The bastard smiled. He fucking smiled. Clover cocked her head slightly, irritation etching itself across her features as a mask to keep it from showing that the curve of his lips made her heart flutter. Like a fucking teenager when the bread boy tossed her a smirk. Except, for the seamstress, the man standing before her was no a bread boy – he was a commanding general in the Northam military. Quinn was her sworn enemy, a cog in the machine that she was desperately attempting to destroy. And he was still so fucking attractive as he stood there laughing at her anger.
Fuck.
Clover felt the weight of his amused eyes on her, searching her face. That’s when she realized that General Quinnlay Belvedere was teasing her – teasing her. And while he did so, her rough edges softened slightly, despite her intention to push him away with her displeasure. To make sure that the first time they slept together was the only time. Yet, it seemed her body had other ideas as she felt a warmth slide across the back of her neck and sent a shiver down her spine by just looking at him, dressed in that suit, alone in a room together. Beneath the pale blue of her shirt, her heart pounded a furious beat that only threatened to race all the faster.
Stormy eyes swept the length of his arm at the gesture, following it briefly to the door. Her exit. The opportunity to flee. To end this. Turbulent gaze examined the closed doors, as she shifted her satchel higher up on her shoulder to give herself something to do with her hands. Because they were already itching to tear his clothes off of him. It hadn’t just been a byproduct of surprise from finding him instead of his father that night. It clearly wasn’t something that a one-time fling had resolved. If anything, it had fed the fire of her need, of her desire. Clover wanted him. Wanted to be wanted by him.
Chloe warred against her impulses, begging for her to dip her head and slip from the room with a murmured apology. Chloe needed to remain soft, pliable, meek - someone that no one else wouldn’t bother to remember. But Quinn Belvedere was the sun against her shadows, revealing all her hidden desires, revealing who she was and offering her what she wanted. An escape.
Swallowing, Clover slid the satchel from her shoulder and set it beside the door. Eyes glimmered a dangerous blue as she caught his stare and felt the heat of it. He didn’t want her to leave. A slow smile curled her lips and she moved away from him, further into the slightly cluttered room. Reminiscent of their last encounter, the spy found a couch and slowly proceeded to draw back the dust-covering. She discarded it on the floor beside and stood behind it. In silence she examined it, before she was at his side and grabbed his arm in much the same manner as he had. With a firm tug, she drew him to the couch and pushed him back so he sat. “Like that. As though I am an object to be moved easily from one spot to another.” Clover said, but the bite in her voice was replaced with a subtle purr.
Svelte form lingered before him, just out of reach as she examined the suit against the patterned upholstery. “My company cannot be bought at all, Quinn.” She breathed, softly the storm of her eyes swirling with emotions that would be all too familiar to him. The same ones that shone brightly two months ago in the dark of his room. “It can be requested…” she punctuated the word by stepping forward and standing between his knees. Her skirts were the only thing the brushed his tailored pants.
“Whether it be for ruin…” a heady pause “…or rapture.” The words filled the space between them, echoing the text written in his beautiful script, held inside the sketchbook that was one of her most treasured possessions. Clover took another half step forward, feeling the pressure of his legs against hers and trying to conceal how furiously her heart beat for him.
The general watched as her eyes flickered to the door. Though his face still wore that curious smile, he felt his shoulders tense with anticipation, the subtle shift in posture blessedly masked by the structure of his impeccable jacket. For a brief moment, a sensation to which he was wholly unaccustomed swept through him: uncertainty. Quinn was objectively good at reading people; he wouldn’t have survived this long in Northam’s den of wolves if he lacked that particular skill. So why was this woman so infuriatingly difficult for him to decipher, and even harder for him to predict? One moment she was demure and soft-spoken, ducking behind Maria and focusing on her needle and thread more intensely than any seamstress of her caliber should have needed to…and the next she was challenging him as if her own general’s insignia were pinned to her chest.
Still, the moment stretched between them, heady and taut. His heart continued its drumroll against his breastbone, deafening in the silence, hot anticipation sweeping like flames up the inside of his ribcage. His fingers curled into fists at his side at the memory of her silken flesh beneath his touch, and for a moment he hated how much sensual power she still held over him after all these months apart. But even his hatred was laced with pleasure—a poison so saccharine sweet he could practically taste it, taste her—and all at once he felt that familiar darkness bubbling to the surface as though beckoned.
She wielded her boldness like a weapon and a shield—and yet, for all she bared her teeth and growled, her raised hackles betrayed her defenses. He had no intention of stopping her exit if she wished to leave, but he couldn’t deny that it would be a fight nevertheless to keep his composure. If nothing else, he had proven to himself that the inferno they’d sparked together that first night blazed on even after all this time. And it wasn’t just his memories that were filled with her; no, his body remembered too, haunted by the ghost of a pleasure the likes of which his nerves had not known before or since. A true test of his mental mettle…a fight against every muscle and sinew and bone which silently begged her to remain. And none of which believed for a moment that the seamstress couldn’t feel the same way in return.
When she led him across the room to the old sofa, electricity—and relief—raced through his limbs like heat lightning on a summer evening. The general lowered himself slowly to the cushions, which were stiff with age but gave into his weight with a breath of old dust. Whorls of airborne particles danced in the narrow beams of light let in through the gaps in the thick curtains, catching the sun like a halo of sparks around her silhouette as she positioned herself between his knees.
A shiver raced down his spine as her sumptuous lips formed the single syllable of his name. The word a purr, but it made Quinn want to roar. He sought her gaze, which flashed bright blue in the sunbeam as she sauntered closer, and his desire instantly rekindled with a flutter of long lashes as she looked down to him. “Mmm…so you did get my note,” he murmured, his pulse hammering against his breastbone as her legs brushed against his thighs. The smirk he wore darkened with memory and hunger, a look mirrored in the shadows of her own gaze. “I got yours as well.” He straightened his spine and threw back his shoulders, which angled him that much closer to her. “But I won’t apologize for…this.”
He squeezed his legs together, pinning her firmly between his knees, then reached for her hands to tug her forward—insistent, to be sure, but far more gently than when he’d pulled her into this room, a subtle sign that he was heeding her advice. Their faces were suddenly inches apart, and he might have grinned if the spiced, intoxicating perfume of her hadn’t washed over him like a spell. His dark gaze flicked to her lips and back again, but he did not move…not yet. When he spoke, his voice was low and thick, almost a whisper.
“Would you be pleased to know that I’ve thought of nothing but your lips since that night?” he crooned. Drawing closer, ever the picture of physical control, his lower lip brushed featherlight and electrifying against hers as he continued. “Well…” He relinquished her fingers to rest his palms against her hips, grip tight. “More than just your lips.” He narrowed his amber eyes, which glinted with want. “Please consider this a request, Chloe. And whether it’s for rapture, or for ruin...” A pause. “I'll leave it up to you.”
The devilish smirk that tugged at one side of his perfect mouth made her want to capture his lips with her own. The urge to tangle her hands into the thick waves of his dark hair nearly overwhelmed her. Fingers twitched are her sides as he drew closer to her. Clover was unable to hide the way her breath hitched in her throat the moment that his hands grabbed hers. Quinn’s breath rushed across her mouth as the pressure of his legs held her in place. Memories flooded her, igniting her blood and electrifying her nerves. She recalled the way he tasted, felt, moved, moaned. It rushed back from behind the mental door she had attempting to lock that night behind.
Closer still and Clover thought she may never breathe again, and that wouldn’t even be so bad. Each heady syllable punctuated the air between them. It was as though the general had seen her dreams, the dark and sultry nature of her private thoughts. How she had longed to hear him say such things to her, headed and raw and inviting. Lips brushed and every single tense muscle relaxed, unfurling like a rose bud. A longing to dissolve into his familiar intoxicating presence consumed her and the spy knew that there was no way out. There was no end to her hunger for him. Their one night stand only threw kerosene onto their initial embers. The tryst this evening would follow the same path. Even as she leapt from this cliff, Clover knew there may not be a soft landing at impact.
And frankly, she didn’t fucking care.
