WastelandRogue (14 page)

Rye moved her hand behind Sevrin’s head and pulled him
forward, wanting him to forget Iantha or any female before her. She planted a
kiss squarely on his mouth. It didn’t take much encouragement to get her way,
although his eagerness wasn’t as reassuring as she would have liked.

Did he move as swiftly with Iantha? If Rye hadn’t arrived so
soon, would he have been to the rutting stage or the finishing climax with that
pureblood
lamian
?

Aroused by the human blood coursing through her veins, she
pushed away the past. Sevrin was there to quell her lust.

“Come this way.” He guided her to the water basin.

She let him undress her. He took his time stripping the
clothes down her limbs, touching her with delicate care. Then he wet a rag.
Carefully, he washed the dried blood from her skin. His mindful pauses near her
wounds showed more patience then she needed, and yet, she appreciated his
unrushed movements.

Once he tossed the rag away, he stood behind her and
continued to touch her. Her nerve endings quivered under the caress of his
fingers up her spine. His palms glided lightly, as though a faint breeze
drifted over her shoulders. He brushed her hair aside and kissed the back of
her neck. Delight filled her as he lingered at her nape.

A moan slipped out of her when he leaned close and slid his
hands over her breasts. He kneaded them gently as he brushed kisses across the
top of her shoulder. The heated scent of him teased her already heightened
senses. She tilted her head to the side as he continued to nuzzle her ear.

Moving slowly along her neck and back down to her shoulder,
his touch magnified her desires. Her insides trembled hard enough that she put
a hand to her belly to stop them. It didn’t work.

“You’re not going to get any rest,” he whispered in her ear.

He stroked and kissed her body as if he worshiped every
curve. It aroused her in the most sizzling way.

“This is more restful than you know,” she responded.

Sevrin’s arms went around her middle. He nibbled at her ear,
kissing beneath, running his tongue along the rim. She felt the movements of
him removing his clothes as the same time.

Immersed in the sensual care, she hugged his arms tight,
holding him against her back. Heat intensified from his squeezing embrace. The
hardness of him pressed for her attention. The muscles of his chest moved with
each breath he took. His cock throbbed where the length of it lay nestled in
the crevice of her buttocks.

She tipped her head to the side, enthralled by his constant
focus. The pressure of his mouth on her neck made the blood in her veins pulse
quicker. If only he had fangs. She let out a sigh of regret. Then his teeth
clamped tight, pressed firmly against her skin as he sucked. His actions
escalated beyond her expectations. Lightheaded and weak-kneed, she surrendered
her thoughts. When he released her neck and his hold on her slackened, she
turned around within his embrace.

“We don’t have much time,” she reminded him, not that she
wanted to rush.

“I know,” he said sadly, cupping her cheek.

He leaned forward. She met him halfway. His breath dusted
her face before his lips brushed hers lightly. His fingers became part of the
kiss, squeezing her cheeks to pucker her mouth. His lips caressed and his
tongue licked. Finally, his sigh expelled a breath that merged with hers.

She sagged against him, enamored by his passion. Sliding her
hands up his back, she hugged him tight. His long fingers slid behind her head
and pulled her face close. His mouth swam over hers and they spent a long time
entangled in each other’s arms, kissing as if it was all they ever needed.

“I can never get enough of you.” He backed her toward the
bed.

“Enough of me or enough of sex? Iantha seemed to be very
willing.” She blurted out her tormented thought.

Sevrin pulled back and looked at her a long time, a bit
perplexed and then somewhat amused. “I was not interested in her.” It seemed
part lie, part truth and yet enough to satisfy her.

She wrapped her arms around his neck, kissing him as he
lowered her to the mattress. He always knew the right thing to say. Was it a
gift or a trick? For now, she didn’t care. She needed to believe in the trust
she had in him, at least until he proved she couldn’t.

Rye combed her fingers into the hair at Sevrin’s nape and
played with the soft brown locks while staring into his intense gaze. The
weight of him spread as he positioned over her. She parted her legs, eager to
have him closer. He rolled his hips and pushed his cock into her. His lengthy,
masculine body, incredibly solid and tantalizingly warm, bonded to hers. His
low groan resonated contentment.

“You feel so good.” He drew back and thrust again.

