Victor

by Romi Hart

  She shrugged. “He’s not my man anymore, is he? He’s human—or he was—and I’m New Breed. Those jets were firing on dragons. Rover—that’s the pilot’s name—he was the one who ordered the others to shoot you. I heard him tell the other pilots to target your shoulder. You wouldn’t be in this situation if he didn’t do that.”

  He gulped. “Riley, you can’t….”

  She turned her back on him. She didn’t want to talk about Rover. He belonged to the past. She returned to the pot and served another portion of soup. She brought it back, but when she held it out to Victor, she found him unconscious again.

  She passed the bowl back and forth under his nose. Not even the smell of food could rouse him. She squatted back and drank the soup herself. She studied him while she ate, but he didn’t wake up again.

  Every morning, she shifted into her dragon form so she could put him back in the boat with a minimum of disturbance. Every evening, she took him out of it to lay him by the fire. She cooked for herself and him, but he still didn’t wake up.

  Every day, she paddled upstream. She didn’t dally, but she didn’t fret about hurrying, either. She couldn’t make Victor well by straining herself. She could only do that by getting him to the camp alive and that meant making sure nothing went wrong.

  She navigated through the river’s endless bends and turns until it faded to a mere trickle. The hull ran against matted grasses and weeds. She couldn’t paddle any further.

  She didn’t worry about that, either. She planned for this moment. She took from the bilge the harness she created for this moment. She wove it of vines and sedge fiber while she sat by the fire each night. She glanced up from her labor to check on Victor, only to go back to work when she saw his eyes closed.

  Now she slipped it over her head and clove-hitched it to the boat. Then she put her head down and hauled the flat-bottomed craft over the damp marsh. The process took a lot more effort than paddling open water, but she didn’t mind. Only a few miles lay between her and the village.

  She sweated and panted until the first house came in sight. Her spirit soared. She did it. She got Victor home. She plunged forward with renewed energy. The stream shrank to a few feet across. It no longer supported the boat. She had to muscle it by main strength over bare ground, but nothing could stop her now.

  A bunch of Cameron’s party sat around the yard talking when she made her entrance. They all stopped what they were doing and turned around and stared at her. Lincoln, Bryce, and Finn stood up from where they were sitting against a wall. Everyone fell silent.

  She dragged the boat the last few yards. She panted for breath and sweat soaked her hair and shirt, but relief and elation kept her going. She parked it in front of the house Bryce shared with Cameron. She flung off the harness. For the first time since the battle, she allowed herself to rest her hands on her knees. She gasped and wheezed to catch her breath. She could finally feel her overwhelming fatigue.

  She wasn’t finished yet. She forced herself upright and bent over the boat. She looped her arms under Victor and strained her back picking him up. She could have asked the guys to do it. God knew there were enough of them to handle Victor’s weight.

  This was her job. He was her responsibility. She wasn’t finished until she got him safe and comfortable inside. Then she could fall over.

  She hefted him and braced her knees. All the men stared in silence as she tottered to the house. She had to pause to gather her resolve to climb the ladder. She took one rung at a time being extra careful not to bump Victor.

  She almost wept for joy when she got into the room. She staggered the last few steps to the fire and slammed down on her own knees. With the last shred of her energy, she lowered him to the floor. She arranged him flat on his back and toppled over groaning.

  She threw her arm over her eyes, but it took her some minutes to calm her breathing. Every muscle ached, but sublime tranquility overflowed her heart. She didn’t have to do anything. She didn’t have to go anywhere. She didn’t have to plan any escape. She was home.

  When she took her arm down, she discovered Cameron Griffin peering down at her from above. He cocked his head to one side studying her. She lurched upward. “Sir! Victor—he’s…. I’m sorry. I tried to get here as soon as I could, but I….”

  “You just lie there, young lady,” he murmured. “You don’t worry about Victor anymore. He’s going to be just fine.”

  She cast a glance toward Victor’s inert form. “I did the best I could. Can you fix it? Can you operate?”

