Being Emerald (14 page)

Rock gave her rear end a quick slap, moving the device wedged inside her. “You can put your panties back on.”

She groaned and pushed herself upright.

His fiery gaze didn’t disguise the satisfaction and lust pouring off him. “Every time you become aware of that plug in your ass, you are to take five seconds to assess your surroundings and lay eyes on me. Now get dressed. It’s time to go.”

Laila leaned over to pick her panties off the floor and the plug shifted inside her. “Oh, fuck no.” She was caught off guard by the constant intrusion of the thing.

Rock gave her a knowing smile, only one side of his lips curling up.

She growled at him, and he chuckled. “I think it’s going to be a long day for both of us. Get dressed. I’ll meet you at the truck in fifteen.” He turned and left her there.

No breakfast? He was definitely still mad at her. “Dammit,” she whispered as she got dressed and headed out for another day of brutal training.

After they did their usual morning routine, Laila sat alone, sweating in the shade of a shed, when she spotted Sydney heading her way with long confident strides. Long and lean, she was pretty from far away and gorgeous close up. The woman’s jade green eyes were stunning against her dark coloring. Something different this time, though. Her uniform was black instead of the usual camouflage of the National Guard and tailored as precisely as a second skin.

A pin flashed momentary reflections of the sun as she moved. It was an eagle frozen in the moment before a strike, wings spread, talons ready to grab its prey. The lapel pin was the symbol identifying Morgan’s trusted inner circle. Sydney was a Black Guard, now. In a zone where being a Sapphire was barely tolerable, that pin went a long way toward improving her pedigree.

Laila didn’t understand the fanatical allegiances this new breed of National Guardsmen had to Morgan. To them, it didn’t matter that his words and ideas were irrational. Those seemingly intelligent people swallowed ridiculous ideologies to fanatic proportions in exchange for the power and prestige the Black Guard status provided.

As Sydney neared, the combination of smirk and disdain parked on her face made her look as if she were snarling. Laila groaned to herself. The vibe the woman gave off was pure poison. This encounter was going to be unpleasant.

“Where’s Rock?” she asked, towering over Laila’s wilted body.

“He went inside to use the restroom.”

Sydney looked over her shoulder at the main building and then pegged Laila with a blatant look of contempt. “I just wanted to tell him I had a good time last night.” Her lips curled in a malicious smile.

“Last night?”

“He must have needed some real training after being with you for the last month. We took a few turns on the mats. I didn’t think he’d ever let me go home. It was the wee hours of the morning when I was finally able to get out from underneath him. I’m sore in all the right places.” She smirked. “He’s good. At everything, don’t you think?”

Laila’s mouth dropped open at the innuendo. At Sydney’s satisfied expression, she snapped it shut.

“I wouldn’t know,” she said softly.

Sydney smirked. “Well, I suppose you wouldn’t. A man like that needs someone more like him. Maybe someone who’s not an Amber under all those layers of ink.” She looked pointedly at Laila’s wrist.

The woman didn’t know anything about him. “Rock grew up Amber.”

“I know. But look at him, there’s nothing substandard about him.” She stepped closer to Laila and murmured. “Not like you.” Sydney wrinkled her nose. “You’re revolting. I can smell you from here. I don’t know how he can stand being around you.”

Over Sydney’s shoulder, Laila spotted Rock’s exit from the building. Relief must have flickered in her eyes, because the bitch straightened and pasted on a smile while turning to greet Rock as he approached.

No, Sydney didn’t know him at all. If she did, she’d be able to tell how unbelievably angry he’d become when he’d caught sight of her. Eyes blazing and jaw tight, he stopped near them.

A person didn’t have to be an empath to know he was very, very pissed.

* * * *

Rock’s gaze traveled over Sydney and then met Laila’s. He saw her hurt plain as day. Tilting his head slightly, he questioned her without a word, and she cast a glance at Sydney.

He turned his attention to the woman he’d instinctually hated since the day they’d met. Something about her was…wrong, somehow. Prior to Laila entering his world, he’d thought it was because she never bothered to disguise her lust. And, at the time, lust directed at him from anybody other than Emily sickened him. He’d always treated her politely, but avoided her as much as possible.

