Love in the Land of Fire (2 page)

Overall it’s neither the best nor the worst report that Josiah’s ever read so he’s hard pressed to see what makes this Zweil so special. Except of course for the fact that the younger man is, by all rights, being done a grave injustice by being promised to someone he outranks to such a major degree. Functioning matches between two individuals separated by only one tier were rare, and a match between a four and a two is practically unheard of. With such a large gap between ranks there is practically a guarantee that the relationship will fail as either one or both of the pair would be unable to accommodate their partner’s needs.

Still Josiah is careful to keep an open mind when he accesses the video file that’s attached. He’s hardly prepared for the way he feels his breath catch in his throat and his cock harden against the seam of his leather pants almost immediately at the sight of his subject apparently fleeing what should be his home. The desire that had dwindled within him earlier roars back with a vengeance.

Rafe Zweil is beautiful.

His description doesn’t do him justice at all. It doesn’t say that Zweil is lean and tightly muscled with tanned skin and legs that go for miles, or that his raven hair falls in a rippling wave to just below his shoulders. It fails to mention that he is obviously skilled in hand to hand from the way that his movements contain the grace and awareness of a seasoned fighter as he takes down the guards that try to stop him from working his way across the open grounds of the compound.

When Zweil turns and for a moment seems to stare directly at the camera recording his every move, Josiah pauses the film with a touch of his finger and silently calculates the other things the file fails to adequately explain. It doesn’t touch on the angular planes of the male’s face, on the sharp line of his jaw and the delicious length of his throat. More importantly it neglects to mention the way that his brows arch upwards over a pair of almost startlingly green eyes that are wide with fear and pain.

It’s that look, the one that Josiah’s seen in the eyes of hundreds of other submissives over the years, that snaps him out of his daze and prompts him to rewind the video and watch it once more with analytical eyes and a dawning suspicion. It isn’t long after Zweil first comes on camera that Josiah swears softly under his breath, his dark suspicions confirmed.

Rafe Zweil had been beaten and badly from the looks of it.

It’s in the way Zweil limps on screen, his face tight with pain and his movements stiff as his eyes dart everywhere in search of an escape. He’s wearing a look of almost panic in those first few seconds before the guards rush onscreen and Josiah knows in his gut that this submissive is running from something far more damaging than a routine corrections session. The look on his face is too hunted, too desperate, for him to be doing anything short of running for his life.

Josiah’s all the more impressed at the way the other man manages to push back his pain in order to force his body to move fast enough and smoothly enough to take down the guards he encounters. At the same time it worries him more because this time around he can see what those actions cost the injured male. He sees the grimace on his face, and the way that his lips are pursed in a white line as he presses a hand against his ribs and forces himself to stay upright and continue moving until he’s finally out of the range of the cameras.

Zweil’s not only beautiful and apparently intelligent, but he’s also a survivor, and that’s a trait that Josiah can deeply appreciate in another person.

Josiah’s silent for another moment before he remembers that Eagan is still on the channel and that Zweil is out in the city somewhere alone, unprotected, and injured.

Josiah needs to find him fast.

“Do we have a location on him, Eagan?” Josiah’s voice is sharp and this time he doesn’t try to tone it down at all.

“He’s caught your attention, hasn’t he? I figured you’d like him. From what little bit I saw of that video he seemed like he’d be your type.” Eagan sounds contemplative and it pisses Josiah off to a small degree because now is not the time to discuss his preferences in male submissives.

“Give me a location, Eagan.” He grits the words out between clenched teeth even as he refolds and docks his p.a.t.c.h before he completes the ignition sequence on his transport and prepares to head out in whatever direction Zweil was last seen.

“Alright, alright. No need to get uppity about it. Reports have him last seen going west towards the Ember Harbor district. If he makes it onto a cargo ship and out of Fire territory we’ll have no chance of getting our hands on him again so you have to get to him before he gets out. Apparently he did a lot of damage to Frisch and he’s demanding reparations. Zweil’s going to have a lot to answer for when you bring him in. After what he’s done today he’ll be lucky to end up in a pleasure house afterwards.”

