by Kit Rocha
It highlighted how the differences between Three and Four went so much deeper than the road separating them. Three had been devastated by the firebombings that had wiped out an entire generation of caretakers. The few support systems that managed to evolve after that had very nearly been wiped out by the previous leader.
Right now, Sector Three was long on resources, but very short on trust. “I think we have to start from scratch. We were talking about expanding the kitchens, starting with free breakfast for anyone who shows up. But...” If she closed her eyes, she’d see her worst fear--
Tables full of food. Empty of children. When she’d been their age, her instincts would have screamed trap. Why should they be any different?
“But you’re worried.” Lex watched her with that level stare of hers, the one that felt like she was seeing right through her. The one that made her Lex, the person you came to when you needed help fighting fears you couldn’t admit out loud. “You can’t make them take it. But some will, if it’s there. And you’re not stuck making them come to you. Pack up the food and walk the streets. You don’t have to let it go to waste.”
“I can do that.” And it was like the words were some kind of magic spell. The tightness in her chest eased. She was an O’Kane, with her membership inked around her wrists in a permanent sign of belonging. It didn’t matter how much time she spent in Sector Three, or how heavily the responsibility of leadership weighed on her shoulders some days.
The Broken Circle would always be home. And Lex would always be her queen.
“What’d I miss?” Emma leaned over the edge of the booth, the thin bandage on her collarbone crinkling as she reached for a beer. “Hey, Six.”
“Emma.” She nodded at the bandage. “New tattoo?”
“Just finished.” Beaming, she pulled up the edge of the bandage to reveal interwoven lines of delicate black ink. It looked like antique lace, the kind of thing Trix wore sometimes. “You like it?”
Six leaned in, her breath catching at the skill that had gone into the tiny intersecting lines and their soft shading. “It’s beautiful.”
“Oh, you haven’t seen my last one, either.” Emma turned and tugged the top of her skirt down off her right hip. The artwork looked like the little mark they put on maps to indicate north, south, east, and west--but fancier. Shaded diamonds pointed in the main directions with swooping curves in between. It almost looked like a flower, which jogged Six’s memory.
A compass rose.
The only letter was an N balanced at the very top. North. Or, more likely, Noah. “That’s beautiful, too. Ace’s work?”
“Of course.” Emma climbed over the top of the booth and slid beneath the circle of Lex’s arm to curl up beside her. “He may be semi-retired, but he’d still flip his shit if I let anyone else touch me with a needle.”
“If any O’Kane let someone else touch them with a needle,” Mad corrected as he set a basket of pretzels on the table and claimed the opposite bench. He grinned a welcome at Six and stole Lex’s bottle to top off his drink. “Scarlet’ll wanna see you, Six. But she’s backstage, checking out the wiring on the new sound system. I think we’ve finally got it set up right.”
“I’ll catch up with her before we leave. We’ll probably crash here tonight.” Six edged the pretzels toward her and took a few. “If Ace hasn’t turned our room into a second nursery already or something.”
“Never,” Lex swore. “It doesn’t matter how far you go, or how long you stay away. This is home.”
“Besides,” Noelle added, sliding in next to Mad. “We just bought the apartment buildings across from the warehouse and we’re going to start fixing them up. We’ll have plenty of room to expand.”
Her hand settled on the curve of her belly, and Mad slung his arm around her shoulders in a fond hug. When Six had first arrived in Sector Four, the constant physical affection had been alien and nerve-wracking. People touched here, all the time. Freely, blithely, as if close proximity to strangers wasn’t a danger.
But that was the point. The O’Kanes weren’t strangers. Bren had been the first person to work his way beneath her personal armor, but as weeks had turned to months and then years, Six had stopped stiffening when Noelle wrapped her in an abrupt hug, or when one of the guys slapped her on the back.
She still wasn’t good at affection. It didn’t come naturally to her, and she didn’t think she’d ever be able to offer hugs and cuddling as easily as some of the O’Kanes did. But she could lean into the warm comfort of Lex’s side, relaxing in the presence of family. “What other gossip have I missed?”
