Hotter on the Edge 2

by Hotter Edge

  She’d long suspected Hudson’s land was abnormally rich with nutrients, making his crops the most bountiful in the area. She suspected the same nutrients from Black Creek were responsible for making the clams’ shells different also. She fingered the fine white powder and remembered the first time Hudson had taken her to dig for the river bottom dwellers.

  “You have to dig deep. Really get your hands in there,” he said with a smile on his face and a warm light in his eyes.

  Lake scrunched up her nose at the hole Hudson had dug in the thick dark mud along the bank of the river in answer.

  He laughed, dark eyes doing that warming-thing to her skin whenever he looked at her. “What? Are you afraid of a little dirt?”

  “A little?” she shrieked. “I'm knee deep in swamp, and you expect me to put my arm into a puddle of blackish water and fish around for some slimy things? I think we’re way past a little dirt.”

  “Hey, you're the one who wanted clams. Besides, these are special clams—Black Creek clams. You know the legend, right? One taste of these clams can bring an old maid to a climax.”

  Lake sighed, then rolled her eyes. He looked so good with the sun at his back, lighting the droplets left in his hair by a recent swim, that she ended up laughing. The sound still felt odd to her, but Hudson had a way of making her forget herself. “Just a taste? Really?”

  “Well, maybe a bit more than that.” His eyes twinkled letting her know exactly what “a bit more” meant.

  She let her gaze travel down his chest as they both kneeled in the deep, river mud. His shirt was still wet, and in the warmth of the summer sun, she could see the tan of his skin.

  His heated gaze must’ve mirrored hers, and she felt her nipples harden in response under her pale, thin work shirt. His eyes grew dark and lips turned wicked. She knew that look. Knew it intimately.

  “No.” She shook her head. “Don't even think about it.”

  She tried to get away, but it was too late. He had her on her back; her head nestled in a soft pillow of grass. She swatted at his hand. “Hudson Black Creek, we are not doing what you are thinking of doing, in the middle of a river bank, in the middle of the day.”

  He wedged his hips between her legs. A shiver spread up her spine as his hand moved her skirt out of the way to cup her bottom.

  “I tell you, it's those damn clams. They do it to me every time.”

  “So how do you like your work quarters? Is there anything else that you need?”

  Lake tried not to be startled by Syon who’d walked up behind her while she was sitting daydreaming at her lab table. But it was hard. There was something about him that made her heart sink, gut tighten, palms go sweaty.

  She turned and carefully tried to school her features into something that resembled pleasant. The man, whose home she’d been placed in, and who ruled his household like a spider maintaining his web, stood in front of her, waiting for an answer.

  She hadn't been here very long. Two weeks perhaps? It seemed like an eternity. But if she'd learned anything it was this man was not one to be crossed. His household walked on eggshells, and she walked around with a jagged stone in her belly.

  “Yes, it's fine. Thank you.”

  She’d never forget that this man with his dark eyes, and pale, white skin, with his balding head, and slightly lanky frame was responsible for killing Hudson's entire household. And she was sure he would kill more before he met his end.

  “You’re crying,” he said.

  Lake hadn’t realized and quickly wiped her cheeks. “Bitter-sweet memories is all.”

  Syon nodded. “Your husband? Hudson was his name?”

  Hudson. His name spoken aloud had the power to grip her heart and cause her breath to flee from her lungs. Hudson, are you alive?

  Syon pulled out a stool, but didn't sit. She guessed, he liked the advantage his height had over her sitting figure. “How are the experiments going?”

  He asked so politely, had treated her with nothing but dignity and respect since she'd been brought here. Didn't matter, her throat constricted as if still caught in the leather noose they used when bringing her here.

  “Fine...I...I think I'm getting close.” She hated how weak she sounded, but appeasing her captor was a hard-won lesson she'd learned during the months she’d spent in prison as a Rebel spy.

