Love in the Land of Fire (3 page)

He spends precious seconds taking in the sight of the burned out ghost town in front of him before he once again bursts into action. His transport is powered down and he’s out and onto the ash-covered street moments after he enters the district. His best bet of finding Zweil’s trail is on foot where his transport can’t erase any evidence of the other man’s passage that might have been left in the ash on the ground.

One hand on the hilt of the rapier attached to his belt, the weapon that he’s always favored and is rarely without, Josiah moves forward. His eyes scan his surroundings and the ground in front of him automatically, constantly on the lookout for movement or tracks, anything that can lead him to Zweil. He’s also completely alert, ready to draw either his sword or the standard issue electric pistol that he’d received along with his badge.

1It takes him almost ten minutes to pick up the trail and when he does he’s covered in a fine layer of ash and even more impressed with Zweil. The other man had went through the pains of hiding his tracks as best he could, but Josiah finally manages to pick up the trail when he spots the place where pain or exhaustion had caught up with him. Zweil had gone down on a knee, and the hand he’d used to brace himself is outlined perfectly in the ash. Josiah feels relief well up within him at the first bit of tangible evidence that Zweil had gone this way.

The situation gets better for Josiah and worse for Zweil quickly after that initial discovery. After that the foot prints are perfectly clear and crisp and Josiah cannot help the way that his anxiety grows as he reads the tracks and sees the way Zweil gets more and more unsteady the further he goes. Something is wrong with Zweil; something has to be to make him so careless with his tracks when he’d been so meticulous before.

Josiah feels that anxiety gnaw at his gut so he picks up his pace, following the trail at a slow run.

It isn’t long before the trail ends and he finds himself staring up at the burned out remains of what was once a nice, if a bit modest for the area, house. What’s left of the walls bear the same scorch marks as the houses around it, the windows destroyed by what was once intense heat, and the front door is propped up almost comically against what’s left of its frame.

The tracks lead inside.

Josiah unholsters his electric pistol and slides his way up the front stairs to peek inside while giving himself as much cover as he can. He doesn’t actually believe that Zweil will be a danger to him but the years of training he’d undergone refuses to allow him to leave himself open in such a manner. He easily spots what appears to be the sole of a thick black leather boot, which he knows Zweil was wearing the last time he was seen, from around the corner of what must have once been the main living area in the house.

Josiah does his best to soften the rough tone of his voice when he calls out, to sound friendly and non-threatening despite the fact that he is armed and heavily trained.

“Rafe Zweil, this is Enforcer Marx. I need you to come out unarmed and with your hands up.”

He hears a worryingly wet cough and sees the boot shift just slightly before a husky voice that sends inappropriate shivers down his spine and straight to his cock calls out lowly to him.

“I’m afraid that I’m going to have to say no to that, Enforcer Marx. I don’t think I could move right now even if I absolutely had to. So if you want to talk to me either we keep yelling at each other or you bring your ass in here.”

Zweil’s short speech is followed by a round of equally wet and painful sounding coughs that cause the hair on the back of Josiah’s neck to stand up. Something is terribly wrong with Zweil and Josiah has a not so sneaking suspicion that the other man’s injuries are worse than he had thought. The only way he’ll be able to find out is to go inside.

His instincts tell him not to, that Zweil could be lying and ready to ambush him with any number of things, but he pushes them down and into the back of his mind. He
needs
to get to Zweil, to find out if he’s safe and to get his wounds treated as quickly as possible. So with a deep breath and a roll of his tense shoulders Josiah raises his pistol into a firing position and steps calmly up and into the remains of the house.

1
Chapter Four

The remnants of the house are silent, almost eerily so, except for the occasional sound of Zweil letting loose another damp sounding cough or the quiet rustling of his clothes as he shifts in his spot on the floor. Josiah is careful not to rush himself, to hold back his impatience and sweep what he can of the dilapidated building before he heads towards Zweil in order to make sure he isn’t walking into a trap. After a few moments he’s as satisfied as he’s going to get with the security of the building and he turns and heads in the downed man’s direction.

