Unbounded - The Escape Part 25

Stella made a face as she parted the curtain, stepping into the corridor. "You're probably right. But is that something we really want to mess with tonight? I don't think so. Poor kid's been under enough stress today." She let the curtain swing shut.

That kid was my age.

"Oh," she added, popping her head back in. "There's a light dangling from the middle of the supply room. When Brody made the generator stall, they turned them all off before restarting, and it doesn't look like that one got turned back on."

I watched her go with a sigh and pushed through the curtain, but that room was empty. Another slit in a second curtain beckoned me onward. How far does this tent go back? Inside the next narrow room, my eyes fell on a six-foot camp table filled with duffel bags. More duffels and a few boxes had been crammed underneath, the supplies stretching to each wall of the room. A dark figure was already rifling through the bags I recognized as belonging to our Renegades, but I couldn't see who. I stepped across the room, reaching for the chain dangling from what might be a light bulb. The figure turned as I pulled the chain.

"Don't-" It was Keene, and he held a shirt in front of him as the light clicked on. But not before I saw that he wasn't wearing any bandages. His recent scars looked years old, and the older ones had almost faded completely.

My eyes flew to his, which were as dark green as a forest at night.

He lifted his arms and pulled the shirt over his head. "Jace told me I stank," he said without emotion.

I stepped next to him, my hand going out to stop him from pulling the shirt down over his chest. "Dimitri healed you, but not like this." I reached out with both hands to his chest, one hand tracing the length of his newest scar. His heart pounded against my other hand. "You . . . oh, Keene, you Changed! I felt a difference in you earlier but I thought it was because-" I broke off. The variance a person radiated when they first began to Change was easily misconstrued, but that wasn't an excuse for not paying more attention.

He pushed away my hand and tugged down his shirt, as if my very touch burned him.

"Sorry. Am I hot?" My skin had been warm for hours after the first time I'd channeled Brody's ability. With all the effort this evening, I might be burning, no matter how cold I felt.

"No." He hesitated, a sardonic gleam in his eyes. "I mean, yes, you're hot, but not like you mean. It's better you don't touch me." His wet hair had slicked back when he put on the shirt, revealing the absence of the scar along his right cheek.

"When did it happen?"

"I noticed it yesterday morning, after we got back from Emerson's. It had probably already started inside before that, or I wouldn't have been able to get out of bed, even with Dimitri's healing. I'd nearly stopped hurting by this morning." He rubbed the left side of his chest. "Now the scars are fading, even the old ones." A hint of wonder filled his voice.

"Does Cort know?" At thirty-six, Keene was a year beyond the outside Changing range for a typical Unbounded, but his wasn't the only late Change I'd heard of. Maybe he'd given up hope too early. I didn't dare consider that whatever Dimitri and Cort had given him had influenced his Change.

Keene shook his head. "He might suspect. But no one else knows, and I'd appreciate if you didn't say anything just yet. I spent a lot of years struggling to accept who I was, and now I don't know who or what I am."

That I could understand. His bitterness at being mortal had been one of the things I hadn't liked about him. He should be jumping for joy, not hiding in the dark. Still, I knew he'd come to love the Change, every bit as much as I did. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"Would it have made a difference?"

I hesitated. Would it have made a difference yesterday? Probably not. But three weeks ago it might have, and that's what he was asking. "Maybe," I said.

For a moment I thought he hadn't heard me. Then the words, "That's why I didn't tell you." He stepped past me toward the opening in the curtain. "Goodbye, Erin." He had such a tight control over his emotions that not a hint escaped about how he was feeling.

"Wait. Where are you going?" Concern made my voice rise. He shouldn't be alone, not when so much was suddenly different for him.

"Does it matter?"

"I used your switchblade," I answered. "It saved me."

"Good." A slight smile tugged at his mouth.

"I'd like to be here for you. I know the others feel the same."