  Syon bent over and examined the white powder she had crushed in her mortar. She watched his fingers—long and bony, nails—short and clean, pick up the powder and rub it between his forefinger and thumb. He brought it up to his nose and inhaled.

  “What is the scent? I can't quite place it?”

  “Mercenaria.”

  “Mercenaria? I thought that was poisonous?” His forehead melted into a roadmap of deep lines. “Interesting ingredient for a medicine of healing.”

  Lake shook her head. When covering up deception, it was best to stick as close to the truth as possible. And this truth. This truth didn't matter. She shook her head. “That's the clams’ secretions, not the shell. You have to be careful when separating the two.”

  Syon looked up at her, his lips pressing into a thin, red line. “And you've been careful?”

  “Very.”

  He looked around the cellar that had been converted into a makeshift lab. She tried to imagine what he saw. Concrete walls, a small slit window, a few long tables, a couple glass cylinders, and an ancient Bunsen burner. As far as prison cells went, it was comfortable enough. She was fed regularly and allowed to sleep upstairs in a spare room. Mostly she was left alone to do what Syon had requested of her. To make the microbiotics.

  “So you should have everything you need. There should be no problem.”

  “No. No problem.”

  For the first time since she’d been here, he was dressed in his official Elder brown robe and hood. If she never saw that robe again, it would be worth spending the rest of her life locked up in this cellar.

  “Because I'm sensing a problem. We know that you've discovered the formula for the microbiotics. You have everything a scientist would need.” His palm went out and gestured toward the tables filled with drying herbs and rare fruits. “And yet, no microbiotics.”

  Lake swallowed, and then folded her hands in her lap to hide any tell-tale shake.

  “I'm concerned.” He reached for her hair and twirled one strand around a thin finger. “And I think you should be concerned also. You'll find, Lake, that I have remarkable patience, and I'm a very reasonable person to work for. It pains me. It really does to correct those who don't take pride in their work. I take pride in my work. I teach those boys, living in those tents outside, to be men. I expect everyone in my household to take the same amount of pride.”

  He released her hair and gently encircled her throat. “There's a new recruit that needs my attention. I can trust you to work diligently while I'm gone?”

  He squeezed.

  Lake squirmed in her chair as the pressure steadily increased. The stool toppled underneath her as she kicked out.

  “I can trust you to do your work, right?”

  He was so strong. With one hand he lifted her up. Her fingers clawed at his.

  “I can't hear you?”

  “Yes,” she croaked.

  He released her, and she fell to the floor.

  “I'm so glad that we had this conversation. Now I can go out to the training camp with a clear conscience.”

  Lake laid there long after his footsteps up the stairs had faded, and placed a protective hand over her belly. Hudson, where are you? Are you coming?

  Chapter Six

  Six weeks later…

  Hudson woke with a start. Flashes of pale, blue eyes and white hair went up in flames inside his head. He sat up in bed, careful not to wake the naked woman lying beside him. Hudson flung the covers off his naked form and made his way over to the small basin of water and the shaving mirror that hung from a nail in the wall. He caught a glimpse of himself, not at all surprised that his hand had gravitated towa
rd the name tattooed on his chest.

  The traveling merchant who had rescued Hudson and the boy had been kind enough to offer permanent residence with him and his two daughters. As soon as Hudson was well enough, he’d struck out on his own. To his surprise and significant indifference, Vonn, the boy, and Prism, the healer, had decided to stay with him. The merchant had been none too happy that his daughter had chosen to stay with a man who wasn’t her husband, but he’d raised his girls in the old ways of the Gypsies and couldn’t very well object now.

  It hadn’t taken long to find an empty storage hut. With Elder and Rebel raids alike, most people had abandoned their homes for the relative safety of the cities. So Hudson had set up camp, or more aptly set up a mere existence. For a man who’d once been so driven to succeed and hold on to what was his, he was finding it hard to do anything beyond the basics.

