Storm Gathering

by Rebecca Zanetti

  Nobody moved.

  “If you stay, then I expect you to keep her safe at all costs. Period.” He looked at Damon, who'd remained silent the whole time. Oh, disapproval lingered in his dark eyes, but he would back Grey in front of the men. He always did.

  Greyson looked around. “Leave the bodies here until tomorrow morning. I want the patrols to see them and know what happens. Then toss them into the ocean for the sharks to eat.”

  A soldier close to him swallowed audibly, and sweat rolled down his forehead.

  Good. Grey was fine with fear if it kept Maureen safe.

  He turned to go back to the house, stopping cold at seeing Maureen in the doorway. She had a hand wrapped around the doorframe as if she needed help to stand. Her face had gone stark white, and her lips seemed to be trembling.

  Her blue eyes were wide with horror.

  God. He took a step toward her.

  She jerked and then turned around and ran away.

  His chest compressed like he'd been kicked by a horse. An ache settled beneath his breastbone, and his shoulders felt like a thousand pounds had dropped from above. He'd give anything, anything, for her not to have seen that. For her not to have seen him. The real him.

  He kept his head up and strode evenly toward the house, forcing all expression from his face. If only he could force emotion from his body.

  Only silence remained in his wake.

  * * *

  A bruised and battered Atticus brought Maureen her dinner a few hours later. She sat on the bed, this one another king with blue and yellow linens, staring out at the ocean, not thinking or feeling.

  She looked up. “Atticus,” she breathed.

  He nodded and shuffled inside to place a tray on the end of the bed. His gray hair brushed his collar, and a large bump showed above his right eye. “Bastards tied me up. Greyson found me. I'm fine.”

  She gulped. “I'm glad you're okay.” But she didn't move. She just couldn't.

  “Eat up, sweetheart. I made brownies for dessert.” His faded eyes twinkled. “We found a bunch of brownie mix last week on a raid.”

  She looked down at the fried kelp bass. The flaky, white fish had been one of her favorites. But now, her stomach rolled over. She barely kept herself from gagging. “Thanks, Atticus,” she murmured.

  He nodded and made his way out of the room. “I'm glad you're back, Moe.”

  She watched the door close behind him. The pictures of old sailboats on the wall failed to provide comfort. Greyson had murdered three men in front of her. Because they'd threatened her. She gagged again.

  A sharp rap echoed on the door, and she started, her head going back. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.

  Greyson opened the door and walked inside, having changed into dark jeans and a plain white T-shirt. Probably to get rid of any blood. He moved to a delicate-looking chair near the sliding glass door and sat, his forearms resting on his knees. “I thought we should talk.” Dark and rich, his voice wove through the room, rising above the sound of the rolling sea.

  “There's nothing to say,” she said, moving back on the bed and farther away from him and the fish.

  “There's a lot to say,” he countered, his gaze going to her meal. “Eat.”

  “Not hungry.” The mere idea of putting the food in her mouth rose bile in her throat.

  He sat back, studying her. “I will feed you.”

  She shook her head. “I'll eat later. Right now I'm feeling sick. Very sick.”

  He nodded, no expression crossing his hard face. “I'm sorry you had to see all of that. I wish you would've just come to the room when I asked.”

  “I didn't know you were going to kill three people,” she burst out, disbelief filling her.

  He lifted a hand. “I'm not saying it's your fault. It isn't. I just didn't want you to see that.”

  She didn't understand him. Not at all. “You didn't have to kill them,” she whispered.

  “I know.” He overwhelmed the small chair. “I could've let them go. Just sent them on their way. But then we'd have three more enemies out there. Desperate ones.”

  She scoffed. “You could handle three more enemies.”

  “Maybe, maybe not.” His eyes were more green than gray in the dusky light. “But I also can't have my men, the ones who stayed, thinking there's any leniency. There can't be any. Not if you're gonna stay safe.”

