by Pam Godwin
“TMI, Da!” I started down the hall. “I’ll come back.”
“Wait.” He gripped my shoulders and positioned me against the wall beside the door. Then he peeked into his room. “Bloody hell, put some clothes on.”
Oh my fuck. I covered my face and jolted forward to make my escape.
Roark grabbed my arm. “I’m only codding ye. And them. I like to see their faces turn scarlet.”
“That’s mean.”
“Trust me, lass. They’ll find it amusing by night’s end.”
After the conversation we were about to have, I wasn’t sure how much smiling they would be doing. I followed him into the room.
Two mattresses were pushed together in the corner and piled with blankets. Michio sat in a chair beside it. Jesse reclined at the center of the bed, his back against the wall, and legs crossed at the ankles. He patted the space beside him.
I quickly removed my boots and curled up against him like I’d done millions of times since I was little.
“Rosalie needed help with her mattress.” Roark shut the door and locked it.
Jesse half-grunted, half-snorted. “You finally set her straight?”
“I politely told her to feck off.”
Feck off was Roark’s polite swear word, which meant he told her exactly that. I pinned my lips together, grinning.
Michio perched on the edge of the chair, elbows on his knees and hands clasped together against his mouth. “You’re supposed to be sleeping.”
“Too much on my mind.” I shifted closer to Jesse, making room for Roark.
“She needs her oul fellas’ brilliant advice.” Roark scooted in, jostling the bed under the weight of his muscled frame.
Michio leaned back, propped an ankle on a knee, and tilted his head, eyes sharp.
Oh, man. That look made me feel like a preteen again. Sandwiched between Roark and Jesse, I wrestled with the sudden silence. Just spit it out.
I pulled in a breath and released it slowly. “He wants me to go back to Alberta with him.”
“No.” Jesse shot to a sitting position, twisting at the waist to glare at me. “You’re not—”
“Let her talk.” Roark shoved a blond dreadlock from his face.
Roark and Jesse shared a tense stare off before Jesse stabbed a hand through his graying copper hair. Then he leaned against the wall and tucked an arm around my back.
“I think I love him.” With my legs stretched out, I tapped the toes of my wool socks together. “I think he might feel the same way.”
“You think you love him?” Michio asked quietly. “You don’t know?”
My eyebrows twitched as I considered the answer. Our chemistry was indisputable, and I trusted him with my life. But… “If I followed him to Alberta, I don’t know if I would be doing it because I care about him or because I care about humanity’s future.” I traced a finger along the straight edge of my human teeth. “Without him, I don’t have fangs. I won’t learn the truth behind their purpose. If my fangs are necessary in saving mankind, I must stay with him. If they’re some kind of opposing force against the prophecy, I need to let him go and”—I rubbed my breastbone—“that really, really hurts.”
Michio stared at the wall above my head, his gaze distant. “Humans don’t make decisions based on logic.” He blinked and met my eyes. “We make decisions based on whether we love what the logic tells us.”
“Are you saying I can only make decisions based on emotion?”
“It’s the way we’re wired, Dawn, from birth to death.” He glanced from Roark to Jesse to the floor, and the corner of his mouth lifted in a private smile. “Love is mankind’s greatest power. It’s more crucial to our evolution than canine teeth and opposable thumbs. It chooses what to cling to, who to raise children with, and where and how far to go in life. I’m saying that the pain in your chest means the decision has already been made for you.”
The ache behind my ribs clenched tighter. I turned toward Roark, who was uncharacteristically quiet.
He tapped a finger against my breastbone. “If it’s deep inside ye, if it’s wha’ ye want very badly, you’ll break your own rules—”
“Vows.” Jesse coughed against his fist.
“Right.” Roark lifted my medallion, his thumb stroking over the fang, stone, and rosary bead embedded in the metal. “If ye love him, nothing and no one will be able to keep ye from him. Not the prophecy. Not God.” His gaze found mine. “Not even your fathers.”