  A faint smile curved his lips upward. “We don’t have to. We’ve got something better.”

  She twisted over. She tried to push herself up. She wanted to crawl to Victor’s side. She couldn’t think of anything to do but to tend him, to make him well. She couldn’t summon the energy to get up, though. Her arms and legs wouldn’t obey her.

  Cameron laid a hand on her shoulder. “You’re drained. You’ve got nothing left. You lie there and leave Victor to us. You’ve done enough.”

  She looked up at him. She didn’t want to accept that. “Do you mean that, Sir?”

  “Absolutely. We all saw you at the battle, and now this? You don’t do anything but lie there and recover.”

  She folded under the overpowering weight of everything she’d done and experienced. The full consequence of her decision and her actions came home to her. She made her choice and she chose Victor. She turned her back on the human world. She killed her comrade-in-arms and the man she most respected in the world. She did it for Victor.

  She depleted every scrap of her resources getting him to safety and she would do it all again in a heartbeat. She would get up and drag him another hundred miles if she thought he needed it. She never expected to feel this way about anyone, but he did something to her body and soul. His presence, his existence in this world left her no choice.

  She sank down on her side where she could see him. As long as he was still there, everything would be okay. His profile occupied her whole being to the exclusion of all else.

  Footsteps entered the room. One of Cameron’s men came over and squatted down next to Victor. The New Breed called him Levi—Levi Kehoe.

  To Riley, he seemed like a shy young Choctaw boy barely old enough to grow a beard. His angular, hawkish features and quiet manner gave him a mysterious, watchful air, but he could work alongside the best of them. Riley once saw him carry a dead boar into the camp and sling it around with no effort at all. He lifted it by the leg with one hand to string it from a tree before he gutted it.

  He nudged Victor. When he got no response, he flipped the bigger man over. Victor flopped onto his face. Riley would have jumped up to prevent him from disturbing Victor, but something stopped her. An eerie, tense silence fell over the room. It made her keep still and quiet, too.

  Levi peeled up Victor’s shirt and examined the cobweb bandage. He tapped it with his forefinger and grimaced. “All right.”

  “What are you doing?” Riley asked.

  Cameron’s grip tightened on her shoulder. “Simmer down. Let him do what he has to do. He knows what’s best for Victor.”

  Riley didn’t want to simmer down. She didn’t like this. Levi prodded the mat of webbing a few more times.

  Then, in a blinding flash, he erupted into a huge, hideous, ferocious monster. Riley couldn’t identify what exactly it was. It resembled a combination of all the different species of dinosaur she’d ever seen. Its gargantuan head bristled with spikes. Dangerous barbs ringed its mouth and protruded from its eye sockets. Spiked plates armored its back and a horrible knob of treacherous hooked spurs thumped the floorboards when it moved its tail.

  The thing crouched low over Victor. Its enormous body wouldn’t have fit in the room otherwise. The instant it appeared, Riley leaped to her feet. She dove to get between it and Victor. Her exhausted brain refused to comprehend that this was mild, retiring Levi Kehoe.

  Cameron caught her and held her back. “No!”

 
; She roared trying to get out of his grip. Her one thought compelled her to rush that thing and stop it from doing anything to Victor. In her desperation to get out of Cameron’s arms, the monster descended on Victor. It took hold of the cobweb bandage in its teeth. With one brutal yank, it tore the patch of dried skin off.

  The wound started bleeding again, but no one moved in to stop the creature. It inched its grotesque mouth within a hair’s breadth of Victor’s back and exhaled on the wound. Riley blinked in amazement as the ragged, tattered skin knit itself back together. The blood seeped through the skin and disappeared. The wound formed a scab, but as the creature continued to breathe on it, the clot faded. The skin welded and repaired itself until no sign of the original trauma remained.

  Riley gaped at the sight in wonder. The creature puffed a last breath on Victor’s back and eased back growling to itself. In the blink of an eye, Levi stood before her once more.

