“Don’t we have enough hazards to our health without adding lung cancer to the list?” he asked dryly.
“I don’t inhale…much.” Valor shrugged. “It’s for the flavor.”
Zorion walked into Valor’s space with a sly smile. He licked his lips, voice low, teasing heat lacing his words. “Then give me some.”
Valor’s honey-colored eyes warmed under his hood. He lifted the Sobranie, took a slow, sinful inhale, holding their eyecontact. With his free hand on Zorion’s hip, he pressed into him until his back met the wall and he allowed himself to be pinned.
Valor leaned in until their lips were a breath apart and exhaled.
Sweet, clove-scented smoke curled between them, warm and intimate, before Valor closed his mouth over his, sealing in the taste.
It was a kiss that lacked restraint. It went on too long to be innocent and was one beat away from being trouble.
A throat cleared before their own handler grunted at them to “Take it inside, fellas.”
He hadn’t even heard the Blacks’ handler, Corvo, coming toward them.
“Jo already has Intelligence scouring the drive Ex retrieved. She’s called a meeting at twenty-three hundred.”
“Plenty of time,” Valor murmured after Corvo walked away.
Zorion stole one last sample. “Agreed.”
White Ravens
Scar
The county of Tyrel, North Carolina, was a sprawling metropolis of three stoplights between stretches of fields, and a whopping twelve hundred people strong.
Downtown was one street of a handful of flaking brick buildings, a post office only open on Fridays, a diner that still sold fifty-cent cups of coffee, a two-pump gas station, and a general store where items could be bartered with goods instead of money.
He’d left the barn and Gage hours ago, and his fucking chest was still tight enough to crush his lungs.
More than once, he’d almost turned around, but he kept telling himself Gage would just slow him down, kept telling himself that until he believed it.
His life motto was “every man for himself.” He believed ninety percent of the world didn’t care about his problems and the other ten were glad he had them.
There’d been a time when he ran a crew of men, women, and teenagers who’d pledged their loyalty to him, but not a soul had come to see him, nor written him a single letter, when he’d gotten locked up.
He was glad he never expected it, that way it didn’t hurt him.
Scar was realistic, practical, and brilliant in his own right. He’d never been good at the classes high school said would matter.
Geometry was as useless as it sounded, science was used to save lives, Scar took them. Proper English couldn’t be comprehended in his neighborhood—the block had its own language—and geography was only needed if life would’ve given him an opportunity to leave the hood and travel… it hadn’t.
So instead, he enrolled in the gang curriculum and obtained a doctorate in street survival.
He excelled in the subjects that kept him alive: stealing, lying, cheating, and anatomy for more efficient killing.
To get out of Tyrel, he’d have to apply his major in thievery and masters in common sense.
First thing he had to do was disappear…not blend in.
In a town full of flannel, khaki, and faded denim, he stuck out like a demon in church in his filthy white scrubs and blinding shock of snow-white hair. White. Not gray or silver. Not blond in harsh lighting. Fucking snow-white as if he’d dunked his head in a sack of flour.
He needed toiletries, clothes…then food.
However, cash was a dying staple and cards ruled…even in the sticks.