“Bullshit,” Jesse growled. “We don’t know that man. We have no idea what his motivation is.”
My molars crashed together, and I shifted to face him. “Is it so difficult to believe he might love me?”
“No.” His eyes widened. Then his face slackened, and he pulled me to his chest. “Christ, I already know he’s madly in love with you. It’s just…I don’t like it. This life is already so goddamn hard. I don’t want a relationship to make it harder for you.”
“Is that what you thought when you met my mother?”
“No,” he said furiously.
“A prophecy couldn’t keep you away from her.” I pushed away from his chest and pointed at Roark. “His vows didn’t stop him. And…” I turned to Michio, my voice rising. “You were her captor. I don’t even understand how that worked out. But it did.”
What was my point? I gripped the back of my neck, my chest heaving, overcome with the urgency to make them understand.
Then it dawned on me. I was arguing for my relationship with Salem, not against it. I wanted it, wanted him, with an intensity that scared me.
“I love him,” I whispered and saw my fear reflected in my fathers’ expressions. My attention narrowed on Jesse. “You left your Lakota brethren, the only family you had, to follow my mother across the ocean. Did you question that decision?”
Jesse closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “No, never. I loved her.” His eyes opened, glistening in the lamp light. “Love isn’t just vital. It’s what vital means.”
I folded my arms around his neck and lay my cheek on his chest. Michio moved to the bed and curled around Jesse’s back. Behind me, Roark rested his brow on my shoulder. For the next hour, we debated the pros and cons—mostly the cons—of me running off to Alberta with Salem.
My fathers were scared, their voices vibrating with emotion, so I threw Michio’s words back at him.
We make decisions based on whether we love what the logic tells us.
As they asserted their opinions, I curled up between them and recalled the stories about my mother.
The loss of her children and husband.
Grieving. Alone. The only surviving woman in the world.
Her dangerous trek to the Allegheny Mountains.
The pub where she met Roark.
Imprisonment on Malta.
A gunship to Iceland, and the battle with the Drone.
Her return to West Virginia where she cured Salem’s mother.
More women. Endless blood donations.
Her fall from Hoover Dam.
“Everything my mother did was a risk,” I said, interrupting their discussion. “If she hadn’t taken those risks, if she hadn’t followed her gut and her heart, I wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be here.”
No one spoke. I looked into three pairs of grief-stricken eyes, knowing they shared the same memories. We didn’t move for an eternity, alone with our thoughts but together in the solace of family.
“Give me six months,” I said in a strong voice, issued from a place of strength and love. “I’m leaving tomorrow at dusk.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The next night, I stood inside the south gate of the camp with a heavy heart and a fluttery buzz in my stomach. Residents and soldiers gathered with candles in hand and hope in their eyes. They didn’t know the specifics surrounding my departure, but they trusted my motivation. As the daughter of Eve, I would never abandon my obligation to humanity.
“Give Shea my love.” I wrapped my arms around Eddie�
��s shoulders.
“I will.” His voice was rough as he brushed his lips against my brow and stepped back. “See you in six months, Red.”
Beyond the gate and out of hearing range, Salem sat atop a black Appaloosa, surrounded by saddlebags crammed with food, arrows, and survival supplies. He also carried a concentrated mix of flax seed, beet pulp, and grains for the horse.
I didn’t want to leave my fathers short a horse, but I’d lost that argument. If we stuck to the roads and trails, it would take Salem and I three months to hike to Alberta. By horse, we could complete the journey in half the time.
Six weeks to ride to Alberta. A three-month stay with Salem. One month to ride to Hoover Dam. Along the way, maybe I’d find a car modified for gasification. An engine converted to a wood gasifier took dry wood, hay, or coal and turned it into fuel. Transportation like that would drastically reduce our travel time.
The three-month limit was a detail I hadn’t mentioned to Salem. Cowardly on my part, but I hoped it would give us enough time to figure out our connection. I also planned to use the months ahead to convince him to return home with me.