“Things have been quiet.” Lex drew in a slow breath, then exhaled in a quick rush. “I’ll take it. We all need a break.”
Mad knocked his knuckles on the table. “You know better than that, Lex. Don’t tempt fate.”
“Superstitious fucker.” But she was smiling as she swatted at his hand.
“I love you too, Lex.” The first strains of music spilled out of invisible speakers, and Mad broke into a smile. “Scarlet must have figured it out.” He stood and held out his hand. “Who’s going to dance with me?”
Noelle clasped it immediately and maneuvered out of the booth. “Me, while I can still move. This baby’s gonna have his daddy’s height.”
“I’m in.” Lex took his other hand and twirled beneath it to pin Six with a look. “Don’t brood too much tonight. That’s an order.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Six replied, the twitch of her lips threatening to ruin her serious expression.
When they were gone, Six shifted to raise an eyebrow at Emma. “So how is he, really? Ace, I mean.”
“He’s good.” She absently touched the edge of her bandage again. “He’s had to work hard, and he’s still learning to compensate. People think that just because his dominant arm wasn’t injured, it’s no big deal, but he still has to relearn how to do lots of things.” Emma leaned forward. “He’s happy, though. I didn’t think I’d ever see him like this. It’s like someone turned on a light switch.”
“Noah’s the same, you know.” Six smiled at Emma. “We used to cross paths over in Three. He was just this crazy motherfucker who lived in the tunnels and popped out to give dire warnings. Even for Three, he was running on empty. Then he found you again...”
“I didn’t hope,” Emma told her. “I didn’t dare to. But now I know better--he was always going to find me again. It’s just Fate.”
Six thought about the tattoo on Emma’s hip and finally understood. The compass, always pointing north. She’d scavenged a pre-Flare compass once, digging it up out of the wreckage of factory housing. In a world of GPS and personal locators, it had seemed utterly barbaric--but she’d found the floating, quavering needle fascinating. No matter how fast she spun or how much she tried to rattle it, it always swung to point north.
In the first years after the Flares, it hadn’t been true. Whatever magnetic forces made the compasses function had been fucked up by the solar storms. By the time the compasses started working again, most of them had been scrapped and recycled. The people who’d kept believing in their power had ended up with rare treasures highly valued by collectors for their scarcity.
As a kid, Six had only recognized the value of her prize--a week’s worth of food, if she could pawn it without getting robbed first. Now she saw Emma’s quiet faith that the world was always going to right itself and bring Noah back to her, because some things were inevitable. Eternal.
Like her and Bren. “I get it,” Six replied softly. “I never would have said I believe in Fate. The world is choices you make and what other people do because of them. But it felt like every choice I made got me farther from what I wanted...until I ended up here.”
Emma hummed. “Right to what you needed.”
“Mm-hmm. It still took me a while to believe in it. And I had to fight for it.” She shrugged. “Maybe that’s all Fate is. The shit you can’t not do--”
“Oh my God, are you two actually debating philosophy
over here?” Nessa thumped against the back of the booth and leaned precariously over it to grab a handful of pretzels. “Emma, I expect this from you, now that you’re filling Ace’s broody artist boots. But Six, I’m betrayed.”
Nessa’s hair tickled Six’s cheek. It was bright pink now, a color that nature had never created, and still smelled vaguely of hair dye. Six shifted to give her room. “Why are you surprised? I sleep with Bren.”
“Oh, is that his kink now?” Nessa leaned closer with her features screwed up into a faux-serious expression. “Hit me harder and then tell me whether free will really exists.”
Six managed to keep from smiling and quirked one eyebrow at her. “Maybe I should tell him you need some extra hand-to-hand training. Then you can discuss free will with him at your pre-dawn workouts.”
Nessa threw up both hands, scattering pretzels in a wild arc. “I surrender!”
“Great, she’s throwing food now.” Emma held out her hand. “Time to dance.”
Six’s boots crunched on the pretzels as she swung out of the booth and pulled Emma after her. The music had rolled into something loud, with a beat meant for movement, which wasn’t stopping Zan and Tatiana from grinding together in a far more primal rhythm.
