Mated to the Beast of the Wasteland novel · Chapter 9 of 32

Chapter 9: Half the Truth

I slid down the steel until my boots were on the catwalk.

He let me, but he didn't step back.

"Not here," I said. "Inside."

We walked back to the shack through the rain without touching.

The whole row had its shutters open a crack.

Sable's voice came out of one of them. "Don't mind us!"

Brand banged his fist on her container as he passed, and she cackled.

Inside, he lit the stove.

I stood dripping on the steel floor while he knelt and fed it scrap wood.

My jumpsuit was soaked black. His gray undershirt was stuck to his back, and I could see the hook of the old scar through it.

"My parents were shield engineers," I said.

He didn't turn round. "I know. Everyone out here knows the Faraday accident."

"My father worked on the reactor before he died. Salvage surveys, for ShieldWorks. He kept notes."

That was true.

"He wrote that it's the last intact core crystal anywhere near Haven."

"And he wrote that the Registry sends crews out there who don't come back."

That was true too, in its way.

Brand shut the stove door and stood up.

"Your father died eleven years ago," he said. "Perrin printed that contract this week."

"I know."

"So the notes say the reactor's dangerous. Fine. Every Registry job is dangerous."

He came closer.

"You didn't say dangerous on the gate. You looked at that paper like it was a grave with my name on it."

I didn't say anything.

"That's half," he said. "Isn't it?"

"Yes."

He waited.

The rain drummed on the roof.

"The other half," I said, "I can't tell you yet."

"Not because I don't trust you. Because you won't believe it, and I need you to."

"Try me."

"Not tonight."

He looked at me a long time.

I thought he'd walk back out into the rain.

Instead he reached out and turned my left wrist up to the stove light.

The bite had scabbed into a neat ring. He ran his thumb round it, careful.

"Will you tell me before it scars?" he said.

"Before it scars."

"Then I'll wait."

He let go of my wrist.

And I knew that if I didn't say it now I never would.

"Brand."

"Mm."

"Come to bed."

His eyes came up to mine.

"Not my side," I said. "Not your side. Come to bed with me and mean it."

He didn't move. The stove ticked.

"You're sure."

"I bonded you in a cage at eight minutes to midnight. I've never been more sure of anything."

"Not because of the gate. Not because of Perrin."

"Because I want you. Only that."

His shoulders dropped, all the tension going out of him.

"Then you lead," he said quietly. "I've waited this long. I can wait while you decide how."

I took his hand and walked him to the cot.

I let go of his hand and set both of mine flat on his chest.

His heart was hammering under my palm.

Wet cotton clung to him like a second skin.

"You're soaked through," I said.

"So are you."

"Then we fix it."

I reached for the hem of his shirt and peeled it up.

He lifted his arms and let me.

The scales began at his left shoulder, black as the stove's shadow, and ran down his ribs in smooth overlapping ridges.

I'd touched them in the rain.

Now I put my whole palm over them and watched his jaw lock.

"You like that," I said.

"I like everything you do."

"Good."

I dropped the wet shirt on the floor.

His belt was next.

I unbuckled it while he stood very still, his hands at his sides.

The leather whispered out of the loops.

I pulled his fly open and pushed the jeans down.

He stepped out of them and kicked them away.

There was nothing under them.

His cock was already hard, heavy against his stomach, and I looked at it longer than I meant to.

"Ember."

"Shh."

I'd known his body in another life.

It was a private, impossible grief I couldn't show him.

But my hands knew what to do.

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