Wicked Souls: A Limited Edition Reverse Harem Romance Collection

by Rebecca Royce

  The asphalt changing to gravel broke me from my daydream. Dillon had turned off Julies Pike and onto my drive. He parked the truck in the right spot, around back, beside my papa’s old Buick. Shutting off the engine, he said, “I understand you staying with your dad, at the time, him being infected during the evacuation and all. But your promise means nothing now. You’re a Stayer, like it or not. There aren’t many of us. Even less of your kind, around here anyway.”

  He was still on about me leaving Creepy while I’d been in a canoe. My kind. It took me a second to process. “You never know, a big harem of women may be coming your way soon, migrating east to find some dick.”

  “Speaking of dick?” Dillon grabbed the bulge in his pants.

  I rolled my eyes and hopped out of the truck, slamming the door. “You’re a big dick alright.”

  He ignored my words and gave my home a once over. “I don’t understand why you still keep up the yard. And you still live here. I’ve let you stay in Creepy and you could have any house you want. Like that one at the end of the lane.”

  “It’s haunted,” I said in all seriousness. It was just like a man to take credit for a woman’s work. I stayed here. I’d survived, staying here. I’d buried my father in the back yard by myself. I beat the virus, nursing myself back to health. If anyone else who stayed in Creepy had lived, I’d have welcomed them. “This is my home, Dillon. I’m not ashamed of it,” I said as a slight to him.

  He’d grown up having it all. Lived in the lap of luxury in Alexandria until two years ago, when it finally came out that his ultra conservative father who’d often rallied against the homosexual community was gay himself. Not to mention cheating on his wife of thirty years. The gossip started with a few tweets from an obscure story in a local paper. But when the story hit the 24-hour news cycle, Dillon suddenly accused me of not telling him. He said I was keeping my papa’s secret. For some reason, I became the enemy in his eyes. Yes, his father had been cheating on his mother with my papa for years. I knew. Everyone who knew them was aware. Dillon’s mom saw it herself. We all just didn’t say a word. With Darius Hebert being the senior senator from Louisiana, we didn’t dare. My papa claimed politics was all an act. In love himself, he didn’t give a damn what Mr. Hebert said or did to keep his powerful position, even if it was contrary to the life he lived. The man kept money flowing into our state and people turned their heads at his hypocrisy. Tale as old as time.

  Dillon should have known their secret, too. Maybe he’d been in denial. Our fathers being business partners before lovers, we’d grown up together. He’d been like an older brother to me before we became lovers ourselves. It sounded strange, but it wasn’t. It’d felt natural falling in love with someone I knew so well. Always, I’d been a lot closer to my papa than Dillon had been to his. Hell, Dillon was closer to my papa. None of that mattered. Or maybe it did. I never loved my papa any less when I found out who he chose to love. After my parents’ horrible divorce, I was happy papa could love again. Dillon on the other hand had been ashamed. So much so, he up and left Louisiana. He also left his fiancée at the time, little ole me.

  Dillon didn’t just leave when the media seemed obsessed with his father’s personal life. He disappeared without even saying goodbye to me. Even so, I wore my engagement ring and a smile, hoping he’d come back. I’d given him the benefit of the doubt. That was before he was spotted in Palm Springs with another woman, a famous actress to beat all.

  Our romantic relationship ended then. With the nation’s attention on his family. I became the laughingstock. What was a handsome, well-connected man doing with a nobody from Creepy, Louisiana anyhow? The tabloids had a field day with our breakup.

  Little did I know, the following year, Dillon would be back burying his father during a global pandemic. I did the right thing and took a pie over. I even showed up at the service. I hugged his mom and left before Dillon saw me. I’d been completely unaware, Dillon stayed put in Alexandria after the funeral when his mother left for Zurich, planning to escape the disease like most of the well off. After all, it was a chaotic time during the outbreak. Him and I weren’t on speaking terms back then. Even so, I assumed if he hadn’t left the country, he would’ve evacuated the state with everyone else once the little folk were rescued. I, too, was supposed to leave to be quarantined despite the fact it was well known by then some healthy young adults could survive the disease.

