Chapter 20
Cade declared the next day a day off to allow Asha to rest her ankle before they headed back to the Nest. They spent the day in bed together, cycling through sex, napping, and chatting, and Asha thought it was the best day she’d had in a long time…
possibly ever. She’d never been able to completely relax with another person before, but Cade made it easy somehow.
He didn’t expect her to be anything other than what she was, to contort herself to fit his expectations.
He teased her, laughed with her, and held her like she was precious to him.
He gave her space to let her guard down.
He’s also fucking amazing in bed, which doesn’t hurt.
“Sex and secrets time,” Cade insisted after their first round that day, a sly smile on his lips. “It’s your turn.”
“Give me a minute,” Asha replied breathlessly, flopping on top of her pillow as he chuckled.
He’d folded her nearly in half on the bed and fucked her hard with her ankles on his shoulders until she’d come twice, helpless against him, before sating his own need for release and collapsing on top of her.
This is how good it can be, he’d whispered in her ear, still inside her. This is how it always should’ve been for you.
“I have no more secrets. You know them all.”
“That’s not true. When’s your birthday?”
Asha rolled her eyes. “I’d hardly call that a secret.”
“Then tell me.”
“No.”
“See, it qualifies.” His smile was annoyingly infectious.
“August tenth. Not that it matters, because I have no idea what day it is.”
The conversation flowed from there, with each of them revealing more of their ‘secrets’ in turns.
Asha learned that Cade had turned thirty-two in January; he’d been into spy movies back at home; and his favourite colour was black (Asha argued it wasn’t a colour, and then he picked grey, to which she also objected).
Then she took his cock in her mouth and slowly, torturously, got him off. Cade had been worried that it might be triggering for her, but Asha was beyond that now. She liked being in control of his pleasure for a change, and she was pretty good at blowjobs, if she did say so herself.
“Shit, Asha,” he gritted out as she caressed his balls. “You’re way better at this than is fair.”
He dropped out of her mouth as she laughed, pleased by his approval. He groaned and added, “No. Keep going. Please.”
“Who’s begging now?” she teased, and he shot her a dark look.
“You will be, if you keep up the backtalk. Now, be a good girl and finish sucking sir’s cock. I want to coat that pretty throat with my cum.”
With a sardonic raise of her eyebrows, Asha wrapped her lips around him again and continued sucking him, slow and measured, until he came in her mouth with a groan, and she swallowed him down.
“You owe me a secret,” Asha asked playfully a few minutes later, safely snuggled against him again. “What’s your biggest fear?”
She expected him to tease her, or say something unserious like spiders or heights.
Instead, after a long, thoughtful pause, he answered sadly, “Becoming my father.”
Asha looked up at him, and his eyes were surprisingly pensive, his mood changed.
“Why would you become your father?” she asked quietly, reaching out to stroke his cheek. “You’re nothing like you’ve described him.”
He sighed. “Sure, most of the time. But I have his temper. Most of the time, I have a decent handle on it, but every so often…it explodes, like his did.”
“How do you mean?”
He kissed her forehead before responding.
“I’ve had episodes of blackout rage before.
Mostly when I was younger …before I became a soldier and learned more discipline.
When I was fifteen, I put my fists through a wall at school because of a fight with a friend.
Got suspended for that one, and my dad beat the crap out of me before my mom could intervene.
One of the few times he hit me after I got into my teens. ”
He blew out a breath. “And when they ordered me to shoot that Wastelander boy, and I refused. When my CO brought me in for a lecture, I lost it. Screamed at him and threw his desk lamp against the wall. Got in pretty big trouble for that one. If I hadn’t been good at my job otherwise, I’d probably have gotten discharged. ”
Asha stroked his chest, comforting, and Cade pressed a kiss against her hair.
“Most of the time,” he eventually continued, “I channel my anger into training, or working out. But sometimes, I still feel it there, under the surface.”
He looked worried about admitting this, as though he thought she might pull away.
But Asha was touched, as ever, by his willingness to make himself vulnerable for her.
In the beginning, he’d done it to make her comfortable with him…
but now, she felt for the first time that maybe he needed her tenderness as much as she needed his.
She kissed him, then held his gaze with hers. “It’s okay. I like a man with a little wrath in him.”
Cade chuckled and pulled her in for another kiss. “Well, that’s a relief, because I have plenty. But why am I the one spilling all my secrets? I haven’t heard you say anything in a while.”
She arched an eyebrow. “When you make me come again, maybe I will. If you’re capable of that, anyway.”
“Is that a challenge?” he growled, and before she knew what was happening, he’d playfully tackled her and pinned her to the bed. “When I’m done with you, you’ll be begging me for mercy.”
“You sure about that?” Asha taunted, a combative smile curving her lips. “I don’t know. I think you’re all talk.”
His eyes darkened. “Keep talking, and I’ll whip your ass so hard you won’t sit right for a week.”
Pushing him gave Asha a masochistic kind of thrill.
“Prove it, then.”
Soon after, she found herself on all fours, her wrists bound to the headboard, crying out as Cade alternated between eating her pussy from behind and bringing his belt down, over and over, on her ass.
She came once, then twice, then lost count, screaming as the pleasure and pain melded into something new altogether. And in the end, she did beg—helplessly, desperately, gratefully, for the one man who could make falling to her knees for him feel like strength instead of weakness.
When they’d finished, Cade retrieved something from his pack and settled back into bed with her. He held a couple of metal tags on a long chain that he draped around Asha’s neck.
