“Shouldn’t you get your shoulder treated?” she asked, not protesting as he drew off her clothing and tucked a clean shirt over her head. Her brain was fuzzy, and she needed more sleep.
He smiled and shucked out of his clothes, revealing his hard warrior’s body with a fresh bandage over one shoulder. “After Tace bandaged you, he sewed me up in Nevada before we got on the road, so I don’t know what else he could do.” Jax set her under the covers and climbed in to hold her. “Although after you get some more sleep, you might want to get creative.”
She snuggled into his side before levering herself up to look at him. He stared down, bruises marring his deadly face. “You were right. Earlier, when I met you.”
His eyebrows lifted. “Right?”
“I, ah, figured I’d find the documents, see if there was a chance, and then be done.”
His gaze softened. “And now?”
“Now I want to live. No matter what.” She’d found so much more in this man than she’d ever thought to find. “I love you, Jax.” No matter what happened, she’d hold him tight as long as she could.
He placed a hand over her glowing blue heart. “All mine, Lynne Harmony. My Blue Heart.”
Read on for a glimpse of the second stunning book in
Rebecca Zanetti’s thrilling Scorpius Syndrome series . . .
Coming soon from
Insanity is merely a matter of perspective.
—Dr. Franklin Xavier Harmony
The nightmare clawed through Vinnie, ripping and gnashing, until she awoke, her mouth opened in a silent scream.
Thank God. Finally, she’d been quiet this time. They’d moved her quarters three times because her night terrors scared the hell out of normal people. Now she lived in the bottom far corner of a sparsely populated residence in the center of Vanguard territory.
She leaped from the bed, her bare feet slapping cold concrete. Her lungs compressed, and tremors shook her legs. She couldn’t breathe. God, she couldn’t breathe.
Bending over, she planted a hand on her chest.
Air.
She needed air.
Launching into motion, she ran through the dilapidated tenement to the creaky sliding glass door and yanked it open. Rain, cold and drizzly, cascaded inside on a burst of wind. Not noticing the storm or the darkness outside, she pushed through weeds choking torn concrete and stumbled across the muddy earth.
Sharp rocks and pieces of debris cut into her feet, but she paid no heed. Her feet threw clumps of dirt, and she reached the chain-link fence guarding all seven blocks of Vanguard territory.
Her fingers curled around the slippery metal near her face, and even in her panic, she remembered not to reach up to the barbed wire.
Thunder bellowed above, as what was once the City of Angels gave itself over to the short but devastating rainy season. She held tight and lifted her head, allowing the rain to barrage her.
“You’re early tonight.” A voice, low and masculine, cut through the storm from the other side of the chain link.
She blinked and stared into the darkness. Several train tracks, abandoned to weeds, stretched in every direction in front of more empty, dark land. “Where are you?” she whispered.
He came into view, silently like any predator, stepping right up to the fence. “You’re getting wet, Beauty.”
She wiped water from her eyes. “I didn’t scream this time.” So why was he there?
“I know.” Raze Shadow, one of the elite Vanguard lieutenants, had rescued her from hell a week ago while on a mission.
If he hadn’t heard her scream this time, was he just patrolling nearby? She shivered. “How is patrol going?”
His eyes, light blue to the point of being odd, lasered through the dark, touching on her toes and wandering up her bare legs, her soaking white T-shirt, to her damp face. Somehow, even in the cold and through the fence, the gaze heated her skin. “Go back inside.”
“No.” She couldn’t. She just couldn’t return to the nightmare and that dismal apartment. “I’m fine.” Except her left foot hurt. A lot. She lifted her leg and stretched her ankle, squinting to see through the darkness.
Raze tucked an AK-47 over a shoulder, his gaze dropping to her aching foot. His shoulders straightened. “Damn it. Stay there.” Long strides took him down the length of the fence until she couldn’t see him any longer.
The wind whistled a lonely tune over the barren land, and somewhere in the distance, a lion roared. Probably Marvin. She hadn’t seen the beast that shared their territory, but some of the other Vanguard residents had warned her about him. He’d escaped some zoo when the world had surrendered to the Scorpius bacterium, and now he hunted both survivors and Rippers.
Cold blasted through her thin shirt, and she trembled.
“Vivienne?” Raze gave her a warning that he was near.
She turned, and he came into view through the mist. “That was fast.”
“Humph.” He reached her in two strides, bringing warmth. “It isn’t safe out here.”
“It isn’t safe anywhere,” she whispered.
He jerked his head toward the silent building. “Inside.”
The cold pricked over her skin, and she nodded, turning. The second her damaged heel touched down, her nerves stung. She sucked in air.
He planted a large hand on her shoulder. “You okay?”
She stiffened. He’d taken great pains not to touch her during her week in Vanguard territory, always remaining distant but polite. “Yes.” She gritted her teeth and took another step, trying to balance on her toes.
He exhaled loudly. Then, shaking his head, he lifted her and pivoted toward the building. So easily.
Warmth and male surrounded her in the closest thing she’d had to safety in months. Yet Raze Shadow was nowhere near safe. “What’s your real first name?” she babbled, suddenly aware of her thin T-shirt and panties. She should’ve worn yoga pants to bed.
“Raze.” He kept his gaze straight ahead.
No. Raze was short for Razor, which was his nickname from the military because apparently he was a master with a blade. But he didn’t owe her his real name, so she didn’t press him.
His strides were long, and even holding her, he made no sound. She held herself stiffly, trying not to brush against his hard body. “Why are you babysitting me?” she asked.
“You need babysitting.” He carried her through the glass door and into the dingy apartment. “Lantern?”
“Um, on the counter?”
He moved the short distance to the L-shaped area that had once served as a kitchen, somehow seeing in the dark. The fridge was gone, the sink didn’t work, and the oven now held extra socks. Once electricity had stopped flowing, kitchens, for the most part, had become useless.
Setting her on the chipped counter, he twisted on a halogen lantern and immediately crouched down, one broad hand wrapping around her ankle. “What the hell, woman?”
She winced. “I panicked.”
“No shit.” He opened the oven and drew out a pair of socks, having been the person who’d put them there in the first place when he’d helped her to move. Gently, much more gently than a man his size should be able to touch, he wiped grime and blood off her aching arch. “Looks okay—just scraped.” He looked up intently. “We’re out of antibiotics, and you can’t injure yourself like this.”
A panic attack didn’t wait for reason. “All right.”
He slowly shook his head. “You need a roommate.”
Not a chance. Often she awoke screaming like a banshee, and she couldn’t do that to another person. Even if she could find somebody willing to stay with her. “Okay.”
“Stop agreeing with me.” His voice remained level, always in perfect control.
“You bet.”
He sat back, still on his haunches, a shield over his expression. As usual. “You’ve been here a week, and nobody has pushed you, but this isn’t working.”
She swallowed and tried to sit back. “I’ll be okay.”
“Stop saying okay.”
“O—all right.”