  “No. There has to be a better way.” Darkness fell over the ocean, lending an intimacy to the candle-lit room. Last time she was in a bedroom with him, they'd ended up naked. She swallowed. Her heart started to thrum. How could she be attracted to a killer? How could the father of her baby be so cold-hearted? “I won't be a kidnap victim again, Greyson.”

  He huffed out air. “You are not a kidnap victim. You said you wanted to come.”

  That was before he'd knocked out her brother. Before he'd killed three men. “If you're not kidnapping me, then I'm free to go. I don't have to stay here.” Under lock and key again.

  He studied her, the candlelight throwing the harsh angles of his face into shadow. “You're right.”

  She opened her mouth to argue and caught herself. “Wh-what?”

  “You're right. I'm not kidnapping you, so you're free to go. If you want to go back to Vanguard tomorrow, I'll take you,” he said evenly. “But I'm asking you to at least look at the greenhouses and let us know our options first.”

  “You'll take me back?” she asked slowly, her mind spinning the problem over and over.

  He nodded. “Yes. Personally.”

  Man, Vanguard would probably shoot him on sight. She looked around, at anything but him. He was just too much. Too big, too strong, too dangerous. And now he was being reasonable. She wasn't sure how to handle him being reasonable.

  “I, ah, wanted to apologize for my actions the last night you were here,” he said, a very slight Southern accent hinting in his words.

  She swung her head back to him, her mouth dropping open. “You what?” The man who'd just easily killed three men was apologizing? Like some gentleman from the eighteen hundreds?

  He kept her gaze this time. “I took advantage of you, and I'm sorry.”

  Confusion blanketed her. He just didn't make any damn sense. And she couldn't handle gentleness from him right now. “You didn't, Greyson.” No matter what was happening, she'd made her own decision that night. “We were both drunk, and you were concussed. You even protested.”

  His eyes lightened. “Not very much, I didn't. Not enough.”

  Not one part of her wanted to press the advantage he'd just given her. But she couldn't. She was her own person, and she owned up to her mistakes. “We're both responsible.”

  “That's kind of you to say.”

  Tears filled her eyes. Damn it. What the hell? She wasn't a crier. Never had been. “I, ah…”

  He straightened. “Please. Don't cry.”

  The world crashed down on her. The loss and the fear and now the indecision. Tears started spilling over, wetting her cheeks, and she couldn't stop them. She coughed, trying to calm herself.

  He moved toward her, sitting on the bed. “Moe. I'm so sorry. I would never have taken advantage—”

  The tears increased. Shit. Hormones? This was crazy. She planted a hand on his muscled chest. “I'm just a little overwhelmed. This doesn't make sense. You don't make sense.” Next to him, she felt small and vulnerable. Maybe a little lost. “Whose ring is on your necklace?” she asked. Why the heck had she asked that?

  He gentled his touch. “The ring belonged to a lady named Miss Julian. She was my foster mother, and it's my good luck charm.”

  Foster mother? He had been in foster care. An image of a young and lonely Greyson caught her thoughts, shooting to her heart. More tears gathered. Geez. She needed to be alone. “Just go.” Please, just go. What the hell was wrong with her?

  “I can't.” He picked her up and planted her on his lap, cradling her. Heat surrounded her along with ripped muscle. “It's oka
y. I know. Maybe there's a way I could make sense?” The hope in his voice caught her unaware. “Please don't cry. I'm sorry. I'll take you back first thing tomorrow when it's light. Not in the darkness.”

  She coughed out a laugh. “I just don't understand how you can go from killing three men to being scared of tears.”

  He gently wiped off her cheek. “Tears are freaking scary,” he murmured.

  She wanted to tell him about the baby. Have him shoulder the burden and just take over. He would. She knew it. But…what did that mean for the child? Or for her? This switch from cold-blooded mercenary to sweet guy afraid of tears was overwhelming. Confusing. Her first thought had to be the baby, if it even had a chance to survive. It might be irresponsible to tell him.

  He rubbed a massive hand down her back. “Please don't cry. I'll take you back tomorrow.”

