She was a goddamn bitch. The way she treated him, it was a wonder that man had stuck by her side all these years.
“Listen, I don’t want you to worry about the delivery,” Reese said, finally meeting her friend’s eyes. “I’m going to take care of you. We all will.”
Bethany nodded.
“Anyway.” She feigned a careless tone. “I’ve got to check in with Beckett about a few things, and then I’m heading over to the field behind the high school to check on the crops that Gwen is experimenting with. If you need anything, find Sloan, okay?”
“Okay.”
She gave Bethany a quick, awkward hug good-bye, then ducked out the door before the woman could say another word.
On the front stoop of the two-story building, Reese took a series of deep, calming breaths. It didn’t help. She was rattled. Mad at herself for falling apart in front of Bethany. She was supposed to lead, damn it, not slice her chest open and display all her fears and insecurities to the people who trusted her to be confident and unafraid.
“Reese,” a timid voice called out.
She turned her head to find one of her teenage charges approaching. It was Christine, the quiet fourteen-year-old who’d joined them less than a year ago. Sloan and Beckett found her and her two older brothers living in the woods about a hundred miles south of Foxworth. The men had brought the three siblings home with them, but while Christine’s brothers had adjusted to their new camp almost immediately, the girl remained shy and withdrawn even after ten months of living inside the town gates.
“What do you need, honey?” Reese asked.
“I didn’t want to bother you, but”—Christine grimaced and then lowered her voice—“my, uh, time came.”
“Your time?” Reese was momentarily confused.
The girl waved a hand toward her pants. “Yeah, you know. My girl time?”
Ahh. Reese got it now. Fighting a smile, she reached out to ruffle Christine’s brown hair. “That’s perfectly normal. Remember we talked about it before? Did you use your supplies?”
“Yes. I just . . .” There was a frustrated sigh.
“Are you in pain? Does it hurt?” Reese pushed.
Christine’s face screwed up. “Yeah . . . is that normal? To hurt so much?”
“Unfortunately, yes. One of the many amazing perks of being a woman,” she said dryly, then slid an arm around the girl’s shoulders.
That was all the encouragement Christine needed—the teenager threw her slender body against Reese, wrapping her arms around Reese’s waist. “Thank you for taking us in. We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for you.”
Reese allowed herself a moment to treasure this. This girl and her siblings. The people she’d sworn to protect.
This war she’d started . . . it wasn’t simply about destroying the council for her own bloodlust. It was about making the world a safe place for Christine and all the girls who would come after her. It was allowing Christine to have the choices that the council had taken away from Reese.
“Go see Bethany and ask her for a pill,” she said softly. “Take half of one, then get a hot water bottle and lie down.”
Christine nodded.
“We’ll talk more later, all right, honey? I need to go to the garage now to see Beckett.”
Christine nodded shyly, then flitted away.
Reese had barely taken two steps down the sidewalk when another voice called out to her. Her shoulders instantly tensed. Shit. Rylan was making his way toward her.
She should’ve never given in to him.
“We need to talk,” he said as he neared.
She kept walking. “Told Sloan to talk to you.”
“Didn’t take you for a coward.”
That got her attention. She halted and swiveled toward him. “What was that?”
He planted his hands on his hips and gave her a half-amused, half-exasperated look. She itched to punch it right off his face.
“You heard me.” He closed the distance between them. “You want to tell me off, then tell me to my face, otherwise I’m gonna assume that you’re too chicken. Because we both know last night was the best sex of your life.”
She forced out a laugh. “Don’t flatter yourself.”
A feral look spread across his face, sharpening his cheekbones and darkening his eyes. “It was.”
Reese swayed on her feet, assaulted by the memory of his hands, Sloan’s hands, Rylan’s thick cock, the ache between her thighs. “I—”
“Enforcers at the gate!” someone yelled from the watchtower.
“Goddammit,” Reese muttered.
Rylan reached for her, but she danced backward. She didn’t need his touch right now, even if it was meant to be protective. There were more important things to worry about than whether she should sleep with him again.
But damned if it wasn’t the one thought that lingered in her mind as she stalked toward the front gate.
7
As the gates opened with a loud metallic grind, Sloan couldn’t fight the growing tension in his body. Couldn’t stop from scowling either, though his inability to paste on a happy face was probably why he wasn’t the leader of this town.
His queen, on the other hand, was all smiles when she arrived to face the West City Enforcers. Reese could be damn charming when she wanted to, but it was obvious to Sloan that charm wasn’t going to cut it today. The team of men that marched into the courtyard wouldn’t be appeased by a friendly welcome—they were giving off some serious hostility, which didn’t bode well for the longstanding arrangement between Foxworth and the Enforcers.
For years, the town had reaped the benefits of the alliance. Foxworth offered good booze, a warm bed, and, if the ladies were willing, even warmer women to the Enforcers who spent weeks at a time patrolling West Colony. In exchange, they left Foxworth alone.
The bargained-for alliance had allowed Reese to build Foxworth into the fortified town it now was. The main gate wasn’t the only barricade; there was also one at the back, and each able-bodied man and woman patrolled every small space in between.