She gasped at the force of his full penetration. His strokes
stimulated every nerve in the wake of his withdrawals. She closed her eyes and
hung on to him, riding out the sizzling sensations curling her toes. They
rocked in unison and flexed against the strains of their orgasms. His kisses
were rapid bursts of air against her neck until he let out a low moan that
heated her ear. Then his body hunched and froze. Liquid warmth filled her.

“You don’t know how much I wish we didn’t have to get up.”
He buried his face into her neck and kissed below her ear. “My desire to
pleasure you is endless, but alas, we should rest.”

“I know.” She rubbed a hand over his tense shoulders and
smiled, feeling adored for all the right reasons. It scared her to think how
much she had let her guard down around him. Sex always erased the reservations
she had about his honesty, until her thoughts cleared and began churning with
annoying doubts again.

The eerie quiet kept Sevrin awake and alert. In his
underground lairs, scattered around the wasteland’s vast region, he sought
silence and slept as soundly as the dead. Above ground, he needed a rhythmic
resonance to give him a sense of a peaceful surrounding.

Rye’s light, steady breathing wasn’t enough. Instead, her
tranquil slumber put him on edge. She’d suffered a lot in the past few days and
he aimed to protect her from more harm. He hadn’t been as successful as he
liked, but it wasn’t from a lack of trying.

He looked at her asleep in his arms. Her slender frame
nestled to his side stirred the inherent maleness inside him. Her soft contours
fit against him so perfectly. The urge to fuck her hardened his cock with
hardly a thought. They had dressed after having sex in case someone came into
the shack unexpectedly. Now he wished he had taken the chance of waiting.

He ran his hand up her arm and to the back of her head.
“Another time,” he whispered, kissing her forehead and ignoring the throbbing
tightness of his erection within his restrictive clothing.

“What’s wrong?” she asked, obviously not as far into a deep
sleep as he thought.

“Nothing.”

“Is it time to go?”

He glanced at the window for the hundredth time. The moon
sat perched high, casting a glow in the room. Enough time had passed for Ev to
instruct as many people as she could. The marauders would also be very drunk on
the fermented dandelion. As much as he enjoyed his position on the small bed
with Rye, they had to get up.

“Yeah,” he answered.

Rye wasted no time rising first.

He swung his legs over the side and sat on the edge of the
straw-filled mattress a little while longer, watching her stretch.

“How are you going to start your plan?” She turned around.
“You can’t just drag a dead man out into the open. One of the marauders might
catch you.”

“It’ll be tricky.” He rose to his feet. “I have to take one
of those first two you killed out of the shack and put him in an area where
he’ll be found quickly.”

“Just be careful.” She tucked her shirt into her waistband
and then put on her short leather jacket, lacing it to cover the bloodstains.

“Worried about me?” He smiled over his shoulder at her.

“Terrified I’ll have to rescue you. I can hold my own
against a few men. Not a whole band of them.” Rye picked up her coat and slid
her arms into the frayed sleeves.

Blood, dirt and burned edges from where she had fallen in
that hole to hell had really worn it down to not much more than a rag. He’d
have to keep a lookout for a replacement for her.

“Ready,” he asked, putting on his coat too.

She nodded, walking to the door. “Where do you think the
best place will be to leave a body?”

“I’ll know it when I see it.” He opened the door and looked
out. “Come on.”

The night air hung heavy with staleness. While the rain
should have left it fresh, it held the sour dankness rising from the stale
ground. It reinforced his reason for wandering the wastelands. Congested areas
compounded the stench of human bodily waste.

In front of the first shack they came to, Rye grabbed his
arm to stop him from passing it by. “Don’t you want to get Hamner?”

“He was killed by a knife. We need to get one of the ones
you bit. The marauders need to believe
lamians
are picking them off one
by one,” he explained.

She released her hold on his sleeve and they proceeded to
the next shack.

Inside, she pointed to the scruffy-looking man and said,
“That’s Wirdle. He acted in charge. The fat, dirty one there is Milt. I think
he’d be the best one to start with. It’ll get the marauders thinking but not
too worried over the death of the simpleton. After him, we can drag out Wirdle.
It’ll have them more nervous. Then we can use Hamner. He’ll look as if he put
up the best fight of the lot and still lost. They’ll either come looking for us
or run.”

“I hope it’s that easy.” He bent down and grabbed Wirdle’s
arms.

