by Kresley Cole
He gripped my hips, pressing me down atop his hardness, and I gasped with pleasure. "Yes."
Lids heavy, he rocked me over his lap, banking that fire for both of us. "A moi, Evangeline," he said, his voice dripping with pent-up lust. "You're mine. And I'm yours. You're goan to find your way back to us." He dipped his hands to my ass, the heat of his palms searing me through my jeans.
When he squeezed, I rolled my hips, wrenching a low groan from his chest. His lips parted around ragged breaths. I panted, about to lose control. The chemistry between us was explosive. Combustible. If he ached even half as badly as I did . . .
But if this went any further, I'd only want more and more of him. Already I yearned for his hands cupping me all over, for just one last lick of flames.
Soon I'd reach a point where it was too late to pull back--because I would already be burned.
He must've sensed my hesitation. "But I woan rush you, no." He shuddered as he lifted me off his lap. "I'm in this for the long run."
I was half-dazed when he set me down. He tugged me close to his side, draping his arm over my shoulders to hold me tight. "Just rest your head against me."
I was helpless not to, hypnotized by the drum of his heart.
"I'm goan to tell you about a day we once had in the bayou--when there was no Flash. The day we should've had. Our first date."
Still catching my breath, I said, "What'd we do on this date?"
"We started out early . . ." He switched to French, murmuring in that deep voice, " . . . because I wanted as much time with you as possible. We packed food, beer, and a radio. Then we paddled a pirogue to a cypress stand I knew, one right in the middle of the water. The surface was so still, it mirrored the trees. The cicadas would go quiet whenever we drifted too close." He pressed a kiss against my hair. "We decided it was our place. No one else's. Because that was where we became Evie and Jack."
I snuggled in closer, letting his low, rumbling French wash over me.
"You were wearing a red bikini that made me hiss 'mercy' every time I saw you from a new angle. Um, um, UM, Evangeline, you about brought me to my knees." I remembered I'd worn one in some of the pictures on Brandon's phone. Apparently Jack had appreciated it. "When the air got spiced with honeysuckle, I felt about ten feet tall."
He described the foods we ate, the sultry rhythm of the blues we listened to, the feel of a southerly breeze--which no longer called to him because he was right where he was supposed to be.
He engaged all of my senses, until I could feel the warm wind playing with locks of my hair, and I swayed to the strains of music. Relaxation stole through me, and my lids grew heavy.
As I drifted off to sleep, he rasped, "Bebe, I'll bide my time. Because in the end, it'll always be Evie and Jack."
Through dreams, I relived another one of his memories.
Jack stood in front of a mirror in the courthouse bathroom, about to be arraigned for beating a man who'd attacked his mother. He looked so young, not more than sixteen. His skin was tan and smooth, his eyes storm gray. He tightened his tie, then loosened it, uncomfortable to wear one.
So much rides on today, and nerves are getting to me. I grip the edge of the sink and frown when my hands doan pain me. No new injuries mark my scarred fingers. Somehow Clotile has kept me out of fights until this court date. She and Lionel are the only ones here. Maman is . . . unwell.
My court-appointed lawyer lurches through the bathroom door with bleary eyes. The man drinks like a fish--something for me to say. He's from Sterling and despises "lowlife" Basin folk, made that crystal clear in our sole meeting. "Oh. It's you," he mutters as he makes his way to the urinal.
For Maman's and Clotile's sakes, I force myself to be cordial. "How we looking today, podna?"
He jerks a glance over his shoulder--like I was goan to knife him in the back. The movement and his drunkenness . . .
Oh Christ, my life is in the hands of a man who just pissed on his own shoes.
And didn't notice.
He zips up, then turns to me. "You're in luck." He's almost slurring. "State's got a new cage-the-rage program, for violent offenders with hair-trigger tempers. You're perfect for it."
Hair-trigger? I'd warned the fils de putain who hurt Maman. Told him never to touch her again. Next time I saw him, he was dragging her across the floor by her hair.
"Some are calling it the Rage Cage Program 'cause the inmates are still beating the living tar out of each other--just learning new ways to do it."
