WastelandRogue (8 page)

Escaping Sevrin, Levor raced outside.

Sevrin followed. If Levor knew about Wickstrom and the plot
to kill
lamians
, he needed the details.

Levor reached the gun Sevrin had discarded and was already
loading the chambers with the cast-off ammo before Sevrin reached him.

Levor fired twice in his direction.

At the same time one bullet burned into Sevrin’s side, he
heard Rye scream. Had the other hit her? With his palm pressed to his wound, he
spun to see her by the shack door. She had her hand up against her neck,
blooding spurting from between her fingers and her eyes wide in shock.

The engine of the steam-trekker rumbled to life. Sevrin
considered turning to stop Levor but the pain radiating through him slowed his
movements. Besides that, getting to Rye was more important than any piece of
machinery.

As if choreographed, Sevrin went down on his knees at the
same time Rye did. He shook his head in disbelief at letting one wasteland rat
get the better of them.

Rye pulled her hand away from her neck. She held up her
blood-covered fingers. The scent kept her unfocused. As if it had a power of
its own, her blood mesmerized her. She wanted to lick it, absorb it back into
her body and savor the energy that it produced.

“Are you all right?” Sevrin’s voice dragged her attention to
him.

She slapped her hand back over the severed area.
All
right?
She wanted to laugh. Was he ever going to stop asking her that?

“Rye?” he asked again.

Her gaze went to the stain spreading on the front of his
shirt, the blood seeping between his fingers. She must have nodded because he
stopping looking at her and unlaced his shirt. Blood leaked from a large wound
on the right side of his abdomen. She’d seen men die from less severe injuries.
Her heart began hammering faster, bruising the inside of her rib cage.
Adrenaline rushed through her veins. The pain in her neck faded as fear
clamored over her hungering senses. She was going to lose Sevrin to death and she
couldn’t move to prevent it.

“Damn, that hurt.” The muscles in Sevrin’s face tensed. His
nose crinkled, his eyes closed and he panted quick puffs of air as if could
lessen his pain.

Then slowly he rose.

No, don’t get up. Save your strength. I need you here…with
me.
She attempted to vocalize her thoughts.

He fell forward on his hands and knees.

“Sevrin?” She tried to get up, go him, but an alarming fear
of losing him seemed to be in control of her limbs.

The stream of blood where the bullet ripped through her
jugular decreased to a trickle as the vein and flesh healed. She lowered her
hand, feeling the worst was over for her.

“Rye?” Sevrin lifted his head and stared at her.

She still couldn’t move. After everything that maniac Hamner
had done to her when he had held her captive, this had to be the moment shock
took a firm grip on her.

She watched Sevrin struggle to get off the ground.

Once he managed to get to his feet, he took a deep breath,
as if he gathered energy from the air he inhaled. He slowly raked his
blood-covered hands over his head, combing his hair back from his face. Then he
gave a long, low whistle of relief.

His movements less stilted, as though he had gone through a
miraculous recovery, he dusted himself off. He leaned forward and brushed his
hands over the front of his pants and then the backside.

With incredulous wonder, she watched his every move.
How
is it possible?
She had been sure his condition appeared serious.

She rubbed her neck, pushing her thoughts to her own injury.
The pain had vanished. Could she talk, ask him about his wound? She opened her
mouth but failed to execute a sound.

“Is something wrong?” he asked, coming straight at her,
worry on his face.

Yes. No.
She shook her head instead of verbally
answering.

“You’re still bleeding, Rye.” He knelt down. “You said you
were all right.”

She watched his eyes shifting from her face to her wound as
he examined her. His concern and gentle touch made her insides burn. She looked
down at his open shirt.

“Rye?” He lifted her face with a finger beneath her chin.
“Talk to me.”

Her jaw quivering, she attempted to speak. “Are…Are you…”

Afraid to hear he was pretending to be all right, she went
silent and stared at his blood-soaked shirt.

He stroked her neck and gave a sigh. “You appear to be healing
all right.”

“And you?” she blurted out, touching his shirt near the
bloodied area.

“You’re not the only half-breed in the world, you know.” He
smiled.

“But you don’t—” In disbelief, she touched his bottom lip
and pushed up the top one. “You haven’t any fangs.”

“Where you are more
lamian
, I’m more human.”