  Cameron eased his hold on her. “There. He’s all set now.”

  He let go of her, but she couldn’t move. She could only stare at Victor’s perfect, flawless back. “What…..what did you…?”

  Levi shrugged and walked out of the room without a word. Now that her alarm died away, Riley slumped to the floor again. She couldn’t believe her own eyes. Cameron told her they would take care of Victor, but she never dreamed it could happen like this.

  She thought he meant nursing Victor back to health over weeks. She thought he spouted all those rosy platitudes to make her feel better.

  Bryce crept forward. He laid a blanket across Victor’s bare back and rolled his brother onto it. He arranged Victor on the floor and draped another blanket over him. Then he got busy making up the fire and cooking some food the way he always did.

  Cameron laid another blanket across Riley’s shoulders. He tucked it around her neck and chin, gave her one more pat on the shoulder, and padded out. One after the other, the men drifted away until Riley remained behind with Bryce and Victor exactly the way she was before she ran away.

  17

  Victor’s eyelids fluttered. When he opened them, he wasn’t sure at first what he was seeing. A faint orange glow cast the only light in the room. He picked his head up and looked around.

  He was in the village again. He was lying on his side on the floor exactly the way he did a thousand times before. This time, Riley lay on her side facing him. The firelight shone on her cheeks. Her tumbling mass of midnight hair gleamed a deeper black than the night itself.

  Gazing at her sleeping features, it all came back—the battle, the moment when he woke up out in the Quag—all of it. Now he was back in the village. She killed that pilot. She rescued him from falling. She brought him here.

  His back no longer hurt. One of the magic wielders must have cured him. He could thank her for that. He could thank her for all of it.

  While he thought about it, her eyes snapped open. She swung up and stared at him. She looked surprised to find him awake. All at once, she gasped and fell back with her eyes closed.

  “What’s the matter? Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” she whispered. “I’m just so relieved you’re awake.”

  “I’m awake because of you. I owe you for this.”

  Her eyes drifted open. Those two obsidian flecks sparked in the flames. “You don’t owe me anything. You’re here. That’s all I need.”

  A sinking awareness came over him. On the surface, it resembled the fixated impulse that compelled him toward her in the past. Underneath, though, it changed into something else. It ceased to force him against his will anymore.

  Now it transmuted into a visceral need spanning his being at every level. He recoiled from her presence before. He didn’t want to get caught in the undertow of intensity and want. None of that mattered now.

  He wanted to need her. He craved to feel this aching tug prodding him to be near her. Why did he resist it before? They reclined on the floor in the night’s silence. They didn’t have to be anywhere else.

  Whatever this power was drawing them together, it was right. It gave them both something they deeply craved. Why fight it?

  She peeked up at him. “How do you feel? Are you still in pain?”

  He searched his body. “I feel fine. I don’t feel any pain at all.”

  She closed her eyes. “That’s good because we’re moving out at daybreak.”

  “What for? You got rid of those pilots. They won’t come after us here. They only go for dragons on the wing.”

  She shook her head. When she opened her eyes and locked her gaze on him, a sickening jolt of brutal power and confused emotions shot through his insides. He mistook it for revulsion at first. Now it made him ache for her.

  “I told Major Dickerson where you were. I told him I was being held captive in the Atchafalaya Wildlife Refuge. When the chopper fails to bring me back, this is the first place they’ll look to find the perpetrators. Your pop ordered us to clear out and abandon the village. We’re leaving.”

  Victor stared at her hardly daring to blink. “Fuck! So where are we going to go?”

  She looked away before she stole another fleeting glimpse at him. “He’s taking us to Anarock.”

  Victor’s heart stopped. “What did he tell you?”

  “He told me it’s the New Breed’s secret stronghold. He told me it’s a shadow society of New Breed living in New Orleans. He said they live in an underworld side by side with humans so no one suspects they’re there.”

