Equinox: Celestial Awakenings Book One Read online

  Drake frowns slightly, and I feel the pang of disappointment in my gut. More than anything right now, I want to rip off my pants, shove this man’s face between my thighs, and have him lick me raw, but I’m not about to tell him that. Talk about coming on way too strong. For now, I have to hold my horses and let things progress organically. But watching the way his tongue flicks out over his bottom lip to moisten it makes my insides clench and my pussy ache for attention. It was fun sucking him off earlier, but for fuck’s sake, if I don’t get my own release soon, this pent up sexual frustration is going to be the death of me.

  Maybe it won’t be as bad as I’m thinking, though. If he’s like every other man I’ve ever met, he’ll figure out what he wants and demand it soon enough, anyway. He may be a Wanderer now, but his beginnings were humble like mine. He was a Nomad just like me, and that kind of upbringing isn’t something you forget. A woman’s place in Nomadic society is now, and has always been, at the beck and call of a man. Whether that’s milking his cows, his ego, or his cock, it doesn’t matter. And despite his promising start as a knight in shining armor, once he’s unlocked his full potential as a sexual being, I don’t expect Drake to be any different...

  Chapter Fourteen

  Drake

  I can feel Finn judging me before I even open my eyes. It’s like his judgement of my sleeping arrangements are a bone, and he’s a rogue puppy. He knows there’s something to bark about but can’t quite get his paws on it to figure it out. Regardless of what he does or doesn’t know, he’s standing guard like he’s discovered the secret of the century. If the guy’s going to be a Class A creeper, he needs to learn to inhale through his nose, because I can hear the mouth-breather from the bed. Sighing heavily, I crack one eye open and peer at him standing in the doorway with a low growl.

  “What?” I whisper hoarsely, not even bothering to disguise the contempt in my voice.

  Finn raises an eyebrow and glances at the mountain of covers that are bundled around me as he crosses his arms over his chest. He leans against the door frame and makes a show of looking at the small lump at my side in the heavy blankets that are pulled clear up to my neck. They’re tucked in over the tops of my shoulders to ward against the chill that the stone does nothing to hold back. I know good and damn well that’s not what he’s pointing out. Rolling my eyes, I sigh and shrug my shoulders. Finn chuckles and nods. “I thought so. I’ll let Kira know that she’s in here, then.”

  Groaning, I lift the covers and peer down at Nova, who’s snuggled into my side, one arm looped over my stomach. Her face is buried in my tunic where it bunches around my armpit, and one of her legs is lazily draped over me. Her thigh is against my hip like she’s got some kind of claim on me. She doesn’t, but you’d be hard-pressed to convince anyone who saw the possessive way she’s wrapped around me right now otherwise.

  I’ve got my arm looped across her back as well, holding her tightly against my uninjured side as she sleeps. The truth is, if I loosen my grip on her, she becomes fitful and agitated in her sleep, which leads me to believe that she’s not accustomed to sleeping alone. She must be someone that requires the illusion of safety that lying next to another provides. It makes me wonder what kind of life she had with Skink’s tribe, but I’ve barely known the girl a day. I’m not going to go prying into the intimate details of a life she may not want to share. And I’m probably not the best person to provide anyone comfort. Since she snuck in here last night after loudly tossing and turning for what seemed like hours, I wasn’t going to turn her away to fend for herself.

  Truth be told, I actually slept better once she was curled into my side. Her presence had a calming effect on my rattled nerves after the run in that Finn and I had with whatever the hell kind of booby trap we tripped while exploring late last night in the ruins.

  I stare at Finn as he maintains his position in the doorway, a smug look on his face like he’s discovered some big secret. He must be convinced that Nova and I fucked all night with the way he looks like the corners of his mouth are gonna touch his eyeballs if his grin gets any bigger. When it gets to be uncomfortable, I snarl quietly, “What? I admitted she’s in here. Do you want me to throw back the covers and prove it to you? Did Kira send you after proof of life?”

  Finn raises one eyebrow with a smirk, shaking his head. “No, I don’t need to see the evidence of the spoils of war, but the sun’s already peeking over the Lost Mountain. It’ll be daybreak soon. If we go now, we can probably avoid running into any hordes in the forest. I can’t say for sure we won’t come across a rogue zombie, but I rather prefer the odds of two to one, than us versus a horde. And we still need to assess the extent of the damage done to the ship to figure out what we need to repair it.”

  I push the covers down to my waist, groaning softly. I give Finn a look like he’s an idiot and motion with my free hand that Nova and I are both, in fact, fully dressed in the same clothes we were the night before. Nova winces at the onslaught of light and slaps around on my chest, feeling for the blankets. When she finds them, she snatches them back up over her head and burrows into my side. I shift in the bed underneath her, but as I try to slide out from under her, she hugs tighter to my side, whimpering softly until I stop moving.

  Untangling my good arm from around Nova, I reach behind my head and snag one of the half dozen pillows that I’m propped up on and fling it in Finn’s direction. He dodges it easily, raising an eyebrow at me as I gently nudge Nova awake, shifting her easily over my body to the far side of the bed so that I can slide out of it. When I do, I glance down at the indention that I left there and see her small frame dwarfed by it as she rolls onto her back, frowning up at me with sleepy eyes.