Quinn’s grip on her shifted from hands to hips, the contact sending an anticipatory shiver racing up her spine. Their lips brushed, barely, but enough and all the seamstress wanted was more. More of his mouth. More of his skin. More of him whispering words into her ear. Desire lit in her stormy gaze at his inquiry. The alluring way he asked permission, asked after she had made it clear that she was not his possession to manhandle. Heat exploded across her hips, turning molten inside of her. She needed him.
“Mmmm,” she pressed her lips together as she leaned back slightly, not breaking his hold on her waist. An amused expression flickered across her features but did not dampen the lust dancing in her gaze. “When you ask so nicely, how is a girl to refuse?” A smirk ticked up one corner of her mouth as she liberated her legs from his. She immediately sank down onto his lap, sparkling flecks of dust twinkling in the sunlight around their heads. Legs slid on either side of his. The feel of his hands as they kept pressure on her waist was explosive, unwilling to break the contact. The sun glimmered behind thin curtains and made his hair appear as though threads of gold were laced through the darker browns. She studied him for a moment, shifting her hips slightly, drawing herself closer to him.
Slender fingers undid the top three buttons of his shirt before sliding against his skin. Clover trailed her hand upward, one finger following the one before beneath his chin before twisting into his hair at the nap of his neck. She pulled back gently so his mouth nearly touched hers again. The spy met his eyes, sliding into the depths of amber to drown herself in him utterly. “On then,” she breathed softly as she allowed herself to taste him briefly. The General tasted of champagne and desire. He smelled of familiar vetiver, enveloping her entirely. Withdrawing, lascivious gaze captured his briefly as she whispered, “to the edge of ruin.” A sly smile flashed across her face before her hungry lips captured his fully. She brought his bottom lip between her teeth, while her hands tangled into the curls of his hair. Clover drew him up, rising slightly to press her entire body against his as best as she could. It wasn’t enough, she needed more of him. Exhaling breathily, the seamstress smiled against his mouth.
“The edge of ruin and beyond.” A soft laugh escaped her, genuine - Clover. Something about Quinnley Belvedere, a high ranking office in the enemy’s militia, caused her to drop her defenses - brief, fleeting moments of where she felt herself. Not Chloe. Not the seamstress. Instead, she was Clover - spymaster, Resistance leader. A woman who knew what she wanted and took it.
What the fuck was this man doing to her?
To the edge of ruin. Her whisper was as sultry as a heated caress, igniting a searing warmth in his core that spread like voracious wildfire down his limbs. She twisted her legs free of his and planted each knee on either side of his lap, her skirts—finely made but utilitarian—pooling over his thighs like water…or perhaps gasoline, as the flames of his desire climbed ever higher with her atop him. The general straightened his spine and tilted his chin upwards, capturing her gaze as their torsos drew closer. He pursed his lips against a delighted smirk. Because there was no mistaking the glimmer in those eyes; he’d seen it the first night they’d tangled in his sheets, flashing bright and dangerous in the firelight. And then he’d seen them again and again and again in his boldest thoughts, his daydreams, his fantasies.
He remained statue-still as the seamstress’ fingers deftly unfastened the buttons of the shirt she had sewn with those same skilled hands. Hands that slipped beneath the supple material to press themselves to the burning skin of his chest. Hands that glided over his sternum and up over his shoulders as though she owned the flesh beneath her palms. Hands that could have sliced him open and torn out his beating heart, and he—General Quinnley Belvedere, the High Commander’s confidante, the fiercest soldier Northam had seen in generations, the new master of his family’s legacy—would have handed her the dagger to do it.
His chest expanded beneath her palm with a ragged inhale, pulse drumming against her imploring touch. Still, he held himself in check, even as she dipped her chin to brush his lips with her own. They played a treacherous game, tug-of-war over a roaring flame…the rope fraying as the fire consumed strands of his composure. And oh, how he longed to unravel again.
Chloe’s mouth was bruising against his, and he returned the kiss with equal voracity. The bite of her teeth sinking into his bottom lip summoned a growl low in his chest, and he wrapped his arms around her waist to pull her closer. Their torsos were pressed tightly together, but it still wasn’t close enough; the scant thickness of their clothes felt like miles, and he found himself feverishly resenting the fact that the fine barrier of deep navy silk had been crafted by the very woman whose hands he wanted to rip the garments from his body.
She smiled against his lips and Quinn returned it with a smirk as her hands found the nape of his neck. “Be careful with the suit,” he crooned, his voice a low rasp. “The artist who made it would be furious if a single stitch were to pull out of place, you see…” His lips found the hollow of her collarbone, and he murmured against her skin as another burst of heat rocketed through him. “And I’d rather like to win her favor.”
Without warning, he tightened his grasp around her waist and lifted her up, lowering her with surprising gentleness onto her back against the dusty sofa cushions. He hovered above her, his fierce amber eyes molten in the single beam of sunlight that leaked through the parted curtains. “If you’ll allow me…” the general whispered, leaning down to brush her ear with his lips as his left hand inched up the hem of her top. The warmth of her skin against his fingertips was maddening as a drug, and the more he felt, the more he craved. He captured her lips in an unyielding kiss as his wandering hands ventured lower, tugging up the fabric of her skirt in series of rustling waves until his palm found the bare skin of her thigh.
Quinn pulled back just enough to study her face, gold meeting silver as their gazes locked. Her expression was positively, exhilaratingly devilish, and the sheer openness of it thrilled him—the dangerous parts in him—so much that his own chest hummed in response with a deep, dark laugh. He inched his grip on her leg higher, watching the gleam in her blue-gray eyes as his lips stretched into a smirk.
“You’ve corrupted this general once,” he whispered, then leaned down to amend, “more than once.” He kissed her again, more slowly, too slowly, as if daring her to challenge his pace. His hand twitched higher then retreated a little, teasing. “What would you say for a taste of something wicked?”
The general ordered the protection of his garment and Clover felt a humming warmth slide over her. His appreciation of her craft, the skill and time she had devoted to the suit’s creation, made a different kind of heat dapple her cheeks. However briefly that new sensation fluttered inside of her, she knew that she would not forget it for a long time. And it was exceptionally brief as his lips met her throat. Fingers tightened in his hair as she stifled a moan, shoving the exclamation of pleasure back down. How the fuck could one man’s mouth against her neck make her so weak, so ready?
There was no time to contemplate it as she found herself on her back, staring up into molten gold. Breaths came heavier as she felt some of his weight against her body, pinning her to the old couch. A deliciously strong coil began to wrap tighter and tighter in serpentine fashion in the very core of her. His hands explored, roving and wandering as if it was the first time he had touched her and the millionth. Maddening. Everything about the Belvedere heir was utterly maddening. “By all means,” she exhaled, attempting to sound nonchalant but the exhilarated gleam to her eyes was hard to disguise. When his hands dipped lower, she slipped out of her top. Discarding it on the floor, her fingers finished off the buttons of his shirt until his hand found her thigh, high up on the inner curve. But not there. Not yet. Fuck.
Lips pulsed from his bruising affection and their eyes locked in the scant space between them. There was no hiding her need now. No way to mask the utter desire that she had for him, that had possessed her since she had slunk out of his bedroom months ago. Clover allowed a low, delighted hum to leave her lips as he amended his statement. Four times. Four times over the course of several hours. Four times that had surpassed every other sexual experience she had ever had. Four times that haunted her thoughts and dreams. The four times that a small, hidden part of her knew would be her undoing.
The slow kiss was insufferable and to keep from deepening it, the seamstress’ fingers undid his belt and slid it free. It joined the other garments on the floor. Fingers hovered over the buttons to his trousers when his fingers danced and retreated across her skin. Breath hitched in her throat audibly and stormy eyes closed to savor the sensation of his fingertips as he spoke. “I’d ask what you have specifically in mind.” She managed to respond, capturing his gaze once more when her eyes opened. A smirk twisted one side of her mouth before she bit her lower lip, letting it drag through her teeth. “Because I’d heard the Northam army was,” she undid the button, fumbling excitedly even when she knew this suit like she knew her own body, “incapable of corruption.” With a more steady hand, she unzipped his pants and let them hang open before her. “Especially its highest-ranking generals…”
Clover snaked a hand around his head and pulled him into a kiss, long and wanting and hungry. Bent legs tightened around his waist, skirts pooling around her with the movement. “I’d hate to contribute to the downfall of the Northam militia.” The words thrilled her, in a way that Quinnley Belvedere could not even fathom. Because she would love nothing more than the topple the regime, to bring her father to his knees. But for now, she’s settle for the brigadier general on his before her instead. As if to emphasize her point, she ran her hands down his exposed chest, dancing along his sculpted abdomen and pausing at the dip at the highest curve of his hips.