He rubbed a hand over his face. "Don't worry. I finally know where I belong, if nothing else. While you guys clean up here, I'll help Chris finish the safe house in San Diego. Not even Stella and her most powerful computer or Brody with all the energy he can hold will be able to get inside when I'm finished. See you there."

I let him go, trying to take it all in. Keene was Unbounded. All his life, he'd worked hard to make his father proud of him, always falling short because he wasn't Unbounded. Now he'd Changed and the man might never know. He didn't deserve to know. We were Keene's family now. All the Renegades would be happy for him, if he let them. For now, I'd keep his secret.

I pulled off my hotel uniform and retrieved a pair of worn gray sweats from the duffel Keene had been standing over. Likely some of Ava's, since Stella was a little shorter than we were and the legs and arms fit. It wouldn't have mattered if they didn't. I pushed up the sleeves and contemplated how many steps it was back to the main room of the tent.

The next thing I knew, Ritter was behind me, pulling my back against his chest, bringing the outside cold on his clothes. "There you are," he said in my ear. "The cars are here."

"Did we get any of them?" I asked. For Mexico, I meant.

"Four."

It was a pitiful amount compared to their number of soldiers, but it was better than nothing. And we'd freed the prisoners. Not a bad day after all. Even so, we'd have to do better. One of these days, the Emporium was going to announce to the world our presence and we'd better be ready.

I leaned into Ritter. "Fortunately, they also gave us our best weapon in the form of the vice president. And possibly Patrick."

"Yeah, we lucked out on that." Ritter nuzzled my neck. I shuddered, feeling my body respond despite its exhaustion.

"At the hotel," I said, "when Delia told you there'd been a delay. How did you know it wasn't me? She was using my mind, so it was me."

"It didn't feel like you." He hesitated before continuing. "There was no . . . you in the thoughts. No sa.s.s, no pa.s.sion, no . . ." He laughed. "No irritation. When I realized they'd taken you, I felt . . ."

I turned to face him, waiting. Had he been sad? Scared? Despairing? I dropped my shield to see if he wanted to tell me that way.

"Angry," he finished, leaning over to place his forehead on mine. "Angry at both of us for taking so d.a.m.n long. I love you, Erin. I love you like I've never loved anyone else. I want you like I've never wanted anyone else. You make me more crazy, more frustrated, and happier than I've ever been. I feel alive inside again for the first time in more years than I care to count. No matter what we've felt or meant to others, it's not the same. It can never be the same. You were right to be upset when I left for those two months I disappeared. I should have taken you with me, but I wanted you so badly, and you weren't ready. I guess I was . . ." He didn't finish, and he didn't have to. His shield had gone down, and even in my exhausted condition a mental link sprang up between us. "I needed to get my head on straight."

He reached for the long chain around his neck, bringing it up over his head and down over mine, without breaking the connection of our foreheads. "I want you to have this. You know what it means to me."

I knew, but if I hadn't, the emotions of love and loss pouring off him would have told me only too well. I brought my hands between us, fingering the rings, feeling the tiny one that had belonged to his sister and his mother's larger band. He'd carried them for over two centuries, mourning their loss. Now he was ready to let go. There was also a new ring I didn't recognize, with a large stone that felt like commitment. But from the moment I'd realized a relationship between us was possible, I had known he'd settle for nothing less.

"The other is for the mortal world," he said. "I'm relearning that language." He kissed me gently at first, running his tongue along my teeth. I pushed closer and our contact deepened until it felt as if we were one. I loved being in his arms, loved the delicious heat I felt from his hands, the hard lines of his body pressed against mine.

I pulled back to look into his eyes, trying to catch my breath from wherever it had gone. "Okay, Your Deathliness. You win."

"You mean we win."

I laughed. "That doesn't mean you don't owe me that poisoned knife you promised."

"You know what?" He removed my ballistic knife from the folds of his clothes and placed it in my hand along with two smaller blades. "You can have all my knives."

"Hey, how'd you get those past Secret Service?"

"You kidding? That's the least of what I got past them."

