by Sylvia Ryan
It had been almost a year since he lost the woman he loved and the companionship of his father, friends—every important relationship in his life. A year since the devastating removal of the physical touch he needed. For twenty-seven years he’d been wrapped in the soft comfort of another’s bare skin brushing his countless times a day.
Then it was gone. He’d never get used to the deprivation of it, the hollow feeling in his belly that seemed like a permanent part of him now.
He was dead inside. He still drew breath. He still had thoughts, though he tried as hard as he could to eradicate those causing him to feel anything, but he wasn’t the same man who’d lived and loved in the Amber Zone. He’d constructed layers of protection around himself. That shell, like the bark of a tree, shielded the ever-hemorrhaging wound with a rough, dark barrier. He rarely allowed himself to acknowledge his raging anger and desperate need for human contact. If he allowed himself to feel all the emotions that crowded him every day, he’d have probably killed himself, or somebody else, by now. Every waking minute held potential for Rock to totally lose it, to explode in a dangerous fit of pent-up fury. He was like a diamond created under immense pressure, becoming something hard and cold.
This next mission would be his last. He was going to walk away. He couldn’t wait.
Chapter 2
Laila Lewis stood in the hallway, just outside the door of the conference room. This initial briefing marked the beginning of the final two months of training and preparation before the mission. The Fine Arts and Artifacts Recovery Program was her baby. The trip to DC was the culmination of thousands of hours of specialized education, apprenticeships and the ultimate goal of her life’s work.
For years, the anticipation had been practically overwhelming. But today, facing the sea of Black Guard uniforms, her excitement was muted by fear. She had no interest in engaging in polite conversation with any of the people here. Rock was the exception. No uniform, but still in black. He was a goliath, standing head and shoulders above the rest. Two hundred pounds of badass, standing there with bulging arms crossed over his chest. Armed men in camouflage stood at attention against the white walls, no expression, no movement, like pieces of furniture. Nobody sat at the massive conference table yet.
A high-level crowd attended, and her heartbeat jumped when she spotted General Morgan. His scar bit into his upper lip, making him appear as if he sneered whenever he spoke. “Fucking hell,” she said under her breath. She had a difficult time staying in the same room with the man for too long. His evil overwhelmed her.
Laila took a deep breath and locked her defenses into place. She strode into the room and sat in one of the rolling, black leather chairs surrounding the dark-wood conference table.
Someone called for everyone to take their seats.
She was not the only woman present. Sydney Parr, an Amazon—tall, leggy and muscular—would be riding in the other truck with Garret during the mission. She was a legend in her own right because of her rank and reputation in one of the Onyx Zone Recovery Teams. Recently, she’d received the distinction of being the first woman accepted into Morgan’s National Guard.
She sat across the table from Laila, next to Rock. She was close to him. Laila scrutinized them, the distance between them, the general air of formality. They didn’t seem to have any kind of relationship. She was relieved. The first time she’d met Sydney, the woman had spared her a disinterested glance before returning to converse with someone else. She seemed like a bitch, and Laila had steered clear of her since.
General Conrad Morgan rounded the table and sat on Laila’s right.
She tensed, and her anxiety spiked.
He nodded. “Miss Lewis.”
She returned his nod with a well-practiced smile. “General.”
They focused on Garret, National Guardsman, mission head, and navigator in charge of getting the four of them to Washington DC. He was tall, like Rock, but his coloring was Sapphire all the way, with sandy hair and green eyes. He had a clean-cut boy-next-door kind of look. He appeared to be the polar opposite of tall, dark and hostile directly across from her.
While Garret ran down the list of significant dangers they would face during the trip, General Morgan slid his finger over Laila’s thigh. Her stomach twisted. She steeled her expression, hiding the cringe she so much wanted to be there, and shored up her barriers.
Morgan’s energy, slimy and demented, slithered like a snake over her skin.
Adrenaline raced through her veins. She moved only her eyes and looked at his profile. His good side. During meetings, he’d always seated her to his left so his disfigurement was hidden.
Morgan glanced across the table.
Rock’s singular gaze zeroed in on the spot Morgan touched her.
Putting on a show, the general made sure Rock saw what seemed like casual affection.
Rock scowled fiercely at General Morgan. Her new bodyguard took his life into his hands with open hostility pointed at the general. Rock’s gaze rested on her face before leisurely sliding down her body.
When he turned his attention back to Garret’s description of the route they’d take north, Laila could not do the same. Seemingly of its own accord, her interest lingered on the hulking, intimidating man across the table. This mountain’s job was to keep her alive. He was an Emerald, like her.
She rubbed the newly tattooed emerald green band around her wrist. Garret had revealed Rock grew up in Amber, like she had. Rock didn’t look like the type of person raised in the accepting Amber environment. But, what a person presented to the world was not necessarily what lay beneath the surface.
When Laila tuned into a person’s energy, she was able to get a sense of the person and their feelings. She closed her eyes and blocked out the drone of Garret’s voice. Relaxing, she exhaled, reached out with her senses and collided with an impervious barrier. He was totally closed off.
