Paired Objective: Matched Desire, Book 2 (5 page)

No, she couldn’t quite believe that—not of these particular men, that was.

“In we go,” Russ urged.

Against her better judgment, Abby trusted him, piling into the back of the van. She settled stiffly atop the bench seat and looked back at Russ. “Where’s Cam?”

Something in his gaze went soft as he looked back at her. “Cam’s rustling up some grub. Are you all right, Abby?”

“Not really.” She hadn’t meant to say that. Hadn’t meant to sound so vulnerable. And, oh God, now he was coming in to sit next to her, his blue eyes concerned.

“What’s wrong?”

His directness was probably born of not knowing what the hell to do around women. Abby felt much the same around men. Her fiancé, Callum, had been a childhood friend, so she’d more or less always been comfortable around him. The Twins were a whole different league, with their physical prowess, good looks and obvious intelligence combining to turn them into men Abby would never have dare approach in pre-Invasion days.

“I don’t trust you,” she blurted, realizing Russ was waiting for an answer. “No offense.”

Unexpectedly, he laughed. “Yeah, none taken. I wouldn’t trust me either, if I were you. You’ve had a pretty rough ride. When did you last eat?”

She shrugged, her left shoulder rising and falling against the solidness of his chest as he leaned across her to snag a backpack. Before she could startle away, he pulled out a granola bar and held it to her lips. She inhaled, smelling fruit and sugar and spice and everything she hadn’t been able to get her hands on in months.

“Thanks,” she whispered, biting in. She devoured the bar in less than a minute, delayed only by having to chew the sticky oats. She’d never understood a dog’s urge to wolf its food until the Invasion occurred eleven years ago and suddenly gourmet eating was entirely out of the question. Meals weren’t occasions any longer, becoming the mere fueling of one’s body.

Russ looked hungry, too, but he was looking at her, not the food. Abby brushed at her mouth in case there were crumbs there. She stared back, curious despite herself about the man sitting next to her. His muscular thigh was mere inches from her own leg, reminding her that he could easily overpower her. Her innermost thoughts, which had been mulling over an escape, roiled.

“You a little better now?” Russ’s voice was low and a touch hoarse. Her loins gave another twinge. She fought against it, reminding herself that Stockholm Syndrome was real, dammit.

“Not really,” she replied, her throat thickening inexplicably. “It feels weird to be out.”

Had she lost the ability to tell a white lie? He’d probably leave her alone if she bucked up. Then she could be alone with all these tumbling thoughts, and finally let herself cry.

Abby fingered the remaining manacles on her ankles, rattling the stub where the chain used to be. That drew his gaze downward.

“Those bastards. We’d heard reports, but forcing people to stay against their will—that’s not indentured servitude. That’s pure slavery.”

“They told us it wasn’t, because we had the option to buy our freedom,” Abby whispered, her voice halting as tears threatened.

“Nobody should have to buy their fucking freedom.”

It was one thing to think that, quite another to hear it affirmed out loud. A long-suppressed sob shook her body, then another, until even burying her face in her hands couldn’t stop the tide. She’d cried into her bedroll at least once a week, but she’d had to keep it quiet in case it drew unwanted attention. Now it was as if an invisible band around her chest had loosened.

“Hey, whoa.” Russ sounded mildly alarmed. “Easy now.”

She couldn’t
whoa
, nor could she take it easy. Abby sobbed into her hands, then felt Russ pull her into his lap. Braced within his still-cautious arms, she let herself fall apart. Grief, anger, loneliness, pain—all of it choked their way up her throat, sounding harsh and desperate within the insulated interior of the van.

Russ kept murmuring to her, but she couldn’t concentrate on his words. She only knew that his grip on her grew easier, more comforting, and he held her head against his chest as she began to wind down, hiccupping and sniffing. When she merely breathed again, he dabbed at her face with a handkerchief, which had come back into fashion again since there wasn’t a lot of tissue being manufactured anymore.

“Thanks,” she managed, and leaned back against him. Now that she’d completely lost her shit, she might as well find comfort where she could, and sitting across Russ’s thighs was a lot better than sitting on the hard bench seat of the armored van.

At some point, he’d begun stroking her hair. He resumed that, giving her a kind of bemused pleasure. But she was beyond dignity now—she’d take whatever she could.

And when he tilted her chin up and kissed her, she took that too, deepening the kiss until her tongue flicked against his lips. His hands went from her head to her waist, steadying her as it became clear neither of them wanted to come up for air. Abby kept her eyes closed, not wanting the moment to end.

But it did, with a clatter and a bang as Cam threw open the back door. He stood silhouetted against the sun, making it impossible to get a glimpse of his expression.

