Winter Igniting

  “Yep.” Grey emptied the magazine of its eighth bullet—hollow-point—and slammed it back home into the barrel chamber. His boot remained on the guy’s neck, who still lay flat on his stomach with his palms down. His back visibly spasmed, and he flopped around like a landed trout.

  Damon slid his gun back into his tactical leg holster. “Did he point that at you, Grey?” he asked, rather reasonably.

  “Yep,” Greyson said again, setting the weapon on the folding card table to his right. His grayish eyes were over-bright, his strong features set in pissed lines. “Not only did he point it, the moron accidentally fired.” He jerked his head toward the back door. “Ruined the wallpaper.”

  Damon snorted. Dingy, flowered paper covered the walls, and the damaged floor might’ve been green at one time. The place was a shithole. Sighing, he angled his neck and partially leaned down to get a better look at the moron on the floor. “Who are you?”

  The blond could only cough.

  Damon glanced up. “It’s hard for him to speak with your foot on his throat.”

  “So?” Greyson stared down at the prone man.

  Damon looked closer. “He’s turning kind of blue. If you don’t want to kill him, you might want to let up.” Though anybody dumb enough to pull a gun on Greyson Storm might as well be dead. Stupid rarely survived an apocalypse.

  Grey appeared to think it over while the guy flopped faster, his knees knocking loudly on the filthy floor.

  Damon straightened to peer out the one window in the former kitchen, just in case the guy had buddies waiting outside. All he could see was the razor-topped, chain-link fence out the side that surrounded the entire territory. All seven blocks of it in inner-city Los Angeles. “I’d rather interview him before we dig a hole. Any chance?”

  Emitting a long-suffering sigh, Grey slowly slid his boot off the guy’s neck, leaving a raw imprint of thick tread. “Fine. But make it quick. It’ll be too hot outside to dig a grave soon.”

  Damon grabbed the blond by the neck of his T-shirt and lifted to shove him onto the short stool at the table. The guy wobbled, his eyes wide, his throat a mottled red. “Who are you, and what’s with the gun? More importantly, who sent you?” Damon asked.

  “Chris,” the guy croaked, grasping his neck. He looked about twenty-five with greasy hair and uneven stubble across his face. Blue eyes, slight build, shaking at the moment. “Name is Chris.”

  Grey looked down from well over six feet of height. “What’s up with the death wish?”

  Fair question. Damon leaned against the rotting doorframe and crossed his arms. “More importantly, who’s working with you and coming next?”

  Greyson nodded. “Yeah. That.”

  Chris looked around frantically, his gaze settling on the back door.

  “You won’t make it,” Damon said, almost gently. He wasn’t in the mood to interrogate anybody, but it didn’t look like he had a choice. Greyson would just shoot the guy and move on with the day. “Listen, Chris. Start with something easy. Are you a member of Vanguard?”

  Chris turned his gaze back to Damon, his eyes wide with the need to make a connection. The desire to be understood and, hopefully, not harmed that all suspects showed. “Yes. Aren’t you?”

  Grey lifted a dark eyebrow. “No. We’re Mercs.” While the Mercenaries might currently be taking up residence in Vanguard territory, they certainly weren’t losing their identity. “Did somebody send you?”

  “No.” Chris finally released his neck and rubbed his shaking hands down his jeans-covered thighs. “Nobody sent me, and the Vanguard lieutenants have no idea I’m here.” His voice, already hoarse, rose. “Please don’t tell them. I’ll do anything.”

  Greyson shifted his weight, his hands loose but no doubt ready to strangle the idiot. “I’m losing patience.”

  “Like you had any to start with,” Damon retorted as Chris crossed his arms and firmed his jaw. Ah. The defensive posturing moment. “If you say anything we don’t appreciate right now, like you’re a member of Vanguard and are protected, I’m gonna let Grey just kill you.”

  Grey smiled, the sight feral. “I appreciate that, Damon.”

  “You’re welcome,” Damon said as the color slid out of Chris’s face.

  Chris looked from Damon to Greyson while swallowing rapidly. “I thought you were in charge of the Mercs.”