I want to show him the ways I've already learned. "Doan do me no goddamned favors."
He squints his bloodshot gaze. "As your lawyer, I'm going to enlighten you on a few matters. I've seen your type over and over, and I can spot a future lifer. When you're old, staring at the bars, you'll remember this talk. You'll remember how right I was. Unless you get shivved before then." He swerves out the door.
I slam my fist into the mirror, fracturing the glass, reopening every scar on my hand.
Over and over, blood-spattered shards reflect the pain in Jack's eyes.
Because part of him believed the man.
26
DAY 375 A.F.
We heard their agony long before the misty rain allowed us to see it.
For hours today, Jack, Aric, and I had ridden hard, slowing only for this: the plague colony Jack had warned of.
Before us, a valley was filled with the dying, hundreds of men. Blood poured from each one's eyes, nose, and mouth. The disease had contorted their bodies at the joints--as if their bones had been fractured.
Their screams merged into a din as loud as a stadium of fans. Jack had to raise his voice to say, "They're calling it bonebreak fever. Because of how it makes folks look--and because the pain is supposed to be unbearable."
"There are so many of them." The sight dumbfounded me. All day I'd been unsettled by my dream of Jack, but this . . .
"The colony's grown," he said. "It used to be tucked into a corner." Rows of haphazard tents spanned the clearing. "Some say this place'll keep expanding, like a tick, till there are no Flash survivors left."
Along the perimeter, bodies had been discarded in piles. They differed from the corpses we occasionally passed--or rode over. Plague bodies were so misshapen they wouldn't lie flat. "How does it spread?"
"Par le sang." Through the blood. "Maybe the air too. I'd planned for us to ride past this--not through it."
"Have all these men been abandoned here?" I didn't see women or children. "With no one to take care of them?"
Aric lifted his visor. "It's too contagious." Death had no worries about infection. "Once there's a blood show, they're doomed to a harrowing demise. No cure, no survival. I imagine the pain is nearly in league with your poison."
"Or your Touch of Death?" I'd spoken little to Aric today. I vaguely remembered him returning, finding me just waking, rising from Jack's side. He'd scanned my face, then given me a nod of satisfaction. --You kept your promise.--
"Just so, Empress."
"If it's spreading, when does it stop?" Would it reach Fort Arcana?
Jack parted his lips to say something, then seemed to think better of it. "We'll figure that out in the future, bebe. One thing at a time, non?"
"How do we avoid this valley?"
"We doan, or we'll never make it to Dolor in time. We'd have to backtrack a dozen miles to the last mountain pass. The slavers must have figured out a detour, maybe through a mine. But I doan know of it."
Of all the ways to die in this new world, bonebreak fever would rate among the worst. "Let's play it safe and go back."
"Look, I'll wear a bandanna, me." Jack pulled one from his bug-out bag, letting the rain soak the material. "There's a trail skirting the west edge." He pointed out a narrow stretch between the outermost row of tents and a rushing stream. "We haul ass along it, getting through in minutes."
"Only room for one at a time," Aric observed.
I turned to him. "I won't agree to this, not unless Jack rides
behind you."
Amusement. "I smooth the way for your squire?"
"You won't get sick, right? Neither will I." I thought. "You go, then Jack, then me. This makes the most sense."
Aric bowed his head in that cocky way. "Then by all means. Let my sacrifice be noted."
"Evie, you doan stop for any reason," Jack said. "This is not the time to help a victim or show mercy."
"I actually concur." Aric lowered his visor. "We're closing in on the Lovers. You need to conserve your powers."
"So doan do it," Jack added.
"I heard you two loud and clear."
"Good." Aric spurred his horse and descended. Jack reined around right behind him, glancing over his shoulder to make sure I stayed close.
Down in the valley, the yells boomed. For long, tense minutes, we sped along that trail, hooves kicking up dirt.
Almost across!
At the other end of the valley, Jack and Aric ascended the rise. I wasn't far behind --
A man lumbered in front of my horse.
