by Zoë Archer
Sam pressed her into the wall, pushing his hips against hers. She met the rhythm of his body with her own, moaning softly into his mouth.
His hands shook with the need to lift up her skirts, to free his throbbing cock and sink into her. She would be wet, wanting. Silky hot. And, God, he needed Cassandra and her heat so badly. He never knew, not until that moment, how much he truly needed her.
His hand began to slide down to gather up her skirt. Then stopped. He broke the kiss, just enough to give him room to speak, even though he wanted her mouth back immediately.
“Keep going,” she urged.
“Dangerous,” he growled. “They’re coming back—we have to get to the stables and get the hell out of here.”
She nodded reluctantly. Yet, as she moved back, she brushed her fingertips against his mouth.
The ice around him shattered. His whole body ached as if thawing from a long freeze. And when he, too, stepped away, it was a wonder he didn’t shout from the effort.
They disentangled themselves, a painful process, but when they stepped from the niche back into the street, their hands locked together, meshing as if by mutual instinct.
The stable owner counted out each coin as though personally responsible for the functioning of the national treasury. In the whole of this town, Sam now had to deal with the one man who didn’t want to hurry from his sight. Yet Sam could hear the growing mob drawing closer, following a mob’s intuitive need to find and destroy the strange.
Cassandra stood close by, watching the street vigilantly. Though she hadn’t his heightened hearing, she knew the crowd was closing in, the crowd that grew increasingly dangerous. She didn’t appear frightened, however. Only determined that she and Sam would be well gone before weapons were used, guns fired, or nooses fashioned.
Sam assessed their situation. The stable was located in the middle of a block, with a street running past its entrance. Which meant there were only two ways out: to the left or to the right. Two choices weren’t enough for Sam. He wanted more options. He’d fought out of worse positions, but he didn’t want a fight, not with Cassandra caught in the middle.
“Just take this,” Sam growled, shoving a handful of banknotes into the stable owner’s hand.
The man’s eyes widened. “But, sir,” he stammered, “it’s too much.”
Sam didn’t care. “Are these our horses?” He nodded toward two saddled beasts tied to a hitching post. The animals looked to be in fine, rested condition. Good. He and Cassandra were going to push the horses hard, and they hadn’t time for tired mounts.
“Yes, sir, but—”
Sam already strode toward the horses, Cassandra following. Without waiting, he lifted her up to the side saddle. He had an awareness of how slight she was, the narrowness of her waist, and how damned good it felt to touch her in such a proprietary, intimate way. But that awareness dimmed as both he and Cassandra heard the heated muttering of the mob.
Sam quickly mounted his horse.
The crowd appeared at the end of the street, to the left. They carried more makeshift weapons and some of the men had even grabbed firearms. Only a perfectly placed bullet could hurt Sam, but Cassandra was vulnerable to any wound. Or worse. He’d kill them all first.
“That’s him,” a burly laboring man at the front of the mob yelled, pointing.
“What the blazes is he?” hissed a respectable matron.
“Don’t know,” the laborer answered, barreling forward, “but he ain’t one o’ God’s creatures.”
The crowd muttered its agreement. As a single entity, possessing a rudimentary brain, it surged toward the stables.
Cassandra put heels to her horse before Sam had to utter a word. Together, they bolted from the stable yard, clattering over the cobblestones. The mob had blocked one end of the street, which left him and Cassandra the only other option. They steered their horses to the right as the crowd pushed closer.
“Block the road,” someone behind him shouted.
A farmer ahead, bringing his crops to sell in town, shoved his laden cart into the street, directly in the path to escape.
“Can you jump?” Sam called to Cassandra.
She nodded.
She urged her horse up and over the cart in a faultless jump, just as he did. The farmer gaped at them as they soared over the intended obstacle. They rode on, and Sam heard the crowd jam up against the cart, thwarted by their own trap. People began yelling at the farmer to move the cart, but apparently the man wasn’t fast enough, because the next sound was the groan of timber as the cart tipped onto its side. Pushed by the hands of the multitudes.
But by the time the mob had scrambled over the cart, Sam and Cassandra were already speeding toward the old town wall. The open country, and escape, lay just ahead.
Sam risked a look over his shoulder. And cursed. Several men had grabbed mounts from the stables and now pursued on horseback.
The gate to the old wall passed. He and Cassandra galloped down the road leading out of town, trees and pastures whipping past, the road lined with dense hedges. The men on horseback kept chase.
He considered the Colt pistol in his jacket, but discarded the idea. Shedding blood would only whip the mob into a greater frenzy. But, if he had to, he’d mow them all down if they tried to hurt Cassandra.
He glanced over at her and shook his head in admiration. She bent over her horse’s neck, holding the reins with steady and certain hands. No one could fault her mettle or horsemanship. Even on a side saddle, she kept her seat well, though the same couldn’t be said for the pins in her hair. They scattered like birds, causing her hair to stream behind her in chestnut waves that caught the sunlight. At any other time, Sam could have spent hours staring at the sight.
Now was definitely not the hour when he would marvel at Cassandra’s hair. Now was the time to get her to safety.
