Stranded (Boys Behaving Badly Book 4)

by Delilah Devlin

  “I might be on one of them,” I admitted with a cat-like grin. “Not the hook-up one. I use the one for serious daters.” I’d thought I might try again.

  “Show me.” He pulled the phone from his back pocket that had been stowed in the duffle.

  I hadn’t shown any interest in that life-line. At first, I’d thought it would help keep me alive, and then I’d realized I didn’t have anyone to call that I could trust with the truth and cause no repercussions. I held out my hand and downloaded the app then found my listing. “It was a waste.”

  “You didn’t find any man to your liking?” He flashed a cocky smile.

  “Back to the story.” I didn’t want to discuss my prior loves. “He would contact her through the app.”

  “With carefully coded messages?”

  I giggled. “Of course. He would mention his love of falconry. Isn’t that what all prince charming’s do in their spare time?”

  “And what else?”

  “Wine. What do you call people who are really into wine?” He’d bemoaned my lack of a stocked cellar. “Those hobbies sound very worldly.”

  “Oenology. So, your gang leader is sophisticated?” he asked slowly, as if he was trying to picture this character in his imagination.

  “His new persona is still formidable,” I told him quietly as the full weight of this conversation hit me in the chest. “He’s starting a new life. He can be a different man.” I wasn’t talking about a made-up story. My voice cracked when I said, “Changed.”

  Later, as we lay naked wrapped in each other’s arms, Vador asked. “Could you love a bad man, Mariah?”

  I answered immediately, “Yes.”

  “I don’t mean your ex-husband.”

  “I wasn’t referring to him.” I’d fallen out of love with him long before I’d gathered the courage to leave. Regular beatings had a way of squelching affection and your self-worth.

  “I also don’t mean Lucas Forde.”

  Of course, he knew about what transpired during my first marriage. “What I had was a crush, a transference of emotions because Forde helped me.” He handled jobs in the “gray” area, sometimes they might be unlawful, but he had helped me get free. This subject made me uncomfortable. “I was there at the beginning of Forde and Layla. I saw the way he looked at her, and I know how deeply she loves him now.” At first, it had hurt that Forde chose another. He’d helped me when I’d been at my lowest. “I could never give him the kind of contentment he has with Layla.”

  His arms tightened around me, pulling me closer. “It will be dangerous for you...loving your bad man.”

  I nodded my head as it rested against his chest. “I seem to excel during dangerous situations.”

  He stroked my hip. “Your safety… I don’t know if I can…”

  “You worry about you, Vador.” I was in a situation that could and most likely would end badly. In these past few days, I’d made several decisions concerning my future...if I still had one.

  “We…I…this…”

  I gently rested my fingertips against his lips. “Te amo.”

  He kissed me as the last syllable left my lips, and I knew he felt the same.

  I was on my second diet soda while I waited for my ride. When I’d woken earlier, I’d known Vador was gone. Still, I’d called his name as I’d walked outside to see if the Escalade was still parked where I’d left it. The only sign that he’d been there was a phone number written on the notepad beside the coffee maker. After showering, I dressed warmly and closed up the cabin. I walked to the road, and it didn’t take long for a neighbor to stop and offer me a ride. After breaking my twenty, I found the pay phone in the back of the truck stop and made the call.

  When Forde arrived, we said our hellos, and he didn’t ask me a single question. I could wait because I wasn’t sure of my answers. After we crossed the state line, he cleared his throat. “Are you doing all right?”

  “I’m very tired of everything.”

  “Do you need me to make a call so you can talk to someone?”

  Who did he mean? The police? A Cancerberos? “No,” I answered sharply.

  “I can get the names of some excellent therapists. I know you carry a lot on your shoulders… I’ll take you if you think you need to be admitted to a facility.”

  Did he think I’d gone to the cabin to kill myself? “I’m fine,” I answered too quickly, sounding defensive.

  He glanced at me. “You’ve put me in a predicament. I don’t think that you are fine.”