  “I am,” Grey said easily. “Damon leads the troops. Some might say he’s my conscience. He’s ex-LAPD and keeps a tight rein on our organization.”

  Damon nodded, holding on to his patience because Grey wouldn’t. “You should probably understand that we don’t bluff. There’s no time for it with the pandemic creating an apocalypse and all.” What exactly was the threat level here? He’d do what he had to in order to find out.

  Chris rolled back bony shoulders. “I watched you training new Vanguard recruits yesterday, and I saw how you were with Jacki. Just wanted to have a man-to-man talk with you, Greyson. Make sure we understood each other, and that she’s with me.”

  Grey snorted. “You don’t bring a girl’s gun to a man-to-man talk. Jesus.” His eyes twinkled, and he turned toward Damon. “I guess he’s too dumb to mess with.”

  Just the opposite. Irritation clawed at Damon’s back. While Chris was a jackass, he’d discharged a weapon, which meant that somebody could’ve been killed. There wasn’t time for such stupidity these days. “You can rip his head off if you want, Greyson.”

  Grey’s face lit. “No kidding?”

  Chris whimpered and tried to mask the sound with a cough.

  “Yeah.” Damon slid to the side, knowing Grey well enough to understand that he should get out of the way.

  “Cool.” Grey moved faster than a jaguar, grabbed Chris by the neck and jeans, and neatly threw him right through the doorway. The kid’s boot smashed the doorframe, and wood splintered in several directions. He landed in the middle of the empty living room on gross shag carpet and bounced twice. Maybe three times.

  He groaned and pushed to his feet.

  “Run,” Greyson said helpfully.

  Two seconds later, Chris had cleared the front door, letting it bang back into place.

  Damon shook his head. “Who’s Jacki?”

  “Hell if I know.” Greyson straddled the chair recently vacated by Chris. “I did Jax Mercury a solid yesterday and showed some new members self-defense moves before they went out on scouting trips. Didn’t get names.” He coughed. “Haven’t looked at another woman since Moe and I hooked up.”

  Amen to that.

  Damon pulled out a chair at the rickety table and took a seat. The smell of old pot and probably mold assaulted his nose. He missed the sea and sand. Merc territory had been a nice stretch of Santa Barbara beachfront, complete with mansions, fresh fish, and clean air. “Just met with Mercury. We’re going ahead as planned here.”

  “I hate this place.” Grey scratched his stubbled chin. “I had scouts go look along the entire coast for another stretch for us to call home. Haven’t found anything that will work.”

  Santa Barbara had just burned to the ground from forest fires. Turned out that people, a lot of them, were needed to tame Mother Nature.

  She was currently kicking ass on every front. If there were one winner from the Scorpius pandemic and the apocalypse, it was that bitch.

  Merc territory, such as it was, no longer existed. “We need to integrate into Vanguard,” Damon said quietly. He understood Grey’s desire to go back to the simpler days of just being soldiers having to survive the apocalypse, but things had changed. “It’s time to start rebuilding. Having relationships and forming families.”

  Grey lifted an eyebrow. “You want to have a family?”

  Heat slammed through Damon, followed by chills. “God, no. But you’re getting hitched.”

  Grey frowned. “I haven’t proposed.”

  Damon didn’t bother holding back a snort. “You will.” He’d never seen a guy more head over heels than Greyson with Maureen Shadow.
“Considering she’s shacking up with you, her brother is probably going to cut off your head if you don’t make some sort of grand gesture.” Maybe they could discover an abandoned jewelry store that hadn’t been looted and find a ring.

  Yeah, right.

  Grey shook his head. “Our men don’t want to take orders from Jax Mercury or his lieutenants. I had to break up three fights earlier today, and one of them involved knives. Assholes.” Deep lines cut into the sides of the Mercenary leader’s mouth. “Any ideas?”

  Damon pretended to think it over. Greyson Storm was a phenomenal soldier and a good leader, and he already knew the right answer. He just didn’t like it. “We integrate fully, Grey. We become part of Vanguard, and when it’s time to head north for resources, we do it as one strong group.” Which meant there was a deadline for finding peace within the two factions. They had enough resources to survive about a year, maybe less, before they had to abandon what used to be the city.