He brought his horse alongside hers. “Ahead, to your left.”
She looked and nodded. A tiny opening, almost invisible, in the hedge. They both veered off the road, Sam allowing her the lead. The gap in the hedge barely allowed their mounts through. Branches and brambles scratched and scraped their faces, their clothes. Pieces of Cassandra’s cloak tore free. She didn’t flinch, not even when a branch left an angry red welt across her cheek. The sight of her even slightly injured enraged him.
Clearing the hedge, they emerged in an open field. Startled cattle looked up from their grazing as Sam and Cassandra galloped past.
Sam chanced another look back. The pursuing men were struggling to get their horses through the hedge, but the animals balked.
“On the right, other side of that river.”
Cassandra followed his direction with her gaze. “I don’t see anything.”
He forgot that she hadn’t his sense of sight, either. A dubious gift from his resurrection. “Trust me.” Nestled in a dense stand of trees was a dilapidated barn, barely standing, yet well concealed by the woods around it.
Without hesitation, Cassandra turned her horse toward where Sam indicated. They raced down the field, then across a shallow river and into the trees. Threading around the trees became an exercise in precision as the horses whipped through the copse. One wrong tug of the reins would send them crashing headlong into a low branch and certain devastating injury.
“Slow,” Sam ordered, pulling up on the reins. “We don’t want them hearing us.”
Cassandra also slowed her mount, until they were both picking quietly through the grove. Dimly, Sam heard their pursuers finally clear the hedge, then shout in confusion and anger when they could not sight their targets.
“There,” Sam said as the ramshackle barn emerged from the trees. It looked as though it had been built half a century earlier and abandoned a decade ago. Half the roof had collapsed, and the other half gaped to let in birds, wind, and everything else. The timbers were silver with age, traced with climbing vines that likely held the whole structure together. Without the vines, the barn might have been reduced to
a pile of wood.
The door to the barn hung on precarious hinges, but enough stability remained for Sam and Cassandra to walk their horses into the decayed building. Inside, nature claimed what had once been the work of man. Grasses carpeted the floor, and what was left of the stalls became tiny forests, each abundant with overgrowth. A rusted wheelbarrow tilted in one corner. Roosting birds fluttered at the presence of the two mounted strangers in what had been an undisturbed haven.
Sam and Cassandra looked around. “What an odd, beautiful place,” she whispered. Sunlight filtered through the roof, bright patches of color over her hair, her face, her shoulders.
“I’m beginning to find most odd things beautiful,” he said, staring at her.
She laughed softly. “An insult or compliment—I can’t decide.” She peered through the open barn door. “How long should we wait?”
He frowned, also gazing through the door. He could see, but she could not, their pursuers riding across the field—away from the trees and the barn. No way to know how dogged the men would be in their hunt, but if they collected others, no place would be safe in the daylight.
In answer, he asked, “How far are we from where that transport ship went down?”
“About twenty miles.”
The horse beneath him shifted, winded from its gallop. A few hours of rest would do both mounts good, in preparation for what lay ahead.
“We’ll stay here until just before dusk.” He swung out of the saddle. “Safer to travel. I can hide in darkness.” The liability of his existence made every moment perilous for her. Little could kill him, but, despite her strength, she was as fragile as any living thing.
Cassandra also dismounted, moving with a smooth grace, then scowled toward the direction from where they had just come. “I wish I could smash those idiotic fools. You’re different, but you didn’t do anything wrong.”
He glanced away, wounded anew by the anger in her voice, the hurt she felt on his behalf. So much easier when it was him alone, living not even a half life, barely human. Now Cassandra called forth a barrage of emotions, of feelings, he thought were forever lost. Pain wracked him, his heart a phantom limb that suffered even though it no longer existed, pierced by a bullet and amputated years ago.
“World’s full of people just like them.”
“You know from experience?”
“Soon after I broke free of Broadwell. I hadn’t yet learned the boundaries of my prison. Tried to pretend that I was an ordinary man, live among them. And nearly got strung up or dismembered.”
“And that can kill you.”
“Beheading or a wound to the brain kills my kind. Otherwise, we’re doomed to unrelenting existence.”
She walked to him, leading her horse. From the corner of his eye, Sam watched her, willing himself immobile. When she stood only a foot away, she stopped, then reached out and placed her hand on his cheek. The sensation of her touch rocketed through him.
She lightly turned his face to her. He scowled down at her, yet she gazed up, unafraid.
“You’re a fighter, Sam,” she said, clear. “Always have been. Maybe that’s why I followed you and Charlie everywhere. Because I knew that we were different from everyone else. We both challenged the world, that we couldn’t be content without a struggle.” Her voice took on a slight rasp. “I hate to think of you being shunned, dwelling in darkness. But…what you’ve been through…it hasn’t destroyed who you really are.”
“And you know who I really am?” His voice was gravel, hard with disbelief. He had to not believe her, to take the connection she offered. He was and would always be ruined. “Everything I am?”
“Perhaps not everything,” she conceded. “Enough to know that you’re a worthy man.”
