Page 6 of Powerless
"You were saying?"
Two
MARIPOSA
The kitchen girls, whose names I found out to be Marnie and Mimi, gave me no trouble after that. They showed me their small farm hidden at the bottom of a hill on the far side of the outpost—far away from all the guest rooms and accommodations.
In addition to about thirty adult chickens, they also had a small herd of goats, vegetable patches and fruit trees. Some supplies still required trading with other farmers but as I suspected, this place was largely self-sufficient.
When I asked Mimi, the girl who'd been bitten, if they could make chicken for the Steel Demons that evening, she was a lot more accommodating than before.
Horus gorged himself on his kill but left most of it on the counter, seeing as he wasn't a huge bird himself. The girls were thoroughly grossed out by the mess he made and refused to touch it. So I took to cooking up the leftovers with a mix of egg, rice, and a few vegetables for Hades.
"Why are you so cute?" I laughed as his stubby tail and whole rear end wiggled excitedly. "How do you know this is for you, huh?"
I put the food mixture in a clean, metal bowl and set it on the floor next to him, along with a bowl of water. As he scarfed down everything like he hadn't eaten in weeks, the healing scar on his flank caught my attention again. With him distracted by food, I ran a hand down his side as if touching him would reveal the trick my eyes were playing on me. But nothing changed. At this rate, he would be fully healed within two days.
Right then someone pushed forcefully through kitchen door, making it bounce off the wall. The kitchen girls screamed.
"Thought I'd find you two together," Reaper's deep, gravelly voice traveled through the air and reached my ears like a caress. "Didn't think it'd be in here, though."
"I got hungry," I replied with a shrug, despite my pulse elevating with each step he took closer to me. "Hades decided to come with."
Reaper's bright green eyes dropped from my face to his dog, now licking his food bowl clean.
"He's walking already?" The Steel Demons president ran a hand down the dog's back, patting his ribs.
"More than that. Look," I pointed to the incision, "it's already closed up and scarring over. A week's worth of healing in hours."
Reaper looked pleased, but otherwise completely unsurprised. "You always were a fast healer, huh, boy?"
It was more than fast healing. I was pretty certain it was physically impossible. Just like running alongside a motorcycle going eighty miles per hour, forhours.
But before I could bring up any of this, Reaper pinned me with a stare that caught my breath in my throat.
"You weren't waiting for me in bed, like I told you to." He patted Hades out of the way to stand right in front of me with my back pinned to the kitchen counter.
"I told you, I got hungry."
"Mm." He rested his fingers gently on the edge of my jaw while his thumb stroked across my lower lip. "So did I."
"Lucky for you," I tilted my head just out of contact with his hand, "they have chickens here. We'll be eating well during our stay."
"That's not what I'm hungry for." A slow, devious smile formed on his lips. "You two," he addressed the kitchen girls for the first time. "Leave. Give us ten, no, five minutes."
Mimi's eyes darted back and forth just as they did when I told her to put the gun away. This time, she did as was asked much faster, scurrying out through the back doors with Marnie on her heels.
"What are you doi—“
My question was cut off by Reaper's mouth smothering mine just as he lifted me by the waist to sit on the counter. Flying to his shoulders for balance, my hands gripped the smooth, well-worn leather of his cut. His kiss was harsh, roughened by the dark stubble growing on his face. And still I held on and pulled him closer to deepen it.
"Hades, go." His mouth broke away to give the command and returned to conquer mine before I had a chance to take a breath.
"You want to do thishere?" I panted when his lips dragged across my cheek to my earlobe, his fingers already hooking in the waistband of my pants.
"Sugar, I want you anywhere and everywhere," he chuckled with a nip to my ear. "But I'm about to hold church and only have a few minutes."
His mouth returned to mine as he stripped my lower half bare. The stainless steel counter was cold against my heated flesh and my mind still reeled with the question of what exactly Reaper wanted. A quickie? He stepped away when I reached for his belt buckle, bending at the waist to place a soft kiss on my thigh with a devilish smile.