Josiah scowls harshly in the safety of his transport as he orders it to head for the Ember Harbor district and to activate his enforcer’s status to allow for a quicker commute. He knows that Eagan is telling the truth. After attacking and injuring the one to whom he’d been promised, Zweil is in serious trouble, but Josiah’s far from happy with the situation. He knows in his gut that Zweil doesn’t deserve what’s in store for him.

“I’m heading in that direction now. Eagan, I want you to get a medical unit and a defender on the line and have them on standby. Try Marcel. She’s always been passionate about submissive rights and he’s going to need the best to get him out of this mess he’s in. And whatever you do don’t let Frisch out of our sight. Plant a few of the lower ranks on him if you have to but he goes nowhere.”

He can practically hear Eagan’s hesitation and confusion but it’s a testament to the other man’s level head and intelligence that he picks up on the implications behind what Josiah’s saying. Josiah can hear him curse soft and vicious under his breath as it all sinks in.

“What exactly are we looking at here, Marx? How bad is this? There was no mention of it in the reports and everyone but Frisch was taken down with hand to hand, but do you think that he’s armed? Do you want me to send another enforcer unit your way?”

Josiah hesitates for a moment, eyes staring blankly out the polarized glass of his front window as his mind traces back over what he’d seen in the video. Panic, fear, a flash of helplessness and a large dose of pain mixed in with all of it; none of the signs were good, but he doesn’t have solid proof and he doesn’t know just what had made the other man run like he had hounds on his heels. Still he’s confident that surrounding Zweil with unfamiliar faces would be the wrong thing to do at the moment.

“No, I’m confident that reinforcements will not be necessary. They might actually make the situation worse, but I’ll update you if the circumstances change. I’m not sure exactly but something tells me that it’s going to be bad, Eagan, and by that I mean he’s going to be in rough shape and more likely to be more dangerous to himself than to me. You need to watch the video feed again and pay careful attention to his face and the way his body moves. He’s in pain, desperate, and most of all scared, and I’ve seen how situations like this can play out if they’re not handled just right. If I don’t get to him soon he might do something stupid.”

“I’ll take care of things on this end. You just bring that one back in one piece and we’ll handle it from there.

Eagan out.”

Josiah hears the click of Eagan closing the channel between them but it barely even fazes him; he’s too caught up in thoughts of Zweil and planning the best way to make sure that they both make it out of this thing relatively unscathed.

Zweil’s bright, pain-filled eyes flash across his mind once again and Josiah’s afraid that he might already be too late.

1
Chapter Three

After half an hour of travel Josiah finds himself staring down a crossroads in indecision. Something is telling him that he needs to hurry, that Zweil’s living on borrowed time and that he needs help, but for some reason Josiah can’t move forward. The control panel of his transport blinks a mocking red as it waits for him to either order it to resume the previously set course or to select a new one but he’s frozen.

By all rights he shouldn’t be having this problem, shouldn’t be confused or indecisive about where to go. The reports had been clear cut and simple with sightings of Zweil headed down this very road over an hour ago in the direction of the Ember Harbor District. According to them Josiah should’ve gone ahead and allowed his transport to take the right fork and speed down towards the cargo ships that might even now be taking Zweil out of his reach. Instead he’d barked out an order to the vehicle as soon as he realized where exactly the other road led, causing it to stop rather suddenly right in the middle of the fork.

Something is telling him that the harbor isn’t where he should be going, that Zweil isn’t there and it will only be a waste of time he doesn’t have. The small voice in the back of his mind, the one that he’d learned to listen to as a child, the one that told him to duck and dodge and when someone had him in the crosshairs, is telling him to go left instead, that he’ll find Zweil in that direction. Josiah hesitates because there is nothing in that direction anymore, at least not anything particularly habitable. The estates and housing facilities in that area had been destroyed in the Steam War, the decade long battle that had raged across much of Shangri-La between The Land of Fire and The Land of Water. Those were painful years, especially for those Bonded pairs who originated from opposite lands and for the children of such unions who had been disdainfully referred to as
steam brats
due to their mixed heritage.

