Bane

  Riptide Publishing

  PO Box 6652

  Hillsborough, NJ 08844

  www.riptidepublishing.com

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All person(s) depicted on the cover are model(s) used for illustrative purposes only.

  Bane

  Copyright © 2015 by Amelia C. Gormley

  Cover art: Kanaxa, kanaxa.com

  Editors: Sarah Frantz Lyons, Danielle Poiesz

  Layout: L.C. Chase, lcchase.com/design.htm

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, and where permitted by law. Reviewers may quote brief passages in a review. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Riptide Publishing at the mailing address above, at Riptidepublishing.com, or at marketing@riptidepublishing.com.

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-284-4

  First edition

  September, 2015

  Also available in paperback:

  ISBN: 978-1-62649-285-1

  ABOUT THE EBOOK YOU HAVE PURCHASED:

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  The weapon that nearly destroyed humanity may be their only salvation.

  Rhys Cooper’s unique immunity to all three strains of the virus that nearly annihilated humanity has brought him the unwanted attention of Clean Zone scientists. They’ve summoned him for testing—ostensibly in the hopes of finding a vaccine—but Rhys’s partner, Darius Murrell, has good reason not to trust any government. He and his comrades in Delta Company were unwitting test subjects for Project Juggernaut, the military experiment that gave them superhuman abilities and unleashed the pandemic. Doubting the government’s intentions, Delta Company refuses to let Rhys go alone.

  Fear of infection has kept Zach Houtman and his lover Nico Fernández apart for a decade. They meet rarely, just long enough to coordinate their spying on the head of the government’s virus research division. Secretary Littlewood is a vicious predator, and they suspect he’s trying to acquire the strain of the virus that would make him superhuman. To stop him, they need the perfect bait: Rhys.

  For Rhys, helping them might cost him his relationship with Darius—or his life. For Zach and Nico, even if their plan succeeds, they still face the ultimate question: can infected and uninfected people ever live together safely?

  For my husband and son, whose patience with the sight of the back of my head as I pay more attention to the computer than them makes it all possible.

  And for Chris, Angie, Elin, and all the other people who helped me brainstorm this story and the books that have gone into this world.

  About Bane

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Epilogue

  Dear Reader

  Also by Amelia C. Gormley

  About the Author

  More like this

  “What are you doing?” a low voice growled behind Rhys. He smiled to himself, abandoning the piano keys to fiddle with the buttons on his shirt.

  “Taking advantage of the fact that we’re in an area that’s already been patrolled.” He shrugged out of his shirt and turned to face Darius, leaning back against the piano in the lounge of the Denver hotel they were camped at for the night. Delta Company’s operational protocol dictated that when camping in areas that hadn’t been patrolled for revenants and rogue survivors, everyone slept in one barricaded room with guards posted to prevent them being cut off from one another in the event of an attack. But Colorado and most of the surrounding states had been swept long ago, before the Jugs had been exiled from the Colorado Springs Clean Zone.

  Which meant that for the first time since he was nine years old, Rhys could venture away from the safety of other people without fear of being shot or eaten. Whatever his misgivings about the reason for their journey, the lack of an audience and the ability to roam freely while on the march was a luxury he could get used to.

  Darius walked slowly forward until his body brushed Rhys’s, reaching out to tweak a bared nipple. Rhys gasped and shuddered, his body tensing, his cock filling. The look Darius gave him was half-heat and half-amusement. “I meant the piano. I didn’t know you could play.”

  “Oh . . . that.” Rhys blushed in the dim light of the setting sun as it filtered through dust-and-cobweb-covered windows. “There was a piano at the monastery. My mom used to play the flute, so she knew how to read music, and, well, there wasn’t a lot else we could do for entertainment, so she taught me and Cady to play. The music in hymnals is pretty easy. Or it was until we had to burn them.”

  Darius smiled, and there was something tender in it, something that only ever came out when he looked at Rhys. This hard-bitten soldier, fierce and world-weary, always had a soft regard for him. He cupped the back of Rhys’s neck with one hand, his skin warm. “Wish I’d known. We had plenty of time to find you a piano at Fort Vancouver. I’ll make sure we get one for you when we’re done with this business in the Clean Zone and go catch up to the rest of Delta Company at Lewis-McChord.”

  Discomfort trod quickly on the heels of Rhys’s affectionate surprise at the offer. There was no sense to Darius even suggesting such a thing. Even if Jugs could probably move pianos single-handedly, Rhys probably wouldn’t get much use out of it before life or fate or what-the-fuck-ever came along and screwed things up. “You don’t have time to worry about that. It doesn’t matter. I’ve been too busy to think about playing, too.”