Nessa collided with Six’s other side, grabbing her free hand and pulling all three of them into the tangle of dancing on a wave of enthusiasm. Six closed her eyes and swayed, trying to catch the music, to think of it like a different kind of sparring. The first few seconds were awkward--they were always awkward--but that was the point of this great joyful jumble of limbs and movement.
She didn’t have to be a good dancer. She just had to have a good time.
At the edge of the dance floor, Dylan and Jyoti were swaying to a rhythm that didn’t match the music, either. But theirs was slow and formal, almost like something you’d see in an old-fashioned pre-Flare movie. Beside them, Scarlet moved like the music was a part of her, something she was creating even though it was blasting from speakers.
Jasper had arrived at some point, sliding behind Noelle to curl one protective arm around her waist, his hand splayed on her stomach. Lex was in front of her, with Mad tight against her side. As Six watched, Mad snagged Scarlet and hauled her into them with a laugh Six could feel, even as the music drowned it out.
People separated and came together. They touched and laughed. Exchanged sweet smiles and filthy ones. Every shift in song seemed to tighten the knot of bodies and raise the heat in the room until Six’s joints felt loose and her limbs fluid. She closed her eyes again, spun--
--and crashed into a familiar wall of muscle. Bren caught her, teasing his hands up her arms as he steadied her. “Having fun?”
She shivered at the brush of his fingers over sensitized skin, drunk on the precious feeling of total freedom. “Of course I am. We’re home.”
“Yes.” He pulled her closer. “We are.”
He always felt good against her, but she’d lived too hard for too long to let herself feel indiscriminately. Bren had always been the one person she couldn’t not feel, the one who found the cracks in her defenses and slid through to wake her up.
It was so much more intense like this, safe in the heart of the O’Kane empire, where she didn’t need any defenses at all.
She twined her hands around his neck and let her head fall back, barely aware of whether they were even moving. Every point of contact sparked through her like an electric jolt--his broad hands on her hips, her tight nipples grazing his chest. His hair under her fingers and his skin beneath her wrists.
“What are we doing tonight?” she whispered, knowing he was the only one who could hear her over the music. “Fast or slow?”
“Slow.” He turned her, still touching her everywhere as he turned her to face away from him, her back against his chest. “We have all night.”
Slow. Their own code, a filthy promise. Fast would have been nice--a swift, hard fuck in the nearest room they could find with a sturdy door--but slow meant pushing each other until the boundaries between teasing and torment blurred, and then reveling in what came after.
Leaning back, Six rested her head on his shoulder and let his arms surround her. His breath teased across her ear as his hand settled on her abdomen, his thumb so close to the bare strip of skin between her jeans and her tank top that she wanted to squirm until he was touching her, skin-to-skin.
But squirming this soon meant giving in. “Who do you think will get naked first?”
“Hard to say. Dallas did rush back, though...so I’m gonna guess Lex has some special plans.” He laughed in her ear, low and hoarse. “Either that, or he just knows his woman well enough to figure she doesn’t pass up good opportunities.”
He tilted his head, nudging hers to the left. Jasper had retreated to a bench with Noelle curled in his lap, and Dallas had joined Scarlet and Lex in their place. The blonde singer was sandwiched between them, her eyes closed and her head tilted back as Lex ran one fingertip down the side of her throat and murmured something to Dallas.
Just watching made Six’s heart beat faster. It always did. She liked watching and she’d stopped trying to figure out why. Noelle could go on for hours trying to tease out the whys and hows of the things that turned her on, but Six had embraced a simpler attitude toward fucking. An O’Kane attitude.
If it got her hot and bothered, it was good.
Jyoti, Dylan, and Mad were standing against the wall, watching even more intently. Dallas turned Scarlet’s face toward them, and she licked her lower lip before sinking her teeth into it. Mad started forward, only to be stopped short by Dylan’s hand at the back of his neck.
Mad’s eyes flared. His body tensed. Six had faced him in the sparring ring enough times to know how swiftly Mad’s deceptive grace could turn lethal, but Dylan wasn’t using strength to subdue him. Just the commanding touch of his fingers--a touch that revealed the game.
