by May Dawson
Beyond them, I caught a glimpse of Rafe. His face was still, but his eyes were like dark coals burning into me from across the yard.
“You made one of the Rebels cry,” Tobias said with a laugh. He flipped a coin to me, and I caught it against my chest automatically.
“What’s this?” I asked.
“Just a little bet we all have with each other.”
I smiled back at him. “Well, thanks. Good first day on the job.”
One day, I was going to make Tobias eat this coin.
I didn’t dare look to see if Isabelle had gotten away. There was no point to the sacrifice Maddie had made if I blew it now. I had to trust them both.
Instead, I walked away, leaving the girl I loved in the mud behind me.
When I walked around the corner on my patrol, I came face to face with another familiar face. Isabelle, carrying a sack of wheat from the storehouse toward the kitchen. She’d managed to finagle a job where she could disappear. No surprise. My childhood best friend was always the smartest of any of us, not that I’d ever have confessed it to her.
She stared at me, her lips parting in surprise, then quickly looked around, her eyes barely flickering, barely giving her away, the way we’d been trained. “Silas. You’re really here.”
“Really.” Lucky me. I’d been looking forward to this moment when I saw Isabelle alive and unharmed; I’d barely dared to hope for it, preparing myself for disappointment. Until I heard from Fredrick, I thought I might reach my friends only to discover they were all dead.
Now when I saw her, instead of feeling triumphant, I still felt cold and dead inside from hurting Maddie.
No—not cold and dead. That was covering something else. That was all I could bear to feel right now.
She set the wheat down; she was so thin now that her narrow arms were clearly straining just to carry the relatively light burden. She’d lost a lot of muscle since we last saw each other.
If I let myself, that would have made me sad for her and furious at the colony. Instead, I focused on what it meant. She’d be weak during our escape attempts; I’d have to factor that in if there were physical challenges to surmount. I couldn’t count on her athleticism the way I always had before.
“What’s the game, Isabelle?” I asked coolly. I couldn’t seem to manage any warmth, even though she deserved it from me. Maybe this was for the best anyway; no one would necessarily know that we were friends if we misjudged and someone did hear my tone. They’d know I knew her, but most of the guards were here with grudges anyway, so I could explain that away.
“Come with me,” she said softly. “We can talk in the kitchen. There’s no one there right now.”
I followed her as she backed into the camp kitchen. Sure enough, the big, windowless room was empty. She quickly shut the door and checked that it was closed.
“If someone comes across us, you can just pretend you’re one of the creepy guards who tries to take advantage of their position. I’ve heard they sometimes get a firm scolding,” she said lightly.
Her words sent dread curling through my stomach. I hated the thought that so much evil was happening in this place, and if someone had already hurt her, I wanted to kill them. Maybe I’d get my chance, although I doubted Rafe would thumbs-up my kill them all plan.
“I heard you wanted to ruin my carefully planned escape,” I told her, crossing my arms over my chest. “What’s going on?”
“I can’t leave yet,” she said. “Keen is dying, Silas.”
Those four words hit me harder than I ever would have imagined.
But all I said was, “You’re all going to die. The warden’s already planning to shut down the camp, and I don’t think that means you all walk off into the forest to live with the deer and bunnies.”
There was a sudden haunted look in her eyes, as if she knew something about the idea of that camp shut down, but before I could push her, she said quickly, “Maddie told me something about a move to the Grave Sea colony.”
“Yeah, that’s for the lucky ones who ae supposed to be bait,” I said.
“Bait for what?” She stared at me and then said, “Oh, you cocky bastard. You think you’re that important?”
“I do,” I promised her. Warren Campbell seemed pretty obsessed with me, and I would bet that meant there was someone above him who was equally obsessed.
He didn’t seem the type to be independently motivated to that degree, unless I’d slept with his sister or enchanted his dog to hate him or something and didn’t even remember it.
Then I asked, “What’s going on with Keen? Sebastian?”
“Sebastian’s around here somewhere,” she waved her arm in the general direction of camp. It seemed as if the two of them had broken up and she didn’t seem very inclined to tell me the story. Whatever happened here must have something to do with why.
I glanced at the door. “You and I have a very brief period of time together so I’d like it if you just—”
“Don’t use that tone with me,” she cut me off. But she launched into her story anyway. “Keen led an escape attempt a while back. All of us from her old group. Someone sold us out.”
She paused, just for a second, then said in a rush, “Diminity died in the attempt.”
“Who betrayed her?”
“Already dead,” she told me, a wicked glint in her eye.
“That’s my girl,” I said.
“I didn’t say I did it.”
“Did you do?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“After that, they punished Keen with a root spell,” she said.
“So she literally can’t leave,” I said. The root spell meant that she was tied to the land itself; she was dying slowly anyway, but she’d expire quickly if she tried to leave the grounds. It was a cruel bit of magic. We’d never had any reason to use it, but I’d learned about it at the academy.
Then more harshly, I added, “But Keen would want you all to go.”
“I’m not going off an another half-baked escape attempt,” she said hotly. “They vaporized an entire barracks during our escape attempt.”
“The destroyed building.”
