We must have fallen asleep because I woke up with half of her on top of me, our legs and arms entwined. It was tough to tell where she started and I ended. She snored, which was adorable. Lydia hadn’t done that before, and I figure it was because her neck was bent slightly. I also knew I was once again hard. I closed my eyes. This really was like being sixteen again.

Her breasts poked out of her slip. I hadn’t seen them before, and I couldn’t get my gaze to move off the sight of her nipples. They were pink and perfect. The sight of them did nothing to ease my ever-hardening erection. She moaned slightly, and I gave up trying to think about unsexy things.

Instead, I kissed her. She smiled but didn’t open her eyes, so I kissed her again. And again. Lydia came awake, meeting my caress with her own. I loved when she kissed me back.

She pressed her hips against me, meeting the top of my cock with her pussy through her slip. I hissed and pulled back. “Careful, beautiful.”

“Why?” She had mischief in her eyes. “Isn’t that what we both want? I know you can’t be inside of me yet. But won't this also work? I mean, I’ve never done this before either. I know that felt good.”

She was right. It would definitely get me off, and if it didn’t for her, then I’d finish her off the way I had in the middle of the night. In fact, even thinking about sticking my finger inside of her made my straining erection beg for attention.

“You’re so sexy.” I kissed her hard, pressing my erection against her until we ground together.

She threw her head back, and I kissed her neck, feeling for her pulse so I could kiss her there, again and again. I was so glad she was alive. She existed in the world. It was a miracle. I reached for her breasts, pulling on her pink nipple. She must have liked it because she cried out, grinding against me.

I moaned, and then it was like my hips took over my whole body. We kissed, I squeezed, I begged. I might have slightly lost my mind, and then she came. I felt her wetness through her slip, and it was all I needed. With the next thrust of my hips, I was a goner. She was… perfection, and I was just lucky I got to touch her. I was completely unworthy that she wanted me so much.

She kissed my face, all over it. “Good morning, Deacon.”

I didn’t have words yet. I nodded, pulling her tighter. For a few minutes, we just breathed.

A knock came on the door. “Hey, bro, open up.”

Son-of-a-bitch, Micah came back a lot earlier than I thought he would. I shook my head. “All right hold on.”

I needed Lydia dressed. He didn’t get to see her half-naked. She loved me. I was the only one who got to do that. Without speaking, I picked up her clothes off the floor and started putting them on her. She grabbed my arm, stopping me. “I’ll do it.”

Lydia got on her knees and kissed me once before she dressed herself. Of course, she could clothe her own person. What had I been thinking?

I shoved on my pants and opened the door. Micah came inside slowly. “Was I interrupting? You could have told me to come back later. I take direction really well.”

My girl got to her feet. “We just got up. Moving a little slowly, that’s all.” She winked at me. “Good morning, Micah.”

“Morning, Lydia.” He stretched. “The whole town is meeting at noon. I was thinking we’d go and tell them what we think about the Vampires.”

Lydia looked between us. “How bad is it?”

“Bad.” I kissed her. I didn’t want Vampires and lunacy. I just wanted Lydia. I knew that wasn’t possible, so I made myself step back. “What are you doing today before the meeting?”

She zipped up her coat. “My job. I know I told you, but we never discussed it, really. I’m a schoolteacher.” She leaned up for one more kiss. “I’ll be at the meeting. The whole town pauses for these meetings.”

I watched her leave through the window, wishing I could call her back. “I’m in serious danger of not being able to think about anything else but her.”

“That’s a good thing. I’m not at all familiar with it, but I hear other people call that love. And since you’re just diving into sex, you’re bound to be preoccupied with that, too.”

Now that led to a good point. “Micah, this is embarrassing but…”

He held up his hand. “Don’t tell me. You need the drawing. Where. What. How it fits together.”

I shot him a look that I hoped said he should go screw himself. “Sorry,” he finally said. “What’s up?”

“I don’t want to get her pregnant.”

Micah nodded. He made a sound in the back of his throat that kind of resembled an hmm then walked to his bag. “Here. We’ll split them. This is a tribute to the fact that I value our friendship. I don’t give these out to just anyone. They’re hard to find. They were plentiful back in the time I was born. I used to get them from the school nurse.”

“What are they called?”

He twisted his lips. “Condoms. And when you run out, we’ll have to go scrounging up more. Believe it or not, I got these out of Icahn’s lair. The folks there had them. Anyway, use it. No unwanted babies. Stretch it out. Put it on. Cover up. Pretty self-explanatory. If you have any questions, I could try to explain. I think somehow you’ll manage.”