Salem had drawn a map for my fathers, indicating the location of his home and the route we would take to get there. He also promised to send a messenger to Hoover Dam once we were settled to let them know we arrived safely. The messenger would make treks with letters, keeping communication open until I returned home.
I gave Eddie a parting smile and moved toward my fathers.
“Six months,” I said to Jesse, hugging him with all my might. “If you locate that mansion, watch the shadows in the front room, and please, please, be careful.”
“Take a soldier with you,” he whispered at my ear.
“Leave it alone, Dad.”
We’d talked about this last night. It was Jesse’s last ditch effort to have some control over my decision. But Salem had promised I didn’t need armed guards. If I loved him, I needed to trust him.
“Stay alive.” Jesse stepped back, copper eyes stark and unyielding.
“I love you, too,” I said softly.
Michio was next, his hug just as tight. “When you write to us, tell me about his relationship with the hybrids.”
“I will.” I was nervous about how Salem would keep a pack of hybrids away from me, but I was also wildly curious to find out.
“Seek truth.” Michio kissed my brow, then my nose, and let me go.
“I love you, too.” I bowed my head.
The final hug crushed my ribs.
“Can’t breathe,” I choked.
Roark loosened his embrace slightly, his accent thick. “I won’t breathe till I see ye again.”
“Stop it. This isn’t any different than my Resistance missions.” Throat tight, I leaned back and placed my hands on his scruffy cheeks. “Say it, Da. Say the words.”
The mantra was my mother’s, and we repeated it every time I left.
He closed his eyes and pulled me in for another hug. “Den’ look back.”
“I love you, too.”
After I mounted the horse with my legs hugging Salem’s hips, I mentally chanted, Stay alive. Seek truth. I didn’t look back, despite the hard stares searing between my shoulder blades.
As Salem steered us away from the camp and across the frozen dark terrain, I rested my cheek against his strong spine. Leather and wool covered him from the chin down, but with my ear so close to his torso, I would hear his veins if they glowed.
I clung to the pillar of his body, rocking with the sway of the horse. Our connection hummed between us like an electrical charge. It burned hot and bright inside me, sparked along an invisible wire, and fizzled into the wall of his back, fading into nothingness.
Six months. I had time to open his heart, to talk to him about it, to figure out the mystery behind his veins and my fangs. I was afraid, though. Afraid I would fail. Afraid I’d trusted him too fast and too deeply. I’d never traveled this far away without Eddie and my soldiers. I’d never traveled alone.
But my mother had. I gripped the medallion around my neck. She’d crossed the Atlantic in a shipping container. Climbed through a volcano in Iceland. Endured a cage in the back of a truck through the snowy Rocky Mountains. I wouldn’t, couldn’t have done those things by myself.
“You’re braver than me, Mom,” I whispered.
The man who held my heart gave a disapproving grunt. “You’re braver than you know, Dawn.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Nights passed without incident. The endless roads stretched into darkness, the bitter wind a relentless whip against my face. Salem pushed the horse hard, pausing only to find shelter at dawn and sleep a few hours until dusk. I didn’t complain. I might’ve slept easier back at the camp, but in my travels with the Resistance, I’d grown used to the hardship of nomadic life.
On the sixth day, we lay in a listless tangle of limbs and pale light from the lantern. Tucked in a hay-strewn stall of an abandoned barn, he’d woken me with his powerful body curled around my back and his hungry cock buried between my legs. Several orgasms later, the lingering bliss of sex and the warmth of his bite slowly circulated through my blood, lazy and satisfying.
Keeping to the broken pavement of old roads made it easier to find shelter before the sun rose each day. Rural towns and melting rivers frequently crossed our path, though we hadn’t encountered a hybrid or human since leaving the camp. The farther south we ventured, the warmer and more populated our route would become. We were only two people, though. I tried not to envision us battling a bloodthirsty horde.
