“It’ll be over before you know it, big brother, you’re doing great.” Toby sounded like he was a doctor, coaching a pregnant woman through her labor pains, rather than just some halfwit sadist torturing his family at the behest of some crazy woman and her invisible friend.
Why do I do this?
For Riley. For Judith.
Mick finished up on the right thumb with a quick jab of the chisel. The impact sent the bloody nub spinning over the side of the log and into the dirt. After that Mick made quick work of the remaining fingers. He really found his groove by the time he hit the middle digit. That was also about the time Zach blacked out from the pain.
When the deed was done everyone stepped back and allowed Zach’s body to ragdoll to the ground. Toby, strangely enough, was the only one that seemed to care about his brother’s condition. He knelt over him and checked his pulse. “Heart’s still beating,” he announced.
“Of course, imbecile, it was a few fingers. We didn’t gut the boy.” The crowd laughed along with Mother. “Come now, leave him be.”
“Shouldn’t we have Doc bandage him up?”
“We will, but right now, the Doctor has an announcement to make. It’s something very special, another blessing from our Father.”
“I could throw a bandage on him… it wouldn’t take much time.”
“No, you will do your duty here. Then, if you wish, you can tend to him.” It was obvious that she didn’t care if Zach lived or died. If he lived, it was by the mercy of the Father. If he died, it was the judgment of the Father. It was a win-win for her. All that mattered was that she’d managed to tighten her grip on the reins of power. Everyone else, including her own sons, be damned.
With Zach bleeding out at his feet, Blake stepped forward. He cleared his throat and made the Declaration of Multiplication, provoking a wave of adoration and applause.
Mother wrapped an arm around his shoulders. “Now you may attend to Zach.”
“Yes ma’am.” Blake turned and signaled for Toby. “Come on, help me with him.” There was no objection.
Toby crouched down and got right to it. “Where we going with him?”
“My place, my bag is there.”
Mother launched into her closing speech as they departed with Zach’s body.
“You know, I didn’t want to do this to him,” Toby said once they’d gotten beyond the crowd.
“I know,” Blake answered flatly.
“It’s just… there’s no refusing Mother, you know?”
“I know.”
Trust me, I know.
27
The conversation with Lerah hadn’t gotten any livelier as the day wore on. Dominic had made a fair share of flimsy attempts to remedy the situation; small talk about the hellacious heat, the aching wound on his belly, little anecdotes about his many experiences running solo across the Outland. Every effort was met with either abject silence or a dismissive nod. She’d built her walls high and tight. As they walked she did her best to stay out in front of him and he did little to try to close the gap.
When night fell, they were given no choice but to bed down on open ground. They’d been lucky enough to find an impact crater; it offered them some seclusion from the elements. Still, it was too exposed to risk a cook fire. They were left with only bread, fruit, almonds, and some water for the evening meal. Dominic didn’t mind, it was better eating than he was used to. It didn’t seem to bother Lerah much either, since she was refusing to eat. After they’d slid down into the crater she’d removed her jacket and weapons, spread out her blanket, and laid down, her back pointed towards Dominic.
“You should really eat something. You need to keep your energy up. I don’t want you blacking out on me tomorrow.” He didn’t care much about her energy or the possibility of her blacking out, what he really cared about was getting her to open her mouth. He could tell by the uneven rise and fall of her breathing that she was still awake and listening. “At least drink something.” He jiggled the canteen at the back of her head.
She curled up tighter, as if shielding against a bitter cold.
He tossed the receptacle over his shoulder, frustrated. “Damn it, Lerah! What is it? You’re pissed at me, that much is obvious. So why don’t you just shoot me straight, like you always do?”
Her feet shifted, the blanket ruffled up around the soles of her boots. Another great chasm of time opened up between them. Just as Dominic moved to further his case, she spoke. “I helped you slaughter my people. Men I’ve known since I was a child. Excuse me if I’m not feeling talkative.”
“So this is about Perkins? You gave me the go ahead on that.”
“I just said that I helped you slaughter them, didn’t I? It’s on me as much as you. But I’d never have been put in that situation if you hadn’t come barreling into my life.”
“So you’d have been standing beside them instead?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, you’re twisting my words.”
“You know, this guy that you’re getting all nostalgic over, I recall him ranting about raping and executing you.”
“We killed his men. How would you react?”
He’d probably react similarly, minus all the talk of rape and torture. When powerful men were backed into a corner they were prone to act out of character; to bare their claws and their teeth, to strike out with the blackest parts of their souls. “He was in a bad spot. I’ll give you that. Folks tend to handle death one of two ways: open armed acceptance or kicking and screaming. But he put himself there. Not you. Not me. He chose.”
“It doesn’t make it easier. The memories I have of him span decades. And every damn one of them, barring today, are good. I don’t know what happened. That wasn’t the man I grew up with.”
“I never said it was supposed to make it easier. You may look down on Outlanders, but where I come from, people are just people. There’s right and there’s wrong. You don’t just stand by and let innocents get slaughtered because it’s your friends pulling the trigger. We did everything we could to diffuse that situation. They’re the ones that brought it to the next level. You shouldn’t blame yourself. And even though I know you’re going to, you shouldn’t blame me. It’s like I told you before, it’s us or them. It’s gotta be us, every time. That’s the only way to survive out here.”