Clover reveled in the fact that he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him. That he thought about her, touched himself at her memory. Had he taken other lovers to attempt to rid himself of the thought of her? Had they been dull in comparison? They craved one another, for all the ruin that would bring them to. She could see it etched into him like one of his scars. They had worked their way under each other’s skin.
A slithering thought served to electrify the spy even further as she lay pliant beneath him. What if someone came in? What if someone saw them? The thrill of possible discovery brought a grin to her lips. Perhaps it was part of the same excitement she got when running a job, when managing the Resistance. Yet, if that could feel half as good as being beneath him did then she would have brought Northam down years ago if only to feel this same intense emotion. Clover’s wild eyes flicked briefly to the door that had latched but certainly not locked behind them.
“What would you say to the other generals if they were to walk in,” slow fingers trailed lower, between the two pieces of fabric around his hips, “and find you like this?” The Resistance leader could not hide the anticipatory tremble the ran through her limbs and the way her breath grew heavy in her lungs. “With me? Just a seamstress…” her hand found what it sought, teasing strokes against the last bit of cloth that separated her from giving him what he had thought about for weeks, what she had imagined in the darkness of her loft. At her caress, the knot inside her contracted and the need for him nearly overwhelmed her. The remaining embers of control were dying out and giving way to a flame that burned so much hotter. “What would they say about a commoner bringing you to the same terrifying heights of pleasure, seeking to ruin you for all the women that follow me?”
With their shadowy reunion came a dynamic exhilaration, a rush so heady that he could liken it only to the all-consuming thrill of a battle. Quinn’s body came alive in a similar way—senses sharpened, muscles primed, limbs aflame with anticipation. Yet even so, outwardly he was the picture of self-control. His attention, intense and unyielding though it was, did not stray from Chloe. He was utterly tuned in to the minutiae of her reactions, from the dark glimmer in her gaze and the warm flush across her chest, to the tensing of her muscles beneath his touch and catch of her breath as his mouth drifted lower. He and his body were the catalyst to her pleasure, and he reveled in each and every response his actions garnered.
He held himself above her with one hand while the other unfastened the buttons of his jacket, the lapels hanging open in invitation for her fingers to make quick work of his tailored shirt. Insistent hands eased the dangling garments away, careful but determined, and the expertly made clothes quickly joined her discarded shirt on the floor. With his chest bare, the chiseled planes of his torso were the landscape over which the seamstress’ touch freely and hungrily roamed. He bowed his head and his lips connected again with her neck; he angled his kisses upward against her pulse before tracing her sharp jawline.
“You know exactly what I have in mind.” He spoke the words with a cavalier certainty that might’ve come across as arrogant from someone else. But from Quinn, with his crooked smirk and fiery gaze and rapt attention, it was all charm—dangerous and smoldering. “You know what else?” he whispered slowly, each word sandwiched between bruising kisses. “I don’t think you’d hate contributing to the downfall of Northam’s militia. I don’t think you’d hate it at all.” His mouth pulled into a grin against hers. “In fact,” he went on, his hand on her thigh inching higher and higher until his fingers brushed the lace of her panties, teasing at the hem, “I think you’d take great pleasure in the act.”
Desire ratcheted tight in his core as she reacted to his touch, and then tighter still when she reached for his belt and trousers. Her retaliation—fingers that taunted him through the fabric—coaxed a shudder from his body that forced him to relinquish his grasp on her thigh. A low hum of pleasure vibrated in his chest. With her skirts now pooled up around her waist, she hooked her bent legs around him, drawing their bodies together with a possessiveness that left him reeling from the thrill of it.
The general watched her eyes flicker toward the door then, and his lips pulled into a knowing grin. What would you say to the other generals if they were to walk in and find you like this? Her words, husky with the same want that coursed through him, sent another spike of excitement through him at the possibility of discovery. With me? Just a seamstress… “If anyone should come through that door, I would remind them that I am the Master of this estate,” he replied, a note of authority creeping into his murmur, “and as such, I can do whatever I please.” Dipping his head low, he brushed his lips against her ear as he impishly growled, “And whomever I please.” He pulled back again, eyes flashing with wicked certainty, before something darker, more intense, shone in its place. His whisper was suddenly softer, but no less filled with need when he uttered, “You are not ‘just’ anything, Miss Chloe Paice. Never make that mistake again.”
It was an order—spoken almost like a threat, albeit a velvet one. He intended to show her precisely how captivating he found her, and their respective ranks had nothing to do with it. Their ranks may have differed in the societal stratosphere, but whatever force that resided within Chloe had befriended his own and held him fast. Had she not consumed his thoughts for weeks after just one electrifying night? And here she was now at last, consuming him all over again.
His blood pumped molten through his veins with every fevered beat of his heart as they rapidly progressed from suggestive taunts to glorious physicality. It was just as heated, just as explosive as the very first time—and the three subsequent times—only made more desperate by time and anticipation. There was a thrilling urgency, too, not only because of the unlocked door, but also the knowledge that he would be expected back downstairs at the reception all too soon. Still, the pleasure was devastating—a heat as searing and blinding as a lightning strike, and wilder than even his most potent memories of the first night.
The tide of ecstasy ebbed slowly, and he longed to float with it right back into that blissful sea. Instead, Quinn took one long, slow breath, inhaling the spiced perfume of her hair, and drew reluctantly back. The gleam of his bare torso flashed in the lone sunbeam as he rose to his feet. He gazed down at her, his mussed hair falling over his forehead as he buckled his belt and slipped back into his shirt. He couldn’t have fought the crooked smile that tilted his mouth even if he’d wanted to. She was devil and angel in one lying there on the dusty old sofa, her dark hair a tangled halo around her face, her storm-blue eyes unreadable except for the glint of dark satisfaction in her gaze.
“So this is how the empire falls,” the general whispered, leaning down to meet her lips, this time with surprising tenderness. “Not some military clash, but those gray eyes, and a well-tailored suit on the floor.” He swept up his jacket, then tossed her her shirt. His eyes roamed over her skin, which ignited the now-familiar flame behind his ribs all over again. “I suppose I have no choice but to trust you to make me presentable again, given whose fault it is that I’ve become so…disheveled,” he continued, raking a hand through his hair to get it out of his face. “Might I borrow your artistic eye, Miss Paice?”
Clover could not suppress the tremble that coursed through her limbs at his reply and the thrill of making him do the same. Part of her knew, in a hidden corner of her mind, that she would prostrate herself at the feet of the Master of Avondale just like the rest of them. In these long and heady moments, the spy knew that she was his. For a blissful moment she had something that was all her own - not Rose’s, not the Resistance’s - hers. This intense pleasure that she succumbed to despite years of training, of hatred, of being utterly alone in all other aspects. This was Clover’s. And in these moments of weakness, she allowed herself to also be his. For a moment. Briefly. This was the last time.
Soon, all thoughts fled her mind as Quinn met her unbridled desire with all the animalistic ferocity of his own. And it was better than she remembered, the way they came together. The entirety of the universe began and collapsed in the explosion of their union. Hands tangled in her plaited hair, brushing it over her bared shoulders. Her nails pressed into his back, leaving victory marks of reddened flesh in their wake. Their breath mingled and mouths crashed together in bruising kisses meant to devour. The brief, catastrophic joining left her limbs quivering and her lips swollen. She felt her pulse pounding where he had bitten her neck mark and in the darkest depths of her soul. It was primal and raw and hungry.
