Beyond Ecstasy (Beyond #8) (24 page)

“Oh,” Noelle agreed in a sympathetic voice. “Hey, Emma and I will be right there with you. Even if it's just to get coffee or look up anything that seems weird.”

“No, it's not the workload.” How could she explain without sounding irrational—or, worse, superstitious? “It's just that it means we'll be that much closer, right? There
has
to be information in those messages that we can use. That we'll have to use.” She met Noelle's gaze. “It means no more waiting.”

“I know.” For a moment, worry lined Noelle's features, then it twisted into resolve. “But we're ready. We have the supplies, and we have the hospital. We have a life worth fighting for.”

Jeni had to smile. If sheer fucking force of will could pull you through a war unscathed, then they'd all be fine. No one was more stubborn, more relentlessly
alive
, than an O'Kane.

Before she could respond, someone banged on the makeshift bar. The music cut out, and Lex climbed onto the bar, where Rachel had already set up sixteen shot glasses in a neat row. She filled them two at a time, from the finest whiskey Nessa had ever bottled right on down to the roughest rotgut, as Lex shaded her eyes and scanned the room. “All right, where's he hiding?”

Whoops and cheers rose as Dylan began to make his way to the front of the room, a broad smile on his face. It was so different from the rare ones he'd always worn, sardonic and vague, that it was a little hard to recognize him. Being with Mad and Jyoti and Scarlet had changed him, and tonight was evidence of that.

Lex cleared her throat, then ruined her solemn air by reaching down to ruffle Dylan's hair. “Dr. Jordan. I guess there's only one thing to say.”

“Yeah,” Zan called out from the crowd. “Took you long enough!”

Lex hopped down as laughter rippled through the room. “Close, but not quite.” She patted Dylan's cheek fondly and grinned. “Welcome home.”

Rachel lifted the first shot glass and held it out, but before Dylan could take it, Mad appeared at his side. His brown eyes sparked with irrepressible joy as he plucked the shot from Rachel's fingers and held it up. “Might be a little redundant to stake my claim…but who the fuck cares?”

He tipped back the shot, drove his fingers into Dylan's hair, and dragged him into a liquor-soaked kiss that went on and on, long after the whiskey was gone. Dylan was breathless when it ended, his face alight with desire and satisfaction.

He reached for the next shot, but Dallas picked it up instead. Lex followed suit, and so did Jasper. One by one, the people closest to the bar stepped forward to claim the remaining shots.

It made sense. When Jeni had gone through the O'Kanes' version of an initiation, she'd passed the night in a giddy blur that had ended with her slung over Flash's shoulder and carried away to sleep it off. From a practical standpoint, they couldn't afford to have their only doctor get that trashed, not when Eden's MPs could beat down their door at any moment.

But this went beyond the practical. An almost reverent hush fell over the room as they raised their glasses—Dallas and Lex, Jasper and Bren. Jyoti and Scarlet, of course. Six, Lili, Ace. Their faces blurred together as tears burned Jeni's eyes.

Hawk picked up the last shot, the rotgut at the end of the bar. His gaze locked with hers, he smiled slow and warm, and lifted his glass in the air. He didn't look away, not even when he knocked back the shot without so much as a flinch.

The noise broke the spell, yelling and laughter that rebounded through the room in a chorus of revelry. Dylan began to make the rounds, spinning from one embrace to another.

By the time he reached Jeni, he looked a little dazed. She folded her arms around his neck, hugged him tight, and whispered, “It's okay. I know the feeling.”

Someone else whisked him away, and Jeni stood there, her hands trembling. This was the part no one outside these walls could ever understand. O'Kanes didn't bend, didn't break. They were stronger than steel because they held one another up. If one of them needed help, their brothers and sisters would step in and shoulder some of the load.

It was unspoken, understood. Whether they were at war with other sectors or the city or no one at all, they stood together.