“Thanks.” I really meant it.

He smiled. “Yep. Oh, you know what else occurred to me?”

No, I really didn’t. “What’s that?”

“You never got inked.”

I shook my head. “What?”

“When you became a Warrior, we didn’t give you a tattoo. We all get them.”

That was right. I’d been remarkably aware of it at the time. It was another way they’d sort of let me know I didn’t belong with them. Everyone got a tat except for me. “I’m aware. The time for that has passed, don’t you think?”

“I think we screwed up, my friend. You didn’t have a traditional coming-out-to-fight night, and we didn’t think of it. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t need to be done. You’re a Warrior.”

I was ridiculously moved by the fact he brought it up. I’d decided, at some point, I didn’t care. Only, I did. “Maybe someday.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Someday? Right this very second. You’re with me. I’m the one who does the inking.”

“What?” He couldn’t be serious. “Here? How are you going to do that?”

He lifted up his bag. Exactly how much stuff did he have in there? Condoms? And tools to give tattoos? I’d brought warm clothes, water bottles, medicine, and writing paper. Weapons. He had ink?

“Sit down, Deacon. You’re long past due.”

I swallowed. Micah got to pick out all the Warrior tattoos. Or at least he had. Presumably, someone else did it now he wasn’t there. “What are you going to put on my back?”

“Wait and see, brother. Today’s just the outline. We’ll do color next week.”

This was proving to be a bizarre day, and it had just started. I hadn’t even had coffee yet.

My back burned badly. I wasn’t going to complain. Micah could have done a lot worse than an eagle for my Warrior tattoo. I wasn’t clear on why, and he wasn’t explaining. He told me I’d figure it out when I was supposed to. I wondered when he’d gotten so out there in his thinking.

The council called to order. I wasn’t surprised to see it was all made up of the same women as before. How could the men be involved in anything if they were only there half a year? Filling in for their men had been another bullshit statement.

I stood up. “Hey everyone, I’m Deacon. I think we’ve all met, sort of.”

Micah looked up at me. “You’re just launching in?”

“Yep.”

He nodded. “Awesome.”

“Here’s the thing. You lied to us, big time. You were going to hand us over to be killed. Yet, we still disposed of the Vampires holding your loved ones. They’re back.” This earned me a round of applause I hadn’t wanted or expected. Suddenly, I could feel all the eyes in the room on me. Their gazes crawled on my skin. I looked around until I found the one I sought. Lydia leaned against the wall. She smiled at me, and I could breathe again. Okay, this would be fine. “It’s not over. Your Vampire problem was a lot bigger than you knew.”

Micah rose. “The Vampires live by traveling, as much as possible, through underground tunnels.”

“That’s right,” Lydia’s father, who was a burly man with a round, kind face, answered. “We saw that.”

I nodded. “Yes, sir. That’s right.” I was proud of myself for pulling out the sir. I hadn’t been raised with manners. I’d had to figure them out as I went along. “Yours turns out to be a centralized one. That means at some point in the not too distant future, lots of other Vampires and weird, psycho scientists are going to know we broke you out and killed all of them.”

My fellow Warrior finished for me. “They’re going to come back.”

“I can’t go back into those cages,” a man shouted out from somewhere in the back.

Micah and I made eye contact. They weren’t getting it. It was always my job to deliver the bad news. “They aren’t going to put you back to work. They’re going to kill all of you.”

This got everyone’s attention, and the room fell silent. Finally, a voice I loved hearing spoke up. “What do you propose to do, Deacon? There’s no way you’d leave it like that.”

As it was, we had come up with two ideas. But why did she persist in assuming I would be able to help? I’d told her time and again I wasn’t a hero. She stared at me with such hope in her gaze. Lydia was so beautiful, truly the loveliest woman who ever—

Micah answered, interrupting my thoughts. “We do have an idea. Two of them. Well, technically three.” He knocked me in the shoulder before he whispered in my ear. “If you keep looking at her like you want to see her naked, everyone in this room will know what you guys are doing. Her father might put you in a ditch. She’s grown, but she’s still his daughter.”

I nodded. He was right. I seriously needed to pull it together. I tore my gaze off Lydia and spoke to the crowd. “Here’s the three things you guys need to decide. The first one, we’ll leave you guys alone. This really isn’t our business, but we’d like to help.” And I didn’t want to have to leave Lydia. She’d offered to run once but now her father was back, her mother was dying, and she might not think it fair to take off and leave them all behind. I’d have to see. “But this is your town. You did want us dead or, at the very least, you were willing to let the Vampires kill us.”