“We gotta go. Now. It’s not safe here.”

Russ was already moving, setting her aside as he scrambled for the driver’s seat. Smoothly, Cam transitioned into his place, bracing her against him as Russ started the van.

“What’s wrong?” Abby asked, noticing the armed guards had retreated into a nearby hut and shuttered the windows. Russ gunned it out of the gas station, the sound of the engine not quite eclipsing a siren’s shrill wail.

“Two streets over, there’s a mob of about twenty people going after anything that’s not nailed down. They were headed this way.” Cam sounded casual, as though he were talking about the weather.

Abby tried to let his calmness settle her down, but she was rattled enough to brush her hand against her bag when she heard shots behind them. She’d stowed the gun in there as they’d left Headquarters.

“What now?” she asked.

“We hole up,” Russ said. “Someone will deal with the mob, but I don’t want to risk heading for an exit. At this point, it might be choked up with traffic, and I’d rather stay on the move.”

A pair of gunshots caused Russ to swerve down a side road and curse. The roar of an older-model, nonelectric motorcycle intensified as a pair of riders zoomed past. Were they following the van? Unable to see out of the vehicle except through the windshield, Abby lost sight of them, but her heart thumped painfully.

Even Cam’s reassuring hand on her thigh couldn’t distract her from wondering whether the Shadow Feds had somehow managed to track them here.

Chapter Four

Columbus hadn’t seen much action in the post-Invasion days. As a result, it sprawled, having expanded outside its original walls to encompass parts of its suburbs, rebuilding walls as the years passed. Cam pulled up a recently updated map on his commtab, letting his brother grab the image from his mind.

“Got it,” Russ said. “Who do we know in this area?”

Keeping his arm around Abby, Cam paged through contacts, frowning as the name
Uther Pendragon
came up. Uther wouldn’t have been Cam’s first, or even fifth, choice. The Complex dealt with the man because he was powerful—and because they didn’t want his considerable clout to go over to the side of the Shadow Feds.

Uther was a false name, of course. The guy had a prison record a mile long.

A shot whined past, making Abby flinch next to him. “It’s okay, sweet thing. Armored van, remember?” Cam settled her more firmly against his side.

“
Un
armored tires,” she shot back.

“They can’t shoot worth beans,” Russ said from the driver’s seat, skidding hard around a turn.
“Uther Pendragon? You couldn’t find anyone else, Cam?”

“No. He’s the only known head honcho around here.”
Cam tabbed back to the map on his screen, zooming in on Uther’s abode, formerly a set of warehouses. The man ran the post-apocalyptic equivalent of a motorcycle club, but he at least paid lip service to President Wright and lent some extra muscle to the army when needed.

“So he’s not a renegade. Doesn’t mean he’s not bad news,”
Russ grumbled.

“He’s better than dealing with a mob jacking our van.”

“I’ll give you that much. But we’re outta here tomorrow, crack of dawn.”

The gunshots tapered off as they rolled into Pendragon territory. The first indication that this area was different came in the form of a roadblock. This one was more casual than the one outside Columbus yet clearly just as enforced. Russ brought the van to a stop and rolled the window down, holding out a government badge in a seemingly casual move.

Abby shivered against him. “Shadow Feds?” she whispered.

“No, baby. This is a…government subcontractor, shall we say.” The fear in her voice concerned him.

“What about the soldiers outside? Why aren’t they in here regulating things?”

“There aren’t enough of them,” Cam told her. “Their job is to guard the walls, keep the City standing. Their secondary job is to keep the immediate roads and highways clear.”

“So they just…allow this stuff to happen?” Abby sounded disgusted.

“Well, even pre-Invasion, police were hard-pressed to keep up with crime. There’ll always be people who take advantage, sweet thing. Or try to, in this case.”

Her lips seemed fuller, perhaps from her earlier kiss, which Cam had felt through Russ. His initial attraction, easily explained away as an itch he hadn’t scratched for many months, seemed to be morphing into something deeper. Besides that, Russ had never seen the appeal in any of Cam’s women—nor he in his Twin’s choices. This…this could very easily turn into a thing that pitted brother against brother…

“No, Cam.”
The certainty in his brother’s voice steadied him.
“We give her the choice—both or neither.”

“She kissed you.”
He didn’t mean to come across so petulantly.

“Yeah, and she kissed you too.”

That was true enough. Cam realized he was staring at Abby as if trying to commit her face to memory. He wanted to make her come, dammit, to scream his name as she arched against him in pleasure. Christ, did he want to make her come—again and again.

