MY SHOULDER HURTS, my head aches, and a raging hard-on is making me exceedingly uncomfortable. Even after battling hellhounds, getting bit, and fighting the poison all night she gets to me. The man, not the beast, which is a problem. Beast refusing not to react when she stares in my eyes is perplexing. Hell, everything about the woman and Beast is perplexing.
I crawl out of bed, rebuffing doctor’s orders. I refuse to lie around all day. Axel is a mother hen when it comes to his patients and he needs to relax a little. When I stand, the pain in my shoulder makes it difficult to draw a full breath. Along with our remedy for hellhound bites, Axel must cut the dead tissue from the wound. The area around the bite begins to putrefy immediately. It’s only our healing ability that gives us time for the antidote to work or I would be dead ten times over by now.
I pull on my pants slowly, fighting a groan, while hoping Axel doesn’t arrive to argue with me. After I’m dressed below the waist, I leave the room. I need food, a shower, and a bike ride, in that exact order.
It’s an hour later before I’m on my bike roaring up the coastline. The pain in my shoulder is quickly going away as it heals. It’s starting to itch, which I can deal with. I somehow managed to escape the citadel without a babysitter and it’s nice to have a little space. We’re pack animals, needing social interaction, but sometimes I need room to think. My warriors have no boundaries and between their bickering and Axel’s incessant worrying, I need to clear my head. It’s worse at the citadel because at least in my real home, I can lock the door and keep them out. Okay, maybe that’s not true. Beck will stand at the door and knock every ten minutes until I open it. I’ve tested him and six hours later he was still knocking.
The smell of the ocean helps me forget the twinges in my shoulder. I need to figure out what to do with Marinah. I’ve shown her enough to cause us major problems. It’s all things we would share if we trusted the Federation, but I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to trust them again. What she has now in her memory banks are our bargaining chips. We have hellhounds, we’ve been studying them, we know what they are and who made them, and we have an antidote to keep Shadow Warriors alive if bitten. That’s what she knows and there is so much more I want to share. I need sense talked into me.
Beast rumbles beneath my skin.
“I know, kill her,” I say aloud. The rumble’s a little stronger this time and I pick up speed.
I’m attracted to her and Beast is not. What a concept. It also won’t work. As separate as I try to keep us, we are one and the same. I can’t enjoy a woman he wants to kill because too much could go wrong. Beast is harder to contain near orgasm. It’s one of the trickiest things we learn as teenagers. When we were still hidden, we had to gain complete mastery of our beast before we could have sex with a human.
When younger, I only worried about the consequences from loss of control and navigated the murky waters of my first sexual relationships judiciously. In Beast’s current state, he could kill Marinah if I lose control of him. It’s not a chance I can take. She’ll be gone soon and leaving her alone is for the best. I just need to decide how to move forward with the Federation.
I’ve accepted that I won’t be killing Marinah. I like her just as I did her father. In her naiveté, she believes she can keep the Federation from betraying us again. She’s wrong.
I continue riding, the engine roaring beneath me for miles. Without conscious thought, I end up at Cabel’s house. Workers in the fields stop and wave as I ride past. So much different than when we first arrived, and I have no intention of repeating that scenario. Cabel is training in the cleared field in front of his house with several human men. Most are indigenous or at least loosely related to the indigenous people who came before the Spaniards. They fought us when we arrived and some of their people died. We took as few lives as possible because we wanted to work with them. Yes, they’re human but they come from a strict regime and sadly understand tyranny. We ask them for nothing we aren’t willing to do ourselves and our men work in the fields beside them. After word got out that we were fair and wanted to help them survive, more came in from hiding.
To stay alive, they eventually figured out that hellhounds could break through dirt and concrete and they began hiding in metal-lined bunkers their former government set up when bombing was their largest threat. The bulk of their people in the cities were packed in too close together and unable to find adequate shelter from the hellhounds and died in the first wave of attacks.
The genetically modified formaldehyde made its way to Cuba via citizens who died in the U.S. and were shipped home for burial. The first wave of hellhounds on the island were not as intense as the U.S. faced and it’s the only reason any humans survived at all. They need us and we need them.
The Cubans who managed to endure the hounds in the beginning went off the grid and hunkered down. Without us they would have slowly died of starvation and the hounds would have picked them off easily when they tried to plant crops. We took on the hellhounds when we first arrived, along with the people who didn’t want us here, and then we made peace by providing food, shelter, and safety.
Now many of our warriors are bilingual and our lives are intertwined with the women who mated Shadow Warriors. Someday, when this war is completely over, we’ll allow them to set up their own governing body and we’ll hand them back control of their island. For now, we need their help preparing for the next battle and cannot have any questions about who’s in charge. We might not care for the New Federation, but the U.S. is our home and we hope to return one day.