Rye grabbed his legs. “This
was
your idea.”

“Do you have a better plan?” He lifted the lifeless man.

“No.” Rye let out a low grunt as she hoisted her end of the
man up.

“Then we go with what we have.”

“And if it doesn’t work or something goes wrong?”

“We improvise.” He backed through the doorway and stopped.

“What’s wrong?”

“Just deciding where to go.”

“Great,” she groaned, shifting her hold and putting a strain
on his grip. “You could have decided that before we lugged this dead fellow out
here.”

“We’ll go over there by that old well. It’ll look as if he
went for a drink and was surprised by a
lamian
.”

“A marauder that drinks water when the wine is flowing
tonight as heavy as a river in a storm?” she questioned with disbelief.

“You have a better place?” He trudged backward not waiting
for an answer.

Rye shuffled forward. At the well, they both dropped the
body on the ground. Sevrin looked over the side of the planked well frame. Too
dark to see the depth. He picked up a rock and tossed it in.

“Guess what?” He let out a short laugh.

“What?” She looked over the side.

“No water. We shouldn’t be surprised. There’s never any
water around when you want some.”

“Over there.” Rye pointed toward another shack. “Those look
like rain barrels.”

Sevrin bend over at the same time Rye did and they picked
Milt up again. She stumbled walking backward.

“You want to turn around,” he asked.

“I got it.” She kept going.

He waited for her to put down Milt’s legs and then he
flipped the dead man over the one barrel, making it look as if he didn’t see
the attack coming. Then he motioned for Rye to head back to the shack. He
didn’t like trusting that someone might come along, so after he saw Rye get to
the shack, he gave a loud, painful shout.

“That should stir someone out of their chair,” he said,
running toward her.

She held open the shack door and he dove inside.

“Someone could have seen you,” she chastised.

“There’s not much night left. Once the sun comes up, we’ll
lose a lot of the scariness of the situation.”

“But how do we get this fellow out of here?”

He looked at the big man on the floor and shrugged. “He
is
too big for us to tote easily. I say we leave him right here and—”

Rye pulled him across the room. “Shhh, someone’s coming.”

They squeezed behind a stack of crates in the corner and
hunched down. Sevrin put his hand back, ready to pull his gun out of the
holster if needed. The door opened. He tensed. Rye went completely silent. He
didn’t even hear her breathing.

“Here’s Wirdle,” a man said. “He’s done for too.”

“We better tell Orland that some of those
lamians
that escaped have come back.” Another man spoke.

“Y-yeah and then I’m get-getting out of here,” the other
replied, his voice trembling.

The clomping of feet on the wood floor faded and then
vanished, suggesting the two men left.

Sevrin slowly righted himself, looking over the crates. “All
clear,” he told Rye.

She backed out of the tight space first. “I’m all for that
one fellow’s suggestion,” she said. “Let’s get out of here.”

“We’ll sneak around behind the shacks to the one I saw
Orland in. We need to hear what he has to say.”

Rye’s hand on his back let him know she followed closely.
They kept their movements slow and quiet. In the dark, neither of them
anticipated a rock would trip her up and push him into the wall.

A thud resounded.

They froze.

Of course sound would be louder to them. Was it loud enough
to gain attention from anyone else?

“Keep moving,” Rye whispered, nudging him.

“Someone might have heard us.”

“That makes a good reason not to be here.”

“I’m just listening, making sure we don’t run into anyone
coming to check.”

She heaved a heavy frustrated sigh.

He waited to the count of ten and continued. They passed
another shack and then another and moved to the side. From there, they heard
voices.

“First we found Milt dead and then Wirdle. I won’t be next,”
one man said.

“What do you have to say, Toddas?” It sounded like Orland.
“Have those
lamians
who lived here returned to kill us?”

“I don’t know. You’ve had me at your side day and night.
There’s no way for me to know anything other than what you know. After the way
you and your gang tortured and murdered the
lamians
that didn’t get
away, I’d not blame them for seeking vengeance.”

“See, those
lamians
aim to kill us all,” someone
grumbled.

Sevrin moved around the corner of the building, looking for
a better spot to eavesdrop. The more he knew, the better he could plan. The
leader of the camp, Toddas, didn’t speak of the
lamians
using them as
food, so Sevrin had to assume he never received the message Ev was to pass on.
He hoped Orland wasn’t smart enough to question Toddas’ empathetic tone for the
lamians
.

