Page 29

Alexiares

P ressure built behind my eye with such intensity it might’ve cracked my skull the fuck open. I kept my body still, eyes closed as I lay in wait. The dull, hum of an engine and the subtle sway of the ground beneath me told me I was in a moving vehicle. I was about done with the whole innovative Tinkerer gene shit. Life was better a year ago, when I barely saw a car let alone found myself hogtied in the back of one. This was becoming a pattern I wasn’t thrilled to repeat.

I needed to get my bearings, figure out where Amaia was. She was my priority. Then the others. My heart pounded against my will—too fast, too loud. I focused on the sounds around me: the shuffling of bodies with each pothole, the steady rhythmic breaths filling the hot, stuffy air. Five … no, six . Six other people were here. All a bit too close for my comfort.

“You can stop pretending to be asleep now.” The words succeeded by a sharp, deliberate stomp to my stomach.

I fell flat, eyes widening as I gasped for air. White stars filtered my vision. Amaia’s beaten, roughed up face fought to center me. Her eyes strained by the tugging of her curls the man clamped on to in order to keep her upright. He held a knife to her throat, a threat that dangled before me at every rough patch in the road. She remained stoic, her eyes darting over to the side. Reina sat next to her. Deep bruising stained under her eyes, blood clumped around Reina’s nose, her cheeks flushed and wet with tears and spit from the cloth stuffed into her mouth. She was still and stiff though she was alert and searching in her gaze.

Abel had received the worst of it. He was slumped over, still unconscious.

“Hell of a bounty out on your heads, and lucky, lucky sonofabitch that I am, I found ya,” the man said, his free hand forming a pointed finger back at himself. The tease of his tongue shined against the sunlight pouring in from the window at the back of what I now knew to be a van. I couldn’t wait to cut it off.

Amaia’s glare was sharp enough to cut steel. We were both tied up, but her message was crystal clear: keep him distracted.

I leaned back as much as the ropes allowed and forced a laugh. “Let me guess,” I said, the words dripping with disdain. “Ronan.”

The guy’s brow twitched, face contorted in strained anger. “Malachai. He really wants you dead.”

Figured. Malachai had gone behind Ronan’s back. I studied the guy, some low-level bounty hunter eager for an easy payday. He wasn’t important—what mattered was that Malachai had put a price on our heads without Ronan knowing. That meant one of two things: either Ronan was losing control, or Malachai had decided we weren’t Ronan’s problem anymore. Both were bad. We weren’t just looking over our shoulders for Ronan anymore. Malachai wanted us gone, and he wasn’t waiting for permission.

That was going to be a problem.

“Tell us something we don’t fucking know,” Amaia growled. Her eyes dropped to my wrists then over to the flammable items in the back. Two guards laughed in front of them, their guns strapped around their shoulders and dropped into their laps at the ready.

“Oh that,” The man tsked twice in Amaia’s ear, the sound too smug for my personal taste. “A little safety measure since we don’t have a way to limit your magic.”

“I’m going to kill you.” The words uttered from my mouth but I found myself completely detached. All I could focus on was picturing slicing him up, piece by piece, limb by limb. Watching as he screamed in agony. Spitting in his face with each cry for mercy. The vision I imagined sent a ripple of cold satisfaction through me. His screams? Music.

That was the only thing to get me through having to watch him snatch Amaia’s head back with such force I swore it would snap. “Maybe one day, but not today,” he teased, the spit flying from his mouth and landing on her ear. “Today, my group earns passage back into Transient Nation. Free rein.”

Of all times, my girl, my princess, decided to poke the bear. “Oh please, if Ronan isn’t aware, don’t think for a second he’ll respect it. What deal do you think we made?”

“As far as I’m concerned, I don’t care. You lot were the big price, the others are assurance he won’t need any of us once we turn you over.”

Amaia and I exchanged a glance, both of us frozen on the same question: What others?

