by Pam Godwin
But despite the ache in my chest, logic told me if anyone could defeat Aiman, that person was Michio. Aiman had made a fatal mistake biting one of my guardians. He’d created a powerful enemy, one who would risk his life to save mine.
I swallowed around the mass of emotions in my throat. “What are you guys thinking about?”
“The bug on the island,” Roark said. “No sustenance for two years, and the whole time, just a shallow moat away from freedom.”
Jesse picked a brittle chunk of concrete off the ledge and flung it into the field below. “A small obstacle for a creature so hard to kill.”
“There’s power in water,” Roark said thoughtfully.
Yeah, but unless his god decided to flood the planet again, or the fertile man at my side put a fatalistic baby in me, the future was fucked. Didn’t matter if we found and cured every nymph out there. Since the aphids couldn’t starve to death, their numbers would evolve while ours faded away.
Forever outnumbered, scraping by and counting our every breath. What kind of life were we fighting for?
I woke alone on a musty mattress, wearing one of Michio’s t-shirts that no longer carried his scent. That exotic scent, filled with memories and anguish, punched me right in the gut.
Sucking in a breath, I squinted through the glare of the morning sun that penetrated the open door of the animal clinic. A week had passed since we’d moved the mattress in there. A week since Michio had vanished from the roof.
Given his speed, he could be on the other side of the country by now. But maybe, just maybe, he never left Georgia.
I focused inwardly, searching for a warmth of electricity, the low hum in my veins I’d never noticed until it was gone, until Michio was gone. Was it some kind of supernatural connection? A sixth sense to help me locate him? I didn’t know how to explain it, only that I couldn’t feel it now. I couldn’t feel him.
He could be dead.
The hollowness in my chest constricted painfully as I imagined him sleeping alone and unprotected. Then I pictured him fighting the Drone, clenched in a bared-teeth lock of bodies, choking, punching, and spinning through the air like an out-of-control bullet against the force of the Drone’s wings.
Michio was a badass, but the Drone was so much more. Michio wasn't using his overeducated brain, running off into the night, thinking he could smite the Drone’s brand of evil. Dumb, arrogant man. Didn’t he know he couldn’t face the Drone without me by his side?
With Michio’s ability to heal, I wasn’t sure what he could survive. Could the Drone drain him of blood? Tear off his head? Rip out his heart? An ache swelled behind my eyes and weighed down my limbs. What would I do if I never saw him again?
I imagined him treating his injuries alone, suffering from his cravings, my inability to help him, and his memory of our last night together. The thought gripped my insides and wouldn’t let go. I blew out a breath.
Time to stop the unproductive wallowing. Michio didn’t have to leave, didn’t have to become some lone cowboy to prove himself. So fuck him. My resentment burrowed as deep as my fear for him, like a poisonous fuel burning up my blood. I let it fester and build, because anger was a steadier, more vicious companion than fear. It made me feel in control and resolute. Two things I needed for the road ahead.
I rolled over and found Roark kneeling on the other side of the room. He faced the wall, his broad shoulders straining the seams of his tattered cassock. Head bowed, his breaths rose and fell rhythmically. I didn’t need to see his hands to know they were moving methodically over a rosary.
Pushing to sit, my back pinched in pain from the broken mattress springs, but I was used to sleeping on much worse. My attention drifted to the cage across the room, where Shea recovered the past six nights. She was now fully human but still weak. Keeping her behind bars had been the safest solution against an aphid attack.
Only this morning, the cage stood empty. Was she finally strong enough to go for a walk?
Excitement sifted through me. As much as I wanted to stay in Georgia and await Michio’s return, I couldn’t hold onto that hope. Michio never promised he’d come back. In fact, the night he left, he told me it was our last.
I couldn’t let those thoughts cripple me. I had to look forward, get back on the road, and find more women to save.
I rose quietly and tiptoed toward Roark. He looked so chaste and peaceful when he prayed. An untouchable man of the cloth. But that never stopped me.
