Night In A Waste Land (Hell Theory Book 2)

by Lauren Gilley

  In the three strides it took to reach John, she holstered her gun and pulled another knife. She led with it, punched it between the conduit’s ribs, pinning him back, and shifted her grip so she held him with her left, and took the hell dagger in her right hand, ready for the killing blow.

  She didn’t see his hand until it was too late; until it was closing around her throat, and his bloodied lips curved upward in a smile.

  “Rose!” Lance shouted, panicked.

  My spikes, she thought, when she felt his fingers curling, tightening. She knew when they bit into him, because she felt the hot trickle of blood. But they were iron and silver, meant for hell spawn, and this was no hell spawn here in front of her now, hand tightening, tightening.

  She thrust the dagger forward.

  He deflected it, at the last second, his other hand gripping the blade with inhuman speed.

  The hand around her throat tightened, and tightened again.

  Rose gasped – she knew she shouldn’t, because when the hand kept tightening, she couldn’t draw another breath. The spiked choker dug hard against the fragile tissues of her throat; his blood ran hot down the back of her neck. She kept pressing forward with the dagger, hard, as hard as she could – but though his skin bled and smoked where the blade cut, he prevented it from penetrating his breast.

  He bared his bloodied teeth at her in a semblance of a grin. “Do you want to join him?”

  She choked; gagged. Who are you? She tried to say it, but she had no air. Black spots crowded her vision, and she saw his smile stretch an impossible fraction.

  “I am the angel Raphael, you pathetic child.”

  As the world dimmed, she felt a presence at her back, heat, and movement. Saw, before her eyes slipped shut, John’s – Raphael’s – face evidence shock.

  Rose saw the knife plunge through his right eye. Felt a big, strong, callused hand close around hers, in the moment Raphael’s hand went slack, and the presence behind her helped her stab the conduit right through the heart with the hell dagger.

  Lance, she realized, and then passed out.

  ~*~

  She couldn’t have been out long. She came to to a rocking motion, steady and soothing. Blinked her eyes open to find that she was being carried, and that though she could feel the cool mist of the rain pounding all around them, someone was holding an umbrella over her.

  They were out of the mine, and walking through the gloaming – or, well, the others were walking. Lance was carrying her bridal-style in his arms, her head tucked up carefully on his shoulder, and Gallo walked alongside, holding the umbrella. Gavin walked ahead of them, his rifle unslung, flashlight beam bouncing across the road in front of them.

  And lining the road: people. Citizens.

  Angry citizens. The din all around them wasn’t only the rain, but mutters and shouts and curses.

  Rose craned her neck – gasping a little when a bolt of pain raced down it – so she could look up at Lance. She could see the underside of his jaw, the tension in its strong lines. He’d felt her stir, heard her small, pained sound, and glanced down at her. The anger in his gaze startled her.

  “What’s happening?” she asked, shocked again by the awful rasping of her voice. It hurt when she swallowed.

  “Well.” He took a short, sharp breath that expanded his chest against her side. “We killed their cult leader, or god, or whatever the fuck he was, so now we’ve got a mob forming up on our hands, and a long fucking hike back to the mansion.”

  He rarely swore like this. She could feel the tension in his body – and the strength, in the way he held her.

  “You can let me down,” she said.

  “Not a fucking chance.”

  “Lance–”

  She heard a motor, a wet slap of tires sliding to a halt through mud.

  “He sent the Jeep down,” Gavin said.

  “Thank God,” Gallo muttered.

  The man who’d driven them up from the first was behind the wheel, with his dirty clothes, and little cap. “Hurry,” he urged, as they bundled in.

  Lance held her the whole short, rough trip. She was in his lap, and wanted to get down – but didn’t fight it. She couldn’t have broken his hold anyway, not in this state, and she knew that she deserved every ounce of his anger. She’d acted rashly; she’d thrown off the whole op. And who might have been killed if Lance hadn’t been able to help her overpower Raphael?

  Bixby came out with a lantern to meet them when they arrived, looking even paler and more frightened than he had before.

