19

W hen I returned to the cabin, an unwrapped parcel of beef jerky lay on the table and Daniel was dressed in blue denim and a sweatshirt that was definitely not mine.

My heart sank. “Has Roman come and gone already?”

“I don’t think so,” Daniel said, shaking his head. “I went home to get a few things.”

A shiver snapped my spine. “You went to see your parents? Are you sure there wasn’t a guard posted nearby?”

“Not that home. I went to Parklands. My mother keeps a spare backdoor key in her greenhouse.” He slumped into a chair at the table and nudged the paper parcel. “I was hoping to get more than this. Most of our personal stuff is gone. The kitchen was cleaned out.”

I sat across from him, my gaze running over his sweatshirt. “Not your clothes?”

“I guess Brenda wasn’t expecting me to come back.”

Or maybe she simply didn’t give a damn. I didn’t say that, though. I was in a mood to give her the benefit of the doubt.

“I saw Jessie. She’ll deliver the letters. She’ll let us know once it’s done. There was a guard hanging around in her street. Maybe it’s a coincidence, but I told Jessie we’re here. She’ll come to us.”

Daniel reached for a stick of jerky. “The Guard isn’t searching door to door?”

“She didn’t say so. Your escape hasn’t been made public. Yet.” He offered the stick to me and I took it. “Hey, I didn’t think about it before, but Jessie could take a letter from you to Brenda.”

“She won’t mind?”

Jessie or Brenda? I bit down on that retort. Maybe I was being too harsh.

“Jessie won’t mind,” I assured him. “She could take a letter for your parents as well, if you like? Brenda will know their address. They must be worried.”

Heat crawled up my cheeks. Did his parents still have the capacity to be concerned about their only son? “Sorry, that’s stupid. I just thought—”

“It’s not stupid.” His eyes filled with sadness. “You know, my mother is…well, she’s still my mother, just a little distant. They will be worried. I’ll write them a letter.”

I wanted to apologize again, but I swallowed it and tore off a piece of jerky with my teeth. I couldn’t have stopped what happened to Julian. Most of my guilt came from the bitter hate I’d felt towards the man.

That I’d felt .

More and more, that emotion was being left behind in the past. Maybe because he’d been punished enough. His suffering would last a life time. But, more and more, I was wondering if Daniel was right, that his father had simply been a cog in a system that couldn’t be changed no matter how much he’d tried or wanted reform.

I brought Daniel pen and paper for his letters and gave him some privacy at the table.

Roman finally arrived with the sunset. He parked his truck deep into the trees and came walking up to the cabin with a bulging backpack slung over one shoulder and the portable heater tucked under one arm.

I’d been watching for him, and ran outside to meet him. “I wasn’t sure you’d be able to make it.”

“Nothing would keep me away.” A slow grin snaked across his jaw and baked his eyes beneath the sunset as his gaze washed over me, into me. “I missed you.”

I went up onto my toes to brush a kiss over his mouth. He wrapped his free arm around my waist, dragging me closer until my body was flush with his, and deepened the kiss, taking his time to show me just how much he’d missed me.

“How long can you stay?” I asked, fitting my hand into his as we walked up the porch steps.

“I’m staying the night,” he said. “There’s no reason for me to be in The Smoke when you’re here.”

The weight of his words, rumbled in that gravel baritone, filled me with warmth and gravity in the middle of these uncertain times. Our lives were in a constant state of flux, a never-ending shifting, but Roman was my stable ground. Jessie called me amazing, strong, but I only ever came close to that when Roman was by my side.

While Daniel and Roman caught up, I searched for an electric socket to plug the heater in and came up empty handed.

“It’ll do for tonight,” Roman told me. “It’s fully charged.”

“You didn’t use it in the apartment last night?” I looked at him properly, noticing the tiredness in his eyes. “How did it go with the heirs?”

“Cramped and disorderly.” He dropped onto the couch with a grimace, running a hand through his hair. “Boyden Otter is an unpleasant character. I kicked them out first thing this morning.”

“Is Kemerick okay?” Daniel asked.

Roman’s gaze swung to him. “They’ll all be fine. I took them to the Processing Center and handed them over to the Protectorate. I wouldn’t be surprised if they land themselves cushy jobs and apartments in Gardens. The Protectorate has always held strong alliances with the council.”

Daniel pulled a chair out from the table and sat back-to-front, his arms folded over the top rail of the back support. “Isn’t that a problem?”

“Not right now,” Roman said, and went on to explain about how the Protectorate was occupied with more urgent matters.