He didn’t look up as I circled his position and crouched before him. His lips moved silently through his prayer, his finger and thumb gliding along each black bead in the strand. He must’ve been feeling extra guilty for burying his face between my legs last night. And for shoving his fingers in my ass. Oh, and for jerking off on my belly.
I reached out and toyed with a chipped button on his cassock. “God forgives you.”
“Ah sure.” He didn’t look up, his expression creased with concentration. “You’re the one who was after suckin' the pipe off me in the focking woods, ye little harpy.”
That wasn’t true, and he knew it. I’d joined him on his perimeter walk, but it had been him doing the attacking. I didn’t deny it though, because I’d damned well enjoyed it.
I flattened my hands on his chest, gliding them over the heavy, black fabric, which was soaked in sweat. I really should just leave him to his penance, but I hated his guilt. Besides, the clerical collar had squeezed his neck into a blistering shade of red. Fucking ridiculous choice of clothes in this heat.
“You’re going to give yourself heat stroke.” I reached behind his nape, released the snaps and tugged off the white collar, setting it—and the piece of black material attached to it—aside.
His muted prayer hurdled into a vocalization of accented syllables. “Pray for us sinners, now and a’ the hour of our death…”
As he continued aloud, I tuned him out and went to work on the buttons along his sternum, popping them free and exposing his hard chest and sexy stomach. His skin felt like fire beneath the brush of my fingers.
“Ach. Stop it.” He scooted back on his knees but didn’t relinquish his hold on the beads.
“You’re burning up, Roark.”
He stared at the rosary, his thumb rubbing along the strand. “So?”
“You sound like a child.” I finished the rest of the buttons.
He raised his eyes to the peeling paint on the ceiling and said, “See wha’ I’m dealing with? She never listens to me, that one.”
With a sigh, I started to stand, but he grabbed my arm and held me in place. “Ye do it.”
“Undress you?”
“Aye.” He grinned then launched back into his prayer, chanting it out loud.
Moody pain in the ass. I pushed the garment off his shoulders, dragging it to his elbows. Wow. So much better. The deep ridges of his pecs bunched and played beneath my scrutiny.
I traced a finger down the cut lines to the indentions of his hips, which framed bars of muscle on his stomach. All that smooth, tight skin glistened with sweat and channeled into black briefs that sat low on his waist and cupped his groin. So perfectly packaged and ready for handling.
I inched closer and pushed a knotty braid away from his face. Letting my fingers linger on his stubbly cheek, I relished how his prayer cut off with an exhale against my lips.
In the next breath, his hands found my bare ass beneath the shirt, pulling me to straddle his thighs where he knelt. The rosary beads, still tangled in one hand, dug into my butt cheek.
He looked down at me with glittering jade eyes and an indulgent smile. “Mornin’, love.”
“Good morning, Father Molony.” I returned his smile then leaned in to whisper seductively in his ear. “If you move those beads up and a little to the right, you’ll find another use for them.”
He buried his laughter in the curve of my neck then proceeded to nibble and kiss the skin while he was there. “I should just shag ye and get it over with.”
That might’ve made me breathless, except I’d heard it before. Like every time he got worked up.
With his hands on my ass, he ground his quickly-swelling cock between my legs, separated only by his cotton briefs. If I sat there long enough, he’d dry hump me to exhaustion. Then he’d have to change his underwear. And pray for his sins again. And well, we had shit to do.
But God in heaven, it was hard to deny those hooded eyes and pouty lips.
I cupped his scruffy jaw and kissed him long and hard. “You’re a sexy…” I kissed him again. “Wickedly tempting.” Another kiss. “Celibate man.” I rubbed his tongue with mine until a moan vibrated in my throat. “And I need coffee.”
It was his turn to moan. As I stood, he lifted the hem of my thigh-length shirt, the intensity of his eyes heating my already-simmering parts. When he reached out to slide his hand between my legs, I knocked his arm away and went in search of some pants.
He huffed. “Isn’t she the bitch?”
Impossible to take offense to that when there was a smile straining behind his lips.
I grabbed the first pair of pants I found on the floor. “Sucks to be teased, doesn’t it?”