  “It’s not working,” Grey muttered, irritation evident in his voice.

  Of course, it wasn’t working. It had only been a week. “We’ll keep assigning folks to different jobs, but what if we had our own force? For our soldiers,” Damon asked, his mind clicking security plans into place.

  Grey tilted his head. “What do you mean?”

  There was a way to keep everyone secure, and it would just take a balancing act of combining skills while keeping egos in check. “Half of our soldiers are at the Bunker providing protection anyway. For now, here in Vanguard territory, how about we have our own squad—or whatever you want to call it—and they answer only to you or me. I can coordinate scouting, defense, and strategy with Jax Mercury so everyone is happy.”

  Grey slowly nodded. “I’m not aiming for happy, but non-homicidal would be a big plus right now.”

  Sad but true. “I’ll take care of it this week while you and Maureen are at the Bunker.” The coordination job would be a good cover for investigating the church. Maybe he could get Vanguard, the Pure, and the Mercs all at peace and working together. Hell. He might as well cure the pandemic while he was at it.

  Grey’s eyes narrowed. “You can’t save everybody, Damon. Forget fixing that church. They’re a cult, and they need to be disbanded.”

  “Maybe. I haven’t even gotten inside yet.” Unexposed people, the few who still lived, should be protected. Especially since it looked as if Scorpius survivors couldn’t procreate. Somebody had to carry on the human race. “I’ll take care of it. Don’t worry.”

  “Right.” Grey scrubbed both hands down his face. “I wouldn’t leave right now, but Moe is dying to get to the archives dealing with food and possible resources at the Century City Bunker.”

  Damon nodded. The US government had apparently created a series of Bunkers across the country in case of a pandemic, but the survivors only knew of two locations. Vanguard and the Mercs controlled one, and soon, they were going to take the other by force. “No worries.”

  “I could stay here. Tell Moe she’ll have to wait,” Greyson said, a slight wince lifting his cheeks.

  “Nope. We need food.” Frankly, things might go smoother with Greyson at the Bunker. Coordinating an alliance between him and Jax Mercury required a finesse that nobody on Earth still held. “Plus, not having you here might make me seem more approachable to the Pure.” He needed to get in there to make sure the members were safe.

  “This is a bad idea. You know that, right?” Grey asked.

  Damon searched for the right answer. “It’s necessary.”

  “Is it? We could take the church easily.”

  “Not without casualties. Maybe pregnant ones since there are at least five pregnant women in that small compound,” Damon returned. “I want to go in first.”

  “Maybe.” Grey’s eyes narrowed. “Or is it just the woman?”

  Pretty, sweet, sad April Snyder. She’d drawn Damon since the first moment she’d offered to put herself in danger to help. He had no doubt that she’d infiltrate the church on her own if asked, and he needed to make sure she was all right. That she survived this.

  “Damon?” Grey muttered.

  Damon looked at his best friend, giving the truth as always. “Of course, it’s the woman. How could it not be?”

  3

  I’m looking forward to going undercover, but I have completely forgotten how to flirt. If I even knew how in the first place.

  —April Snyder, Journal

  April fidgeted on the plastic chair adjacent to a classic picnic table, keeping her face in the shade from a golf umbrella somebody had drilled into the table’s center. After an unusually wet spring, summer had blasted in hot and dry as if trying to make up for lost time. Sun beat down mercilessly on the cement, making the heat wave into a mirage.

  Several children played on swing sets with plastic slides that had been pounded into the backyard of a tiny bungalow house dead center in Vanguard territory, their laughter oddly out of place in the dismal landscape. Soon, it would be too hot for them to play outside in the afternoons, as there was no way any water could be spared for running through sprinklers.

  If they still had sprinklers.

  “Sorry I’m late.” Damon appeared from around the corner of the house, making her jump.

  Her heart fluttered into a faster beat, and she cleared her throat. “You move so quietly.”