  “The conduit’s dead,” Tris told him, “but your townspeople are very pissed off.”

  Bixby glanced toward the lights of the town – brighter than before; more lamps on, more lanterns. Rose wondered if there would actually be torches wielded. “I can see that. Damn. But.” He made a brave face as he lifted his lantern higher. “Come inside.”

  “Where can I take her to lie down?” Lance asked, still fucking carrying her.

  “I can walk.” She pushed at his shoulder, and tried to swing her legs down out of his grasp.

  His grip only tightened. “She was attacked,” he told Bixby, his expression harsher than she’d ever seen it. “A bed? A couch?”

  “Of course. Mrs. Avery will show you.”

  They stayed on the first floor, but wound up in a small back sitting room with tall, arched windows where the rain pattered steadily. There was a low couch, not too ruined from the damp yet, and Lance laid her down on it like she was a swooning princess.

  She sat up the moment he stepped back, and got a stern finger shoved in her face.

  “Do not get up.”

  She offered him her most mulish look, still quailing inside at the sight of his fury. “I’m not an invalid. I only blacked out for a second.”

  “He almost snapped your neck!” he roared.

  The shout echoed off the walls, the floor; boomed back from the high, moldy ceilings.

  Mrs. Avery muttered a quiet curse and slipped out, closing the door on them.

  Lance bared his teeth in a silent snarl, and then started pacing. Pushing his hands roughly through his hair, tugging at it where it was longer on top.

  Rose took a breath.

  “No, shut up,” he snapped, and continued to pace. “You don’t – You can’t–” He halted, and stood a moment, hands linked together over the top of his head, chest heaving as he fought to catch his breath. Not from exertion, but from emotion. From anger. He was so furious with her…

  But then he turned his head, and their gazes locked, and it wasn’t fury she saw burning in his dark eyes. Not anymore.

  The weight of his helplessness, his worry, his desperation pressed her back against the sofa back. Her head hit the wooden border with a dull thump, and she winced.

  His hands fell to his sides, and he took a step forward, close enough to touch her if he wanted to – but he held still, breathing, staring at her with a baffling degree of anguish. It stirred something warm and mostly-dormant in her belly, rekindled that sharp spear of want she’d felt earlier, when they were dressing, before they left.

  She could resist general kindness, and a big-brotherly sort of attention. But true caring – the kind he’d been showing all along, more and more, less carefully…that she couldn’t fight. That was a black hole she wanted to fling herself into, if only to forget for a little while.

  He took a deep breath, and his jaw firmed. He seemed to settle; she saw his raw expression begin to close off. “I’ve known the whole time that you have a death wish. I’ve watched you do really stupid, dangerous things – take risks none of the rest of us would. You’re good, I’ll give you that. You might be better than all of us. But tonight was the last fucking time you move without orders.”

  Her whole body felt like a bruise, sensitive, her pulse throbbing through every inch.

  “Is that understood?” he asked – demanded.

  She swallowed. “Yes. Sir.”

  He nodded, not pleased, far fro
m satisfied, but glad of her acquiescence. He cleared his throat, and his voice came out too gruff. “Let’s look at the damage.” He pointed to his own throat. “Take that off.”

  She complied without argument, unable to hide a wince as even the process of undoing the buckle tugged at her bruised neck.

  He swayed a half-step closer – and then knelt down at her feet when she pulled the choker away. His eyes went to the damage, and she could only guess, based on his gaze, how bad it must already look.

  “How is it?” she asked.

  He wet his lips, and cleared his throat again. “There’s blood.”

  “It’s his.”

  “Still. It needs cleaning up. Stay here.” He stood, and looked down at her sternly. “I mean it.”

  “I’ll stay.”

  He lingered at the door a moment, before he finally went, and was back right away with a bowl of steaming water, and a towel.

  “No showers in this dump?” she tried to tease. It would have been easier and less – intimate – than having him wash her neck.