  It had been almost a year and a half since Rhys had become Delta Company’s de facto supply officer. He’d needed something to occupy himself while Darius was out patrolling with his squadron, so the assignment made sense. The fact that he didn’t have the abilities of a Jug meant that taking him along was asking for trouble. If he took charge of inventory and provisions, then another Jug was freed up to help their comrades sweep the formerly populated areas for revenants and pockets of survivors instead. Rhys was happy to be useful and grateful for the opportunity to pull his weight in the face of the muttered criticisms some of the other Jugs leveled against having a civvie in their midst. His contribution to their operation was now quantifiable, and he worked his ass off to make sure no one could accuse him of doing a sloppy or inaccurate job of it.

/>   The past six months had been particularly demanding. Last fall, the squadron that had escorted a group of civilians to Colorado Springs had brought back word that the Clean Zone’s Department of Pandemic Research and Prevention had summoned Rhys to have his apparent immunity to the Bane virus tested. While technically the Clean Zone didn’t have the authority to command him or the Jugs to do a damned thing—and the fact that they apparently didn’t realize it was more than a little troubling—Rhys had been unwilling to decline the opportunity to understand why he wasn’t infected.

  He should have been, a dozen times over. Since the day the revenants had attacked the monastery where Rhys, his family, and a handful of other survivors had sheltered for seven years, he’d been exposed to various strains of Bane more times than he could count. He’d been in close quarters with people dying of the Rot, the illness that manifested with the Beta strain. He’d grappled with revenants, the feral, cannibalistic victims infected by the Gamma strain. He’d gotten rev blood all over him while trying to keep them from eating him. He’d even been bitten by one.

  And he’d been exposed hundreds of times to the nonlethal Alpha strain of the virus that gave Darius and the Jugs their superhuman speed, strength, and reflexes. To no apparent effect.

  He wanted to know why, especially if finding out came with the opportunity to help prevent another outbreak. When his summons had arrived, though, Delta Company had just begun preparations to leave Fort Vancouver and move their base of operations closer to Seattle. He’d had to quickly prepare their inventory for transport and make sure they had enough supplies to get them through the transition from a well-established base to someplace entirely unsettled. And in the process, he’d had to catch his replacement up on where everything stood and prepare her to oversee the transition to Lewis-McChord in his absence.

  “It wouldn’t have taken long,” Darius argued, interrupting his musings. He swept a finger through the light film of dust on the lid of the piano at Rhys’s back.

  That was the other nice thing about traveling to areas that had already been patrolled. The Jugs had established way stations along the common routes to Colorado Springs and maintained them diligently during their semiannual treks to escort uninfected survivors to join the rest of the population in the Clean Zone. So their recent lodgings hadn’t had the same derelict feel that being out on patrol often did. If not for his unease about their destination, this journey would almost feel like a vacation.

  “I’ll make sure you have a piano to play at Lewis-McChord if you want one,” Darius added.

  Rhys swallowed and looked away. “Assuming I get to leave Colorado Springs with you.”

  “Hey.” Darius wiped the dust on his fatigues and hooked his finger under Rhys’s chin, forcing Rhys to meet his eyes. “Ain’t no way I’m letting them make you stay.”

  “What if they order you to?”

  Darius snorted. “They exiled us, remember? Told us we weren’t citizens, so they can’t order us to do shit. If they want to take you from me, well . . .” Darius’s lips twitched. “I’d like to see them try.”

  Rhys’s mouth curved in an answering grin. He loved Darius’s sense of humor. It was wry and understated and didn’t shine through all that often, but when it did, he always made Rhys laugh. Even though he was a big, scary-looking guy who could be downright lethal.

  Darius’s smile faded and his face softened. His lips brushed Rhys’s. “Not leaving you behind, boy.”

  Rhys closed his eyes as they started to sting and grasped twin handfuls of Darius’s shirt, pulling him closer and giving him a deep kiss. Darius’s tongue slipped between his lips, and Rhys sucked on it greedily, trying to convey his devotion and gratitude with something more effective than words, which always failed him anyway.

  With a lurch, Darius had Rhys off his feet and seated atop the baby grand. That was better. More familiar than Darius’s tender solicitude. This was something he knew how to respond to. He leaned back and lifted his hips while Darius worked at his buckle and fly, sweeping the fatigues down his thighs. He stripped off Rhys’s boots with impatient jerks and tossed the lot of it aside before Rhys grabbed his neck and pulled him down for another ferocious kiss.

  “Not letting you go,” Darius muttered urgently, his mouth traveling down Rhys’s throat to his chest. He paused at Rhys’s nipples, tongue flicking, teeth scraping, then his mouth closed in a careful bite. Rhys yelped, his hips coming up to push his hard cock against Darius’s chest, but Darius wasn’t inclined to take the hint and move lower. He bit again, slowly increasing the pressure until Rhys’s moans became pained and he shoved at Darius’s shoulders, his body instinctively trying to escape the agony even as his libido reveled in it.

  “Yes,” he whimpered, caught in that eternal struggle between resisting the pain and embracing it. He could never surrender without a fight, no matter how badly he wanted it. It was as though it took his reflexes a while to get on board with what was happening.