His life and perspective changed when Laila appeared, but still his intuition red-flagged Sydney.

“Hey, Rock,” the woman said cheerfully. Her eyes shone with the lust he’d seen so many times before. It turned his stomach, especially now that he knew who she’d allowed inside her body.

“Sydney.” There was no doubt Laila had just been victim to another verbal attack, so he didn’t spare her another glance. As he put a hand to the small of Sydney’s back, leading her away from Laila, he simultaneously gave Laila the signal to hold.

“Two days in a row, Rock? I think you might be following me.”

He didn’t reply to Sydney’s playful accusation. Rage had taken over. There was no fucking way Laila was going to fall victim to her in any way. It was imperative he stopped the bullshit now.

They were about a hundred feet away from Laila when he stopped and faced Sydney. Satisfaction shone in her expression as she turned to face him. She registered the glower he gave her in return, and her smile faltered. She broke eye contact and crossed her arms over her chest. He saw that action for what it was, an unconscious response in an effort to hide her bad behavior. “I thought I’d made it perfectly clear to you that any communication you had with Laila would go through me.”

“You did. We weren’t talking, really. I just stopped to say hi.”

Rock was almost disappointed in the woman’s inability to conceal her guilt. He tried to maintain a calm, even voice through his fury. His head swam with the implications of how much access Sydney would have to Laila outside New Atlanta.

He stepped closer to her, until mere inches separated their bodies. A ghost of Sydney’s smirk returned as she lifted her eyes to meet his gaze. She was pretty, and knew it.

“Still with the fuck-me eyes, Sydney. Save yourself the embarrassment. I’m not interested.”

She shrank from him. Clearly unused to anyone challenging her.

“Laila has too much on her plate to have you adding your particular brand of bitchy to the mix.” He stepped toward her again, making up the space she’d put between them, and leaned in so his livid expression was the only thing she saw. “Since it seems you didn’t quite understand my first request to leave her alone, I’m going to make this second request perfectly clear with words you understand.”

He held his index finger up in front of her nose. “Number one, she is an Emerald. And as a Black Guard, I know you’re aware of the difference in your respective statuses. It is inappropriate for you to engage her unless she asks you a direct question.”

He raised a second finger to the first. “Two, our sparring last night was my attempt at assessing whether you’re good enough to be on this mission. I’m an Emerald, and it is against the law for us to engage in any type of relationship whatsoever. And for the record, I’d rather kiss a hair-covered, piss-soaked bathroom mop than have any part of my body touch any part of yours in a sexual way. And, Laila is aware of this. So you just made a complete fool of yourself.”

He added another upturned finger to the first two. “Three. This is the last time I’m going to have this discussion with you.” He leaned in further and she was forced to arch backward to maintain distance between them. Her eyes were wide as he got in her face, showing the full measure of his fury. “If you speak to her or do anything to upset her in any way, I will grind you to dust, and then I’ll report your attempts to engage me sexually, and let Morgan deal with what’s left. Are we clear?”

Sydney swallowed hard then nodded. “Yeah, we’re clear.”

“Good. Now get the fuck away from me before I change my mind.” With those last words, he turned to where Laila waited for him. Her face was a mask, not giving away any of her thoughts or feelings as he approached. She was getting good at that.

He smiled at his girl. She didn’t smile back.

When he reached her, he offered her a hand up. “You ready for lunch?”

She walked beside him to the building. “What did you say to her?”

“I told her to leave you alone. From now on, if she has anything to say to you, she should go through me. If she doesn’t, let me know.”

“Okay.” She was breathless as she scrambled, trying to keep up with his long strides. “She made innuendoes you and her were together last night.”

“Excellent. I read you correctly. It was a good test of our training. Unplanned, but effective just the same.”

“Were you?” She studied his profile.

He answered her question with silence, because he couldn’t immediately find the words she needed. Plus, her doubt didn’t sit well with him. It only added fuel to his fury over Sydney’s verbal attack.

“You didn’t answer my question about you and Sydney last night.”