  That was what he seemed intent on doing, though, as he knelt again, easing her knees apart with a quick, non-suggestive touch of one hand so he could move in closer. He set the bowl on the sofa at her hip, and dampened the towel; wrung it out; lifted it toward her neck.

  Just before the warm, damp cloth touched her skin, he reached to steady her head. He took her jaw delicately between thumb and fingertips.

  They both froze. She heard him take a quick breath the same moment that she did. Their gazes locked. She watched his pupils enlarge – not unlike the dilated, desirous awe she’d seen in John’s followers.

  Then he dampened his lips, his gaze dropped to his task, and he began to carefully clean the blood from her throat.

  It was soothing, once she got over the fact that it was Lance doing it. He dipped the towel again and again; the only sounds were their breathing, and the drum of raindrops on the window pane, and the tinkle of water droplets back into the bowl when he wrung the towel out. The warmth of it lulled her. When his hand shifted downward, and gently cupped the side of her neck, her eyelids fluttered and she leaned into his touch.

  They froze again – or, he did. She didn’t feel the flicker of doubt this time. Not even when he set the towel aside with a murmured, “That’s all of it.” His gaze went to his own hand; to the thumb he rested hesitantly in the hollow of her throat. “Sorry.”

  Her voice sounded uncharacteristically low and smoky. Probably from being strangled, she tried to reason. “For what?”

  “This is probably – I shouldn’t touch you here. After…” His hand flexed.

  “No,” she said, quickly, before he could draw back. “It’s fine. It – it feels nice.”

  His eyes widened.

  “I’m not afraid of you. Of you touching me.”

  His next breath shuddered. “Not even here?”

  “No. Not anywhere.”

  His gaze flicked up, touched her eyes, her mouth, searching, then slid back to where he cupped her throat. His thumb stroked up and down, up and down. “It’s not just bruises. It looks like he burned you.” His tone hardened at the end; a muscle in his cheek twitched.

  “It doesn’t hurt.”

  “It doesn’t?”

  “Only a normal amount.”

  He snorted. His thumb trailed up, hand shifting with it, until the pad of his thumb rested against her chin; until she felt his fingertips flirting against her nape, stroking at the baby-soft hairs that had fallen out of her braid there.

  Amusement blossomed on his face, and then bled into sadness, more of that desperation she kept seeing him direct toward her. “I meant it,” he said softly. “About not trying to get yourself killed.” It wasn’t an order this time, but a plea. “Stop throwing yourself into bad situations like that. Please.”

  She didn’t answer. She couldn’t.

  His thumb shifted, skimmed slowly down her jaw. She wasn’t sure he was conscious of doing it; his gaze mapped her face, and he looked enthralled. “You said he was inside your head. That he knew who we were.”

  It was hard to concentrate with his hand on her, his thumb doing that, drawing little thrills across her skin.

  But she managed to say, “He knew about Beck.”

  Again, Lance stilled. He withdrew his hand. His lips pressed together, and she could see the shutters coming down behind his eyes. Beck. She loved Beck, she missed him, was trying to send herself to hell to be with him, and Lance knew that, and he wasn’t going to press, to overreach. Was going to respect her grief, even if he didn’t agree with it, even if he wanted her.

  She was going to blame it on blacking out. On being afraid. On the bruises on her throat, and the new, terrifying knowledge that some conduits were apparently psychic. She would blame it on some or all of that if he asked her why she did it.

  She pitched forward, gripped his face in both her hands, and kissed him.

  Fitting, she guessed, since she’d had to make the first move with Beck, too.

  Thought of him didn’t have her rocking back and reeling, not like she’d expected. She closed her eyes, and opened her lips against Lance’s; let him feel the hot, soft flick of her tongue.

  He stilled a moment, breath held.

  And then, blessedly, reacted.

  His first breath was a groan. His mouth opened against hers, hungry and wet and so eager right away. He gripped her waist, and urged her back onto the sofa. In moments he had her stretched out across it and was poised above her, kissing her ravenously, one hand braced on the sofa arm above her head, the other splayed across her ribs, as big, and heavy, and strong as she’d imagined.