Dallas and Lex were teasing him.
“Makes you wonder who’s in charge, doesn’t it?” Bren murmured.
Six had never been good at reading the subtle clues. Dominance wasn’t a clear hierarchy for the O’Kanes. Dallas and Lex might rule, undisputed, at the top, but after that...
Six slid her hand over Bren’s, trying to nudge his thumb higher. “You tell me.”
He slipped his thumb lower, just under the waistband of her jeans instead. “If I had to guess? Dylan. This is their fantasy--Scarlet, Mad, maybe even Jyoti. Dallas and Lex are just along for the ride.”
Mad was a prince of Sector One and one of Dallas’s closest lieutenants. In a crisis, there was no doubt that almost anyone in the room would defer to his orders, especially Dylan. But now, with Scarlet arching under Lex’s fingers, Dylan controlled the other man with a simple touch.
Because sometimes power was as simple as trust.
Six sucked in a breath as Bren’s thumb moved--just a slow stroke back and forth beneath her belly button. His calluses were rough and familiar against her skin, sparking a hot desire that made her squeeze her thighs together.
Their corner of the dance floor was dark. No one would see if his fingers drifted lower. Not like Scarlet, whose skin glowed in the golden light from the bar as Dallas fisted a hand in her tank top and dragged it up. Six couldn’t hear the words he rumbled to Lex, but she smiled slowly, bent her head...and pressed a chaste kiss to Scarlet’s shoulder.
Dallas’s eyes narrowed as he plunged his fingers into Lex’s hair. Six’s scalp tingled in response as he tightened his fist, dragging Lex’s mouth down. She tugged against his grip, then relented with a moan that Scarlet echoed when she drew her tongue across the pale swell of one bare breast.
Scarlet’s moan melted into a gasp as Lex continued downward, only to close not her lips but her teeth on her taut nipple.
Movement beyond them drew Six’s gaze. Mad was leaning forward, his eyes intent. Jyoti leaned into his side with a wicked smile, going up on her toes to whisper something that only made his chest heave.
Six turned her face, rubbing her cheek against Bren’s throat. The slight rasp of stubble shivered through her. “How long can they hold him?”
“Maybe that’s part of the fantasy for him. The denial.”
“Maybe I can relate,” she murmured, nudging his wrist. It didn’t do any good. Bren would move when he was ready to move, and trusting him to set the pace was part of their game. A little hip wiggle reminded her how much he savored that trust--in spite of his rock-solid control, his cock was hard against her ass.
So she wiggled again.
His free hand closed on her hip, stilling her movements with an iron grip.
Six bit her lip to hold back a smile as she turned back to the trio grinding on the dance floor. Scarlet had her eyes squeezed shut and her lips parted as Lex sucked one nipple. Dallas released Lex’s hair and rubbed his thumb over her cheek, tender and then lewd as his thumb edged between her lips.
He brushed the tightened bud as Lex’s tongue flickered over both of them, then shifted to Scarlet’s other nipple and pinched so hard that Scarlet’s moan soared over the music--and Six shuddered in sympathy.
She shifted a little, unable to stop herself from arching. But there was nothing to rub herself against, no way to relieve this sudden ache surreptitiously. “Bren...”
“Hmm?”
She could stand here and watch an orgy form in front of her, but her cheeks still flushed when she had to ask for what she wanted. The words tumbled out on a growl. “I swear to God, if you don’t get your hands on my tits...”
He licked the shell of her ear. “Mine are occupied.” His voice lowered to a rumble. “Use your own.”
Putting on a show wasn’t usually her thing, and banging Bren against the side of the cage on a wave of adrenaline was different than this slow, lazy seduction. But Dallas was sliding Lex’s hand under Scarlet’s skirt now, and no one was looking at Six and Bren as they swayed on the darkened edge of the dance floor.
Shuddering in a breath, Six slid her hands up under her shirt, over bare flesh, and soothed the throbbing ache with gentle pressure.