Many families had suffered on both sides and the devastating fighting had only seen a resolution about seven years ago, a year before Josiah had left the Crimson Elite. Most people had tried desperately to move on, and Fire and Water now enjoyed a cooperative and almost unbelievably joyful peace but some things had been unsalvageable. The area formally known as the Flicker District was one of those places.

That area had been heavily hit during the fighting, leaving only grief-stricken and destroyed families and the haunting shells of the places that they’d once called home. Shortly after the incident the area had been unofficially renamed the Charred District and was carefully avoided. Even now, almost a decade later, there are still dead unaccounted for and no effort has been made to reclaim the land from the ash and debris that covers it.

By all logic Josiah knows that Zweil shouldn’t be there, that the man has no reason to go there, not when he’s so close to the harbor and the possibility of safe passage across Fire’s borders. Still Josiah can’t shake the feeling that Zweil doesn’t seem to be the type to run like that, not to that extent, or the disturbing reminder that most animals liked to slink off to be alone when they’re dying. Josiah knows that the other man isn’t some wild beast but he’s all too aware of the fact that he doesn’t actually know the extent of his injuries. All he knows is that something within him is screaming, telling him to go left instead of right.

With a bitten off curse Josiah takes manual control of his transport and with a harsh jerk speeds down the left fork and towards a place that he shouldn’t even be thinking about. His implant chimes in his ear and he grits his teeth, knowing that Eagan is on the other end and that he’s about to have to explain himself. With a resigned sigh he opens the channel between them.

“Marx, what in the hell are you doing? Your locator has you heading for the Charred District. What happened to Ember Harbor? Has there been an update that I don’t know about or did you see Zweil?”

1“He’s not at the harbor Eagan. I know he isn’t.” Josiah keeps his voice calm and steady, careful to hide his own doubt.

Eagan is silent for a moment and when he speaks again his voice is level and cool, so at odds with his normal informal teasing that Josiah knows the other man is dangerously close to true anger.

“How pray tell did you find that out, Marx? Do you have some secret informant that I don’t know about or something?”

“Actually I have several but that’s another subject entirely. I just know that Zweil isn’t at the harbor; he’s not trying to escape all of Fire he’s just trying to get away from Frisch. It’s just a hunch but I’m asking you to trust me, Eagan. I’ve never led you wrong in the past.”

“Remind me to point out all of the things that are wrong with that statement before I fire you for this later, Josiah.” Eagan sounds resigned and slightly irritated but he isn’t demanding that Josiah turn around so everything is alright.

Plus Eagan normally threatens to fire him about once a week because of his more unorthodox techniques when it comes to negotiation and interrogation, so it’s almost become a routine between them.

“Thanks, boss.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t thank me yet. If you’re wrong and Zweil gets away I’m handing your ass over to Frisch and his people when they start screaming for blood over this fuck up. Anyways I’ve got a medical unit and Marcel mobilized and on alert. They’re not too far behind you but they’ll wait for you at the crossroads since you didn’t seem to think back up would be a good idea right off the bat. Either one can be to your location in a little under fifteen minutes. You are to maintain an open channel at all times; otherwise, I’m sending in the cavalry. I’m not going to take the chance of losing you if Zweil happens to get the drop on you despite all odds.”

Josiah bristles, his hands tightening around the steering bars of his transport at the thought of anyone getting the drop on him with all of his training and experience.

“I hardly think that’ll be necessary.”

“Necessary or not, it’s what’s going to happen. I know that you’re Crimson Elite and everything and normally I let you pretty much run wild but you’re right. There’s something different about this case. I’m not taking any chances.”

The channel between them is muted, but not terminated, before Josiah can protest any further and he knows that Eagan did it on purpose. He has little time to think about it because he’s rounding the next curve seconds later and the Charred District is looming in front of him in all of its desolate glory.