“I came here last night to work out. Or, to be more precise, to get away from you. I needed you to learn to hold, but I was having a hard time letting you. I left so I could stay away.”

Laila’s heart twisted. “So you were with that bitch?”

“The bitch is fucking Morgan. Do you honestly think I’d stick my dick in her?” Couldn’t she feel the absolute love he felt for her? “You should know me better, trust me more than that by now. You’re in my bed. That means no one else is. Same goes, the other way around. “We clear?”

Through her empathic connection, she felt the truth. He loved her. “Yes, clear.”

Laila was on cloud nine. It had taken a month, but she’d downed Rock on the mat. Her hand-to-hand moves had transformed from randomly sprinting at him and screaming like a banshee, to more thought-out strategies and softer, increasingly graceful falls. Then, when she’d swept her leg, taking his out from under him, and elbowed him in the eye socket, she’d truly done it. She’d knocked that smug bastard on his ass.

This was the highlight of an already great week. She’d gotten a few messages from her mother through Big Rock. And, she hadn’t felt a second of loneliness in weeks. She was giddy, a feeling she hadn’t had in years. It energized her. She wanted to laugh and play like a little kid.

“And it just gets better!” she announced with her arms pumped up in triumph.

Rock stood with his head in the fridge. “What does?”

“I’m clean. I’m dressed. And, I feel okay, no aches and pains today. Let’s celebrate.” It had still been a brutally hot and physically demanding day, but her body was changing. She was leaner, her muscles were more defined and now, didn’t protest their use.

“What do you have in mind?”

“I don’t know. It’s cooler outside than in. I wish we could lay a blanket out on the green in the Amber Zone. Watch the sunset. Lie under the stars.”

“I wish we could, too.” Then a long, slow smile spread across his face. “But I think I might have the next best thing.” He looked her up and down before opening the refrigerator again. “Run across the street, get some shoes on and we’ll go.”

She didn’t ask where. By now, she knew the answer she’d get verbatim:
Don’t question your training
. Plus, not knowing what was going to happen didn’t faze her as much as it used to. She’d learned to follow Rock’s lead and trusted him enough to not be worried about what he had planned.

He was in her living room when she reached the bottom of the steps.

“Ready?”

She slipped her hand into his. “More than ready.”

They climbed in the cab of his truck, and drove off.

The trip was short, and Laila was disappointed when a national guardsman waved the truck through the checkpoint of OZ. They spent every day there, and it was not fun. She kept her disappointment to herself and met him behind the pickup as he pulled a box and a bedroll out of the back.

He handed her the bedroll. “Come on.” In the compound’s main building, he took her through the emergency exit at the end of the long hallway and up a flight of stairs. The second story was a sweltering utility area, containing ventilation ducts, water and electricity lines. It was dim and dirty, but still she followed without questioning. When they reached a ladder, he climbed it and pushed open a hatch, revealing blue sky.

He took the bedroll from her. “You go first. I’ll hand the stuff up to you.”

Laila emerged on the flat roof of the building and lay on her belly to reach her arms into the opening. She grabbed the bedroll Rock handed up to her. When she turned back around to grab the box, he was rising out of the hole with it balanced securely on his shoulder.

Laila stood and took a moment to look around at the three-sixty view. The densely packed skyscrapers of the old city overshadowed the hastily constructed New Atlanta like an old black and white picture propped up in the corner of a green watercolor landscape.

Rock closed the hatch and hefted the box back onto his shoulder. He motioned to the west, then took her hand. They walked the length of the building then he dropped the box and took the bed roll from her.

Normally, her eyes were drawn to Rock when he was near, but she paid little attention to him as he set up an area in which to sit. The Onyx Zone was right there, less than half a mile away.

“It’s so close.”

“The whole southern border of Emerald is the wall, or should I say, fence. They weren’t as worried about security of this border, probably because all the military compounds are right there.”

Rock spread out a thin mat and then a blanket on top of it.

“I didn’t realize we were living so close to it.” Portions of the fence separating New Atlanta from the Onyx Zone were hidden by the encroaching forest, with only glints of razor wire scrolled at the top revealing there was a fence there at all.