With a cry, I yanked hard on the reins. The mare whipped her head and straightened her legs, skidding to a stop. A few more inches, and I would have run the man over!
Eyes seeping red, jaws stretched open, he yelled in pain, as if trying to communicate like that. More of the sick limped toward me, closing in. Beside me, one man vomited a rush of blood into a small runnel of water. The mare sidestepped with wide eyes, her nose flaring.
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, I followed the blood's course as it ran and ran. It met the stream, swept away by the current, as if the plague sensed new victims downriver.
How many more humans could we lose?
The sick raised their contorted arms toward me. Wordlessly begging, they offered their hands--fingers splayed wide, bent at odd angles.
Like twigs.
The men made no move to attack, just beseeched with bleeding eyes, yelling between spasms. They wanted me to end their suffering.
Could I? Could I curb the spread? My glyphs stirred--as if my powers had been awaiting a purpose like this.
Tears welled as realization hit me. Power is your burden. This was what Matthew had meant.
These men would die in agony, or they would die now. Either way, they were as good as gone. As I had with Tad, I could make them sleep, never to wake.
A peaceful death.
The wind blew in my favor.
Jack and Aric had made the ridge. They'd both asked me not to do this, had agreed it was a bad idea.
"Evie, come on!" Jack called.
Some tiny, vanishing part of me needed to keep the peace with them. To not rock the boat. To fall in line with what the boys wanted and expected of me.
Then I remembered that the Empress of all Arcana wore a crown for a reason.
The red witch whispered, Demeter withholds viciously--and gives lavishly. GIVE.
I spurred the mare, forcing my way past this crowd. They wailed when they believed that I couldn't--or wouldn't--help them. Some crawled after my horse. The sound reached a tumult.
I removed a glove. I rolled up my sleeve, uncovering my golden glyphs. The last time I'd pulled from my spore glyph, I'd only intended to make soldiers sleep.
Now I filled my hand with my most lethal poison. Tears spilling, I held up my flat palm and aimed it back.
Pursing my lips, I blew over my hand.
Blowing a kiss.
I turned away when the closest men's lids grew heavy. Staring straight ahead, silently crying, I rode on. Behind me, my poison spread outward like the wave of a detonation.
The din ebbed until I could hear bodies collapse. A last echo of their moans. A stray whimper here and there.
Then silence. In my wake, I'd left a mass of bodies. Power was my burden.
It weighed as much as a crown of stars.
When I reached the ridge, Jack's brows drew together; Aric's gleaming eyes narrowed. But I didn't care if they were angry.
Jack surprised me by saying, "Now that it's done, I'm glad. You cauterized a wound and saved countless more."
I pulled my glove back on. "All right, let's hear it, Aric."
"As the mortal said, it's done. Empress, you delivered many from a short, wretched fate." His tone was full of pride. "Sometimes a reaper is welcome."
Jack frowned at him, as if he couldn't reconcile this man with the indiscriminate murderer he imagined the knight to be.
Aric held his gaze. "Never deny the power of Death."
27
DAY 376 A.F.
"This doan feel right," Jack said from ahead, his bow at the ready. He was taking point along a rutted track inside another a narrow canyon. Aric rode beside me.
Since the colony yesterday, I'd spoken little to either of them. Last night, we'd sheltered in an old gas station, and I'd passed out the second I put my head down.
Despite the fact that we'd been threading the needle through a cluster of cannibal mines.
Now the three of us surveyed our surroundings. Or tried to. After endless miles on the road, the fog had thickened until we had to slow our pace. Jack rode just a dozen or so feet ahead, but I could barely make him out.
"All right, Reaper, you sensing anything?" Jack waited for us to catch up, then fell in on my other side.
Aric cocked his helmeted head. "A threat around the next corner."
"You want to backtrack, you?"
"Once you've seen me in a real combat, you'll know never to ask me that again."
And the cutthroat competition continued!
"I said I'd sensed a threat, not an army," Aric added, lowering his visor. "But if you're anxious . . ."
"Just try to keep up, you."
As we made our way around the corner, I peered into the murk. Something large loomed ahead. Had a tanker toppled over?
