Secret Worlds (495 page)

A wave of relief flowed through Alex at the low, impatient sound she made.

“I need to make a difference for those girls. I
need
to make sure they have the chance to decide who and what they’ll be for themselves. This path is the way to do it. We’ve cleared the Council from one city. There are seven more.”

Seven more cities to stalk and clear. Seven more chances for the Council to strike at Lena.

Alex’s eyes closed for less than a second, but the weight of the truth pulled at him. When he opened them, the red haze dissipated. He had done what he did so well. He’d made a decision.

He glanced down at the forest floor and deliberately stepped on a branch. The crack echoed through the clearing, and he stepped out to their faces turning toward him. Except for the smears of dried blood on their cheeks, they’d both been healed. After Jackson had worked on her, she’d evidently been well enough to fix his face. Maybe it was the stark newness of the skin beneath the smears, but his face seemed livid with guilt to Alex.

Jackson dropped his gaze.

Lena didn’t. She watched him come, eyes wide, and scrambled to her feet to meet him.

He wanted to go to her and reassure her, give her soft words and a soothing touch like the idiot in front of her, lay it out for her and make the choice so easy Jackson would never be able to make her doubt it. But Jackson was right about one thing.

And it had Alex’s stomach churning.

The anxiety made him stride forward, keeping his voice business-like instead of offering her comfort.

“Are we good? Everybody healed up and ready to go?”

Her reaching hands caught at the bottom of his shirt, tried to lift it to get to the bloody slash beneath. He caught her hand and forced a small, tough-nut smirk. “Once we’re at the rendezvous point. I want to get you out of here. Now.”

She opened her mouth to protest, but he turned away, gesturing Jackson ahead of him with his head. They marched through the forest, the last of the light from dusk falling outside the dense foliage barely penetrating.

With Jackson and Lena healed, they made good time. His mind roamed ahead to what was coming—not just the conversation he’d need to have with her, but the decisions he’d have to make for his men. Unable to predict the outcome of the former, he focused instead on the latter.

How many men had they lost? They couldn’t afford any. It took too long to train their young agents, and the available pool of candidates was limited to Sparks strong enough to be sent off to the Ward School.

Alex had been telling Thomas for years they needed to expand their reach and begin drawing in mid-ranges to the cause. Erika had been an example of what a talented, dedicated mid-range could achieve. It wouldn’t take much to plant some of their Ward School Guardians in the Relo-city schools to keep an eye out for likely candidates. He’d even made the strategic move himself at Azcon a decade before, grooming a sympathetic young Azcon student he’d overheard making impolitic statements against the Council to his mother as they shopped. That the relationship had eventually revealed secrets that led to complications didn’t lessen the young man’s overall usefulness.

He glanced down at one of those complications now as she marched beside him. Judging from Jackson’s stiff back as he moved through the underbrush ahead of them, he was none too pleased with her loyalty, even if she had been angry and disappointed with Alex before.

In spite of her apparent choice, Alex didn’t doubt the decision he’d made. This time, he’d rather stay the course and let events play out as they should, even if they led to danger. Even if the danger was emotional, and not physical.

They came over the next rise, leaving the tree line, and a line of electric vehicles spread out as dark shadows below them on the back road. His men moved around them, wearing their headlamps, stowing gear and weapons. A group of five of his most senior Agents gathered around a map one of them had spread over the hood of a vehicle.

“Lena, can you wait for us?” He nodded to indicate the middle cars. “You know where the water is if you want to clean up.” They carried a supply in the back of every vehicle. “Jackson and I need to check on what we know about Lucas and his soldiers.”

“Wait,” she protested, “you said you’d let me take care of you.”

He flashed her a smile. “I can keep five more minutes. They need orders. Go get cleaned up. I’ll be done before you know it.”

He didn’t look back when he turned. He stalked away, moving through the dark to his men, expecting Jackson to follow.

They turned at his approach and made room for him before the map. One of them produced a headlamp for him.

“Tell me you have something good,” he told them as he slipped it onto his head, “because someone needs to pay for that clusterfuck.”