“Mmmm,” the satisfied woman murmured as she watched him dress. She didn’t move much, merely allowing one leg to slide off the side of the old couch while her toes barely grazed the carpet. Skirts remained pooled around her waist, leaving her thighs visible. The fabric was far more wrinkled than upon her arrival and she doubted they’d straighten appropriately when she rose. Chest heaved, unable to catch her breath just yet and not wanting to. Not yet. The seamstress savored the general’s lopsided smile, the confidence, the satisfaction that he wore like armor. Heat roared back to life inside of her and she longed to drag him to the floor, test if his endurance was the same as it had been the night that they had first met one another.
Surprise etched itself briefly in her features at the gentle kiss. Fortuitously, he tossed her shirt to her and she regained her composure as she sat up. She slipped the garment back on, tucking it into her thick, rumpled skirts. Clover’s deft fingers combed through tangled locks and then twisted her hair up into a low, unassuming bun. She pulled a few strands looks to give it a less tidy appearance. People didn’t cast second glances at her that way. Strangers, men especially, used to be draw to her cheekbones and striking eyes until she began to hide them beneath a timid demeanor and strands of dull, dark hair. Rising to her feet, she stood before him. The general was tall, likely towering over most people he encountered. She supposed most women liked it that way - when the imposing man with the dashing good looks and roguish grin casting his golden eyes down at them. She preferred when his gaze was looking up at her…
When she assumed her full height, however, Clover was merely a few scant inches shorter than him. The spy had always been tall for a woman, thanks to the genes of the High Commander of Northam himself. She wondered, briefly, if he could see him in her. It was impossible, of course, but she couldn’t help but wonder that if her hair had been natural and if she shifted her stance…would the General see the resemblance? Because the seamstress did, every bloody time she looked in the mirror she saw his face more and more. Her mother’s nose and cheeks faded to the background a little more each time.
An undeniable excitement rushed through her, carrying the pensive nature of her thoughts along with it, as he turned his gaze down to her with a look that burned hot even after such an encounter. Something in the deepest depths of that heat burned hotter, darker and more dangerous. She could almost hear it, whispering to her own caged monster, begging for a kindred spirit to set it free. Clover decided in that moment that she liked him he’s like this. His tousled hair, shirt not yet fully buttoned, muscles relaxed and at ease. She liked the softness that entered the corner of his mouth, while his eyes still gleamed with that familiar wickedness. In another life…
“What if I want others to know of my conquest?” She mused, moving her eyes up as she brushed a stray strand of hair from his eyes that had escaped his attempt to tame it. “All the other women will wonder who drew you away? Does he have a lover, a mistress?“ She stepped closer as she moved her other hand up his covered chest. Stormy eyes met his once more, holding them. Slender fingers buttoned his shirt, carefully so as not to brush against his skin. With practiced hands (both professionally and intimately personal) she began to dress him as she talked. “Is it serious? Is it a fling? What does she have that I do not? How do I usurp her position?” She rounded around and drew his jacket up behind him, holding it out for his arms to enter the sleeves. She smoothed the minimal wrinkles, leaving him as pristine as when he had dragged her into the room.
Finished, she slipped her shoes back onto her feet and tidied her skirts. Clover knew that she had to retrieve one or two more things before leaving, a final check with Maria to make sure everything was in order for preservation of the wedding gown. Satchel slipped over her head as she started speaking once more. “And the men, now they will wonder what kind of woman takes the bride’s brother away from his duties. They’ll silently congratulate you on your victory, despite not knowing of its contribution to the empire’s demise.” True tease left her lips easily enough. A joke only - she would never truly wish for Northam to fall.
Clover appeared before him, the yearning filling her all over again. God, fuck. What was he reducing her to? “And then they will undoubtedly wonder if they can have her too. Would she take another general to her bed? Would she spend the same number of hours exploring the…decor of their bedroom as she had with General Belvedere?” She felt the hum inside him at those words. Quinn didn’t seem the jealous type. He could have anyone, anyone at all but she too bristled slightly at the thought that another woman might attempt to bring him to the dizzying heights of ecstasy as she had. A certain amount of possession came with the acts that the two of them had engaged in. Not just sex; despite what she told herself, it wasn’t just physical. She drew herself up into her toes then, just slightly to press her lips close to his ear. One hand rested on the lapel of the jacket to keep her balance. “You’re right though. Best to look pristine.” She turned her head almost imperceptibly so that still swollen lips brush against his skin. “Best not to have anyone wonder then, I suppose.” Knowing fully well it would gnaw at him, those final questions that she had posed.
Clover gave him that wicked smile, the one that promised all kind of devilish things. Things a lowly seamstress had no business knowing about a Northam brigadier general. “Thank you for the sketchbook, General, and your thorough follow-up.” Gray eyes flashed blue with her teasing as she moved away from him and to the door. She hesitated, a moment of weakness, and looked over her shoulder at him. She looked him over. The suit was perfection on him, all thorns and fangs and darkness. The midnight of the fabric shimmered blue in the faint light from the window. Their eyes met and that bolt of electricity shot through her once again, magnified by the memory of his mouth against her sternum and hands tight on her hips. And yet that is not what made her turn. It was the pull, that dark thread of his that had wound itself into the hidden part of her.
“Goodbye, Quinn.” She breathed the words, severing their connection with a verbal blade. It stung, she realized, as she closed the door behind her and entered the empty hallway. Fuck, that was worse than she thought. Necessary though. She had to. She couldn’t do it again. Never again. Twice (five times) was enough.
Quinn stood still as stone as Chloe sidled up to stand before him, his body motionless but for the even breaths that expanded his chest and lifted his broad shoulders. It was not unlike when they’d first met—him perched half-naked before the mirror as she took his measurements, and then later on, when he posed before her while she deftly rendered him in graphite on a page.
His already-heated skin smoldered with her attention. He could feel her appraising gaze as surely as he could feel the brush of her fingers as they smoothed over the imperfections in his shirt. Reveling beneath both sensations, it was all he could do not to press her back into those cushions and devour her all over again, to hell with the expectant crowd downstairs. The deep percussion of his heart against his breastbone growled like thunder precursing a storm, the exact storm he found churning in her eyes as she looked up to brush an errant strand of dark hair from his forehead.
A roguish grin tugged at his reddened lips as she spoke, her voice low and taunting. He couldn’t deny how her words electrified him, how the thought of her gushing about their clandestine exploits to others—that she’d enjoyed her time with him so much that she couldn’t help but spill their tale, unable to keep it to herself—thrilled him in a way that no such promises from other lovers ever had. While it was true Quinn had a certain reputation as a young, handsome rising general, it wasn’t his own braggadocio that kept his name fresh on the lips of Thebes’ eligible ladies. To kiss and tell was not his style. But they talked; he knew they did, and even as a man of status there was little he could do to halt the illicit whispers outside the bedroom.
“So tell them,” he answered smoothly, his voice a purr. “Go ahead.” Almost a dare, with that confident smile. “Tell them how you’ve conquered your general, how you brought him to his knees.” She reached around him with his jacket and he slid his arms carefully into each sleeve, using the gesture as an excuse to lean forward until his lips brushed her ear. “But don’t leave out the parts that had you shaking, Miss Paice,” he whispered, his smile sharpening back into something wicked as he pulled reluctantly away.
He rolled his shoulders back as he buttoned the jacket, acutely aware of the shadowy room’s chill in the absence of the heat of her body. He watched as she drew her satchel over her shoulder. A sigh escaped him, wistful, even as familiar hunger gleamed in his brown eyes. Fuck, he thought, feeling the now-familiar burn of flame singeing his ribs. It seemed their tangle had done nothing to sate his long-kindled need of her. Rather, he wanted her all the more in the aftermath, the ecstasy renewed, his body still reeling from the pleasure. What are you doing to me, Chloe Paice? the general thought, and almost said aloud. Only an hour ago he might have told himself that his strange obsession with the seamstress was simply something he needed to get out of his system. But as he stood there, dressed to the nines, watching her sidle back up to him and rest her palm against his lapel as she murmured in his ear, he knew what they’d done had only cemented her place in his head.