  I curled my fingers in so that my nails bit into my palms and waited a few beats. “I’m not.” This was more difficult than I’d imagined. “I’m beyond burned out.” I swallowed hard. I didn’t want to lie to this man who’d been my champion, but he couldn’t know the real truth. “I need to make some changes. Life changes.” Vador had called me cunning, and I would need to be exactly that to get away safely.

  Six months later…

  Someone was watching me. The prickling along my neck when I left my apartment had started three days ago. I didn’t change my routine, but I was more careful. I’d made it this far, and if he wanted to approach, then it was up to him to make a move.

  Traveling to Moldova was an easy choice. They had no extradition agreement with the U.S., and my mother’s native language had come back to me easily. Touring the vineyards and ancient monasteries had allowed me time to think and plan for the future. I’d checked the dating app daily, and two months ago, “Juan Pablo” introduced himself. He was staying in Sao Paulo and claimed to enjoy falconry and oenology. The photo he used was grainy, his features shadowed. I was curious to see what he now looked like. His face and body might be altered, but I would know his touch.

  I paused outside the door to my rental, glancing to my left and then to my right, smiling. He was welcome in our lives—our unborn daughter’s and mine.

  Shelter from the Storm

  By A.J. Harris

  When he said, Tell me who you are and why I shouldn't kill you, right now, Julia quietly raised her bloodstained hands and pulled back the blades under her fingernails.

  The paratrooper from the lander city of Stontejas fell to the sea fortress's helipad deck with a thump. He joined a dozen other dead bodies surrounding the gorgeous man aiming a wicked-looking pistol at her head.

  “Julia ap Atlantia,” she shouted over the incoming winds. The lander still wore the skin-tight suit from his ruined fight mech. Tears across the chest and arms bared his lightly bronzed skin and a webwork of combat scars. The caramel brown curls on his broad chest matched the ringlets sticking to his sweat-soaked forehead. A golden gleam in his eyes gave him a feral look. As the rain began, it soaked through his ruined suit, turning it translucent. She could count every one of his abs.

  Did the landers choose him because he looked like one of their angels? I must look like the Devil incarnate to him. She was fleet-folk, through and through. While his ancestors had hidden behind fortress sea walls and zealotry, her ancestors had adapted to the Flooded Earth. They took to the seas and thrived there. For the most part, she still had a standard human shape, although a bit more athletic than most landers, but the details were where he'd see evil, transhuman technology at work. Bright orange webbing stretched between her long fingers and toes, complementing her braided red hair. The muscular curves of her calves and forearms sported matching fins, tucked away for now because she stood outside the water. The razors beneath her fingernails were intended for cutting through rope but provided a wicked defense measure.

  Thick raindrops fell onto her green-tinted skin. Not expecting a deep dive, she'd worn a sleeve and legless wetsuit in her personal undercutter submarine. It kept her legs, arms, and gills free. Chloroplasts in her skin let her photosynthesize, but when combined with her tiny scales, they gave her an otherworldly glow. When she blinked, two eyelids closed, one after another. The second translucent eyelid allowed her to see underwater. Stuck to her forearm was a fabricator gauntlet, able to create tools o
n the fly using scrap materials—another forbidden technology, which made fleet folk seem less human in the eyes of the landers.

  “You never answered my other question.” He winced as he pulled open the tears of his suit. Lacerations from the crash landing and his battle with the paratroopers wept blood onto the deck.

  She resisted the urge to help him; the gun was a conversation killer. Instead, she kept her hands raised, relaxed, and kept focused on his sapphire eyes. “You need my help.”

  Too his credit, he didn't laugh.

  Julia lifted her chin. “First, you're in big trouble. Mech pilots are royalty in Stontejas—the best and brightest. So, you must have been a bad little boy to have a two whole squads of paratroopers trying to kill you. You're welcome for the assist, by the way.

