Under His Guard

Book 3: Don't Tell

by Rie Warren

Genres: LGBT Gay; Erotic & Steamy Romance; Military Romance; Multicultural & Interracial Romance; Dystopian

Synopsis

Rebel soldier Darke lost his lover during the early stages of the InterNations war. Only the flirtatious attentions of the gorgeous Leon Cheramie brought him back from heartbreak and grief. Unwilling to get attached again, Darke has fought their undeniable attraction to one another. But when Leon's life is threatened, Darke cannot deny what's been brewing between them. After escaping certain death at the hands of the enemy, the brave and determined Leon has proven himself capable of fighting in the war. The only thing he hasn't been able to do is capture the heart of the fearless warrior Darke. When a huge victory is won for the revolutionaries, Darke and Leon finally give in to their feelings for one another. But the celebration is short-lived when Leon is infected with a deadly virus. He's a human time bomb set to plague the entire rebel population. Now, the final endgame of the war is pitted against the rebels' race to find a cure before Leon becomes a full-blown carrier and Darke loses the man who managed to win his love and bring him back to life. Don't miss the other titles in the Don't Tell Series: In His Command, Book 1 On Her Watch, Book 2

Release date: February 3, 2015

Publisher: Forever Yours

Print pages: 386

Sample

CHAPTER ONE

July, 2071, Chitamauga Commune


The meadow was a landscape of bonfires and boisterous revelers. Music swelled from Eden’s and Nate’s guitars as they took over from Smitty’s painfully out-of-tune banjo playing. The Freelanders were in the full throes of merrymaking as they gathered in celebration of Liz and Linc’s betrothal announcement. For one evening we forgot about the cruel facts of the war in favor of reveling in a moment of all-too-rare joy. The scene was a one eighty from the months spent in the urban Beta Territory, where bombs dropped, guns fired, and the Revolution had almost been lost.


Victory had been ours in the end. As always, it was paid with a high price. A similar rebel win in Alpha Territory had cost the lives of my two lovers. This time the cost was Leon’s memory of me and our time together. And the son of a bitch responsible—CEO Cutler—had managed to escape unscathed once again.

But this wasn’t the time for such dark thoughts. Perhaps that was why my mother had named me Darke. I’d always assumed it was because of my incredibly black skin and inky eyes, but maybe I’d just been a broody little bastard from birth. I nearly laughed at the thought, but I couldn’t do that either. Not when the one person who knew how to lighten my mood danced in the middle of the meadow, as carefree and unbelievably sexy as always. Leon gave the type of wicked smile he’d previously reserved for me to some young buck named Jake or Jack or Jackal. My jealousy flared as I watched Leon twine his arms around the other man’s neck and gyrate against his hips.

What very few knew about me was I felt too much, from all sides. Emotions came at me in clouds and bursts and spikes. While it was a boon on the field of battle, since I could get an immediate read on my warriors—who was a cool hand versus who was too freaked to fire their weaponry—this ability was a bane to my barren love life. I’d cut Leon loose when his memories went on a leave of absence, thinking it was the higher road. Now I trudged my path alone.


After giving my congratulations to Linc and Liz, I’d ambled away from the group I’d been with through the battles of Beta. It was mostly to get away from Leon, yet I still couldn’t take my eyes off him. I finally turned my back on the intoxicating movements of his body and decided to mingle with the other villagers. I danced a fast-paced jig with one of the women but declined a second dance when the music became slower and more sensual. I ended up drinking a couple tankards of ale with my buddy Micah as we laughed over his twin girls. They made their uncles Caspar and Nathaniel squire them about the field, which meant Smitty was back on the banjo, much to the agony of everyone’s ears.


“Your girls are gonna be heartbreakers, man,” I said, knocking my mug against Micah’s.

“Shit, Darke. You don’t need to tell me that. Jesus. They take after their momma.” He pushed a faded green cap off his brow and winked at me. “Kamber had my nuts twisted tighter than a blue-balled bull the first time I met her.”

I grinned and took a swill of the alcohol in my cup.