He peeks around the corner swiftly, eyes taking in the picture Zweil makes on the floor. The younger male is slumped against the wall of what Josiah had correctly guessed to be the remnants of the house’s main living area. His clothes are dirty with ash and debris and his face is wet with sweat and unnaturally pale for someone of his complexion. His right arm is draped loosely across his stomach, fingers clenched in pain.

Taking in Zweil’s prone form, Josiah lowers his weapon slightly as he steps fully around the corner but doesn’t holster it; he’s not willing to ignore his instincts and make himself vulnerable to that degree, not until he gets a chance to assess Zweil further.

“I’d appreciate it if you’d holster that thing since you really don’t need it. I’m not exactly a threat to anyone at the moment, in case you couldn’t tell. Unless of course you come close enough and then I might be able to gnaw on an ankle or two.” Zweil quips, almost cheerful despite how obviously wounded and vulnerable he is.

Josiah feels his lips quirk up into an almost smile, a begrudging sense of admiration taking root in his chest at the other man’s blasé statement. Dark humor is something he’s always found particularly appealing and hard to find in a submissive, so to see it in one like Zweil does nothing but sweeten an already prime deal. He’d like nothing more than to take Zweil home, stretch him out across the length of his bed, lick him open and take him so far down that he forgets everything and everyone but Josiah. Wants to do it over and over again every day from now until the end of their lives, wants to be the only name Zweil calls out in the night, the only hand he submits to.

Another hacking cough breaks him out of the fantasy and reminds him that he’s here for a purpose that doesn’t include claiming the other man as his own. He has a job to do, a submissive to take into custody, and a case to close. Josiah isn’t going to let a pretty face and the sweetest pair of lips he’s seen in years stop him from doing what he’s supposed to do. Zweil needs help that Josiah can’t give him, things that are out of his jurisdiction and his skill set, so he’ll take him back to the crossroads and turn him over to Marcel and the medics and be done with it. He’ll go home tonight and work his frustrations out on his training equipment and put thoughts of claiming, of
Bonding,
out of his mind.

Josiah shakes his head and holsters his pistol, making sure that the lock is secured before he crouches down beside Zweil. He isn’t worried about an ambush or anything of the like now. Zweil is clearly in no shape to attack him and even if he does Josiah is more than confident in his own skills and abilities in hand to hand. He starts to say something, starts to tell Zweil that he’s got help waiting for him only a handful of miles away, but Zweil’s husky voice interrupts him before he can even start.

“You said your name was Marx, right? What’s your first name?”

“Josiah.” He answers out of curiosity and confusion, unsure why the information is necessary.

“Josiah. That’s a pretty nice name. Well, Josiah, you should call me Rafe since you’re seeing me at what’s admittedly not exactly my finest.”

1Josiah frowns slightly, liking the way Zweil’s tongue curls around his name and wanting to accept the offer but knowing that he shouldn’t, that it’s a step in a direction that he shouldn’t take.

“That would be…inappropriate given the circumstances.”

Something within Zweil seems to dim for a moment, something wounded and vulnerable shining through before he noticeably stuffs it back down, takes a deep breath, and continues talking.

“This used to be my home, you know. I lived here with my father and his Bonded Miguel when I was a child. I remember waking up every morning to laughter and knowing just how much those two loved each other and me. It was glorious. Those days where something I thought would never end, something I thought would be there forever. Then when the war started and my father died in one of the first raids I knew that everything was going to change. I was twelve and terrified. We had to go to my father’s family’s main housing complex and I never saw Miguel again.”

Josiah is confused, almost startled really, at the way Zweil is volunteering all of this unnecessary information while at the same time another part of him is rejoicing in being able to gather more details about him. The almost dazed look on Zweil’s face brings his world sharply back into focus in the next second.

“I just…I wish that I could see him one more time or at least find out what happened to him…before it’s all over with…”

Zweil’s voice fades out and Josiah is once again on high alert as his eyes search the other man for any sign that his injuries have noticeably worsened. That’s when he sees it, sees the way the hand he’d thought was curled closed in pain in now open and loose on Zweil’s other side, fingers barely making contact with an empty glass-vialed syringe.

