Secret Worlds (496 page)

“Nope. That proud. I want you to come. I want you by my side, where I can keep an eye on you myself. And there’s nothing about you—certainly not any darkness—that could make me relieved to see you go.” He held up a finger when she started to talk again, silencing her. He couldn’t send her away not knowing exactly what had drawn him to her. “I want all of you, not just the pretty sparkly bits that shine in the light.”

“You think light inside is bad,” she interrupted, probably parroting something Jackson had told her. “You think kindness is weakness.”

“No, I don’t. I know your kindness is what makes you care enough to fight. It’s what made you take on the responsibility of those girls without a second thought. But you need to understand that it’s your darkness that allows you to protect them. It’s your darkness that gives me the confidence to send you off with Light Boy to teach those girls. I know that you can protect them. Not Jackson. You, Lena. Because of your darkness. You’re the perfect balance of light and dark.”

He settled his head back against the seat of the car. She was. And he had been prepared to send her away. Instead, he had to let her go as she went on her own. What a fucking idiot.

When he continued, it was as much to remind himself as to tell her, “I figured out way before now that my woman needs purpose, not safety. And you’re right. Your purpose is waiting for you back at the fort.”

She bit her lip. “Your woman, huh?”

Alex lifted his head and raised a hand to her cheek, rubbing his thumb across her lips. “Yeah. Mine.”

“I thought you weren’t interested in having your focus compromised.”

“No, that’s not what I said.” He huffed a laugh when she raised her brows and started shaking her head. “I said I couldn’t—that I had nothing to offer. I was wrong. I was scared.”

“Alex Reyes, scared?”

He could hear the laughter catching in her throat, sweet and heady. He couldn’t help the answering smile. “Woman, I don’t scare easy, but damn if you don’t terrify me.”

“That’s what I hear. I don’t get it. What’s so scary about me?”

His smile faded. Alex stared into her eyes. It came down to this. This moment. And even though she’d walked right up to it with him, ready and willing, he felt a hot flare of anxiety stab into his chest and then settle in, throbbing. They both recognized that her role in their war was best fulfilled at the Fort. She’d told him it wasn’t to get away from him. Except for the distance, they’d go on.

Except for the distance? You won’t be there.

If he sent her with Jackson, everything would change. Yes, they’d both be working to push through this revolution. But Lena would be wrapped up in her new world, building a life for her girls. She’d build a new life for herself. Would there be room in it for Alex each time he returned? Or would she turn to Jackson?

He was taking a huge risk. Perhaps he should follow the course his heart screamed for him to take: make her stay, keep her close, find another way for her to contribute to what they were doing. The moment stretched. Alex swallowed.

What was so scary, she wanted to know.

“The possibility of losing you,” he said.

She shook her head. “You’re not losing me.” She narrowed her eyes teasingly and drawled, “You’re sending me away with another man, sure, but you’re not losing me.”

He’d be damned if he would let her head off into the sunset with another man, even at his own insistence, without making good and sure she understood they were meant for each other.

“Prove it, then.” He stroked his thumb back up her cheek. “Kiss me a promise, so neither of us forgets that this is home.” He gestured with his chin to the small space between them. “Right here with us. Make it a good one.”

Her mouth turned up. A small smile grew into a familiar naughty grin, her top teeth catching her bottom lip in a way that made his breath catch. She slid her legs around him and boosted herself further up him, then leaned down over his face. She hovered there, inches away.

“A promise, huh?”

The Spark between them already gathered into a glow he could feel just under his skin. He gave his head a tiny nod, and she smiled again. Her face softened as she leaned in and opened her mouth to his.

She made it a good one.

Alex moved through the caravan as those under his care moved around preparing for another post-attack night on the road. Much of the damage to the caravan was psychological, from the loss of caravaners and the Councilor and his senior staff. They’d waited as long as they could before leaving two days before. Most of those who’d run away had drifted back in over the day and a half they remained outside of old Denver. Alex and those few of Councilor Three’s administrative staff who had survived managed to sop up the mess and organize the survivors. They buried the dead together near the tree line, a way to appease the living who didn’t want to leave their loved ones behind in a Hell Zone.