Jeni retreated back to the edge of the room and picked up her beer. It had gone warm already, the amber glass slick with condensation, but she finished it anyway, then leaned against the wall and looked around. If she stared at them all long enough, tried
hard
enough, she could fix this moment in her memory forever.

“I'll trade you,” Cruz rumbled.

He was holding out a fresh beer, one Jeni accepted gratefully. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” He leaned against the wall next to her and watched the crowd of people jostling to congratulate Dylan. The stern lines of his face softened as Ace's laughter drifted over the din, and he lifted his beer. “I want to do something nice for Hawk.”

It wasn't quite the last thing she expected him to say, but it was close. “Why?” she asked curiously.

His lips quirked. “The ginger tea he showed me how to make for Rachel has almost gotten rid of her morning sickness completely.”

“Oh.” That explained why the petite blonde wasn't in a corner with her head in a bucket—and why Cruz wasn't gnashing his teeth in helpless frustration. “Good. I'm glad she's feeling better.”

“Me too,” he murmured. “So if I can do anything for him—or for you—then you tell me, okay?”

“If Hawk helped, it was because he wanted to, Cruz. Not so you would owe him one.”

“It's not about owing.” Cruz braced one shoulder against the brick and stared down at her. “If we were keeping track of debts, I've already got such a mountain of debt to you, I couldn't repay it in a lifetime.”

She did a double take. “To
me
? What for?”

“For helping me get here.” His gaze was so, so serious. So solemn. “I've jumped off twenty-story buildings and been less scared than I was the first time I kissed Ace.”

She remembered the moment—the hesitation, the challenge. How the tension had stretched out between him and Ace like a chasm in the earth, only instead of widening with every heartbeat, it had grown smaller and smaller. How Cruz had finally broken with a flash of guilt eclipsed only by his longing.

She hadn't seen it at the time, but here, in retrospect, she recognized his fear. “Of course you were afraid. You weren't falling off a building, but you were still falling.”

“Yeah, I was.” His gaze drifted back out to the dancing, going inevitably to where Ace and Rachel swayed with the music. “Still am. It doesn't stop, you know. It gets less scary sometimes...but it doesn't stop.”

Jeni glanced over to where Hawk was finally getting a chance to congratulate Dylan. His smile was brilliant, so open that it almost hurt. Then he looked up, directly at her, and the bottle almost slipped from between her fingers.

She was starting to suspect Cruz was right.

If Hawk thought Ace talked a lot when he was sober, then getting him to shut up when he was buzzing was damn near impossible.

“—so we had just rolled out our second real batch of the good stuff. The first one, most of those credits went to buying better supplies. But the second?” Ace grinned widely. “Oh, we were dick-deep in credits for the first time in our
lives
.”

“And…” Lex stretched forward in her chair to grab another one of the tiny sandwiches Lili liked to make for parties. “What do a bunch of hale, healthy, dumbassed little boys like to do when they have that much money?”

Rachel stifled a giggle. “They get dick-deep in something else?”

Jasper leaned forward with a groan, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Please,
please
do not tell this story.”

“Sorry, brother. Some tales are just too legendary to let slip into myth.” Ace propped his elbows on his knees, deep into the story now. “So it's me and Jas and Zan's big brother. And that charming motherfucker didn't even have to open his wallet, because he was way better looking than Zan—”

“Fuck
you
,” Zan enunciated slowly over the rim of his glass. From her perch in his lap, Tatiana mock-glared at Ace, but he only winked at her.

Noelle nudged Ace with her foot. “Come on, I want to hear the rest of it.”

“Fine, so Jas and I bring a couple of pretty ladies back to the compound.” Ace waved one hand around. “Which was basically just this building at that point, nothing else. We had bedrooms up where the storage is now, and we were all making
very
good use of them—”

“Too good,” Dallas rumbled. “Since I was the only one who noticed when a handful of punk-ass thieves kicked in our damn door.”

