Oath of Honor - Radclyffe

gloves. She wasn’t concerned for her safety. She was always prepared

for any emergency. Caution was a way of life for her, and she’d been

trained since birth to be composed under extreme circumstances.

With a bulky gloved finger, she pressed the entrance code, and the

chamber pressurized. The inner door opened and she stepped into the

lab. She nodded to a colleague working at a nearby station, sequencing

a variant of Ebola. After connecting an overhead airline to the suit’s

port, she made her way down the aisle, the line following behind her

like a colorful yellow umbilicus. She’d volunteered for the night shift

six months previously, establishing her routine, arriving a little early,

leaving a little later. Her colleagues appreciated her diligence and

her willingness to take the graveyard shift for longer than the usual

mandatory rotations. At her station, she booted up her computer and

retrieved the samples she planned to run on the gel plates that night,

along with a second rack of tubes. Over the past six months she’d been

carefully siphoning off micro-aliquots of avian flu stock, too tiny to be

noticed by anyone else, until she had a single test tube half-full of one

of the most virulent synthetic contagions ever produced.

When she left at the end of her shift, she’d slide the tube into a

fold in her suit beneath her arm and secure it in place with a strip of

the special adhesive they kept for emergency repairs if one of the suits

should be accidentally torn. Like a tire patch, the instantly self-sealing

adhesive would provide enough protection until the lab worker could

get to the decontamination chamber. Tonight, the lifesaving material

would allow her to secrete out a virus capable of killing thousands. She

wasn’t really interested in the deaths of thousands, however, only one.

President Andrew Powell stood for everything she despised—a

spokesman for the rich, a defender of the privileged, a champion of

those without morals or values. Her father had taught her and her

brothers and sisters the right path, raising them to be survivors. He’d

encouraged them to excel, schooling them at the camp with the children

of other survivalists, setting them on the path to positions where they

could someday make a difference. She’d always known she had a

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mission, and now she was going to fulfill it. She would help him make

his message heard—America for Americans—and now that a leader

had emerged, they would have a president who would speak for the

righteous. She would help make that possible.

The digital clocks at the far end of the room simultaneously

projected the time and date in New York City, Washington DC, Los

Angeles, Hong Kong, Sydney, New Delhi, Berlin, London. Seven p.m.

in Atlanta. Twelve more hours and the first stage of her mission would

be complete. Soon the reclaiming of America would begin.

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chapter twenty

Evyn handed Wes the last slice of pizza. “You finish it.”

“I’m stuffed.” Wes sat on the bed with her back propped

against the wall. Some of the shadows around her eyes had faded, but

her cheeks were still hollow, and her fingers trembled slightly as she

reached for a napkin.

“You need the carbs—eat.” She hated seeing Wes hurt. Wes didn’t

complain—she wouldn’t, and her attempt to feign normalcy only

made Evyn want to punch something. She had to do something, even

something mindless, or she’d do something they’d both regret. She

stacked the remains of their meal—crumpled paper napkins, a couple

of paper plates, the pizza box. “I’ll take the empty box to the trash. The

pizza was great, but I’d rather not smell the aftermath all night.”

The room was generous by motel standards—two slightly larger

than single beds separated by a two-drawer nightstand with a peeling

brown lacquer finish. A goosenecked reading light, dusty shade askew,

sat on the water-stained top. The bathroom had been carved out of the

closet area—a small toilet jammed in next to the sink, a two-and-a-half

square foot shower stall, and a solitary overhead light. The closet held a

few bent wire hangers and nothing else. Neither she nor Wes had taken

anything from their go bags other than toiletries.

“Need a hand?” Wes asked.

“I got it,” Evyn said, not looking at Wes. She’d sat on the far end

of the bed during their takeout dinner, a meal she’d shared a hundred

times in a hundred nondescript rooms just like this one. She’d never

been as grateful for the pizza box sitting open between them as she had

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been tonight, though—every time she looked at Wes and remembered

the way she had looked slowly spinning deeper underwater, she wanted

to touch her. Just to assure herself Wes was warm and safe.

