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  He shook his head, “We can’t spare any.”

  “Then I’m not sure how well this will go,” I said, clenching the paper in my fingers.

  Vincent snorted and slapped his hand on the table. “Figure it out Mara or I will see you shot, but not before I eviscerate your husband and feed his liver to the crows.”

  Nausea rolled through me, not just because of his words, but because the food that I’d been without for too long wasn’t settling well. “I’m going to puke,” I said. Vincent gave me a look of disgust, his lip curling and his eyes half closed.

  I lunged for the waste basket and caught the edge of it as the chicken noodle soup was brought back up, most of the noodles still intact. I heaved till my stomach was empty and then some.

  “Get her out of here,” Vincent snapped. Hands circled around my waist lifting me to my feet. “Stomach, don’t squeeze it,” I said, as another dry heave wracked my body.

  A glance up showed me it was Marks escorting me. That was a surprise; I’d assumed Burns was assigned to me.

  We made our way through the bunker to a hallway lined with rooms. The third door on the right opened up into a compact, tidy room with a real bed, small desk and chair, and even a tiny closet.

  “Here, this is where you’ll stay. I’ll come get you in a few hours for your first session training the Nevermores,” Marks said. I laid down on the bed, groaning with relief, my head spinning. “Can I have some water?”

  “Sure.” The door closed behind me and I closed my eyes, putting a hand to my belly. I wasn’t cramping so I was pretty sure it wasn’t a miscarriage, but the baby was not happy with the soup. Just the thought of the noodles made me gag again.

  The door opened and Marks set a large plastic tumbler of water down on my side table. “Here, you can have as much water as you want but everything else is on rations.”

  “Just bread or crackers, I think, for now,” I said and then took a sip of water. It washed away the puke taste a little and I lay back down on the bed.

  Marks said nothing more, leaving me to my nausea. The door closed and I wondered if I’d be able to fall asleep. It didn’t take long for me to find out.

  I dreamt of the beach again. But this time it was Marks with me, holding my hand, staring into my face, his eyes soft, a smile at the corner of his lips.

  “Stay with me Mara,” he whispered into my ear, as he wrapped his arms around my waist.

  “I can’t,” I said, pulling away from him. “I love Sebastian.”

  “He’s a monster, he can’t love you.”

  I shook my head, my hair falling around my face, hiding the scene from me. “No, he does love me, you don’t know him!”

  Hands touched me and I flinched and found myself looking up into Sebastian’s face.

  “Baby,” he said, his lips in my hair, his words muffled, “I don’t know how much longer I can hang on.”

  “Stay with me Bastian,” I begged. “Don’t go.”

  “He’s right, I’m afraid to hurt you,” Bastian said, letting go of me, pushing me towards Marks.

  “No! Please, stop!” I yelled. I fought, but Marks held me tight as again I watched Sebastian disappear from view. “I promise you, I will never stop loving him.”

  He let me go and I tumbled to the hard-packed sand.

  I woke with a start, the blanket tangled around me, soaked through from my sweat. Sitting up, I grabbed for the glass and gulped back the water, easing the dry ache in my throat. “I promise,” I whispered into the semi darkness as I clutched the glass. “I promise.”

  9

  Once I’d woken up from the dream I sat thinking over how to train the Nevermores for Vincent. Scout listened to me because he was afraid of Sebastian, but that only worked because they were from the same pack and Scout understood the hierarchy. It was a long shot, but perhaps Sebastian and I working together could do the same with the Nevermores here. It would require me to do something I never thought I would; something that the very idea of gave me shivers of fear and desire equally.

  It surprised me when instead of Marks; Burns came to get me to take me down to the Nevermore’s cells. I did my best to keep the conversation and contact to a minimum; the dream, still more than fresh, had left me feeling jittery.

  “I have to go in to him if I’m to start the training. The others have to see me as his mate,” I said. Much as I wanted to be with Sebastian, there was the distinct possibility that he could turn on me. It was a chance I had to take if this was going to work and a part of me wanted to be with him, despite the changes in him. Burns and I were standing at the start of the cell block; the only sound was that of shuffling bodies and the occasional whimper.