“But the
lamian
gene is dominant. It always takes
over. It’s how evolution works.” She argued with insistence, still having
trouble accepting the possibility of him being
lamian.

“Apparently, not always. My grandmother was of the new breed
and her husband was human. That made my mother half
lamian
and it makes
me a quarter.”

“But—”

“Enough with the ‘buts’.” He stroked her jaw. “There’s
enough
lamian
in me to heal and that’s about all that’s
lamian
about me. I don’t drink blood. The sun doesn’t bother me other than it being
too damn hot some days. And—”

“I thought you were human!” She hit his arm, frustrated and
elated. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Ah, we just met. It’s not a greeting I use,
‘Hey, I’m
Sevrin Renault and I’m
half
lamian
.’
”

“I thought you were going to die.” She choked back a sob.

“Not from this, I won’t.” He glanced down at his side.

She flung her arms around his neck, hugging him as she had
never hugged anyone before. It wasn’t like her to be emotional with anyone
other than her sister.

“Easy, girl.” He pushed her back. “I heal way slower than
you do.”

“Let me see it. I can help.” Rye pushed his shirt open and
stared at the ripple of his stomach muscles.

“How?” he asked, wincing from her touch too close to the
wound.

“My spit.” She drew her hand back. “Have you never licked a
cut?”

His brow rose. “Not on purpose.”

“You should try it sometime.
Lamian
saliva has the
same curative properties as our blood.” She continued to wrap her mind around
the fact Sevrin was like her, part human, part
lamian
. Was that part of
the intrigue, the attraction, the riveting lust she hadn’t been able to
explain?

“I’ll just let it heal the old-fashioned way—over time,” he
told her.

“Have it your way.” She concealed her sudden bout of
happiness behind a straight face and followed him toward the collapsed netting.

He pulled it aside.

With a groan of pain, Sevrin dragged one of the heavy metal
boxes out into the open. He rummaged through the contents in an apparent hurry
to find something. Clothes, weapons, things she didn’t know what to call, he
tossed aside. He grumbled a few words under his breath and moved to another
box.

“What are you looking for?” she asked, curious to know why
he appeared so serious. Did he hide treasures in the boxes? It would explain
his outrage over her bringing Levor to his lair.

“Supplies to take with me.” He held up a funny mask with
some sort of a long tubular snout and hazy glass eye pieces.

“What’s that?” She moved closer.

“Filtration mask. It’s from the Great Wars, maybe after.” He
held it up toward her face. “Artifacts hold up for centuries when left in the
mines.”

She stepped back, not trusting the contraption.

“It won’t hurt you.” He dared her with his grin.

She let him fit it against her cheeks and forehead and chin.
When the dusty smell made her cough, he pulled it off and tossed it back in the
box.

“It’s probably clogged,” he said, irritably.

She understood how he might not be in the best mood, so she
steered clear of questions about the other strange gadgets. “You said you were
gathering supplies to take with you. Where are you going?”

“To get my damn steam-trekker back. Vehicles aren’t easy to
come by, as you may well know.” He glanced away from his box to another and
walked in that direction.

Impossible in the mountains, she thought. The narrow
twisting paths, steep slopes and trees got in the way of even the smallest of
wooden handcarts. She’d never seen anything quite like the steam-trekker, a
piece of machinery larger than some mine shacks. As for other vehicles, she’d
only been in three or four in her lifetime.

“Levor said he was going to Old Louis Ruins,” she commented,
not letting her tone put too much importance in the fact.

“Yup, and that makes it quite convenient since I was
thinking on heading up there anyway.”

Levor had mentioned scientists and the Wickstrom Group, the
same as Hamner had. If Sevrin was heading that way, then she had to go with
him. She hadn’t wanted to get him tangled up in her mess but everything had changed.
He wasn’t human, he was capable of taking care of himself and he was aimed for
the same place she was—Old Louis Ruins. That she had a growing fondness for
Sevrin sweetened the idea of traveling with him.

Still, in the back of her thoughts, she couldn’t help but
wonder about the Wickstrom Group. Was it a coincidence that she, Hamner, Levor
and Sevrin all had Old Louis Ruins as their destination? The last thing she
needed was to let her infatuation with Sevrin get her into trouble.

“What should I carry?” she asked, determined to make the
journey with him.

He looked up from his kneeling position over a crate. “You
are
not
going with me.”