Chloe was right in assuming Quinn was not the jealous type—or at least he had not been, historically. But her musings now, laced as they were with the implication that she might entangle herself with someone else, twisted something unidentifiable in his gut that tinged the look in his eye with a question. A question he did not ask, did not know how to ask. Her impish grin, too, as she rested her hand on the doorknob, had him suddenly grappling not only with her words, but with how they made him feel. Uncertain, and vaguely sour, as though he’d bitten into a fruit to find it not quite ripe. And yet he had no right to feel that way; they were not betrothed, they had exchanged no promises, and their respective paths may never even be fated to cross again. But that too brought a sensation he couldn’t quite identify, a yearning that he had no business to claim as his own.
Still, he grinned right back at her, his chin dipping in a nod at her thank-you. “My sincere pleasure, I assure you,” he responded smoothly. “Goodbye, Chloe.” The glow of the sunlight had warmed to gold as the afternoon approached evening, and it glittered in Chloe’s eyes as she tossed him one last look before she disappeared into the hallway.
Alone in the storage room, he took a beat to gather himself, heaving a great sigh as he draped the old dusty sheet back over the sofa. The reception awaited him downstairs, and he could tell by the color of the light that he was already pushing the limits of ‘fashionably late.’ He ran one last hand through his hair, more to steel himself than out of mistrust of Chloe’s judgment.
The corridor was empty when he slipped into it, the door latching quietly behind him, and he padded down the carpeted stairs to the bustling rotunda where the final stragglers made their way into the ballroom for dinner. The din of guests’ chatter quieted for a moment as he joined the milling throng as people found their seats, his face boasting a carefully designed mask of pride and calm. His steps were confident, casual, as though the master of the estate hadn’t been gone at all.
Quinn found his place at the wedding party’s long banquet table after stopping to exchange brief conversations with the guests bold enough to intercept him on his way. Maria caught his eye from a distance, and though her crimson lips did not falter in the smile they held, he recognized the subtle tells of her disapproval—the faintest quirk of a brow, the smallest narrowing of her lashes. He flashed her a grin in response, ever the pesky twin brother, and took his seat. His sister and Maxwell soon joined him to his left, and Norah…oh, shit…slid wordlessly to his right. The High Commander taking his place on the groom’s side thankfully gave him the excuse to keep silent for the moment.
In the meantime, Quinn focused a little too intently on the red wine being poured into his glass. He had, of course, vetted the wine choices beforehand, but he still sampled the selection with a sip before nodding his approval. “Very good,” he said with a nod, and watched as the even-handed waiter immediately moved to fill the chalices of the High Commander, then the groom, then the bride, and then the others.
“Max seems to have come out of his shell,” Quinn commented, leaning a little closer to Maria as he took a slow mouthful of wine.
“You might have noticed that earlier if you’d deemed us worthy of your presence,” she whispered back, just a little too sharply to be entirely in jest.
“As if anyone could keep their eyes from you long enough to notice,” he said. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Norah’s posture wilt at his non-answer.
“That,” retorted Maria, swilling the burgundy liquid in her glass, “is the truth.” She turned to say something to Max, to which they exchanged warm smiles, and then her attention was back to Quinn. But when she spoke, she addressed her bridesmaid. “Norah, did my dear brother give you a tour of the house?”
Something akin to guilt planted a lump in his throat. Norah tucked a curled strand of blonde hair behind her ear and shook her head. The smile she wore was sad…or was he just imagining that part? “We did not get the chance,” she replied diplomatically.
“A shame. Well, there will be time later, after we eat.” Maria’s expression was almost hopeful, which confirmed to Quinn that she’d noticed his disappearance, but did not know what had kept him away. And Norah, who wouldn’t have recognized Chloe, at least couldn’t have said who he’d disappeared with. Still, he got the distinct impression that Maria wanted him and Norah to spend time alone together, and he didn’t know what to make of that. In truth, it was a kind gesture, even if a political one—the Belvederes of Thebes and the Browns of Washentown united in marriage would make a powerful statement. It was a smart move for their dwindling family, and for the regime, whose ties to Northam’s second largest city were imperative to maintain. Quinn couldn’t deny that it made sense, and from more angles than one. And Norah certainly seemed like a sweet woman…
But Quinn had never had a taste for sweet.
Nevertheless, he turned to the blonde and offered her a dashing smile. “My apologies for leaving you to fend for yourself earlier, Ms. Brown,” he said, lifting his glass to her in a small salute, offering no real explanation. “I would be honored to give you a tour of Avondale. Allow me to make it up to you after we dine.”
A blush immediately dappled her cheeks. “I would be delighted,” she said softly, daring a small smile in return.
The remainder of the dinner unfolded exactly as they’d planned. Multiple small courses comprised a menu of wholly unexpected and unusual choices that somehow all came together by the time dessert was served. It was a testament to Max’s expertise as a spice trader and his knowledge of his craft. Quinn wouldn’t have been surprised if a number of guests left holding the Lanes in a slightly higher regard, with bellies full of fine and exotic concoctions that would make their own home meals taste bland by comparison.
The guests returned to the rotunda as servants quickly cleared the tables, opening the ballroom once more for the final segment of the evening—cocktails and dancing. Quinn left Maria and Max to their socializing, and Norah strode toward him, a swirl of sage green gossamer drifting like water around her ankles. She took a sip of the cocktail in her slender hand, face flushed with the warmth of an evening steeped in alcohol, and looked up to boldly meet his eyes. “Hello, General,” she drawled, a charming smile curving full lips. “I’d love to see the rest of the house, and—”
“Belvedere.” The High Commander’s voice cut through the din of voices and music like a knife through flesh, the three syllables spoken with such sharp command that Quinn immediately came to attention. He was accompanied by two other high-ranking generals and a disheveled lieutenant Quinn didn’t recognize, who was still dressed in winter outerwear and had snowflakes melting in his hair.
He knew that tone. “Read me in, Sir,” Quinn said without pause, his pulse skyrocketing. The group of militiamen wove their way swiftly through the crowd, which hushed slightly as they passed. The guards posted at each door moved aside. Quinn led the group to a private space down the main hall, stopping a servant to instruct that their transportation be brought around immediately.
“Tell him what you told me,” the High Commander instructed, and the breathless lieutenant stepped forward with a salute.
“A telegram from Colonel Franklin in the west. An uprising is in the works,” the man reported, handing over a rumpled piece of paper with the original telegram typed in faint ink. “A retaliation for the crusades, he suspects. And not just from the recruits in the camps.”
“The villages too.” Quinn skimmed the telegram. His frown deepened. “And no word from Ridgemont?”
The High Commander shook his head. “Reports of blizzards in the mountains. Lines have been down for a week, courier messages only.”
Fuck. That wasn’t good. “They’ll never see it coming.” Ridgemont’s outpost was small, but it was not a settlement they could afford to lose. Quinn looked to High Commander Walther, and the two hard men exchanged nods. He turned to the lieutenant. “Ride ahead of us. Have the Ace and Omega squadrons prep for departure. We leave before first light.”
The High Commander’s hazel eyes held an expression Quinn knew well, because the very same one illuminated his own gaze. “I’m right behind you, Sir,” he promised, and disappeared up the curving stairs as the Walther man and his generals left through the front door with a burst of winter air.
He sped to his rooms, his blood thrumming with purpose, but still his thoughts were snagged when he passed the nondescript door of that storage room. He shook his head to himself, refocusing, yet he couldn’t help but pause when his fingertips brushed the secret stitching inside his jacket as he undressed. To the verge of madness. It was times like this that he felt like he might already be there, a madman in the guise of a gentleman, playing dress-up in a fine suit.
Despite his urgency, he took the time to fold and hang his clothes, his thoughts vacillating between images of Chloe, and the violence he knew was to come. The warm pleasure of sex, and the sadistic pleasure of bloodshed. What would the seamstress think of that man, the one not teetering on the edge of madness, but who had already leapt into the thick heart of it?
He couldn’t think about that now. He had a job to do. And General Quinnley Belvedere was not known to fail.
