Ruled

by Elle Kennedy

  “So were you.”

  “Yeah.” Sloan rose to his feet, then wiped his hand and abdomen off with his shirt and fumbled around in the pocket of his cargo pants. He pulled out a cigarette and lit it.

  Settling back by Rylan’s side, Sloan took a drag and then passed over the cigarette.

  Rylan inhaled for a puff and watched the smoke stream from between his teeth to mix with Sloan’s exhalations.

  “I think I was just existing before I met Reese,” Sloan whispered. “Each foot I put in front of the other was leading me closer to her.” He traced a finger over Rylan’s collarbone.

  “Destiny then?”

  Sloan shrugged and plucked the smoke from Rylan’s lax fingers. “I don’t know what it is. I only know that I never felt complete until I met her. And even though she picked Jake”—he paused and slid a wry look toward Rylan—“and you, being the gun in her holster, the steel at her back, was all I needed.”

  “That’s because you hadn’t tasted her, felt her.”

  “Yeah . . .”

  “And now?”

  “You know the answer to that. It’s not enough. I want more.”

  Rylan jerked. That was Reese’s word, and damned if he didn’t want the same thing. “Me too. Which is crazy, because I’ve always felt this more shit was pointless. I didn’t want anything deep. Definitely not a commitment. I didn’t look at Con and Hudson and think, I really want what they have. I just was happy joining in every now and then.” He grimaced. “And now I can’t stop my heart from banging double time and I can practically taste the terror on my tongue. I hate feeling this way. I fucking hate feeling.”

  He didn’t want to be his dad. Or his mom, for that matter. He didn’t want to feel the kind of emotions that could twist him up inside, that could lead him to make decisions that would destroy everyone around him.

  Sloan read his apprehensions easily. “Not all love is sick. Connor’s not gonna abuse Hudson. And Len would throw himself off a cliff before he’d hurt Jamie. And you are not your father’s son.”

  “How do you know?” He stared at the beams in the ceiling. How could anyone know what kind of partner they’d be until they tried?

  “Because I’m here to punch you in the face if I feel like you’re going off the deep end.”

  The corners of Rylan’s mouth twitched. “That’s generous of you, brother.”

  Sloan smiled. “I know.”

  But this man’s presence was exactly what he needed. With Sloan there, Rylan could be himself without fear. He’d be able to love without worrying that it would turn rancid and hurt the people he was supposed to care about the most.

  He’d be able to have Reese.

  And Sloan.

  And everything that he’d always believed was out of his reach.

  26

  Sitting in a cell gave a woman plenty of time to think about her life. The fact that she was facing execution only sped up that process, because Reese literally didn’t have much life left.

  As Ferris had promised, there were no trays of food or bottles of water brought to her. She’d been abandoned, dismissed from their minds, not to be remembered until it was time to face the firing squad. Reese had started her imprisonment sitting in the chair, but after hours had passed, she’d finally admitted defeat and curled up on the small cot.

  It was kind of fitting that she was spending her last hours alone. That was the way she’d lived ever since she’d escaped the city when she was thirteen years old, after she’d climbed into the back of that supply truck, hidden under a blanket, and hadn’t moved a muscle during the eight-hour drive.

  She’d been alone for an entire year before encountering another outlaw. She taught herself how to make snares, how to build fires. She’d hunted her own food and slept in abandoned buildings and barns. She’d thrived on her own. And even when she got older and began letting other people into her world . . . even after she came across Foxworth and decided to form a permanent settlement there . . . even when she became friends with people like Bethany and Arch . . . even when she’d let Jake into her bed and Sloan into her confidence . . . she’d still considered herself alone.

  But Reese hadn’t realized, not until this very moment, how much she depended on all those people. And how much they depended on her. She could picture them sitting around and planning a rescue, fully prepared to risk their lives to save her. She knew with bone-deep certainty that they would try to come after her, and that knowledge made her think back to Ferris’s questions earlier. How she’d doubted herself, questioned whether she would let her people die if it meant securing her revenge over the council.