The pieces fall together with an almost audible click and Josiah surges forward, hands darting out to cup Zweil’s face in his palms so that he can look into his eyes. The pupils are blown wide, the color almost eclipsed by black, and Josiah can practically see whatever drug the other man had injected into himself swimming there in the depths of his gaze. Cursing savagely he takes a brief second to thank Eagan for his foresight in thinking to keep an open channel between them.

“Eagan, I know you can hear me. You need to send Marcel and that medical unit to my location, stat!

Zweil’s injected himself with some sort of drug and I have the feeling that he doesn’t have much time left so tell them to hurry the fuck up!”

Teeth gnashing, Josiah curses his own stupidity in underestimating just how far Zweil was willing to go. No wonder Zweil had been so intent to stall, so eager to talk and keep Josiah distracted. He’d been biding time, trying to make sure that enough passed so that the drug in his system couldn’t be reversed. Not willing to let it happen, not willing to let him go that easily, Josiah cups a too slack shoulder in one hand and slaps the other man across the cheek hard enough to sting and hopefully to make him focus a bit with the other. Sure enough Zweil’s eyes sharpen for a moment as they focus on Josiah’s face.

“What. Did. You. Take?” Josiah grits the question out through clenched teeth, each word its own separate sentence as he tries to contain his rage.

“Hmm. A little of this…a little of that. You don’t have to…worry…about me…anymore…”

Zweil’s losing coherency fast, the drugs finally taking ahold of him and stealing away his senses. Josiah can feel his own control slipping in a way that it never has before, can feel panic creeping up on him where calm has always been.

1“Zweil! Zweil! Rafe! Snap out of it and tell me what you took, damn you!”

Josiah bellows the words but they have no effect. All he can do is clutch uselessly at the other man’s loose form and pray that the sirens he can hear in the distance will make it to them in time.

1
Chapter Five

Josiah scrubs a hand roughly across his face, fingers scraping through the build-up of stubble that coats his cheeks. He’s basically been playing guard over Rafe’s bedside for the past three days and he’s beginning to get frustrated. He’s given up all thoughts of not calling the man by his given name. Josiah figures it’s a small reward for all of the bullshit he’s had to put up with.

The situation had gone downhill at an almost awe-inspiring speed after the medical unit had finally made it to the ruins of Rafe’s old home. The submissive had flat-lined twice on the ride back to the city and on the second time the medics had barely been able to revive him again. The large dose of distilled quiesco root, a plant that acted as a powerful sedative, that he’d injected into his arm had stopped his heart before the medics had been able to flush his system completely. They’d almost been too late.

He’d almost lost Rafe before he even had the chance to have him.

Josiah pushes that thought away harshly. Rafe isn’t his, cannot be his, and does in fact belong to someone else. Someone Josiah has spent the last three days making damn sure is unable to come within two feet of the vulnerable man. He knows that he should have went home instead, that he should have left the hospital as soon as it was clear that Rafe would live, gone home and washed the feel of ash and death off of his skin with scalding hot water. Instead he’d glued himself to Rafe’s side, ignoring or practically snarling at anyone who suggested he should leave. Eagan had walked in, taken one look at him before shaking his head and wishing him good luck.

What he meant Josiah isn’t exactly sure he wants to know, but he appreciates the sentiment anyways.

Frisch had been particularly hard to get rid of, but Josiah had taken an almost feral delight in intimidating the lower tiered dominant into leaving. So far he’d been the only visitor; there’d been no friends, no other family. The unconscious man’s Head of House hadn’t even bothered to show when she’d been notified of his condition and location and that alone spoke volumes about Rafe’s home life. It was something that set Josiah’s teeth on edge and his fingers itching for his rapier.

Especially when the medical workup on Rafe had been completed and Josiah and Marcel had been presented with irrefutable proof that the submissive had been treated poorly for what had to have been years now. The physical scars were few but the in-depth scans had told a different, more terrible story. Josiah has a not so sneaky suspicion that it’d all began when Rafe had been separated from his father’s Bonded. He’s got feelers out in some discreet places to see if he can locate the other man; it’d only taken a few discreet messages on his p.a.t.c.h to start the process, but he’s more than aware of the fact that after so many years any important information might already be gone.