He said her name, the barest whisper of sound, as she ran her mouth along his jaw. The stubble from his unshaven face tickled her lips. His hands dug into the sheets on either side of her head, bunching the fabric in his fists.

She slid her hands from his cheeks into the soft thickness of his hair and kissed the other side of his face, his closed eyelids, the bridge of his nose, slowly working her way back to the other side, then down to his neck, to the scars that puckered beneath his jawline. She kissed those, too. His pulse throbbed wildly against her lips. He exhaled, a soft groan that sent a spike of desire all the way through her.

“Please.”

His voice was low and wretched, filled with terrible longing and pain. Lu didn’t know if he was asking her to stop or to go on, so she gently pulled his head down and fitted her mouth to his.

He moaned into her mouth. Lu thrilled at the sound of it, every nerve ending tinglingly alive. He sank his hands into her hair, adjusted his weight atop her so his pelvis pressed down against hers, and kissed her back, ferociously.

She loved it. The solid weight and heat of him, the scent of his skin, his taste. The way he couldn’t get enough of her mouth, his tongue invading, demanding, his fingers tightening in her hair as his erection dug into her belly, almost painfully hard.

He pulled back to gasp, “We can’t–I can’t—” but Lu flexed her pelvis against his and cut him off with another kiss. It went on and on, wild and deep, and would have almost surely led somewhere her body desperately wanted to go had it not been for the sudden, muffled sounds that broke them apart and left them staring at each other, panting and shocked.

The sounds were unmistakable, ones they both recognized:

Gunshots.

TWENTY-FOUR

They leapt from the bed. Magnus threw open the door, and the two of them bounded into the hallway, calling out for Nola and James.

“Here!” called James from downstairs, and they quickly went to the first floor.

Nola and James stood in front of the wall of computer screens, watching images of the exterior of the property in black and white; the front and back yards of the house, up and down the street, the entrance to the shed. It was there a group of six men stood with rifles pointed at the door.

At least, Lu assumed they were men. They had two legs and two arms, but that’s where the resemblance to anything human ended. Each wore an obviously handmade suit of armor cobbled together from an odd collection of metal parts, all of it spray-painted matte black. Only their boots, gloves, and ragged-edged capes were fabric, but what made them look so otherworldly was their headgear. Helmets soldered together with garish seams sported face masks from which dangled foot-long rubber tubes that ended with blocky canisters fashioned to look like skulls or eagles or bears. Some sprouted feathers atop, others were rimmed with claws. All had a pair of soulless-looking glass eyes staring out, reflecting back the lightening sky in glints that made them appear to wink in sinister welcome.

“Scavs,” said James grimly, zooming the picture in with a dial on one of the keyboards. “They must’ve followed us in.”

Lu was fascinated in spite of the danger. She’d heard of these wandering groups of survivors who lived outside the cities, scavenging what they could from abandoned homes and stores. Legend had it they’d mutated from exposure to the sun, but it was impossible to determine if this group was mutated, or suffered from nothing more deadly than a seriously impaired fashion sense.

The biggest one, a hulk with a pair of enormous bat ears on his helmet, whom Lu assumed was the leader from his I’m-in-charge-here stance, cocked his rifle and shot another round into the shed door. The handle promptly exploded into a fine spray of dust, leaving a gaping hole.

“So much for that reinforced door,” Nola muttered.

“I suppose I should deal with this,” said Lu. Her stomach sank at the thought of what “dealing” with it entailed. Before she could utter another word, however, Magnus snorted.

She glanced at him, surprised. With a dour expression he said, “Hold your horses, Wonder Woman.” He glanced away from the camera to meet her eyes, and Lu could have sworn she saw a twinkle of humor there. “I think I can handle this one on my own.”

He turned and left the room without further comment. After a minute, she said to Nola and James, “Hold my horses?”

“It basically means don’t get ahead of yourself.” Nola winced as she watched the scav leader lift his big leg and kick the shed door down. “And the subtext was something along the lines of, ‘Please don’t emasculate me in front of company, sweetheart.’”

Sweetheart? Lu’s cheeks flamed. Nola turned and gave her a look. “What? You think I can’t tell when a man’s in love?”

Lu almost choked on her own tongue with the force of her denial. “Love! He’s not—he doesn’t—”

“Of course he does,” Nola scoffed, waving a hand to indicate how ridiculous Lu was being. “And so do you. It’s all over you both.”

Lu was silent, reeling. Examining her stunned expression, Nola asked, “Not too many boyfriends in your past?”

Lu avoided that question, put a hand to her head, and quietly said, “I actually thought he liked you.”

“Of course he likes me. What’s not to like?” Nola countered without an ounce of self-consciousness. “But he doesn’t like me in that way, sweetie. You’ve got that all locked up. Oh, shit.” Her attention was glued to the screen that showed the interior of the shed, and it became immediately apparent what had her cursing.

The Scavs had figured out how to operate the elevator.

Magnus waited until he heard the elevator lurch to a stop, and the clank of metal chain announce the inner door was being lifted. Unseen behind the wall, he waited until he heard the Scavs move past him down the dimly lit tunnel toward the steel door that led into Nola’s hidden underground compound. Then he placed his palms flat against the wall and concentrated.

Cement began to disappear beneath his hands, flaking away silently in waves that left a growing mound of stone dust at his feet.

His Gift of turning solid matter into dust with a touch was the one that had earned him the spot as Alpha of the Wales colony. Though it didn’t work on flesh and the range was limited to whatever he could touch, it had incredible applications, including digging all those perfectly shaped sleeping chambers in the rock. But it wasn’t his favorite Gift, or the most effective.

Or the deadliest.

He tunneled silently through the wall between the elevator shaft and the door, then stood in the low light, watching the Scavs assess their next move.

He licked his lips, not even realizing he did it, still tasting the soft sweetness of Lumina’s mouth. He hoped she wasn’t watching the cameras, because what he was about to do wasn’t going to be pleasant. And though she said she knew him, had even—unbelievably—said she thought him beautiful, she didn’t know him like this.

He didn’t want her to know him like this. But life is a bitch, and a slut, because she screws everyone. He stepped forward on silent feet.