Warrior's Wife (6 page)

“How long will it take to get to California?” she asked quietly.

“A few days with luck.”

Marcus took off and Gideon eased the truck and trailer behind him, grateful for the distraction. None of them turned on their headlights. His night vision was excellent, thanks to an infrared option. Too bad the fucking ’borgs’ optic systems worked equally well. In the utter blackness of the post-pandemic nights even a small light could be seen for kilometers. Without illumination the motorcycle quickly became a blur of motion, an occasional flash of red from the rear reflector.

The truck surged forward as Gideon followed the red blinks in the blackness. A check of his rearview mirror showed the tanker had moved into position, trailing behind them by a couple of truck lengths. The moonlight outlined its aluminum body too well. First chance they got, the big rig needed a quick-and-dirty camo paint job.

Satisfied with the caravan’s progress, he reached across the seat and cupped Tori’s shoulder, giving her a gentle squeeze of reassurance.

She twisted to shake off his friendly touch.

He jerked his hand back to the steering wheel. Clumsiness wasn’t one of his usual problems. Damn his strength, he’d intended to comfort her. “Sorry. I didn’t realize your shoulder was injured. I never meant to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about it.” She moved away until the locked door was the only thing that kept her from leaving. “I’m fine.”

Uh-huh, sure she was and he was a fucking idiot. He tried again, cupping her neck. “You don’t need to be scared of me. It’s my job to take care of you.”

The pulse in the side of her neck raced like a bot on its way to make emergency repairs. Way to go, he’d terrified his woman even more. Not that he blamed her. The first insertion attempt had been a clusterfuck and she’d faced the ’borg bastards alone. She’d been battered and damn near raped.

He was big, scary and a take-charge kind of guy. Sure she was going to shy away from him. Still her fear killed him.

Lost for the right words to make her feel safe, he reluctantly slid his arm away from her soft skin, shut up, and drove.

Gradually her breathing slowed.

Next time he glanced over, she’d slumped against the passenger door, her limbs loosened in sleep. Taking care not to disturb her, he tucked the lightweight blanket over her.

An hour later she jerked awake like an alarm had gone off.

“Go back to sleep, you need the rest.”

She straightened her spine. “I’m used to getting by with naps.”

“You don’t need to skimp on dream time. You’re part of a team now.”

“Right, like three big, strong mechs really need a trauma nurse.”

“We need you. More than you know.”

“True enough, since I don’t believe you need me for anything.” She actually sounded disappointed. Sheer insanity. She sat straighter.

“Here, drink this.” He handed her a water pouch.

“Thanks.” She studied the package for a second. Before he had a chance to show her how to open the spigot, she solved the puzzle.

Where did he start to explain without scaring her even more? He struck mother-of-the-future off his explanation list, ditto the fate of the world hanging on her acceptance of the triad as her mates. Both might be true, as far as they went, but they weren’t compelling or personal. Plus he didn’t want to freak her out again. He needed to start much simpler.

“The pandemic had some nasty effects on the population.”

She shot him an irritated look. “I noticed it killed off damn near everyone.”

“Right, very few women survived.” He skipped specifying fertile women, since the sentence was true without the qualifier and she wasn’t anywhere near ready to talk about reproduction.

Her lashes lowered and her neck curved in sorrow. “I haven’t seen any.”

No reason not to ease her mind about being the last woman on the planet. “There are other women, we have confirmation on a dozen and believe there are twice that many, possibly more.”

She turned, searching his face. “Worldwide?”

“Yeah.” His brow lowered and his voice graveled at the pointless slaughter.

“There are plenty of men though.” Her inflection made it almost a question.

“More than a thousand.” Most of them sterile, but he wasn’t going there either. By saving Tori from both cyborg teams they’d changed history. There was no way for them to know how their actions impacted reality.

“So few, kind of explains why I hadn’t seen anyone, even gangs in ages.” She swallowed and glanced away for a moment. “I get it now. Fertile women are automatically key players. This is why the metal monsters wanted me alive.” She chafed her arms, chasing away a case of chill bumps.

He nodded. Brave and smart, definitely his kind of woman. “For the founders, yes. The restorers are still trying to change the odds by creating a vaccine.”

“Human beings really are an endangered species.” Her voice sank to little more than a whisper.

“At this point in time, pretty much, yeah.”

Her head lifted. “But you’re from the future, so everything works out.”

“Turns out the future changes. So I don’t know any more about what happens next than you do.”

“There must be millions of possible outcomes.”

“More than that.”

She smoothed Marcus’ undershirt over her knees. “Math was never my thing.”

“Not a problem, believe me, Horace is damn close to a walking computer.”

A soft snort escaped from her throat. The sound was near enough to laughter to lighten his scowl.

Tori studied him openly. “Horace is pretty sweet too, so is Marcus. But neither of them is in your class when it comes to romance. I’m going to call you honey.”

He scowled, making her laugh.

“How’s sugar, better?”

“Honey is okay,” he grumbled, but his scowl vanished and a dimple flashed.

“Sugar it is then,” she teased.

For all his size and amazing strength, Gideon truly was the sweetest man she’d ever met. She leaned against the fluffy pillow he’d placed to support her neck and fingered the soft material of the blanket he’d tucked around her while she’d napped. He’d turned the truck’s cab into something warm, cozy and romantic just to please her. He’d even brought Rufus. She wanted to weep over the tenderness he’d shown.

He was smart enough to keep the headlights off. Yet he drove with easy confidence as if it were daytime instead of inky. “Is your night vision enhanced too?”

“Yeah, hearing, strength, endurance, mechs have it all.”

