JUST MARRIED
She smirked. Humor was the perfect answer to her moodiness.
Apparently, everyone in the group was bondmated to another beaster, or to her, though Locke and Kiko were not attached to anyone. No humans were included except for Maura, and she had a past that tied in with theMaelstromproject in a roundabout way. It was the only solution, considering the long journey and the enforced long absence from Worshipper Quarter. Any bondmated humans would have reverted to being Lure zombies if left un-fucked for that long. She eyed Willow and Mads and was convinced those two were a pair. Maybe even a recent hook-up, considering the writing?
Toother was sitting on his haunches, his soft fur making him look like a stuffed toy blown up to elephantine proportions. He waited patiently, and Willow thought he’d be happy running alongside the vehicle. If he ran out of puff, maybe he’d catch up?
Mo, where was Little Mo? Ah, clinging to the roof.
She slid in beside Rutger on the back seat and slammed the door. The sound of a car engine turning over was sweet and weirdly reminiscent of the past. As with most of her memories of happenings, of anal sex even, and ohmigod at that, she knew she’d heard it before, or done it, or whatever, but could not recall the exact circumstances.
A bummer considering knowing all about anal was likely a self-preservation thing when it came to getting fucked there bythis ginormous beaster. She followed the curves of his beautiful blue horns upward. They stuck out above, far past where the car roof should be.
The car lurched forward then stalled. Mads’s stark white thatch of hair jolted forward, back and her ribs protested the jolt.
Rutger slid his arm along the back of the seat and drew her to his side, his voice rumbling directly into her skin. “Don’t be afraid of Mads. I’m told he does have a licence to drive.”
“Hah!” Mads called back. “I’m rusty after five years, and this car’s battery is ready to give up. Kiko and Locke worked on all the engines to try to get them running well but they really need more done.”
“And the fuel isn’t rancid?”
“Rancid?” Cyn sat forward. “It goes off?”
“It does go off. And hell no, Rutger, we wouldn’t doing this if we didn’t have good fuel. We got lucky and found some tanks the government held in reserve. Most of it’s gone by now. We were frivolous in the early days. Remember how we used to explore the quarter in cars, when we could? Now, trekking by foot is better.”
“And sustainable,” Willow chipped in.
It seemed odd to be listening to this amiable chat. Willow had gone from friend at the picnic to judge, and it left her feeling betrayed.
What about Vargr then? He accused me. But I shot him.
Mmm.She didn’t know that answer. It wasn’t me?
The car took off again, more smoothly, going at a fair speed of maybe ten mph. Faster would risk a crash if road conditions had deteriorated. Cyn looked back to check the others were following and they were.
Car travel. Everything that was once taken for granted was now amazing. She’d kill for a cappuccino, or a good hairdresser, she thought, winding a lock of her inky black hair over a finger.She stared at her hand. A spot of thickened and shiny skin on the top of her wrist made her want to pick at it to see why it was there. Darkish red. A mole? Except it looked like a fish scale.
So? Now she was turning into a fish? Oh, okay then, nothing new.
Fuck.
She’d had enough of her weirdness. Wait and see because it might vanish tomorrow, though that was probably a false hope. It’d be there. A week or two of this road-trip and there’d be no more guessing, if Big Daddy was truly a database ofMaelstrom.If.
Cyn massaged the back of her neck, letting her head flop back and staring at the above but not really looking at what was left of the ceiling. How many stories down were they? How many were up there above, piled over them? She’d lost count, and she kept massaging her neck and thinking about how no one worried the scraper might one day decide to collapse on them, crumbling like a stack of pancakes made of fairy dust. These buildings wouldn’t last forever without maintenance.
Worrying was for the birds.
With her fingertips she absentmindedly traced a line across the back of her neck. Somewhere, about where she was touching, was a tattoo that spelled outMaelstrom. Why had she been tattooed? It was as if she was owned by the project.Pet Cyn, reporting for duty, sir.Almost every beaster was ex-military, so the odds were good that she was too, despite her porn-girl, octopus ass-tattoo.
Little Mo was still up top, holding onto the cut edges of the metal roof and leaning into the breeze like a dog sticking its head out the window.
Through the dirty windshield, she could see the road was clear of debris and broken-down vehicles. Someone had pushedthe defunct ones aside. Of all the roads she’d seen of this size, this one looked almost pristine for these post-apocalyptic times.
“They’ll use a horn signal if they fall behind.” Willow strapped on her seat belt and observed the road ahead before continuing. “I’ve organized this down to sharpening the pencils and shining the car’s pretty bits, so I pray this goes well and that we return safely.”
“We have done our best. Bless this road convoy and every ass on every seat?” Mads said to her.
“Yes. Anything that helps us get there and back.” She pointed at the silver cat leaping forward at the point of the car’s hood. “Look, we can pretend we’re royalty. Who wants to be queen or king?”