  My gaze meets hers and unspoken words are exchanged as a pang of guilt twists my gut. I inhale deeply and look away from her before I become transfixed by the inexplicable feeling that grips me every time our eyes meet. It’s something I can’t even begin to explain to myself, much less anyone else. I’ve known this girl for a day, yet it feels like we’ve been inside each other’s orbit for a lifetime. I can’t say I’m particularly thrilled about the quest that the Dome Dweller seems to have convinced her to pursue. But Nova is drawn to her in much the same way that I find myself drawn to Nova.

  After Nova snuck in my room last night and crawled into bed with me, neither of us were able to sleep as the ruins creaked and groaned. The tension in the room was charged like a storm cloud ready to let loose on the unsuspecting world. Neither of us was willing to cross the line to unleash the storm. After a while, she confided in me that she was growing tired of the Nomad lifestyle. Before we’d crashed into each other’s lives, she’d been wishing on stars that whatever was inside the parcel would deliver her into something new. She said it’d been half her reason for stealing it in the first place. I didn’t have to ask the other half of her reasoning.

  I understand the sentiment, because I’ve been in her shoes… well, if she wore any. The clan can be a lifesaver in the harsh lands outside of the protective domes that house over half of humanity, but clan life can also be a hard life full of brutal demands. Especially for the women, and I highly doubt that a woman as beautiful as Nova went unnoticed in the shadows in her clan. On the flip side, the life of a Wandering Nomad is really just one lonely adventure after another strung together. She wants to get away and I’m tired of being alone, so I agreed to stick together because something is happening in our world.

  Strange things are definitely afoot in these ruins, and the sooner we get out of here, the better. Nova is determined to help Kira and Finn out. If that means dragging along the Outlander and the too-innocent-for-this-kind-of-world Dome Dweller, so be it. Four against the world is better odds than two, anyway, and even if they suck at sailing, at least it’ll be a small crew. If we can get the boat repaired. Groaning, I stretch my arms over my head, schooling my face to not show emotion as the pain shoots down my side from my injured shoulder. It hurts like bloody hell, but it works, so that’s a posit
ive.

  Glancing over my shoulder at Nova, I offer her what I hope is a reassuring smile and follow Finn out of the room and down the hall to what he affectionately refers to as the ‘armory’. He gestures at the room with a grand flourish, halfway bowing as I walk past him. But when I get inside the room, I can see the reason for his dramatics. The room is lined wall to ceiling with every kind of weaponry one could imagine, from the common steel weapons that I’m accustomed to using to some that I’ve never seen before.

  Finn helps himself, strapping what appears to be several small guns to his sides befores he moves to a chest and opens it to dig through its contents. I walk inside and immediately, my eye is drawn to my preferred weapon of choice - a gilded bow with a leather quiver full of arrows hanging beside it. I approach it cautiously because I don’t trust anything here, but when I see the inlay that’s carved into the riser of the bow, I can’t help but touch it. The moment my fingertips brush over the gold etchings, a wind whistles through the room, lifting my hair off the back of my neck. Closing my eyes, I decided to go for it and snatch the bow down off the hook its hanging on.

  My entire body tenses as I prepare to have hellfire rain down on me. When nothing happens, I give myself a quick little nod and yank down the quiver too, looping it over my shoulder before turning to Finn. “I know the squall took out the main mast. Nova said it almost took my head off when it came down. I suspect we’ll need an axe and, hopefully, a tree big enough to make a new one. Before the storm, there wasn’t any other significant damages to the ship, just the normal Navian idiocy.”

  Finn raises one eyebrow at me with a slight smile on his face. “Navian idiocy?”

  I nod. “They like to shoot cannons at each other. I’m not sure if they find it entertaining or what, but in case you didn’t know, cannonballs leave massive holes in the sides of boats. You’d think for a people that spend half their lives on water, they’d spend less time trying to sink each other. Apparently, it’s one of their many barbaric past times. This boat was in fairly good condition. I’d been scouting it for a while before I stole it. This particular Navian captain has a fondness for the harbor where I stole it from. I hadn’t planned to have Nova on board when I did, but life very rarely goes as planned.”

  Finn smiles knowingly. “Ah, yes, Kira told me about the necklace. Why would you steal that from her?”

  Shrugging my shoulders, I try to hide my surprise. I stole a necklace? She stole a necklace? What would Skink want with a necklace? “Is that the… necklace she’s wearing?”

  Finn’s shoulders bounce in unison. “I’ve no idea, but I’d assume so? Didn’t you get a look at it when you pilfered it?”

  Shaking my head, I laugh. “No. I just stole it from her because I could, honestly. I didn’t even know what it was. But I knew that if her clan leader sent her to steal it from the Navians, that it was valuable. Now, I’m not so sure. A crystal necklace seems like nothing more than a trinket… an insignificant bauble. What I can’t figure out is what Skink wanted with it.”

