Bleacke Spirit

by Lesli Richardson

  Which are now, most likely, covered with her own juices.

  She enjoys life with Carter, too. We wouldn’t be here if we didn’t. While this is not a place I ever envisioned myself being, now that I’m here I cannot imagine being anywhere else.

  I don’t even mean this office.

  I mean with these two people, and especially with Carter.

  Carter at his best is a loving, kind, gentle, compassionate, funny, brilliant, gorgeous, sexy man.

  Since I consider myself straight, those last two are pretty damn fine compliments.

  Carter at his worst is evil, sadistic, mean, brilliant, gorgeous, and…

  Yeah, sexy.

  It pains me to admit that.

  No, I’m usually literally in pain when I admit it.

  Not that he would consider any of those descriptors an insult.

  And, again, not that I’m complaining, because I’m not. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t want to be.

  I know I don’t have to speak up and remind him of the time. It might not seem like he’s watching the clock, but I’m sure he’s calculating exactly how much he can cram into what little time the three of us have alone together right now.

  Maybe perhaps literally cram.

  That doesn’t even bother me anymore.

  After a few minutes of him torturing her, he speaks.

  “Boy.”

  I’m on deck. I smoothly rise to my feet even as they sting, full of pins and needles and protesting they still need a moment to recover.

  Carter smiles at me and my cock twitches. “Come here.”

  His fist is buried in her hair, her cheek is pressed against the desk, and her skirt is now rucked up around her waist. She’s gorgeous and mussed, her blue eyes wild with that special kind of energy Carter has a particular way of building in both of us.

  That please fuck me look.

  Our times together have been few and far between lately, first with our grueling campaign schedule, and now with taking office. We went from sleeping together every night to sometimes barely seeing each other for days at a time.

  That, above all, has been the most difficult part of all of this, losing that privacy, that time together. Not even sexy time. I mean being able to close our eyes, take a deep breath, and relax with our heads in Carter’s lap.

  We’ve all had adjustments to make. Susa and I trust Carter to take care of us, though.

  Like right now.

  I’m sure whatever Carter has in mind will carry us through until the next rare time the three of us can be alone together.

  Because it will have to.

  * * * *

  Order Governor (Governor Trilogy 1), Lieutenant (Governor Trilogy 2) and

  Chief (Governor Trilogy 3) by Lesli Richardson today:

  http://tymberdalton.com/books/series-info/governor-trilogy/

  And don’t miss the Determination Trilogy by Lesli Richardson, a spin-off trilogy set in the same world as the Governor Trilogy, coming December, 2018:

  Dignity (Book 1)

  Diligence (Book 2)

  Desire (Book 3)

  http://tymberdalton.com/books/series-info/determination-trilogy/

  Free Preview: The Great Turning

  The following preview is chapter one of The Great Turning (The Great Turning, book 1) by Lesli Richardson.

  Description

  [111.2k words, science-fiction, post-apocalyptic, futuristic, dystopian, GLBTQ fiction]

  It’s almost one hundred years since The Great Turning, the catastrophic meteor strike that changed the world forever. Russell Owens is a recently discharged New North Americas Army sniper who only wants to return to his home just outside of Yellowstone to resume life with his gentle husband, Ted. Russell doesn’t want to re-up and hates that he had to kill for a living.

  Zola Wright is the most skilled assassin the NNAA has ever had. She was tricked into re-upping—once. When the burned-out Red is sent to find Russell to talk him into returning, what her commanding officer doesn’t realize is that she’s not coming back. Her conscription time is up, and she wants out. She’s also reluctantly falling for Russell.

  Now the sniper and the assassin are the ones being hunted, on the run from the army they just finished serving. Their former CO has secrets he’ll kill to keep. But Russell and Zola have more in common than their killing skills. And when Russell and Ted both fall for Zola, she knows their only option is to stand and fight together for the happiness and peace they yearn for—or die trying.

  Chapter One

  Russell Owens no more noticed the noontime heat of the mid-April sun beating down on him as he hiked than he’d noticed the stifling humidity in Houston after his first month stationed there.

  It just…was.

  Nothing to be done about it, except to keep moving.

  Moving.

  Always moving.

  He’d opted for an easterly trek instead of a more direct northern and westerly course, following the skeleton of what remained of Old Highway 10 toward the shipping yards of Baton Rouge.

  It could possibly take him weeks longer to reach his final destination, depending on the condition of the roads between there and home, but it would keep him well clear of the wastelands of the New Mexico and western Texas territories. He hoped he might be able to hop a boat to take him up the Mississippi, at least as far as New St. Louis, which would put him squarely in the heart of the Midwest Territory.

  From that point, it should be easy to join a caravan heading northwest toward Rapid City, or farther. If his luck held, maybe he could find a caravan going all the way to the Seattle Stronghold, which would take him even closer to home. He’d listened to the radio chatter during his five-year conscription at Houston. He’d kept up with scuttlebutt. He’d studied the weather patterns. He’d followed the ShiTr reports, as they called them—Shipping and Transportation.