“Mind now, that’un over there’s a heartbreaker, too—ain’t he?”

I looked in the direction he pointed and let loose a groan. Leon had switched partners. As Smitty warbled a raunchy song, Leon grinded his ass against a guy called Dixon. Or Dickhead, as I called him.

“Yeah, he is,” I answered, trying to pass off my gritted teeth as a smile.

I’d made avoiding Leon my latest detail, going out of my way to eat at opposite ends of the mess hall, ensuring Caspar was the one to head up any military training with him instead of me. Despite my efforts, I still knew where he was and what he was doing almost every second of every day.

Three more teasing dances from Leon later, I couldn’t hold back any longer. When I saw him leaning against the fence, his own mug of ale in hand, I stalked toward him. The moon had long since risen and was making its way across the other side of the sky. The glow from the white orb above outlined his striking features and his shoulder-length hair in silver. He was stunning. The sight of him stole my breath and cooled some of the jealousy he’d stoked. He always wreaked havoc on my too-vulnerable emotions.

As I approached, his golden gaze found mine. He leaned his head back and dragged the hair away from his face, affording me a mouthwatering view of his clenched biceps and the cords of his neck. I ran a finger down his throat, which elicited a small gasp. He lifted his head as I sucked my fingertip, licking off the salty taste lingering there.

“You about done making a spectacle of yourself out there with Jackal and Dickhead?”

“Who?” Leon’s chest was shiny with perspiration, his shirt long gone.

Copper-colored nipples sat on his tight pectorals. I wanted to kiss them, lap them until he cried out my name. His chest was smooth until a thin line of soft-looking dark brown hair ran from his navel to the top of his pants, nearly dripping off his Adonis belt.

My gaze rose from wandering all over his body. “Jack. Dixon. And that other one who was all over you.”

He finished taking a long, lazy sip of his drink and cleaned his lips off with a slow roll of his tongue. “What do you care? I know you won’t help my momma and Miss Eden tap into my memories. I know you’re hidin’ somethin’.” He rubbed his stomach like a lion preening itself, muscles rippling beneath his hand. “But guess what? The world don’ revolve around you.”

The words were eerily similar to something he’d said the night I’d tracked him to Farrow’s apartment in Beta. He’d been downright pissed off at me for following him when he’d wanted only to get away from me. He didn’t remember any of that now.

Leon was right. I used his amnesia to keep him at arm’s length, for all the goddamn good it did me. Fresh emotion boiled through me.

I grabbed the rail behind him with both my hands, caging him against the fence. “I care,” I bit out. I’d cared then, and I for damn sure cared now.

“You jealous?” Leon didn’t shrink from my presence. Instead he arched into my body. A breath hissed from me as his chest came into contact with mine and the contours of his lean legs brushed my thighs.

I swallowed hard. “Yeah.”

Winding his fingers through his sun-streaked hair, he licked his lips. They were red, and juicy, always plump, begging to be kissed. I couldn’t look away. He slid one long thigh between mine and drew it back slowly. The ache in my groin exploded into a full-blown erection from that teasing stroke alone.

“Then why don’ you fuck me already?”

It was as if lightning struck my body, sizzling right down to my balls. My hands clenched the fence rail, but I wanted nothing more than to drive them inside the back of his pants, pull him against me. Find some relief from this longing, this raw seduction that had been building for six months whether he remembered or not.

I jerked away when his lips sought mine. A kiss, one kiss from this man, and I’d be a goner. I couldn’t. I just couldn’t get involved with Leon. My chest billowed in and out with the effort to put a stop to this one more time.


Words, harsh and low, fell from my mouth before I even considered them. “Because I don’t fuck. I make love.”

Leon’s face crashed in an instant. “And you don’ love me.” He moved as far back from me as he could.

I scowled at him. There was no answer to that. None I was ready to give. I turned away and vaulted over the fence, almost tripping over my feet to beat a hasty retreat. But I couldn’t move fast enough to outrun the guilt and desire that battered me. Leon always flew too close to my emotions. I couldn’t let him in enough to hurt me.