She nodded. “Everyone else turned their backs on Keen after that. They blamed her.”
That wasn’t fair, but fair wasn’t important. “But they can’t turn their backs on you. Can they? Because you’ve got the power to get in and out of camp.”
She pulled a leather pouch from under her yellow shirt; it was tied around her neck. “The mushrooms I gather help keep Keen alive.”
“And no one turns you in because…”
“Because I’d kill them?” she filled in, brows rising. “And because that’s not the only thing I bring back. For some reason, my rune doesn’t work right. I can get in and out of their wards.”
“Maybe it’s not that the rune doesn’t work,” I said. “Maybe you’re powerful enough to overcome it.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Just a hunch.” I wouldn’t risk Maddie’s life by telling my theories to Isabelle, no matter how much I loved her like a sister. She didn’t need to know.
“Keen wouldn’t want you to sacrifice for her,” I reminded her.
She shook her head. “I’m not letting more people die so I can escape, Silas. They’d just keep destroying barracks houses.”
“I’ll find a way to fix it,” I promised.
She looked at me doubtfully. “Well, since we’re all going to die anyway, I guess you can’t make things much worse.”
“I love the confidence.”
“Sorry.” She shrugged, not sounding one bit sorry. “You and I have known each other since we were kids. This is the confidence of someone who has known you all your life and seen some of your more half-baked schemes.”
“This scheme will be fully baked,” I promised.
“Oh? Is that why you ended up beating the love of your life half to death? Because you’ve got this situation wel
l in hand?”
My jaw flexed, and those keen brown eyes of Isabelle’s didn’t miss a thing. She smiled in genuine delight. “She is the love of your life. You’ve got feelings for the first time in your life. How is that?”
I shook my head. “Irrelevant right now. We’d better separate. Just…stay ready.”
“Fine, Silas,” she said. “But after we burn this place down, you are going to tell me all your secrets.”
“Something to stay alive for,” I said, and she nodded, her eyes bright.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Maddie
Jensen’s fury was still written across his face when the alarm blew at the end of the workday.
I’d returned to work, moving as best as I could despite the painful welts and bruises across my body. I was moving slowly but I didn’t want to attract any more attention, so I just kept going. Jensen stayed near me, radiating so much protective fury that it made me worry about him.
Once the alarm whooped once, signaling the end of the workday and the beginning of our dinner, the two of us fled into the showers. I just wanted to get cleaned up. I was splattered with mud still, it was caked into my clothes.
“Nothing broken, right?” Jensen asked me as I began to strip off the muddy clothes.
“That hasn’t changed since you asked before,” I chided him gently.
He looked so angry. I didn’t want to touch him when I was filthy from the work and the mud, but I almost couldn’t bear not to. If Jensen was that furious, he must have felt really scared for me.
“I told Silas to do it,” I told him.
He shook his head, his jaw still tight.
“If you want to be angry at someone, then be angry at me,” I said.
“Fine,” he exploded suddenly. “Maybe I will be. God damn it, Maddie, do you always have to be the hero? You could have been killed.”
He said hero as if maybe he meant hero, or maybe he meant asshole.
“No, I couldn’t have; Silas got there first. And anyway, it’s not that much worse than being at the academy,” I promised him.
Despite how blasé I sounded, I winced as I reached to turn the water on. As I tested it with my hand, wondering if the cold spray would ever heat up or if this was the best I could do. I wasn’t sure the Establishment would waste hot water heaters on their captured Rebels. The entire place seemed like an invitation to freeze to death.
“It isn’t?” he asked, his voice like ice, and I knew he’d seen my back. I twisted my head over my shoulder, trying to get a glimpse, but the movement pulled at my sore muscles and I gave up.
I was probably better off without seeing it, anyway. As the cool air slid over my now bare skin, I could feel each raised welt across my shoulders and ass. Silas had made sure he didn’t hit me anywhere that would leave lasting damage; I might be moving painfully now, but I’d recover.
I’d just be miserable during the process
“Does it look worse than the tawse, really?” Hot water sprayed against my outstretched palm, and I stepped into the water with a sigh of relief. I washed away the mud, which pooled in the water around my feet.
“He shouldn’t have hit you like that,” Jensen said.
“He did what needed to be done.” I tilted my head up into the spray, running my fingers through my hair, getting the last of the filth out. “Silas is always focused on the endgame.”
“Is he? Always?” Jensen’s voice was harsh. “Why does he call you rabbit?”
My stomach froze. I’d always been afraid of the moment when the guys confronted what Silas did to me when we were in the coven; now even without those dark moments being exposed, they’d seen what Silas was capable of doing.
“Jensen,” I began softly.
“No, don’t,” he cut me off. He was in the spray with me a second later, his hands on my waist, as the shower soaked us both. He bit off, “You don’t need to use that nice tone and try to make me feel better. You’re the one who’s hurt.”
“I don’t need you to be angry at Silas, then, if you’re worried about me. I told him to do it.”
“Fine,” he bit off. “Then I’m angry at you.”