  “Second, you need off this old fortress. Your mech suit is gone. Doubt they'll send a replacement soon. My undercutter's the only way to go. And last—look at the sky and the horizon to the south.” He glanced toward the horizon but kept his aim on her. “That's not just another tropical depression. Fleet's minisats are showing two storms colliding into a superstorm. We're talking a slow-moving Cat-3. This slab of ferrocrete should be able to handle it, but we need to get the storm management systems up and running to keep the lower decks from becoming a massive catchbasin. Unless you know your way around pre-flood technology, you need me alive.”

  He looked up at the sky. A few fat drops fell onto his forehead in rapid succession. And then, he looked back at Julia. “Drake.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Drake Guisard.” He latched the gun to his hip and rubbed his hand.

  Julia caught a metallic gleam on the skin of his palm.

  “Lead the way, Julia.”

  Lightning pealed across the heavens. The ocean grew black as oil. Smokey green clouds covered they sky, slicing rain coming down so thick it destroyed visibility. Drake kept one eye on Julia, and another on the sky as they closed all the hatches leading to the upper levels of the complex.

  Julia had to show him how to manually check the seals. “These fortresses were built to last,” she said. “But electronic seal monitors break down faster than the doors. Always double check.”

  “So, what interest does your kind have with a place like this?”

  Julia gave him a stare. Your kind?

  Drake winced, either from the still not-quite-closed lacerations along his chest and side or in shame.

  Perhaps he hadn’t meant to be so condescending. “Fleets are pretty independent, but now and again we need to dry dock. These old fortresses are powered by geothermal energy. They were designed to survive and defend the new frontiers. They make perfect places to hook up and do repairs.” She walked him back to one of the status panels. Cracked and worn, it still flickered to life with a touch and displayed which hatches required attention. “Got one more to go.”

  “Right. And then?”

  “Then, the control room. We hole up and respond to system alerts and hope this place doesn't fall apart.” They jogged to the last hatch. Julia frowned. It was a maintenance robot access hatch, low to the ground and in a cramped cul du sac. Salt, rust, and mineral seepage encrusted the pistons sealing the hatch. She growled and ran her fingers across her fabricator gauntlet.

  Again, Drake stared at her. His gaze kept jumping from the fabricator, to her eyes, then to the zipper on her wetsuit. She smirked. Naughty boy. Thought you were supposed to save yourself for a 'pure' human woman.

  “How long will that thing take?” Drake frowned as she poured scrap metal into the fabricator's “magazine” and set it to create a power scraper attachment.

  “A few minutes. It's building everything from scratch.”

  “We don't have time for this,” he muttered. Cracking his knuckles, Drake grabbed the hatch wheel and leaned into it, trying to work the rust free by strength alone. Muscles along his arms, back, and legs tensed as he fought against the encrusted salt and corroded metal. Blood leaked from his wounds. His face darkened with the strain.

  “Wait!”

  Before Julia could say more, a chunk of rust flew free of the sealing pistons. Lime crumbled away. Drake rotated the wheel into the open position, clearing the pistons with a final, feral snarl.

  “Help me get this back in...” Julia pressed against Drake's straining body, adding her weight to his as they forced the hatch back in place. It creaked, rust on the hinges flaking away, but it closed. She took a breath. This close, Drake smelled strange. She could pick up the blood now coating his suit and a faint musky scent. His muscles were harder than steel. Through the thin remnant of his suit, she saw something else was just as hard.

  Just the strain? Or... When the hatch finally locked in place and sealed, they fell together. He went from steel machine to wounded human in a breath. Even then, Drake struggled to look in control. He tried to stand, but his feet refused to cooperate.

  Julia wrapped her arm around his waist. “C'mon. We need to get you to control before you bleed out.”

  “Don't …” he gasped, shaking his head.

  Don't what? Julia lifted an eyebrow. Don't touch me? “No protests. You can be the tough lander once I get those wounds sealed. Now, move, soldier.”

  Reluctantly, Drake nodded. He wrapped his arm around her waist, his grip surprising in its gentleness. He rested his head on her shoulder, briefly. “You're warm...”

