“Which word will you use instead?”
Riot pressed his forehead against Cass’s. “We’ll figure it out as we go.”
Cass fell asleep mid-breath, the way only the very young and the recently devastated can manage. Total unconsciousness, without ceremony or apology. Riot didn’t move. His back hurt. The floor was unforgiving. Somewhere outside, a dog was barking at nothing, and even in his sleep, Cass’s hand found Riot’s heartbeat and stayed.
This,Riot thought, with a clarity that felt like it belonged to someone gentler than him.This is what corporations spend millions trying to make in labs. This feeling. And they have never been able to do it, because you can’t manufacture it.
You just have to sit on a hardwood floor with ruined knees and let it happen to you.
He didn’t move for a very long time.
Chapter twenty-five
Prairie Null Wake Up Call
Riot
Thescentofgunoil dragged him out of sleep like a hook through the jaw.
Riot’s eyes snapped open. His arm swept across Cass, shielding the warm body beside him from whatever threat had set off every alarm in his nervous system.
Granny Lu sat at the foot of the bed in her electric wheelchair, watching them with the patient stillness of a woman who’d been waiting long enough to get comfortable. She had a lit cigarilloclamped between her teeth—the cheap kind that smelled like burning tires and poor life choices—and her rifle lay across her lap like she’d forgotten it was there. Which she hadn’t.
Beside her, Sage stood with her own rifle held in that easy way that said she could put a round through his eye socket before he made it halfway across the room. Her moss-green hair was pulled back tight, her expression blank. Unlike most of the residents of the collective, she never looked friendly with how she carried her weapons.
“Mornin’, sugar.” Granny Lu’s voice was honeyed poison, the kind of sweet that made his teeth ache. “Y’all sleep well? Sounded like you were having quite the time in here.”
“Tallulah.” He used her full name like a shield. “You always greet guests with a rifle, or am I special?”
“Oh, honey, you’re real special.” She took a long drag on her cigarillo, the cherry flaring. “Special enough that when my people tell me the Berserker’s been makin’ an Omega howl like a cat in heat for two days straight, I figure I better come see what’s left of Lilac’s house.” She exhaled smoke toward the ceiling. “And whether I need to bury anybody.”
“Nobody needs burying.”
“Not yet.” Her smile was the kind grandmothers gave their grandkids right before telling them exactly how disappointed they were in their life choices. “Get your ass out of bed and into the living room. We’re gonna have a little chat about what the hell you’ve dragged into my community.”
Beside him, Cass stirred.
“Riot?” Cass’s voice was hoarse as his hand found Riot’s wrist. “What’s happening? Are they angry?”
“Nobody’s angry,” Riot said, which was probably a lie. “Granny Lu just wants to talk. I’ll be in the next room.”
“Don’t go far.” Cass’s fingers tightened briefly before releasing. “It feels wrong when you’re not here.”
He pressed a kiss to Cass’s temple—he let them see, he didn’t give a shit—and rolled out of bed. Granny Lu watched him stand with the expression of someone examining a particularly disappointing cut of meat. “Well. At least you’ve got the equipment to back up all that noise.”
“Jesus Christ, Tallulah.”
“Don’t blaspheme in this house, boy.” But there was a glint of amusement in her eyes as she wheeled toward the door. “Get dressed. I don’t need your equipment distracting from the conversation.”
Sage hadn’t moved, her rifle still trained in his general direction. Her face gave away nothing, but Riot caught the slight flare of her nostrils. She was a Null, couldn’t smell pheromones, but the general scent of sex and sweat was probably pungent enough to register.
He found some pants and a shirt in his pack that hadn’t been soaked in sweat or slick and pulled them on. By the time he was dressed, Cass had curled around his pillow, already drifting back toward sleep. He glanced back one more time, just needing to see Cass’s face, and followed Granny Lu into the living room.
The living room looked like someone had tried to demolish it with enthusiasm but limited follow-through.
Books were scattered across the floor in a trail that mapped their chase. A decorative pillow had exploded at some point, stuffing drifting across the hardwood like sad confetti. There was a fist-sized dent in the wall near the bathroom door that Riot didn’t specifically remember making but probably had.
Dante sat on the couch with his ankle crossed over his knee and his arm stretched along the back, the picture of casual arrogance. Seven months out from under Gensyn’s thumb and he still held himself like a man who expected the world to arrange itself around his convenience. Orion was tucked againsthis side, but there was tension in the line of his shoulders, the particular stiffness of an Omega fighting biological feedback.