Electric spotlights flooded on, spearing the fog, paining my eyes.
When my vision adjusted, I saw a bus parked across the road, sheet metal covering its sides. The words HUMAN TOLL were painted in red along the length of it. Atop it? A homemade gun turret. Someone had taken half of an old satellite dish, then carved out a slot for a really big gun.
Was that what Selena had called a fifty-cal? If one of those could eat into a mountain, it could cut us in two.
"Black hat chokepoint," Jack muttered. "Fuckin' slavers."
A trio of them manned the top, one behind the turret and two more popping up their heads from behind a shield of corrugated steel. I couldn't see the turret guy, but the others resembled each other with their freckled faces and long red hair sticking out from their caps. Had to be brothers.
The bus didn't stretch all the way to the sides of the ravine, so the slavers had strung rows of razor wire, coiled as high as my shoulders. Escape-proofing their chokepoint.
"Hands where we can see 'em, all of you!" Turret Guy called, swiveling that gun. "This here's a toll booth. You wanna live, then you'll do what we say."
I raised my hands, frowning at Jack. When had he ridden so close to the bus?
Aric raised his hands as well. "We want no trouble." He sounded like he was trying not to laugh.
The slavers' attention was focused on him, a stranger dressed in full armor. "Where'd you get that suit?" Turret Guy asked. "Raid a museum?" He peeked over the satellite dish for a better look, revealing his lengthy beard and caterpillar eyebrows.
In a resonant voice, Aric explained, "A death deity sent me a vision, directing me to an ossuary, a bone crypt." Was he stalling for Jack? To do what? "I found this armor on the body of a notorious warrior, the design ages ahead of its time, with the metal already steeped in death. A good sign for one like me."
Turret Guy shared a look with his companions. " 'Nother one round the bend. Your horse sick or something?"
Now might be a good time to invoke the red witch. Would the men notice if I pierced my raised hands for blood?
But seeding vines would take too long--
One of those lights shone on
me, glaring so brightly I could feel its heat from here.
"You, the boy in the back! Take off your hood."
I shielded my eyes. What's happening, Aric? Jack looked like a shadow figure.
--Your mortal's about to attack. Show them something distracting.--
I reached for my hood, easing it back, inch by inch, as they stared rapt.
Turret Guy sucked in a breath. "Christ on a cracker! A girl! Dibs on seconds!"
One of the redheads said, "A teen. Fine as the night is long. Call up to the house." Was the other one fumbling for a radio?
In the next instant, Jack was standing on his saddle, bow in hand.
"What the hell?" Turret Guy rotated the gun toward him, but it would only turn so far.
Jack leapt for the bus, the toe of one of his boots meeting the metal siding; he caught the railing above with his free hand, then vaulted onto the roof.
"No, Jack!" There were too many!
Death flung his sword, skewering one of the brothers. Jack fired his bow at the other one.
The redheads dropped, but not before a gunshot sounded.
Why was Jack staggering back? He clutched his chest!
Shot.
"NO!"
"The mortal wears his own armor, Empress," Aric said.
When Jack recovered and charged forward, I choked out a relieved breath. The vest!
Didn't mean I wouldn't kill him for being so reckless. Only one of us could die from a bullet--him!
He aimed the bow at Turret Guy, waving him closer. When Jack motioned down, the man obediently went to his knees.
"How many are up at the house?"
"We never meant no harm, sonny! I wouldn't have hurt her."
"How many? Or I do this real slow, me."
"You'll lemme go if I tell you?"
"We'll see. Four. Three. Two. One--"
"Th-there's our boss and fourteen others."
"Weapons?"
"Armed to the teeth. They're the ones you should go after! They would've had their way with your girl," said the man who'd called dibs.
"You got any females for sale?"
Turret Guy smiled, no doubt thinking he'd been handed a lifeline. He had no idea he was digging his grave. If he admitted to hurting women . . .
"Not here, sonny, but we got a batch of young ones coming in." He stroked his beard with a sly look. "Sweetest pieces of ass you ever saw. Trained and everything. Hell, I'd let you sample for free--"