Clover’s heart pounded harder, more furiously with each hurried step that she took away from him. It was more difficult than she thought it should be, to bid him a final farewell. She had left the gifts for Maria on the bed and while she had wanted to help the bride transition out of her bridal gown, it would more important that she get back to town and rest. Tomorrow she would close the shop and slip down to the bar. Aaron needed to be updated about the current crusades happening in outer towns and villages. He also needed to know about the Belvederes. She wanted -needed- to know how they died. If there was a way to remove Northam’s elite from the equation…
As she made her way towards a discrete exit after a final stop in the kitchens to actually grab a few spare bites, she passed the dining hall where everyone was enjoying the beginning of their extravagant meal. She hesitated in the shadow of the hallway, hidden from all of the diners. Grey eyes flickered across the blues of the militia men and the bright dresses of the female guests. The spy searched for her lover’s familiar posture and the elegant gown Maria would still be wearing. It was foolish but she did so out of a longing to meet his gaze a final time. Silver sparking to life when she met his dazzling gold. However, she found him first.
The High Commander appeared just as she remembered him, brushed with just a few more years at his temples. A serpent lurking beneath his smile, ready to strike, ready to kill. She stared. Clover couldn’t help it as her breaths longed to come faster, as her hand longed to plunge a blade into his neck as he sat enjoying the company around him. Fucking bastard. Fucking tyrant. A very different heat bloomed inside of her in the halls of Avondale as she stood transfixed. They’d kill her before she ever got to him, of course, as the entire room was awash in a sea of militia blue. But, oh, how she longed to feel his blood run hot and thick against the fingers that held the knife. Shaking herself free, the spymaster slipped away before she could be spotted.
The entirety of the ride back into town was plagued by thoughts of the Northam general. His golden gaze. His dark curls. And the dark murmur of his pleasure against her neck. Satchel on her lap, Clover’s gaze did not process the scenery as they passed. She thought she would have spent the trip pondering the possibility of integrating new members into the Rebellion. Instead, she felt the ghost of his hand brush her hipbone. She heard the sultry ‘if you’ll allow me…’ Eyes closed tightly and she let herself revel in the fantasy of their union. She replayed the scene, before it shifted to him in the carriage with her. The predatory way he’d pin her to the cushions. The feel of his hand on her waist. The sound of her name from his lips as they pressed to her ear. Her name. Clover. A shiver passed through her as she opened her eyes. The surprise of the daydream shook her to sanity and she stared purposefully out the window in an attempt to banish all thoughts of the Belvedere heir.
Focusing on the tasks at hand, Clover planned the remainder of her evening amongst the bumps of the carriage home. It consisted of merely dissolving into her bedsheets after eating the pork pie that she had swiped from the kitchens on her way out. Falling into blissfully exhausted sleep was her first priority after an exhausting day. Weddings were terribly tiring events for her typically, staying to help the bride disrobe. Unfortunately, staying to assist Maria was out of the question after the adventure in the dusty study, but she hoped the bride would appreciate the gifts left behind. Her new husband would be more than capable of getting her out of her dress, the spy knew.
The carriage drew to a jerky stop out in front of Rose’s and the seamstress jumped out onto the road. The sun had mostly set and she was already tasting the flavors in that pie. Shouldering her satchel, she stepped out of the carriage’s way and towards the door. Slender hand was outstretched to the knob that she would insert the key in as soon as she fumbled it free from her pocket. Tired eyes blinked downward slightly, ready to turn the lock and enter the shoppe The ascent to her apartment above would be a minor step before collapsing into her bed. However, bleary gazed snagged on the corner of the door. Black mud smeared the door and weariness vanished. Muscles tensed, twitching as she inserted the key back into her pocket, lifted the hood of her cape and set back out.
The winding road to the bar was far longer in her fatigued state, though no amount of exhaustion would ever prevent her from taking the necessary precautions for the journey to the pretend Rebellion leader’s dive. Entering, she tossed him a love and a shy smile over the countertop. Knowing brow eyes roved over her before nudging another man and he escorted her to the back. The moment the door shut behind them, latched by careful hands, Clover’s body slumped into the chair by the crackling fire. Satchel on the ground beside her chair, she held out a waiting hand for the glass of whiskey that was quickly placed inside.
“Some wedding?” Aaron inquired with a laugh, holding a small glass of his own. The large main remained standing, leaning against the mantle surrounding the fireplace. Brown eyes flicked over to capture the weary woman’s after she drained the whiskey.
“Some wedding.” She breathed in reply, holding his eyes. “But that can’t be why you summoned me so abruptly.”
“No. Though a wedding debrief after is requested,” a pause, allowing Clover to close her eyes, fingers resting against her temple, propping up her head. The woman waved her other hand, beckoning him to continue.
“Lots of reports of new rebel activity. Around some outskirt towns and villages. Unorganized and unfocused but definitely showing excessive potential to be recruited.” He scratched with his free hand onto the beard at his chin. He toyed with a piece of parchment in his pocket before withdrawing it. One line of clear writing was visible even from her vantage point, though the words could not be deciphered. Beneath it was a pale white writing - sympathetic ink. Clover raised a dark, dyed eyebrow.
“Reliable?”
Aaron shrugged, finishing off his glass and setting it onto the wood above the fireplace. “As best as we can tell at this juncture. Yelena sent word but it was brief and cut off - I think she had been interrupted” Another shrug. “Wendy said that there was quite the movement of soldiers about Wymberly during the wedding - rushing information from the center to Avondale.” That piqued the spymaster’s interest and she leaned forward. “I think your name is starting to come up.” Eyes swirled with a dangerous storm, blue lightening cracking across them. Aaron smiled, before taking the seat closest to her. “Clover is becoming quite the nuisance.” The hurricane eyes rolled and a bit of the tension loosened.
“Tell me more.” She murmured with a delighted grin, before Aaron Striker proceeded to describe the new intelligence in depth. A miraculous number of small rebellions were starting to crop up, renewed interest in a Rebellion against the High Commander. Yet, each time she considered it - a master stroke - she paled, knowing what had happened during the last one. Her mother dead. Her brother dead shortly thereafter. And her father with a tighter and tighter grip on Northam. A true Rebellion was a dream, a fantasy as this point that she would not permit herself to indulge in. It would be years, if ever, before the Rebellion could launch a coup.
As he relayed, she mulled it all over herself. He divulged detailed information about the individuals in a town not far from Thebes but more than a day or two’s carriage ride. It would be expensive and draw attention, so she would have to purchase a ticket on a transport wagon which would prolong the effort. The odds that a small act of rebellion would draw the generals notice were astronomical - especially with the announcement of the death of the Belvederes. Based on Aaron’s information, Northam’s commitment to extinguishing all signs of rebellion was still burgeoning and little start-ups surely beneath the notice of the High Commander.
“There’s a rather large farm there. Make their own wool - from some type of goal that yields the softest wool you’ve ever felt. Perhaps a seamstress would be interested in sampling their wares.” Aaron concluded, crossing one ankle over his knee.
“Or perhaps a barman wants to sample the town’s ale.” She retorted, sighing heavily. Aaron pulled a face that made her grin slightly, wiping exhaustedly across her eyes. “Fine. I would ask if you thought I could leave in a couple of days but I have a sense their message was more urgent than it would permit.” Aaron hummed affirmatively, tapping his fingers against his bent knee. Clover twisted the glass back and form between her palms. “I need a fucking nap.”
“Don’t we all? Our line of work doesn’t permit a good night’s sleep, unfortunately.” As his shoulders rolled backwards in a stretch, a cracking noise emanated from his spine. Aaron was beginning to show his years, but that was advantageous. People naturally trusted a man that had a few years on him, whether he was reputable or not. Fortunately for Clover, the Striker man before her was more than trustworthy.
“I’ll leave day after tomorrow. Let Dennis take orders for the shoppe but tell customers that I went off to search for warm, stylish wools for the winter. It is the perfect cover,” the woman sighed into the chair, wishing it might consume her weary body whole, “unfortunately.” She added, mimicking him. Dark eyes twinkled before she held out her glass for him to refill promptly for her. He did so right before she divulged all the intel that she had gathered at Maria Belvedere’s wedding. She conveniently left out the tryst in the unused room with the unwed heir to the Belvedere estate.
