Changeling Winds: Episode Two (The Bachelor Battles Book 2) (38 page)

As I emptied my pain, my past, into Angelica’s willing body, I let go of Rankin for good. I had no doubt that the scars she’d left would occasionally show
themselves
, but that mysterious ache I’d had for her was one I would never feel again. Thanks to Angelica, I now knew love, the real kind that wasn’t all
obsession
. I had my chosen mate and there was quiet in the halls of my heart.

“Happy Birthday, Baby.”

I groaned in response, still locked in spasms of pleasure and joy. “Thank you, for noticing me.”

Her hold tightened to a searing embrace that made me pulse harder.

“There was never really another choice. You had me with the first clever lie and the smell of your burnt sugar skin.”

Her lips pressed to my forehead. “I’ll never let you go now.”

I grinned, rolling us so that we were on our sides, facing. “Are you making a permanent contract with me?”

She smiled back, love shining, warming me from the inside.

“”I’m just stating fact.”

Angelica

“Will you sing for us?”

Chuckling, Jason rolled onto his back and settled us into the position we’d found last night as he sung me to sleep.

We hadn’t realized the Hounds would still be so drawn until we stepped outside this morning to find a pack of no less than thirty all waiting to have their collars removed.

I thought about how the dog on the train had nudged Jason’s hand when he’d stopped rubbing its bloody ears, and how the animal had looked back through the wreckage to make contact with him one more time before dropping from sight.

Then to have it return with a small pack and actually walk with us! We’d cut off the collars, and even now, they were all around the crumbling brick shelter I’d chosen to take refuge in. Once a cannery of some sort, it had been opened after the war and the Network had destroyed it to keep a population from growing around it.

We’d found too much evidence of the Network here, where the southern Borderlands were about to become the middle of the country. It told me that the Network had something else going on out here, and we would have to be very careful until the moment came to strike.

Jason was already contributing to the cause, proving himself worthy of being a Pruett and a rebel. I wondered what other… abilities my experimental bachelor might have. Did he know he was one of the 12? All of Rankin’s pets were. I pushed the thought away. It didn’t matter. I would take his sons or daughters.

We’d gotten a message from Mary and Bruce, Candy’s parents. They’d made contact with that wild Nevada nomad side of our rugged family and were now moving toward New Network City. Along the way, they would continue to gather the friends we’d made over the years.

I started to drowse, eager to lie close to Jason in sleep.

“Will you marry me?”

They were words I’d never heard spoken, only read of. I turned toward him in shock.

His mouth opened, maybe to convince me, and I shook my head. “
Shhh
…”

Marriage, a sign of old-world loyalties even more than music or art, was forbidden by the Network. No one I’d ever known had gone that far against them.

I couldn’t stop the scornful snort, or the harsh, Games grin that had Jason sealing our lips in happiness. Somewhere along the way, we would find someone with the authority and courage to unite us. So far as I knew, we would be the first couple to married in 500 years. It was a perfectly Pruett thing to do.

Chapter Twenty Five

Sam

Baker and I spotted the lone figure at the same time. I slid my hand to the gun that I was so good with, but it was the rebel leader who made the call.

“Let her go. We’ve doled out enough death for one day.”

Behind us, the sky was gray and foggy with the battle’s aftermath. Ahead, the clouds were light, and the sun was warm. There were no signs of shelter around, only hills and stone walls, but I wasn’t worried. We were Pruetts. We survived.

I assumed the figure was a stray guard who’d been smart or lucky enough to escape the carnage, but as we got closer to the weaving woman, it became clear that wasn’t the case.

She was dressed oddly, wearing a type of pants that we’d only seen in pictures. I thought maybe they were blue jeans, and my mind raced over the other small details. She carried a device on a strap around her neck, one that resembled a camera, and her brown jacket was made of a material I didn’t recognize. The light rain ran off of it, rather than sinking in.

Her hands were covered in bright red cuts and scrapes, implying she’d fought for her life recently, and I looked to the rocky crags behind her. What lay over that horizon? The glazed horror in the woman’s eyes said we may not want to know.

“Are you real?”

I moved slightly forward, protecting Baker as my Runners came up to flank us.
“As much as you.”

“Are you okay?”

Baker’s question was met with scorn… and fear.

“Unless I mistook the shells and the screams, no, not really.”

Her way of talking was odd, the accent foreign, and I studied harder. She wasn’t from here… So, where was she from?
The west?

The woman studied us, finally noticing the blood, the smoke in the distance behind our protection. “You must be the good guys.”

Her skin was pale under that fresh burn, and I scratched the west from my list. Coast lands didn’t encourage the gentle shade of cream that was her skin under the light burn. It gave the weather-beaten skin of a desert, complete with the matching shades and textures. I should know.

Baker’s tone was polite. “May I offer a drink and a parlay?”

It was a different form of speech, one that I hadn’t heard from him, and it was impressive enough to make me turn and stare.

The woman, however, nodded right away, seeming to come to life. Her nicked hands went restlessly to that strap around her neck, to the small square device it was holding.

“Please do. I have a horrible secret and I really should tell someone before the Network kills me.”