  Late spring and summer meant caravans traversing the high passes and cutting weeks—sometimes months—off transport times.

  Someone would be able to help him get to Montana.

  Home.

  To Ted.

  With that thought firmly gripped in his mind, Russ kept moving.

  Moving.

  Always moving.

  Overhead, the sun slowly swung across the sky until it was beating on his back instead of directly against his battered floppy lid, one of the few things from his conscription period he didn’t mind holding on to. The beige canvas hats were practical, durable, and came in handy.

  He’d burned one of his uniform shirts the first night he’d camped out. Just pulled it off and set fire to it. In retrospect it was a foolish move, one which could give anyone who might be following him a clue to his route, but he didn’t care.

  It felt good to do it. Not like he needed it any longer.

  Despite unofficial requests by Colonel Craige and Major Hicks to reconsider opting out and to please speak with them one last time before filing, he hadn’t.

  They hadn’t issued orders to speak with either of them.

  So once Russ’ filed his opt-out, he’d been issued a civvie ID card, and his chip code had been updated, Russ had packed his ruck and bugged out of Houston before anyone knew he’d actually departed.

  Gone.

  Out.

  Free.

  And now, back to Ted.

  Maybe if they’d tagged him for a different role he would have reconsidered, if Ted had been for it. Go for corporate status, a lifer. Or even a wonk. If there were no available transfers to the Bozeman barracks, he could have easily afforded to pay Ted’s passage and been assigned digs on base and lived a boring, humdrum life as a fleet mech, or a clerk, while Ted made a decent living as a civvie sol-ec tech.

  Hell, Russ wouldn’t have minded being a cook.

  But no. That wasn’t possible. Not with what they wanted him to do.

  He’d despised every second of it. He hated being shipped out on midnight air runs to territories foreign and domestic to back-up other Re
d units or ground grunts doing enforcing, rooting out bands of thugs, or calming Fundie rebel skirmishes.

  And he wasn’t good enough at kissing ass—or willing to engage in dirty tricks—to step on the backs of his fellow Reds to get a promotion higher than the rank of captain. And in Craige’s command, you pretty much had to be like that to advance any farther up the food chain.

  Russ might have been the best sniper the New North Americas Army ever had, but each shot he took, each kill he made, it chipped away at a piece of his soul until he knew the only good thing left inside him was his love for Ted.

  That’s where the rest of him still lay.

  And that’s where he’d go, home to Ted, in Montana.

  Or he’d die trying.

  * * * *

  His second night on the road, Russ made a nest for himself in some thick, tall brush a few dozen yards off the old roadbed. He ate a protein bar for dinner instead of popping open one of the MREs he’d purchased on base before he left, or starting a fire and hunting something. He definitely didn’t need a fire. The gentle, warm breeze felt pleasantly mild, and a nearly full moon gave him plenty of light to see by. Not to mention staying dark in his position kept him safely hidden from anyone who might pass his location.

  Yes, he was once again a legally free citizen of the New North Americas, whatever that meant. He’d done his five years of mandatory conscription time, earned enough coin to help him and Ted expand their compound the way they’d always talked about, and he could theoretically live out the rest of his life in peace.

  If the nightmares would ever stop.

  Russ never slept well or deeply. Not anymore. Especially when out in the open.

  Add to the list that he was still far closer to Houston than he’d like to be.

  A few hours later he startled awake, his fingers closing around the grip of the 9mm he’d purchased for his own use as a sidearm during conscription.

  Listening, he waited, body tensed. He knew what had awakened him—all the normal sounds of crickets, birds, and other nocturnally active denizens had gone silent in his immediate vicinity.

  Usually, that meant a predator.

  It took a while until his ears heard what his instincts had already picked up—the footsteps of several people walking along the crumbling tarmac of the old highway. No one spoke.

  He didn’t move, kept his breathing slow and light through barely parted lips.

  Still, his pulse raced. From the sound of it, many or all of the people in the group wore boots similar to what he wore on his feet, military-issue tactical hiking boots, thick and waterproofed and made for keeping troops vertical and mobile as long as possible. They made heavy, unmistakable footfalls to the trained ear.

  Especially when the troops wearing them made no effort to stay quiet.

  Russ didn’t spot any telltale lights and suspected they were using the moon for illumination, conserving precious batteries so they didn’t have to resort to loud hand-crank chargers. He didn’t dare move or lift his head over the brush to see how many there were.

  Craige and Hicks had both been off-base when Russ left, not due to return until the next morning. He hadn’t responded to their requests to speak with them one last time before his opt-out forms were formalized, and he wasn’t hanging around to wait on them, either. His chip code had already been changed to reflect his freeman status. Sure, he could have spent one last night at the barracks.

  As a civvie, he didn’t owe them shit.

  Still, he wouldn’t put it past Colonel Craige to send someone after him “just to talk.” To try to coax or haul him back in by whatever means necessary so they didn’t lose the best sniper they’d had in over twenty years.

  Hell, the best sniper the Nanners ever had, period.