His jaw tightened under her hand. This slight woman would level him with merely a gentle touch and some soft words. He wondered what mercurial god he had crossed or pleased to put him in the path of the one woman who could accept him, whose character had the strength of giants—but he could never return what she offered, could never be restored. Truly dead, and also painfully alive.
Chapter Four
Sam wanted to rage, to tear down this decrepit barn and lay waste to everything in his path. He knew only one way to channel this anger, and it was destruction. But not of her. He vowed he would never hurt her.
Seeing his rising fury, she let her hand fall away. “If we stay here until dusk, won’t that give Broadwell too much time? He might raise those soldiers long before we arrive.”
He gladly seized the change of topic. “The living dead can only be created at night, at least two hours after complete darkness.” He spoke from hard experience. The year Sam had been under Broadwell’s control, and the years he’d chased him, he witnessed the colonel perform that same repulsive act over and over again. But Broadwell wouldn’t do it ever again. Sam would make certain of that. “Something to do with the moon. And”—he glanced toward the direction from which he and Cassandra had just come—“our friends from town will still be out there searching for me.”
“Then we’ll wait,” she said, decisive. Anger darkened her face. “I won’t give those ignorant fools another chance to hurt you.”
Her fierce protectiveness on his behalf stirred him, far too much.
Sam handed Cassandra the reins of his horse, then pulled off his jacket and laid it aside. He strode into one of the larger remaining stalls and, using his sword, cut down the overgrown grasses within. He glanced up to find Cassandra watching him with an unmistakable interest in her gaze.
“I like you better as a man than a boy,” she said, approaching.
Though he often longed for the innocence of his youth, now was definitely not one of those times, not if his adult’s body could produce such attention from her. “I’m not a man anymore.”
“Oh, you most certainly are.” Her eyes moved over him, and everywhere she lingered—legs, chest, shoulders—fire followed, heating his cold, numb body.
So, knowing very well that he was flaunting himself like a wolf strutting for a female, Sam went back to his task. He made a show of hacking at the grasses so that the fabric of his shirt clung and pulled. And when he bent down to gather up what he’d cut, she actually smacked her lips together, openly leering at his arse. A spontaneous laugh uncurled from inside him, his first in a long, long time.
He realized this was his first genuine laugh since his transformation. Every other laugh had been a mirthless approximation, a sardonic utterance that bore no resemblance to true laughter. But this—she brought it forth in him, the humanity and joy he’d lost. With it, the ice inside him began to melt.
“Feel like I’m up for auction,” he rumbled.
“I’ll outbid everyone,” she answered, but she led the horses into the cleared stall. The two animals immediately began cropping at the remaining grasses, unconcerned that the barn holding them barely stood upright on its own.
Once the horses had been secured, Sam and Cassandra moved out into the open area of the barn. She turned to him, eyes warm in the filtered light. For the first time in many years, he was aware of himself, of his body, and that it could be more than a vessel for vengeance or destruction. When Cassandra looked at him, she saw someone she desired. Someone who could give and take pleasure. And he felt these things, too, seeing himself through her eyes.
She tempted him, with her slender curves and indomitable spirit. He couldn’t remember wanting a woman more, not even when he was still alive. A new awareness stretched between Sam and Cassandra, heightened by their solitude, and the danger they had just escaped.
He had no heartbeat, no pulse, but if he did, he knew just then they would be racing.
Cassandra saw the change within Sam. The distant, bleak look that darkened his eyes and honed his face now subtly giving way to a true inhabitation of himself, as though slowly tugging on a close-fitting glove, living flesh within an inert article. Fingers flexing and stretching, warming the snug leather, until, at last, the
re seemed no differentiation between what was alive and what was an empty object.
Sam was here, within himself, and looking at her with desire so hot, so palpable, Cassandra grew light-headed.
“I’m glad you never looked at me like this when I was sixteen.” A breathless admission.
“I should have,” he rumbled.
“No—I wouldn’t have known what to do with it. Probably climbed the roof and attempted to fly.”
The corner of his mouth tilted. “And now?”
“Now…I have a very good idea what to do with such a look.” She gave a tremulous laugh. “The trouble is, I don’t know where to start.”
He hesitated for the span of a moment, then moved because the momentum between them demanded it.
“Start with this.” He closed the distance between them. His hands came up, cupping the back of her head and tilting her—she didn’t need much urging—to meet his mouth.
Had she been an untried girl, Cassandra would have likely shuddered apart to be the recipient of such a heated, ravenous kiss. She wasn’t an untried girl. So she met the demands of his lips, his mouth and tongue, with her own, taking him into her, learning him boldly with this most intimate exploration. But as much as she took, this kiss was his, his to lead and guide, because the need within him obliterated everything.
He stroked the inside of her mouth with velvet caresses of his tongue, and answering aches gathered in her breasts, between her legs. She pressed herself against him, seeking solace and also needing more. Her own desire quickly built into a devastating hunger she had never experienced before. It frightened her a little. But, like with most things that frightened her, she pushed onward, into the heart of the unknown.
He was a solid wall of muscle, tight and hard everywhere. Most especially against her abdomen, the unmistakable length of his arousal revealing his own dangerous need. When she urged herself against him, he groaned into her mouth.