From behind, I heard Liz shout, “Hey!”

My shoulders drooped. I slowed my sprint to a stop. She’d been looking out for Leon since he’d arrived in Beta. She hadn’t stopped just because we were back in Chitamauga. Liz was as much a woman as a soldier, and I had a sinking feeling she was about to kick my ass and then give me love advice.

“What the hell are you playing at?” She grabbed my arm, tugging me around.

So it was to be the ass-kicking first. At least she was predictable. She stood a good few inches shorter than me but was formidable nonetheless, even without her usual weapons holstered at her hips.


“I’m not playing anything. This isn’t a game you can tactically decide from the sidelines, so back the fuck off.”

“Not gonna happen. Why don’t you tell me why you’re running away from Leon again? What was all that shit you spouted when Taft brought him back to you?”

I folded my arms across my chest. “Ignorance, arrogance, and blind stupidity.”

“You know what? All that fucked-up emotion? That was the first honest feeling you’ve shown toward Leon.” Her finger pointed at me, and if she’d had one of her guns, it probably would’ve gone off right then, too.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” When faced with a woman going all mama bear, it was best to play dumb.

“I got eyes in my head. I know what I see. It just so happens I saw you last night, Darke, at the lake, watching Leon.”

Ah fuck. “You saw me?”


I hadn’t intentionally followed Leon, but I’d heard him whistling. Then playing in the water. I’d kept to the tree line, shaking with need. Leon swam, and his sleek body teased me from the lake—a flash of his perfect ass rising above the waves, the splash of water running down his chest. It’d taken all my restraint to keep from joining him, to walk away.

I glared at Liz. “Wait. You saw him naked?”

“Easy there, big guy. I got a man of my own, and you could, too, if you pulled your head out of your ass. So why don’t you tell me what the hell is going on?”

I clamped my fingers into my hair and pulled hard. A rumbling groan grew from my chest in sheer despair. “I don’t know.”

“Are you shitting me? Do you remember sobbing over him when he was gone? I do. Because I was right there with you.”

“Maybe the amnesia thing is better for him, a clean break…”

“I’m gonna clean break your neck.” She got right in my space, shoving her finger in my face. “Look. Did you see what he was doing out there? He was making you jealous, and it worked because you’re about one step away from devouring him on the spot every time you see him. He wants you. So it doesn’t matter what the hell he does or doesn’t remember, Darke. He’s into you. He is yours. Still.”

“Not my problem anymore.” I dodged Liz’s eyes, squared my shoulders, firmly setting myself on the path of probable personal destruction.

“Wrong. He is always gonna be your problem and your man. You need to grow a pair already.”

She looked thoroughly disgusted with me when she pivoted on her heel and took off for the meadow. It didn’t matter. No one could be more ashamed of me than I was.

*  *  *

I walked back to my caravan. I had to stop before going up the steps. As always, I shut my eyes for a moment to prepare myself for the scene inside. After closing the door gently behind me, I bent to unlace my boots and place them aside. I tried not to look around too much. Tam’s and Wilde’s belongings—their books, clothes, weapons, and trinkets—were how they’d left them. I hadn’t moved or removed a single thing. I couldn’t bear to touch them. I couldn’t bear to part with them. Though Wilde and I had spent one summer cobbling two caravans together and the place was bigger than most others, I felt suffocated.

Their ghosts still lingered.

There was no room for Leon here. I’d made the right decision, but even so, he’d filled the hole in my chest for a little while, back in the winter. Now it simply gaped open.

Broody bastard? I’m downright maudlin. I snuffed out a smile. Lighting a few candles, I undressed and washed quickly. The big, empty bed was another torment, but instead of memories of old, it filled me with fresh, increasingly hot fantasies. No, it wasn’t Tam or Wilde I thought about. It wasn’t either of them who kept me up night after lonely night, awake and so aroused I had to relieve the physical ache with fingers I pretended were long and slim and tanned, a hand I wet with my tongue so when I wrapped it around my jutting cock, I could imagine I was being sucked and teased and blown by the poutiest, reddest pair of lips beneath two heavy-lidded, honey-flecked eyes. Even when I came so hard I had to bite back a holler and mop away strands of milky liquid all the way up my chest, I was left unsatisfied. The emotional turmoil I felt never disappeared.


