by Piper Stone
Her mouth twisted before opening wide, the scream silent as she jerked up, her entire body shaking.
I continued licking, sucking every drop of her juice and thirsting for more. I refused to let her go until she came again, exploding into my mouth almost violently.
“Oh. Oh!” Her face shimmered, a smile crossing her face and for a few seconds, she seemed serene, at peace.
When she stopped shaking, I eased back, rubbing my lips against the inside of her thigh, peppering her skin with kisses. I stood over her as I unbuckled my pants, pushing them past my hips. The entire time she watched, her chest rising and falling as she licked her lips in appreciation. After kicking away the unwanted material, I gathered her legs, forcing them around my waist.
“I’m going to fuck you hard and fast,” I half whispered, leering down at her, my thoughts all about stripping her of her dignity, taking everything I wanted.
“Yes. Do it. Fuck me.”
I wasted no time, thrusting the entire length of my cock inside. Her pussy was so hot, so damn wet and as her muscles clamped instantly, I threw my head back and roared.
“Yes. Yes...” she moaned, the sound so damn seductive.
The sensations rocketing through me were incredible, even more so than before. I was stripped of any concept of humanity, taking her like a savage beast, my fingers clawing into her legs, yanking her down over and over again. She was so tight, dragging my breath away. Lights seemed to flash in front of my eyes as the heat between us increased. With every hard plunge, I wanted to go deeper.
Harder.
Faster.
“Uh. Uh. Uh. Uh.” The sounds she was making were like music to my ears, filling my very soul.
The hard pounding of skin against skin was a powerful aphrodisiac, my cock throbbing, eating at my control. I wanted to fill her every hole, taking all of her. My beast continued to rise to the surface, the creature’s hunger insatiable.
“You belong to me.” I heard the words coming from my mouth, the angst of the tone. I knew I couldn’t wait much longer. After pulling all the way out, I twisted her around, bending over as I fisted her hair. “Every hole. No matter what happens. You are mine.”
She slammed her hands against the table, pushing up as I slipped my cockhead between her ass cheeks. “Oh, fuck. Oh. Oh!”
I eased inside, taking my time as I pressed the ring of muscle. My hand remained snagged in her hair, the other gripping her bruised bottom. As I jutted my hips forward, thrusting the entire rest of my cock inside, the fire combusted in every cell, forcing my body to shake. We both moaned together, the sound loud and scattered, no doubt drawing attention from the others.
As I thrust brutally, driving her up off the table, I could hear ringing in my ears. This was so right. This was special. She’d already stolen a piece of my heart. Dear God. Everything was about to change.
She met every animalistic thrust, arching her back and tossing her head. The moment she squeezed her muscles, clamping down, I lost it, exploding inside.
“Fuck!” There was no light, no night or day. There were no scavengers waiting outside the door, ready to drag us into hell.
There was just this woman, one who I was falling hard for. My cock still throbbing, increasing in size, I eased over her, clasping my fingers with hers. And for a few seconds everything was perfect, the soft whisper of the girl I’d once loved from the past something I would never forget.
“I release you...” she muttered.
* * *
“I remember how defiant you were with the guards, refusing their orders. The way they treated you was horrific,” Alex murmured. “You looked different without the beard.” She reached out, running her fingers across my mustache. “Younger and more refined.”
“I’d just been given the injection, two days after being accused of becoming a traitor to my country. In my mind, I was still a scientist, longing for the betterment of man.”
“What you must have endured.”
Snorting, I ran my fingers through my hair, hating the way I looked. “We all suffered, Alex.”
“Some more than others.”
A quiet rolled between us, an uneasiness that I assumed would never leave. The girl was much stronger than I’d even given her credit for, resilient in every manner. Her father would have been proud.
I’d found an old blanket and she sat with her feet on the chair, huddled under the soft material. She still seemed at peace, a slight smile on her face. She was staring out the window, as if there was still hope left for this world. I poured us both another drink, pushing one closer.
“My godfather used to tell me that looking up at the stars would provide the truth as well as happiness.” Her voice seemed so small.
“Your godfather?”
“He was a man close to my father, a brilliant military man who’d fought in dozens of the battles, almost losing his life twice. He was also my father’s only real confidant, providing recommendations. He used to call me pumpkin.” She smiled shyly.
“Is he still alive?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think so. The last time I heard from him was days before my family was taken from me. He urged us to stay hidden and that he’d come for us when it was safe. It’s never going to be safe again.”
“Maybe not,” I said, lowering my head.
“Was she your wife?” she finally asked. “The woman you lost.”
I’d known the question was coming. “My fiancée. I know what you must be thinking. Why bother attempting to have a normal life.”
“I wasn’t thinking that at all. What was she like?”
I shifted in my chair, swirling the glass, my gaze sweeping over the dusty kitchen. I couldn’t help but wonder what the people previously living here had been like. Were they happy? Did they have any children? Did they survive the holocaust? “She was a nurse working in the same facility that I’d been assigned to. She was dedicated, hard-working, and passionate about every aspect of her life. I adored her. We were fortunate for a short time, able to pretend the horrors didn’t exist.”