“They’re dead?” Aaron’s eyebrows rose higher onto his forehead.
“Surprisingly. Apparently for months and it was kept secret. How they managed that I’m still not quite certain. Couldn’t ascertain cause of death - but there was quite a bit of speculation that they may have done it to themselves…That makes me suspicious. More likely General Belvedere got on the High Commander’s bad side and he killed him, them.” A shrug lifted her shoulder before she took a long sip from her glass, letting it warm her through. Aaron rubbed at his chin and then drew a hand over his entire face. “And the son is rising in rank quickly, from what I could discern. He’ll be taking his father’s position in weeks, if he’s not in it already.
“Any chance of using him as a contact?” Aaron queried. Clover did not stiffen or shift or display any tension in her body, though her mind was racing.
“Doubtful. I made his suit and he was quite taken with it but I don’t foresee him needing my services for much more, considering he won’t be getting married anytime soon. At least, from what I could garner from the servants. Many of the women were more than willing to volunteer though.” Clover smirked and drained her second and final glass. The spy pushed herself upright with all the force that she could muster at this time, dreading the circuitous walk back through the city to her loft.
“We’ll keep an ear out for changes in the ranks, promotions, the like.” Aaron advised, rising shortly after she had. “We’ll hold down the fort while you’re gone but just…be careful.” Clover’s lips cracked in a grin, shouldering her satchel once again and lifting up the hood of her jacket.
“I started doing field work when I was 10, Aaron. This is merely a supply run for a seamstress.” Blue-gray eyes flickered over his body and she cocked her head slightly. “I’ll use some of the wool to make you a new sweater. That one is certainly showing its age.”
The trek back to Rose’s was tedious to say the least. The wind was whipping through the streets and numerous street lamps had either not been tended or the lamplighter just didn’t bother with the lesser roads. She braced herself against the searing cold that cut through her clothing before finally making it to her door. Without little realization, Clover found herself standing in her loft with a vocal cat winding its way around her legs. She produced the pie that she had swiped for herself but was now far too exhausted to eat. She settled it onto the windowsill and finally had a moment of silence as her companion devoured the feast.
“It was a long fucking god cursed day.” She said to the silence of her apartment. “And tomorrow is not going to be any better.” Before she could crawl her worn body between the sheets of her tiny bed, the spymaster packed a sack for the road. A tattered copy of an old book, a change of clothing and an excessive amount of wool samples were strategically placed inside. She included needles, thread, measuring tape and more to give anyone’s curious eyes the clear view that she was nothing but a tradeswoman. Hand hovered over the sketchbook. The ride in the wagon would be long, she may find something to sketch, someone to sketch. Clover frowned slightly as she remembered his words about the gift, how he thought she hadn’t liked it. The bound paper was the most beautiful present she had ever received, not to mention to most extravagant. The thoughts of her tired mind slid into him as she placed a pencil and the leather sketchpad into the pack. The feel of his mouth on her neck, hands jerking her head back, exposing soft flesh. Quinn.
Fuck. No. She was just too tired. She needed some sleep. The packing completed, she stripped off her clothing. The pile remained on the floor and would be there until she returned from her trip. She’d write a message for Dennis in the morning, some basic instructions on how the run the shoppe in her brief absence. Dark head hit the pillow and she dissolved into it, listening to the happy sounds of the cat enjoying the meal.
The whole next day was spent preparing for her journey as covertly as possible. She laid the cover, of hearing about a softer wool than what she had found before and wanting to check it herself before it became harder to get. Dennis was surprised but not alarmed. She had done things like this before and now he was old enough to tend the shoppe on his own.
Clover rose before the dawn on departure day. She had to in order to snag a spot on the wagon to Athens. She’d get off early, walk the remainder of the way to Earl’s Crossing - the small goat herding town. It wasn’t far off the main roads. A day’s ride on the wagon and a walk into the town would put her there by midnight. They’d stop in Ridgeman and she’d hike the rest of the way, she decided, pulling on her thick leather boots that were perfectly broken in. Her clothing was thick, handmade and lined with thick lining that would keep her warm on the way. She laid out some food for her resident demon, with a scratch behind the ears. Gray-blue eyes flickered over the note that she had scribbled for Dennis just reviewing what they discussed the previous day. He would be able to let himself in and he’d take care of the cat for her. She’d be back in three days, tops.
Fortunately, the spymaster was able to grab a seat on the barely covered wagon at the depot and a decent spot that would be far enough inward to keep her dry in case is started to snow. The weather looked beautiful though, with clear skies and a slight warmth from the sunshine. She was squished between a man hat smelled of old meat and a woman with a child on her lap that was blessedly quiet.
That blessing did not last for long though. Four hours into their tedious journey the weather turned dark, angry and hissing with the threat of snow. The babe screamed and squealed, making Clover want to pull all of the hair out of her head and stuff it into her ears for just a moment’s respite. And when she thought that the day could not get any worse, the meat-man vomited over the side of the wagon and the snow began to swirl down with all the rage of an angry child. They traversed the road for a few miles more before coming upon Angel Grove. It was a small town but had a tavern that fit all of the weary travelers from the wagon.
Clover nursed a cup of very watery tea a few feet from the fire, cursing all of her bad luck. As soon as this storm stopped she’d have to finish on foot. It would take her a half day of walking to make it to Earl’s Crossing, because she wanted to be back in Thebes as soon as possible. The storm would provide her with good cover, but the walk would be brutal - knowing that the wagon would not depart for another two days at the earliest. A lowly seamstress could not afford a room in a tavern brimming with so many people, so she commandeered a chair and slept until morning.
The weary spy rose with the dawn to six inches of fresh snow on the ground. Fuck. She groaned inwardly, slipping her pack onto both shoulders. The wagon driver had already risen as well, tending to his horses and caught her attention as she was departing.
“Can’t be venturing out in that, miss. Be right as rain in bout a day. We can getcha to Athens in no time.” She could tell by the look on his face that he was worried she request her coin back. She waved him off with a sure smile, pulling up her hood to keep her hair warm.
“No trouble. I need to be there quick and the weather doesn’t look like it is going to worsen again. I appreciate the ride.” She said, not bothering to wait for his response as she began to trudge through the thick white.
Clover considered herself to be in exceptional shape for a seamstress, with a regimen that kept her muscles toned and ready for a fight. It did not prepare her for hours trudging through combative mounds of snowy hell to reach the next stop town before Earl’s Crossing. It took longer than she thought but she managed to make it and cover be damned, she paid for a shared room. She collapsed on the bed, clutching her bag to her chest. There were other travelers on the other cots, but she paid them no mind before falling into a deep, consuming sleep.
The next morning the sun rose without her and began to rise high in the sky before she managed to work her feet back into her boots. They had thankfully dried during the night - someone had kept the small fire roaring enough to keep the room warm. She bought herself a decent meal to fill her belly before setting out again. If she had been listening, if she had not been moved to the point of exhaustion, she might have heard two men discussing militia movement in the town over after the blizzard.
The journey was coming to an end on the third day and she realized she had gotten a little bit lost as she found herself at the top of the ridge surrounding Earl’s Crossing. There was commotion down below and she wondered if some of the famed goats had gotten loose. Lowering her hood and shifting her position, she could see a sea of blue against the white. It took her eyes a moment to adjust, to comprehend what she was seeing. The sea of blue was a sea of militia. There were…so many for such a small town. She could see smoke rising in the not-to-far distance and comprehended that something was on fire, the smell hitting her as the realization did. Holy fucking shit. Holy fucking shit. The militia was raiding Earl’s Crossing. They had…that had gotten the intelligence that there were seeds of rebellion taking root and they were…oh fuck, oh fuck.
Horrified eyes watched as some of the men cut down the townspeople, the ones that resisted, the ones that ran. She took it all in with eyes that were swirling a hurricane gray and blue. Terror seeped in and the desire to turn and run filled her. Steading breaths calmed those anxious parts and she knew that to turn and attempt to flee would result in her death, They would find her, undoubtedly there were some soldiers stationed that she had somehow missed. She should…she could make he way towards town. Feign innocence. There was her schedule in her pack and she should be able to convince them that she was a Thebes native, a favorite of the high-ranking officials.
