by Stasia Black
“It’s all right,” Audrey laughed nervously. Okay, so she wasn’t the only one who had no idea what the hell she was doing. She stepped forward impulsively and landed a quick peck on Danny’s lips. When she pulled back he looked totally dumbstruck. Like she’d just revealed she’d cured him of an incurable disease, not given him a brief little peck on the lips.
Then was Mateo. He looked as pale and scared as Audrey felt and her heart melted. Mateo had been special from the beginning. Where Nix was constantly demanding, Mateo only wanted to give. To serve. To see to her every comfort and desire.
She felt a kinship with him she couldn’t explain. Maybe because she could tell he’d experienced loss too. Not in the same way, perhaps, but he’d suffered. Deeply.
And in spite of her circumstances, Audrey couldn’t help but want to give back to him. So when he stepped up to her, body trembling even more than hers had been throughout the wedding ceremony, she was the one who reached for him.
She lifted her head and pressed her lips to his. Tentatively at first. But then she remembered the way Clark had moved his tongue and so she experimented. She ran her tongue along the seam of his lips and he inhaled sharply. Feeling a little bolder, she cupped his face and deepened the kiss.
And it was sweet. Very sweet. Mateo’s body melted against hers. He pulled her closer and she could feel his racing heartbeat through his chest. His tongue moved and started to dance with hers and it wasn’t long before again, she was breathless and dizzy with the sensations being awakened in her body.
When she finally pulled away, the warmth pulsing out from her center was so shocking, for a moment she just stood there, frozen.
Not for long though, because Nix was apparently impatient for his turn.
He grasped her around her waist and all but dragged her up and into him. And his lips weren’t gentle or teasing or coaxing.
They were demanding.
Devouring.
She gasped for air and it was his breath she was breathing in. He seemed determined to imprint his lips on hers.
Oh— oh—
He sucked her tongue into his mouth and it—
Her entire body shuddered against him. Oh God, was it possible to have an orgasm just from a kiss?
How was he doing that— She didn’t even like him, so why was she— Oh, oh God—
She groaned into his mouth and he kissed her even deeper, though she wouldn’t have thought that was possible. He swallowed her gasp, his hard body pressing into her soft one. He reached up and dug his fingers into her hair, ignoring the pins and cradling the back of her head so he could kiss her even more deeply still.
And she abandoned herself to it. She didn’t mean to. God knew she didn’t mean to. But he was— It was—
When he finally dragged his mouth away, she barely stopped herself from whimpering in disappointment.
It took her several moments to realize there were whistles and catcalls coming from all around them.
Because they were standing at the front of a church.
Oh God.
Embarrassment hit hot and blinding.
How had she lost control of herself so completely? She felt her cheeks flame.
“Time to take our wife home,” Nix declared.
Then Nix was all but dragging her out the back of the church, the rest of her husbands—oh God, her husbands, plural—following on their heels.
But apparently she wasn’t moving fast enough for Nix’s liking because the next thing she knew, he’d hoisted her up and over his shoulder like he was a damn caveman and she was his most recent kill.
“Nix!” she called out, smacking at his back. It wasn’t her fault she couldn’t walk at his breakneck speed. Unless she literally wanted to break her neck. Whoever had invented high heels back before The Fall needed to die. Maybe with a high heel impaled in his neck. Those things were death traps. Why did women used to subject themselves to them?
On the other hand, maybe this was better. After several jarring steps, she closed her eyes and clung to Nix’s back. Just go loose, go along with what the guys had planned.
She would not hyperventilate. She would not hyperventilate.
So she was about to lose her virginity.
In a fivesome.
No big deal.
She just had to lay there. Right?
…
Who the fuck was she kidding?
It was a big deal. It was a huge, giant fucking deal. But she’d told herself she was doing it tonight and it was a promise she meant to keep.
Before she knew it, and far before she was ready—because who was she kidding, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be ready for this—she was being deposited on the bed.
Five men.
Her.
And one very large bed.
Apparently there wouldn’t be any waiting to consummate this marriage.
Chapter 1
AUDREY
Three Weeks Earlier
“Water!” Audrey yelled at her brother, Charlie. “See, I told you it would lead to water!” She threw off her backpack and ran the last few feet to the small stream of water trickling out from the rocks.
They’d been trekking uphill for what felt like hours, following a muddy culvert. And finally, finally, they’d found its source.
And God was she thirsty. She hadn’t had a drink in a day and a half and the Texas heat was punishing—but she still threw her exhausted hands up in the air and did an exuberant little dance.
Charlie rolled his eyes at her. Only two years older than her twenty-two, he liked to pretend he was sooooo superior. Didn’t stop him from grabbing his tin cup from their pack and dropping to his knees unceremoniously in front of the rocks. He put his hand underneath the cup, licking the water off his fingers that didn’t make it in.
As soon as the tiniest bit of water gathered in the bottom, he held it out to Audrey. “Drink.”
She shook her head. “You drink.” Her throat felt raw from being so dry but she croaked out anyway, “Saw you slip the last of your water in my flask yesterday. Don’t need you always taking care of me. I do just fine.”
