Prodigal (Maelstrom Chronicles) (20 page)

“Where’s the condom?” Propping herself up, she wriggled his jeans farther down, hands fondling his ass. Despite the fact he wasn’t wearing the condom yet, she wedged him between her thighs, rubbing against his shaft.

“Claire.” They kissed, grinding together, flesh against hot flesh. “You’re going to kill me.”

The tip of his cock snagged on her slit, and they froze. She laughed, breathless. “If you can’t reach the condom from where you are, I might be the one who dies.”

“It’s in my other jeans,” he admitted. He stroked slowly against her, taunting them both. “I didn’t plan this well.”

In fact, he hadn’t actually planned much at all, but he’d lifted up her shirt and been seduced by her smooth skin and her acquiescence.

She clamped her thighs around his cock, snaring him tight. “Rub against me. Faster.”

The tip of his cock slid through her wet folds, which increased his arousal. He began to tilt his hips as he imagined entering her. She groaned and met him thrust for thrust, twisting herself until his cock hit exactly the right spot.

He pushed into her body. Into perfection.

“Shit, shit, shit.” She kissed him, hands holding his face. They stared into each other’s eyes, completely in sync. “This is so fucking stupid. Just…don’t move. Why couldn’t your condom be in these pants? It feels so good, Adam. You feel so good.”

Her heat thawed the nightmares. The icy cold, the shades, the horror. Her pussy clenched like she was coaxing him. Milking him. Needing him.

She squirmed, trying to lift her knees and take him deeper, but her pants got in the way. “You’re not close, are you?”

“I’m okay.” They kissed, deep and longingly, without moving their hips. Connected. Sharing breath, sharing bodies. Tiny movements of her pelvis sent shivers through his cock, while he held as still as he could. She ran her hands up and down his back, playing his spine like a bass fiddle, massaging him the way he’d massaged her.

Except sexier.

Her touch catapulted him from not that close to volcanic. Granted, his cock was buried inside her and she was begging for more. Delicious pressure built in his balls even though he wasn’t thrusting, ramped up by his emotions.

He raised his mouth from hers and stared at her face. The dark, short eyelashes. The level brows. The full lips, the high cheekbones, the curls of hair around her ears. He wanted that face next to him every day. Every morning, every night. All the time.

“I think I’m falling for you,” he blurted.

Her eyes flew open. “What?”

He drove his cock deep. It swelled with the sheer pleasure of being inside her. She groaned and gripped his ass.

“I’m crazy about you, Claire.”

Suddenly she was pushing him away, scrambling, fumbling at her clothes. “You can’t feel that way about me. You can’t.”

“I do.” Intending to prove it, he reached for her, but she slithered out of his grasp.

Without buttons, she had to hold her shirt closed. “You don’t know what love is. You don’t know anything. You don’t remember anything.”

“Don’t belittle me,” he said harshly. “I know what I feel when I’m inside you.”

“That’s fucking. That’s not love.” She trembled visibly from what they’d almost done, and her breath came in short pants. “I’m your first, I get it. Your first that you remember. You feel attached.”

If he’d known she was going to push him away…he’d still have told her how he felt. “You can’t stand the thought of being attached to anyone, can you?”

“I’m not some hard-ass robot.” She yanked off her boots, banged drawers on the dresser. “I love. I can love. I do. I just don’t want to marry you, and you need to get over yourself.”

“I never said anything about marriage. I said I had feelings for you. Jesus, Claire.”

“Well, you can’t.”

“Why not? You saved my life. You accept me even though nobody understands why I’m here. I think you’re amazing.” Her candor struck him between the ribs like a fist. “You’re trying to hurt me so I won’t go soft on you. It won’t work. I don’t feel this way because we slept together. I—”

Claire pointed at him. “If you quote Guy Lassiter to me right now, I will staple your mouth shut.”

“I wasn’t going to quote.” Probably. “I’m telling you the truth.”