  She’d spent so long denying herself so much as a fantasy, steeling herself, steeped in her grief and determination, that she’d forgotten how good it felt to kiss. To sink her fingers into broad shoulders and lift up into a man’s touch.

  No, not just a man. She couldn’t have enjoyed it if she was offering herself up to just a man.

  This was Lance. Lance who wanted her, Lance who’d saved her tonight. Who had looked at her with such longing, and, tonight, such care.

  She raked her blunt nails down the back of his neck, slipped beneath the collar of his shirt to feel the warm, flexing muscles of his back. He was shaking.

  “God,” he breathed between kisses. He skimmed damp lips down her cheek, kissed her jaw, the tender skin in front of her ear. “God, Rose…” He sealed their mouths together again, his tongue plunging deep.

  Her legs had fallen open, somehow, and he settled heavy between them. When his hips kicked, an involuntary thrust, she felt the bulge hardening behind his fly.

  Rose dug her nails into his skin and hooked her leg around his hip, lifting into that first thrust, inviting another. Heat bloomed beneath her skin, between her legs; she could feel herself growing wet, was gasping against his mouth, breathless between deep, drugging kisses. God, he was a good kisser; she was drowning in it.

  His hand shifted up, and covered her breast – and then he stilled, and his head lifted.

  “No,” she protested, hand sliding to his neck, trying to pull him back down to her.

  His face hovered above hers, his eyes closed, his lips swollen and shining. His lashes were very long, she noticed for the first time. She’d told him he looked like he beat people up for a living, but he really was beautiful, a carved Apollo come down off his marble pedestal.

  She touched his face, felt the tension in his jaw. “Lance.”

  A hard shudder moved through him at the sound of his name. His eyes opened, arousal and pain warring in their depths. “You don’t want me.”

  “I do.”

  “Right now, maybe. But you’ll regret it, after.”

  “No, I won’t.” She felt her brows drawing together, knew she was frowning, and saw a fleeting smile touch his mouth.

  “I’m not him, Rose. I know you want him.”

  “If you’re saying you think I’m pretending right now, you�
��re wrong.” She traced the hard line of his cheekbone with her thumb. “There’s no mistaking you for him, not in any way.”

  He blinked at her.

  “I love Beck more than anything” – she swallowed the lump that formed in her throat and pressed on – “but that doesn’t mean I don’t want you, or that I wish you were him. Give me the credit that I can make my own choices.”

  He sat back on his heels, though, shaking his head. “I want you to be sure.”

  “I am,” she insisted.

  Someone knocked on the door.

  They regarded one another a long moment. There was no going back from this, she knew, and she didn’t want them to anyway. She’d been celibate for a long time, but now that she’d had a taste, she wanted more. And he was wrong: she did want him. Not sex in general. God knew Gavin would have a go at anyone offering; there were places she could go, particular houses where the right password and some cash would buy you a whole night with whatever you fancied.

  But she wanted Lance.

  “I want you to be sure,” he repeated, adjusted his pants, and got to his feet.

  Rose sighed and sat up.

  The door opened, and Gallo poked his head in. “We got word from the helo. ETA’s five minutes.”

  ~*~

  Leaving felt wrong, with the town in an uproar, and Mayor Bixby most likely in danger. But handling the fallout wasn’t the sort of thing Rift Walkers were deployed to handle. Resource officers and foot soldiers would be sent in, Lance assured her – and all of them. As their helo lifted off, she saw the headlights of troop transport vehicles below, heading into town, and she felt a little less shitty about killing a whole town’s god and then abandoning them all.

  She didn’t regret the killing itself, though.

  Raphael. She turned the name over in her mind while she showered back at base. An archangel, she knew, like Gabriel. Though he’d gone about gaining power in a more subtle way.

  She pictured herself in Beck’s library, the lovely-smelled stacks of old, paper books heaped around her. Remembered turning pages, and studying reprints of oil paintings. Raphael – the angel of healing. As John the conduit, he had healed. He’d also brainwashed, and ruled.