“Not too bright, are we?” she taunted as her ropes fell to the ground with simmered edges. Amaia didn’t move. She never moved too soon.

She was waiting for the right moment—waiting for me.

If my restraints hit the metal bottom of this van, he would see them. I caught the look in her eyes. I needed a distraction and that would cost her. Painfully. I couldn’t refuse her. Not without giving away our plan. So I took myself back to my happy place, the one filled with his pain. We had to get out. I had no other choice.

“Slick mouth for a dead girl,” he sneered.

“Dead girl has a name.”

“Dead girls don’t talk.”

“Sure, but this one bites.” Amaia’s words were low, savage. Her teeth sank into his leg and he howled. The distraction was enough. She slammed his head into the side of the van with a brutal crunch, the motion swift. Powerful.

I was already in motion. The ropes tight around my wrists simmered with a familiar, blissful heat. They burned away into ash. A stream of my water magic disarmed the guard without gracing him a moment to catch up to what was happening. The second guard panicked. Untrained for the situation unleashing around him. His hand wavered toward his gun, primed to raise it and pull the trigger.

My fist collided with his throat, collapsing his trachea. His last breath didn’t reach the air before I tossed him on the floor. I glanced back with a smile. Amaia straddled the man who had initiated this all. He leaned against the wall as she withheld any oxygen from him with a sinister grin. In one swift movement, she pulled her confiscated knives from his holster and jammed them into his temples.

With a sigh of relief, she pulled them free, wiping them against the side of her pants. “I’m getting extremely fucking tired of the misogynistic bullshit running rampant these days. Haven’t they ever heard that a woman is king?”

She handed them toward me without turning back. Her focus was on something else. Something she’d never expect to have taken. Jax’s twin swords. Amaia placed them back into the back harness as the van came to an abrupt stop. Quick on my feet, I holstered the pistols taken from us at the house. I tucked the last one into my waistband and brown, doe eyes met mine, smile lines crinkling the sides of them.

“Ready?” she asked as she moved toward the doors.

“After you, Princess.”

She kicked open the doors. They slammed to the sides, taking down two assailants from the front. Amaia unlatched both swords and twirled them in her palms. We were in the middle of nowhere. An open field with no witnesses other than the company en route speeding toward us. I spun around, dropping both knives into the stomach of presumably the driver and pounced. Pulling them free, I drove them back down, over, and over again. His puncture wounds oozed with the metallic scent of blood as it painted my face.

Unfortunately, we were not alone. Four vans had been keeping our tail, all stocked with armed, stupid in the fucking head guards. I watched on as the women in the bunch narrowed in on Amaia, wrongfully taking her as the weaker target. She smirked in acceptance of the challenge and we fell into step. The assailants charged forward, lacking the understanding that we were clearly outnumbered yet unfazed.

They lacked common sense, and I took joy in the offering of a good fight. I pulled free two of my guns. Firing through two of the targets, their bodies fell in tandem. We stepped over them like neglected cobblestone roads and they groaned under our weight. Amaia tossed free some of her fire. The putrid smell of human barbecue clustered at the base of my nostrils. They circled us and we fell back to back. Assaulting us was a group effort—one they still managed to fail.

Though Amaia had lost one of her swords in the fight, she still swung one proudly before her face in dare. She yelled with the heart of a dragon and worked her way through their bodies. I followed suit, dropping the guns when I ran out of ammo. The soft push and pull of stabbing had always felt more therapeutic of a death to bring. I ducked as a metal chain laced baseball bat swished through the air above my head. I grabbed onto it and brought it down. His head splintered, the burst reminiscent to a dropped melon but I kept moving.

I grounded myself and scoped out our current situation. Amaia did the same, reaching her hand out briefly to clasp within mine. Ten down, two to go.

“On your left, Bloodhound ,” she said with the nod of her head.

I smirked, eyes falling to the approaching hulk of a man heading right for her. “On your left, Princess.”