Opening herself a little more, she tried to sense the man behind the leave-me-alone-façade. At first, she got nothing. With some concentrated effort, her energy brushed past his defenses and mingled with his.
Her empathic gift was sensitive, and with so many people in the small room, the likelihood she’d feel only him if she opened herself up more was iffy at best. In a room full of people, there was never a guarantee she sensed the person she thought she was. She pretended to read the compad on the table in front of her, took in another deep breath, and opened herself a bit more.
An initial sensation of being under immense pressure morphed into a storm of torment and anger. His hell felt deep and tragic. It overwhelmed her.
She opened her eyes, and their gazes clashed. His eyes blazed as if he’d sensed her attempt to feel him. But that was impossible.
She tried to break the connection, but couldn’t fend off the unbearable tsunami of his pent-up emotions. They pelted her, embedded in her soul like buckshot in soft flesh.
Despite repeatedly trying to push the emotions away, they only disappeared when he returned his attention to Garret’s presentation.
By the time she’d rid herself of his feelings completely, she was shaken and nauseated. The connection had been less than a minute, but the vast, nuclear bomb-like intensity of what lay inside him had her heartbeat racing and adrenaline pumping. It was the first time her empathic connection had been so intense she’d had trouble breaking it.
Her chair scraped loudly against the floor as she excused herself. She hurried down the main corridor, into the mercifully unoccupied ladies room.
Breathing hard and assessing whether she was going to vomit, she steadied herself with a hand on the wall next to the sink. Her hands shook as she cupped them under the faucet. She gulped in several mouthfuls of water before cutting it off.
“Are you okay?”
Laila jumped and swung around.
Rock stood behind her in the doorway.
Not wanting anyone to see her like this, especially him, she turned away qui
ckly. She took a couple more hitching breaths and lifted her gaze to his reflection in the mirror, nodded. “Yeah. I’m…good.”
Gazes locked, they stood in silence, forming a personal connection. For the next few months, they were a duo in a team of four. She was sure those seconds were an allowance of time and attention Rock didn’t give just anyone.
“Don’t worry. I’ll keep you safe. You’ll be prepared to defend yourself if you need to.” The tone of his deep voice was gentler than she’d heard him use with other people, making it easier to school her expression into some semblance of composure.
“Okay.” Her voice quavered. She was completely unraveled. Too many strong energies in such an enclosed space.
“Come on. They’re waiting for us.”
She gave her stomach a few more seconds to settle, and then preceded him out the door. They walked side by side down the hall, the quick snap of her heels on the tile in sync with his combat boots.
Impulsively, she slipped her hand into his, and he didn’t blink at the touch. Almost to the door of the meeting room, his steps faltered. He slowed, looked down at their joined hands, and up until their gazes connected for an endless second. His expression revealed he’d not known she’d grown up Amber.
Laila crooked a finger, a request for him to come closer. He brought his head near hers.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
Simply because of his nearness, she sensed his mood again, and the change was absolute. The siege of anger, hatred and pain had lessened.
“Come on.” He freed his hand, and stepped aside so she could enter the room.
Everyone looked at her when she re-entered. “I’m sorry, gentlemen. I’m feeling a bit under the weather today.”
General Morgan’s expression conveyed concern. “Well let’s wrap this up, then.”
Laila nodded her thanks to the General, sat, and avoided eye contact with everyone in the room.
When the meeting adjourned, she remained at the table to avoid getting pulled into a conversation. The problem was Sydney Parr remained, too.
She didn’t need to look up to know Sydney’s striking, light green eyes bore down on her. She could no longer pretend she hadn’t noticed Sydney wasn’t leaving. With her caramel skin and dark hair, the exotic-looking woman’s bitchy glare made Laila feel like shrinking away. Sydney scanned her face, then the new emerald tattoo circling her wrist, and malevolence marred the woman’s beautiful features.
The prejudice and slurs would come next. She might have an emerald band around her wrist, but to most, it didn’t matter. She would always be an Amber—stupid, diseased, inferior.
“You’re Emerald now?”
“Yes.” Laila smiled and looked pointedly at Sydney’s Sapphire tattoo. “And you’re not.”
“Don’t let that green around your wrist make you think you’re better than everyone else. You’re still spawned from inferior stock.”
“I earned my designation. I wasn’t born into it like you were. Looks like you were a mere eye color away from growing up in Amber with me.” Laila knew better than to bait the woman like that, but she couldn’t help herself.
“He’s not into you.”
“Who?”
“Morgan. It was pretty obvious he was touching you to irritate Rock.”
“I agree.”
Sydney nodded. “As long as you know your place.”
Rock walked back into the conference room. His gaze ping-ponged between them, finally landing on Laila. He stared at her, as if he inspected her insides. Peered directly into her soul.
She fought the urge to squirm. He did an excellent job of making her feel as if he knew her better than she knew herself.
He frowned and gestured toward the door. “Sydney, may I speak with you?”
“Of course. Excuse me.” As she rose from the table, she gave Laila a sugary-sweet smile. “It was nice chatting with you.”