Gracie, one of the council members rose. “We are all in your debt, Deacon. We’ll never be able to say sorry enough to you. You saved everyone. As the prophecy said you would.”

I shuddered as calls of the prophecy and yes filled the room. I wasn’t anyone’s destined savior. No, they’d have to get past that idea.

“Can we all agree we don’t like any plan where they leave us?” Gracie continued and shouts of yes happened again.

Micah nudged me. “We knew they wouldn’t like that one any more than you do.”

“You can still go.” I had to point that out to him.

He shook his head. “We do this together.”

“Option two,” I shouted out again. “And I want you to hear both options. Then Micah and I will go outside and let you vote. This is your town, not ours. We’re only visitors here.” I forced myself not to look at Lydia again. It was like I was addicted. “We run away. There’s no shame in it. Some battles can’t be won. There are always going to be more of them than us because the sick thing is that they can make us them. They catch one of us, turn us into them, and the cycle continues. We leave here. Tonight. Pack only what you can carry and come with Micah and me back to Genesis. It’s a long walk. Two weeks. But we can get there.” No one reacted, as I requested so I continued. “The third option is more complicated. We still need help, but we fight. How do we do that? Micah leaves, tonight, and goes as fast as he can to Genesis. At a faster pace and by himself, he’ll cut the time there in half. He returns with reinforcements.”

Maybe. This was where he and I differed. I wasn’t convinced they would help. He was. And that was why he had to be the one to go. He was Micah Lyons, prince of Genesis. If anyone could convince them to help, it would be him, not me. I finally finished. “In the meantime, I teach you how to fight. How to defend your homes. How to beat them. So after this battle, everyone knows Geronimo is defended.”

Gracie looked me in the eyes. “What if the battle happens before Micah gets back?’

“That’s a risk. It certainly is. It’s also a risk that they catch us in the long walk to Genesis. Or some of you freeze to death. I will stay here until Micah returns with help.” Or came back without it, whichever the answer turned out to be. I could keep them from knowing, but I wouldn’t. “The other risk is Genesis says no.”

Micah shook his head. “Deacon doesn’t have faith. Not in people. He sees the worst in the world, and he has every right to do so. He still climbed, injured, into Vampire hell and brought your people back. He doesn’t think Genesis will come, but I know they will. I’m neither simple nor naïve. They’ll come. If you guys chose that option, remind him to trust me, if nothing else, when I’m gone.”

With that statement, we both exited the room. They could tell us what to do. This was their town. We were visitors who stayed to help, but we wouldn’t be caught in their honey trap again. They were going to start self-determining. They could run, or they could fight. We couldn’t—wouldn’t—do it all for them.

Sitting outside in the cold, I really didn’t know which way the people would choose. Micah didn’t have a second thought. “They’ll fight.”

“These are people who spent no less than three generations honoring a deal with the Vamps. They caused who knows how many deaths. I feel sorry for them as a whole and even worse for all the victims who ended up in the water down there in Vampland. They’ll run.”

Micah shook his head. “You and I had different childhoods. Big time differences. Before they were Mom and Dad Super Warriors, they were Mom and Dad in the world before the monsters came. We had kind of an idyllic life. We weren’t rich, although I doubt you’d get exactly what that meant if I explained it. Icahn gave you some pop references but not enough to really get what the pre-apoc was like.”

“You’re right. I’m learning, though. The brown houses that all look the same. The cars Chad builds. You wanted to fly.” Which blew my mind. Human beings had made machines that flew in the sky? And viruses that caused Vampirism… With all the good, came the bad.

He nodded. “There was a lot of preoccupation with abuse. Naming it for what it was, calling it out for what it was, helping victims. Look, I was a teenager. We learned the signs in school. Our counselors told us to come to them if we thought someone was being hurt. Now?” He shook his head. “Abuse is the norm. We’re all so fucked up from the shit that’s happened to us, how can anyone know what exactly all this abuse has done to our psyches? The way I see this town? Three generations of people who have been beat down. How can you fight a bully like the Vampires if no one is ever around to teach you how to make a fist? They’re going to fight. They’re tired of being knocked around. Like you were, Deacon. When you first showed up? You were so sick of being kicked in the teeth.”