My knees were kicked out from under me but I was quick to hop back to the balls of my feet. A wiry yet oddly strong hand gripped at the knives in my hands and pulled them free. It turned into an all-out brawl as he flipped one around and dove for my gut. I tossed out an arm, stopping him with the hard contact of forearm on wrist. Reaching for the side of his neck, I brought him closer, offering a false sense of an opening.

He took it, leaning forward with the momentum I needed to drive a strong push down and flip him to his back. With one stomp to the base of his palm, the knife fell. I picked it up and stabbed it into the side of his neck with a sickly melodic sound of metal entering flesh.

The scent of flames came close behind me but made no move to strike. “You look great,” Amaia said and I pulled my gaze up her body.

Red splattered like freckles across her nose and forehead. Her shirt was torn on the side and there were several slash marks on the brown skin of her torso. The rise and fall of her chest was ragged. Tired. But otherwise, she was in mint condition considering the shit we’d just gone through. There was resolve in her posture.

“As do you,” I said, tapping her ass with a hard slap as I guided her back toward the van we’d arrived in. She leaned down, swiping up the sword she’d lost.

“Freaking finally,” Reina complained the moment Amaia removed her gag. “I coulda helped more than inspire fear you know, not totally useless.”

“Pretty sure they were scared because he damn near painted his face in blood,” Abel groaned, barely coming to. He was bleeding from the back of his scalp but it had slowed to but a dribble at the first contact of Reina’s touch. “Actually, he’s scaring me. Please back up.”

“My bad,” Amaia shrugged. “Thought you could get going on Abel during the wait.”

She scooted out the bed of the van and offered Reina a hand. I dragged Abel to the edge then hopped down. Amaia stood next to me, hands on her hips, eyes squinting as she considered our choice of vehicles to make the drive back. “See what we can take and put it in one car. I’m ready to get the fuck home.”

Reina offered a polite smile and brushed herself off. With quick reassurance she helped Abel lean against the side of the van before making her way toward the one on the far left. The van I tackled was empty minus the storage of gas stockpiled in the back. At first, I assumed we were riding solar, but with all this gas and ignoring the stench of death, I realized it was a regular engine.

None of it was anything that could be of use for us. We’d drive a vehicle back but all it did was cut the two hours we had left down to thirty minutes. Monterey had chosen not to clear the roads long ago. Now it was a tactical advantage Amaia had no intention of changing anytime soon. I walked back to the center, coming shoulder to shoulder with my girl, who appeared faintly annoyed at finding nothing useful. We got to work on the bodies, collecting their weapons, ammo, and anything else that could take or spare a life.

“It’s like a video game,” I teased, my heart skipping at Amaia’s genuine burst of laughter. I joined in, covering my mouth at the faint snort I’d never heard myself make before. There was a joy only she could bring out of me and I hoped to revel in it for the rest of my life.

Amaia dropped to her knees, clutching her stomach as she mimicked the sounds of a war game. “Ding. Ding.”

A gunshot rang out. “Uh, guys? There are people back here,” Reina called, her gun trained on a group as a guard slumped to the ground behind her.

Within two seconds I’d realized Abel was no longer at our backs and the sound of gunfire had come from the van Reina had gone to investigate. We rushed over, peering into the back of the van. Ten bodies were crammed inside. I didn’t know what the fuck I was looking at or where they’d come from. I couldn’t have guessed from their attire alone.

Their expressions ranged from utterly terrified to menacing and likely to try me at first opportunity. Abel stood over another guard with his jaw blown off. I strode off, offering some support and removing his leaning body off the door of the van for stabilization.

Amaia side-eyed me in question. The floor was hers. It wasn’t my job to influence her decisions. She was general. I was a soldier under her command. I’d played this role for years, but it was only now that I felt comfortable enough to offer full control with the trust that she would do the right thing. She always did in the end. Even if that meant walking the thin line of being the bad guy to do so.

“No,” Reina spoke, either sensing Amaia’s emotions through her magic or reading the remorse clearly etched on her face.

