"And if they find us first?"
"Then we make this motel a tomb."
Night falls early. The darkness comes off the ocean like a fog bank, enveloping the cabin. We eat a dinner of canned soup and stale bread. Alaric tries to eat with his left hand. He spills soup on his chest. He slams the spoon down. "Leave it," I say before he can explode. I take the spoon. I dip it in the bowl. I hold it to his lips.
He stares at me. His pride is warring with his hunger. "I am not a child."
"No," I agree. "You are a king in exile. And kings get fed."
He opens his mouth. I feed him. It is an intimate act. A reversal of the breakfast in the asylum, weeks ago. Back then, he fed me to dominate me. Now, I feed him to sustain him. But the tensionis the same. The air between us is thick, charged with unsaid things.
When the bowl is empty, I wipe his mouth with my thumb. He catches my hand. He kisses my thumb. Then he bites it. Gently. "You taste like rain," he whispers.
"You taste like rage," I reply.
He pulls me closer. I am standing between his legs again. He buries his face in my stomach, inhaling deeply. "I hate this," he murmurs into my shirt. "I hate being weak in front of you."
"You aren't weak." I run my fingers through his hair. It’s getting long. "You survived."
"I survived because of you. I am a parasite, Elodie. I am feeding off your light."
"Then feed."
He looks up. His eyes are dark, dilated. "Be careful what you offer."
He pulls me down. We tumble onto the sagging mattress. The sex in the Borderland is not like the sex in the penthouse. It isn't polished. It isn't a performance. It is desperate. It is gritty. It is the sex of two people who are trying to prove they are still alive.
He can't support his weight on his arms, so I straddle him. I take control. I strip off my clothes, shivering in the damp air. I strip off his jeans. I sink down on him. He groans, his head falling back, his hands—the good one and the broken one—gripping my hips. "Elodie..."
I move. I set the rhythm.Adagio. Andante. Allegro.I ride him. I watch his face. I watch the pain and the pleasure mix in his expression. I watch the way he looks at me—with worship, with hunger, with a terrifying possessiveness.
"Mine," he hisses, thrusting up to meet me. "You are mine."
"Yours," I gasp.
We climax together, a shuddering release that leaves us both gasping, slick with sweat, tangled in the grey sheets. For a moment, the rain stops. Or maybe I just stop hearing it. For a moment, we are not fugitives. We are just a man and a woman in a bed at the end of the world.
I wake up to a sound. Not the rain. A thud. Outside.
I freeze. Alaric is asleep beside me, his breathing heavy. I reach under the pillow. My hand closes around the cold steel of the SIG Sauer. I slide out of bed, naked, silent. I creep to the window. I peel back the curtain a fraction of an inch.
The parking lot is wet, illuminated by a flickering neon sign that buzzes incessantly.M-TEL.The 'O' is burned out. Our truck—a rusted Ford pickup we bought for cash—is parked in front of our door. But there is another car. A sedan. Black. Nondescript. It wasn't there when I came home.
Two men are standing by the truck. They are not wearing tactical gear. They are wearing leather jackets and jeans. Local toughs? Or something worse? One of them is shining a flashlight into the truck’s cab. The other is looking at our door.
I step back. "Alaric," I whisper.
He wakes instantly. No grogginess. He goes from zero to lethal in a second. "What?"
"Two men. Outside. Checking the truck."
He sits up, wincing. He reaches for his gun—the Glock from the factory—on the nightstand. "Syndicate?"
"Don't look like it. No earpieces. No discipline. They look like... vultures."
"Scavengers," Alaric realizes. "The vacuum. The local gangs are expanding their territory. They probably saw you in town. Saw the cash."
He checks the magazine. "Can you shoot?" he asks.