Tonight was no different. I thrashed around the bed, sleep chased away by images of Leon—laughing, dancing, flirting—the scent of him that was earthy, his guttural accent spoken in a soft, low voice. My hunger for Leon never waned. It became harder with each passing day to maintain distance. I hoped like hell he’d gone to bed alone and not with Jackass or Dickhead or any number of randy males he could pick from.

It felt like my eyes had only just shut when my Data-Pak went off over and over, showing no signs of stopping its piercing alert. I snatched the handheld comms device from the floor beside the bed and checked the incoming. Linc Cutler.


I barked into the thing, “Thought I said congrats earlier, man. It’s too fucking late for you to be on the horn on your betrothal night.”

“I’ve just gotten word from Denver.” I went on high alert at the mention of CEO Cutler’s personal bodyguard. “This is strictly on a need-to-know basis, so I’m not gonna spread it over the D-P. Be in the town hall in ten minutes.” The tension in Linc’s voice sounded clearly through the airwaves.

Instantly, all weariness fled. After yanking on the clothes I’d taken off only hours before, I slammed outside. I didn’t even bother with my bootlaces.

The town hall became a tunnel through which I saw only Liz and Linc at the opposite end. Linc stood behind the table, Liz at his side. Hatch—the brains of the commune—Nathaniel, and Cannon hurried in after me. Both Linc and Liz nodded at them, but they skipped over me.

“What the hell’s going on that this couldn’t wait until the morning?” My boots resounded on the wood floors as I marched up to Linc. When he didn’t answer and still wouldn’t meet my gaze, dread funneled through me. “Give it to me straight, right now.”

“Denver came through with some intel.”

“You already said that.”

Liz placed a hand on my arm, her touch not soothing me at all when she said, “It’s bad, Darke.”

I swung my gaze to her and then back at Linc. His eyes looked bleaker than I’d ever seen them, and seeing as we’d been through hell ten times over in Beta, I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear Denver’s info.

Linc passed a hand over his face. “Leon’s a human time bomb.”

“What?” Sweat trickled down my back, as cold as the fear slicing through me.

“This is what our father meant when he told Liz he had a second wave planned. It’s why he didn’t really give a shit when Taft blew up the DCICs. The asshole masterminded a human delivery system. Leon’s infected with the new Plague.” Linc exchanged bitter looks with his twin brother, Nathaniel. Once again the evil wrongdoings of their father, CEO Lysander Cutler, came home to roost. “I should’ve killed that fucking bastard when I had the chance.”


“What?” I asked again, grasping the edge of the table as my legs threatened to collapse from under me. My body, my brain, my heart, all shut down.

“To kill the Plague, we’d have to kill Leon—his body is a Trojan horse we won’t be able to destroy, because…because…” Words failed Liz.

Bile rose in my throat. I swallowed it back. “Because he’s ours.” He’s mine. “That’s why no one else showed at the water tower. There was to be no handoff, no delivery except to us.”


“The virus is implanted in Leon, but it’s dormant.” Hatch scanned through the message that had been sent to Linc via Denver. Denver was feeding info to Linc because he played a dangerous game, straddling both sides of the war, or so he claimed. I wasn’t quite a believer yet.

“Leon’s body is a weapon for the Company.” Numbed through, I could barely raise my eyes to the others.

Nathaniel’s hand was heavy on my shoulder. “Father let Leon go because he knew we’d take him in. Our exposure to the virus will be guaranteed. He wants us all dead.”

An incendiary blaze of hate for CEO Cutler fired inside me. “I’d still take Leon in, no matter what.”

Cannon rose so slowly, bearing such pain, it appeared the big, broad-shouldered man was made of no more than vapor. His voice was just as thin. “Imagine how many others Cutler’s infected.”