“I think it's fair to say I'm the only one suffering from a serious chub.” He pulled the waistband of his briefs from his stomach and peered down. “Look a’ the color of it!”
“I’ll pass, drama queen.” I gave him my back and dragged on a pair of denim cut-offs. “Where’s Shea?”
His arms came around me from behind, his skin warm and bare of the cassock, his hands pushing mine aside to zip and button my fly. “She wanted to go explore. Jesse’s with her.”
I leaned my head back against Roark’s chest, my jaw clamped against unwanted thoughts of Jesse and Shea walking together…bonding. “That’s great. She’s recovering faster than Elaine.”
Like Elaine, Shea remembered nothing of the aphid plague. It would be a kind of bliss, sleeping through the past two years. But her shock over what she’d missed had been painful to watch. Hearing how much the world had changed. Losing her husband and everyone she cared about.
She’d taken it better than Elaine had, but she’d yet to experience the scariest by-product of the virus. She’d yet to see an aphid. I hoped we hadn’t kept her too isolated in this tiny building.
Roark threw on some cargo pants, strapped on his sword, and strode to the door. Man, he looked good without a shirt. All that golden skin showed off his muscle definition. And the pants barely clung to his narrow hips under the weight of the sword.
I snapped out of my hungry trance, gathered my weapons, and shoved my feet into boots. "Where are you going?"
He paused outside the door and glanced back at me with smiling eyes. “Figured ye wanted to find Shea before she molested your Lakota.”
I walked past him and stopped. “What’s that smell? Do you smell it?” I looked around and met his eyes. “Oh. Never mind. It’s just you. The shit stirrer.”
The field swallowed his laughter, but his words…yeah, those stuck with me. Shea seemed like a nice lady. Quiet. Unassuming. And sick with fever. What was she like at full health? What if she was Jesse’s type?
I paced my steps, trying not to hurry. This was reality, just another obstacle on an endless road. I would confront my competition like I confronted everything else. Armed with possessiveness and high-carbon steel.
Ten minutes later, Roark and I emerged from the field and found Jesse leaning in the doorway of the only residential house on the animal reserve. The home Shea used to share with her husband.
I stepped beside Jesse, a little taken back by the fatigue reddening his eyes. I shouldn’t have been surprised. With Michio gone and Roark sleeping at my side, he was running a skeleton crew on the night shift. But I was willing to bet Tallis and Georges were getting more sleep than my overprotective guardian.
His faded jeans encased his ass and hips too well for my wandering eyes, but they were covered in rips and dirt, and who knew what those black stains were? The sleeves had been torn off his button-down shirt, and it looked like a rat had nibbled through the collar. Somehow, the homeless look made him even more tempting.
I glanced at the floor, feeling like a thoughtless, fickle bitch after the breathless moment I’d just shared with Roark. They made it hard to not be attracted to them. Impossible to not entertain fantasies. But it wasn’t their fault. I needed to spend less time ogling them and more time considering their feelings.
Jesse turned his head, drawing my eyes back to him, and gave me a head-to-toe once-over. “Sleep well?”
I nodded. “When was the last time you slept?”
His gaze darted back to the front room of the two-room house. A stained couch, recliner with tattered arms, and small kitchen table with mismatched folding chairs lined one wall of the living and kitchen area. The windows were barred and closed, so the musty scent of damp dirt must’ve been seeping from the carpet.
He glanced back at me, ignoring my question. “Shea’s in the bedroom.”
He pointed at a door in the back, which was half-open, revealing a bed piled with clothes.
The house didn’t look lived in. Spider webs and dust clung to everything, and I tried not to stir it up as I entered the front room, the linoleum-covered subfloor creaking with each step. Evidently, Shea’s husband had chosen to stay with her in the animal clinic over the comfort of his home.
“I’m taking over your watch rotation tonight,” Roark said to Jesse, his trailing footfalls turning the creaky floor into loud groans of wood.
I looked over my shoulder to catch Jesse’s expression.
He emanated casualness, leaning against the door frame, bow strapped to his back and arms crossed over his chest. But the way he watched me was anything but casual.
