The Road to Wolfe (The Sanctuary Series Book 4)

by Nikita Slater

  I run a hand over my face and beard, then slap a cheek, trying to wake myself up. Skye is a sharp woman, always coming at me with something, so I need to be alert to handle her. Which is hard to do when this fucking city is sucking everything out of me.

  There's a reason I never wanted to be Warlord. I could've had my pick of cities. When I left Tucson, I toyed with the idea of going back to Tijuana, taking out the Warlord there and creating a viable Sanctuary out of my birthplace. Ultimately though, I dropped the idea. I didn't want the responsibility and I sure as fuck didn’t give enough of a shit about people that I’d ever prioritize their health or the health of a city. There's a big difference between being able to do something and wanting to do the thing.

  Then I ended up in Santa Fe, saw the destruction and people struggling to rebuild, and stepped in with the necessary expertise. Over the course of months, the citizens of Santa Fe Sanctuary began looking to me more and more for leadership, until it became official. Now I find myself in the exact position I’d been avoiding for years. Warlord.

  The woman on the other side of the harem door is another matter. She was born to lead. Unfortunately, she was also born in the wrong time. Had she been born seventy years ago, she would've ruled the world. Now, her potential is crippled by a world descended into Primitive brutality. I've decided to change that. I'll start with this city and see where I can go from here. Give her a place to rule, to shine, to become the leader she’s meant to be.

  I stop next to the guards at the harem door. "Any problems?"

  They both stand straighter, chins up, shoulders back. I don't have time to develop relationships with my people, so I rule through a combination of fear, fairness and sheer brute strength. I work alongside my people, proving my worth, but I also elevate myself above. There must be separation between the Warlord and his citizens, in order for him to make an effective leader. I am different, and I don't want them for one moment to forget. I would as soon kill these men as talk to them.

  The one nearest to me, Denny Torrance, speaks first. "She tried to escape a few times. Once through a window and once by tricking us. Neither worked."

  Of course, neither attempt would work. The harem is located on the second to top floor of the palace, thirty floors above the ground. Even if she manages to make it through a window, most of which are sealed shut, she has nowhere to go but down. As for tricking my security team, Skye is smart and determined, and given time she might be capable of such a feat. But for now, my men are alert to any tricks.

  "Open the door." I give them enough room to unlock and open the portal to the harem. Not a regular door, but closer to the door one might find on the safe of an old bank. Steel, reinforced, blast proof. As I step through into the harem, I say, “Bring the food when it arrives."

  Skye is standing by one of the windows, her legs spread, her arms crossed, her back to me. Her spine is so straight it looks like there might be a steel bar trapped in her back. Her ass, the finest ass I've ever seen, is encased in a pair of supple leather pants, so tight that they mold to her thighs and ass, showcasing every detail. She's wearing a loose beige shirt. A man's shirt. I wonder where she got it from. It'll be the first item of her wardrobe to go. I can't have my woman wearing another man's shirt.

  She has a veritable artillery strapped to her thighs and waist. When she was brought into Sanctuary, I made an unspoken statement to her by allowing her to keep them, I want you to feel safe within these walls. Now she's making a statement to me by wearing them, I will fuck you up at the first opportunity.

  She doesn't need weaponry in the harem. This room is the safest in the city. But the fact that she wears them makes me want her even more.

  "How are you settling in?" I'm not a man of words, never have been. But I want her to talk, need to hear her voice, and the only way that'll happen is if I get her talking.

  She turns her head to the side but doesn't turn around or look at me. Her long dark brown hair with its reddish tint spills down her back in soft waves, ending in an arrow just above her waist. It's grown several inches since I last saw her. It's ragged, wild and beautiful. Just like her.

  "I'm trying not to settle in since I'll be leaving soon," she says scornfully.

  I bite back a smile. She doesn't need to see my amusement or know that I think her resistance is both stimulating and cute. Something tells me if she knew of my sentiment, she would become murderous. As much as I would love a tussle with her, now is not the time. I need sleep before I engage in physical combat with this woman.