“When?” All the life was leached from me in an instant.

“When what?” Linc asked.

“WHEN DOES IT GO LIVE?” I bellowed.

“Middle of August.” Linc grabbed Liz’s hand.

“But that gives us only a couple weeks. There has to be an antidote, a cure, something!” I spun around, only to halt when I saw Leon just inside the door. Shock, fear, and concern all clashed within me. And want, foremost.

I could never get enough of him. I never would. No matter how hard I tried to push him away, I always pulled him back. His bright eyes looked almost kohl black and suddenly too big for his face. His hair was wild, tangled, down around his shoulders. I tensed, reaching for him. I didn’t want him to know. I didn’t want to fucking know.


Leon walked toward me with his loose-legged swagger.

My heart pounded. My mouth went dry.

He ambled closer, and everyone moved away from us. They fell silent, became nonexistent.

“Thought I heard a commotion.” He stopped in front of me.

“Leon.” Angel. “How much did you hear?” My hands clenched beside me. I was desperate to touch him.


His slight smile was tremulous around the edges. “Jus’ a little of this, a little of dat. Somethin’ ’bout me bein’ an incubator for the new Plague and set to infect.” He clicked his tongue against the roof of his mouth. “Mais, I always wanted to be famous.”


CHAPTER TWO

Leon.” I struggled to breathe.


“Guess we know what that Dr. Val did to me now, yeah?”

I let out a hoarse cry.

“Darke.” His hand ran along my jaw. “I wanna know who you are, what you mean to me before I die, ’cause I can feel this thing between us,” he whispered.


Leon closed his eyes when I groaned at his touch. There was no one else. Never. Not like this. Guilt wormed its way into my gut, thoughts of Tam and Wilde warring within me. But I wouldn’t deny this passion. I couldn’t. Not anymore. Not if Leon was going to die as a pawn in the InterNations war.

“Cher,” he whispered against my neck.


A great gasping sob broke through my lips. I crushed him to me. He hadn’t called me cher since his abduction. He’d forgotten what we’d started, what I wouldn’t let myself have.


Now it was too late.

He pulled back. Courage fought with sadness in his eyes as if he were looking at something that would never be his. I felt the same, and it made me clasp the back of his neck, bringing him against me once more.

“There might not be a cure.” His words, warm on my skin, instilled coldness in my heart.

“You do not say that. You do not think that.” I lifted him against me, strengthened by a new resolve. “You are not going to die, Leon.”


Nuzzling his hair, running my hands over his body, I barely noticed when the others departed. Filled with arousal and torment, I slid him down and stepped back. I was barely holding on by a thread. To love him and make him mine once and for all. To lash out and kill something, someone. “Go wait for me at my place. I won’t be long.”

Leon brought his hands to my face. He kissed me sweetly, just a brush of lush lips. “You know there’s only life or death between us now.”

I groaned against his lips, tasting mint and scotch. “I need you in my bed.”

“Mais, you din’t want me earlier.” Leon stepped away.


Despite his recent, intimate words, he stood defiantly in front of me. How could I have forgotten about his fire? The bright flame that had first surprised me and then enthralled me.

I grabbed his arm as he spun away. “Yeah, I did.”

He wrenched free. When I advanced, he slammed a palm to my chest. “Pull me one way, push me another.” He flicked his hair back, his eyes going from soft and sultry to hard and flinty. “Changed my mind. I’ll be fine without you.”

I wouldn’t be. I’d never be fine again if something happened to him. But words failed me as I watched him sweep out into the night. I barely contained myself from running after him, dragging him home with me. If I went after him right now, I’d have him bent over and screaming for my cock. Just to be inside him where nobody and nothing—not the Revolution, not fucking Cutler, not my ghosts—could touch us.

After he left, I waited as long as I could until rage overwhelmed me. I overturned the table, roaring to the rafters, “NOT HIM!” Tears ran down my cheeks unchecked. “Not Leon, not now. Please. If there’s any god at all. Don’t. Don’t take him, too.”

I hunched over as pain gripped me from the inside out. “I’ve already lost everything once.”