Those of his agents who had posed as Council attackers had long since pulled back. Alex had thoroughly enjoyed the raid on Lucas’s waiting mercenaries in the early morning hours after he’d seen Lena and Jackson off. He was happy to take out his frustration and fear on those who’d attacked his people. That he had also been responsible for an attack on them was irrelevant—his attack had been for the greater good, and his agents had only targeted known Council collaborators. It served a purpose other than the terrorizing of Zone Three’s people. They didn’t know it yet, but he was freeing them.

The bulk of Alex’s Fort Nevada force had been sent back to the fort to await his and Thomas’s return from the Council Meet. Jackson and Lena were with them.

Alex savored the warmth that spread through his chest at the memory of their goodbye. Once they’d managed to pull themselves out of the car, they’d handled the final details of their group’s pull-out together. He’d been right. They made an excellent team. She’d even smoothed Jackson’s ruffled feathers as she took control of those who’d be returning with her, while Alex handed out final orders to the men who’d be staying with him.

As the men had scattered to their assigned exit points, she’d taken Alex’s hand in hers and pulled him to the side. After running her hands up his sides, she’d risen to her toes to cup his face in her small hands.

“Tell me again,” she’d demanded softly. “We will make this work.”

He’d grinned down at her. “I’m Alex. You’re Lena. It’s what we do.”

She’d returned his expression with a broad smile of her own. “Especially when we’re highly motivated.”

Alex had leaned down to press his lips to hers, to pull up on the Dust within her and feed on the energy that swirled between them. Feeling her doing the same had deepened the exchange. It had been about sharing who they were, and not just what they could do to each other.

When he’d caught his breath again, he whispered against her lips, “I’m about as motivated as a man can be.”

She’d pressed her lips softly to his for barely a moment, then she’d gone, turning away and signaling the men who’d be heading back with her with a three-note whistle she must have heard him use before. Minutes later, they’d pulled out.

Alex had headed over to the ridge where his men were waiting to lead the raid on Lucas’s men. He hadn’t looked back. He didn’t need to. Everything he needed he carried within him until he returned to his home or she came back to him.

He hadn’t felt this focused and energized in a long time. It wasn’t just the relationship, he told himself, because that was tucked away in its compartment. He only allowed that to affect him when he they were together.

Okay, Alex. Sure.

It wasn’t that. It wasn’t. It must be that he had the chance to return to what he did best. There were other villains afoot. Courtesy of Councilor Three, Alex had names. And courtesy of Lucas’s ineffectual leadership, they had proof, too. The Meet would be even more of a spectacle than he had planned. He meant to flush his prey out of hiding. And once they were exposed, he and Lena could hunt them together.

Ya see? Lena again.

His growl at himself turned into an unrepentant grin. Whatever the source of the new enjoyment, he had a caravan to rebuild, people to inspire, and a new Councilor-elect to prep. He hoped the young man had the foresight to be out among the caravaners, now, cultivating their feelings for him. If they played it right, he would have a swollen wave of popularity to ride into Azcon after the Council Meet.

Alex stopped to watch a scene playing out at the end of a car two up from him. A small, satisfied smile played about his lips. Danny, the most senior survivor of the Councilor’s staff other than Alex himself, had taken command and handed out evening assignments as the caravan tucked in for another post-raid night on the road. Tend to the wounded. Set a perimeter. Ensure everyone was fed. See to the equipment.

As the charismatic young man spoke to a mechanic and sent him off to check an engine, Danny caught Alex standing at the end of the car line. He strode over.

“Word about Lena?” He spoke her name in an undertone. Of course he’d take the first opportunity they’d had to speak alone to ask about her.

Alex shook his head. “She’ll be making Fort Nevada in a day or two. It’ll be fine.”

“Tell me again that she doesn’t hate me.” He’d always feared her discovering the full truth.