She sniffled and placed a hand beneath her face. “I don’t blame you,” her voice cracked.
“I don’t know you all that well, but it seems you’ve got good intentions. I’m willing to bet, that if we could rewind, you’d do the same thing, without hesitation. Not because you enjoy killing. Not because it’s easy. But because what we did, saving those people, it was right.”
“What if,” she patted at her eyes, “those people, what if they really did know something about the Rebels? What if we just helped them get away with it?”
“Do they deserve to have their women raped? Do they deserve to have their houses burned?”
She didn’t say anything. Instead she began kicking her boots off, launching them a few feet away with a quick toss of her legs.
“You know, you saved my ass back there. Those boys had me dead to rights.”
“Guess that makes us even.”
“Guess it does.”
The light cast off of the neon moon washed them in its glow like a roving spotlight. Wispy clouds passed over its face like silent ships sailing on a black sea. The wind howled, sending thin layers of sand raining down into their burrow with each designless gust.
Dominic sat there, watching her.
The slope of her hips.
The curve of her ass beneath her quilted pants.
The soft flesh of her back wrapped around lean sheets of muscle.
“About what happened in the rain,” he began.
“Nothing happened. I don’t want to talk about it.”
“It’s just… I thought there was something—”
“There’s not. You’re an Outlander. I’m Union. I’m with you be
cause I don’t have a choice.”
He laughed. “You are something.”
“What I am is tired of listening to you. Kindly shut up.”
“It’s like you’ve got two settings: cunt and bitch.”
She was up and facing him, her nostrils flaring. “Excuse me?”
“I prefer bitch. At least I can get some decent conversation out of you.”
She lunged, a closed fist aimed directly at his face.
He moved into the blow, knocking her back on to her ass, and trapping her hand against her thigh. “I’d expect a more competent attack from such an elite soldier.”
“Let me go, I promise I’ll get it right next time.” She was breathing heavy, her teeth clenched.
“Is this how you charm the boys?”
“Only the ones I really like,” she growled.
Dominic gripped her by the chin and pressed his lips to hers. Her teeth were like daggers as they sank into his bottom lip. He recoiled, wiping a ribbon of blood from the corner of his mouth. “Nice.”
“Let me go, now!” A vein bulged against the surface of her forehead and her sweat soaked shirt clung desperately to the swell of her breasts.
He released her and raised his hands. She kicked off of him, scuttling back a few feet before coiling herself up like a spring. She remained there, her eyes glowing in the darkness.
“My mistake, I’ll take my leave,” he said, still feeling the sting of Lerah’s bite.
She sprang just as he got his footing. She caught him around the waist, her face coming in sideways against his stomach. Normally a woman of Lerah’s stature wouldn’t be able to put a man of Dominic’s size on his back with such ease, but she’d caught him off balance. The floor of the impact crater was like granite; scorched and sealed by the heat blast of some bomb dropped centuries ago. It was not a soft landing. It took the damned breath right out of his lungs. She loomed over him like a shadow, her hands pressed flat against his chest, her tongue cocked across her front teeth.
Then she started grinding him.
Slowly at first.
Then faster.
She began to run her claws across his chest and torso, the sharp edges of her fingernails easily translated through the thin fabric of his shirt.
“Ouch, be careful.” She’d started skirting the perimeter of his wound.
“Shut the fuck up,” she said breathily. She tore his shirt up around his neck, strangling him in it as her lips began kneading the hard muscle beneath.
“Just… give me a… second… I can take this off.”
“Shut,” her lips moved lower, “the,” across his nipples, “fuck,” she was working her way down his stomach, licking long paths with the bed of her tongue, “up.” She began pulling at the buckle on his pants, working with a thirsty urgency.
He felt himself stiffening beneath her struggle. “Let me—”
“Stop talking!”
She broke through, setting him free to flap beneath the stars. He wasn’t sure he’d ever felt more exposed, even when he was hanging naked in the dungeons of Genesis. He managed to kick his boots loose before she finished working his britches down his legs. She got them over his ankles and then sent them sailing into the darkness. He thought of protesting, but what good would it do?
She was in no reasoning mood.
When she stood to remove her own pants Dominic took the opportunity to shed his jacket and shirt. She was back on top of him in no time, pinning him, her lean stomach pressed against his, the nipples of her breasts poking him through her shirt, her breath on his neck, the coolness of her thighs on either side of his hips.
He was fully enflamed now, fighting to get inside her, but each time she pulled away; teasing him with her warmth and wetness.
It was a game of power.
Dominic had never been conquered and he wasn’t about to start now. He wrapped one arm across her back and one across her ass and flipped her.
“Bastard!” She nipped at him when he moved in to kiss her.
He bore down and forced her thighs apart, sliding inside with one stern thrust. She took him easily, gasping with delight, her expression of contempt quickly turning to one of ecstasy. He ran his hands up her stomach, his fingers tracing the rigid lines of muscle, raising her shirt as he fought to get a feel of her breasts.