  There weren’t many young adults left in Creepy to begin with, it being the type of town folks abandoned right after high school. Therefore, the ones still here, who’d outlived the unspeakable were tempted by claiming a life up north and out west, where they had controlled the virus better, where they needed warm bodies to fill the voids.

  By the time, I met Dillon again, he was a different man. It’d only been a few months since everyone left Creepy, thankfully, disposing of most of the zombies before they left, though it felt like years to me. Dillon had always been a bit older and wiser. They say tragedy can make you or break you. The collapse of our civilized society can change a person. It came as no surprise with his political savvy, Dillon became the leader of a gang of survivors, the Stayers, they called themselves, a little cult really. Not just folks from Alexandria, the group rounded up and recruited wanderers who’d stayed put and survived to tell tales. The Stayers tried to recruit me to join them. Then they tried to force me. That’s when I came face to face with Dillon again in a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome sort of situation. He was the king of savages, and I was caged. I’d been shocked to see him, thinking he’d been in Switzerland. Thankfully, he’d been shocked too. I think that initial shock softened him. Because, due to our past and his lingering sympathy toward me, we’d come to an agreement.

  Sure, his crew could come and pillage Creepy, but luckily Dillon had the barbarians believing it was best to save their energy. Those thugs followed his every whim. And fortunate for me, Dillon, for the most part was a smart man. Besides, Alexandria was much better pickings than Creepy. I found some nice cars today, but there were car dealerships in Alexandria and about all you could ask for. Plus, his Stayers didn’t care one bit about finding bodies, dead or undead. The Stayers raided houses, factories, you name it. Unlike me, they’d adapted to not wanting certain comforts of the past as well.

  Speaking of which, I let Dillon into the cool of the house. I wasn’t powering an AC, but I had enough juice to power some strategically placed fans.

  “What’s this?” He bent to pick up an envelope off the floor.

  Fuck. Someone must have slipped it under my door. I really didn’t want Dillon to know someone had been snooping around Creepy. If he knew I had a stalker, he’d never let me stay. Knowing I could take care of myself, I grabbed the envelope from him. “It’s mine. I must’ve dropped it.”

  “Who are you mailing?” He turned the envelope over a few times. “To Creepy with love…” he said, but there wasn’t any writing on it. That was a life saver. Fortunately, I knew what would be inside. Every time the same, flowers. Probably pressed flowers. And every time, I searched the vicinity and stayed up late clutching my gun, getting no sleep at all.

  “Open it up if you want, it’s just some flowers I pressed.”

  In true fashion, Dillon didn’t trust me. He tore the envelope open and the dried pedals flew out.

  Picking them up, nonchalantly, I asked him, “Would you like some tea?”

  “You’re stalling.”

  “What do you want from me?”

  It’d been a rhetorical question, but he answered, “Miss Mary.”

  “Why do you want to come all the way here and fuck me anyway? Waste all that gas…” Our deal wasn’t ideal but wasn’t unbearable given the circumstances. I didn’t always dread it either, although I’d never admit it to him. Amongst his Stayers there were very few women, so it only seemed logical, he’d want some sort of access, if you could call it that, to me or at least parts of me in exchange for keeping his people out of my little town. Not to mention, he w
anted a cut of my weekly haul.

  “I love Miss Mary.” Him repeating the all too secret name for my vagina, the one I’d lived half my life thinking everyone else called it, was classic Dillon.

  I regretted ever telling him. “I hear you have a few girls.”

  “They’re of age. Where do you hear anything?”

  I hadn’t heard a thing, but I knew from when they captured me before. “Okay, you have a few women in your crew.”

  “A very few. Not enough to go ‘round. Most are expecting.”

  Ugh.

  I’d never been happier to have ransacked the pharmacies first thing. I was still on the pill, something Dillon was unaware. “Are they all yours?”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.”

  “I forgot, y’all share everything.”

  “Not everything.”