“I don’t want to hear it. The next time you pull the fake massage trick and then stick your hands down my pants, you’re gonna be missing some fingers. It might be time to think about moving you to the group barracks.” She stalked into the bathroom and slammed the door.

Adam undressed slowly, with no need to cap off his sexual urges. The pain of her words was too much for him to imagine jacking off.

That didn’t mean he wasn’t falling in love with her. It just meant she was a little harder to love than she’d been a couple minutes ago when he’d been buried between her thighs.

…

The nightmares seized him and wrung him out like a rag. They were so real that he felt like he was awake. He was running. The moon was bright. Fresh snowfall blanketed the earth. He was running, and he was almost there, and…

Shades. He smelled them, raced toward them, and dove into them like they were the ocean.

Icy cold seized him, and the stench clawed at his throat and stomach. This was it. This was when he died. Screaming, surrounded by evil, striking out and feeling nothing but cold and loneliness.

When he opened his mouth to shout, he inhaled the shades and drowned. They filled him from his lungs out, seeping into every single pore of his body.

He fought against the torrent, but there was nothing to hit.

He clawed toward the surface until suddenly he was alone.

All snow. All whiteness. No more shades.

Until there were more, and he was dying. Again. And again. And again.

Was this what it had been like on the other side?

…

When he woke for real, his boots were soaked, sitting in a puddle of melted ice. At least they weren’t mucking up his bed, but his damp clothing had done enough of a job on the sheets that they’d have to be changed again.

“How’d you sleep through me talking? I’ve been conferencing with Elizabeth for twenty minutes.” Despite her sensor array, Claire’s hair was flat on one side, as if she’d lain in a single position all night, too tired to move. The other side was smushed up in a lump.

He liked her grouchy morning face. What would she do if he told her that he still had feelings for her this morning? Probably kick his ass. He might not be wholly conscious yet, but he was smarter today than he’d been yesterday. “I was kind of awake.”

She rubbed her eyes and inspected him. “Why the hell do you keep sleeping in your damned clothes?”

He had no answer for that. Had he undressed before bed? Wait. Yes. He had—with her help. “I guess I got cold again.”

Was he a sleepwalker? Would that be in his files along with his standard enhancements package? He should ask Ship. It wasn’t something he’d run across so far, but it would explain a few things, like his morning muzziness. He doubted anyone in Camp Chanute would be happy if the resurrected Chosen One was wandering aimlessly while they were trying to sleep.

“You have that look. More nightmares?” she guessed.

“Yeah.” Shades, shades, more shades. “Unless they’re memories of the other side.”

“That’s not even an option,” she said, not meeting his eyes. “But get up. We gotta go. You and I are taking one of the missions today.”

“What missions?” He rubbed his face and yawned.

She raised an eyebrow. “To check for entities and the convergence? They’ve cobbled together some shade sensors, and we’ve got until dark to install them at potential hit sites.”

“Right, right.” He vaguely recalled that. It would trickle back later, after breakfast. On the plus side, he didn’t have to argue with her about what he was going to do today.

Other than love her. She couldn’t stop him from that, no matter what she did.

Chapter Sixteen

“I’m coming with you and Adam to check for shade outbreaks.” Kenna, stubborn as Claire had been at that age, caught up with Claire and Adam outside the armory where they’d gotten their blaster bands recharged. “I’m assigned to protect the Chosen One.”

Claire didn’t need a half-trained wannabe out there getting herself killed after what had happened yesterday. Everyone was hurting over losing a friend, but the woman who’d died had saved her team’s lives with her sacrifice. Making poor choices about who to send out today wouldn’t honor her memory.

But the truth was, Claire didn’t have time for the Believers in Adam’s Divine Ass or whatever they were calling themselves. Would they still be supportive if and when they found out about Adam’s furlough in the shade dimension?

Probably. They were nuts. More had remained in Chanute than she’d thought—hell, there were more converts than she’d thought in general. She couldn’t afford to alienate them.

At least, not completely.