  “If he told you all that,” Victor croaked, “then he must have told you….”

  She lowered her gaze. “He said I earned the right to go there when I killed Rover to save you. He said I proved myself.”

  He couldn’t keep away from her a second longer. He extended his arms and folded her to him. He gathered her against his chest. How could he fail to realize how good and right she would feel there? How could he hold her at arm’s length all this time?

  She melted into him in effortless waves of satisfaction and serenity. She bowed her head and rested it against his sternum. Even without this intoxicating magic weaving them together, he would want her here.

  She pried her head up. Her sweet breath brushed his cheeks. “Maybe I shouldn’t go to Anarock.”

  He gasped out loud. “What makes you say that? You saved my hide in the battle and after it. I can’t imagine anyone who deserves it more than you do. You earned it. I can’t say the same for most of the people there.”

  She didn’t look at him. She kept her eyes closed. Her hoarse whisper came from far away. “I made a terrible mistake. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t go to Anarock. I’m…. I’m not good enough.”

  “Hey!” He forced her back and raised her chin. “I don’t want to hear you talking like that. You’re going. Even Pop says you deserve it.”

  She tried to look away. Her features twisted with buried emotion. “I screwed up. You could have died and it’s all my fault.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” He fought to keep his voice under control. “You spent days paddling my unconscious shit halfway across Louisi-fucking-ana. I’m here now because of you.”

  “That’s what I mean,” she squeaked. “I should never have brought you here in the boat. I should have flown you here. Levi could have cured you in seconds. Instead, you were floating around injured in the Quag for days on end. I fucked up, Victor. I’m stupid and I nearly got you killed.”

  Victor thought fast. How could he convince her that she had this all wrong? He dropped his voice to a throaty growl. “Now you listen to me, girl. Look at me, Riley.”

  He craned her head back. She obeyed by opening her eyes. Those bottomless pools reflected back to Victor the depth of feeling binding him to her.

  “Listen to me, Riley. Who told Pop that the military knew about this camp?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Why didn’t you fly me back here after the battle? Tell me that.”

  She blinked slowly. “I didn’t want to injure
you any more than you already were.”

  “You took me in the boat because you thought flying would harm me. You told Pop about the military coming here. You killed that pilot—Rover.”

  She lay still and quiet in his arms. Did she hear a word he said?

  “Pop knows all about what you did. He knows you called Barksdale. He knows you escaped to expose the New Breed to the military. He also knows, whether it’s good or bad, that you spent the better part of a week slaving your ass off to get me here. He knows everything you did. Do you really think he would take you to Anarock if he didn’t think you deserved it?”

  She compressed her lips and closed her eyes. He couldn’t read her reaction to his argument.

  “You proved yourself out there. You proved yourself a dozen times and now you’re here with me. That says it all, doesn’t it?”

  “I just don’t want to put you in danger—none of you. I don’t want to be the reason any of you gets hurt or killed. I…..I have nothing left, Victor—nothing but you. This land, these people—they’re all I’ve got. I can’t lose that.”

  “You won’t.” Victor swept her satin hair off her temple. He had to kiss her. He had to get through to her, to impose on her how truly blessed he found this moment. He found her blessed and everything about her blessed. His lips touched hers. “You’re one of us now.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’m certain of it.” He descended on her mouth. She spellbound him more than ever, now that he knew she wouldn’t throw his affections back in his face.

  Her lips dissolved on his tongue in a blissful eddy of sugar and perfume. Her body melted into his arms in pools of softness. She laid her delicious curves against him with a shuddering sigh. She sounded so divinely present he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He pressed one palm against her back and experienced that rush of excitement when her spine swayed. Her ass rounded and she sobbed into his mouth. Her lips contorted through his swirling around his tongue.

  Her thighs caved apart when he slipped his knee between them. She sank down on his leg and rotated her pelvis to rub against him. She didn’t fight him. She didn’t say she hated him. She welcomed him and let him welcome her. She never tried to disguise her desire.