Hammer Down: Children of the Undying: Book 2

by Moira Rogers

  “Dominic.” His name trembled out of her, broken by harsh pants. She moved faster and threw back her head again, this time on a scream. Her body gripped his, squeezing tight around him, and her fingernails dug into his skin as she tried to pull him closer.

  It couldn’t end. He rocked off the couch, still buried inside her, and lowered her to the floor. “Again.” He braced his hands on either side of her and lifted his body, making it easy to thrust deep. “Come again.”

  Devi arched to meet his thrusts as she shuddered and twisted on the pillows. “Fuck! Please, please—”

  “What?” He’d give her anything.

  Her thighs were strong around his hips. “Harder.”

  In the world, he’d have to worry about hurting her. No such concerns here. His next thrust slammed their bodies together, inching her back.

  She went wild beneath him, another orgasm shaking her, drawing a sharp, hoarse cry from her throat. There was no mind over matter, no holding back. The impossible grip of her body as she came was too good to resist. Pleasure twisted inside him and burst forth as he sank into her once more, savoring the throbbing, perfect release.

  Devi lay on the pillows, her chest heaving, soft whimpers occasionally filling the space between them. When she spoke, her words were dazed and abrupt. “I’m leaving.”

  “I know.” He rolled to his back and clenched his eyes shut. Grinding his teeth together was the only way to keep from asking her to meet him here again. To meet him here every night.

  She turned to him and curled up at his side, her hand on his chest. “How much time do you have?”

  “An hour. Maybe two.” He covered her hand with his. “I’ve got a meeting later to figure out exactly what the spy knows. I’ll be able to tell you if you’re safe in the morning.”

  “Don’t worry about it too much.” Devi kissed his shoulder. “I’ve made provisions. We’ll be okay, even if we have to go off the grid.”

  He wasn’t surprised. Maybe sex and danger had provided a false sense of intimacy, but it seemed like the sort of thing she’d do, especially with Cache on board as living proof of how bad things could go. “You’re free to go now, but we always need people willing to trade with us. In a few months, when things have settled down… Well, you’d all be welcome back.”

  She propped her cheek on her hand, her elbow on the pillows. “I like to keep moving, Zel.”

  It wasn’t supposed to hurt, as if he’d lost something precious. “Fair enough.”

  “Still, we’ll have to come back at least once.” Her lips brushed his skin again. “To pick up your niece so we can drive her to Manitoba.”

  “Thank you.” He sank his hand into her hair, and it felt just as good around his fingers as he remembered. “Want to make the best of the hour we’ve got?”

  “Don’t know.” Her tone and her body both teased, lazy and yet expectant. She stretched out on her stomach, her cheek pillowed on her folded arm. “Convince me.”

  So he did, with lazy touches and soft bites, wringing every possible ounce of indulgent pleasure from both of their bodies as the minutes ticked down. He marked her for every one that slipped away, reckless in the pursuit of possession, but even with her body bared and helpless under him, he was taunted by knowledge that no hint of him would remain on her skin. Her scent would fade, and he’d wake up alone, with no proof that he’d had her at all. Something was missing. Life. Heat.

  Or maybe just the promise of a future that couldn’t be measured in minutes and marks that had never existed at all.

  Chapter Ten

  Devi had no idea what time it was when she dropped out of the network. Her mind responded sluggishly, prolonging the connection, rendering her dizzy. Sick.

  She sat alone in her room, the lights dimmed, exactly as she’d been before meeting Zel in the club. Now, she wiped her cheeks, turned up the lights and rose to dress.

  Sleep was an impossibility, and she needed to do something.

  Staring at her reflection as she pulled her hair into a severe ponytail gave her something to focus on. She could check the trucks, run through as much of her checklist as was prudent before their actual departure, and then she wouldn’t have to think about Zel.

  He looked at her like he wanted to really touch her, to find some way to brand her as his. Worse, like he wanted to know her. Stand side-by-side in a kitchen, preparing a meal, or tell stories and laugh over beers.

