In His Command (29 page)

“Doesn’t have enough smarts to put that tattoo tool down and walk away.” Cannon turned his brown eyes to mine. “Which is why I’d prefer him to stay out of the Revolution.”

It was too intimate a scene to watch. One man devoted to his lost lovers, the other determined to give whatever he could. Their plight reinforced what this Revolution was about. Lives were not the only thing at stake but the freedom to choose whom you loved, how you loved no matter what gender.
Freelanders
, their very name was a call to arms.

Ambling on, Cannon asked, “Getting an early start in the morning?”

“Sure as the cock crows.” I winked at him.

He barked out a laugh before getting his serious face on again. “Blondie and I are flanking you, at least part of the way.”

I started to interrupt when he shut me up, pulling me into his arms, and through his strong embrace I felt him shaking. A giant tower of power and strength, he’d always been my steadfast comrade. Now I was getting ready to go it solo.

“Caspar.”

“Keep that damn mouth shut and let me hug you for once.” His gruff voice ruffled the short tufts of my black hair.

Surprised by the suddenness of his emotion, tears burned the back of my throat.

He leaned back and attempted a grin. “There. Now when Blondie and I have to turn you loose, no goodbyes.”

“No goodbyes, Caspar.” I kissed his cheek and spun away.

Still in the grip of winter, March’s icy wind ripped through my flak jacket, eating through any warmth the torn material had afforded me. I’d made it through Beta’s four-meter-high walls fortified by bayonet-sharp razor wire, sneaking in through the west gate Farrow had promised would be open. I owed her some flowers or something when this was all over.

The northeastern gale howling in my ears, I’d hustled to Sector One without any mishap. This was one time I was thankful for the Company’s strict adherence to homogeneity. Each of the sixteen InterNations Territories was gridded the same, so I didn’t need my decommissioned D-P’s navigation system to lead the way. I’d lived here before, too, and not much had changed except from the destructive forces of war. The poorer sectors hugged the outskirts so the select didn’t have to hobnob with their poverty-stricken citizens. Closer in, tenements for civilian and Corps grunts alike transformed into shiny high-rises and affluent businesses toward City Center and the heart of operations, the Quadrangle.

I’d gone rogue, been reported MIA, and was presumably wanted. Now I was getting ready to walk back into a Corps stronghold.
Maybe I am a little reckless.

Clusters of soldiers roved the streets like packs of hungry dogs. It seemed like the curfew was well in effect and the fighting held at bay, at least on this night, but the ragged war-torn evidence was everywhere. Rubble lining formerly pristine streets, buildings with blast holes, sandbagged trenches, and armies of tanks screamed the Revolution was alive and well. On the other hand, the barred gates, the impenetrable fortress of the Quad, the wire, watchtowers, and giant building-wide Data-Paks spewing the latest CO promos all looked like an unstoppable iron fist.

After the commune with its colorful glory even in the dead of winter, with its celebration of life even when they’d suffered harsh losses of their own, Beta was freezing cold, not just because of the minus-zero temperature. I might’ve been raised a city girl, but I’d been shaken and taken by the Freelanders ideas, and I wouldn’t ever be the same.

Keeping my head down, I fell in step with a patrol, laughing along when they traded jokes about the shit-smelling wildling Nomads and too-dumb-to-fuck Revolutionary rejects. I didn’t let my hands shake or my shoulders stoop, thankful they must’ve thought my less-than-stellar uniform was due to a hard day slogging it out on the warfront. I’d spent most of my career learning how to blend in and stay off the radar, shining only in my role as first lieutenant.

Anonymity was second nature, but damn, I was feeling twitchy.

It’d taken two weeks to cross the Wilderness—land left to Mother Nature’s hands and husbanded to fresh fertility by the Freelanders—from Chitamauga located in the lower Appalachians to this northeastern colony. We deviated from Alpha-Beta Route Two, and it would’ve taken a lot longer had it not been for the bitchin’ snowmobiles Farrow had delivered for me, Cannon, and Nate, thanks to her family’s scrip, which she siphoned off to help fund the insurgency. That ride was as sweet as my motorcycle left behind months ago in Alpha.