  He traced the letterings on his chest as if he could burn the image off his skin. Funny, he’d suffered so many wounds in the last, unremembered battle—his ear had been cut off, a blade between his ribs, multiple burns, not to mention a blow to his head that left had him color blind and no memory of the last year and a half of his life. But nothing seemed to ache as deep as the cursed tattoo on his chest.

  He examined the mark for the thousandth time, desperate for a clue to the woman whose name was written in bold, broad letters –Lake Black Creek Land.

  Sure, the boy had told him that he had married his sister. That they’d been in love, and that Hudson needed to go after her.

  After her where? He had no idea. But still he might’ve done it. Might’ve chased after a woman he had no feelings for, nor any recollection of, simply out of a sense of duty. He might’ve done just that until he’d visited the place where his home had once stood.

  The old man had taken him back there on Hudson's request. Prism had advised him not to, but what did she know?

  He examined the scar in the mirror that ran jagged across his hairline. The thin, white, line by his ear that ran in a slant down his neck. The whitened patch of a healed burn along his ribs. And those were just the scars that he could see. Yes, Prism might’ve put him back together physically, but she was useless when it came to his soul.

  The day that he’d walked back to his land and saw the battleground littered with bodies, half eaten by wild animals, and ravaged over by vultures. The day he’d walked among the bodies and saw men that had been like brothers to him. Saw Trigger, the big brute of a man who’d been with him since Hudson's father had been alive. Samuel, the young boy who was in charge of the goats, and Old Leather Foot, who’d been a miracle worker with his horses, now all dead.

  He and the old merchant had spent two days burying the remains of his men. The bodies of the Elders he’d left to rot.

  For two days he looked into every face, knew every name, and murmured special words over each grave trying to give back the dignity they’d once had by belonging to Black Creek Land.

  All his livestock, all his crops, his home, and all his men had been lost because he had chosen on the side of his wife. A wife he couldn’t remember. A wife, who with every shovelful of earth, he’d come to hate.

  Prism moaned and tugged the sheet down in her sleep. In his vision of greys and blacks, the curve of her breasts and hip looked too pale against the rough blanket.

  He knew that Prism was hoping for more from him. It was a good thing to have a woman when females were of such value. For a man to have two wives was unheard of, but even though he was desperate to lose himself in her soft body at night, he couldn't wait to fall asleep so he could forget she lay beside him.

  Prism said his color vision would most likely be restored in time. His memory, she wasn't so sure about. It didn't matter to him. He almost liked the new way in which he saw the world—it fit the way he was on the inside. Black, gray and white. There were no colors, no sparks of light to quicken his breath or still his heart. He imagined his insides—gray heart, black blood, no soul.

  He dug at the name on his chest, the only evidence that at one time his heart had been full and happy. Or why else would a fool man tattoo his wife's name on his body? He wanted to take his knife and cut it out. Dig deep and remove once and for all, the evidence that he’d chosen cunt over honor, lust over birthright, and love over the lives of his men.

  Whoever Lake was, wherever Lake was, she could burn in hell because, after everything he'd sacrificed for her, he deserved the company.

  Chapter Seven

  Four months later…

  Lake woke to the warmest autumn eyes of her husband. The sunlight poured in through her bedroom window, sun motes danced through dark hair that stuck straight up. His smile creased the lines around his mouth.

  “What are you doing?” Her voice was raspy from sleep and the recent love making.

  “It's time to get up.” He smiled as he whispered the words.

  She shook her head. It was warm with Hudson's body on top of hers, in her bed, safe from everything else. “No, not yet,” she begged.

  “Get up, Little Dove.” His face was so serene, so full of love. She could stay here forever. Outside of her bed was cold. Dark. Hard. Here, inside with her husband, she could be happy forever. “I missed you so much. Where have you been?”

  He took her hand and kissed her palm. “Get up, Little Dove. Get up now!”

  Lake woke with a start and instead of waking to a warm coca gaze; the eyes that bore into her from above were cold and black.

  A dark figure sat on the corner of her bed. The banked fire across her room cast an eerie glow on his pale skin and blood-red lips.