“What’s your business?” A bearded, gun-toting man sauntered over to peer into the open van window. He gave Russ’s ID a heavy once-over before handing it back.

“Safe haven for the night.” Russ tucked the ID back into his jacket.

“Gotta radio in to clear you ahead.” The guard stepped away to mutter into a handheld. It wasn’t long before a voice crackled back. Cam caught the gist of the conversation, and nothing struck him as
wrong
, but as they rolled through a pair of chain-link gates, his unease grew.

This was Pendragon territory, clearly and deliberately fenced off from the rest of the City, as if to underscore the fact that the rules were different in here.

Cam kept Abby close as they disembarked from the van, absorbing her flinch at the sound of a distant gunshot. He was glad they were away from the shooting, but he didn’t delude himself—
in here
was as dangerous as
out there
. That was made abundantly clear when they came face-to-face with Uther Pendragon himself.

“Twins.” His cool words were assessment and greeting both.

“Russ and Cam.” Russ’s words weren’t quite frosty, but they weren’t friendly either. For a good thirty seconds, they took each other’s measure. Not a big man, Uther stood a few inches shorter than them, with narrow brown eyes and long, lank hair that was tied back in a loose ponytail. There was a faint blue tattoo on his cheek, the Roman numerals XVI. Inside his mostly leather clothes, he looked to be wiry yet muscular. Nothing either of them couldn’t handle in a one-to-one fight.

It wouldn’t come to that, though. Uther was too canny to force such a power play. He’d exert his authority in other ways. Cam suspected they weren’t going to get off lightly—having Twins land on his territory was a perfect way for Uther to throw his weight around, get the government to cede him a little more power and control. Men like Uther never quit pushing boundaries.

“I’ll have one of my boys hook your van up to the juicer,” Uther said, jerking a thumb toward a solar-powered electric pump. “That’s assuming it runs on anything but gasoline. If it’s gas, I’ll have to charge you.”

“It’s a hybrid,” Cam said, stepping in to let Russ take the measure of the place. “Solar power will do us fine, thanks.”

Uther made no answer to that, but swaggered forward with them in their wake. Having obviously overheard the exchange, one of the men sitting on an old engine block got to his feet and headed toward the solar pump. He moved with an alacrity that suggested he was either afraid of Uther or wanted to impress him. If it was the latter, Cam felt sorry for the guy, because Uther didn’t take a jot of notice.

They made their way deeper into the warehouse, through an area stained with old patches of oil. Now it held salvaged items: old doors, plastic and wooden crates, several stacks of tires. A sheet of corrugated metal teetered against a forklift, sheltering a pallet of clean glass bottles. Farther in, burlap bags of compost lined the wall. The place looked like a post-apocalyptic cross between a hardware store and a gardening center.

Mixed, Cam reminded himself, with a large dash of motorcycle club, as evidenced by the hard eyes of the men who watched them from the sideline. One wheeled a Harley past them, an older model chopper bike tricked out to run on electricity. Cam wondered if these men missed being able to sit around and rev their engines. Then he caught the look the man tossed over his shoulder.

“Doesn’t seem to be much love for Uther around here,”
Cam sent.

“I caught that too. Keep Abby close
.
”

She was already as close as he could get her without hugging her to him—which was incredibly tempting, of course. She’d stayed quiet so far, although he sensed she was nervy, maybe on the edge of fight or flight. When they reached Uther’s office, she relaxed somewhat, heaving an almost soundless sigh at his side.

“Sit down,” Uther said, sliding behind a desk as he gestured to the chesterfield couch along one wall.

With Abby in the middle, they complied. Uther made them wait a minute while he messed around with the crap on his desk, rearranging paperweights before he fixed them with his full attention. It was such an obvious, petty power play that Cam nearly rolled his eyes.

“Tonight I plan on letting my boys blow off some steam. It’s our monthly fight night. Anyone who wants goes toe-to-toe in the ring, no-holds-barred. We categorize into featherweight, bantamweight and heavyweight, but if two men really wanna fight each other, they fight. You dig?”

“What about women?”

Abby speaking up seemed to bemuse Uther. He looked at her and gave a delayed shrug. “Sure, women can fight, but they ain’t do that much. Too busy servicing the guys, if you know what I mean.”

His eyebrow waggle was just short of lewd. Abby didn’t respond.

“Anyhow, rule is, if you’re challenged, you fight.” Uther sat back, watching for a reaction. “That means outsiders too. Got to
prove
yourself if you want to stay in Pendragon Territory.”

“That all you wanted to say?” Russ’s bored-sounding answer was almost-but-not-quite rude. It was enough to take the wind out of Uther’s sails. He leaned forward, chair creaking, and slammed his palm down on the corner of the desk. A distant buzzer went off.