  The answer to that was . . . no. She wouldn’t let them die. She’d take a bullet for any one of her people, give her life before she let the Enforcers hurt them.

  But there were two people she’d give more than her life for. She’d give them her heart and her soul and every goddamn thing they wanted from her. She would give up anything, even her vengeance, just to see them again and tell them that she was wrong.

  Love did exist. She knew it did because she felt it. She didn’t feel it for one man, but two, and maybe that made her a really messed-up individual, but it was the truth.

  She would die before she let anything happen to her men. Which meant she needed to find a way to get a message to Sloan and Rylan. A signal for them to abort whatever foolhardy rescue plan they were putting in motion, because any march on the Enforcer compound or the city itself would result in their deaths, and she could not have that on her conscience.

  But she also couldn’t get a message out when she was trapped in this room. No one had come in or out since her interrogation, and she had no idea when Ferris was planning to execute her.

  Her groan of dismay echoed in the quiet room. She closed her eyes, but sleep didn’t come. Instead, she lay there on the cot for what seemed like an eternity, and she was still in that position when the door finally creaked open.

  A burst of hope went off inside her when she saw Dominik in the doorway. He was alone, but Reese could hear the murmur of voices in the hall.

  Fuck. She needed to be quick. “Dominik,” she started.

  “Shut up,” he snapped. His face was expressionless as he stalked over to the cot.

  “Please,” she whispered urgently. “I know you’re still in touch with—” Warning flashed in his eyes, and she quickly amended, “I know you still have contacts. I need you to get a message to my people. It’ll be for both our benefits, because trust me, you don’t want them laying siege on you guys, so please—”

  “Shut up,” he said again, sharper this time. Then he nodded at the door and two Enforcers marched inside.

  They hauled her off the cot and the next thing she knew her hands were yanked behind her back and a pair of handcuffs was snapped into place. Her stomach lurched when she glimpsed the item in one of their hands.

  “Is that really necessary?” Reese muttered, but no one answered.

  The Enforcer swiftly put the hood over her head.

  Darkness.

  And with the darkness came a spark of fear. She’d seen pictures in the old prewar history books. Hooded figures being led to the gallows . . . a noose tied around their necks.

  Her own neck started to itch, even though she knew that wasn’t her fate. Ferris had made it clear he wanted pomp and circumstance for her execution. Reese envisioned dozens of uniform-clad men lined up with their rifles drawn. Citizens being forced to watch. Or hell, maybe they wanted to watch. Maybe they were so brainwashed by the council that they truly believed the outlaws were the real danger.

  She squeaked when her feet suddenly gave out from under her. Someone tugged her forward, but she didn’t know where she was supposed to walk. She moved one foot in front of the other and prayed her death would be as painless as her mother’s. She’d heard the doctor say that Sylvia hadn�
�t felt pain from the overdose. It was as if she’d died peacefully in her sleep.

  But Reese doubted that dozens of bullets shredding into her flesh could be considered peaceful.

  She was dragged forward again, and then she felt a whisper of breath through the thin cloth covering her face. “Don’t try anything stupid.” Dominik’s voice, low and raspy. “It’ll be easier if you don’t fight.”

  A choked “fuck you” squeezed out of her throat.

  His grip tightened on her arm. “Do what I say and it’ll all be over soon.”

  Reese’s heartbeat was surprisingly steady as they walked for what seemed like forever. Her boots thudded softly against the floor of what she suspected was a hallway. A few minutes later, a gust of cold air hit her, cooling her face even through the hood. Gravel crunched beneath her boots. Eric hadn’t blindfolded her last night when they’d driven through the huge electric gates of the Enforcer compound, and she remembered seeing gravel in the courtyard. She wondered if that was where they were now.