He was right. I didn’t know what to make of everything he said. Abuse? Sure. That was life. Vampires came. They ate you, or they didn’t. Maybe they scared the shit out of you all of the time. You kept living until you died. I’d wanted there to be more. Lydia was more. But the world? It just sucked and was going to continue to do so until the whole place ended. That’s all there was to it.

Lydia came out of the meeting, walking toward us. I took a deep breath. Her face was a mask to me. I didn’t know her well enough yet to read her thoughts before she said them. Besides, she made no sense to me. Why me? There were easier, better men she could choose from.

She stopped in front of us. “Option three. Everyone is tired of how it’s been. We fight.”

Micah stood. “I knew it. I’ll get ready to go. Look for me in two weeks. One week there. One week back.”

“You’re not going to be that fast.”

He rolled his eyes. “Come on, Eagle, trust me.”

I’d been given a nickname, and I didn’t even know why. “What’s your tattoo? I’d never seen it.”

“Apollo.” He shrugged. “Sometime I’ll tell you why.”

I didn’t know what or who Apollo was, so I’d have no choice but to wait. So much of what Micah knew, I never would. I’d have liked to have known what an idyllic childhood was.

Lydia brushed my hair out of my eyes. “Eagle?”

“He’s put half a tattoo on my back.”

Her eyes widened. “What?”

“I’ll show you… later, if you want.” I couldn’t assume she’d be by later. She might have other plans.

She kissed my cheek. “Count on it. Can you teach us to kill the Werewolves, too? I really, really hate them.”

“Yes.” That I would do. I never got to say goodbye to Micah. He took off after the meeting. I understood his need for speed, was grateful for it, and I hoped he could make it back as fast as he said he could.

Now that I wasn’t just some guy who they all expected to be gone, taken by the Vampires, more people showed up to my lessons. They paid attention, and I was able to go on for several hours before anyone needed a break.

Some of my students were downright shaking with cold when I finally realized they needed to go in for the night. Even Lydia, who withstood the chill very well, had a blue tinge to her lips. I took her hand in mine and walked her back to her parents.

She shook her head. “Let’s go back to your cabin.”

“You have a family. You should spend time with them.” I stepped back. “I’m not going to be around for a bit. I have to patrol. I’m going to get a little bit nocturnal. Stay up all night, sleep until the late afternoon. Do it again.” That was how I would keep them all safe until Micah came back. Like it or not, this was my role, this was how I lived, and what I did. My heart ached. I wanted to be awake when she was, I wanted to sleep with her in my arms.

Lydia nodded. “I see.” She reached up to kiss me gently on the lips. “Be careful out there. I love you.”

I kept that with me the entire night. No monsters presented themselves, and with the morning sun greeting me, I made my way back home. There was still the risk of Werewolves in daylight. Micah had set up his alert fence, and I’d hear loud crashes if the Werewolves showed up. It was a good thing exhaustion and I were well acquainted. I’d sleep with one ear alert at all times.

I was shocked to find Lydia sitting in my cabin. She was still dressed from the night before. “You’re okay.”

“I am.” I walked toward her. “Did you stay here all night? You have to work. You can’t keep my hours.”

She shook her head, rising when I approached and putting her arms around me. “The other teachers are going to cover my class for the next few weeks. You can’t do this alone. I can’t patrol, not yet, anyway. But I can be on your schedule with you. Someone has to see to it you’re okay since we’re all counting on you for the time being. That someone is me.” She sniffed. “Not that I would have allowed it to be anyone else.”

“I…” I really didn’t have anything to say. I was utterly moved by her choice.

“You need to eat.” She handed me bread with some cheese inside. “It’s not much, but you probably don’t want a lot in your stomach right before bed. It sits there. Makes me feel sick, anyway. Bigger meal when you get up.”

I ate the sandwich she gave me while standing right there, washed it down with water, and was lying down in the bed before I knew what had happened. Why was this so shocking? “No one has ever told me my welfare mattered to them before.”

She shook her head. “You were meant to come here and be with me.”

I groaned. “Prophecy?”

“I’m not a believer. But I see all the good in you.” She crawled in next to me. “I put blankets over the shades. We’ll make it dark enough to sleep. Later, you’re showing me your eagle.”

She was warm. I was achy and tired. I still wasn’t one hundred percent better from my Werewolf attack. I held onto her like she was a lifeline. “Lydia, I’m afraid I’m going to get too accustomed to this. What will I do when it goes away?”

“Like Micah said, trust me.”

I did. That was the scariest part of all.