“Please,” he whispered. “I’ve learned my lesson.”
She smiled at that. “Have you?”
“I swear. I think I’d rather have the lash than another minute of this.”
His hands came to her hips, hard and desperate, and she let him pull her up, but she was cautious, making sure she didn’t put any weight on his chest. She sank down on him in an easy motion.
“I’ll do all the work. I don’t want you to hurt your ribs.”
Frustration flashed bright as blue flame in his eyes, but he stayed still. Dred knew what she was asking of him—complete faith that she’d bring him to pleasure. That didn’t come easy for a man like him. But she rode him and watched his face, and he let her see what he needed, shifts in pressure and pace, until they were gasping. She could’ve cheated and broadcast her desire so that he was swept into it. Instead, she took him there by centimeters, and when he arched, it was a tsunami of an orgasm. She fell just after, relaxing control only once she was sure of his. Then she rolled to the side, mindful of his ribs.
“Think you can leash me with sex, love?” His hand was gentle on her back.
“No,” she said gently. “Because you don’t need a leash. You need to trust me.”
He drew her into his arms, whispering, “Mary help me, I’d walk into a fire for you.”
10
The Sword They Die On
The sun beating down dried the mud on his skin into an itchy scale, but the boss man didn’t slow the march. Ten men died in the last engagement, but leadership didn’t care about things like loss of life. Every man who died in the killing fields increased the cut for survivors, so that meant nobody was too interested in guarding his brother’s back. Jael hadn’t known most of their names anyway, just taken the job to put paste in his gut and keep one step ahead of the Science Corp.
They passed from plain to forest, and the air thickened with the scent of damp, growing things. Thick canopy overhead, sharp needle green, interlaced with fronds, giving the others’ skin a peculiar, sickly glow; glint of yellow in the foliage, slither-crawl of webbed feet slipping out of his line of sight. The marsh was alive with noises, most natural, chirps and croaks, crackles of snake grass and the sploosh of something sliding into the water outside his line of sight.
Told him this plan would never work. But I’m not known for brainpower.
“Jael, you’ve got the vanguard. Soften them up for us.”
Since that was no different than most orders he’d received, he only nodded. He broke from the rest of the team, relieved to be away from their stink, now a permanent ache in the back of his throat. He could taste the tang of their sweat, the mildew growing in their boots. Most of them hadn’t bathed in weeks, unless you counted sluicing down with standing water, after first scooping away the algae on top. It made it harder for native wildlife to track them, but Jael never adjusted to the smell. Fragging enhanced senses.
He ran silently through the tangle of jungle vine, ducking where necessary, leaping the pools of stagnant water that rippled lazily with things hidden beneath the brown surface. A scanning gaze showed him minutiae that other people wouldn’t notice: a cocoon on the underside of a leaf, the bulge of eggs laid in the dense clay at water’s edge, and the twinkle of a silver charm. Cold washed over him, and he didn’t want to kneel to pick it up. But he didn’t control his muscles anymore and he stooped to retrieve the small jewel, a sparkling blue stone banded in silver and dangling from a broken chain.
He spun, pulled by the echo of laughter. It rang on and on like a bell even as his heart raced. Jael sped up and broke from the undergrowth into the burning heat of the noonday sun. This was supposed to be a stealth mission—what the hell’s a kid doing out here? A cluster of houses had sprung up, nearly in the battle zone, prefab units that said they belonged to hopeful settlers who didn’t think the reported conflict was serious. Or maybe they didn’t have the money to go farther. Then he saw her, a little girl with brown curls. She had on a yellow dress, and the sky was blue and cloudless overhead, just the burning orange sun blazing down.
“You found it!” She sounded so happy.
“Get out,” he called.
But she didn’t seem to hear him, and he glimpsed the shine of light off the barrels of enemy guns. Jael sprinted toward her, knowing he would be too slow—
He came awake with a smothered cry. Dred stirred behind him and roused with a sleepy frown. “Problem?”
Jael metered his breathing, eyes shut against the memory. “An old one. Don’t know why it’s bobbing to the surface now.”
“You want to tell me about it?”
His voice came out in a rasp. “The last job I did before retiring as a merc, there was this little girl in middle of the hot zone. I was supposed to clear a path for my unit, and there she was. Both sides unleashed on us, and I ran. Landed on her. I took the hit, hurt like hell.”
“Did you save her?” Dred asked softly.
“That’s the shit of it, love. I didn’t. When I rolled over, I had a big-ass hole in my back and blood all over her. The blast went all the way through. She died anyway. I got into salvage work after that.”
She didn’t say anything. Maybe she could tell he felt like a big exposed nerve, and no words would do. She has that bloody Psi whatever-it-is. First time I’ve ever been glad somebody could rummage in my feelings. Instead, she lay beside him in silence until he felt like he could stand being touched, then he wrapped his arms around her and didn’t let go.
FIVE days after the failed recon mission, Tam could limp about with relative facility. Things had been fairly quiet since Mungo’s mongrels died outside their border, and the mercs hadn’t made any moves on Queensland. Frankly, the silence worried him. He was the one who gathered intel, so at the moment, they were operating blind. Tam tried to tell himself that Vost’s men were engaged elsewhere, and they’d turn their attentions on Queensland soon enough.
To distract himself from futile foreboding, he circulated, listening to the populace. He overhead scraps of conversation: gossip, bets regarding which zone went out first and how long it would take for the mercs to wipe out Mungo’s mutts, idle chatter and the usual shit talk among men with too much time on their hands. But there was little aggression, much less than when Artan ran the territory. Most convicts had settled down and were no longer whispering about the benefits of Vost’s offer. It seemed as if the majority of Queenslanders knew a baited trap when they saw one, and they were capable of convincing their comrades, with a clenched first if necessary.
He was less sanguine about the recruits they’d acquired from Grigor. While they had desperately needed the numbers—and that was the only reason he hadn’t protested Dred’s clemency with them—he suspected they wouldn’t quietly yield the unchecked violence they’d enjoyed under Grigor’s rule. They didn’t in Queensland, either. So far, the fresh meat had offered complete obedience, and he hadn’t caught any of them with contraband weapons, but he didn’t have the time to police them exhaustively. Sooner or later, that situation would explode, but the mercs made it impossible to turn his gaze inward; instead, all of his skill had to go toward ensuring their survival.