  "The quicker you settle in, the more freedoms I can give you. Starting with a tour of the city." I can tell by the tilt of her head and the stiffening of her shoulders that she’s interested. I knew she would be.

  When she first arrived in Santa Fe seven years ago, she fought against her new role, fought against her new Warlord husband. She wanted nothing to do with him. But Silas had been nothing if not patient. He'd waited her out, wooed her, showed her how important she was becoming to him. I'd stood by and watched the entire romance unfold. After her first year in the city, she'd become involved in the inner workings. Involved in things like education, food supply, medicine, everything. She was the perfect companion to the Warlord. Graceful, intelligent and compassionate. Though she was impetuous and sometimes emotional, they were character traits that helped her rule at her husband’s side efficiently and effectively.

  That was the closest I'd ever come to murdering Warlord Silas and taking his place. Jealousy had eaten at me, but I’d decided to wait, to bide my time. The woman I had fallen in love with would never have accepted the man who killed her husband. Now, my time has arrived.

  "I have no desire to settle or to see the city," she says tartly, turning to look at me, her beautiful grey eyes narrowed in anger. "You'll have to kill me or keep me locked up forever. I won’t stay here."

  I step toward her, incapable of resisting her lure. She’s so fucking beautiful in her warrior clothes with her weapons and bad attitude. I want to lay her out on the table and show her how much I worship her. But she can't know yet how much she has come to mean to me. That her attitude, who she is, is the only thing in this world that keeps me breathing, working, living. I don't know when the transition happened, but one day I was a dead man breathing, the next I was living for her.

  I raise my hand and she flinches. I pause and then slowly brush my fingertips down the side of her silky cheek. I tell myself to go slow, not to frighten her, but I've ached for her for so long it's hard not to just reach out and take what's mine.

  "Neither option works for me. Alive and with me is your only option." Before she can reply, there's a brief knock at the door.

  "Come," I call.

  The door opens and two men walk in with platters filled with food. Though the palace kitchen is run by women, I decided not to let them in the harem just yet. Skye is fully capable of taking down a grown man; a few women would be nothing to her. For now, the only people allowed in the harem besides Hannah and the doctor are my soldiers. And even then, I'll only send in the best. Skye is sneaky, aggressive and capable. I don't want her attacking my people just yet.

  "Oh good, the food’s here," Skye says, snark clearly evident in her tone. "You can leave now. I'm going to eat."

  I can feel my lips tugging upward, despite my best intentions. This woman and her sass speak right to my dick.

  "I'm staying."

  "Then I'm leaving." She strides past me toward the door, as though I would actually allow her to leave.

  I don't bother to stop her. She knows she's not getting out of the harem. My guys locked the door behind them, slamming the bolts home in an echo of her imprisonment. This isn't how I want to keep her, but she's proving as stubborn as I expected. She needs time, and the harem is the safest place for her to stay as she settles into her new life.

  She whirls around and gives me a glare, looking at me as though I'm lower than a Primitive. "I'm not eating with you." She crosses her arms stubbornly ove
r her chest.

  I shrug. "Then you'll watch me eat."

  I stride past her to the table, jerking a chair out and sitting down. The damn chairs in the harem are too delicate for a guy like me. I feel like I'm going to crush the fragile wood beneath my heavy body. I shift gingerly on the chair as I reach for the nearest platter, piling a plate full of meat, vegetables and bread.

  I ignore her and begin eating. Eventually, she lets out a huff of annoyance and drops into the seat across from me. Her movements are jerky and loud as she throws food onto a plate and slams it down in front of her. I cringe as the tines of her fork scrape across the bottom of her plate while she eats forcefully. Occasionally, her temper can take a juvenile turn, something I'm sure will smooth out as she matures.

  "If you promise not make an escape attempt, I might consider taking you on a tour." It's more than I had planned on doing. I'd wanted her in the harem for at least a week before taking her to the city, but I despise watching her be caged up like an animal. She's meant to be free.