Rock followed Sydney out.
Laila berated herself for standing up to Sydney and pissing her off. She’d handled those kinds of comments better. Ultimately, she didn’t regret what she’d said.
Taking a jab at Sydney was not the only situation she could have handled better that morning. She couldn’t lose it as she had in the meeting. Letting emotions, hers or another’s, draw unwanted attention to her could be a fatal mistake. One she couldn’t afford if she was going to complete the mission—both missions.
Chapter 3
Laila lay wide-awake in her dark bedroom. It was becoming a pattern. The night before, she hadn’t been able to sleep for more than an hour or two. The whole move to the Emerald Zone had her out of sorts.
Five years ago, when her IQ testing promptly landed her a Sapphire designation and a one way ticket out of the Amber Zone. It had been a brutal adjustment. She’d thought she was going to a new, better place. She’d been a child who dreamed of happily ever after with the Sapphire Zone being a land of unicorns and rainbows. It had taken no time at all to realize she was expected to pick up the unicorn shit.
Her naiveté at the tender age of twenty-one was laughable. No one had told her when she’d been hustled off into Sapphire that the majority of people living in her new zone would treat her as if the tattoo around her wrist was still amber instead of the rich blue she’d worked so hard for. Her physical characteristics marked her as Amber. It didn’t matter what color was around her wrist.
The Emerald Zone didn’t seem much different. Bigger house, different color around her wrist, but still, the day in and day out of her life remained the same. People stared at her as if they might be able to spot her defects. She rarely left her apartment, except to go to her office. In the past five years, as Morgan Jr. came into power, the National Guard’s constant, intimidating presence and the growing undertones of fear she sensed in practically everybody she met made her increasingly uneasy. Mostly she hid, submerging herself in her program.
Tonight, she was more tired than she could ever remember being, yet her mind refused to rest. She didn’t consider herself a worrier, but the complete upheaval of her life, combined with the growing apprehension about her Resistance mission had led her to this—another stint of tossing and turning, racing thoughts, and now, something new to think about—Rock.
She swung her feet off the edge of the bed. The late spring breeze moved the curtains of the window overlooking her street. She’d seen him arrive at his home, which was across the street from her own new monstrosity.
To know someone like him was so close was maddening. Her heartbeat gave a little flutter. She’d met him once before, on the first day she’d been granted access to The Onyx Zone Recovery Compound. They called it OZ. It had been an introduction in passing, shared hellos and then they’d gone their separate ways. She’d been to the compound several times since, transferring items necessary for the trip from her office in the Peacekeeper’s Compound to the tiny, makeshift space they’d allotted her in OZ. Many times she’d sat there alone, gazing out the window, watching Rock jog the perimeter of the compound before the heat of the day became oppressive.
Maybe he suffered like her.
She stood and pulled the curtain back.
A faint light radiated out his front windows. She checked the time. Ten fifteen. Laila slipped on her flip-flops, treaded down the steps and out her front door. His house was modern and looked larger than hers. Its jutting roofline accommodated vertical transom windows at the peak before another plane sliced down the front of the house.
She felt him even now as she crossed the street and entered his yard. He was calm and lonely. The rage from earlier in the day had diffused. The connection between them dumbfounded her. It was as if a part of her had slipped into its rightful place the first time she’d reached out to see if she could feel him.
He’d been raised Amber. If he didn’t want company, the door would be locked. She turned the knob, and the door swung inward into a silent great room bathed in dark shadows
. He sat toward the back of the space underneath a light. Goose bumps rose on her arms as she approached him. His back was to her as he fiddled with something at the kitchen island.
She cleared her throat. “I saw your lights on.”
There was no element of surprise in his expression as he glanced up at the single light shining over his head. “Barely.”
She smiled. “How do you stand it? It’s a ghost town here.” She laughed nervously. “I thought I saw tumbleweeds rolling down the street.”
He shrugged. “I’m not here often.”
“I can see that.” She scanned the clothes spilling out of the duffel bag on the floor of the great room.
“You were Amber?”
She faced him and met his gaze. “Yes. I was designated Sapphire due to my IQ scores.” The intensity of his stare made her uncomfortably self-conscious, causing her to turn away. She crossed to his refrigerator, opened it and stuck her head into the cool air. “Milk? That’s all you have?” She glanced over her shoulder and caught him shoving whatever he’d been doing into a drawer. “What’s that?”
“A project.”
“Really? You’re going to make me ask?”
“I don’t want you to ask. It’s none of your business.” He walked to the fridge, opened the freezer and pulled out a bottle of clear liquid. He poured some into two short glasses and handed her one. He downed his and refilled it.
Laila took hers and wandered into the great room. It was difficult trying to slip back into her old self—Amber Laila. That girl didn’t fit as comfortably as she used to. That fact saddened her more than she wanted to acknowledge at the moment.
Flipping on the video feed, she plopped down on the couch. Rock followed and lowered himself next to her. They sat shoulder to shoulder. “Where’d they put you?” he asked.