  Finn narrows his eyes at me. “You seem to know her clan leader fairly well.”

  I roll my eyes as I squat down and lift a long sword from the floor. I hold the blade out in front of me as I turn it from side to side to inspect it for knicks and dings. “Well? Not now, but I know him. He’s an efficient leader. I’ll give him that much. His people are provided for, but he and I would likely butt heads over some things, including his assumption that he's entitled to certain things…”

  Finn catches my gaze as I sheath the sword in a scabbard and fasten it around my waist, where it hangs at my side. His voice is guarded as he continues, “Like women?”

  My eyes must flash with my annoyance, because Finn nods, then presses on, “Nova?”

  I shake my head quickly. “No, I didn’t know Nova before yesterday. She must have joined the clan after I left, but I knew women like her. I’ve been gone for a long time. Long enough to be forgotten by most, but not long enough to forget the clan’s creed. To the leader goes the spoils and to his men go the leftovers. If Skink sent Nova after something that valuable, then he’d have considered her to be one of his best scavengers. He won’t let her go easily.”

  Finn scoffs at my insinuation. “This isn’t the dark ages of humanity. Men don’t own women.”

  I give him a look and he sighs because we both know how wrong he is. “I don’t make the rules, Finn, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to enforce something that set humanity back two hundred years. Mankind survives the apocalypse and we’re right back to the back asswards philosophy of women being property. And it’s part of the reason I left the clan. No woman should feel obligated to be with a man, for his pleasure or otherwise. Nobody should be forced to bend to the will of another.”

  “Part?”

  I look up at him, tilting my head to the side. “What?”

  He points at me with one of the ancient-looking pistols and clarifies, “You said the clan’s treatment of women was part of the reason you left. What’s the other part?”

  My blood runs cold as I feel small hands on my back, instantly hovering over the Berserker tattoo that’s inked there underneath the leather tunic. The voice is soft, but knowing as a finger traces the rune through the leather. I know without a doubt that it’s Nova, because she’s the only one who’s seen the tattoo well enough to be able to outline it like that. Or to know what it means and why it’s significant to me. “Fear…”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Nova

  Drake’s entire body tenses when I utter the one word that no Nomad man wants to have as a part of his vocabulary. It’s not so much an accusation on my part as it is an observation, and he doesn’t deny it. It’d be pointless for him to try when we both know it’s simply me stating the truth and nothing more. Instead, he reaches across his back with his good arm and grabs hold of my wrist, flattening my hand against his back with a grunt.

  I wince at the strength at which he holds my hand against him, but when I stop struggling to snatch my hand free, he relents and lets me pull it away. I shake it out, twisting and turning my wrist where he gripped me. He turns around to face me, peering down at me like I just kicked him in the nuts. “What? You and I both know it’s true, and it’s time you stop hiding behind your tough exterior like you aren’t afraid of anything. We’re all afraid of something. It’s unhealthy to be fearless. Despite your insistence to the contrary, you’re quite human, Drake.”

  His mouth turns down into a frown as I push past him, my body brushing against his. I wander over to where Finn is digging through what looks like an old school treasure chest, and he glances up at me when my shadows falls over him. Finn pulls a pair of short, curved dueling knives out of the chest. He holds them up so I can see them, but Drake bumps me aside before I can take the slightly curved, delicately etched scabbard from Finn. He grabs it and turns it over in his hands, his frown deepening as the light catches the details on the leather. “These weapons are unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. The closest I could put them would be something Navian, but I’ve never seen a Navian with anything this sophisticated before.”

  As I catch my balance beside him, I scoff and stick my hand up between his muscular arms, snatching the weapon from his hands before he realizes what I’m doing. He grabs for it, but I skitter back out of his reach and swing the pilfered blade around behind my back as he whirls around to face me. Smirking, I shake my head at him and bring one hand around in front of me as I wag one finger at him. “Tsk, tsk, tsk… never turn your back on a woman raised in the wild. We may be viewed as the weaker sex, but we are not weak…not when we’re properly prepared.”

  I take several steps away from him until the small sword is pinned between the small of my back and the masonry of the room’s wall. Finn and Drake are both watching me with barely veiled interest as I pull the weapon around in front of myself and unsheath it. A beautifully crafted silver blade slides free of the leather. It glints as the torchlight reflects off of c
arefully placed divots in the steel. I’m no expert in metallurgy, but even a person who’d never seen any kind of weapon close-up could tell that this one was made by someone with a high level of skill. And judging by the gemstones embedded into the hilt of the sword, I’d guess it was created for someone important... or someone who thought they were.

  The blade is short and narrow, widening as it curves over itself at the end. It reminds me of something I’ve seen depicted in what few books survived of a breed of people called pirates. It’s definitely meant for close combat. The ornate carvings that flank the hilt on the short, metal handle look like octopus tentacles… or maybe a kraken. Regardless of the intricacies in the details, this is a gorgeous weapon. I glance up to see Drake turn to me with one eyebrow raised. I hold the cutlass up in front of me and declare, “I’m taking this one.”