Seemed I’d left just about everything by the wayside since this war started, perhaps long before that. Family, friends, thoughts of a fulfilling life…

Caspar Cannon.
True to his word, he and Nate had kept pace with me, our snowmobiles running on fancy fuel cells only the elite could afford. Turning back three days ago, Cannon had maintained his “no goodbyes” policy while Nate gripped me in a long hug.

“I want you to know, Lizbeth, you’re not obligated to bring my brother back.”

“Nate, I’ll—”

He’d rocked me side to side, his gentle arms and gentle drawl quieting me. “Hush up now. You have a mission of your own and a duty to the Revolution. If anythin’ happens, you make sure to get yourself out. You are priority number one, darlin’.”

“Fuck.”

“Now, now, none of that language. You know what my momma would say.” Pressing away from me, he’d swiped a tear clinging to my cheek before Cannon could see it.

“Take care of that big bastard for me, will you?” I’d asked.

He’d nodded and stepped back, linking hands with his husband, whose somber features were too familiar for me to look at. I’d raised my hand, a salute me and Cannon shared, before speeding away through the snowy nation.

The commune—Nate, Cannon, and Darke—had become Central Ops for the entire Revolution, but only Darke could answer my call for help henceforth. Cannon and Nate had been branded enemy number one. They’d be killed on sight. In addition to the cool warrior who would be my point man when shit got ugly in Beta, I had Farrow as my liaison to the commune and the other side of the war, because I was about to go deep cover. My rendezvous with the woman was scheduled for tomorrow night, and I was cutting it close, especially if Commander Cutler decided to stick me in the brig for being AWOL. I had to make sure he bought my story.

By now I was downright itchy.

The double-reinforced steel gate in the sky-high barricade of the Quad opened before me and the other soldiers. My pulse pounded as I squared off with the four cornerstone buildings where InterNations business was beaten out: Company HQ, the hospital, the Tribunal—home to RACE,
Repopulation and Civilization Enforcement,
the court, jail, and killing grounds for those who committed homosexual crimes—and my former home away from home, Corps Command.

Walking into another one of CEO Lysander Cutler’s lion’s dens, the flat titanium heels of my lace-ups rang on the polished marble floor. My cap in place if a little filthy, an unemotional mask on my bruised face, I canvassed Beta Corps Command, waiting for my retinal scan from the outer doors to send up the expected alarms. Wearing a shredded uniform more dirty than dark blue, my first lieutenant insignia smudged and hanging off the breast of my shirt, I looked like I’d had an orgy with about a dozen dynamite sticks.

I’d figured the surest way to get Commander Cutler’s attention was to serve myself up. It might not have been the smartest move in my arsenal, but I waited for my latest date with disaster without a nervous tic on my body.

Not until the rapid-blast guns—pathetic pieces of shit compared to my pair of Desert Eagles—of the five troopers I’d clocked lounging against the black pillars locked on my location. I strived not to flinch when their sights found me. Cannon may have been my commander in the Elite Tactical Unit, but he was the hothead while I’d been his cool, severely controlled second in command. Unless my mouth ran away with me.

Gun muzzles met my temples, their cold barrels promising chambers of pain if I so much as twitched as I was marched wordlessly through the halls into a soundproof gymnasium. I knew immediately what the strategy was. Lock her up; then make her sing for her momma.

Steeling myself for the blows, I sucked in a breath as I was disarmed. The breath exhaled with a whoosh when the first fist hit my stomach. Doubling over, I bit my lip, just stupid enough to stand tall, meeting the second and third knocks with my face.

What with the unending lashings from five pairs of hands and boots, I didn’t get a good look at my assailants. Their questions came on repeat, ringing in my ears with no rhyme or reason.
What’s your name, slut? You got a rank, soldier girl? Who are you working for?
Where had I been for five months? My answer to every accusation was a gob of blood splatted at the closest beater-upper.

