23 Roman
Roman
I knew the air wasn’t toxic. Despite the lies told to the general public about us monitoring radiation after the Bio-cleanse Wars and the levels recently returning to the safe zone, I knew the air hadn’t been toxic for quite some time.
They didn’t come straight out and tell us that in training, but there’d been enough missions outside Ethica’s dome that you’d be an idiot not to suspect the truth.
Knowing something and seeing it—breathing it—yourself were two different things, though.
It’d stopped raining again, but the sky was a garish blood red with dark clouds on the horizon. Even so, the sheer vastness of the land we’d traveled, with the expanse of forest and ancient trees that stretched to the heavens, was awe-inspiring.
My dad would’ve loved it out here.
Would love it. Once the treatment finally worked. It had to work. I wasn’t losing faith.
Because if it didn’t, what was I doing this for?
He was going to get better and I’d bring him here someday.
I swore it to myself.
Seeing Meg and her dad together brought all these feelings up, and I couldn’t help but steal glances of them in the rearview mirror as I continued the drive to our destination.
“This is the one you’re supposed to marry?” The massive beast that was Maddock sat naked with a towel over his lap, squished in the back between his daughter and Justus, sniffing the poor guy.
“Unfortunately.” Meg sighed.
Marcus wheezed in the passenger seat, barely holding it together. He kept coughing into his fist to clear the laughter from his chest. Tears squeezed from the corners of his eyes.
“Can you please go faster?” Justus begged.
My gaze went to the mirror again, finding Meg watching me. That easy smile on her face did something to my heart. It was the first time I’d seen her truly relax, and I kicked myself for how awful it must’ve been for her in Ethica.
Everyone should’ve done more to make her feel welcome.
Not that it was my job, I had to remind myself.
“Shouldn’t you be watching the road?” Maddock growled.
I had a moment of blind panic when I realized he’d seen me staring at his daughter, but I fixed the focus of my gaze without letting on how much Meg affected me.
Marcus coughed into his fist again.
“The wedding might not happen, though,” Meg told her father.
“Really?” His grunt didn’t seem that disappointed.
“Yeah. It’s complicated.” She blew out a long breath. “The humans are… strange. No offense, guys.”
“None taken,” we all muttered.
“I know you did your best. We’ll figure the rest out as a family,” Maddock said. “It’s good you came home. I hated you being there.”
Meg patted her dad’s arm affectionately, and you could hear the pride in his voice when he spoke of her. Memories of my own dad drifted through my mind as I drove.
Would he have been proud that I joined the military? I thought so. His favorite stories were always the ones where the hero went on grand adventures. That’s why he favored the stories of the gods, I think. Anything with a good journey and high stakes.
“This is us,” Meg said, directing me to turn down the dirt road, away from the small story-book town that lay up ahead.
Two quaint cabins sat tucked back into the valley with a creek cutting through a field of grass and the sun sinking over the mountains beyond. My eyes were blurry after driving the past few hours, making the whole scene hazy like some setting in a story my dad would tell.
I blinked to clear them.
Parking the Jeep, I scanned the horizon, cataloguing the unfamiliar terrain. Our intelligence on the Cerberus Territory was spot on so far and that made the mission of protecting Rabbit that much easier.
Though I had to wonder if this might be the end of my career. There was only so much I could perform for the councilwoman before the colonel found a way to get me removed from this position. I looked at Marcus, vowing that I’d do everything in my power to protect him from the coming fallout.
I needed to focus on keeping Justus alive and getting him to that wedding, wherever or whenever it was now planned. We just had to wait for word from Helen to see when it was best to return.
“Make sure we can get in touch with headquarters all the way out here,” I told Marcus. “If not, we’ll need to set up closer to town.”
“Roger that, LT.” He got to work on the equipment as I moved to the back of the vehicle to unload the bags.
I closed the trunk tailgate, coming face to face with a growling Maddock who tore Meg’s bag from my hand.
If the purists got hold of this image—the beastly male with a bare chest covered in silver and brown hair that matched his bushy beard—they’d have all the propaganda they needed to confirm the mutant monster theory.
His nostrils flared and he seemed to be… sniffing me. I wasn’t sure what to do, so I sniffed him in return.
Science, the air out here is fresh.
It smelled of earth and pine and freedom. No wonder Meg smelled so good. This was where she belonged.
Though I was still struggling to see the resemblance between her and her father.
“We’re over there.” Meg pointed to the smaller cabin, breaking the strange standoff between Maddock and me.