“Less talking, more drinking, baby sis.” He held out the cup to her again.
She crossed her arms and glared. “I can out-stubborn you any day,” she rasped. “Remember the green beans?”
He rolled his eyes again but swigged the water from the cup.
She grinned, knowing they were both remembering what had become Dawson family legend—the time she’d once sat at the dinner table all weekend when she was seven because Dad said she couldn’t leave the table until she ate her green beans.
So she sat. And sat. And slept with her head on the table. And sat some more until it was time to go to school on Monday.
She grinned at Charlie but he just shook his head as he refilled the cup. “Figured if I drank I’d get the water in you quicker.” He handed it over once a small pool of water settled at the bottom. “Here you go, Miss Self-Sufficient.”
She gave him a saccharine smile and, point made, she snatched the cup and swallowed every drop down. Before upturning the cup and all but licking it clean.
Cause damn, she was thirsty. If they hadn’t found the spring, she’d been about to face plant into the mud and start sucking on it.
She and Charlie each took several more mouthfuls, exchanging the cup back and forth. Then he leaned back against a rock and shut his eyes.
He looked tired.
Bone tired.
And skinnier than when they’d left Uncle Dale’s just a week ago.
They should have been to the coast by now. But just their luck, the motorcycle popped a tire only two hours into the journey. They’d been traveling at night because it was safer and must have run over some debris on the road. It had slashed the tire wall to shreds.
Audrey had wanted to walk back to Uncle Dale’s. It was only forty miles back. But two hundred to get to the coast.
It would be so much safer for Charlie if they jus
t went back. But Charlie wouldn’t hear of it.
Uncle Dale made his choice, was all he’d say about it. So they’d kept going on foot.
“Dad was so pissed,” Charlie chuckled.
“What?”
“About you and those damn green beans.” Charlie shook his head, a tired smile still on his face. “I heard him and mom fighting.” He lowered his voice to imitate Dad’s, “It’s not about the green beans, Martha. It’s about respect.”
Audrey huffed out a small laugh. “Na, it was mainly just the beans. I really hated them.”
Then she looked out at the uninviting scrub brush, stumpy trees, and cacti that made up the landscape all around them.
Growing up, she remembered thinking the Texas Hill Country was beautiful. Now it just looked like a really tough place to take a two-hundred-mile walk.
“Pretty sure I’d kill for a plate of green beans now,” she said, pulling off her hat and letting her long red hair free of its confines, something she rarely did. “Literally. It’s the apocalypse, right? I bet someone’s set up some gladiatorial combat somewhere—winner gets the plate of beans.”
Ooo,” she smacked Charlie’s leg, “if they haven’t, we could do it. Claim a high school football stadium. We wouldn’t even have to do fight to the death. Just first blood. We’d make a fortune. All the beans we could eat and—”
“Aud—” Charlie cut her off.
“What?”
“Look at the cup.”
Audrey glanced down at the cup Charlie had been holding to the rock. It was half full with water, more than either of them had had the patience to let fill yet.
He was smiling. The freckles across his nose had gotten darker than ever with all the sun they’d been getting and Audrey knew hers must be the same. They both had identical coloring, from freckles to their bright red-orange hair.
“Drink up so you can tell me more about this amazing new idea of yours. You know, how we’ll be up to our eyeballs in beans.”
She narrowed her eyes at him but took the cup. She drank half and handed him the rest. “Remember what I said about not taking care of me?”
He sighed, looking tired again. “It’s not a bad thing that I want to look out for you, baby sis. You’re precious cargo.”
Her mouth tightened and she looked away. “Don’t remind me.”
“Hey,” he said, reaching out and nudging her on the arm. “I didn’t mean because of Xterminate.”
Her whole body tightened at even hearing the name of the bioengineered genetic virus that had decimated almost ninety percent of the world’s female population starting a decade ago.
“I mean because you’re my sister,” he went on. “It’s sort of what big brothers do. We watch out for our annoying turd little sisters.”
She let out a huff but didn’t say anything back. She knew he felt that way. But when was he going to understand? She wasn’t some precious vase he had to constantly worry about protecting. She wasn’t just cargo.
She’d spent the last eight years in Uncle Dale’s bunker learning and working out. She’d practiced martial arts with Uncle Dale, read all his field manuals about which indigenous Central Texas plants and berries were edible fifty times cover to cover, and become a true connoisseur of cooking canned foods over a Bunsen burner.
All so that when and if the day finally came that they had to leave the bunker, she wouldn’t be some useless damsel in distress.
But here Charlie was, treating her just like Dad always did.
And look what that got Dad. A chill ran down her spine.
“I’m going to go scout a little,” Charlie said after finishing the water in the cup. “You stay here and fill up our flasks.”
“Be careful,” she said, her throat suddenly tight. Shit, the last thing she needed to be doing right now was thinking about Dad.
“Always am.” He flashed his dimpled smile as he stood and started toward the trees off to their left.
She took a deep breath and let it out. She started to rebraid her hair again to put it back up under the cap. She shouldn’t have taken it down in the first place but the pins had been yanking and driving her crazy for hours.