  There was only one chance to get to know him, and she did have a job to do. Not only with the plants but now also for the baby. She was a genetic engineer, and although she'd only worked with crops before, she could use that knowledge to help save the child. “No. I'll stay for one week.” The temptation to burrow into his warmth made her stiffen. “We'll talk about it tomorrow, and I'll give you my conditions.” She tried to make her voice strong, but the tears clogging her throat didn't help.

  He sighed against her hair. “Your conditions. All right. But first, would you mind getting on the HAM radio and letting your brother know you're okay and here of your own volition? If not, Vanguard is going to storm the gates at first light, and I'd rather not have to shoot anybody else.”

  He wasn't kidding. The words could be taken as light, but the man really wasn't joking. He would shoot if attacked.

  She'd already seen that firsthand.

  Chapter Eleven

  Somehow, softness and fragility have survived the apocalypse. I'm not sure how to protect that.

  —Greyson Storm, Letters to Miss Julian

  Grey swirled bourbon in a glass in front of the quietly crackling fire in the main living room with Damon on a matching chair, doing the same. The moon glinted off the ocean outside, but darkness was all around them. “I made her cry,” he mused, tipping his head back.

  Damon sighed, his gaze on the fire. “She's been working in a lab in the middle of nowhere for most of the Scorpius battle.”

  “So?”

  “So, she hasn't seen the fight to survive up close. It was probably her first triple murder scene,” Damon said, his tone grim.

  Greyson paused and looked at his buddy. “I'm sorry.” The struggle Damon faced every day in this new world hurt to see. “Thank you for backing my play, even if you didn't agree.”

  Damon sighed. “I always back your play, and I'm not saying I disagree with what you did.”

  Greyson took a drink. “Okay?”

  “I just wish that kind of display wasn’t necessary.” Damon plunked his boots on the coffee table and settled back in his chair. “I get it, but I don't like it. At some point, we have to go back to living like civilized people, right?”

  Grey shrugged. “Yeah, but I'm not sure it'll happen in our lifetime. You saw shit as a cop, D.”

  Damon nodded, the firelight playing off the dark planes of his face. “I did. But we had a code and the law and a right and a wrong. I'm pretty sure.”

  “We had that, too,” Grey murmured, his gaze going back to the flickering flames. “As a sniper, I trusted that the orders I followed were true. Were right.” Now there was just him trying to hold together a band of soldiers shaped by a plague. The enemy was all around him. Many he'd created with his own actions. “You think we could take Jax Mercury and Vanguard in a war?”

  Damon tipped back his head and finished his drink. “I think it'd be pretty close to a draw because most soldiers on both sides would end up dead. It's a mistake to engage with them.”

  “Yeah.” Greyson reached over and refilled Damon's glass before topping off his own. “Even so, you've been there several times, and you've had a chance to look around.”

  Damon took another drink. “I'll diagram weaknesses tomorrow. But if you want to attack, now's the time. You've got Shadow's sister here, and that'll weaken him. They're also damaged from the president's attack, and the repairs will take at least another week.”

  “I'm not going to attack,” Greyson said slowly. “And you know it.”

  “We both know you like to review your options,” Damon countered.

  That was true. Very true. “If we align with Vanguard, we have a better chance of taking on the president and his Elite Force.” But then who would step up for the government? “Or it might be a better idea to align with the president.” The thought made him nauseated, but it could be the smart move.

  Damon swirled his drink around. “True. We don't know who'd step into the void if President Atherton is taken out. Could be worse than him, and he seems to be holding the Elite Force together. They have air support, which is more than anybody else has.”

  “If it's VP Lake, that guy is pure evil. We don't want to deal with him,” Grey murmured.

  Yet there was one inescapable fact. Bret Atherton had kidnapped Maureen Shadow, threatened her, and bruised her. That alone meant Greyson wanted to gut him. Plus, Grey had been shot during the rescue, and that just pissed him off. His arm still ached. The luxury of vengeance might be out of his reach, however. Difficult times made for odd alliances.

  Damon set down his glass. “It might not be a bad idea to reach out to the president. See if he's interested in working together.”

  Grey rubbed the whiskers on his chin. “If he's alive.”

