Page 74 of The Last True Hero

Jake tossed the empty money pouch on the table. "Two down," he said.

Mia picked up one of the thin pillows. "Four to go."

Jake nodded, looking harried. "And we're out of coin."

* * *

Sweat drippeddown Adam's spine as he and Jake worked the town. Ostensibly they were interested in the coin to be had, and the beers to be drunk. They idled in one little shit-hole tavern that was little more than a tin shack, listening to reivers boast about fighting, coin, and women for over an hour, before moving on. Buying a couple of small items like bread and cheese in the markets. Working out the layout of the town, even as they tried not to arouse suspicion.

"Town works as a funnel," Jake noted, as they headed back through the slave markets so Adam got a look. "The canyon at the back protects it, and everything leads back to the main gates."

"One way in," he confirmed, "one way out."

"That's not a good sign."

Agreed. Adam caught a hint of unwashed bodies, and his blood boiled as they passed the slave markets. The reivers kept people in cages in there, Jake had told him.

"Who are we rescuing first?" Jake asked. "Thea and Sage, or Tom and Sonya?"

The muscle near his left eye ticked. "All of them," he said quietly.

"What?"

"I'm not leaving a single person in those cages," he replied, striding straight through a pair of reivers. They scattered around him and Jake, spitting over their shoulders at him, but when he shot them a look they fled. He knew he had murder all over his face. Right now, he just wanted to get Mia and her folk as far away from this shit hole as he could. "We take them all."

"Right." Jake chewed it over. "Could work in our favor. More hands to take up a gun."

"Got to get the guns first."

"Well, that guy with no teeth did say there was an armory near Vex's stronghold."

Adam forced his clenched hands to relax. He'd been quietly brewing ever since he hit this place, but the feeling twisting his chest was new. He couldn't quite work it out, but it had something to do with Mia, and he had a horrible suspicion the warg within him was involved.

He wanted to kill. No, he wanted to destroy this entire town. And get her out.Protect her, whispered the warg, which was new.

Adam stopped dead in the middle of the street.

What had that been?

He'd always been at odds with the monster inside him. It seemed for once they were on the same path.Protect Mia.That was the only common ground they shared, and it bothered him a little, because he didn't want that part of himself having anything to do with her. What had changed?

Smooth skin, her moans filling his ears as he worked his way inside her tight, wet pussy—Shit. He felt his face heat. Making love to Mia meant something to him, but had it also meant something to his darker half?

"You alright?" Jake frowned at him.

"Yeah," he said slowly, and started walking again. Later. He could think it all over later.

Coming into the main square—an enormous patch of dirt with an old fountain in the middle—they both hesitated. A man sat on the fountain, with four of his reivers standing in nonchalant poses around the square. As they entered, a pair of old men took off running, as if they didn't want to get involved.

Rykker came into focus, licking his cigarette paper, then carefully rolling it. A man knelt at his feet, a spiked iron collar around his throat and his hair matted in dreads. "Ah, my new friend. McClain, was it?" Rykker said.

Adam paused, his fingers itching toward the gun at his belt. "I wouldn't have called us friends."

Something about the man at Rykker's feet bothered him, and it wasn't just the collar. His nostrils flared, and the warg inside him growled.

Fuck. That wasn't a man. That was a warg, his knuckles broken and torn, and his own nostrils flaring as he drank in their scents. Adam knew the beast within him wasn't very close to the surface right now, but who knew if the other warg would smell it on him?

Rykker smiled as he lit the blunt. "Vex asked me to show you around. Said you was interested in opening up a new slave route. She thought I'd be the best person to help you out, since I know everything there is to know about Rust City... and slaves." He slowly stood up, one hand curled around the warg's chain. "Only, it seems as though you're already having a good look round."