“Your dog tags?” Asha asked, and he nodded, giving her a fond smile.
“They’re yours now, darling.”
He spooned her as she fell asleep, and she drifted off with his name pressed against her heart.
They set off again the following day for the Nest. The wagon was full, and they had to drop off the goods they’d collected before heading to the other settlements.
They went back the way they’d come, but it all felt different to Asha now.
She couldn’t take her eyes off Cade, to the point that he commented on it.
“Eyes on the road, soldier,” he teased her. “Be vigilant. You don’t know what could be around the bend.”
He wasn’t wrong, but all she could feel was his dog tags that she still wore under her clothes. After walking most of the morning, Asha spotted a rising spiral of black smoke in the distance. Cade gave the order to stop, frowning up at it.
“What is it?” Asha asked, wondering if this was usual on these trips.
“Don’t know,” Cade replied, still staring at the smoke. “But it looks like it’s coming from Applegate.”
“Applegate?”
“It’s a settlement occupied by the Skulls.”
There was a murmur among the Blackguard, who followed behind them.
“What should we do, Cap?” Raph asked after a moment. “Check it out?”
Cade was quiet for a moment, but then answered, “No. Move out.”
The men hastened to obey his order. Only Asha stopped short.
“Wait, what?” she blurted out. “What if they need help? The Skulls aren’t our enemies.”
“Not our problem. We have a schedule to stick to, and we don’t know what might be waiting there. It’s not worth the risk.”
She glowered at him. “But—”
“I gave you an order,” he interjected coldly. “Defy me again and see what happens.”
Stupid, stupid man. He should’ve known by that point that that was just challenging her, daring her to defy him.
“Guess I will,” Asha said with a too-casual shrug. “Because I’m going. Whether you come or not is your decision.”
She turned on her heel and walked toward the smoke, drawing her pistol.
“That’s not going to work, Asha.”
She ignored him and kept walking. A few minutes later, she heard a string of curses, and the collective footsteps of the men following behind her. Satisfaction bloomed in her chest.
It was short-lived. As they moved toward the smoke, a small village loomed in the distance. And it was on fire.
Flames licked several roofs of derelict houses, and though the fortified fence around the settlement was still standing, the gate was not.
It looked as if it’d been blown open by some explosive force.
There were bodies lying around, broken and forlorn, strewn across the wreckage of what had once been a hub of activity. Of life.
“Hold up,” Cade ordered, and this time, Asha obeyed. She waited for him, and he accompanied her into the carnage, the Blackguard at their backs.
“What caused this?” Asha asked, hushed, as they walked across a ruined courtyard littered with corpses. “Another gang?”
“Possible.” Cade’s assessment was cold and clinical, reminding her that he’d done this kind of thing before. Perhaps he’d even left a place in this state before.
She pushed the thought away and kept going. They came across a small village square, and this had clearly been the centre of whatever battle had taken place there. There were more dead people, and the dry, stone fountain in the middle of the square was cracked almost in half.
But it was the door of a nearby home that stopped Asha in her tracks. Over the weatherworn wood, someone had pinned a black mask painted with a large, golden eye opened wide, staring out at the ruined world.
The same mask worn by those who had destroyed the Cave.
She’d seen it in her nightmares from time to time, if only because it was so distinct.
As they walked farther, the corpses changed.
No longer were they only of simple villagers.
Instead, a few were dressed in all black, and they wore the black masks that covered their entire faces, all bearing that same emblem of the golden eye.
They had been here. They had ventured outside the compound.
All at once, Asha couldn’t breathe. She clutched her chest uselessly, fighting for air. She felt like she was dying.
“Asha,” Cade said, his voice containing a forced calm, masking the alarm underneath that only she could hear. “Are you alright? Talk to me.”
She tried, but nothing came out. Instead, she sat on the ground, forcing herself to suck in short, desperate gasps.
“It’s them,” she managed to tell him when he crouched in front of her, a crease of worry between his brows. “The ones who attacked the Cave.”
His eyebrows shot up. “Shit.” He turned to the men. “Do a sweep. Find out if there are any survivors. If you find any masked ones alive, bring them to me.”
The men hastened to obey, and Cade sat back on his heels across from her.
“Did you know they left the compound?”
“No,” Asha shot back. “The last time I saw them, I was fleeing for my life.” She buried her face in her hands. “What does this mean?”
A long pause. “I don’t know, darling. But you’re safe with us now. We won’t let them hurt you.”
Some time later, Davy announced, “No survivors, Captain, and the place is ransacked. Probably not even worth scavenging.”
Asha bowed her head. A bizarre sense of shame set in; her people had caused this destruction, and undoubtedly would cause more. These people, Wastelanders though they were, didn’t deserve to die the way they had.
“I’m sorry, my angel,” Cade murmured to her, touching her shoulder before standing again. “Alright. Nothing left to do here. Move out, guys.”
He offered her his hand and pulled her to her feet.
“It’s not your fault,” he told her a few minutes later. “Not your fault that you survived and they didn’t.”
Asha loved and hated how well he read her. “I know that.”
“Helps to hear it sometimes, though.”
He had a point. She nodded reluctantly.
“What do you think it means?” she asked him.
Cade shrugged. “They’ve become a gang, just like the rest of us. So, it means the same thing it always means when a gang wipes out another settlement. More competition.”
Asha’s stomach dropped. “For what?”
“Survival, darling. Always survival.”