I'd just finished kissing him again when the National Guard began taking down the tent around us. We each grabbed a couple of duffels and hurried to the waiting cars where our wounded were being loaded. I still felt like someone had run over me with a truck, but the weight of my knife and Ritter's other gift against my chest gave me new energy.

There were only two things I needed to take care of in the immediate future. One was a discussion with Stella about her comment regarding technopaths being able to use nanites to control fertility, because despite my commitment to Ritter, I wasn't ready yet to have a child.

The other was the matter of the little present Delia had placed in my head. I'd checked on the box, and it was untouched and unchanged. As soon as I recovered enough energy, I'd reinforce the box using what I'd learned about shields from Delia. But I couldn't leave the snake there. I had to know what it meant.

Maybe if Delia had left it there to control me, I could use it to control her.

THE END.

NOTE FROM TEYLA BRANTON: Thank you for downloading my book and for spending time in my world! I hope you enjoyed The Escape. If you did, will you please leave a review on Amazon and Goodreads? The more positive reviews I receive, the less time I'll have to spend trying to sell random people my book and the more time I can spend writing sequels. Yes, I have multiple sequels in store, so thank you for any help you can give me in spreading the word. I promise I'll make it up to you! If all goes well, book four should be released sometime in 2014. I will put more info on my website when I have a better idea as to when.

However, that's not all I have written. On the next page you will find the first chapter of Tell Me No Lies, a contemporary romantic suspense (not paranormal or urban fantasy) under my pen name Rachel Branton. Also, you can learn more about me and my books in the About the Author section following the sample chapter. Be sure to sign up for new release notices and ebook updates at TeylaBranton.com.

TELL ME NO LIES.

by Rachel Branton

CHAPTER ONE.

I blinked to hold back the tears, stunned by what I was hearing. No! I don't believe it. But I did.

Hurt followed the disbelief, growing to an agony that urged me to physically lash out at Sadie, my best friend and bearer of the terrible news, but I was frozen in place, as though my heart had stopped pumping blood to my suddenly useless limbs.

Besides, it wasn't Sadie's fault.

Oh, Julian. How could you?

Sadie put a hand on my shoulder, but the sympathy in her eyes did little to comfort me. "I'm sorry, Tessa. I really am. I didn't want to tell you, but . . ." She sighed and continued in a whisper, "I would want to know if it were me."

Her words released me from my mute state. "I need to be alone."

"Of course. I understand. Call me if you need me." Sadie stepped close and hugged me while I stood without moving. I barely noticed her departure.

My eyes wandered the room of my childhood, only recently familiar again since I'd come home to Flagstaff to prepare for the wedding. Mother had insisted on dinners and celebrations, and because Julian and I planned to live in Flagstaff, where he would work in his family business, it only made sense for me to leave the job at my father's factory in Phoenix several weeks early. I missed the job and my friends the minute I'd left, but Julian and I were ready to take the plunge into matrimony-or so I'd thought.

The door to my walk-in closet was open, and I could see the wedding dress I was to have worn in just over forty-eight hours. Bile rose in my throat, and a tear skidded down my cheek. I brushed it impatiently away. I wouldn't cry for a man who had betrayed me.

Since tonight we were having the rehearsal dinner, last night had been Julian's bachelor party. Sadie's brother had been at the party and had told her all about Julian disappearing early with a woman whose hands had been altogether too familiar with a man who was about to be married.

I slumped on my bed, covered with the homemade quilt my grandmother had made, my eyes still locked on the white satin dress. Drenched in lace and small pearls, it had a sweetheart neckline and a gorgeous chapel train. The dress cost seventeen hundred dollars and had taken three weeks of daily shopping to find. My mother had been with me every one of those days, which had been a torture in itself.

I bit my lip until I tasted blood.

I'd met Julian Willis when I'd come home to visit for the Christmas holiday, though if the truth be told, my visit had more to do with my horse, Serenity, than seeing my parents. At my mother's insistence, I'd tagged along on their invitation to attend a party thrown by the Willises. I hadn't minded going, once I met Julian. If his blond good looks and toned physique hadn't won me over, his attentiveness and charm would have. After countless trips to Phoenix on his part and numerous weekends home on mine, the inevitable had happened: we'd fallen in love. He asked me to marry him, and I said yes.