“Yet you’re treated like second-class citizens.”

“Marcus tell you that?”

“Not exactly, I kind of put two and two together. Am I wrong?”

Gideon checked his mirrors. “Depends on the natural human involved. Some treat us like equals. Others, not so much. The restorers want us destroyed.”

“Tell me about these restorers.” She stretched her legs, pleased the damaged calf wasn’t cramping.

“Your leg okay?”

This mech doesn’t miss anything.
“Better than I’d expected. Now please explain who or what restorers are.”

He didn’t speak immediately, but his brow pleated in concentration. She took advantage of his inattention to study him. The hard angle of his jaw, a blade nose and cutting-edge cheekbones kept him from being pretty. All three of the mechs were amazing and special. She was a whole lot of ordinary.

Gideon was the most intense of the triad. Driving kept his attention on the road. She was grateful for the respite from his too-penetrating gaze. Being the focus of his fierce determination made her frightened, humble and aroused all at once. The combination was overwhelming.

“Political history is more Marcus’ area, but I can give you a rough summary. The colony in California is the beginning of the founders. They believed in an utopian civilization with a small, sustainable population and a high quality of life for all their citizens. The forerunners for mechs were developed to do the jobs considered too hazardous for natural humans.

“Meanwhile the restorers started in Florida a few months later. They believe in survival of the fittest and economic rewards for those who can claim and hold them. They were the first to use enhanced humans as soldiers.

“These two parties still exist today. Both support a democratic world government. For fifty years after the contagion the balance of power shifted back and forth between the two groups. The technologic recovery built slowly. Horace would love to explain the details of the techno revolution. What I know is that the founders made an advance that gave them a significant edge in the race for control. They were in power for the next four centuries. Then the restorers bought or stole a time-travel prototype. They used it to capture one of the rare surviving women. Once they had her, they developed a vaccine and then traveled back to the end-of-days era.”

Was there another apocalypse?
Tori’s stomach knotted in fear. “When is this end-of-days?”

“Sorry, that’s the period immediately before the pandemic.”

The leaden knot in her belly unraveled. “Did the serum put the restorers in power?”

Gideon shook his head. “Not exactly, more restorer sympathizers survived. But the first batch of serum made the men inoculated violent, unstable and sterile.”

“What about the women?” She clutched his arm, needing to anchor herself.

“No significant increase in the survival rate for those given the vaccine.”

“The survivor’s blood must’ve backfired. This is why the population is so out of balance,” she murmured.

“Yeah, but it’s not like the restorers planned the disaster. It’s part of what makes time travel so damn hazardous. There’s no way to predict the consequences of any change to the past.”

“Then why did you come?”

“To protect and serve you. You’re the woman the restorers captured.”

“The metal monsters want my blood?”

“Absolutely.”

“But they were going to rape me.”

“As long as they delivered you alive and well enough to provide plenty of your natural immunity fluid for their masters’ vaccine experiment the restorers would overlook incidental damage.”

“Just a second, they didn’t take any of my blood, so everything’s okay, right?”

“We can’t count on that. The cyborgs might’ve taken another woman.”

“There’s more isn’t there?” She narrowed her gaze at Gideon, sensing he’d held back something big. “What happened to me after they developed the vaccine?”

His jaw bunched. Finally, he answered, “You were terminated.”

Suddenly cold, she shuddered and scooted closer to Gideon, seeking his warmth. “You put out heat like a roaring campfire.”

“I turned up my thermal output for you.”

Conscious control of body temperature? Okay that was a bit unnerving, but she loved the results. “The three of you saved me.”

“Maybe, maybe not, we’re sticking around to make sure.” Gideon snuggled her closer. He had on the same seductive spice scent his pals wore and when he touched her he used as much care as if she were a priceless treasure.

Grateful for the distraction, she let herself sink into the comfort of his heavy muscles. Her toes curled inside her army boots and she resisted the urge to fan herself. Dear God, mechs should come with a warning label. What a pity they didn’t seem to have one. Her common sense and self-preservation instincts evaporated in the heat of his gaze. She stretched closer until she brushed the corner of his mouth with her lips. An exquisite tingle teased the sensitive skin of her mouth and sent sparks skittering throughout her body from her scalp to her soles. If she’d been wearing panties they would’ve melted.

And then he angled his head and deepened the kiss.

She would have loved to have sat in whenever he’d learned about romance, because Gideon kissed the way he did everything—with amazing skill and bone-melting intensity.

Her heart raced to pump more blood to her erogenous zones and her lungs grew starved for oxygen. She didn’t care. Breathing wasn’t all that and kissing Gideon was and then some.

Finally he broke the kiss.

Tori dragged in a lungful of fresh air and her sluggish brain came back online. “You’re supposed to watch the road when you’re driving, sugar.”

“You’re right.” He shot her a look so searing she tingled in the best possible way. “I’d pull over and give you the attention you deserve, but then Marcus and Horace would come knocking.”

“Uh, I need to tell you something.”

“What’s that, cupcake?” His dimple winked.

“Cupcake?” She tried for stern, but blew it by grinning.

“Why not, if I’m going to be sugar you need to be something sweeter.”

Tori stared at him with a goofy smile stretching her face for a couple of seconds before she remembered what she had to confess. “I didn’t kiss Marcus, but I wanted to.”

Gideon arched one eyebrow.

She hurried on before her nerve failed. “Horace too. I’ve fantasized about being with three guys, but you’re real. And I’ve never… I don’t know what’s wrong with me. You all smell so appealing and you’re kind and gentle and…”