The End of Episode Two

Notes

This episode of the Bachelor Battles originally came from the rage I saw in the short glimpses of Candy's fearless little cousin, and I wrote 80 pages of it right after finishing the first one. I knew she had needs of her own, but the rebellion growing as I rewrote both books was a surprise. Though, to be fair, I wasn't happy with the Network from the beginning. Beyond their obvious cruelty, something wasn’t right about them...

Anyway, the Bachelor Battles connects to my popular fantasy series,
Life
After
War
, which takes place right after the bombs have fallen. In the Bachelor Battles, the world is totally opposite than the light and hope Adrian seeks to create. In fact, you could say this is the opposite of that world, but the Pruetts are far from finished with it. In time, maybe that brutal family can conquer the Network and set those enslaved males free. We’ll hope all that power doesn’t go to their heads.

Interested in a little more? My website (below) is a great place to look for free books, sneak peeks, and other fun stuff. Thank you for spending your time on me!

To my Betas - Because I know I have you guys to help, I’ve been able to get all of the backlist titles done now. Thank you so much! I can’t wait to share all
new
material with you from here.

http://www.law-angelawhite.com

Have a wonderful year,

Angela White

Extras

…
Book Three

…
The Survivors

…
Alexa’s Travels

…
The Network’s History

…
Rules of this Game

…
Stage of the Change

Episode Three

The Network

1

The War
Changed
all of us in one way or another - and some of us in every way possible. Even now, in 2513AW, the Games are on every wall screen, in every home, across New America. We kill ourselves by the thousands each year - living for the chance, the tiniest hope, of an end to this pain.

 
“Here’s a surprise, folks! We have another of those infamous bounty-hunting Pruetts with us for this episode…”

Almost 500 years of complete Network rule, centuries of mindless death and blood where the council grew more powerful and their citizens died where they fell.

“This is the third one in as many months! Has there ever been a Games family so merciless, so mate-hungry...”

The Network was evil, as bad as any past dictator I’d ever read about, and they’d been this way from the very beginning. They’d spent centuries tormenting their subjects and keeping control with a merciless hand. Now, that would change and I was the spearhead of the movement.

“Samantha J. Pruett!”

I sauntered onto the Time Trials field amid the roar. I hadn't been sent here by the need for blood or to claim a male. I was here for the Network… and I hadn't come alone.

Book Three: The thrilling conclusion of the Bachelor Battles!

The Survivors

"This is Safe Haven Refugee Camp. Can
anyone
hear me? Hello? Is
anyone
out there?"

Like most days now, the sound of the ocean haunts me.

My name is Angela. I'm a mother, doctor, soldier, and now, in the year 2017, I've become a leader of men. Thanks to the end of our world to nuclear war, I'm the Guardian of an American refugee camp named Safe Haven.

Surrounded by carefully watching guards, I sit beside the immense Pacific Ocean as my people work and play nearby, confident my Army will look after them while I tell you about the War of 2012…and how we were forced to leave our beloved Country. It was a nightmare from which we couldn't wake. Some of us still haven't, and soon, we'll be at the water's mercy again. In less than two months, we're going home.

America waits for us to reclaim and to rebuild, but mostly, simply, for us to return. Before we undertake that perilous journey, I have to get the 357 souls here ready for the trip, and I only know one way it can be done - Adrian has to come back, and lead us home, as he promised.

Adrian… That incredibly patriotic man has been exiled, even though he’s the only reason that we survived. His secret was the only excuse the camp needed to turn on him, but I won't. I can't. I swore myself to him the same as the rest of his Council, and like them, I still believe.

I’ve gotten way ahead of myself, far beyond the beginning, when our future didn’t look as good is it does now. Most people here in New America won’t talk about the War or the long, ugly journey we made together. They say the memories have faded, but I know a lie when I hear one. Some horrors you never forget. Like our final battle with Cesar and his large band of ruthless Mexican guerillas.

It's been five years, but I still see the deep red streams of blood running down rain-soaked trees. I still smell men burning alive in their metal coffins. I dream of it sometimes: of the cold, wet night when I was the
bait,
and I'm sure Adrian does, too. It was the moment we knew our people would live - because of one man’s dream and his lies.

From the very beginning, Adrian kept us alive, gave us everything he had - and he always did what was best for the camp, no matter what it cost him personally. He taught us to be stronger than we thought we could be, to look out for each other, and ourselves, and through it all… he lied by omission, knowing these scared, hurting survivors would never have trusted him, would never have given him a chance, if they had known who he really was.

We came a long way together in the year after the War, over thousands of miles of heartbreaking devastation, and it hurts those of us who remain loyal to see him accept their unfair judgment without a fight. It makes everything we went through seem less important than it was, weakens the magic somehow, and I can’t allow that.

I’ve been seeing open doors again, and that sly ocean cautions me, says the return trip will be just as hard as the one we undertook to get here. If there’s a storm headed toward the flock, it’s our Shepherd we’ll need to see us through it.

So, for Adrian and for those of us standing by him, still ready to die for him, and for the dreams he made me believe in from almost the first minute I set foot in his Refugee camp, I will tell our story and leave nothing out. Maybe then these people will realize what he did for our country, accept how much we owe, and allow him to reclaim what’s rightfully his.
Us.

Before I tell you about our harsh, ugly journey, let me show you what happened on that day, what they did to us and what we did to each other. This is how America’s story of survival began…

The Survivors

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