  “Does that mean what I think it does?” Burns asked me, his eyes wide.

  I flushed. “He’s my husband.”

  “I know, but he’s not human anymore,” Burns said, not making eye contact with me.

  “If you knew anything about love, you’d know that it shouldn’t matter what he looks like,” I said, crossing my arms over my breasts.

  “But he’s a monster.”

  “Not to me.”

  Nothing more was said as we walked the rest of the way to Sebastian’s cell.

  Burns did as I asked, letting me in and locking the door behind me. Then he surprised me further by handing me the key. At my look he laughed, “Well, it’s not like he’s got the motor skills to handle the key and get the door open himself.”

  I smiled. “Thank you. I’m going to need some time alone with him. I don’t know how long this will take.” I didn’t care what Burns thought of me, what any of them thought of me. I loved my husband, loved him deeply with a passion that superseded any condition he might have. Monster or human, he was the man I wanted in my life.

  Burns let out a sigh, nodded, and walked back to the end of the cell block. I heard the door open then shut and click as the lock was turned. For the first time, Sebastian and I were truly alone.

  “Bastian,” I whispered, stepping into the darkened back of the cell. Hands reached out of the shadows and pulled me into the gray gloom. Sebastian sat on the edge of a cot and placed me easily on his lap. I wrapped my arms around him, breathing in the scent that was still him, just wilder, raw and untamed.

  He groaned as he pressed his mouth to the hollow of my throat, licking at my skin, pulling at it lightly with his teeth. A shiver of desire rippled through me. I slid my hands up his arms, then up his neck to cup his face and bring his lips to mine. I might try to convince myself that this was so I could train the pack, so that they would see me completely as Sebastian’s mate, but in reality, this was for me. I needed to feel connected to him in every way, to remember our love as it had been.

  Carefully, I pressed my mouth to his. The memory of the bittersweet taste of tears that our last kiss had given me haunted my heart and I wanted to erase it. A rumble started deep in his belly that vibrated through my body, setting me to squirming in his lap. He grabbed my hips and held me still as he pulled me tight against his arousal, pressing himself against me. It was my turn to groan, but he swallowed the noise down as he kissed me hard, his mouth demanding a surrender that I gave freely.

  I struggled out of my shirt and Sebastian slid his hands up my torso to cup my swollen breasts, bending his head to capture a nipple in his mouth, suckling and teasing at it till I cried out. My hands tangled in his hair and I guided him to the other nipple, relishing in the passion behind each touch, each brush of skin against skin. My breasts began to tingle, my allergies reacting to the drug in his saliva, but it only heightened the sensations, leaving me writhing and on the brink of release.

  Sebastian growled softly, wrapped one arm around me and stood, holding me easily in the air. A whisper of cloth and he leaned me up against the wall, his palm pushing into the juncture of my thighs, no longer able to tease me as he once could. I arched as he brushed across my sweet spot, back and forth, over and over again, the rough edges of his hand quickly bringing me to a clima
x. As my breathing increased he slid into me, rock hard and throbbing with desire. A single thrust and he was fully inside of me. I let out a moan that he captured with his mouth, our tongues tangling, breath coming in gasps.

  Together we found a rhythm, our bodies remembering each other with ease, rocking hard against the desire that ripped through us. We climbed to the peak, our breath losing sync as our cravings took over, bodies losing any control we might have had until at the final moment we crested together, the climax like nothing I’d ever before experienced. This was different than our love making in the past, more urgent and wild, but it was still him, still my love.

  Panting hard, Sebastian held me close and moved us to the cot where he’d been sitting when I’d come in. I didn’t want to let go of him, not yet. I wanted this closeness, to feel him in me, his body still throbbing with pent up yearnings. As he sat down I started to move, shifting my hips in a seductive dance, as I brushed my breasts against his chest, letting my nipples tickle along his hardened skin.

