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Luken grinned. “Yes, I am.”
~ ~ ~
Duncan had a fast food bag on his lap, curly fries covered with ketchup, and a double cheeseburger held in a death grip in his right hand. He’d never been so hungry in his life and wasn’t sure how his body was managing both the steak and potato salad from the meal at the villa and now some fast food that tasted like heaven.
He sat outside at Militia HQ watching Luken teach Rachel how to fire a wrecker shotgun. She wore a padded shoulder guard to keep from getting bruised all to hell and looked like a natural as she pressed the butt against the pad, then fired without flinching.
The noise was deafening even though she hadn’t yet learned how to add her preternatural power to the shot. Once she did, the size of the resulting explosion would add a whole new decibel to the mix.
But right now, Duncan didn’t care about the noise or anything. His body had been deprived of food, setting his digestion on warp-speed and demanding more and more. He thought it possible even his bones knew he needed to pack on more muscle mass because his world was in deep shit.
He had another need demanding satisfaction as well so that his gaze rarely strayed from Rachel. Her white cotton dress hung to mid-calf so that he only had a limited view of her ankles. But his memory worked just fine and he kept flipping mentally through the images of the last time he’d made love to her.
Rachel liked to ride him and he liked to watch her breasts swaying with the movement. He would hold her waist and help her sustain the rhythm as she took pleasure from his cock. She’d bring him like a strike of lightning.
Beyond his hunger and his need for sex, however, it bugged the shit out of him that Luken kept touching her. The rational part of his mind understood how necessary it was for Luken to adjust the angle of the weapon, her stance, her hold on the wrecking gun.
But more than once he’d shouted in Luken’s direction to get his hands off her.
To his credit, the leader of their newly formed Third-Earth-bound black ops squad would toss up his hands in a motion of surrender and step away from Rachel. Luken would eye him until Duncan had calmed down enough to lift his chin and allow the powerful warrior to continue.
Luken had been through the breh-hedden drill plenty of times so he got it. Eight warriors had gotten struck down by the myth-that-wasn’t-a-myth and now it was Duncan’s turn.
Each time he shouted at Luken, Rachel would turn to look at him, but not in disapproval. Instead, a flare of her rich garden scent would roll in his direction so that he understood he wasn’t alone in his need. He kept envisioning taking her back to his Paradise Valley home, and having her in his bed.
For now, he tried to control his impulse to beat the shit out of Luken. But that made him smile. He knew damn well Luken would be the victor even if Duncan had increased Warrior of the Blood power.
Duncan liked and trusted Luken. He had all the muscle mass of Hercules, but the soul of a saint. His long, blond, wavy hair hung from his cadroen in a horse-like mass halfway to his waist. Because the battle vest only had a single leather strip down the back to allow for wing-mount, the sheer breadth of Luken’s shoulders made Duncan shake his head.
Needless to say, Luken had all the tail he could want at the Blood and Bite, the Mortal Earth club Endelle had instituted for all the warriors. And women flocked to him.
Another shot shattered the airwaves.
Duncan took a third and fourth bite one after the other.
At least Merl wasn’t around. Duncan didn’t think he could have handled that bastard near Rachel even though Merl had the greater experience as a wrecker.
But Luken had been one of the group that had helped Samuel and Vela rescue Duncan from Sharav’s torture cell, so the warrior knew what he was doing. Luken had also been practicing for the past two weeks with the weapons and helping Santiago and his crew develop wrecker guns of their own.
The events of the past three weeks, from the time Sharav had abducted Duncan, had left no one in doubt that the modified shotguns were a necessary weapon moving forward.
A voice called out from the b
uilding behind Duncan, some thirty yards away “So you’re really back?”
Duncan turned around and there was the warrior who had saved his ass from Sharav.
“Samuel!” he shouted in return. He hadn’t seen him since before the abduction from New River. He set the remnants of his burger on the fries, rose up, and settled the bag on the chair.
From the time Duncan had rescued Samuel from a decade of torture, also at Sharav’s hand, the warrior had become a good friend, someone Duncan trusted with his life.
He met him halfway between his camp chair and the armory. A hug followed accompanied by a tightening of Duncan’s throat. “Thank you,” he said, gripping Samuel hard, pounding his back with his fist. Pulling back, he shook his head repeatedly. “I heard what you and Vela did for me. How the hell am I ever going to repay you?”
Samuel’s smile was crooked. “Have you forgotten that you rescued me from a decade under that same bastard’s thumb?”
“Yeah, I guess I did. I mean, yes, of course.”
Duncan stared at him for a long, long moment and Samuel returned the favor. They were brothers-in-arms and had been through hell, a shared experience that had brought them even closer.