Two weeks later, my father and Julian's had negotiated a business arrangement to take effect after the wedding. The Willis family owned a huge frozen food conglomerate, and my father produced a line of breakfast cereals, where I managed the swing shift. With the help of the Willises, our business would expand to new markets my father had never before reached. I wasn't sure what the Willises were getting out of the deal since our business was stable but not growing. Maybe they would simply have in-laws who were up to their standard of living.

Not that we'd ever been poor in my lifetime-thanks to my grandpa who'd worked himself into an early grave to create that first bowl of sugar-coated cereal. I still missed him terribly.

What am I going to do?

The awful thing was that a part of me wasn't all that surprised. Julian was attractive, thoughtful, and a big flirt-a hit with ladies of every age. Half of the marriageable women in Flagstaff had chased him at one time or another, and before we'd met he'd had a bit of a reputation-one he'd a.s.sured me was complete fabrication.

I won't marry a liar and a cheat. Every woman deserved better than that. I wondered if I'd purposely been blind or if he'd been good at hiding things. Perhaps his betrayal had been a momentary lapse, but if so, what did that say about our future? If I couldn't trust him now, how could I trust him for the next sixty or more years?

Maybe it's all a mistake. I latched onto the idea. Yet in the next minute I had to discard it. Sadie had been my best friend since kindergarten, and I'd trust her with my life. There was no way she would have spoken unless she was certain it was true. More likely she hadn't told me everything she knew, not wanting to hurt me further.

A knock on the door startled me from my thoughts. "Who is it?"

"Your mother."

"Come in."

Elaine Crawford didn't so much as enter a room as sweep into it. She was the epitome of grace and elegance. Even at eight o'clock on a Thursday morning, her hair was styled in an elaborate twist that was both attractive and left her beautiful neck bare.

"My, Sadie was in such a hurry this morning. I've never seen her run off so quickly. Did you two have a disagreement?"

I shook my head, unwilling to trust my voice.

My mother's eyes didn't leave my face. "What happened? We can't be losing your maid of honor at this late date." She smiled to show she was teasing, but there was a warning under the words.

"Sadie and I are fine."

"Wonderful." She walked to the closet and peered inside. "You're going to look like a princess in this dress. Even without you in it, I could stare at it all day. Julian won't be able to take his eyes off you."

I gave her a weak smile. I did love the dress-a good thing, since it had taken so much time to find one we both agreed on. My mother wasn't a woman to give up on any goal, and her goal had been to find a dress that not only would I agree to wear but that would make people sigh with admiration for years to come.

She rambled on, going over a last-minute menu change and reminding me we needed to pick up my father's tuxedo. "I hope Lily's man comes dressed appropriately," she said, almost as an afterthought.

"Mario's wearing a suit. Lily said he looks great."

"I wish you hadn't insisted on their coming."

"Lily's my sister. Of course she'll be at my wedding."

"You weren't at hers."

I didn't say anything. Lily had done what she felt she had to, and I'd been happy for her.

"He will never amount to anything," my mother added.

"And you think Julian will?" I couldn't hold it back any longer, though I knew my mother was the worst person to confide in. She'd never been the kind of mother to bake cookies, to take her kids to the park, or sit and discuss school and boyfriends. As teenagers, Lily and I had agreed that she was like Mary Lennox's mother in the Secret Garden-too occupied with her own life and goals to really care about her daughters. "Well, you're wrong. I just found out he cheated on me. Maybe more than once."

My mother didn't gasp. She didn't hug me and ask me how I knew. She showed no sympathy for me or anger toward my fiance. She simply stared.

"I can't marry him," I said.

That brought her to life. "Of course you'll marry him. It's you he loves, no matter what you've heard."

Something in her demeanor tipped me off. "Wait. What do you know about this?"