“Take it off.”
“Fuck you, savage. You take it off,” she groaned and lifted her arms above her head.
He stripped her of her shirt and sent it sailing in the same direction she’d sent his pants.
She arched her back, meeting each of his thrusts with one of her own. Her muscles tightened and released. She locked her ankles around his lower back and forced him in deeper. “Is that all you can do, you brute? You wanted to fuck me, so fuck me!”
He was already starting to break a sweat. He could feel a familiar tingle telling him that he wasn’t going to be able to last much longer without release. “I’ve got to slow down or—”
“On your back!”
“I can’t—”
“On your fucking back!”
He didn’t resist.
Within seconds she was rising above him, his prick planted firmly in the wet spot between her legs. She was taking no prisoners. The rest of him didn’t exist, only his prick and her desires. “Put your hands on me!”
He started to run his hands up her thighs but she slapped them away, grabbed him by the wrists, and wrapped one hand around her breast and the other across her ass.
“Squeeze! Don’t be gentle!”
“Lerah, you’ve got to slow down, I’m going to—”
“Don’t you dare!”
Her ass hardened beneath his grasp with each twist and turn of her torso. Her face was pointed towards the sky, her teeth clenched, profanity and pleasure escaping her lips. He ran his hands down the hour glass of her waist, pressing his thumbs against her stomach as she moved forward and back, faster and faster.
“Oh my god, I’m almost… oh my god!” she squealed.
He was about to explode. He closed his eyes and tried to imagine something else; something old, ugly, fat, and hairy.
Every muscle in Lerah’s body went rigid. Her voice became a sputtering squeak, just an ocean of syllables, crashing over one another. She dug her fingers into his forearms as her body rattled like a leaf, and just as quickly as her climax began, it ended. Her body went limp and she fell across his chest, sweaty and content.
She rolled off, on to her back, her slender form glistening in the moonlight, leaving him stiff and unsatisfied. “Um, you finished?”
She nodded briskly and smiled, still fighting to catch her breath. “God… yes.”
“What about me?”
She looked at him and giggled. Her eyes fell across his prick, still saluting the night sky. “What about you?”
“I’m in need of some attention.”
She shook her head. “You’re not finishing off inside me. And I don’t see a bath around here, so you sure as shit aren’t getting my mouth.”
“Your hand then?”
She rolled over and propped herself up on an elbow, her nipples brushing the side of his chest. “Well,” she said, licking her lips, “I do consider myself a woman of compromise.”
Lerah gazed off into the cluster of stars overhead, little masses of blue and silver winking like thousands of tiny eyes. She couldn’t shake the smile from her lips, nor could she extinguish the electricity bouncing around inside of her belly. She felt like hot wax, dripping and morphing into her surroundings, completely at ease. She could sense Dominic watching her. She could hear the ground crunch beneath his skull every time he turned his eyes upon her. In any other moment such a thing would scorch her nerves. Not in that moment. No, in that moment, everything was too right to be made wrong. Not even Dominic’s terminal inability to shut up could ruin it. “Are you going to speak, or just stare like a simpleton?”
“I was just thinking it was pretty good. Wouldn’t you say?”
Disarm and disrobe him, and he becomes a boy, hunting for approval like a glassy eyed hound. “You’ll get no complaints from me. But don’t go getting any ideas about this being a regular thing. It’s one time only. We had our fun. The rest is business.”
“I never assumed it’d be anything more.”
“Well, good, glad we’re of a like mind on the matter.” The stars continued to wink at her. One leapt from its perch and proceeded to rocket across the sky, leaving a silver trail in its wake that was gradually soaked up by the blackness. She’d read about them in an old book. Read that they weren’t really stars at all. Just cast off bits of space dust and rock being burnt up and consumed by the earth’s atmosphere. The knowledge had made her sad. She’d enjoyed the idea of stars traveling the sky, looking for new places to call home.
“You know, I never pictured this going down, you and me. I thought I had a better chance of you jamming a knife in my spine.”
Damn him and his constant lip flapping. “I thought about it, thinking about it now.”
He laughed, either missing the sincerity of her words, or not caring. “That requisitions boy, whatever his name was, told me that you hate men. I will admit, I was prone to believing him until now.”
“He said I hate men?”
“Yep, said no one has ever gotten close to you.”
“Was he trying to say I’ve got a thing for pussy?”
“I don’t know. That’s just what he said. He didn’t explain himself further and I didn’t ask.”
That didn’t sit well with Lerah. The little prick had mighty loose lips. If he was sharing such thoughts with an Outlander, who else was he jawing off to? She’d have words with him when she returned. “What’d you say?”
“I didn’t really say anything.”
“You must have said something. People don’t just say nothing.”
“Some people do.”
“You’re not one of those people. You can’t even keep your mouth shut long enough for me to look at the stars in peace.”
“I spend most of my life in solitude, walking from this place to that. If there’s an opportunity for conversation, I try to take advantage of it. Would you deny a thirsty man a few drops of water?”
The Fall of Man: The Saboteur Chronicles Book 1 Page 22