After Danny had screwed up and caused her arrest, Alex had to imagine the feeling had multiplied. It had turned out all right, though.

It had turned out better than Alex could have imagined.

Alex hated that he’d had to keep this from her. He hated that Thomas had forced his hand, but he’d extracted a promise from Thomas in exchange that would guarantee her and her girls time and space. Still, there would be hell to pay when he was finally able to share the full arc of what they’d done with her. He just wasn’t sure if he dreaded the fireworks, or looked forward to them. Lena did fiery like nobody else.

Alex shook his head again. “I’ll make it right. Lena and I will work it out.”

It’s what we do.

He swallowed the smile that was threatening to break out and made his voice no-nonsense for the young man in front of him now. “Are you ready? We have a lot to get done tonight. We’ll reach the Meet the day after tomorrow, and once we get there and they swear you in as Councilor Three, it’s going to be meeting after crisis after intrigue.”

Danny nodded, excitement written across his face.

Alex might not have found a successor in Jackson, but he’d found a kindred spirit in Lena’s brother. He’d been training him for this for a long time.

“I’m ready.”

Acknowledgments

I’ve been telling stories since I could talk, some better than others. According to family legend, one of them got me expelled from preschool. Outside of that early experience, there have been many who encouraged me, especially my teachers.

In the ninth grade, I promised my English teacher that someday I would be thanking her in my first book. She grinned back and told me she had no doubt that I would, and I better not forget! It grieves me that it took me so long to accomplish this that she did not live to see it. I hope she knew how much her encouragement, lessons, and belief in my abilities meant to me. Thank you, Mary Adah Curbera. I never forgot.

Thank you also to my beta readers and critique partners, Charity, Anne Marie, Christi, Martin, Amy, Cathryn, Danny, Tammy, Jenn.

To Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Claire Ashgrove, my amazing editors, thank you for your hard work, dedication, and belief in this story. You made this story better. I am so grateful to the entire team at Finish the Story editing!

Thank you to Regina Wamba of MaeI Designs for my amazing cover. Your work is, as always, gorgeous!

I also offer a heart full of thanks to my family and all of the friends over the years who have also believed in me, urging me on, sometimes sweetly, sometimes with threats. Special thanks to my mother, who reads every word I write, and my sister, whose demands for more encourage me to keep going. My dad and oldest brother lit the fire by introducing me to sci fi so many years ago, and they’ves been an enthusiastic and honest champions since. I love you all…and look! I did it!

My younger brother, Tim, deserves a special mention. Not only does he read every word I write, but he is a patient and enthusiastic sounding board, confidante, imagination fire-er, cheerleader, and babysitter (when I absolutely have to get out of the house and go write in a coffee shop). Without his support, this book would not be what it is.

And to you, my readers,
thank you
. Without an audience, the stories that come would just be daydreams. You are what makes a writer. I’d love to hear from you, and I would be pleased and honored if you were moved to leave a review at your point of sale. Thank you for reading, and for going on the journey.

And finally, I finish the way the book began…with gratitude and love for my amazing husband for his support and the love story that rivals any romance novel reunion story. I am grateful for that first love in high school. I am grateful you never forgot. I am grateful we found each other again as adults. And I am so grateful that you’ve never stopped believing in me, not once, along that journey.

I raise a glass to all of you! Many, many thanks!

A collection of short stories featuring the characters from SPARK RISING as they were, years before the revolution—meet Alex and Thomas as boys, Lucas as a tormented teen, and Lena as she comes into her power with an entirely different dark stranger:

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00O7YLPX6

Kate Corcino is a reformed shy girl who found her voice (and uses it...a lot). She believes in magic, coffee, Starburst candies, genre fiction, descriptive profanity, and cackling over wine with good friends. She also believes in the transformative power of screwing up and second chances. Cheers to works-in-progress of the literary and lifelong variety! She writes what she loves—which means a genre-bending combination of science, magic, romance, and plenty of action. She lives in her beloved desert in the southwestern United States with her husband, several children, three dogs, and two cats.