“Your color’s high,” Sloan murmured when Reese stepped to the side of the gravel-lined courtyard.
Her flushed cheeks told him that the arrival of the Enforcers had interrupted a seduction. Predictably, one night hadn’t been enough for Rylan. Sloan didn’t blame him. If Sloan could only pack away his guilt and fear, he’d probably need a full week between Reese’s legs just to take the edge off. He’d want to wreck himself on her body, drilling her until they were both unconscious.
“I don’t like this,” she replied, ignoring his observation. “It’s too soon after the raid.”
“You suspected they’d come for you.”
“Being right doesn’t make me feel better.”
Sloan shrugged unsympathetically. “Better get to it. They’re waiting.”
One of the Enforcers had climbed out of the two-truck convoy and was tapping his long gun against the distinctive red stripe along the outer seam of his trousers. Sloan could hardly tell those bastards apart with their buzzed hair and uniforms. They were like toys the council wound up and set off in motion every morning.
Despite her pasted-on smile, Reese finally revealed a hint of her true feelings in the rigid set of her shoulders. Both she and Sloan were well aware that the ten armed soldiers in front of them could kill everyone in the camp if they wanted.
“Is Bethany getting everyone situated?” she asked quietly.
“Her and Nash,” he replied, and saw some of the tension ease out of her shoulders.
Since outlaws weren’t allowed to have kids, the very pregnant Bethany and the few children in town were forced to stay out of sight during Enforcer visits. They hid in a tiny concrete bunker below the freezer in the restaurant. At one time, it might’ve served as a cellar for the kitchen, but it
was now Foxworth’s hidey-hole.
“Good. The last thing we need is another bloodbath.”
Sloan nodded grimly. Two months ago, a West City crew had showed up at the gates seeking shelter and aid. Reese hadn’t exactly thrown open the doors with glee, but she’d given them a place to bed down along with food and booze. Only problem was, one of them got it into his head that he needed a woman too, and instead of asking, he’d tried to take young Sarah against her will. Another teenager had shot the Enforcer dead, and the ensuing clusterfuck had left Arch dead, along with one of Connor’s men.
Charlie, one of Reese’s Enforcer allies, had tried to bargain for his life, but Sloan had known that if they let Charlie and the others go, one of them would’ve spilled the beans and Foxworth would’ve been torched.
Sloan had itched to kill them immediately, but he’d waited until Reese gave him the order. He’d always wondered if people realized that giving the order was always harder than pulling the trigger. And it broke his goddamn heart, because he knew just how heavily each kill weighed on Reese. But the thing about Reese was that she wasn’t afraid of making the tough calls, even at her own personal expense, and that was the reason Sloan would follow her until he died. Why he’d do everything in his power, even if he had to come back from the grave, to protect and help her in whatever way he could.
“Why don’t you fuck her and be done with it?”
Sloan turned to find Rylan approaching from his left. For a man that big, Rylan had a boxer’s agility, which he’d used very, very effectively to pleasure Reese last night. Watching the two of them had been the most erotic experience of Sloan’s life, he realized with a jolt.
“I’ll hold your hand if you need it,” Rylan offered.
“No.”
“‘No’ what? No, you won’t fuck her or no you don’t need me to hold your hand?”
“All of it,” Sloan answered.
He stepped off the curb of the broken sidewalk and headed toward the soldiers. Rylan followed closely. Both men kept their arms loose at their sides in case they needed to draw a weapon.
“Search it all. I’ve got nothing to hide,” Reese was informing an unhappy-looking Enforcer.
“I’ll be the judge of that.” He seemed pissed that she was being compliant, but also unsure if it was a bluff.
Sloan got it—people who were hiding things generally didn’t roll out the welcome mat.
“Sloan, this is Eric. He’s part of the senior guard out of West City.”
Shit. Sloan didn’t like this. The deals they had in place were with lieutenant Enforcers that outranked the senior guard: Nestor, Hal, and Charlie, though their ties to the latter had been severed the moment Sloan put a bullet in Charlie’s head. The presence of this new guy made him uneasy.
Reese caught his eye and added, “He’s aware of our arrangement with Nestor and has assured me that he’s not here to change that. They’re just following up on a raid that apparently happened at one of their ammunitions depots.”
Sloan rocked slightly on his heels, trying to look casual and nonmenacing. At well over six feet, it wasn’t always easy. “Heard about that. Must’ve been bandits.”
Eric scoffed. “Right. A band of misfits rolled up to an ammo depot, took a huge cache of weapons and equipment, and disappeared.”
“A bunch of bandits tried to rape one of our women a couple months back. We came across seven of them who were ransacking a town about three clicks north of here,” Sloan offered helpfully.
“And where are they now?” Eric sounded skeptical.
“Gone is my guess,” Sloan answered. “They tend to scurry off like the rats they are.”
“And you think they scurried off to rob my ammo depot?”
“Maybe. I can’t even begin to speculate about what those assholes might do.” Sloan shrugged, but he could tell that Eric wasn’t buying the bandit scenario. As he shouldn’t—bandits didn’t perform coordinated raids on heavily fortified compounds. They searched out the easiest prey, snuck in, stole shit, and ran off.