She gathered the trash and stood. “Need anything?”

“Nope. I’m going to grab another shower.”

“Still cold?”

Wes grinned wryly. “I’m not really sure. Feels that way, but it

might just be my imagination.”

Evyn checked the thermostat on the wall above the dresser, a

vintage fifties maple affair with wooden knobs on the drawers and a

rickety mirror. Seventy degrees. The room was toasty. Wes still wasn’t

fully recovered. “Take your time—use all the hot water if you need to.

I’m good.”

“Okay.” Wes rose, glanced at the door. A frisson of anxiety shot

along her nerve endings. She’d never minded being alone, but she

didn’t want Evyn to walk out that door. She’d paced the room during

the ten minutes Evyn had been gone getting the pizza and hadn’t been

able to relax until Evyn appeared again, a spark of triumph in her eyes

as she’d held the pizza box aloft like a trophy. She’d looked vibrant

and vital and sexy. Wes clamped down on the surge of heat that tingled

down her thighs. “So I’ll see you in a few minutes.”

“Right.” Evyn reached behind her and fumbled for the doorknob,

her gaze locked on Wes. “I’ll be here.”

Wes broke eye contact first and disappeared into the bathroom.

A second later the water came on in the shower. Evyn imagined Wes

sliding out of her clothes and stepping naked into the heat. She’d seen

enough of Wes’s body through that thin, damp white towel back in

the locker room to have a pretty good idea of exactly what Wes would

look like naked. Ordinarily she didn’t have any problem populating

her fantasies with women she knew, but she chased the enticing image

of Wes’s body from her mind. She didn’t want to fantasize about her.

What she wanted to do was kiss her. She almost had—would have, just

then, if they’d been any closer. She had quite a lot of practice reading

women’s eyes, and she’d read desire in Wes’s. All the same, she hadn’t

had such a bad idea in longer than she could remember. Sleeping with

Louise when she hadn’t been one hundred percent present didn’t hold a

candle to the insanity of kissing Wes.

Wes had had a serious shock just a few hours ago—had almost

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drowned. She was vulnerable. Physically depleted. Battered and bruised.

By her own admission, not really on top of her game. She didn’t need

Evyn coming on to her—she needed a solid night’s sleep and probably

a talk with someone about what had happened. Evyn wasn’t one of

those agents who found psych support to be intrusive or threatening.

Her older sister was a psychologist and one of the best listeners she’d

ever met. She’d learned when she was struggling with the kinds of

identity issues all adolescents face that talking with her sister helped.

And when she’d told Chris she was a lesbian, her sister had been cool.

Hell, she talked to Gary when things got really hairy—when the stress

and the insane schedules and the lack of a personal life started to make

her crazy. She wanted Wes to get any help she needed—and making a

move on her did not qualify as helping.

Evyn pulled on Wes’s jacket, not so much because she wanted to

keep dry in the still-falling snow but because she liked wearing it. An

unusual intimacy for her—wearing someone else’s clothes. Silly, but no

one needed to know. The jacket was a little big. Wes’s shoulders were

a little wider, her arms a little longer, but she wasn’t so much bigger

their bodies wouldn’t fit together seamlessly. Wes’s breasts were just

the right size for their torsos to meld perfectly, Wes’s thighs just long

and tight enough to wrap around hers with no space between them. The

fist of want in her belly tightened, and she dashed outside, welcoming

the blast of cold wind and icy snow. The storm had picked up. Two

inches of wet powder covered the parking lot. No cars passed on the

two-lane. The road remained unplowed.

After tossing the detritus into the open maw of the dented blue

Dumpster tucked behind the end of the building, she ran back along the

row of darkened rooms. She stamped her feet to clear the snow from her

boots and jumped inside their room, shutting the cold night outside.