  She heard male voices but couldn’t make out what they were saying. The conversations were muffled by the hood and the sound of her pulse now shrieking in her ears. Her sense of equilibrium wavered as someone pushed her onto what felt like the seat of a car. Doors slammed, and there were so many footsteps in the courtyard that she wondered if the entire Enforcer compound was coming to watch her get shot to death in the city square.

  Once again, she clung to Hudson’s insistence that Dominik was a decent guy. “Your sister is a good woman,” she blurted out.

  There was a sharp hitch of breath, followed by another command. “Quiet.”

  Reese kept going. “I wasn’t sure I could trust her, even after she donated almost all the blood in her body to try to save a dying man. I still thought she might have an agenda, that she might be working with you and the council to kill us all.”

  No answer.

  “She asked me to spare you,” Reese confessed with a shaky laugh. “When we were attacking the outposts, Hudson was worried you might be in one of them. She begged me to spare your life. I told her I wouldn’t make any promises.”

  Still no answer, so she finally gave up and quit talking. She wasn’t sure what she was trying to achieve anyway. Was this her plea for Dominik to spare her? Hudson had said he was working behind the scenes, and if that were true, that meant he’d never be able to save Reese without revealing his betrayal to Commander Ferris. Whatever Dominik was or wasn’t doing, he’d be crazy to release a high-profile outlaw prisoner. It would instantly make him, as he’d called it, an enemy of the Colonies.

  Reese was surprised to feel tears sting her eyelids. She really wished she’d listened to Sloan. She wished she could see Rylan’s careless grin one last time. Those two men had made her feel . . . they’d made her feel like a woman. And that was a liberating sensation for a woman who’d always felt as empty as her womb that could never be filled.

  The silence dragged on and so did the drive. Based on Hudson and Connor’s intel, Reese knew the Enforcer compound was about fifteen miles from the city gates, but it seemed like they drove for a lot more than fifteen miles. Or maybe time had just slowed to a grind. Maybe each minute was no longer sixty seconds but a thousand of them. Maybe that was what happened when you were on your way to die.

  Eventually she closed her eyes, but she didn’t sleep. She listened to the sound of the engine and felt the bumps of the road beneath the tires. The handcuffs dug into her wrists but she ignored the discomfort.

  She just wanted to get this over with. Maybe it would be better this way. Maybe Sloan and Rylan were better off without her. Without her callousness. Her tendency to shut down whenever she started feeling a little too much. Not to mention that she couldn’t give them a future, at least not one that involved cherub-cheeked infants like Bethany’s.

  Her heart twisted painfully as she remembered Sloan and Rylan’s insistence that she was a mother to everyone in Foxworth. They could be right, but it didn’t matter anymore.

  A low voice sounded from the front seat of the vehicle. “We’re all set,” someone said.

  “Good,” Dominik replied. “Send a text to Vin to let him know.”

  Who the hell was Vin? And why hadn’t anyone mentioned Ferris this entire time?

  The car came to an abrupt stop, and once again Reese was being jerked around like a doll. Her boots hit the ground with a squishing noise, as if she’d stepped in a puddle. Or soft, wet earth. Either way, it didn’t feel like she was standing on a road.

  She instinctively tensed when cold hands brushed her wrists. There was a jingle of keys, and the handcuffs popped off at the same time the hood was pulled off her head.

  Light assaulted her vision. Not bright sunlight, but the glow of dusk. She blinked rapidly to adjust to it, and her mouth fell open when she glimpsed something in the distance. Three somethings, actually. Gleaming military choppers.

  Reese blinked again. What the hell was going on?

  The frantic internal question was answered when Dominik appeared in front of her. His gray eyes were hard, but the corners of his mouth lifted up in an almost smile.

  “I hope you’re not scared of flying,” he said.

  27

  “You’re a crazy son of a bitch, you know that?” The metallic roar of the helicopter rotors made it difficult for Reese to hear her own voice. She was sitting in the back of the chopper with Dominik and six other Enforcers, still marveling at this turn of events.