“My second-in-command will take you to your quarters.”

That was a clear dismissal, but Cam and Russ dragged it out, taking their sweet time about rising from the couch and heading out the door. All the while, Cam kept an eye on Uther. There was a gun concealed inside that jacket of his, maybe two. A shot to the head could kill a Twin just like a normal human.

A gunshot to Abby
anywhere
could kill her. Modern medicine was dead, slain by invading alien motherships. Life itself was pretty much a gamble these days. So Cam watched Uther until the door closed between them, and only then did he lessen his grip on Abby—only to shove her behind him as another man approached. It was one damn thing after another, and for a moment his temper flared. Cam craved the hell out of some peace and quiet. He was tired of gambling.

“Snake Eyes,” the man said, taking their measure. For one tense moment, Cam thought the man somehow had the ability to mind read. Then he realized he was merely introducing himself.

“Russ and Cam.” Russ stepped forward, neatly enveloping Abby between them. He didn’t introduce her.

“Boss says you can shack up here for the night. You all staying together?”

“Yeah.” The Twins spoke simultaneously. Cam felt Abby stir at his side, but she didn’t open her mouth. Damned if he was going to let her sleep apart from them. Not here. Cam would doze sitting up if she required privacy—Twins only needed about four hours per night anyway.

“All right.” Snake Eyes flicked an unreadable look at Uther’s closed door before leading the way out of the warehouse. They passed through a kind of courtyard, which was filled with various edibles, including a small herb garden and a vegetable patch. Out of necessity, people had gotten really, really good at gardening over the past decade. Even hardy motorcycle types developed green thumbs.

The warehouse across the courtyard held rows and rows of bunk beds. Flimsy partition walls lent a semblance of privacy, sectioning off four beds at a time. Most of them looked to be claimed, with personal possessions strewn atop covers and bags shoved under metal frames. Come to think of it, the place didn’t differ all that much from the dormitory Cam and his brother stayed in as teenagers.

The place didn’t have scientists observing through a one-way mirror, though, nor was technology strewn about the room, keeping track of temperature, air quality, and the movement of the boys in that particular dorm.

Cam picked up his pace. Those days were over.

“But not forgotten
,
”
was Russ’s dark comment.

Snake Eyes led them through to the other side, then out of the warehouse and into a large shed tacked onto the rear of the place. A double bed hogged most of the floor space, leaving a narrow aisle between it and yet another metal-framed bunk bed. As a touch of almost-luxury, there was an attached bathroom with a solar shower.

Cam took his surroundings in through his peripheral vision, keeping most of his attention on Uther’s second-in-command. The man didn’t give off the same unstable vibe that his boss did. He was calmer, more collected—but there was a ruthless edge to the way Snake Eyes kept one hand tucked into his pocket, as if ready to draw a weapon at a moment’s notice.

Unforgivably, he was giving Abby the once-over.

Goaded beyond rationality, Cam placed a possessive arm around her waist. In the other man’s full view, Cam let his hand slide down to Abby’s ass, cupping it. The sound of her indrawn breath was covered by Russ’s footsteps as he came to stand next to them in the doorway, subtly but effectively blocking Snake Eyes from entering the shed.

“If we fell asleep and didn’t come out for tonight’s festivities, how much fallout would there be?” Russ inquired.

Snake Eyes shifted his attention from Abby, leaning a hip against the doorjamb of the shed. “Let me put it this way—Uther doesn’t trust the government. He communicates that distrust every chance he gets. He likes running his own show.”

“So why invite us to the fights?” Cam kept his hand spread across Abby’s utterly delectable ass, feeling her relax into the possessive hold.

“Why miss an excuse to drink?” Snake Eyes shrugged, but his feet remained stiffly planted, as if the rest of his body didn’t agree with his outward nonchalance. He could have walked away at that point, but he remained.

“He’s warning us.”

Russ gave the barest of nods in acknowledgment.
“I should have holed up somewhere else. The van could have made it thirty or forty miles on that half-tank of gas.”

“So if anyone can challenge anyone, why doesn’t someone take Uther into the ring?” Abby asked. Her feminine voice seemed to crank up the heat in the immediate area.

Or maybe, Cam reflected, it was just him who felt hot.

“Someone challenges Uther, that’s a fight for leadership. A
dirty
fight for leadership, involving that hidden knife in his boot and a nice cold grave for a bed. And some people get even meaner when they’re drunk.” Snake Eyes paused for effect, then straightened up. “You step careful, now. See you at the fights.”

* * * * *