Лори Девоти - Amazon Queen

Jack.

He was leaning against the door that opened into the old cafeteria part of the building, right across the walk from the outside stairwell I'd just climbed up, out of the main building's basement.

I thought about walking past him, but didn't. I knew he wouldn't let me easily and I was tired of fighting-something I'd never imagined I'd be.

I stopped in front of him, my arms crossed over my chest.

"You left," he said.

He'd been there. He'd seen me. I didn't have to tell him what had happened.

"I wasn't sure you would."

I shrugged. My mother's words were still ringing in my ears: What about you, daughter? What are you?

Jack seemed to sense what I was thinking. . feeling. . He pushed himself away from the wall and into my space. "What's wrong with you?" His eyes were hard and dark, filled with fire.

I stared back at him knowing my own were dead. My fire had gone out. I didn't know if I could ever get it back.

He leaned even closer, until his nose almost touched mine. "Don't tell me I was right the first time. Don't tell me, you are just a sheep."

When I didn't reply, he cursed. His hands opened and closed at his sides. I could tell he wanted to grapple something. . me, I guessed.

I watched dispassionately. The Amazons didn't want me. I wasn't queen. I had no pony in this race.

When he spun back, I could see the wolverine inside him staring out at me. "I get through to you and you give up? Is that it?" He took a step back toward me, back in my space, but this time he went further. He pushed me against the building.

With one hand on each of my shoulders he held me there, pinned to the wooden siding.

"So, tell me. One little slap of reality and you fold up? Give up? Is all your fight gone? Exactly how far down did you let them beat you?"

He spit the words out, ugly and harsh.

"If you're that easy to defeat, I guess they were right. You aren't a queen." He bent his elbows and propelled himself away from me.

I let him get as far as the walk before I picked up a cantaloupe-sized stone that doubled as a doorstop and flung it at his head.

He spun so quickly , I didn't see the movement, but I saw him duck, saw his hand shoot above his head, and I saw his grin when he caught the cannonball of rock in his bare hand. "The queen is back."

I didn't share his joviality. I jumped and kicked, aiming for his head. He dropped the rock and plowed forward, his head going between my legs. With me straddling his shoulder, he stood. Momentum sent me falling backward. I would have tumbled to the ground except he held me by one calf. I dangled with my back to his, my hair brushing the ground.

I cursed, then used every bit of abdominal strength I had to pull myself back up. I grabbed him by the hair and jerked, then dropped my weight forward. I landed palms down in a handstand that I quickly converted to a flip. Four feet away, I faced him.

The grin was back.

I growled, and he rushed me.

He was fast, preternaturally fast. I was too, but nothing compared him. I tried, but was unable to move out of his path. He slammed into me, knocking me onto the ground.

His full body weight pressing me into the earth, he stared down at me. "If we work together, you can get everything you want."

My heart pounded against my breastbone. "You think?" I asked.

He dipped his face lower, so his lips barely brushed mine. "I know."

I didn't move; my mind was whirling. My training said to toss him off, to wipe the wearisome smile off his face, but another part of me, a part I'd forgotten existed, couldn't move, not without doing something that would give away thoughts I didn't want to be having, shouldn't be having.

He was a son . Whether I thought killing Amazon infant sons was wrong or not, I didn't approve of what my mother had done, and I didn't want to follow in her footsteps.

His lips brushed mine again, and I caught a whiff of the scent I'd noticed that first time in the woods, earthy and masculine, dangerous and alluring. And this time it was very alluring. There was no denying it.

When his lips brushed mine a third time, I leaned up and captured his mouth with mine.

Adrenaline rushed through me. He tasted of mint, not the fake taste of toothpaste, but the real zing of mint grown wild in the woods. His chin was covered in stubble. It rasped over my skin, hurt and excited me at the same time.

His hand moved from the ground beside me to my arms. His hands, the same hands that had grabbed me so roughly before, softened.

I softened too, pressure releasing from me like air from a deflating beach ball. Then as his hands roamed past my arms onto my stomach, pushed up the thin tee I wore, new pressure began to build.

"Excuse us." Two older women wearing stretchy shorts and knee socks stumbled to a stop beside us. At least I assumed they were older, based on their shoes and clothing from the waist down. From my angle on the ground that was all I could see.

Their feet, clad in some kind of practical-looking thick-soled tennis shoes, shuffled to the side. Probably two of Bubbe's clients.

"Should we. .?" one asked.

The other made some kind of hushing noise, then, "Never mind us. We'll be going on our way. Just act like you never saw us."

The other argued, but only briefly and so low I couldn't truly make out the words, not that I wanted to. I was completely and totally humiliated-not because I'd been caught acting like an animal in heat by humans, but that I'd been playing the role with the son at all.

I shoved him off me and scrambled to my feet.

He stayed on the ground, watching me, his expression unreadable and his body language relaxed-as if lying sprawled out blocking the sidewalk and the entrances to two buildings was perfectly normal. I spun with every intention of stalking off. A whisper of movement told me he'd stood, but not in time to stop him from grabbing me around the waist.

"You're shy. Who knew?"

I threw back my elbow, aiming for his gut. With a laugh, he stepped to the side, his arm slipping from my body as he did.

I got maybe ten feet, even with the front of Mel's main building, before the blast sounded. The ground moved, or seemed to. A tremor traveled from the earth into my feet and up my legs. And the noise. . a blast that made me want to clap my hands over my ears. . there was no mistaking it, not after living through the explosion of Jack's cabin.

Something had blown.

I took off in a run around the front of Mel's shop, praying as I did that the blast hadn't been inside the structure, that Mel, her family. . my family. . were safe.

Smoke billowed from the other side of Mel's shop-outside her shop. I kept moving, dashing over the sidewalk and onto the grass. Before I rounded the second corner I caught sight of the fire. . a line of holly bushes that separated Mel's property from her neighbor's was blazing.

Heat crackled and smoke tore at my lungs, but I plowed ahead. On the side of the building was a spigot with a hose. Unable to think of any better plan at the moment, I followed the example of the idiot humans I'd seen outside Jack's cabin and turned the tiny stream of water onto the bushes.

Yells came from the front yard. The occupants of Mel's shop and home flowed out. In seconds the tiny side yard was filled with bodies. Bern moved into view, a blanket in her arms. She held it up for me to douse with the hose, then marched into what looked like the middle of the flames. Jack was there too, but he stood apart. He seemed almost unaware of the chaos that had broken out around him. His brow was furrowed and his gaze was on the ground.

Thinking he'd lost it under the pressure, I ignored him.