Ace raised both hands in a shrug so melodramatic, Hawk choked on his beer. “I can't help that I'm focused,” Ace drawled. “I don't hear Rachel and Cruz complaining.”

“Right, you're a sex god,” Jasper interjected. “The end.”

“C'mon, Jas, this next part makes you look
heroic
.” Ace's grin widened. “I might have been distracted, but Jas wasn't fucking around. He comes roaring down the stairs, a gun in one hand, and with his other, he's still trying to pull up his pants. By the time I made it out here, he was in a goddamn shoot-out with his jeans around his ankles and his dick waving in the wind, just
begging
to get shot off.”

Jeni turned her face into Hawk's neck, her shoulders shaking with silent mirth, but the others weren't as subtle. Warm laughter rose around them as Jas glowered.

Noelle bit back a giggle and stroked Jas's arm. “I'm glad nothing got...shot off.”

“I bet you are, princess.” Ace slapped Jas on the arm. “Gotta say, it wasn't the worst strategy. The punks were distracted by Jas in all his glory, and it only took so long to finish them off because I couldn't stop fucking laughing.”

“You've had your moments, Santana,” Jasper grumbled.

“Not like that.” Ace sprawled back in the chair and threw his arms wide. “If it had been
my
magnificent dick, they all would have swooned on the fucking spot.”

Dallas snorted. “If that was true, I'd kick your ass for not saving us all that work.”

“My man's wise, as always.” Lex flashed Dallas a wicked grin as she rose and reached for his hand. Without a word, she tugged him from his seat, toward the deserted dance floor.

The music had been turned down, relegated to the background as they drank and talked, but it still throbbed softly through the room. Together with the lowered lights, it created the illusion of a sheltered place out of time, a calm in the middle of the storm.

As Ace started in on another story, Hawk laid his hand over Jeni's and twined their fingers together. “Dance with me.”

She slipped into his arms like falling into bed at the end of a long day, with a quiet, relieved sigh that warmed his skin. “I wasn't sure if you'd want to.”

On any other night, he would have wanted something more. Something filthy and raw, the realization of all his fantasies of Jeni, shattering at his touch while the whole damn gang watched.

He pulled her more tightly against him and let one hand drift up her back. Her hair slipped over his fingers, soft and silky, and his thumb found the leather collar at her throat. He didn't need to stake his claim in a public declaration. Jeni had been his from the moment she said
yes
, and he was the only one who hadn't believed it.

Maybe he never would, entirely. Because having her like this, snuggled trustingly against his chest as they swayed with the music... It was too damn good to be true. “I'll always want to dance with you.”

She laughed. “Not the
me
part. The dancing part. Some people don't like it.”

“I suppose I didn't let you get much dancing done at the rally.” He caught her hand and spun her around before dragging her back to his chest. “It's just about the only thing to do at those parties, since they're not quite as adventurous as us O'Kanes.”

“Liar.” She rubbed her thumbs over the ink around his wrists. “That barn's seen its share of clandestine rendezvous.”

“Well, sure. Clandestine being the key word.” He grinned and leaned close. “C'mon, Jeni. Admit it. Sneaking away can be fun, too.”

Her amusement faded into a glowing smile. “With the right person.”

With
him
. His heart dove toward his stomach before flipping up into his throat, and the emotion swelling through him was too big to contain and too new to share.

He twirled her toward the door as laughter rose behind them again, another round of affectionate ribbing as Ace finished a second outrageous story. They were reliving old memories and making new ones, fixing each one in place in their hearts because, this time, they really were standing on the edge of oblivion.

And there was one memory Hawk needed to make.

They slipped through the warehouse door, but when Jeni turned for the barracks, Hawk shook his head and steered her toward the garage instead. His car was inside, chrome gleaming in the flickering overhead light, the new paint job flawless.

He ran his fingers up the hood. “If we weren't on the brink of war, I'd take you out into the desert. Drive fast, and then ride you nice and slow.”