“We have their camp, sir.” Derion, one of his top Agents, pointed to a spot marked on the map. Derion had been a possible replacement for Lucas before he’d met the multi-talented, and ultimately disappointing, Jackson. He’d just become the prime candidate again. “Three of our men followed their retreat. Instead of pulling out, they went in, set a perimeter, and hunkered down. We figured it may be a trap.”

Derion’s finger moved over the landscape features that led Alex to agree it could indeed be a deliberate attempt to draw his men in.

“But the way they packed up everything but the essentials and made the effort to hide their trail,” he shook his head, “it seems more like they’re waiting for someone before pulling out.”

Alex grinned. The bastards knew they couldn’t go back without Councilor Four’s grandson.

“They are. And it’s going to be a long wait.” He laughed softly.

“Really, sir?” Derion’s grin mirrored his.

“Yeah. Really.” He nodded with satisfaction and then leaned in, hands spread wide as he studied the map. He chewed his lip. “Work up a northern approach for me.”

“Over the bluff?”

He nodded. His attention briefly turned to Jackson, who hovered at the outskirts of the circle of men. Field maneuvers, maps, navigation, and ambushes were the young Agent’s specialty, but he had barely engaged. He wasn’t interested in their plans. Jackson really was already gone, and he planned to convince Lena to join him. Alex’s lips thinned.

Instead of dwelling on it, he outlined what he wanted from his men, pointing at positions on the map. “I want a clean sweep,” he concluded. “We’re taking out everyone but two.”

“Two, sir? Which two?”

“Any two. They’re going to be messengers.” He tapped the map. “Work it up.” Alex backed away. It was time to give the kid
his
new orders.

Derion nodded. He and his men closed back in around the map, talking fast and low.

Alex moved in close to Jackson, close enough to make the younger man feel threatened. He should feel threatened.

“You, with me, now.” Alex took Jackson’s arm and walked south along the road. He kept his voice low and clipped, telling Jackson what he expected in a tone that brooked no arguments.

Jackson threw him one startled look before he tucked his chin to his chest and listened.

Alex had to give him his due. When Jackson realized that not only did Alex know what he’d been attempting, but that the senior agent had twisted it for his own purposes, the kid didn’t react more than tightening his jaw.

You want to walk away from your duty post with me? You want to be by her side, keeping her safe, helping her carve out a place of her own for her girls at Fort Nevada? Okay. Done.

When Alex finished, he leaned in close, using his body as a threat again, to ensure Jackson had a full grasp of what he expected to get from the younger man.

“Do you understand? What you
will
do, now and until I give you direct orders otherwise, and what the stakes are for you if you don’t?”

Jackson finally looked at him then.

Alex had expected the resentment. He hadn’t expected to see a grudging respect from the kid after he’d outmaneuvered him.

“Yes, sir.”

“And you understand that you will keep her safe this time, and you will keep your fucking hands off of her?” At Jackson’s affirmative nod, Alex gave him a curt nod of his own. “I don’t give second chances often, Lee. Believe me when I say I’m not giving this one because I think you’ve earned it. I’m giving it to you for her. Now take a walk.”

He left the kid there, knowing the younger man would stay close enough to be ready to go when it was time. He’d do his job. He’d been conditioned his whole life to do it.

Alex glanced into each car as he passed, looking for Lena. He found her five cars back.

The water tank was out and open, and a wide puddle of dark water ran off to the side of the road. Lena, scrubbed clean of the bloody smears, leaned back against the rear tire looking up at the sky. At his approach, she turned to look at him, watching him walk. Even exhausted and probably pissed off, her gaze still moved over him like a caress.

He felt his body responding and took a deep breath.

What comes next is going to suck
.

She squinted when he drew up to her, covering her eyes with her hand. “You wanna tone that light down?”

Instead of turning it down, Alex pulled the lamp off and set it on the ground beside her. The light flared up, brightening the area but not shining in her face. She dropped her hand.

He pressed hard on his lower belly for support and started to lower himself down beside her.

“Stop.”

He hesitated.

