Chapter Twenty-Seven
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AMAROS COULD FEEL CAMRIEL’S disapproval as he took the long, winding, steep road back to their base.
His second disagreed with his decision not to tell the females about their bonds.
The blond knight didn’t feel drawn to Zoe or Grace so far.
He could sense something was different about his leader.
He would keep the bond a secret, but he wasn’t happy about it.
“I wonder if the crazy prophet is on the radio,” Grace said.
It was fully dark now and Amaros had turned the headlights on. He drove around fallen rocks, then switched the radio on. Instead of static, a voice came through the speakers.
“Mark my words, boys and girls,” the madman was ranting.
“True evil is coming to New York. It’ll be here any day now.
It’ll worm its way into the rotting carcass of our once great nation and lay eggs inside its flesh.
It’ll spawn an army of rats that will devour everyone in sight.
If you thought the Rapture was bad, this will be far, far worse. ”
He stopped speaking and static took over again.
“Yeah, he’s nuts,” Camriel agreed, then switched the radio off.
Amaros turned another bend and increased his speed. He was about to respond when a deer bounded onto the road. Not even his reflexes were good enough to avoid colliding with the animal.
“Bambi!” Grace shrieked in horror when the truck shuddered from the impact. Amaros slammed on the brakes.
“I’ll check on it,” Camriel offered and climbed out. He stepped in front of the truck and shook his head. “What do you want me to do with it?” he asked.
“We should take it with us,” Zoe suggested, much to Grace’s horror. “There’s no point in wasting the meat and hide,” she pointed out.
“Ew,” the teen complained unhappily. “This feels so wrong.”
“It’s an adult doe, not a fawn,” Zoe told her.
“She’s Bambi’s mom, then,” Grace said sulkily. Camriel heaved the animal over his shoulder, then placed it on the tarp in the back of the truck. “It’s squashing my books,” Grace complained.
“They’ll be fine,” Amaros said, then took off as soon as his second climbed back inside. “I’d be more worried about the storm ruining them,” he added.
Lightning flickered and they heard the distant rumble of thunder. “It looks like another doozy,” Zoe said.
“I don’t remember storms like this when we were here previously,” Amaros said.
“You weren’t here during the end times,” Zoe said. “We’ve had wars, famine, pestilence and all kinds of apocalyptic weather phenomena for years.”
“They used to say they were once in a hundred-year storms and floods,” Grace recalled. “Then they became once in a thousand-year weather events.”
“In the end, there were deadly and destructive storms in every country nearly every day,” Zoe said sadly. “They seem to have stopped since the First Resurrection.”
“The what?” Camriel asked.
“That’s what my church Pastor called the Rapture,” she explained. “Now that God has taken all the good people and has punished us sinners, it looks like the weather is returning to normal.”
“It’s about time,” Grace said as Amaros slowed down to turn into their property. “It was getting old seeing fires, floods, tornadoes and every other type of natural disasters on the news.”
“Now we don’t have any news,” Zoe said. “We just have a crazy prophet ranting on the radio.”
“At least we’ve got plenty of books to read,” Grace said, perking up a bit.
“This feels so strange this time,” Camriel said.
“What does?” Zoe asked.
“Planning a life,” he said in a musing tone. “I’m used to killing our foes and winning our war, then returning to the Void, or dying and returning to the Void.”
“Do you think this war is going to drag on for longer than usual?” Grace queried.
Amaros sent his second a warning look. If they chose to bond with the women and they accepted, they’d never have to return to the Void ever again.
“That’s my hunch,” Camriel said, sliding a glance at his commander.
Amaros drove beneath the trees again, then they worked together to unload the truck. Camriel carried the deer off to the lake, taking a hunting knife and a large cooler with him. He would do his best to butcher the animal and bring the meat back to cook on the grill.
“We need a freezer,” Grace said, carrying an armful of cookbooks to a corner of the kitchen. Amaros had carried the bookcase inside. He’d left it in a room where it would be out of the weather.
“Electricity would be good, too,” Zoe said wryly. “We’d have to run a generator constantly to keep anything frozen. That would chew through a lot of fuel.”
Hail began to descend just as Amaros entered the room. “I’d better help Camriel with the deer,” he said. He’d listened to their conversation as he’d finished covering the truck with tarps.
“Take a tarp to protect yourselves from the weather,” Zoe suggested.
Nodding, he grabbed one from the room they’d stored some of their stolen gear in, then loped out into the weather. The tarp did a good job of protecting him from the rain, but the large chunks of hail were painful when they slammed into him.
Camriel was hunkered over the carcass of the deer, whistling cheerfully as he ignored the storm. Hail rained down on him, bouncing off his muscular body. A gigantic piece of ice bashed into his head and he merely shook it off. “Brother,” he said in greeting, sensing Amaros’ arrival.
“You’re a madman,” Amaros said in amusement as he tossed the tarp over his second and the deer. He hunkered next to the warrior to watch him in action.
“So, you and Zoe, huh?” Camriel asked.
Amaros stiffened. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“It’s obvious you two have the bond Fate spoke of,” Camriel said. “Why haven’t you asked her to become yours yet?”
“How can I be sure she’s the right cambion?” Amaros hedged.
Camriel gave him an incredulous look. “Fate dropped you directly in the path of the female. I felt your connection as soon as you were close to her. She’s the one you’re supposed to be with, the one who will tie you to this world.
You’d have to be insane not to grasp this opportunity with both hands. ”
Taken aback by Camriel’s vehemence, Amaros didn’t know what to say. “Not all of the team might feel the same way you do,” he pointed out. “What if they would prefer to fade away than to continue fighting forever?”
Camriel’s knife tore through the deer, slicing up the meat into manageable chunks.
He’d ruined the hide, unfortunately. “We’ve already been fighting this war forever,” he said in a tone that was almost sorrowful.
“Fate has given us a chance to live, brother.” He turned to regard his leader.
“Don’t you finally want to be happy? We need more than a hollow victory, knowing we’ll be sent into exile in the Void for five thousand years.
Order has used us for long enough. It’s time for us to have what we’ve always deserved. ”
“What if Zoe rejects me?” Amaros said in a low voice.
“She won’t,” Camriel denied. “She feels the bond just as strongly as you do. You told me about her temper, Amaros. Do you really want to make her wait to hear the full truth about the deal Fate made with us?”
Blowing out a sigh, Amaros knew Camriel was right. “I’ll think about it,” he said at last, wondering at exactly what point he’d lost his spine.
“You do that,” Camriel said. “But if I find my cambion, I’m going to spill my guts about the bond and beg her to accept me the moment I lay eyes on her.”
Somehow, Amaros didn’t doubt that at all. Camriel was loyal through and through, but his second craved a normal life. Nothing would stop him from achieving it now that he had a chance to have one.