  The first involved treading a fine line, but one she knew well. She’d continue to see him and, sooner or later, it would all come down to an ultimatum. Few men, even fully human ones, could stand the way she came and went, addicted in a way to the freedom that came along with her job. It threatened them even as it left them behind, alone and lonely.

  Whether it ended in screaming arguments or cold silence, it always ended. But it was the second option that was the quickest way to a broken heart. Involvement that went beyond the sexual, maybe even something like love.

  She couldn’t afford it.

  The thump of her boots echoed in the empty corridor as she headed for the garage bay where the trucks had been stowed. Her crew was her family, and all her emotions not tied up in sex or physical attraction were reserved for them.

  Liar.

  Devi pushed through the heavy double doors and yanked a slim digital gauge from her pocket. Tires first, and that would take a good half-hour if she did it right.

  The outer tires were easy, but it was impossible to check the innermost set on each axle without crawling at least halfway under the truck or trailer. Grease and dirt smudged her skin and clothes by the time she’d finished the first truck, but her racing thoughts had calmed.

  She dragged her fingers across the tread of one tire and breathed in the scent of slightly worn vulcanized rubber laden with traces of exhaust. That smell hadn’t changed in her thirty years of life—had, in fact, been her earliest memory. It was easy, comforting.

  She wrapped up her tire check and grabbed a tool case from under the driver’s seat, then opened the hood and climbed up on the frame to examine the fluid tanks, belts and hoses. Maintaining the trucks was hard physical work, and a harsh reminder that the time she’d spent with Zel hadn’t been real. Her muscles should have ached with a delicious soreness that she could carry with her when she left.

  Instead, she felt as if she’d sat in a reclining chair for two hours.

  “Remember that, Devi,” she muttered as she jiggled the steering tie rod to check its stability. Zel hadn’t come to her outside of virtual space because it was too complicated, even dangerous, and that wouldn’t change. He needed a partner, whether he was actively looking for one or not, someone who could help him run his settlement and care for his people. The absolute last thing he needed was a lover he couldn’t be seen with.

  Her hand slipped off the fan belt and slammed into the alternator. The rough metal bit into her skin, and she breathed a curse as she flexed her scraped knuckles. “Fuck. Fuck, fuck, fuck.”

  “You okay up there, boss?” It was Tanner’s voice, and the first sign of his presence.

  Luckily, she managed to avoid bumping anything else. “Yeah, I’ll make it. You’re up late.”

  “Couldn’t sleep.” He circled the truck, footsteps silent, and hoisted himself up onto the opposite side of the frame. “Ready to feel the wind again.”

  Ready to get the hell out of Rochester was more like it. “We’ll be on the road soon enough.”

  “Good. Things are better on the road. Safer.”

  Devi could only hope that was true. “If not, still better than being stuck in a hole underground, huh?”

  “Especially if that hole’s filled with suspicious people.” Tanner held out a hand. “Fuel filter cap’s a little loose. Toss me a socket wrench.”

  She planned to comply silently, but her mouth formed the words anyway. “The scrutiny makes you nervous?”

  Tanner didn’t look up from the engine, but his shoulders tensed. “You’ve always been good
about not asking a lot of questions, even when I do things that a human man probably shouldn’t be able to do. After all this time, if there are any questions you want to ask, I figure I owe you an answer or two.”

  Devi watched as he tightened the cap. “The only thing I care about is whether we can trust you, Tanner. Can we?”

  “I would never do anything to put you, Ruiz or Cache at risk. Ever.”

  It was all anyone could ever ask for. “Then that’s everything I need to know. The rest is your business.”

  The hard lines of his face softened, and he smiled and tossed the wrench back to her. “That’s why you’re the best, Dev.”

  No, that’s why I’m sentimental and foolish. “Remember that the next time you start bucking for a bigger share of the profits.”

  “Well, I didn’t say I wasn’t the best too.”

  He had his secrets, but he also had considerable skills. “Acknowledged.”