Eventually I reined in the dry, racking sobs coursing through my body. It felt like a lifetime had come and gone during the past hour. I looked around the room. The town hall had seen some of the best moments of my life. My handfasting with Tammerick and Wilde. My nomination as the head of the Chitamauga militia. The night Cannon and Nathaniel had promised themselves to each other and Leon had caught my eye. He’d coaxed that first smile from me, and I’d thought he might be someone worth living for again.

Now the town hall was the scene of one of the most dreadful moments I could ever have imagined. I had to leave.

Outside, the village was quiet at this late hour. Only the loud, blaring crickets sounded as agitated as I felt. The humid July heat hit me and clung to me as I headed down to the forge.

As I entered the barn where Smitty did his ironwork, the smell of hot coal and metal stung my eyes. I made my way to a pallet covered with a ratty blanket, a mirage of all the different sides of Leon swimming around me. Bold, confused, hurt, protective, playful…sexy as hell.

The pallet creaked when I shifted, and the red haze of the never-ending fire in Smitty’s cavern reminded me of the last time I’d been in here with Leon. Before he’d run away from me in the dead of winter to Beta and straight into harm’s way. I’d asked him to tattoo me with Tammerick’s and Wilde’s names.

I tore off my shirt and tossed it aside. As I stretched on the pallet on my stomach, the heat of the fire beside us baked across my skin. Leon sat back on his heels, sweat forming in the hollow of his throat. He shrugged off his shirt. In the orange and yellow and red light, his skin glowed. A dusting of caramel-colored hair thinned from his belly button to his pants. His smell was mouthwatering, and I swallowed through the need to touch him.


“Do it. Mark me.” I lay my head on my arms.


He found his pouch and perched beside me, cleaning the sharp bone awl that would pierce me. A vial of black dye was set beside my head. I arched and hissed when he touched me, not with the tool but with his hand. I had to lift my head and watch him. He swept under the waist of my pants. My muscles tensed, and I threw my head back, on the brink of coming from one little touch from this gorgeous man who had marked my heart as indelibly as he was about to mark my skin.


“Mais, I don’ wanna hurt you, Darke.” The white shard of his tool quivered above my skin.


“Been hurt through a lifetime. A little tattoo won’t kill me.” I rolled over and caught his wrists, bringing him across my body. “Do me, my angel, my devil. Make it so I’ll never forget my lovers.”


Leon cursed quietly, prodding me onto my belly. I moaned when the bone cut into me. Leon groaned through every needle tap that pushed ink into my skin.


For Tammerick and Wilde. Not for him.


I burrowed my face deeper into my arms as the guilt washed over me.


He took his time, but the pain didn’t affect me. It was his touch that had me on tenterhooks for hours. His breath washed across my shoulders when he leaned close to fill in the lines. I bit into my arm to muffle a moan when his moist lips roamed up my spine with soft kisses, the tools set aside.


No one had touched me like this since Tam and Wilde had died, and now their names were etched onto my skin by Leon’s hand.


Leon’s forehead rested against my neck. His hot tears splashed against the warm blood. “I want my name on you, too, cher.”


As soon as he cleaned me up, he pressed a small kiss to my shoulder and left. The agony I felt wasn’t just of the flesh. It was of the heart. But it didn’t stop me from sliding my pants to my thighs and gripping my cock. My hand came away slick with precome, as sticky as the blood that had dripped from my back, the same blood that was on my soul. My shaft throbbed thickly with veins, and my head craned back. Three strong strokes and the sting of the tattoo was all it took. Come splashed my sweaty chest and slid to my groin. It was the first time I’d let myself orgasm since Tam and Wilde had died.


They weren’t the ones I thought about when I came.


I growled into the dark room. Every place held memories of the two of us when what I really needed was to be with him. I’d almost made it to the door when Old Tommy and his mutt shuffled in.

Tommy, he was the town crier. Knew just about everything about everyone. It came as no surprise he and his dog—the shaggy gray mongrel he simply called Gal—were up and about at this otherw. . .