“You’re not coming, Kenna.” Kenna and her mother Natalie had been with Claire through the whole apocalypse. She wasn’t about to let something happen to the kid. “You’ll slow us down, and if we see action out there, you don’t know how to handle it.”

Kenna rolled her eyes. “I’m an adult now. I can shoot, and I’ve been training. I can keep up. I can do a mile in seven minutes. Can you?”

Claire snorted. “A mile in seven minutes won’t save you from a daemon.”

“The truth is, we need you here.” Adam regarded the girl gravely. “You are an excellent shot, and it’s more important for you to be on the walls, since we don’t have all the vulnerable Chanuters out yet. Claire will protect me. Even if she takes eight minutes to run a mile.”

He and Kenna exchanged a grin. The kid stared at him worshipfully, and Claire tried not to be annoyed that one of her people was more cooperative with Adam than their own sheriff.

But Kenna, eighteen and convinced nothing could hurt her, wasn’t persuaded. “How am I going to get battle experience if you won’t let me outside the walls? You’re setting up electronic monitors today, and I’m good with computers. Real good.”

Adam placed a hand on the girl’s shoulder. “After we get through this, you can start training with Claire’s deputies. You’d make an excellent addition to the team. Right now, Claire and I would be as worried about you as we would the potential hit sites.”

“He’s right. The two of us will be better off without you.” Not that Claire longed to be alone with Adam, but they didn’t have people to spare. She’d shoved aside her feelings, his feelings—everyone’s feelings—to concentrate on the job. Too many sites in the predictive model needed a shade sensor ASAP. If a swarm was coming, she intended to stop it. “You’ll put Adam in jeopardy if you come with us, and that’s exactly the opposite of what you say you want to do.”

Kenna blinked quickly. Her lip trembled. Adam cast Claire a sidelong glance—and not an admiring one.

“I have free will, same as anyone,” Kenna said. “I can take care of myself.”

“Can you swap places with someone experienced today?” Adam asked her. “You were stuck with me all day yesterday. That way you can be on the walls where we need you. There are still kids here, Kenna. They’re more important than I am.”

“If that’s what
you
want, Adam, I’ll do it.” Kenna glared at Claire, whipped up her walkie, and radioed Obadiah Gentry. The remnants of her childhood were etched all over her disappointed face. Young people had to grow up too fast during the apocalypse. Their education was as much about surviving entities as it was reading, writing, and arithmetic. The change in the shades’ attack patterns wasn’t going to make it any better, not here and not in other countries.

“Let’s go.” Maybe they could escape before Kenna found a sub who was equally ill-prepared for what they might encounter out there.

“You didn’t have to be a shit to her,” Adam told Claire when they were out of earshot. “It’s one thing to talk that way to grown-ups, and another to slam a kid like that.”

Claire picked up the pace. She refused to feel guilty for doing the right thing. “She’s not a kid. She said it herself. She knows how I am.”

“She wants to contribute.”

“And I want to save her life, all right?” She grabbed Adam’s shoulder and swung him around. “Charm whoever you want, Hollywood, but I make the security decisions. There were eight confirmed hits yesterday. We lost someone to the shades. I’m not taking Kenna out there.”

He regarded her levelly. “I’m not arguing with your skills or your role. I’m pointing out you’d get less flack if you didn’t insult people.”

She drew in a breath. Exhaled. He wasn’t telling her anything that others hadn’t told her before. Why did it hurt more coming from him? “It’s a harsh existence. You gotta be harsh to get the job done. Do you think I like being a complete asshole?”

“I think you might. With some people.”

“This isn’t about our relationship.”

“I wasn’t thinking about our relationship.” He removed her hand from his shoulder, but he held onto it. “Though, I see that you are.”

“I’m not,” she lied. It would have been more convincing if she’d tugged her hand free and punched him. “And if I were, it doesn’t matter, because we have shit to do.”