  “First of all, I won’t be making an escape attempt, it will be a successful bid for freedom. Second of all, the moment you let me out of here, I'm leaving. I refuse to spend one minute more in this city with you than I have to." She shoves a piece of bread into her mouth and chews belligerently.

  "Then you won't be leaving the harem." I watch her face fall as the words leave my mouth and almost regret them, though she's the one throwing down the gauntlet.

  In an effort to change the subject, I ask her which Sanctuaries she’s visited since leaving Tucson. At first, she doesn't answer, ignoring the question. Then, as if unable to help herself, she starts to speak, telling me the story of her journey.

  "We left Tucson shortly after the creation of the vaccine. The doc figured the faster we stopped Necrotitis Primeval from spreading the better. We put a team together out of the best soldiers from Tucson and the refugee camp. Well, you met them."

  At my nod, she continues, “It took a long time to get from Tucson to Sacramento. There were still hordes of Primitives moving west, almost in a tidal wave. We kept coming across them and we kept having to fight. We lost two men in our first week out." She falls silent for a moment, the weight of her responsibility toward her team still heavy on her shoulders. Then she straightens in her seat and hardens her voice. "A few weeks in we began acting like more of a team, hitting the Primitives in a tactical sweep. It reached the point where we could attack a group five times the size of our little team without any casualties."

  Skye continues outlining attack strategies and defensive techniques she picked up along the way. She sounds proud of herself, and I can understand why. Primitives are vicious relentless killing machines. They are driven to feed their never-ending hunger for flesh. I’m impressed, but not surprised by Skye’s ingenuity in fighting them. She's always had it in her to inspire loyalty in others.

  "Sacramento was tough. It was our first Sanctuary out of Tucson. We didn’t have a strategy, just went in blind with the vaccine and the idea that they would just take it and let us leave." She shakes her head and rolls her eyes at her own naivety. "At first they didn't believe that we had a vaccine. When we explained how it worked, described the effects on Tucson Sanctuary, they became interested. Very interested. Then I made a big mistake."

  So far I've remained silent throughout her story, but I know exactly what mistake she made. "You told them about your blood."

  She nods. "It was a stupid mistake, one that nearly cost my team their lives and me my freedom. The idiots in Sacramento didn't have a proper doctor, someone that could explain to them how vaccinations work. The Warlord couldn’t get it through his thick head that they didn't actually need me there in order to re-create it. Luckily, Deacon figured out what was going on when I failed to meet the team at our scheduled departure time. He was able to bust me out. We left a box of vaccinations and the formula behind, but who knows if they were able to re-create it. I hope so. Despite the assholes running that place, there's plenty of innocent people living inside the walls."

  That’s the difference between Skye and me. She gives a shit about the people living in Sanctuary. I don’t.

  "Where did you go next?" I'm only vaguely interested, don't care much about the vaccine. But I want to hear her voice, want her to talk to me.

  Skye opens up and tells me all about her journey with her team. My respect for Deacon grows as she speaks, and I feel slightly disappointed that I evicted him from the city without plumbing his full potential. The more she speaks the more I realize that there was nothing to be jealous about in their relationship. The two simply worked well together.

  Finally, after over an hour and well past when our meal finished, she stops speaking. She falls abruptly silent as though she realizes she’s been dominating the conversation for over an hour. She blushes and turns her head away, masking her discomfort with her hair.

  "What did you mean… when you said you wanted me for a wife?"

  I stay silent and look at her. She knows exactly what I mean, and she wants me to give her a different answer. I won’t. I can’t. Maybe it isn’t fair, but we don’t live in a fair world.

  "Fine, fall back on your usual thing. Nothing can induce me to marry you so you may as well forget about it."

  Our evening has turned out better than I expected, so I'm disappointed that she's giving me attitude again. I sit back in my chair and cross my arms over my chest.

  "You’ll marry me. You won’t have a choice."

  She lets out a frustrated growl and swipes her hand at the table, catching the edge of one of the trays and sending it flying. I raise my eyebrow at her temper. She's not as controlled as I'd like her to be, as much as she's learned over the past year.

