for two, and wordlessly, they dragged the mother and daughter into their final resting place. She cradled the child in her mother’s embrace and Kaegan covered them with the rich, black earth.

  When she turned, the rest of the team stood in a quiet line near the grave, but she didn’t offer an explanation. She wouldn’t bury every one—couldn’t bury them all like they deserved—but she’d bury the ones she couldn’t live without doing it for. If the team didn’t like it, tough. She was through with apologizing for who she was.