He lifted a hand to chew on the edge of his thumb, eyes locked on mine. “Someone needs to sleep with Evie.”
It bothered me that he wouldn’t volunteer for the job, but I understood. Kind of.
“Some of my nightmares can be enlightening.” I shrugged. “Maybe I should let them in, you know, to see what the Drone is up to.” The idea made the hairs on my arms stand on end, but I suggested it because… “Maybe Michio could reach me the same way?”
“No.” Jesse straightened, his tired eyes awakening with ferocity. “End of conversation.”
An argument for another time then. I held Jesse’s gaze. “Sounds like you’re snuggling with me tonight.”
I turned away to avoid what I assumed was a deeply-lined scowl. Roark patted my ass as he passed, and I followed his floor-groaning strides to the bedroom door.
“Shea?” I knocked and waited as her soft footsteps grew closer.
The door opened all the way, and the sight of her healthy smile pulled my mouth into a relieved grin.
She was at least five years younger than me, barely thirty, with a broad forehead, wide mouth, slender nose, and huge brown eyes. Her long, black hair frizzed a bit at the edges, but holy hell, she looked nothing like the nymph I’d found a week ago.
I shrugged off the carbine and set it by the door. “You look amazing. Even better than yesterday.”
“Oh, shut up.” She waved my words away and strode to the bed full of clothes. “I look like I crawled out of a half-eaten carcass.”
“Load of bollix.” Roark lounged across the messy bed, his bare chest rippling with the movement, and tucked an arm behind his head. “If ye keep walking around in those hot pants, every lad in Georgia will be knocking down the door to rasher the arse off ye.” He grinned. “I can't fecking concentrate."
Shea’s jaw dropped as she shared a look with me. Then she burst out in laughter. “You keep saying he’s a priest, but girl, I think you’re bullshitting me.”
“I know, right?”
Strange how, if he’d flirted with Elaine like this, my hackles would’ve been all sorts of unhappy. And though Shea flirted back, it was neither sneaky nor serious. Something about her genuine smile and confident nature put me
at ease.
“And that accent.” She picked through a pile of clothes, her dark skin glowing against her tight, white shorts. She was absolutely beautiful, her eyes warm and soft like molasses as they roamed Roark’s muscular chest. “Say something else.”
His fingers tapped the sword’s hilt where it lay at his hip. “Eh, now ye got me ripping me knickers and scundered for a hundred.”
She rolled her full lips between her teeth then glanced at me. “What did he say?”
“I have no idea.” I sat on the edge of the bed beside him, biting back a smile. “I don’t speak potato head.”
“Den’ be talking shite, ye bleedin’ woman.” He gave me a blinding grin, evidently enjoying the attention. “Me accent turns ye into a dirty slapper.”
Shea arched a thin, dark brow at me.
I shook my head. “I think he just called me an easy lay.”
His guffaw confirmed it, prompting me to go after his nipple with pinching fingers, which he blocked with a pumped-up bicep, the showoff.
“Okay, absurdly sexy priest man…” She put her hands on her hips and cocked her head. “Say thirty-three and a third.”
His smile fell. “No.”
Oh, this was good. I nudged his knee with mine. “Say it.”
Casting me a dirty look, he rubbed his whiskers and grumbled something under his breath.
I nudged him again. “What was that?”
“Thirty-three and a third,” he said, which sounded like turty tree and a turd.
Shea doubled over with laughter, and I couldn’t help but join her. Her contentment was contagious. Even Roark’s scowl eventually gave in to a grin.
With the teasing out of the way, I helped her parse through her pre-apocalypse clothes. She urged me, more than once, to try on some of her dresses. I’d never been a girly-girl. And now, well, I considered clothes about as practical as cell phones. I didn’t even own a pair of panties.
As the conversation switched to fake nails and high-heels, Shea sat on the floor, surrounded by frilly stuff I couldn’t identify. She talked, and I nodded. I couldn’t relate to her fashion interests, but damn if I hadn’t missed the company of another female. Of course, I’d spent a month with Elaine, but she’d rather spit on me than talk to me. Not that I’d made any amicable efforts, either.