  He grabbed my waist and helped me find a decadent pace that brought us both near to writhing once more. Sebastian bent his head and pulled a gasp out of me as he suckled my breasts, our hips still dancing. With his touch and tongue, my body constricted, quickly peaking again, the spasms of my muscles bringing him along with me, driving us high and leaving us gasping for air.

  Finally exhausted, I leaned my naked and sweating body against his as his hands roved over my skin, settling on my belly bump, cupping it with divine tenderness. A lump rose in my throat and I knew that no matter what, this love could never be taken from us.

  “I love you Sebastian, I don’t care about the changes in you. Love can make this work. Somehow,” I said. I kissed his lips softly, and then rested my head on his shoulder.

  “Love too,” he whispered into my ear, licking the sweat from my neck and pulling me back under a tidal wave of desire.

  10

  The next day I stood in front of Vincent while he read the list of things I would need to train the Nevermores.

  “You want to set them loose in the rifle range? I don’t see how this is going to train them unless we are shooting at them. Is that going to be your plan of attack?”

  I shook my head and tucked the scarf I’d confiscated around my neck a little tighter to hide Sebastian’s love bites. I knew that Burns knew, there was no way he could have ignored the wobble in my step, the flush in my cheeks or the dilation of my pupils as I stumbled out of the cell block. That didn’t mean I wanted anyone else to know. It wasn’t shame, it was fear. Vincent was already using Sebastian against me. What if he decided if I was willing to sleep with Sebastian, I might make a good playmate for him too? I suppressed a shiver of revulsion. I thought of Fran, a woman who’d been forced into servicing the officers and was killed when she stood up for herself. I couldn’t let Vincent think of me in a sexual way.

  “I need to set up a simulation of what a real pack would exist like. It’s what I think will work the best.”

  Vincent grunted. “I’ll have Marks round up the Nevermores we have and put them all in there.”

  “Except Sebastian, we have to hold him back till the rest of the males have fought it out,” I said.

  “Why? You can’t protect him forever,” he snapped, his eyes narrowed.

  I laughed and shook my head. I’d already known that would be Vincent’s accusation and I was prepared for it. “No, we need Sebastian to win and to give him the best shot we’ll hold him back. He’s big, but even a big man can be taken down by three average-sized men.”

  Vincent leaned over and pushed his intercom button. “Round up the Nevermores and put them in the rifle range. Be sure to catch the one wandering around outside and throw him in there too. Get the big bastard lined up, rope him good, and bring him to the outside of the range. His keeper will meet you there.”

  He stared at me, a wrinkle in between his eyes that drew tighter the longer he stared. I forced myself to hold still and not fidget under his steady gaze. “What?” I asked.

  “You seem to have quite the glow about you. I must assume you truly . . . enjoyed . . . your visit with Sebastian,” he said, his tone more than implying that he knew.

  A hot flush spread up my neck to my cheeks. I took a deep breath and squared my shoulders. “He’s my husband. I love him.”

  “I have no doubt of that Mara,” Vincent said. He let out a sigh. “I can even understand it.”

  I blinked twice and my brain tried to catch up to what was going on here. “You can?”

  Vincent nodded and sat on the edge of the table. “My Juliana, she was forced to take the Nevermore shot. Even as a monster, I would still have her in my life.”

  Confusion rippled through me. This was a side of Vincent I hadn’t expected. “What happened to her?” I asked curiosity and a strange sense of kinship filling me.

  Vincent took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Donavan forced her to take the shot, made her take it and then locked her away in a cage when she became a monster. He’s only doing it to hurt me. It’s why . . .”

  I nodded, understanding. It was why Vincent wanted to take the city from Donavan. For the lost love of a woman. “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “Don’t be.” Vincent snapped his hard exterior back in place after that small glimpse of his humanity. “You have a job to do, so do it. Train the Nevermores. Here,” he handed me a pad of paper and a pen.

  “I have rounds to do. I want a detailed list of how long it will take, how you see this training progressing, as well as any information you can give me on the Nevermores. Observations, abilities, weaknesses.”