  “It’s training, darlin’.’” He smiled, his white teeth a flash of amusement in his rugged face. “When you’re about to kick down a door in a crack house, you like them to be surprised.”

  Their lives, before Scorpius, were so freaking different. “Have you kicked down a lot of doors?” she asked, trying for flippant but coming across more as if she were trying to sound flippant. Why couldn’t she act like a normal adult around him?

  “I’ve put my boot to my share.” He pulled out the bench on the other side of the table and sat.

  “Why?” she whispered. Why would anybody court danger? Was he that heroic at such a basic level?

  His deep brown eyes seemed to study her for a moment, and something that looked like acceptance crossed his face before he spoke. “Truth? My dad was a cop, and I wanted to be just like him. Wanted to be the good guy, the one who made a difference.” Damon tapped long fingers on the table. “Then, once I was in, I saw so many people who needed help. So many shitheads who’d created situations that required boots to doors.”

  Man. Her stomach went all tingly in a way she’d all but forgotten. “So nothing about ego, huh?”

  He chuckled. “Oh, I’ve always had plenty of ego. That might be part of it.” He leaned a little toward her. “Of course, I’m the humblest of my brothers. By far.”

  She leaned in as well, her body finally relaxing. “I wonder if they’d agree with you.”

  “Nope. Not a one of them would’ve agreed.” His smile was a little sad. “Wish you could’ve met them.”

  “Scorpius?” she asked.

  He nodded. “Scorpius stole two of them. The other one took a bullet about five years ago.”

  Her heart panged for him. “I’m sorry. He was a cop?”

  “No.” Damon smiled again. “Not sure where we went wrong, but Alan was a lawyer. Can you believe it? My dad probably turned over in his grave when A was sworn in to the bar. Lost dad to prostate cancer when Alan was still in law school.” Pride and love. It was there in every syllable. “Alan was a prosecutor and got shot in the line. Put away a dirtbag and took a bullet afterward.”

  “Did you find the guy who did it?” she asked softly.

  For the first time, his eyes hardened. That quickly, the deadly cop he’d been was present in full force. “You bet your ass we did.”

  He’d faced as much loss as she had, and some of it before the pandemic. The idea cut into her, causing an odd relief. All of this innuendo and tension around them was okay. There was no way he’d want anything serious or emotional or real any more than she did. The undercover op was just that. Finally, her shoulders went down,
the electricity in her hands subsided, and she relaxed, giving him a smile.

  He blinked. Once, and then again. “What was that for?” His voice deepened.

  “What?” His tone sent up those butterflies inside her again.

  “Your smile. The sweet one.” His gaze dropped to her lips.

  They tingled now, too. “I have different smiles?” she murmured, not letting herself look at his mouth. No. She already thought way too much about the fullness of his lips and that hard-cut jaw.

  “Yeah.” He reached out and ran his forefinger along her bottom lip.

  She jerked. “What are you doing?” Heat flashed into her face, and her dress suddenly felt too confining.

  Instead of withdrawing, he cupped her jaw and leaned in some more.

  She stopped breathing completely, her eyes widening.

  “We’re being watched, beautiful,” he whispered, his hand warm. “Just keep talking to me. No—” he said as she tried to turn and look around. “Stay in the moment. You’re doing a great job of looking overwhelmed.” Amusement filled his voice.

  That was the understatement of the century. “How do you know we’re being watched?” she asked, her lips barely moving.

  He tilted his head and smiled. “Don’t you feel it? Just settle yourself and feel the afternoon. Anything off?”

  Yeah. The hottest man she’d ever been this close to in real life was freaking touching her as if he were about to kiss her. “I can’t feel them,” she said.

  “That’s okay. That’s my job.” He gently caressed the side of her jaw. “Without looking, tell me how many kids are on the swing sets and what they’re doing.”

  Well, okay. “Five kids. Three are on swings, and two are on the slides, walking up them instead of sliding down.” She kept her voice low. “Though I don’t know why you’d ask that. I mean, are the kids being watched? Should we take them inside?”

  “They’re fine,” he said softly. “We’re the ones being watched. My point was that you knew instantly where the kids were. You have good instincts.”