He turned her hand palm up and touched a scar near her thumb. “I know you didn’t want to hurt Kenna, but you’re scared for her. You hide it by being callous. Try telling her that you care about her and you’d feel better if she was safe.”

Did he not know teenagers? Was that part of the memories he’d lost? “That would mean more arguing. She’d see that I was weakening and use it against me.”

“It’s not weak to care about somebody.” He traced each one of her fingers as if counting them. She held her breath. Was he about to insist, again, that he cared for
her
, forcing her to insist, again, that he was crazy?

But he didn’t. “Your love for Frannie, your friends, and your family makes you who you are. Strong. Passionate. Incredible. It doesn’t hurt to express it. That can give them strength, too. You can start now if you like.” He smiled. “Make me strong, Claire.”

A lump formed in her throat, and she lurched back into motion. They only had until dusk to place the shade monitors, and they’d be pushing it at this rate. “Quit being sappy. Let’s go find some monsters to kill.”

He caught up with her easily. “You like it when I’m sappy.”

Oh, God, she did. A lot. It gave her a secret giddiness that was almost as uplifting as Frannie’s laughter. The fact that she could insult him, reject him, and have him stick by her anyway added a bounce to her step. A song to her heart. Bluebirds tweeted around her head, like in those stupid princess cartoons. It made her hope that one day this would all be over, and she could let down her guard and be happy.

With Frannie—and with Adam.

But mooning over a guy and wishing for something that might never happen wouldn’t help Camp Chanute. Claire shoved all that gooey crap into the darkest recesses of her soul and continued tromping through the powdery layer of fresh snow that had fallen through the night.

Obadiah himself was waiting by their vehicle when they reached the garage. He didn’t look like much, as skinny as he was, but Claire decided not to argue about whether he could face off against daemons and shades. He’d survived Riverbend.

The three of them hopped into a Jeep with a Shipborn rifle mounted on a tripod in the backseat. Chains had been installed on the tires, so their speed would be slower than she liked. Adam sat awkwardly beside the tripod, holding onto the roll bars with gloved hands, while Obadiah drove.

Claire tugged up her hood with its fur edge to keep out the worst of the cold. She wrapped her arms around herself, kept her sensor array live, and tried not to backseat drive.

The sense of foreboding that had been growing in the past six months was going to explode in some places, but not in Chanute. She wouldn’t allow it. They would control this convergence, and they would save their town. The closer they got to their first location, the tenser Claire became. On the plus side, her tension meant her body heat increased. Her cheeks thawed, and her hands still had sensation in them.

“Remember, guys,” she said, more to remind herself than her companions. “All we do is search the area, set up the monitors, report in, and hightail it to the next site. Gotta get done by dark.”

“I’m more concerned that you’re going to take on any shades we find.” Adam leaned between the seats as Obadiah steered around an icy, downed tree. “Seeing as leaving the entities to special teams are your orders.”

“We won’t take on any shades,” she said, though it was possibly a lie. If she thought they could handle it, she’d change the orders right then and there. “There are no people around for them to eat, and a specialized cleanup team can come handle them. That’s the plan.”

After yesterday, everyone on patrol knew they could run into the entities anywhere, though probably just shades. When the convergences happened, usually at night, then they’d have to worry about daemons. Lots of daemons.

After a couple wrong turns, they neared the approximate latitude and longitude of their first site. They hadn’t wasted too much gas, but they had to watch it; recent events had depleted Chanute’s supplies. Their mechanics hadn’t retrofitted all their Terran vehicles to the Shipborn power converters. “Keep a sharp lookout for dregs,” Claire advised her companions. She swept their surroundings with the sensor array, checking for life signs. Animals only, nothing sentient, no shades.

Soon the GPS pinged. The computer informed them they had reached their location before complaining that it was recalculating, recalculating, recalculating.

“Ship, my team’s in position at our first site,” she announced. They’d have to wait their turn for Ship’s newly calibrated sensors. Niko had his field techs upgrading personal arrays, but it wasn’t like pushing out a software update. “Whenever you’re ready, we can run the scan and pick the best place for the monitor.”