Eric swung his assault rifle off his shoulder and raised a hand to motion his team forward. “We’ll be searching everything,” he informed Reese.
“Be my guest, but I’d appreciate it if you’d keep your guns up,” she said with a touch of impatience.
“Gates. Main Street. Park.” Eric used the tip of his rifle to point out each part of the town to his men.
Sloan gave Reese and then Rylan a warning sign not to release the sarcastic remark that he knew was tingling the end of their tongues.
“You’ve got a real town here,” Eric said, suspicion lining his tone. “When people dig in and grow roots, they start wanting to defend it.”
“Is that against the council’s rules?” Rylan interjected.
Eric swiveled around, the barrel of his rifle pointing directly into Rylan’s gut. “Your entire existence is against the colony laws.”
Rylan didn’t even flinch. He merely raised his hand and pushed the barrel aside. “Yeah? Sure doesn’t stop your lieutenants from popping in and drinking our booze every chance they get.”
“I can’t control what my superiors choose to do,” Eric said stiffly, “but that doesn’t mean I condone it.”
“And you can’t do a damn thing about it.” Rylan grinned at the tense Enforcer. “Damn shame, huh? That your boss Nestor won’t let you burn this place to the ground? I bet the thought of lighting that match gives you a raging boner.”
Sloan almost snorted with laughter.
“Enjoy this place while it lasts,” Eric warned. “Lieutenant Nestor won’t be there to hold your hand forever.”
“Are you guys done gabbing?” Reese muttered. “I’m sure Eric has other towns to terrorize today.”
He gave her a thin smile. “No. You’re it on my list.” But he motioned for his men to move forward, and the search began in earnest.
Foxworth had plenty of nice houses on the farthest edges of the town boundaries, but the square in the middle was small. Along with the gravel courtyard and the park Eric had pointed out, there was one main street that led from the gate down the artery of the town, with two- and three-story buildings on either side. Everyone in Foxworth lived within shouting distance of one another, and the tight-knit physical nature of the community made it easier to protect and defend. It also made the search parameters smaller for the Enforcers.
Eric and his men were well trained. They paused outside each door, sticking their rifles through the entryway before moving in silently. These Enforcers were more careful than the ones Sloan and Reese had dealt with in the past, which reinforced what Eric had warned. The game was changing.
“Think he ever takes the stick out of his ass?” Rylan asked as they lagged behind the group.
“He’s too uptight for assplay,” Sloan said.
A bark of laughter escaped Rylan’s lips, which he promptly turned into a coughing fit when a couple of Enforcers turned to glare at the two men.
Sloan slid a look of amusement toward Rylan. “Surprised I know what assplay is?”
“Kinda. The other night you were pretty resistant to someone’s charms.” Rylan tilted his head in Reese’s direction. “But now that I know what the key is to getting you in bed with us, I’ll be more persuasive next time.”
“Save your persuasion for Reese. You’ll need it.”
Rylan shrugged, undeterred by the warning. “Wouldn’t be worth it if it was too easy, brother.” Then he quickened his pace to catch up with Reese, whose fake smiles were growing frayed around the edges.
If Eric or one of his crew pointed a barrel in her direction one more time, Sloan suspected Reese would pull the rifle out of the soldier’s hands and beat him senseless with it. Sloan, of course, would hold everyone back while she delivered the well-earned thrashing.
Rylan ambled up to the front of the se
arch team, pushing a rifle or three out of his way to take a place next to Reese. He was either making himself a target for the Enforcers or providing a buffer for Reese. Either one was good in Sloan’s book.
Truth was, he appreciated Rylan’s fearless confidence. The man would need it if he wanted to go toe-to-toe with Reese, and the more Sloan got to know him, the more he was becoming convinced that Reese needed Rylan. She needed someone to tease her out of her glum moods and fuck her hard whenever she got too tangled up in that web of worry and guilt.
Sloan tensed up again when the search party reached the last building on Main Street, which housed Christine, her brothers, and a few others. The soldiers had decided to crisscross their way down the street, instead of moving down one side and up the other as Sloan would have done.
Rylan had been cracking an inappropriate joke every few houses—“I haven’t seen this many pricks since the orgy we held over at Mosby’s camp” and, “Eric, your ass cheeks are so tight, I’m worried about chafing. You got any special oils over at your Enforcer base?”
Sloan suspected Rylan was doing it mostly to keep Reese from losing it, but none of the Enforcers found his raunchy jokes funny. They wouldn’t, because, as Rylan noted, they had sticks up their asses. Hudson, Connor’s woman, swore that the Enforcers received all the benefits of being a citizen, including any woman or man they wanted, but these men were wound so tight that Sloan wouldn’t have been surprised if they hadn’t had sex since they picked up their first gun.
Rylan’s jokes stopped, however, when the group walked into the remaining building. Sloan ducked in behind the last soldier and immediately understood the reason for Rylan’s sudden change of demeanor.
Some of the Enforcers had gone upstairs, but the building’s front room was tiny enough that Christine had found herself crowded into a corner. At fourteen, she was old enough to stay out of the cellar; there was only so much room in that small space, and she could easily pass as an adult.