  I sat down as Vincent strode out of the room and quickly scribbled down a few things. But as soon as the door clicked shut, I stood and started to pace. I needed to move, to try and get my thoughts in order. I found myself in front of the single bookshelf in the room. My fingers trailed along the spine of the books. Would they give me insight to the dictator who held my life in his hands? Would they help me figure a way out of this mess?

  There was nothing of consequence, just a mixed bag of novels, non-fiction and how-to manuals. My fingers brushed a thin volume that was light pink and I paused, slowly pulling it out from between two heavy books on artillery. It so did not fit in with the rest of the books.

  It was a journal and the name on it was Juliana. Unable to restrain myself, I let the book fall open in my hands and started to read. Chills rippled through me as the words painted a very different picture than the one Vincent was trying to feed me.

  I didn’t hear the door open.

  “What the hell are you doing?” Vincent screamed at me.

  I dropped the journal and spun to face him. There was nothing to say. I was caught red-handed.

  Vincent rushed me and I ran around the large table, keeping distance between us.

  “You bitch, I’ll kill you!” He snarled.

  I did the only thing I could. I lied. “I believe you Vincent. Donavan wasn’t the one she loved, it was you.”

  He stopped at the opposite side of the table from me. “What?”

  I was breathing hard, but I forced the words out. “Juliana was in love with you, that’s what I saw when I read her words. She didn’t want to be with Donavan, but he made her, hurt her.”

  Vincent stood up, squaring his shoulders. “You should never have read her journal.”

  I nodded. “I know. I didn’t realize what it was. But then I saw that you and I are in the same position really.”

  Vincent’s eyes narrowed and I rushed on, spinning the lies as fast as I dared. “You love Juliana, but she was taken away by the Nevermore shot. We should be working together, to find a cure for her and Sebastian.”

  His jaw twitched. “The Nevermores have been rounded up and been put in the rifle range. I suggest you leave now and deal with their training.”

  I backed away from him, my hands finding the doorknob by feel alone.

  I turned and walked as fast as I dare
d in the dim tunnels, getting into dead ends twice before I stumbled into the kitchen, my mind racing with what I’d learned. At the moment though there was nothing I could do about it, I had to focus on keeping myself and Sebastian alive which meant training the Nevermores.

  There was no one in the kitchen and I slipped in thinking about Sebastian and Scout, how hungry they must be. It didn’t matter that they didn’t seem to need the food to survive; I wanted them to have something. It wouldn’t hurt with the whole training program either if I provided some food

  In the second cupboard I found a loaf of stale bread, faint green mold on the edges. It would have to do and besides, I’d seen Scout eat a human body, I doubted he would mind a little bacterial culture. I tucked the loaf under my arm and continued my search for the stairs, finally reaching the top level and the hatch that would let me outside. A soldier nodded to me and opened the door, but sunlight didn’t flood in—rain did. A summer rainstorm filled the morning sky with dark, ominous clouds, a feeling of foreboding hanging over the open door.

  “Where’s the rifle range?” I asked.

  “Follow the fence line North, you can’t miss it.”

  Movement back by my original barracks alerted me to Scout. I ran towards him and he scrambled backwards, falling over himself to keep some distance between us. I pulled a slice of bread out and held it towards him.

  “You can have more, but only if you’re good,” I said, trying to keep my face and voice stern.

  He stared at me; eyes squinting as if he was considering the offer, more likely he was trying to figure out how to get the whole loaf and maybe my hand along with it. He lifted his head and sniffed in my direction then froze, a shudder rippling through his body. I smiled to myself. I hadn’t showered after I’d made love to Sebastian, I wanted his scent on me and it was working. Scout knew I was Sebastian’s mate in every way and that meant I held rank over the lowly Nevermore.

  “Be good,” I said, and flipped the slice to him. He caught it and swallowed it in two bites. “Come on, we’ve got to go.” I snapped my fingers like I would have for my Nero. Scout, trembling, scuttled to my side. He lowered his head, his spine curved in, completely submissive, not a single trace of predatory hunger. This was a good sign; my plan just might work after all.