  That, and it was also just sexy as hell to fight Darius and be overpowered. He needed Darius to defeat him, to make him take it. The conclusion was foregone, but that didn’t stop them from performing the steps of their well-rehearsed dance.

  Darius waited for Rhys’s cries to escalate to a scream and then switched nipples to repeat the process on the other one.

  “Darius!” Rhys clutched his shoulders, his fingers digging in. His body was warming up to the game now, and the pain was no longer something he needed to resist. “God. Yes. Hurt me.”

  Darius’s head came up, his lips shining with saliva and his rich brown eyes sparking fiercely in his mahogany face. “How bad you want me to hurt you, boy?”

  “Bad,” Rhys gasped, panting as the ache in his nipples began to fade into the background of his arousal. “I want . . .” Rhys’s voice trailed off, and he fought against his inability to ask for what he wanted. Even after two years with Darius, it was a struggle for him, shame choking off his words. For as long as he lived, he would hear voices in the back of his mind, condemning him for the desires (perversions) that had always come naturally. But he knew he wouldn’t get what he wanted unless he said it. Except when they were playing their game of Darius overpowering Rhys’s token resistance, the days when Darius would truly force him had ended when Rhys’s life no longer literally depended upon it. “I want marks.”

  Darius growled, his hands tightening on Rhys’s hips. “You sure about that? They won’t fade before we get to Colorado Springs.”

  Rhys shuddered, but he held Darius’s gaze. Darius knew that was his greatest challenge, owning up to the things he craved. When they were alone together, he could behave with utter abandon, but he struggled when someone else might think him deviant. He licked his lips, his throat tight as he said, “I need it. Need to feel it before we get there.”

  “Feel what?”

  Rhys closed his eyes and whispered, “That I’m yours.”

  “Damn right you are.” Darius abandoned his chest and crushed his mouth against Rhys’s, driving him down flat against the piano again. He grabbed Rhys’s dick and began jacking him like he meant business. He drew back and pinned Rhys with a glare. “Don’t want to wait before I fuck you tonight, but tomorrow on the march, we’re gonna find a nice switch for me to whip your ass come night. Leave welts for a week. Ain’t no one gonna doubt you’re mine.”

  “Yes! God, please!” Rhys thrashed, trying to thrust up into that stroking, but still pinned by Darius’s torso. It was too much, so intense he didn’t think he could bear it, so perfect he wanted to demand more. “Darius!”

  Then Darius’s weight was gone, and Rhys was cold and free, sprawled out on the piano.

  “Flip over, boy.”

  He rolled eagerly onto his stomach before Darius had even finished pulling the lube out of his pocket. The piano pressed uncomfortably into his midriff, but he was beyond caring. At least he could bend over it without his feet dangling off the floor. Darius had been right in the prediction he’d made two
years ago: once Rhys had received proper nutrition, he’d shot up in a late growth spurt and now he was one of the tallest men in Delta Company, second only to a gentle, soft-spoken man-mountain named Joe.

  A swipe of oil, the sound of Darius slicking it over his cock behind him, and then his body was against Rhys’s, nudging at his hole, breaching him with a stretch that always bordered on too much in the beginning. It was a pain Rhys had come to love, a pain he knew Darius would push him through until it all became searing, mind-breaking, soul-shattering pleasure.

  Which it did by the time Darius was balls-deep inside him. They groaned together.

  “Fuck! Darius . . .” Rhys pleaded, and Darius began to stroke. “Yes! Oh God. Right there. More!”

  “I got you,” Darius muttered, then grabbed Rhys’s hips, hauled him back until he was bent over further, and slammed into him again.

  So full. So right. Pleasure too great to endure. Beads of sweat popped out of his pores and trickled down his forehead until he wiped his face on his upper arm to keep it from dripping into his eyes. Darius’s hands were slick where they gripped his hips, his fingers leaving bruises. He hammered against Rhys’s flanks with the slap of damp skin on damp skin, grunting each time. Unable to wait any longer, Rhys grasped his cock, stroking quickly.

  “Yeah, that’s it. Shoot for me, boy. Let me feel it.”

  Rhys threw back his head and jerked harder, straining to reach the edge. Sometimes it was quick and easy, but other times he had to work for it, and those were the times when the resulting climax threatened to melt his spine and liquefy his brain. “Oh God. Oh, please. Please. I need it. Need to come. Darius . . .”

  “Do it. Come on, do it . . .” Darius’s voice had a hitch that said he was close to losing it himself, and Rhys could tell by the way Darius changed his angle and rhythm ever so slightly that he was trying to hold off. The shift helped him nail Rhys’s prostate more directly, though, giving Rhys the extra push he needed to get over the top.

  He yelled and dropped his head to his arm on the piano lid, while his other hand clutched his pulsing shaft, drawing out another stream with each pull. Darius shuddered and gripped him harder, groaning low in his chest before he collapsed against Rhys’s back. He only paused a moment before he began pressing fervent kisses to the side of Rhys’s sweaty neck.