A long pause. A steady wind from the northwest whipped across a large field, sending a gust of snowflakes into their faces. The Jeep had no side windows or roof because of the gun turret.

“My face feels like I’m getting frostbite.” Adam shifted restlessly in the back of the Jeep. In the rearview mirror, she caught a glimpse of him rubbing his cheeks, pulling at them as if he could remove a mask. “It’s prickling like crazy.” He quit massaging his face and stared into the distance. “Hey, there’s something over there.”

He pointed to the east, but all Claire saw was a silo and a thick fencerow decorated by wads of white. They were near the Isaacson homestead, so the silo might be theirs, if it was in use.

He hopped out of the back of the Jeep.

“Can you scan?” he asked, shaking out his arms and stamping his feet. “I know your array isn’t as strong as Ship’s, but it might help.”

“It shows zip.” She hopped out, too, following him as he strode into the field. Snow blew in eddies around their feet. “Obadiah, we’re going to go check it out. Keep the motor running.”

Hidden stumps and rows of dirt lurked beneath the snow cover to trip them. The sharp, cold wind was ceaseless and really fucking annoying.

Behind them, the Jeep’s motor revved before it tooled off road. It wasn’t as hardy as a Humvee. The tires, even with chains, spun on snow, whirring, skidding forward. Adam increased his pace, so she did, too. They reached the silo at a jog. The icy air burned into and out of her lungs. After dealing with the scientists, Kravitz, the Shipborn, GUN, and the fallout of the predictive model all day yesterday, the exercise was welcome.

Then there was last night. Adam’s hands. His lips. His confession.

Today was a release of pent-up frustrations—of various types.

On the other side of the silo and a dilapidated barn were the fencerow and more endless fields. Probably corn, if the jutting, dead stalks were anything to go by.

“Find a break in the fence,” she called to Obadiah before addressing Adam. “I’m still not picking anything up on the sensor. What do you think you saw?”

“Something silver. Not supposed to be any vehicles here, right? I hope it’s not survivalists. Damn, I’m tense as hell.” He reached out to boost her over the fence, but she cut him a mean glance and climbed it without assistance. He followed. The Jeep’s motor chugged through the bumpy field.

“Chill, Adam. It’s probably the aluminum roof of a chicken coop.” Claire scanned the horizon. “Look, there’s some snow. Snow. More snow. And—”

That was when she saw it, too.

The sun twinkled on an almost-invisible silver pod in the unblemished white, so pale that it was hard to see. A coat of flakes decorated its surface, further disguising it. If she hadn’t been looking for it, her gaze would have passed right over it.

“Shit. It’s another damned pod.”

As if spotting the pod had kindled her sensor array, it lit up with shade signs. She and Adam broke into a run.

“It’s sealed. There could be someone trapped inside there.” Adam’s long legs threatened to leave her behind, but she wasn’t about to tell him to slow down. She stumbled on a dead plant, nearly losing her balance.

The cold air made panting painful. “My sensor isn’t showing life signs, just shades.”

Adam appeared to be experiencing no discomfort from the cold or the running. “How can we get into it? There’s no door.”

“I threw a rock at it and it made a huge noise before you came out,” she said. “Be careful. Shade traces everywhere.”

“I smell them,” he agreed. “They’re around. Somewhere.” He wasn’t wearing a sensor, but he practically bristled with urgency. Untiring, he outdistanced her as they neared the pod.

“Ship, we’ve got another pod,” Claire huffed into the comm. The shade scent was fresh and putrid. “Still sealed. This could be the answer we’ve been looking for. I need a 100 percent scan right here, right now. I don’t care what other people you’re helping.”

“I am not detecting other sentients, Claire,” Ship answered through the comms. “There are traces of shades. With the new sensor settings, I would approximate that shades have been present within the hour and would comprise one of the small hits, not a convergence.”