The bulging backpack held various tins of vegetable and noodle soups, produced in The Smoke and a familiar staple in Capra. My mother would never serve tinned soup at her table, but I’d never been that fussy. Especially not in our current circumstances. There was also a fat chunk of crusty bread, a jar of mulberry jam and a tin of hot chocolate.

It was a veritable feast. We ate dinner around the small table while the little heater chugged warmth into the bowels of the cabin. Roman had stopped by our Parklands cabin that morning, so he knew about the busted door. There wasn’t much to ransack, but he confirmed my letter was gone. We agreed that Geneva must, at the very least, suspect we’d all fled to The Smoke, which could explain the lack of barriers and door-to-door searches.

I filled him in about the other letters I’d written and Jessie, and he only asked me once, “Are you sure about Jessie? You trust her?”

“With my life,” I assured him.

There was so much to talk about, it was nearly midnight by the time we said goodnight to Daniel and pushed the pair of single beds together in our bedroom. I didn’t have pajamas with me and I wanted Roman’s body heat, not my sweatpants, so I pulled a T-shirt on and we snuggled up beneath the quilt.

I draped myself over him, my elbows digging into his chest, my fingers threading through his hair and my eyes locked on his. “I missed you.”

He shifted beneath me, his gaze heavy with desire, and then we were kissing, his firm mouth shaping mine, our tongues exploring, tasting, stroking delicious sensations along my veins. He took charge, rolling me over, his hands caressing every inch of my body while his lips worshipped my skin. His touch was velvet heat, spiraling hot shivers to my blood and melting into my bones.

“Roman,” I groaned, my fingers spearing into his hair, my hips arching to meet his.

He chuckled, a primal sound that rumbled deep in his chest, and kissed his way up the column of my throat. “I love you.”

And then time stopped, everything stopped, as he lifted his head to look into my eyes and nothing else existed in this moment. There was just Roman, just me, and the fire of desire breathing against my skin and the love pounding in my heart.

“I love you,” I whispered, and for some inexplicable reason, I felt a hot tear on my cheek.

He kissed the tear away and time ticked on again, our bodies tangling and craving as we touched, explored and possessed, consumed in each other.

Much, much later, as I lay with my cheek pressed to his chest, his arm wrapped around me, he said softly, “I met with James today.”

I rolled my head into the crook of his arm so I could look at him. He’d already told us that the wardens hadn’t been informed of the escape. For now, Geneva was definitely keeping the missing heirs under wraps.

Roman trusted the senior warden as much as I trusted Jessie. Also, his allegiance lay with the wardens. “Did you tell James everything?”

“Not in as many words,” Roman said. “I told him the heirs had escaped to The Smoke. He’ll inform the wardens.”

“Did you mention our involvement?”

“I didn’t have to,” he said. “How else would I know about the escape? Why else would the Guard bust into my house? James knows me too well. He drew his own conclusions and I didn’t deny it.”

“What will he do?”

“File a complaint against the Sisterhood, for a start. They busted down my door and trespassed in my cabin. That’s a violation of warden territory.”

That was so unexpected, I bolted upright. “Are you serious? I mean, I live there, too, and I’m a citizen of Capra. Doesn’t that give them the right to enter?”

“Probably,” he drawled. “That’s not the point. James wants to have the complaint on record, and send them a warning about messing with the wardens.”

I squinted at him. I’d never met James, but I really, really liked him. “About messing with you .”

A half-cocked grin shrugged his sexy jaw. “I’ll take all the protection he wants to throw my way, so I can extend it to you.”

“You think I’m going to land myself into a hot mess!”

“I know you are,” he said, but there was a smile in his voice and a glint in his eyes.

I punched him on the chest and squirreled back down into his embrace. “You’re lucky I love you.”

“I certainly am,” he agreed warmly. “Another thing. James hadn’t put forward my transfer request, and we’ve decided I’ll withdraw it for now.”

“He still wants you to take his position when he steps down?”

“He does,” Roman said. “But it also gives me a reason to be in Capra for now.”

I smiled against the silken iron skin of his chest, and we lay there in comfortable silence. I was reluctant to break it, but I had to know. “Do you think I’m making a mistake here?”

He thought on that for a long moment. “Honestly? I don’t know, Georga. But I know you’re doing what you have to do.” His thumb soothed slow, circular caresses on my upper arm. “I won’t allow anything to happen to you. If the Sisterhood gets their claws into you, I’ll blow that damn rehab center up.”

He spoke that like a vow.