  Russ was no idiot. He’d heard the rumors during his conscription. About how Craige had the highest overall re-opt numbers of any Red commander, Houston’s specialty re-opt numbers higher than any barracks in general. Low-level wonks or people without specialized skills, no one cared. Those numbers ran along the average of other barracks.

  But the specialists, the techs, the Reds—there was definitely a spike in Craige’s re-opt numbers in that bell curve when compared to other barracks.

  Numbers reportedly obtained by bribing or coercing people into re-opting, if the scuttlebutt was true.

  Dead Reds didn’t count.

  Russ didn’t plan on boosting their numbers, much less dying.

  As Russ remained motionless and listened, the footfalls passed his location without slowing. Either they weren’t looking for him, or they were but weren’t equipped with one of the precious few night-ops glasses the Houston barracks had for just such an occasion.

  If they were looking for him, he suspected they weren’t looking very hard.

  Or weren’t very good at it.

  Either option was fine with him.

  Russ remained invisible in his nest in the tall brush. He’d started to relax when something else pinged his attention. Still on high alert, he held his breath again until, yes, he sensed someone else. This one moved far more stealthy than the first batch. Much lighter on their feet, possibly even a woman.

  There were more men than women in the Red units overall, but the second-best sniper in the NNAA was a woman, as was the best assassin, both of them stationed out of the Houston barracks. Russ knew the sniper, because she was in his squad, but he had never personally met the assassin, Captain Wright.

  The unseen presence slowly worked their way down the old highway, pausing now and again as a night noise apparently caught their attention.

  Then they stopped, not too many yards from where he’d entered the high grass off the highway. In daylight, a trained eye would easily pick out his trail. At night, however, even with the bright moon, they couldn’t. Not without a light.

  Eventually, Russ heard the person continue on until, once again, he was alone and the only noises surrounding him were the usual nighttime sounds of this sparsely inhabited region.

  Still, he knew his sleep was shot for the night. Instead, he chose to think about Ted, about how he’d soon be reunited with him. Be able to hug him again. At six-one, his partner was only two inches shorter than him, with blond hair and blue eyes and a snarky sense of humor, combined with a gentle soul, a combo which never failed to get Russ’ motor running. Russ wanted to do nothing more than hug that man, hear his laugh.

  See him smile.

  Russ knew it’d be too easy to close his eyes and let his mind wander, but he didn’t want to be distracted. It’d be too easy for someone to sneak up on him. Knowing there were other people out there in the dark, unseen, meant he couldn’t let his focus slip that much.

  Instead, he smiled as he stared up at the sky and fantasized about getting home, where he belonged. To getting on with his life. To reconnecting with friends.

  To reuniting with Ted.

  * * * *

  Captain Zola Wright mentally cursed the four men walking a short distance in front of her.

  Could they possibly make any more noise?

  At that point, it wouldn’t have surprised her if they broke into bawdy drinking songs.

  They might as well, for all the racket they were making. Sneaking up on someone trained in concealment and who didn’t want to be discovered would be damn near impossible at this point.

  Then again, she hadn’t wanted this mission. She sure as hell didn’t want to be in charge of a group of lifer wonk privates who didn’t give a shit about what they did because of their job security.

  And, frankly, she didn’t want to find the man she was looking for.

  Not that she was dumb enough to admit that to her CO, or to the wonks assigned to go with her on this mission.

  She had less than two weeks left in her own two-year opt-in term. It was just like Half-Assed Hicks to assign her some bullshit job like this, even though she suspected the orders came directly from Colonel Craige above him. She’d never met Captain Russell Owens i
n person. Now that decorated sniper was a civvie, she really didn’t have any desire to meet him. Owens had earned his freedom, as far as she was concerned. Did his time, and opted out.

  Lucky bastard.

  Although unknown to her personally, she respected him, his reputation, and his record. They’d worked several missions together, without actually being face-to-face, him and his squad providing sniper cover to her Red troops on the ground. She knew his rep and his skill level—the best sniper the NNAA had, bar none.

  He had countless logged kills, maybe as many as she had, but she envied his ability to do it from a distance. Even though he was a Red, they were assigned to separate squads that never mixed despite being stationed at the Houston barracks.

  If that was by design of their higher ups, Zola didn’t question it. She focused on doing her job, no matter how much she hated it, and herself, as a result. Besides, with over ten thousand people stationed at the Houston barracks, not counting civvie personnel and civvie NOKs, it was a city unto itself. And as much time as Zola spent on the road on missions, there were people in her own unit she barely knew, much less people in other squads.

  Once she’d been assigned to the covert Red assassin unit at the Houston barracks after basic ended, Zola had never been able to get herself transferred out again despite despising the job. Had she known being good at what she did would mean seven years of hell doing it, she would have faked clumsiness, ineptitude with a blade and a choke wire, pretended she couldn’t track a blind, three-legged bull in a china shop at high noon—anything to keep from having to take lives and being pigeonholed as an assassin.

  Now they wanted her to find and talk to Owens, try to convince him to come back, opt-in for another term.

  How the frak am I supposed to do that when I don’t even want to be here for another opt-in?