  I laughed. “Like I told you before. I’m not interested in sharing.” Boy, was that a loaded statement calling back to our time together, when he flirted with having an open relationship. That’d been in the two-year turbulent period before we were engaged. I could only imagine the bullet I’d dodged when he left me. “I’m happy on my own. We have a deal, remember? Let’s just get this over with.”

  “After you.” He gestured for me to move through the house.

  “Not there,” I said of my current room. I pointed. “Upstairs.”

  “Just like old times,” he crooned, as he followed me up the wooden stairs and into my old room. Exactly like it was before he left me, my wedding dress hung in the corner, the one he was never supposed to see until the big day. White and elegant, the gown would have been perfect for the big wedding we’d planned. Sweet pictures of him and I dotted the pastel walls of my youth. The lavish engagement ring laid over in my dresser somewhere, too.

  Naturally, none of this affected him. All ancient history.

  We stood in front of my old white wrought iron bed with the yellow chenille duvet in broad daylight. Before the pandemic, Dillon wasn’t a sex in the middle of the day type of guy.

  “Take it off,” he demanded.

  Unbuckling the holster, I put my pistol on the floor and kicked it away. He laid his down too.

  Dillon unzipped his pants. “I wish you could enjoy it.”

  My hands on my hips, I said, “Don’t lie. I’ve known you my whole life. I know you love a good fight.”

  “Might be nice for a change if you were a willing participant.”

  “Don’t you have enough of those.”

  Mimicking me, Dillon’s hands went to his hips. “It really bothers you, doesn’t it? We aren’t even dating anymore, and you can’t stand me being with other women.”

  “Dating?” I sounded appalled.

  “Engaged,” he corrected himself.

  I shook my head. “You ran off but have still found a way to have your cake and eat it, too.”

  We were bickering like we were married.

  Dillon gave in, lowering his arms, then reached up to rub mine. He was trying to sooth me. “Come on, Sissy. You used to love a good pounding.”

  That was certainly true and considering the alternative, nothing, I didn’t hate having sex with Dillon. It wasn’t like I had any other options.

  He went on, still stroking my arms, “Would you rather me let one of my crew have you?”

  “Is that a threat?”

  His grip tightened on my arms. “You know damned good and well the men understand if I want you all to myself. Leaders have privileges. They respect what I’m doing here. But they wouldn’t understand me just leaving you here to go to waste. That’s against our code.”

  The thought of the Stayers rounding up stray women to use them how they saw fit turned my stomach. Reminded of such, I said, “You could at least wear a condom.”

  “That would really defeat the point, Sissy.”

  “You could be a real gentleman and leave me alone. They’d never know if we weren’t having sex.”

  “I’d know.”

  Dillon had really bought into all this shit with the Stayers. He-man shit. And I’m sure he’d created most of it. Another reason I couldn’t go and be with him. “Can you just get it over with?”

  Accepting the invitation, he tore his dirty shirt over his head. His tattered jeans were next to hit the floor. His boxers, gone in an instant. He stood before me naked and looking so familiar, his erect cock as impressive as ever but his body already spectacular, bulkier from hard work, tan from the waist up. Good to know he wasn’t running around Alexandria in the nude.

  As usual, I didn’t budge. I’d let him access me how ever he saw fit.

  Leering, he leaned in to kiss me and as always, I drew away.

  A grimace overtook his features. “You’ve always been such a brat.” Dillon went quick for my leggings, yanking them down to my knees. “No panties, aye.” He whirled me around and flung me on the bed. My ass out for him, I waited. He caressed it before giving it a hard slap.

  Juices ran down my thigh.

  Who was I kidding, I relished in making him work for it. Giving him a hard time gave me a lady boner. To be honest, a kiss, loving foreplay of any kind would remind me more of the old Dillon than this room did. I couldn’t have that, or I’d be running off to Alexandria with him to have lots of Stayer babies. Dillon gave me just what I needed to hold off. So, I squirmed and fought as he tried to enter me from behind, his arms encircling me to squeeze my tits. I kicked and jutted my hips like a bucking bronco, fighting. He forced me back down, shoving my face into the mattress. We were wrestling now, him on top of my back, as I struggled to break free.