Cabel puts his sword down and walks toward me. “I didn’t expect you back so soon,” he says as way of greeting.
“I didn’t expect to be. It’s good to see you training.” I leave the bike idling unsure why I’m here.
He wipes sweat from his brow. “It’s hotter than usual today. I’ll give the men a break if you’d like to come inside.”
I turn off the ignition and lift my leg over the bike’s engine. I look around while we walk the hundred or so yards to his front door. Mary, his mate, is standing at the kitchen stove stirring something in a large pot. She glares at me as I take a seat at their table. Beast rumbles at her audacity and I pull him back.
Cabel tries to smooth things over. “It’s okay, Mar. It was only a small love tap. He wouldn’t hurt me.” He gives her a quick hug and kiss on her cheek.
I know when to keep my mouth shut and head down. I steady my eyes on the table and do everything I can not to incite Cabel’s Beast. The mating rage is hard enough to deal with and we all walk on eggshells when around a new couple. We’re still learning how to be beast and man even after the war and nine years of allowing our Beasts to be part of us. Hundreds of years can’t be overturned in a decade. We’re still adapting.
I watch from the corner of my eye as Cabel walks around Mary and grabs two glasses from a cupboard. She stops him when he tries to fill them from the sink and takes the glasses from his hands. Shrugging, he walks back to the table and takes a seat across from me. Mary places water in front of us both a few seconds later. First her mate and then me. I watch Cabel’s fingers tighten on his glass when she steps in close to give me my water. I don’t offer to take it from her hand or we might touch and that could be disastrous. He’s versed her well, because she doesn’t linger and quickly walks back to the stove after resting the glass on the table.
“Thank you,” I say softly hoping I score brownie points with her.
Cabel grumbles and then looks sheepish when I lift a brow. His eyes go to the table. “I updated you on the crops yesterday and have nothing new to report. What brings you here?”
“Woman trouble,” I say, which surprises us both.
Cabel figures it out, though. “The Federation woman.”
“Yes, that woman. She’s not who I expected and she acts nothing like you would think Church’s daughter would behave.”
“How so?”
“She can’t walk a straight line without falling. I have her training with Boot to keep her out of my hair and maybe it will give her a small chance if she ever needs to fight. I have a feeling I’ll fail on that front, though.” I drink from my glass and turn my eyes to the door. “Beast is the biggest problem. He doesn’t like her.”
“Hmm. But you do?” he asks skeptically.
I run my fingers through my braids and I’m sorry I do it as soon as it happens. I’m known for making solid, quick decisions, not fussing with my hair and overthinking a problem. “I like her even though I don’t want to.”
“Then I don’t understand why your beast doesn’t agree.”
“That’s my biggest dilemma. I have no idea either and he doesn’t just dislike her, he wants her dead.” I wonder why I’m even saying any of this. “The next problem is trusting her enough to allow her to return home.”
At those words, Beast does his grumbling rib-cracking thing. My expression doesn’t change. I’ll be damned if I allow Cabel to see my internal struggle with my monster. I push Beast back. My hand goes to my shoulder and I rub it.
“You’re injured.”
“Bite.” I lower my arm. “Found five last night. They’re coming up faster and we’ll need to increase patrols. Keep your men ready.”
“We took one out last night.”
I’m unsurprised. Castro executed thousands of Cuban citizens and the people in power before him hundreds of thousands. At some point we’ll be dealing with mass graves. Helping the Federation will not help our situation here, but we can’t stay isolated forever. We know more humans are alive around the world and we’re sure there are still people in the U.S. who haven’t come in for assistance from their government. If we can form alliances with the people on the outskirts, maybe we can keep the Federation in line and not be at risk of extermination.
“I’m thinking of sending a hundred Warriors to the U.S. with Marinah.”
“That’s a low number,” he says while scratching his chin.
“They don’t know how many we have and I don’t want to tip our hand. For now, the fewer the better.” It feels good to talk it out. Beck does little more than bluster when ideas are introduced and he needs time for them to sink in before he’s on board. Cabel listens and offers good advice. Right now, I just need to talk out loud and work out the problems before my decision is made and I bring it to the table with my council.
I cast a quick glance at Cabel. “If you aren’t too wimpy since your marriage, maybe you’d like to lift a sword and give me a run for my money.”
He looks at me before his eyes slide away and a smile appears on his face. “I think I’ll take you up on that. With your sore shoulder I might have a chance.”
“Not in hell,” I say after standing. “Thank you for the water, Mary. I promise to send your man back in one piece.”
“You never know, he might send you back in several pieces,” she says in heavily accented English as we head out the door.
Both Cabel and I laugh.