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“You don’t?” Gunnar opened a door for me then ushered me inside. A big bed with brown sheets and pillows covered in matching pillowcases stood in the center of the room. Other than the table next to the bed, no other furniture adorned the space. He passed by me to enter another room, then looked over his shoulder to speak to me. “Bathroom is here.” I followed him and watched as he put on the water. “Like I said, plenty of hot water.” Then he stared at the water and stepped back. He stuck his hand in it again. “What the fuck?”
“What’s the matter?” Mace called from the doorway to another bedroom. “Not working?”
“No, it fucking isn’t.” He turned off the water and stormed out the door. “Of all the fucking times for the hot water to go out.”
Gunnar rushed past me and back down the stairs. I could hear him banging on them as he sped from the room.
Crew shook his head and crossed to the window. “Well, there went that idea. Okay, we need to get you warm. Off with the wet clothing. Give them to me and get under the covers. That’s a start.”
My teeth chattered, and it was like my whole body vibrated, my hands shaking. I should have some modesty, but that fled years ago. In my position, nudity didn’t matter anymore. Even if, in the back of my mind, a little voice suggested I should protect myself from being seen by everyone. It didn’t matter, though, since these guys could pay Clarke, if they were so inclined, to see me naked any time they wanted. Any man could.
But when I tried to pull my shirt over my head, the shaking proved more of a problem than I expected, as though my muscles didn’t want to comply with what I needed them to do.
“Let me help.” Mace approached with his hands spread in a calming way. “You’re safe with us, naked or otherwise. You would have been anyway, I believe, but we actually use a machine to keep our sexual urges at bay. You could walk around this city all day long completely nude, and no Super Soldier would want to do anything with you. I can’t speak for the regular humans, but the rest of us are fine.”
Some time, when I wasn’t about to die, I should ask questions about that whole explanation. Oh, forget it. I needed to know right then, despite the shakes. My curiosity wouldn’t allow for anything else. “What?”
“We’ll get into it later,” Crew said as he walked over and helped Mace. Between the two of them, they very systematically undressed me until I stood in front of them shaking and freezing. Mace grabbed a towel from the bathroom and ran back out, wrapping me in it.
Crew nodded toward the bed. “Come on. Under the covers will be warmer.”
I tried to walk to the bed, but my legs, like my arms, didn’t want to cooperate. In the end, Crew picked me up and carried me to the bed, although it wasn’t far away. It was like my body was just shutting down from the cold. Truthfully, I’d never felt so cold before. My planet was much warmer than theirs. It almost never rained, and when it did, it wasn’t heavy or cold, because of the drought.
I wrapped the blanket around me, appreciating its softness, but my skin didn’t warm. I tugged it tighter against me, pulled it over my head like a hood, and I still didn’t begin to warm. I felt slow, sluggish with the chill, but I continued to quake with violent shivers.
“She’s really frozen.” Mace strode to the bed, taking off his shirt and pants with each step. I gaped at him. Only seconds ago, they assured me they didn’t think about sex. Now he’s stripping? What fresh hell was this? I was grateful for their help, but I’d be damned if I was having sex with them right then. No one was there to order me to do so, and besides, I was freezing.
But, as he crawled under the covers with me and tugged me against him, he didn’t hold me in a sexual way.
“Skin to skin warms the fastest. We used to do this when we were on missions, if one of us was accidently frozen.”
I found my voice, and although it shook, I used it. “Accidently fr-r-rozen?”
“Sure,” Crew answered, stripping down to his underwear. Just like Mace before he crawled into bed next to me, so that I was officially sandwiched between their bodies. Their deliciously warm bodies, which felt like actual heaven against my chilled skin. “Amias once spent two days locked in a freezer. All sorts of strange shit used to happen to us. Super Soldiers have notoriously bad luck in some ways. Anyway, this will warm you.”
We lay there in silence for a few seconds. The three of us. Under the covers of their bed, waiting for my shivers to stop. “Th-thank you for this.”
Mace shook his head. “Make that the last time you thank us. Gunnar told you outside, you’re Amias’ family. We’ll see to your health until you leave. And you can tell us things about him, if you want. Things we would never have known otherwise.”
I could do that, if only I could think past my shivers. They pressed closer to me. Their bodies were hard, but I was used to that from the enhanced. They were all built like gods, but it didn’t mean they weren’t actually demons on the inside.
“What would you like to know?” If my shaking bothered them, they weren’t indicating it.
Mace spoke first. “He married your brother…” He paused. “What was his name, your brother? You said it earlier, but my head was buzzing from the news of Amias’ death, and I don’t remember it.”
My breath caught in my throat as grief came in on a wave. Their deaths were a wound that was never going to close. It was new pain, yet already I knew it was permanent. The grief dug a hole inside of me that I would just have to live with because there was no way it was going away, ever.
Still, despite my shakes and pain, I answered. “His name was Stone.”
“Was he your older or younger brother?”
This time it was Crew who asked, so I glanced at him as I answered. “Older. By three years. We were always together when we were young, and since Clarke takes women into service three years before he does men, we entered his service at the same time.”
Crew shifted slightly on the bed, his foot finding mine under the covers. “Can we put a pin in what you just said? I’d like Ransom to be here when we discuss how Clarke is running his empire, and right now he’s off in the mountains handling himself.”
“Sure.” Presumably, we’d have lots of time to talk. Weeks and weeks while I would remain stuck here at their mercy. They could ask me anything, though. I didn’t have any secrets, since my life had been laid out for me from the day the enhanced lost their place in the world and took ours. Well, not these guys, although I really didn’t know who lived in their town before them. Had they all been ousted, so that these four and those like them could live here? It didn’t matter. This was the world. The strong took; the weak tried to survive the taking.
Mace placed a gentle hand on my arm. “How old are you, Raven?”