“They’ve suggested leaving,” Sevrin relayed in a hushed tone
to Rye.

“I can hear,” she whispered back.

“And you think we should just run off?” Orland asked.

“Of course I do,” Leach replied to Orland. “There are other
camps for us to get cozy in.”

“I like this one just fine. We stay. You and Felder stand
watch outside the rest of the night. And if you don’t want those
lamians
getting you, I suggest you don’t try sneaking out of camp on your own.”

“Come on, Orland. You can’t put us out there. We’ll be the
next ones those fangers kill.”

“Stop whining, Leach. If you stay alert, you’ll hear them
coming,” Orland said. “If they do come, you warn the rest of us.”

Sevrin took Rye’s hand and pulled her away from the
building. “It’s time to get Hamner in place.”

“Do you really think one more body will get Orland to change
his mind?” Rye asked.

“What other option do we have?”

“I don’t know. It’s obvious Orland doesn’t scare so easily.”

They returned to the shack where they had left Hamner.
Sevrin paced the room, undecided where to put the man. It wasn’t as if the camp
had many locations where no one lingered or where anyone might venture.

“What if we give them a show?” Rye suggested.

He turned toward her, interested in what she had in mind. It
wasn’t as if he was coming up with anything. “What kind of show can we give
them that doesn’t put us in the thick of that horde?”

“Let me clarify that by saying not we, but me. I can stage a
performance of killing Hamner.”

“You? Killing Hamner?”

Rye nodded.

“You’re forgetting, Hamner is already dead.” He watched Rye
pull off her jacket and toss it to the corner.

She pulled her shirt from the waistband and then pushed up
her sleeve. She bit into her forearm.

“That won’t bring him back to life,” he reminded her, not
understanding what she had in mind.

“I’m just making him fit the part.” She smiled, transferring
blood from her arm to Hamner’s neck. “No one has to see the fight. A little
shouting, screaming and some ruckus should provide enough for their
imagination.”

Sevrin nodded, agreeing it did have merit. “Where are we
going to take him?”

“We’re not moving him at all.” She rose. “Take off your
coat.”

She rushed the process, grabbing the collar and helping pull
the garment down his arms.

“Now what?” He threw the coat over hers in the corner.

“Stage the fight. I’ll go out behind the shack while you
make a commotion to get Leach and Felder headed this way. Then I’ll attack you
from behind. We’ll have a scuffle, with you stumbling back into this shack.
I’ll take off, back around the building and sneak my way into Tari’s shack. You
hide—” She turned and looked around. “Better yet, this shack has a window. You
climb out it and I’ll meet you out back.”

“Why don’t we both climb out after our fight?” He didn’t
like her going outside alone.

“As scared as Leach and Felder are, do you really think
they’d come in here? I have to make them think the threat is gone. The only
sure way of doing that is if they see me leave.”

“What if they notice Hamner doesn’t have bite marks?” He had
to think through all the angles.

“Do you honestly believe those two are going to exam him?”
She walked around and tipped over a chair, sat objects on the floor and spilled
contents from containers. “They’ll be racing back to Orland, begging to leave
this place.”

“You’re probably right.”

“I know I am.” She went to the window and pushed open the
shutters. “Ready?”

He was and he wasn’t. However, they didn’t have a lot of
night left and her plan had a feasibility he liked. He nodded and went to the
door.

“Give me to the count of ten and then go outside and attract
their attention.” She climbed up on a chair and hoisted herself through the
opening.

He counted. “One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight.
Nine. Ten.” He pulled open the door and stepped out.

Sevrin wasn’t sure anyone watched but he had to play a part
from the start. Pretending he was inebriated on fermented dandelion, he
stumbled into a large metal washtub hanging on the building. It clanked against
the wood siding.

Rye sprang out from around the corner and grabbed him by the
front of his shirt. Even knowing what she was going to do, he was startled. He
shouted as loud as possible during their fake struggle.

“Make it louder,” she coaxed. “The more of them that see us,
the better.”

“Come here and bite me, then.” He tugged her close. “I mean
pretend to bite me.”

She nuzzled his neck, brushing her lips back and forth as if
she might kiss him. He saw the movement of people coming their way. No doubt
Orland’s men were in the crowd.