The relatively mild weather combined with his exceptional hunting skills had saved us from dipping into our limited food supply. But one torrential blizzard could put a deadly wrench in our luck. We needed to keep moving south.
I glanced across the dirt floor toward the rotting door of the barn and the darkness creeping through the cracks. “We should get going.”
“Mm.” He pulled my back tighter against the heat of his chest and kneaded my breasts. “I’m not ready to give this up.”
We had at least five more weeks of this before we reached Alberta. He’d made love to me every day. Though we never spoke the words, I was certain he saw the sentiment in my eyes as clearly as I saw it in his.
He brushed my hair from my neck and traced his tongue across my skin. I purred and stretched as his hand molded around the curve of my waist.
“You have no idea how beautiful you are.” His breath feathered across my cheek, stoking a fire beneath the words he whispered daily.
“You’ll just have to keep telling me.” I grinned, squirming beneath the tickling nibble on my neck. “Until it sinks—”
The amplified lub-dub lub-dub of his heart galloped in my ears. The hairs on my nape stood up. I twisted in his arms, and the illuminated maze of his veins filled my vision.
“Hybrids.” I launched to my feet and grabbed the bow.
“Get dressed.” He swapped the bow in my hand with my clothes.
In rushed silence, we dragged on leather pants and linen shirts. His mouth formed a tight line, despite the calm movement of his fingers as he fastened a corset around my torso.
“Forget the damn thing.” I tried to bend away, reaching for the bow at his feet.
“Hold still.” He pushed me against the wall, his hands flying over the hooks on the busk. “Your fucking shirt is see-through.”
I hissed through my fangs, but two seconds later, he had me clasped up and heaving for air. We quickly shoved on boots and coats, my gaze glued to the brightening glow of his throat. Panic surged through my blood.
“Stay here.” He turned toward the door.
“No fucking w—”
The ground vibrated, and a strange noise rumbled in the distance. I froze and met his eyes.
“Is that…?” I cocked my head, listening as the vibration grew louder. “A stampede of horses?”
He shook his head, his expression cast in shadows.
The sound w
as a low, heavy, continuous growl, like thunder or…
“Cars.” Goosebumps rose along my spine as I grabbed the bow and quiver. “We can’t outrun a fucking engine.” I spun, seeking the best place to fire off shots. “We’ll have to fight them, Salem. We need to—”
He grabbed my bicep, snatched the bow and arrows from my hands, and tossed them out of reach. “It’ll be easier if you don’t fight.”
“What?” I jerked in his iron grip, going nowhere. “Are you crazy? They’re coming!”
He swung me around, pinning my back to his chest and curling his fingers around my throat. “Shh.”
The purr of engines rolled up to the barn door, shaking the ground with a mechanical rumble.
“Now would be a good time,” I said with a strangled voice, “to fill me in on your plan.”
“Deep breath, baby.” His timbre was soft against my ear. Too soft. Too calm.
“Salem?” I struggled in his arms, a wasted effort. “What’s going on?”
The engines shut off. Car doors slammed. The tread of boots approached the door.
My heart banged against my ribs. Salem must’ve had a plan, one that required me to be scared and unarmed. I needed to trust him.
I don’t trust him.
The door swung open, and a blond man in his late-twenties strode in. He held his head down, blue eyes up, as if he were used to ducking through doorways, because holy shit, he must’ve been seven-feet-tall. Dressed head-to-toe in layers of furs and black leather, he carried a long sword on his back and a fanged scowl on his pale yet strikingly handsome face. Hybrid.
He looked utterly terrifying, like a Viking bred for blood and death. Why were we just standing here? The only tension in Salem’s body was in the clench of his hands as I bucked and thrashed. What the fuck was going on?
An assortment of deadly knives and axes clanked on the hybrid’s belt as he closed the distance. Salem didn’t move, his breaths steady, the magnified sound of his heart thumping along at an even keel.