  Tanner hopped off the truck, hitting the ground lightly. “Want me to look over the other truck?”

  “No.” She wasn’t ready to go back to her room yet, back to the cold, empty bunk that waited. “No, I’ll do it.”

  “You need company?”

  Alone with her thoughts? That was the last thing she needed. “Yeah, actually. I think we might need to replace a few of the couplings on Juliet’s air lines. Either that, or she has an unholy reliance on jake braking for no good reason whatsoever.”

  “Annoying you isn’t a reason?” But he grinned and held out a hand. “Hop down, boss. Let’s get these girls tiptop so we can get the hell out of here tomorrow.”

  Devi grumbled as she accepted his hand because, if she didn’t, he’d expect her to smile. And she wasn’t sure she could.

  Zel didn’t need a shower to wash the evidence of Devi off his skin. There was no evidence there to begin with, which made him pissy enough that he put himself through a brutal physical workout in the soldiers’ gym before retreating to the small private bath in his suite.

  His rooms weren’t lavish. After Oliver’s death, his mother had offered him the comfortable and spacious area where she and her husband had spent the past four decades; rooms, she’d insisted, that were his now that he ruled Rochester in his stepfather’s place. Zel had considered it only long enough to ascertain she wasn’t offering because she needed a change of scenery, then politely declined. Continuing to live in the soldiers’ barracks would have sent the wrong message to people instinctively aware of rank, but he didn’t feel comfortable surrounded by too much luxury.

  So he’d chosen his own apartment. In six months, he hadn’t done much to decorate the place. The cupboards in his kitchen were bare with the exception of a few cans of soup and the dishes his youngest sister had made for him in her pottery studio. Most of Rochester’s inhabitants ate in one of the two communal cafeterias, and more often than not he joined them. Oliver had done the same, proving that the settlement’s leader took few special privileges.

  Rochester had been founded by dreamers, a Utopian commune in a broken world. It had worked in the first generation, with everyone still struggling to come to grips with the end of the lives they’d known, but Zel’s generation had been born into it. They had no common tragedy to hold them together, no dreams of reclaiming the safety of a lost society. Just the gritty, hard truth that had always existed for them—the weak falter and the strong survive.

  Zel bypassed the empty, lonely kitchen in favor of the equally sparse bedroom. He pointedly ignored the bed as he reached into the closet, not needing the distraction of imagining Devi there, naked and waiting for him. Instead he dressed in a methodical, deliberate fashion, preparing himself for the battle to come.

  Tonight, he’d be ruthless enough to create a new truth for their world. The weak didn’t have to falter if the strong would protect them.

  By the time he reached his office, Lanna and Trip were already there. Lanna had her wild, curly hair pulled back tonight, the severe style emphasizing her sharp cheekbones and tilted eyes. Zel had never seen a man look at her and judge her to be a threat, which made most men fools.

  She smiled at him as Lorenzo arrived, the smile vicious enough to dispel any illusion of harmlessness. “I have everything.”

  Zel had to suppress a shiver. “How hard did he fight you?”

  A graceful shrug. “He was trained to resist. I imagine he did not find the process enjoyable.”

  Which meant Cyrus had suffered. Considering the glee he’d taken in threatening them, Zel had scant pity to spare. He glanced at Trip. “How’s it going over there?”

  He didn’t look up. “Just going over the code one last time.”

  Since what Trip was attempting sounded more like magic than code, it seemed best not to interrupt. Zel shifted his attention to Lorenzo. “I’m assuming you haven’t come up with any last-minute ideas that are less risky than this?”

  “Not a damn thing.” Lorenzo wore an uncharacteristically grave expression. “We need to find out why Nicollet sent the spy. Is he a scout? Is he here for sabotage? Not knowing could kill us.”

  Zel looked at Lanna next. “You’ve been going through his thoughts, I assume? Anything new?”

  “No.” She shook her head, her hair bouncing in its springy ponytail. “He doesn’t know why he’s here. And it bothers him. He’s trying to tell himself that he’s important, invaluable—but he knows they didn’t assign him his specific mission before he was established because he’s expendable. They half-expected us to catch him, and they won’t do a thing to save him. His rationalizations are incredibly complex, but not very satisfying.”