  "I want you to leave." She points at the door.

  This particular phrase of hers is beginning to grate, but I’ll give it to her one more time. Soon she’ll learn that I don’t do a damn thing I don’t want to. If I’m not ready to leave, then I won’t be leaving. I stand and turn away. I’m fine with giving her small doses of my presence as she acclimates herself to me. Silence follows me through the harem door as I leave and the guards close and lock it.

  As I stride down the hall, I hear a loud crash and the sound of breaking dishes. She threw a tray at the door. My lip tugs upward as I think of my hellion bride. She's going to be a handful, exactly the way I want her.

  Sixteen

  Skye

  I've had enough. Enough pacing. Enough staring at walls. Enough biding my time. I'm done waiting for fate to come find me.

  It's been three weeks since I've arrived in the Santa Fe Sanctuary. Three weeks of being locked up in the harem with nothing to do but contemplate a shadowy and uncertain future. I've been mostly alone. Dr. Summers hasn't come back, though I've requested her presence more than once from the guards on the other side of the door. Likewise, when I ask for Hannah I'm ignored.

  Even Wolfe has stayed away, but I don't demand his presence. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction. Except… I’m frustrated by his absence. What kind of future bridegroom who’s forcing his bride to marry him completely ignores her? I don’t understand him at all.

  I bang angrily on the door and then step back, waiting for it to open.

  The guards have learned since my last attack to treat me carefully. The door opens and two armed men stand facing me, prepared for anything. I smirk at them, glad that they learned a lesson at my hands. Too often, these big tough Sanctuary guards think they're undefeatable. They would never consider that a woman could take them down.

  A week ago, when they brought my dinner meal in, I'd shown them otherwise. I'd shoved the trays at one, distracting him while sweeping the legs out from underneath the other and dropping onto his chest with my knees. I hadn't paused. I'd hurtled towards the open door and out into the corridor. Unfortunately, three more guards were waiting. I hadn't counted on Wolfe placing this much security on me. If I'm being honest, a small part of me is pleased that he doe
sn't underestimate me. Even if he won't visit.

  Not that I want him to.

  "How can we help you, Miss Skye?" The guard’s tone is friendly and professional. Once, he'd made a sneering comment, shortly after I tried to escape. It was one of the few times Wolfe had been in attendance. Wolfe had turned on the man, slamming him against the wall and shoving an elbow in his throat. He told the man that if he couldn't keep a civil tongue, he wouldn't be having a tongue in the future.

  "I want to see Wolfe." My voice is cold and steady as I glare at them. "Bring me the Warlord."

  The first one, Denny Torrance, shakes his head. "Sorry, Miss Skye, he's unavailable at this time."

  I grit my teeth and stomp away from them, glaring out the window. "And when exactly will he be available?"

  "When he's ready to see you." Torrance again. He's lucky there wasn't a single smug syllable in that sentence or I would be assisting his balls up into his throat.

  I glance over my shoulder and raise a brow at him. He shrugs. "Warlord's orders."

  So, Wolfe is determined to put me in my place, to show me that my leisure is not his leisure. We'll see about that. If he refuses to notice me when I want him to, then I'll force his attention when he doesn't.

  "You can go," I say dismissively, turning my back on them.

  The second the door closes I bend down next to a shelf holding a variety of crafts that the women of the harem used to work on. I drag a metal container off the shelf and open the lid, examining my own personal stash. I started it years ago, when I first came to the harem. It contains a knife, matches, some bandages, painkiller medications and several books.

  I pull the matches out, replace the lid and shove the bin back onto the shelf. I set about going through the rooms, systematically gathering up anything that I can light on fire that won't be important. For some reason I can't bring myself to burn anything I know has personal value to the women who lived here. Some of them didn’t survive the fall of the city, some stayed behind after the dust settled and a few had gone with us when we'd escaped. The only ones I know for sure are still alive are me, Hannah and Scarlett.