Alex remained quiet, leaning forward until she was able to place the tip of her index finger on my arm, twirling it over the crude scorpion design.
“She was taken in the first wave of eradication. Chancellor Harding got wind of the fact that certain members of our team had been asking questions. She was ripped out of my arms one cold day, along with several others. I never heard from her again.”
“Oh, my God.”
Exhaling, I closed my eyes, allowing Sheila’s face to linger in my mind for a few seconds. “That was the past. There was nothing I could do.”
“I do understand,” she said quietly. “What I found while performing my job was horrific. The cover-ups. The schemes. Before you ask, yes, I told my father, hoping he could do something. Or at least I attempted to tell him. I had information, details and evidence on exactly what Chancellor Harding planned on doing. It could have brought him down, but my father had given up. He knew that things were going to happen. He suspected the oncoming overthrow. He even...”
She stopped in midsentence, her hand shaking as she attempted to lift the glass from the table.
“What?”
“I realize now that my father knew I was going to be abducted. In fact, I think he arranged the entire thing. My God. I just figured that out. All along I’d thought he’d been trying to keep me safe.” She began to laugh, even as tears slipped down her face.
“What are you talking about?”
Alex shifted in the chair. “I think my father was trying to tell me that he’d made some kind of a deal.”
“With the chancellor?”
“Yes. Maybe. I’m not certain. I just knew that while he warned me the last time I saw him before I was taken, he could have stopped me altogether. I’d known then something was terribly off, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.”
“Off. Including abducting you, sending you off to one of the facilities?” I asked the questio
n already guessing the answer. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if selling me off bought him some time. I’d been asking questions, trying to get to the bottom of why the then-Senator Harding hadn’t been arrested for the same crimes against the state as so many others.”
“Why would your father do that then take you and your family to safety?” Nothing made much sense at this point.
“I honestly don’t know. Harding was a great showman, that much I can tell you. My father had been pressured from the first day he’d taken office, Harding harassing him about one thing or another. I do know that my father had been working on several top secret projects. I’d assumed they were various bills eliminating the harsh rules, but after we escaped the city, things he eventually told me led me to believe otherwise. Maybe Harding promised him money to help with my father’s causes.”
I moved closer, sitting down in the chair opposite her, slowly taking her hand. “From what you’ve told me, your father spent his entire life trying to better the world.”
“I know, but it’s the only thing that makes any sense to me. Why wouldn’t he tell me? Maybe there was another plan that backfired.”
“Maybe.” I brought her hand to my lips, brushing them across her knuckles. “Everything we all believed in was a lie, Alex. We have to deal in what facts we can in order to survive. There is a price on your head for an undetermined reason. The scavengers will never stop until they find you. This is a mission to them, one they’ll die for. They no longer care about human life.”
She shuddered from the touch, her eyelids half closing. “When you touch me, it’s like we belong together.”
“The effect of the serum.”
“Is that all?”
My cock was already aching again, the longing from deep inside bridging the surface. “I don’t honestly know. I want to believe otherwise.”
Pulling her hand away, she fiddled with her glass. “I don’t know what to believe in any longer. What did you find that was so horrible, forcing your incarceration?”
“I already told you a part of the story. You are correct in that there were various serums in development. Some are for disease and illness. Another was to reverse the effects of the radiation, improving the scavengers’ lives, if not curing them. Even your father’s predecessor believed wholeheartedly in redevelopment and peace.”
“But?”
I sighed, raking my hand through my hair. “I was one of those doctors working on the project and what we developed would have worked. We had the final serum in our hands, testing it on two scavengers who’d returned to normal. Can you believe that? What I didn’t know was that our team had been put together simply as a political ploy while other researchers were preparing something entirely different. What I discovered was quite the opposite of the chancellor’s multiple lies.”
“Chemical warfare.” Her eyes opened wide.
“Yes. For whomever they determined their enemy to be.”
“Then the chancellor is planning on eliminating everyone else. That’s why the scavengers and the soldiers are rounding up anyone useful, killing others to get a head start.”
I sucked in my breath, blood pumping wildly through my veins. “I believe that is the case.”
“And the cure? Can you replicate it?”
The question seemed rhetorical. I doubted my own skills after what I’d been turned into. “I honestly don’t know. From what the huntsmen scouts were able to determine, there are still vaccinations for the Elite, but no one else. The serum my team developed was destroyed, but I have no doubt the scavengers were lied to, believing that if they did the government’s biddings, they would be saved. The two million on your head is just another incentive. Even if I could create the serum, it might be too late.”
“Bastards. They have to be stopped. We have to stop them.”
“We need to finish the mission and get back safely.”
“You think there’s more. Don’t you?” she asked, her defiant tone returning.