  Lorenzo snorted. “Typical self-aggrandizing behavior. He’s a grunt, but he needs power over us, even if he has to manufacture it.”

  “Agreed. He has no value to the city, and trying to return him will gain us nothing. So…” Zel glanced from Lanna to Lorenzo, one eyebrow raised. “We have no other options.”

  Trip spoke. “Even if we learn nothing, this could buy us enough time to try again. Maybe even give Graham a chance to gather more information.”

  That was all their insane gamble was, when it came down to it. A chance to buy time. Nicollet had sent a spy in a clear show of aggression, and they didn’t want him back. If an attack followed…

  Well, if an attack followed, they’d deal with it. Nicollet finding out that Rochester had dispatched their agent was less of a danger than Nicollet finding out the truth—that Zel and his people were more than prepared to defend against human attack. He had barracks full of highly trained halfbloods who might as well have been bred for violence, along with an array of magically gifted citizens. The humans couldn’t begin to defend themselves against that kind of power, but neither could they know about it.

  If they did, they’d certainly try to eliminate the threat Rochester posed.

  Zel curled his hand into a fist. “You almost ready, Trip?”

  He nodded shortly. “I’ll echo the meeting into a private room. Worst-case scenario, they catch on quick and we abort, drop out of the network.”

  “You’re sure you can do this?”

  “I can dupe the code and signal. The rest is up to chance, I guess.”

  It always was.

  He wanted to say something else, ask something else, but it would be clear he was only stalling. They’d gone over the plan enough times to make it rote, now all they had to do was execute it, in all its mad glory. It was a risk, the sort Oliver Wetzel would never have taken. But Zel’s stepfather had ruled over a quiet community that had never attracted the attention or ire of the nearby human city.

  Oliver Wetzel had never needed to consider outright war.

  “All right.” Zel reached for his glasses and slipped them on. The dark lenses weren’t necessary—anyone with a chip could close his eyes and connect to the Global—but tonight he needed the signal boost and the lack of distraction. “Let’s do this.”

  The drop into the network was as agonizing as always, a fast plummet off the edg
e of a cliff while his stomach followed at a more leisurely pace. His boots hit the ground in a perfectly square room with blank walls that trailed up into nothingness.

  Lorenzo blinked in beside him, rubbing his temples. “I hate this place.”

  “I love it,” Trip whispered fiercely. “I fucking love the network, everything it is. Endless possibility.”

  Even with the pain humming in his veins, Zel couldn’t bring himself to disagree. That light in Trip’s eyes was what made him the best. Trip needed the network the way Lorenzo craved sex and Zel himself hungered for violence.

  Lanna appeared last, her face serene. Whatever demon blood flowed through her, it was too insignificant for the anti-demon signal built into the network to view her as a threat. She folded her hands in front of her and tilted her head. “Is there a particular place we should stand?”

  Trip closed his eyes. “I had to approximate the size of the meeting area as closely as possible, so just stay near the walls. You obviously can’t interact with what you see, but you can blur it if you interfere with the echo.”

  Zel took a step back and shoved his hands into his pockets. “We’ll keep quiet unless they ask something Lanna needs to answer. Let’s get on with it.”

  Lorenzo scrubbed his hands over his face. “It’s time anyway.”

  Trip blinked, his image fritzing for a split second and then fading slightly, as if the signal supporting him had lost some of its intensity. Color washed across the room, pixels snapping into place to form a small, shadowy room.

  Two men appeared, dressed in simple suits. One tugged at his tie. “You were almost late.”

  “My target’s satisfaction has been time-intensive.” Trip’s words, but they held an odd sort of echo, and for a second Trip’s image blurred, the face of the spy they had trussed up in the makeshift prison replacing his own. Trip had spent days crafting the echo, a perfect replica of Elan Cyrus that would be indistinguishable from the actual person.