“You’re angry at me?” I repeated in shock. “Jensen, we have a mission here. That’s what I’m doing—”
“You don’t understand how precious you are to me,” he cut me off. “You would kill me for doing the shit you do and then expecting me to smile about it.”
Okay, maybe he wasn’t wrong there.
“Jensen, I’ve got a job to do, the same as you,” I tried. “You don’t get to see me as precious when we’re out in the field.”
“I can’t turn that off,” he said, his brows drawn together over those magnetic golden eyes. “Maddie, you’re the center of my world. Watching someone hurt you, I just…”
He shook his head.
“Well, I don’t plan to make a regular habit of it,” I said lightly. “But tell me you wouldn’t do the same. To protect someone.”
He stared down at me. The spray had soaked his shirt to his chest, and it clung to his muscles, reminding me of what a god of a man he looked like.
“Of course you can’t,” I answered for him. “Because you’re as much of a hero-slash-asshole as I am, right?”
“You make me crazy,” he said.
“Yeah, I hear that’s going around.”
Then his lips were on mine and his hands were in my hair. He kissed me fiercely, but his hands were gentle, finding the spots where it was safe to touch me. When he dropped his hand from my head, he gripped my hips carefully.
But even when he forgot himself just a little and his fingertips brushed against my tender ass, that pain suddenly didn’t feel bad—not when his body was pressed against mine.
Jensen’s mouth was hot and sweet as the two of us traded kisses, the water streaming down around us.
I yanked on the front of his soaked t-shirt. “Take this off.”
“So demanding,” he teased, before pulling the wet shirt over his head.
I took it out of his hands and dropped it onto the ground. I couldn’t put my back up against the floor or the wall.
He must have realized that, because he went down to the floor, cocking one arm beneath his head and motioning me toward him. I straddled him carefully, leaning forward. He looked up at me with smoldering eyes and drew my nipple into his mouth, teasing me with his tongue the way he did so well. His other hand found my breast, massaging it and playing with me until I pulled away and straightened, determined to regain control.
“You are so beautiful,” he said, watching me with those glowing golden eyes as I rode him.
I rocked my hips back and forth, enjoying not just how good he felt inside me but also the way his face shifted with arousal. His lips parted, his breath coming short. The water soaked into his dark curls.
The sterile walls of the shower room faded. It was just Jensen and me, and we could have been anywhere. The academy, the house. It didn’t matter.
His hands gripped my hips, helping me move faster up and down his shaft, his face tightening as if he were about to come. I bit my lip, feeling myself begin to tighten around him; tingles of pleasure raced through my body. I forgot myself and pushed all the way down, letting his cock fill me completely, my thighs pressing against his hard, rippling abs. And my welted ass met his thighs, making me wince.
Jensen froze, but I kept moving, riding him just as hard. I didn’t want to ruin everything. And after all, Rafe had introduced me to just how much the pain/pleasure threshold could blur.
“I’m fine,” I promised, but he shook his head.
“No,” he said gently, his hands helping me up, off of him. “We can finish, but not like that. Not if it’s going to hurt you.”
“I’m not breakable,” I chided him.
“Do you think I don’t know that?” he said fondly, leaning over to kiss me. His lips were tender as his hand wrapped around my jaw; he took his time kissing me even though he’d obviously been on the
verge of coming when he stopped.
His hard cock glistened with precum as he folded the wet t-shirt over, laying it out for me. “Get on your knees, sunshine.”
I hesitated. I had originally thought about having sex in this position, but then I’d worried that seeing the bruises and welts across my body would ruin it for him. “It’s a pretty ugly view right now.”
“You’re always beautiful, Maddie. The fact that you’re self-sacrificing and brave and good doesn’t exactly ruin it for me,” he promised.
I couldn’t help feeling self-conscious still, but I tried to trust him that he meant it. I knelt, and he moved behind me. His cock teased against my opening, stroking through my folds. I pushed back, and he eased into me gently. No matter what he said, it made me think something was wrong. Gentle wasn’t usually Jensen’s MO.
But then he began to rock into me, over and over. I could tell he was carefully controlling his thrusts, but even so, he seemed to hit my g-spot every time, and warmth flooded me, that same pleasant tingle resuming.
Then his hand slid around to find my clit, toying with me over and over, until my orgasm came so hard I bit my lower lip to keep from screaming. I felt him stiffen behind me as he came too, and he couldn’t hold back a gasp of my name.
We were right there in the shower for easy cleanup, and I stepped back under the hot water, trying not to wince when the spray hit a welt that must have opened.
“Are you sure that was okay?” I asked.
“Yeah,” Jensen said skeptically, giving me that look that told me I was being ridiculous. “I would do it again. Like every day for the next sixty years, because that’s how long I hope you’re stuck with me.”
I smiled faintly, trying to imagine a geriatric Jensen. I’d bet he’d be the hellraiser of the nursing home.
“I thought the way I looked might ruin things,” I said.
“Nah,” he said. He cupped my face, before brushing his lips in an innocent kiss across my forehead. “Does it make me want to kill a certain someone? Absolutely. But it’s fine.”
I leveled a look at him, and he said, “I wouldn’t actually kill him. I’m just going to fantasize about it.”