Wes stood in the middle of the room with a towel cinched above

her breasts, leaving her upper chest, sculpted shoulders, and a lot of

thigh exposed. A sliver of light slanted through the partially open

bathroom door behind her, highlighting her strong curves and sinewy

planes. The red-green glow of the motel sign flickered through the

open slats on the blinds hanging on the single window beside the door,

leaving Wes’s face mostly in shadow. Evyn flashed again on the picture

of Wes wrapped around her, nothing between them. Her skin tingled

and heat flooded her core.

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“Better?” Evyn backpedaled until her ass hit the wall. She couldn’t

read much in Wes’s face, but she bet hers was easy to decipher. She’d

had more control when she was fifteen than she did now.

“Yes,” Wes said. “How is it outside?”

“Snowing pretty heavy.” Evyn couldn’t move. Couldn’t take her

eyes from Wes’s face.

“Your hair is wet.” Wes took a step closer, ran her fingers through

the hair at Evyn’s temples. “You should’ve put the hood up.”

Evyn laughed shakily and rubbed her hair with a hand. “I thought

I could outrun the snowflakes.”

Wes laughed. “Why does that not surprise me? Do all federal

agents think they’re capable of superhuman feats?”

“Only the ones who are, like me.” Evyn grinned, watching the

smile reach Wes’s eyes. She loved making her smile. Still, she looked

strained, as if she’d been pulling doubles for a week. “How are you

really feeling?”

Wes shrugged. “Like I had a really long day. Nothing some sleep

won’t cure. I’m not that out of practice working twenty-four on—I still

cover the ER pretty regularly.”

“Yeah, but you aren’t usually physically accosted in the ER.”

“I wasn’t today either,” Wes said gently. “I took a header off the

boat—none too proud of that actually. I should have ducked. I saw it

coming.”

“For how long—a second?” Evyn shook her head. “You never had

a chance.”

“And neither did you.” Wes brushed a loose curl away from the

corner of Evyn’s mouth. “You must have hit the water pretty hard to

bruise your face.”

“You hit a lot harder.” A pulse beat rapidly in Wes’s throat,

matching the crazy rhythm of Evyn’s heart. Evyn started to sweat. Wes

was inches away. She wanted to touch her. “You should get dressed

before you get chilled again.”

“You should get undressed before you end up the same way.”

Wes reached out and unzipped the windbreaker. “I left a little hot

water. You need it?”

“I’m good,” Evyn said, never having made a less true statement in

her life. She didn’t know what she was, but it wasn’t good. Turned on,

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desperate to ease the shadows Wes couldn’t quite hide, aching to hold

her. “Wes, I—”

“I want to get one thing clear,” Wes said.

Evyn drew up short. Here it came. The no-fraternization-at-work

speech. Her own rule, the one she should have been remembering, and

the one she forgot every time Wes was within a mile of her. “You don’t

need to say anything. I agree with you.”

Wes’s eyebrows shot up. The corner of her mouth lifted. “Do you?

I didn’t realize you were psychic as well as superhuman.”

“Another big bad federal agent skill,” Evyn said as nonchalantly

as she could manage. “Always a bad idea to complicate a working

relationship. No need to go there.”

“You’re right, we do agree.” Wes’s tone was soft and serious, but

her eyes were partly amused. “Although I was going to say that what

happened out there this afternoon was an accident. No one could have

predicted it. No matter who set up the exercise, no one was at fault for

that cable snapping and me going overboard.”

A hot surge of embarrassment flooded Evyn’s belly. Hell, she

couldn’t have been more wrong about what Wes had intended to say,

and now she’d tipped her hand and probably made a fool of herself. “I

won’t argue. Obviously I can’t win.”

“It’s not about winning.” Wes stroked the backs of her fingers over

Evyn’s cheek, just beneath the bruise. “How about just believing it?”

Wes’s mouth was so close, all Evyn could do was watch her lips

move and struggle to make sense of what she was saying. Her mind

heard the words but her body translated them into something else.

Want, desire, an unfamiliar need. “Wes. I’m a little off balance here.”

“I know.” Wes’s voice was barely above a whisper. “So am I.”

Evyn went completely still.

“You saved my life today and I’m grateful. I know you were doing

your job, and I would’ve done the same.” Wes watched the muscles