“It’s a dead zone here, LT,” Marcus said as he worked the antenna. “I’m going to drive back to the top of the road to set up camp for the night if I can get signal there.”
“Stay within sight,” I told him, anxious about separating our little party until I got a better lay of the land.
“Aye, Lieutenant.” Marcus gave me a frustrated half-salute as I carried Justus’s suitcases and my own backpack over to the cabin.
“You’ll stay with us in the big house,” Maddock told his daughter.
Meg’s cheeks flushed as she stared at him.
He stared back, unblinking.
The two of them stood there for an uncomfortably long minute.
Justus shifted from foot to foot as he eyed the three of us. “Where… uh… are we staying?”
“In my cabin with me.” Meg grabbed her bag from Maddock. “Tell Mom we’ll see her for breakfast.”
I felt like maybe I should argue this arrangement for the sake of not pissing off the big guy, but I needed to get Justus somewhere safe for the night and rest my eyes for a bit before I’d be good for anything else.
We left Maddock growling in the yard as Meg held open the door for us to enter the cabin.
“Thank science, they have indoor plumbing and lights.” Justus almost wept as he paused outside the bathroom, staring down at his phone. “But no service.”
“You won’t get that out here.” Meg hung back, nervous for some reason as she glanced up at me. “Your friend should be able to pick up radio signal at the top of the road, though. Will he be okay out there tonight?”
“We’re trained to sleep anywhere,” I said, grateful for her concern. We’d slept through worse, and he’d be all right in the locked Jeep, armed with supplies. He might prefer it, being in a spot that Daisy could contact him if anything were to happen.
“Where can I put these?” I held up Justus’s luggage. He always did overpack.
“In here.” Meg rushed across the living room and pushed open one of the two closed doors. “This is—or was—my sister’s room.”
Justus poked his head in between us. “There’s only one bed.”
Meg’s cheeks flushed crimson again. “My dad is right. I’ll sleep in their cabin. Roman, you can have my room.”
The thought of sleeping in her personal space, of snooping through her drawers and getting the chance to know her more intimately…
It wasn’t my place.
But her intended husband didn’t seem to care.
“I guess this will do.” Justus sighed as he sank onto the edge of the bed and gave a little bounce to test the mattress. “It’s better than a cave.”
“That settles it then.” Meg looked up at me, and I swore she could read my soul with those expressive eyes. “My room is through there. I’ll see you both in the morning.”
“No.” I stopped her from walking away. “You sleep in your own bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“Absolutely not.” She untied her hair, running her fingers through it to loosen the strands. “We’re all exhausted, but you drove most of the day. You deserve a bed.”
My throat tightened as I watched her hair fall in waves over her shoulders and onto her chest. Her breasts seemed fuller. Not that I was staring. It was just an observation.
Fuck. I wanted to kiss her again. It must’ve been the day catching up with me, because I felt like she actually cared.
And how pathetic was that?
One woman shows me tenderness and I—
“Can the two of you argue out there?” Justus yawned. “I’m beat.”
I left Justus’s suitcases inside the door and followed Meg down the hall.
“You’ve had it worse the past few days,” I told her. “I want you to enjoy being home.”
“Stop.” She turned to face me, and there was a burning force in her eyes I hadn’t seen before. “Just stop.”
“Stop what?” I asked.
We were close together now and our voices lowered. It felt too intimate.
“Don’t be kind to me after tearing out my heart,” she said. “You kissed me and said it’d never happen again without taking into account what I wanted or how it’d make me feel.”
“That’s not…” I realized she was serious.
“Then what is it, Roman?” she whispered.
I was delusional. Dreaming. There was no way she felt heartbroken by me. But the look in her eyes told a different story.
I licked my dry lips. “In another life, I’d—”
“Nope.” Meg cut me off. “This is the only life we get.” She started marching toward the door, and stopped. “What are you doing?”
“Sleeping on the couch,” I said as I lay down on the small sofa, trying to tuck my feet in so they didn’t hang over the edge so dramatically.
My heart pounded in my chest as I tried to think of another way to keep her here and have the time to process what was happening.
She didn’t mean what she said. She didn’t understand what she was saying anyway.
We were all exhausted. It’d been a long couple of days.
I just wanted her to be comfortable as she slept.
“Are you serious?” She stared at me.
In answer, I closed my eyes.
And I must’ve been dreaming because after her frustrated huff, I felt the slightest whisper of a kiss pressed to my cheek. “Goodnight, Roman.”
In my dreams, I whispered back, “Goodnight, Megaera. Wake me if you need anything.”