  “Yep. Mammals are. Now, come on—before you lose enough blood to start telling me fire is bad and sunsets are pretty.” Julia took a breath and began guiding him back to the control center.

  Julia sat in the command chair and waited for Drake to wake up before saying, “What are you? Really?”

  On any other day, cutting the clothes off a man built like a pre-flood advertising model would have been a joy. But this Adonis had resisted any attempts to check his wounds, insisting he would be fine and could handle it. It hadn’t been until he was weak from blood loss that she’d been able to knock him out and get to work.

  The command deck for the station had been designed as a fallback room for emergencies. It included a first aid center and monitored backer board. Julia had also brought her own supplies: plasma synthesizer, nanobot regen packs, and a portable med scanner. Searching ruins of the old world was hazardous duty, and it was best to be prepared. She’d sliced off his clothes and checked for additional wounds. Nothing too deep, but his recent muscle show had opened his wounds and led to increased bleeding. She’d set to work synthesizing plasma for him and gluing his wounds shut.

  After cleaning and patching and getting him stabilized, she’d paused to take a breath. With him lying on the backer board, breathing quietly, she’d run her hands across his broad chest, following the trail of coppery brown hair down his belly. What a waste...

  And then Julia had looked at the palm of his hand. The metallic gleam wasn't a tattoo or something similar. It was an implant. A smart-gun implant designed to link with his pistol. She’d backed away just as the scanner chimed. The scanner had given her a detailed look at his injuries, and the anomalies in his system. Combat enhancements riddled his body.

  Drake was a murder machine, hidden behind a beautiful man's face.

  After she’d done all she could to repair him, Julia had made some adjustments to her fabricator gauntlet, pulled up the plush chair behind the command deck, and waited for him to wake up.

  She glanced at the monitoring screens. Cracked and filthy, they still glowed with life. Cameras flashed scenes of the entire station: the moon pool where her sub was docked, the rain-swamped main decks, the barracks and repair bays. The main screen showed the technicolor monster of a storm rolling across the sea.

  The eye would hit soon. A moment of calm before everything went crazy again.

  Drake groaned. Julia sat up and, after a moment's consideration, unzipped the front of her wetsuit as far as it would go. When Drake said her name and sat up, he got an eyeful, and if he had any circulatory control modifications, they didn't extend
to the family jewels. One glance, and she could see he was at half-mast.

  He grunted. “What am I? Good question. Wish I knew.” His gaze darted around him, but then he relaxed when he saw his gun. She'd laid it beside him; the smart link meant she couldn't fire it. All Drake did was check it and lay it down between them. “I was a Crusader for Stontejas.”

  “Which is…?”

  “We receive special dispensation from the City Father and the Pastor to be...modified.” Drake looked at his palm, and his lips lifted in a snarl. “Our sins are forgiven if we take down enemies of the faith. We’re warriors for the Lord. Crusader Knights.”

  “From your expression, I take it the job wasn't quite as advertised…?” Julia kept her gauntlet arm resting on her lap but pointed away from Drake.

  “At first, yes. But then, as I went higher in rank...they asked us to steal technology. The kind you use to become...different. I was asked to kidnap a medtech who specialized in life extension technologies. Not because she was dangerous to the city, but because the City Father and the pastors needed her.” He clenched his hand into a fist. Pain clouded his beautiful blue eyes. Not physical pain. The pain of a broken heart. “They needed it to maintain their own life extensions.”

  “Hypocrisy is the greatest of luxuries.” Julia leaned closer. “So, what, now your faith is broken you suddenly see fleets as people?”

  “I started to see that long before I knew the truth.” Drake looked up at Julia, his gaze taking in the snug-fitting suit that barely covered the curves of her bust. He went to full erection, but at least had the decency to blush as it happened.

  “Your words are fine, but I’d like proof of your change of heart. Sheltering you is going to bring a heap of trouble down on me and mine. I need to know you don't see me as a thing,” she said, her voice getting husky. “I need to know what you see when you look at me.”