  Syon.

  Her hand went protectively around her stomach. It had been four months since her captor had left. Now he was back, Hudson hadn't come, and her time had run out.

  During the last four months, she had tried to plan an escape. She'd waited for the opportune moment when the guards were lax, and she’d been well enough to make a run for it. Her pregnancy during the early months had been tough, keeping her from holding down almost anything most days. It soon became obvious that her only hope rested with Hudson. In the months that followed her hope—or disillusion—grew stronger. She had believed he’d come for her. He'd promised. Now, it was hard to fight the cold fear that flooded like a black river across a muddy bank.

  “I don't understand. Haven't I given you everything?” Syon’s voice had a soft, sing-song quality to it that struck fear into her heart. “Haven't I provided you with everything you needed? Treated you well?”

  The fire sparked in an array of light as a log was thrown in the hearth. For the first time Lake noticed Syon hadn’t come alone. Two burly men stood and another shrunken form lurked in the shadows. “I just can't understand why the microbiotics haven't been made, yet?”

  Lake scooted farther back and turned toward the man on her bed. Watch the man, not his weapons. The extra light gave detail to his rough, brown robes and thinning hair on top. Lake pulled her covers up under her chin longing for any measure of protection. She hadn't manufactured the microbiotics. Her loyalty to the Rebellion and hope in Hudson had run too deep. Now, she'd wished she'd made store houses of the stuff.

  Syon's gaze roved over her form. Her swollen belly impossible to hide. “So you’re pregnant.” It wasn’t a question.

  The mention of her child infused her with the courage to speak. “He won't be a burden, I promise.”

  “Oh, I already know that won’t be a problem.” His lips pressed into a downturned arch and for the first time Lake realized why Syon's appearance was so off putting. His face had all the normal features, nose, eyes, mouth, but they’d been put together slightly wrong. Eyes a touch too close. Nose bit too angular and off center. Lips too thin and feminine for a man. Despite the ugliness, there was intelligence behind those eyes, and a cold calculation not unlike a spider sensing prey trapped in its web.

  Funny, since it was Lake's heart that fluttered like she’d been caught.

  He sighed as if the wei
ght of the world were on his shoulders. His spidery hands came up and fingered her hair.

  Everything in her wanted to pull away, but she couldn't afford to be the martyred rebel again. It surprised her that the desire to survive and protect her unborn child was stronger than even her hatred for all things Elder. So she stayed still and allowed him to fondle her hair.

  “It's so peculiar looking. Not blonde, really. More of an absence of any color. I wonder if your child will have the same? I have concern for you, really. I'm not the monster you believe. Here…” He gestured to the huddled form in the corner. “I brought someone for you.”

  An old woman shuffled forward. Her mousey hair was pulled up into a small bun. Her slight shoulders thin even under the bulk of the dark robe.

  “She is a midwife. The women call her Mother. You can call her anything you want. She's here to help you with the birth.”

  He looked at the old lady and nodded. She came up and placed her hands on Lake's rounded belly. Lake stiffened, but otherwise made no move. The woman's veiny hands were warm as she pressed lightly against Lake's unborn child. She closed her eyes and breathed deep. Brown eyes opened and found Syon's. “It's a girl.”

  His gasp was audible, and from the expression of rapture on his face, Lake found a whole deeper level of fear.

  Syon looked at Lake. “I'm sorry.” Then shook his head. “For a while now I've followed the decline in female infant mortality. I'll make sure to be here for the birth.”

  The woman shuffled away, and then placed one end of a long metal rod into the fire.

  “That does it then. You need to be claimed. You see, I have a problem. Even I can't have an available woman living under my roof. Shortage in females and all, you understand?” He closed his eyes as if searching for peace of mind. “I'm expected to make a group of unruly boys into men in less time than it takes for the women to create them, and yet, I’m still subject to their petty rules. What do they want? Miracles? Well, I suppose Dark Planet needs its fresh troops. All for the greater good, correct?”