  “You never make it easy do you, Sissy?” He growled. Dillon grabbed all my hair in one hand, hauling me back to hiss in my ear, “Girl, be still or you’ll make me hurt you.” His other hand snaked around me and went up my tank top, finding a nipple and twisting, nice at first but then too hard.

  “Ouch,” I spluttered out.

  Yanking my hair again, he pinched harder, daring me to move. “Stay still and I won’t hurt you.”

  I relaxed. His hand left my sore nipple and trailed down to work my clit between two hot fingers. Licking my neck, he slipped his fingers in and out of me, back up my body and down again. He started my engine. His teeth scraped my shoulder, and I thought he was going to bite me. Just as I really got into it, Dillon breathed heavily in my ear, “I think I do want to hurt you today, Creepy, just a little.”

  I hated him calling me Creepy. “Fuck you.” It was what he called me when we were in love. “You’re not allowed to call me that anymore.”

  Shoving my face back into the bed and holding it there with my hair as leverage, he caught my hip with his other hand, pulling my ass to him to meet his throbbing cock. Rubbing the fleshy head through my ass cheeks, he poked at my backside. “Just for that. I’m going to fucking hurt you.”

  “No,” I barked out.

  “Yes.” His fingernails dug into my skin as I fought him. Dillon tightened his grip on my mane as he secured my writhing body. He tried to cram his big dick into my tight anus with no lube, something he knew I was inexperienced with. Something, I wouldn’t dare let him do while we were together.

  “Fuck you, Dillon.”

  “Hold still.” He punched in. I yelled out in pain when he got too far. Reacting, he yanked out. It’d only been for a second, but I was pissed. He pounded into my wet pussy instead, impaling me again and again. Relieved, I calmed a bit. Dillon let go of my hair and grasped both of my hips. He fucked me with no restraint, like he did want to hurt me a bit. Beating an orgasm out of me, he howled like an animal with his own release.

  When he collapsed on the bed beside me, I couldn’t help but to snuggle into him, letting his arms scoop me up. He turned his neck and kissed my forehead.

  Old habits die hard.

  I was content all of three seconds before he said, “Sissy, you and I could still do it.”

  “Again?”

  “No. Not yet anyway. I need a few minutes. I mean we could get mar
ried if that’ll get you to come with me.”

  I sat up. “You just won’t stop, will you?”

  “That’s what you want, isn’t it?”

  “Time for you to go.” I pushed at him, encouraging him to get off the bed.

  As if I’d slighted him, he began dressing quickly. “I’m expected back soon, anyhow. You got the goods for me?”

  “Of course.”

  What did I have that Dillon wanted besides some familiar pussy? Anything to keep up the façade his Stayers had power over me. I had a garden in the back, too. All the hoes he collected didn’t know how to hoe, I guessed. Every week, I not only bribed the Stayers with random trinkets, alcohol or smokes that I found in this small town, I gave them fresh herbs and vegetables. I never gave them enough for it to become a hardship. Something else Dillon didn’t know, I canned and dried all I could for the winter, storing it away where Dillon would never find it.

  After my trip to the ladies’ room, he followed me out to the back deck where I’d left his cut of my pickings. As soon as I opened the back door, I stepped in red sludge.

  “Fuck.”

  We spotted him in the zucchini patch, his rotting flesh sticking out like a sore thumb amongst the green. I went for my gun. Dillon was quicker and shot the zombie right in the head.

  “I told you not to come out here.”

  “He didn’t follow me here, Sissy. The thing had to have been tracking you for a while.”

  “I’m going to have to drag it out of the garden,” I declared with a pout.

  “I’ve got it.” He agreed to get rid of the body if I unloaded my truck for him and filled it with what I’d planned to give him, so he could be on his way before dark.

  We really didn’t have to worry about zombies until it was dark. In the light of the day, they were slow and weak. They’d drip like they were ice cream cones in the heat. The undead usually laid low until the evening so it was highly unusual one was here. I thought about my stalker, wondering if whoever it was had led them here. All that coming and going was bound to attract them. I tried my best to only leave and return once a day. Today would be different.