She picked herself up off the ground, shaking her head at him. She scooped the light up and tossed her head at the car. “Get in the back, Reyes.”

He raised his brows and grinned at her. “When you want your fifteen minutes, you really want it. Not sure I can perform like this, but I’ll give it the Reyes effort.”

“Enticing as the offer is….” She snorted and rolled her eyes. “It’s time to heal you. No more excuses. Get in the car.”

He eased himself back on the rear seat. He lost his grin when she lifted his shirt and her breath hissed out.

“Oh, Alex.”

The slash stretched from hip to hip across his groin. He’d been able to function because it wasn’t deep, but it was ugly. She lifted her hands to hover over his belly.

Alex couldn’t resist a tease. “No scar, now. I’d hate to have a mark across one of your favorite places to lick.”

She glanced up and arched a brow at him. The warmth spread under his skin as the Dust did her bidding and knit his skin back together. Like before, the warmth became a hot itch that faded a few moments later.

Lena darted down, her tongue leaving behind a wet, warm path of sparks as she licked up toward his navel.

His breath caught, and his hands went automatically to her hair.

She reached up and tugged them away with a laugh. “Just checking. No scar.”

With the pain from his midsection gone, he had a good deal more ability to move. He flipped his hands around, caught her wrists, and pulled her in and up his body. She squirmed for a moment before he tightened his arms around her. She snuggled in to his chest. The Dust swirled lazily between them, warm and easy. It was home.

She rubbed her cheek against his chest, inhaling. “All right, Alex. I can tell your brain is working something over. Let me have it.”

He didn’t want to send her away, certainly not with Jackson. He’d rather keep her with him, fighting by his side. It just wasn’t the right decision—not for her, not for the movement.

He wouldn’t draw it out. She wouldn’t let him get away with beating around the bush anyway. “Jackson’s not going with the caravan. He’s not going to be Azcon’s new security chief. I don’t know how aware you were, but I basically made Merritt confess to being part of a plot to take out the Councilor. It changed the strategy for this operation.”

“I know,” she answered. “With his confession, and all the witnesses, you don’t have to ‘die.’ No one will be looking at you. You can keep your position, consolidate your hold on Zone Three, and deal with the assholes behind Lucas.” She exhaled again, and the long, warm breath flowed across his skin, chased by Dust beneath it. “You don’t need Jackson to stay. Don’t need me to stay, either. I’m going back with him.”

His breath eased out. The difficult scene he’d envisioned, her fighting to stay and him fighting against his desire to let her stay, winked away. She knew. Of course she did.

Now it became difficult for an entirely different reason. He didn’t have to send her back. She was leaving. Was it the recognition of the greater strategy that had her returning to the Fort? Or was it something else? Jackson. Or the decisions Alex had made back at the caravan.

What about us?
He hated how plaintive the question in his head sounded.

He waited. Not only did he not trust himself to say anything yet, but he could feel her gathering her breath. She wasn’t finished.

“I want you to know that I’m not going because of the collar. I know why you made that choice. I understand all of your choices. And I want to stay with you. But you don’t need me here, not like those girls need me.”

He couldn’t stay silent. “I want you to stay, too—”

She nodded as she talked over him, needing to get the words out. “And I know that in the same way you can stay now, I could too. Mina Gardin could go on.”

He could feel her cheek move against his chest as she smiled at her code name. He could also feel the hesitation at the end of the sentence. “Except?”

“Except Mina Gardin, sous chef, serves absolutely zero tactical purpose at the Meet. I don’t offer what we’re doing enough value in that role to offset the danger of me being there.”

Alex felt a smile tug at his lips. His heart swelled. The smile grew into a grin. Just as he hadn’t been preparing to send her away as a means to end what they had, she wasn’t going away to abandon him. She was going back to fulfill a more important role. She believed in what they were doing. She was with them. She was with him.

Apparently unnerved by his silence, she finally lifted her head from his chest to rear up and peer down at him. “Wow. That relieved, huh? I guess maybe I underestimated the effect of all that darkness I soaked up.”