Chuckling, I had to admit that the girl ignited every cell within my body with her rebellious nature alone. “I believe the DNA sequencing serum the huntsmen were given was tainted.”
“With an expiration date,” she said, moaning.
“Yes.”
Doubling over, she folded her arms across her stomach. “Breed then die. Develop a new race.”
“Something like that.”
Alex frowned, giving me a heated look. “What do you know about Washington today?”
“I know that the population has grown tremendously. Our scouts have reported seeing thousands of families, children born out of evil.”
“Fulfilling the prophecy.”
Once she said the words, I was thrown. “What do you know about the prophecy?”
She leaned forward, her eyes darting back and forth. “Everyone has heard of it, but I always thought it meant repopulating Earth instead of finding a hero and trying to keep us alive. My father told me about this when I was a teenager. A single hero could save the day. A fairy tale.”
“A fairy tale.”
“I think Josie knows something,” she said offhandedly.
“Josie? She’s little more than catatonic.”
She nibbled on her bottom lip, her eyes shifting back and forth. “I know I’m right. She said a few things in the truck after we stopped. Something about everything being all right and we were exactly where we were supposed to be. She mentioned the prophecy.”
I sat back, thinking about what she’d said. I had wondered why she was left basically unharmed. “You said she rarely spoke.”
“Never. Maybe two words until in the truck. What do you think it means?”
I shifted my gaze toward the hallway. Anyone could be a plant from the government. Given a very secure village had been easily found and Josie was the sole survivor, my instinct was telling me the girl knew much more than she was letting on. “When she awakens, we’ll have a discussion with her and find out what she knows. We can’t risk taking her with us.”
Alex bristled then finally nodded, her hand trembling. “Agreed. I never thought that she could be a plant.”
“Things are not always as they seem, Alex. You know that.”
“What if there was a hero, a new leader of the free world?”
I eased off the chair, moving toward the window. There were stars out tonight, bright and beautiful, twinkling as if a true beacon of hope and determination. “There’s no one capable of saving our world. No one. Even the huntsmen have no real understanding of what they could and will face if they attempt to take control.”
“But without a true hero, there will be nothing left to live for.”
Her words seared in my mind, scarring me in a manner she could never understand. I was no fucking hero. “Then so be it. Now, I have some things to do. You should get some sleep.”
She nodded, brushing her fingers over my arm before I left.
I found Montana outside, watching the sky. “You need to work on any concept of communication so we can talk to the city.”
“You’re afraid Gunner will attack,” he said casually.
“I know he will.”
“I’ll see what I can do, but as you can imagine, the soldiers took out the communications tent. I had some radio equipment saved, but I’m not promising anything.”
I heard the angst in Montana’s voice.
“Just do what you can do. I’m going to walk around.”
He grabbed my arm. “For what it’s worth, I care about her too. We all do.”
“I know.”
A shiver trickled down my spine, my throat clenching. Salvation was the real fairy tale.
We were all damned.
Chapter Twelve
Alex
A knife.
The entire house was dark, devoid of any activity. I was well aware there were guards outside, watching over me but Scorpio and the others were nowhere to be seen. I stood in the darkened hallway, listening fo
r any sounds. I still had no idea what to expect, not even after the intimate moment shared with the alpha.
I crept into the kitchen, using the light filtering in through the window to guide me. I carefully looked in every drawer, finding what I was looking for in a few seconds. As I held a butcher knife in my hand, I realized I had no desire to inflict any additional pain on a group of men who’d suffered enough.
But my instinct told me to remain careful. There were predators all around us, searching for me. I almost laughed out loud at the thought. The money didn’t seem real, but the danger certainly was.
The bedroom had once been lovely, obviously adorned by the woman of the house. Everything had a stale smell, a drab appearance after so many years of being abandoned, but I could almost hear the laughter that had once been shared in the space. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d slept in any kind of actual bed with a mattress.
I placed the knife in the small bedside table drawer, praying to some deity that I wouldn’t be forced to use it. Then I walked to the window, peeking out and trying to locate any of them. They were nowhere and there were no outside lights. I felt like I was in a time warp, hiding from the kind of monsters who would enjoy ripping me apart.
The bounty hadn’t said dead or alive.
I’d been ordered to bed like a bad little girl, but I wasn’t tired. Scorpio had shut down once again, perhaps from an overload of information or even guilt. I’d seen the horror in his eyes, the gut-wrenching sadness as he talked about his fiancée. I could tell that was the moment he’d given up, falling prey to the tyranny of the government.
Hero. The word seemed foreign. Anyone who’d fought against the regime had been damaged beyond repair.
I brushed my fingers across my swollen lips, savoring the sweet memory of fucking him. Touching him. The experience had been entirely different than before, pure in some ridiculous regard. I shuddered as my body reacted even to the thought of being with him. Everything around me was suffocating, anxiety clamping around my neck like bony fingers of a ghost dragging me beneath the earth’s surface.