They obviously hadn’t been trained in the fine art of interrogation, or fighting, by Commander Cutler, or if they had, it’d been a slapdash operation. But that didn’t matter. A punch was still a punch. And that shit was starting to hurt, especially since I’d made sure Cannon had roughed me up so I looked like I’d been done-over recently so my cover would be airtight before he sent me on my merry way. He’d probably enjoyed it too.

Not as much as these untrained shit stains, though. Except when the door crashed open and one tall wall of barely leashed man strode into the room. They all dropped their punching-bag fists before he said a single word.

“Who gave you the order to interrogate this prisoner?”

“The c-command came from CEO Cutler, s-sir,” the little rat bait with the truncheon fists stuttered.

“The CEO is not in charge of this or any other Corps operation. They fall under my jurisdiction.” Crackling blue eyes leveled every rookie in the room until the smell of fresh sweat coming off his soldiers joined the iron tang of my spilled blood. “Does it look like she was anywhere near snitching to you?”

The dumb nuts stupid enough to answer in the first place replied, “No, sir.” His red hair was a total match for his red face.

“Where are you from that you learned such sloppy tactics, soldier?” Sir asked. His back to me, shoulders stretching his uniform, he grilled his insubordinate.

When no answer came from any of the troops, Sir pivoted toward me. His jaw snapped as he scanned me top to bottom. I made sure the beat-ass didn’t show in my precise military bearing, unlike the unlucky mugs who answered to him.

With his finger pointed in my face, he gazed around the room, settling on the jar-faced cunt who’d commandeered my beating.

“I didn’t hear your answer, soldier.” His words were drawn out like silk over the edge of a sword. He waited long enough for the trooper to start flapping his gums; then, before he had a chance to get any more irate, he simply whipped out his fist, flattening the redheaded blunder boy.

He galvanized the rest of them with, “Have I been sent any other
ninety-day wonders
?”

“NO, COMMANDER, SIR!” went up the deep chorus.

Fucking Linc Cutler.
I should’ve known it. I’d never seen anyone control a room of fuckwits like that except Cannon. I sized him up while he seemed to mull over whose ass to kick next.

He didn’t look like Nate apart from their irises, but Linc’s were storm-ridden blue, not fresh as fucking flowers. And like a thunderstorm, his earlier look had hit me with lightning force. He was built slightly larger, a fresh shave clearing every single whisker that dared to appear on the straight line of his clenching jaw. His dark blond hair was shorter, his shoulders wider.

Linc’s powerful presence caused a delicious spiral of heat between my legs, and beneath my ripped shirt, my nipples tightened. Thoughts of his big body against mine pressed the air from my lungs. My immediate attraction to him was unexpected, and worse, unsettling as the sensual line of his mouth became a single neat slash while he watched my perusal. One eyebrow cocked—in interest or disdain, I couldn’t tell. I inhaled silently and slowly, training my sights on my Eagles spun out across the floor.

“Good, clean up this mess. And bring Lieutenant Grant to my office.” Neither did Linc speak like Nate, whose southern patois was a soft and passionate song. He hadn’t once raised his voice or broken a sweat.

And he sure as hell didn’t worry about getting his hands dirty.

“Sir, yes, sir!”

Unimpressed by their late show of rank and file, he swept a steely appraisal over me a second time, springing a new leak in my formidable armor. This time it was derision paired with a hint of admiration, or maybe I was just headed for a concussion. Dizzies from getting my face punched in would be easier to brush off than feeling breathless and kneeless because Linc had found me interesting enough for a twice-over.

He kicked my twin Eagles to me, saying, “Make sure those stay on safety, and get her a goddamn clean uniform. She looks like someone pissed all over her welcome-home parade.”

Stalking from the room, he jammed the elevator button, his gaze swinging to mine and holding for several pounding heartbeats before the doors closed between us.

Everything about him denoted coiled power, and I made no mistake about it: Commander Linc Cutler was a man made of deadly detachment. I got the distinct impression he was gonna blister my ass from one end of Beta to the other, and if I thought Cannon was bad, Linc was about to introduce me to a brand-new level of suck.

I’d wanted to get his attention. Mission accomplished.

 

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