Abel straightened, “No, what? What’s going on?”

“She wants to leave them.”

“Not only would that be extremely reckless of me—they’re witnesses,” Amaia said, referring to all that they might have heard, addressing Reina and Reina only. At the end of the day, Abel was a soldier too. Reina’s objection had no merit on whether he would follow through with orders or not.

“Witnesses to what? Look at them,” Reina raised a finger, pointing to the objectively most innocent looking one. “They’re terrified. I can feel it.”

“Which means you can also feel their anger and disgust,” Amaia closed the doors to the van though I took Reina’s gun and stood guard with Abel half-here and half wherever the hell the pain was taking him to dissociate.

“Our gates are closed,” she continued, removing the ammo and weapons off the extra two fallen bodies. A loose curl snagged on the rifle she hitched over her shoulder and she pulled it free with the tilt of her neck. “Closed, as in, I already have to excuse a hundred new faces somehow?—”

“What’s another ten?” Reina challenged.

Amaia’s jaw ticked, “Another ten I don’t have time to prove the merit and goodwill of. Get your stuff, Reina, we’re leaving.”

Reina reached back for her gun and I popped it in her hand. She slipped it into her waistband with a dramatic huff. Her feet dragged as she followed Amaia who was already back at the driver door of ‘our’ van.

“At least they get to keep their lives,” Abel said. It was an attempt to show her the light of the situation but it had the exact opposite effect.

Reina swiveled in place, causing Abel to flinch back in surprise. “Will they though? We can take them back, help them.”

“In a few days the gates will be closed for good. Resident of Elko or Sacramento. A random person from within the territory. Doesn’t matter, they won’t make it in. We have higher priorities than figuring out who these people are and whether they’re lying to our fucking faces.”

“What reason would they have to lie to us?” Reina popped the question back to me. “We didn’t even give them the chance to explain themselves.”

Amaia sighed, unmoving from her stance at the van. Her fingers danced on her thighs as she nibbled on her bottom lip. “I cannot account for more mouths to feed than we already have. Things are just now getting back under control, and for the moment, the new additions to Monterey Compound have been peaceful. I’m unsure how many stragglers are out there and I’ll have to turn away some soon enough to make the space your brother will be filling. I’m sorry, Reina, but no. They can keep all that’s here or we can kill them now to save them the pain of whatever life is left out there. But we have to go. Get your stuff and get in the car.”

“Kill? Have you lost your marbles?” Reina screeched at the same time Abel hollered.

“What the hell. I’m not killing anyone without cause.”

“Without cause?” Amaia said, striding back over to the van. “Those two,” she pointed, “The mean motherfuckers in the back, stripped off their vests, which is the same shit our guards have on. They tried to tuck it behind them like we’re fucking blind. The innocent looking one with the half-baked teenager in front of her like a shield? See the marking on the back of their necks. Covert.”

I yanked the teenage boy away from his mother and pressed him flat against the truck bed. A lion was branded on his skin, beneath a small “O.” Outskirts? Was this a clue at the infamous zone Jessa and our tortured little soldier feared? Amaia wasn’t done. She’d already assessed the occupants of this van with zero interest in excuses or explanations. They could be victims. Like us. Or, it could all be a ruse.

Given what we knew about Hunter’s connection, Ronan’s knowledge of our movements, and the bounty on our heads, anyone we encountered was guilty by default. Survival demanded it. Sparing the wrong person now could cost us later.

I couldn’t ignore the irony—our alliance with the rebellion existed only because Amaia had once spared one of theirs.

Abel found his strength and placed himself between Amaia and the van. “Look at me, Amaia!” She took him in with only a flicker of acknowledgment. “We still help people, no matter the potential cost. You understand? That is who we are on a fundamental level. I didn’t sign up to lose that.”

“No,” Amaia said. “You signed up for your freedom from familial ties and to follow orders that fall into the law of our home: Compound first.”