“Why not? I’m headed east,” she explained in as brief a
statement as possible.

“Then head east, just not with me.”

“Is it because I stole your steam-trekker?”

Sevrin got up and his expression lightened with the upward
curving of his lips. Did he find her thievery amusing?

“No,” he answered. “However, you’ve yet to explain why you
took it when I said I’d take you wherever you needed to go. I meant that, you
know. It wasn’t something I said to…” His hesitation mid-sentence suggested he
wanted to say something else. But what?

“Take advantage of me?” She filled in his sentence with her
best guess.

“There was no reason for you to run off,” he said, avoiding
talk of their night together.

Did he think if he didn’t mention their night of sex, she’d
forget it happened? He had refused her several times, so it wasn’t as if he had
been desperate.

“Sometimes I have trust issues. More so, as of late,” she
confessed. “We met under a stressful circumstance for me. I didn’t know you to
the point I thought you were human. I’ve not had many good interactions with
that species.”

He nodded, showing he understood.

It seemed to be the right time to ask again, “So, can I
travel with you…please?”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea.”

“Why not? I said I was sorry for taking your steam-trekker.”

“Actually, you didn’t say anything like that.”

“Then I’m sorry. I apologize for taking your damn vehicle. I
did
brink it back.”

He glanced back at her. “Only because it fit in with your
plans to get rid of Levor. Here.” He tossed her a knapsack of empty flasks. “Go
fill them from the rain barrel.”

She looked around and he pointed out the direction.

“And then what?” she asked, watching the mangled netting
ripple in the breeze.

“We head toward Old Louis Ruins.” Sevrin opened a small
case, plucked out something and stuck it in his pocket.

The open lid barred her from seeing what it was. Not that it
could be too important since the object was no bigger than his palm.

She hurried away, delighted by the prospect of spending time
with Sevrin. Distrust still hovered in the back of her mind, but getting to
know him would surely rid her of that.

“Have you been to Old Louis Ruins before?” he asked when she
returned with all the water flasks filled.

“No.”

“Never?” He gave her a look of disbelief.

She thought her father had taken her but the way her
recollections mixed with the stories of him being there rather than her, she wasn’t
sure it was important to say she had been there. “Maybe my father took me once
when I was small. Why?”

“When Levor mentioned taking you there, you looked as if you
knew the place.”

“You asked if I’ve been there, not if I’d heard about it. I
can’t imagine anyone not being familiar with one of the largest ruins along the
Mississippi Canyon. My father used to travel and he told us stories.”

“And the Wickstrom Group? How much do you know about them?”

“I heard mention of the company, not much more.”

“They’re more than a company. When the restructuring of the
world government didn’t work eighty years ago, a group of scientists broke off
on their own to find ways to rejuvenate the earth in whatever way they could
develop. They were the start of the Wickstrom Group. That steam-trekker was a
souvenir my grandfather kept.”

“Your grandfather worked for Wickstrom?”

“No. He was more the mechanical type. He liked machinery.
However, he had friends who worked for Wickstrom. He and my grandmother
introduced their one child, my mother, to a scientist friend’s son and my
parents fell in love. My father said my mother was the prettiest thing he’d
ever seen.”

Rye smiled, enjoying Sevrin’s talk about his family. She
missed the days of her childhood. Both of her parents died at an early age. Her
lamian
mother should have outlived her half-human father if not for a
strange illness. Rye always believed heartbreak had been the reason for her
father’s death.

“And then they had you?” Rye asked, wanting to hear more.

“First they had my brother, Zandt,” Sevrin said with a
prideful tone. “He followed in our father’s footsteps—a brilliant mind for
working things out logically. He knew how to mix simple ingredients to make
medicines.”

“You said your grandfather was into mechanics. Is that
something that passed to your mother and you?”

Sadness washed away the happy expression from Sevrin’s face.
“I don’t know a lot about her. She died when I was young but she too was a
scientist,” he explained. “Some sickness my father couldn’t cure took her. I
think it’s what drives my brother’s obsession with science. He left home to
work for the Wickstrom Group.”

Sevrin’s mother, her mother, the two dead young females made
for another heartrending tether for Rye. Along with her ingestion of Sevrin’s
blood and their half-breed makeup, an ancient idea surfaced. Was it possible he
was her soul mate?