Her boobs were wrapped too. With the cap on, she should look like Charlie—just a skinny redheaded guy, trying to make it in this brave new world.
She needed to focus on the positives. It was enough that they’d survived another day. And found water. She could sit here drinking swallowful by swallowful all damn day.
The thing was… no matter how much she thought she’d prepared, she hadn’t had any idea how hard it would be on the outside.
She regretted ever whining about being bored in Uncle Dale’s fallout shelter. You don’t know what you got till it’s gone, wasn’t that the saying? Or a song? Something.
Well the grass was not greener on the other side of the fence… or ya know, outside the bunker.
“Never thought I’d miss those ugly ass concrete walls,” she muttered, about to take another swallow of water. She finished braiding her hair. Now for the hair tie—
“Run!” Charlie’s panicked shout split the air. “Audrey, run!”
Audrey spilled the cup of water as she jumped to her feet and spun around.
Just in time to see a giant, terrifying man covered in tattoos swinging a bat right at Charlie’s head.
Chapter 2
AUDREY
“No!” she screamed, hand out, as Charlie’s body crumpled to the ground.
She froze with horror as Charlie’s eyes went lifeless. Blood pooled on the ground by his head.
No. No, it couldn’t be.
Charlie wasn’t—
He couldn’t be—
Just five minutes ago they’d been talking and joking and… This was all a bad dream. A really, really bad dream.
Wake up. Wake up.
She slapped herself in the face but the scene in front of her didn’t change.
“Well look what we have here.”
Two other men stepped out from behind the monster who’d killed her brother.
Killed.
Oh God. Charlie was dead. He was dead.
She bent over and threw up.
“Looks like we got ourselves another filly for the stables, boss.”
Audrey’s head jerked up at that. Oh God. This was real. Charlie was dead and these men wanted to—
She shut the thought off before she could finish it. Her eyes flicked down. Shit. The backpack was more than five feet away. She’d dropped it in her excitement over finding the stream.
Her gun was in the backpack.
And if they could best Charlie, what hope in hell did she have? There were three of them. And they were massive.
“I call dibs,” said the greasy man to the left of Charlie’s murderer.
“Fuck you do,” said the man on his other side. “You know boss always likes to break ‘em in.”
“So we just take turns fuckin’ her ass before we bring her back,” said the giant in the middle, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. “We’ll just say we found her that way.”
Well that cleared up that decision.
No way she was going down without a goddamned fight. The gun was in the front pocket of the backpack. She didn’t even have to unzip anything. Just reach inside.
One. Two—
She dove for it, slamming hard into the ground and snatching the gun out before the three bastards even realized what she was doing.
But the element of surprise didn’t last long. The toadie on the left lunged for her. She barely managed to get the safety off and cock the gun before he landed right on top of her.
Bang.
She’d pulled the trigger without even fully thinking through what she was doing. The guy immediately started screaming his head off and pulling a bloody stump to his chest.
Shit, shit! She just blew half his hand off!
She scrambled backwards and got to her feet, swinging her gun towards the other men.
; “Back!” she screamed, her whole body shaking. “Get back or I’ll shoot you too!”
Except shit, they had their guns trained on her. One was a rifle—a fancy one, like a sniper rifle—the other a machine gun.
She was going to die.
Charlie was dead and now she was going to die and it was all her fault.
If not for her, Charlie could have stayed at Uncle Dale’s and been safe.
“Drop the gun, girlie,” said the giant man.
“Never,” she screamed. “You think you’re real men? Murdering a man in cold blood by attacking him from behind and then kidnapping a girl? You’re cowards.” She spit on the ground.
“You just gonna let her sit here and talk to us like—”
The big man ignored his comrade and suddenly looked down the sight of his rifle right at her.
Oh God. Here it was. The end of everything. All those years in the bunker preparing. Preparing for what? One week and she’d gotten both her and her brother killed. Oh God.
Her eyes squeezed shut and her whole body went tense as she waited for it. To die. Right now. Any second—
Her gun exploded out of her hand. She screamed and looked down. It took her a second to realize what had happened—the big man had shot the gun out of her hand, only making her hand smart.
Because they wanted her alive. How had she forgotten, even for a second?
So we just take turns fuckin’ her ass.
She turned and ran.
The big, ugly man’s laugh echoed behind her. “I haven’t had good hunting in a while, little rabbit. Just know, I consider this foreplay.”
She jumped over a log and kept sprinting. She was heading uphill. Which was stupid. It took more effort and she had no clue where she was going. At least downhill, the way they’d come, she had a little more idea of the landscape.
But she was a good runner, she knew that. And while it wasn’t exactly the same, she could go for hours on Uncle Dale’s mechanical stationary bike in the bunker on its hardest setting.
So in theory, she should be able to keep running for a good long while.
Problem was, this was the real world. And out here there were things like pesky logs to get in her way. And bushes and thorny greenbriers and cacti— Jesus, did every plant in Texas have to have burs or thorns attached to it? Each step she took her jeans and flannel shirt were getting torn at by the damn wildlife.