  “I've sent scouts up north to Elite headquarters. They should be back sometime tomorrow. If Atherton is alive and back in his place, we'll know it,” Damon said.

  Atticus poked his head around the kitchen doorway. “There's something wrong with your girl. She's sick.”

  Grey jumped to his feet, stalking toward the back bedroom. His breath caught in his lungs. “What do you mean?”

  “She's outside throwing up,” Atticus said. “I went to get her dinner dishes, and she wasn't there. The fish shouldn't have made her ill.”

  “I've got it,” Greyson said, his heart hammering at a frightening speed. He opened her door and moved toward the deck, stopping short.

  She rested her head back against the stucco side of the mansion, her eyes closed and her arms wrapped around her midsection. The moonlight shone down, shimmering in her hair and across her pale face.

  Tears. Were those more tears?

  He moved toward her.

  She jerked, her eyes opening and her hand instinctively coming out in protest to stop his momentum.

  He paused. “Moe?”

  She drew in a shaky breath. The woman looked small and fragile in the darkness. “I'm fine. Just a little sick to my stomach,” she said.

  Because he'd killed in front of her. A fist dropped into Grey's gut. Damn it. Why hadn't she gone to her room when he’d asked? Maybe he should've forced her and then dealt with the men. “Can I get you anything?” he asked, tempted to wrap her up in his arms. “I think there's ginger ale in the kitchen. We found some last week near Fresno.”

  “No. I'm fine,” she said, her voice shaky.

  Maybe it had been the flash grenade. At the thought, he moved for her, tipping up her chin to catch the moonlight. “Look at me,” he ordered.

  She blinked, her pupils constricting. Good. That was an excellent sign.

  “Does your head hurt?” he asked, taking her wrist and counting heart beats.

  “No,” she said softly. “I'm okay now. Just had an upset stomach.”

  They didn't have a doctor. Hadn't had one in far too long. “If you're still sick tomorrow, I'm taking you to Vanguard.” Vanguard had at least three doctors and an Army medic. One of them would know what to do. Panic tried to take hold of him, but he shoved it away. When she talked to Raze via the HAM radio, her brother hadn't indicated that anything was amiss. “Has anything been goin
g on with you? Any other symptoms?”

  She shook her head.

  “You've survived Scorpius, right?”

  “Yes,” she murmured, drawing back, her gaze leveled at his chest. “I'm fine, Greyson.”

  Why wouldn't she meet his eyes? Had he scared her, or was she just embarrassed? Nobody liked to be caught puking. “How about a hot toddy? We have whiskey around here somewhere, and I'm sure Atticus could find a lemon. It'll help you to sleep.”

  “No.” She sidled past him, eyeing the plush furniture spread across the wide deck, apparently wanting to look anywhere but at him. “This is a nice sitting area.”

  “Took it from a mansion down the beach,” he said, gesturing for her to sit. It seemed like the woman was about to fall down. “We moved it last week.” So it'd be there for her in case she wanted to sit outside and watch the ocean.

  She finally looked at him and then back at the furniture. “It's all cushiony.” Still holding her stomach, she edged closer and sat in one of the chairs, stretching her legs out on the matching ottoman. “This is the high-end stuff. The sets you find in those fancy catalogues with people by Beverly Hills-type pools.”

  He nodded and strode around to sit in the matching chair. “I thought the same thing.”

  She gazed out at the rolling ocean with the moon shining down on the waves. “Pretty view.”

  He made a sound of agreement because she was lovely. Even too pale and a little shaky, the smooth planes of her face showed her high cheekbones and full mouth. Those blue eyes cut through the moonlight with a mystical glow. “Your brother looks more Native American than you do,” he murmured.

  She nodded. “Raze looks like our father, and I look more like our mother.”

  Maybe he could calm her down with chit-chat. “You were raised in Wyoming?” He'd read that in the dossier he'd had compiled on Raze a while ago.

  “Yes. We had a small ranch, and our mom ran a local restaurant in town,” Moe said.

  “Ah.” He chuckled. “You dated cowboys?”