Her throat bobbed as she studied the other faces among those she’d already labeled. “If I’m too hopeful, too optimistic, we die. If I’m too negative, too skeptical, we die. If I don’t overestimate our opponent—We. Are. Dead. If you can’t tell, Ronan is both capable and willing to do whatever till whatever end. So we have to be too. You all wanted me to make decisions, take charge, look! I’m fucking doing it! And now that I am, it’s a problem. Everyone wants a leader, someone to make decisions and work through the bullshit, but when I do, no one likes the answer.”

Her frustration crackled in the air between us, her expression drawn tight. I’d seen it one too many times when it came to Amaia. She wasn’t just mad—she was tired. Tired of having to be the one to weigh every risk, to make choices she could never take back.

Pretty, brown eyes filled with strength commanded my attention. I granted her the look we’d shared now more than a handful of times; the one that said I was ready to do whatever the hell she wanted. Her request was my command. Reina pushed her power into the world, demanding the situation unfold the way she desired. She could not change Amaia’s mind, not with words, not with pushing for control by manipulation of emotions—but she could tug on that sisterly connection she shared with Amaia. She could let her know exactly how walking away or killing them would make her feel.

Amaia let out a short, humorless laugh, shaking her head before tipping her face toward the blindingly bright, cloudless sky. “Goddamn it,” she muttered, dragging a hand down her face. “Fine. Whatever. They come in after dark. You and Abel go out to get them. Handle the intake and have their files on my desk at first light— fully detailed . I want to know the damn name of the doctor that signed their birth certificates. The Covert two stay behind. Kill the two dipshits in the back or Alexiares will.”

“Your way’s guaranteed to be more humane than mine.” I warned Reina, who muttered something under her breath that sounded similar to a reluctant victory.

“I got it,” Abel said, firing two quick shots without hesitation and ignoring the yelp of the others. “Covert out, or I … well, out now before he decides what to do with you. Everyone else decides whose driving. We’ll see you tonight. Monterey Compound, South Gate.”

I stepped away, leaving Reina and Abel to take care of the rest. My gaze lingered as the Covert woman and her son rushed out of the van and made a beeline for the main road. Wherever the hell we were, they had a long way back type of shelter or food.

Wiping the blood from my hands onto my cargo pants, I gripped the door and inhaled deep. The metallic tang still clung to the air. My boots crunched against the ground as I leaned against the frame and peered in.

Amaia sat there, her shoulders squared, head titled enough to catch the light streaming through the windshield and warming her sienna skin. Even now, smeared with grit and guts, she was something no short of divine—untouchable and all-consuming. Persephone, draped in shadows she hadn’t asked for but wore better than anyone else.

I climbed in and shut the door behind me. She caught me still staring, her dark eyes narrowed and made my pulse spike. “What?” Amaia asked.

Sinking into my seat, the smirk I could no longer fight took over. “Just admiring how dangerously beautiful you are in General mode .”

“If I recall correctly, you used to hate that.”

“Yeah,” I said, letting the silence between us stretch. I watched as Reina and Abel made their way back in the side-mirrors. The car shook as they climbed in and closed the door, slapping the divider in indication they were ready to go. “I was a dumbass. I thought we already established that.”

I was stuck, lost in her gaze. It softened, melted in a way she would never admit, before she scoffed and turned away. I reached for her, my fingers cupping underneath her chin as I pulled her close. Her lips met mine. Gentle. Sure. Sweet. She leaned her forehead against me, her eyelashes tickling my cheek. The storm inside me quieted. The monster that tore its way free to guarantee her safety finally fell to a hush.

She pulled back and smacked the side of my head. “You’re still a dumbass.”

“Yeah,” I murmured, a wicked edge to my tone. “But I’m yours.”

The engine roared to life and dread filled her features once more. I rested my hand against her thigh and gave it a reassuring squeeze. She wasn’t making this decision alone. As long as she was with me, I’d have her back into whatever came next, consequences be damned.