  “Not as crazy as you,” Dominik retorted. “What the hell made you think that you and a handful of people could take out an outpost of thirty Enforcers?”

  “There weren’t supposed to be thirty there,” she grumbled. “It was a trap.”

  “It was a trap you should have anticipated,” he said with a smirk. “Any military leader worth his salt would have accounted for that.”

  She bristled, even though he was right. She’d made a stupid decision based not on intelligence and strategy, but emotion. She’d been on edge because of the threesome and the feelings it had roused in her, and instead of listening to sound advice, she’d acted on her own revenge-driven urges, fueled by the need to run away from her feelings.

  “Ferris will kill you for this,” she informed Dominik.

  He flashed a grin. “Only if he finds me.”

  “You? This isn’t just you.” She waved a hand around the cramped cabin. “You brought a goddamn party with you.” Reese had counted at least twenty-five Enforcers boarding the three choppers in the clearing. “Why would you do this?” she demanded. “Why defect now?”

  “Didn’t exactly have a choice,” he said dryly. “We had a plan in motion, a schedule for when we would desert, but your capture sped up our timeline.” He cursed under his breath. “My sister begged me to help you. And if you know Hudson like you claim you do, then you know it’s impossible to say no to that woman. She’s a stubborn little thing.”

  Reese experienced a pang of guilt as she recalled her conversation with Hudson, when she’d told the woman in no uncertain terms that she wouldn’t cooperate with the Enforcers or spare Hudson’s twin brother if it came down to it. And she’d been so damn resentful after Hudson’s warnings about Rylan.

  But the woman was an ally, and Reese had refused to see it. It was just another mistake to add to her growing list of screw-ups.

  She stared at Dominik. “What’s your end game?” she asked suspiciously.

  He rolled his eyes. “Would it kill you to say thank you?”

  She narrowed her eyes.

  “I just saved your life, lady. And in the process I put my own life in danger, not to mention my men’s. I helped the queen of Foxworth escape—Ferris is not going to take that lightly. And he already hated me to begin with. He suspects that I helped my sister escape too.”

  “You did help her escape.”

  “Y
eah, but he doesn’t have any fucking proof. You’d think he’d trust the word of his most loyal servant.” Dominik looked genuinely offended.

  Reese had to laugh. “Who are you loyal to now?” she asked after a moment.

  “My sister,” he said steadfastly. “And by extension, my sister’s man. Family’s the only thing that matters in this world. The people you love—those are the only ones who deserve your loyalty.”

  She swallowed hard. “Yeah, I think you’re right about that.”

  “I’m always right,” he drawled.

  She gestured to the other men, none of whom had spoken a word to her. They were all watching Dominik as if waiting for him to issue an order even when they were thousands of feet in the air. “And who are they loyal to?”

  Dominik opened his mouth, but the man to his left beat him to it. “We’re loyal to Dom,” he said gruffly. “And we’re loyal to each other. This”—he gestured toward the other Enforcers—“is our family.”

  A family of killers, she almost said. But who was she to judge? She’d killed dozens of Enforcers during those outpost attacks. She’d killed bandits. She’d killed Jake.

  She was a killer too.

  She suddenly remembered the other bit of information Hudson had given her. “Are you guys still taking those drugs?” she asked warily.

  Dominik shook his head. “We’ve been off the cocktail for several months now. Took a while because we couldn’t have the men going off them all at once. And I wasn’t sure who was loyal to me and who was loyal to Ferris.” A dark look crossed his eyes. “Some of those men that you shot and blew up, they were loyalists, Reese. They didn’t deserve to die.”

  She didn’t offer him an ounce of sympathy. “Yes, they did. It doesn’t matter if they were drugged these past few years—they weren’t drugged before that, when your father was in charge. They may not have killed as many outlaws back then as they’re doing now, but they still killed people.”

  He sighed in acknowledgement. “We all kill people,” he agreed, echoing her own thoughts.