As her mind raced, the scene unfolded before her and blood smeared the snow. Yet, something changed, an order called out and her brow furrowed. They began to collect any straggling survivors, ushering them closer towards the smoke plume and out of her line of sight. Swallowing, she steeled her resolve and made her way back along the path she had trekked before. She searched for blue along the horizon, someone she could con into taking her into the town before she would be turned back the way she had came. The seamstress would be frustrated, displeased and express it, but they’d turn her away…it would all be fine. This would all be fine.
Quinn braced himself on the table, his shadow bringing a swath of night to the map spread out in front of him. “I don’t like it.” His gaze flicked up to meet the calculating gaze of High Commander Walther. “We don’t know what we’re riding into.”
The high commander hummed and pursed his lips. “Holtz has been trying to make contact all night. Lines are still down, and we’ve intercepted nothing on radio. We cannot afford to wait until we establish communication.”
“I know. And it may be too late already.” Quinn straightened, running a hand through his hair, and saw Walther nod.
“Whatever it takes, Quinnley,” the high commander instructed, his voice turning icy as the wind that rattled the panes outside. He turned toward the doors. “I know you’re the man for the job.”
Quinn saluted, the man’s words conjuring a fresh wave of that familiar anticipatory energy, the same cocktail of adrenaline and bloodlust that always preceded a fight. “Yes, Sir.” He returned his attention to the map, narrowing his eyes at the small blue pin demarcating Earl’s Crossing. A handful of men on well-rested horses could make it before sundown if they departed Thebes at dawn, but for a squadron of troops on foot it was a three-day journey. They could only hope the rebels had not already acted.
A cold pang of doubt raised gooseflesh on his arms beneath his uniform jacket. Without communication from Ridgemont or anyone else at the camp, the list of unknowns weighed heavy on Quinn’s mind. They had no way to know if it had begun, or how many rebels were involved, or where the potential attacks were going to take place. They had no way to know if the storms that knocked out their lines had also made their route impassable. What if they arrived to find the camp rendered to a rink of blood on the ground? What if they were riding straight into an ambush?
War and conflict were never clear-cut, no matter how many strategy briefings one attended. Quinn knew that better than most. No one could control every variable in a scenario; all that could be done was to be prepared for anything. Everything.
The men of the elite Ace unit he’d called to action were some of Northam’s finest, all of whom had earned their positions in battle and were hardened, efficient soldiers Quinn trusted with his life. The Omegas, on the other hand, were up-and-comers with less experience but had scored high on their placement assessments after graduation. They would be eager to impress. They would be ruthless. But on the flip side, their unpredictability was a gamble (although more with their own lives than his); either they would prove themselves or sacrifice themselves. And they would all soon find out which.
He sighed and returned the map to its place in the flat files. It made the most sense to spend what little time remained before the dawn’s light resting, but as exhausted as he was—had it really only been half a day since Maria had delivered her vows?—he knew there was little use in trying to sleep. Still, he made his way to one of the station rooms on the top floor of Headquarters, where small dormitories were always kept for visiting officers.
He laid in the dark, the mattress not much softer than the floor’s marble tile, and allowed his eyes to flutter closed. The rush of anticipation in his blood had slowed somewhat—but the tempest of war was replaced with an altogether different storm, the one that brewed in the sultry eyes of Chloe Paice. Her gaze, framed with sweeping lashes a shade lighter than her dark hair, flashed with silvery mirth in a perfect replay of their afternoon tryst. It truly did feel like a lifetime ago already, like he had been a different person entirely just half a day ago. Quinn the charismatic host, the poised head of household, the attentive lover, had been replaced by Brigadier General Quinnley Belvedere, acting chief, war strategist, brutal soldier.
Compartmentalizing made his life easier to navigate. His father had been the master of it, segmenting his home and social lives in Thebes during the winter from his brutal fair-season duties out-state as one of the High Commander’s most trusted. But where Marius Belvedere had had the advantage of physical separation when his work called him away, sometimes many hundreds of miles, Quinn had no such benefit. He had travelled for several years as part of various squadrons after graduating from the Academy, but Thebes had always been, and would always be, his home base. And now, with his parents dead and the the High Commander taking a shine to him, his place here was as cemented in the capital as Avondale’s ancient foundation was embedded in its hillside. It was a far more challenging balancing act than his father’s had ever been.
Thoughts of Chloe sped up his heart again, and he released his breath in a hiss through gritted teeth. Normally it was easy to keep everything in neat boxes, separate and controlled. But the seamstress refused to be confined, even in his own mind. What was it about her—that roiling storm, the dark ferocity—that made his own demons sing? That made him want to roar as much as whisper?
And what was worse…that he didn’t want to hide himself. The urge to don his mask, the one that made him acceptable to the world, was simply not there.
To images of the strange, gray-eyed tradeswoman he must have eventually drifted off, because a sharp rap on the doorframe a few hours later had him leaping to his feet.
A lanky recruit, swimming in the ill-fitting khaki of an Academy upperclassman, saluted Quinn. “High Commander Walther awaits you downstairs,” he stated robotically, then turned on his heel and marched down the dim hallway.
Quinn ran his hands through his hair and quickly stretched, banishing any lingering grogginess with the heat of pumping blood. He steeled himself just a moment before he quickly made his way to the main floor, his boots an authoritative staccato on the polished marble staircase. He joined the high commander in the lobby, where the leaders of the Ace and Omega squadrons lined either side of the entrance.
A stocky lieutenant abruptly pushed through the double doors with a gust of frigid air and stomped directly up to High Commander Walther. “Troops are assembled and ready to move, Sir,” he declared with a salute.
The High Commander’s lips curled into a smile that could only be described as unkind. “Very good, Lieutenant.” He turned to Quinn, whose posture was rigid but whose expression was calmly contemplative. “The command is yours, General Belvedere,” he announced to everyone, his baritone booming. The man leaned in close and continued at a volume only for Quinn. Somehow that made it more authoritative, more terrifying. “Whatever it takes,” the man said, repeating his words from earlier that night in the map room. “Wield the might of our empire, Quinnley, and do not disappoint me.”
Quinn sprang into action as though nothing had been said at all. “Marshall, Trevor, Ainsbury,” he barked, addressing the leaders of the Omega squadron. They were older than the men they commanded, but still fresh to captainhood. “Your men will take the rear, surrounding the supply wagon. We’re traveling light. Anyone who falls behind should not bother catching up.” He turned to the three others, whose faces were far more familiar—men he’d fought alongside over the years. In their eyes gleamed readiness, the same spark that danced in his own brown gaze, and he felt his lips curl into a semblance of a smile. They each returned the gesture. “Smith. Langston. Otto,” he addressed. “You’ll ride with me in the front. Aces just behind. Be prepared to push hard…we need to make good time.” He paused, the hint of a smile teasing up the corner of his mouth. “And a pleasure to ride alongside you all again, Captains.”
“We are at your disposal, General Belvedere,” said Captain Langston, his smile broadening to a grin.
“An honor, as ever,” chimed in Smith.
Quinn quirked a brow and dipped his chin in thanks, then ordered everyone outside. The Savanne River, not yet fully frozen, sent mist billowing over Compound’s stone walls in waves of ghostly clouds. Beyond, the eastern horizon glowed bright red. An omen, surely, although he could not say for what, or for whom.
The squadrons and supply wagon had already lined up according to his instructions, and the inner gate lifted in preparation for departure. Quinn and the Ace captains mounted their horses at the front, a formidable vision as they marched outside the Compound walls and steered onto famed Victory Road. At this time of day, Thebes was just beginning to stir; few civilians were outside in the cold early winter morning, and only a handful of the many windows they passed glowed with any sign of life.
Soon Thebes was a distant blur in the half-light. Their group was no massive legion, and they made good time thanks to Quinn’s ambitious pace. The cobblestone road turned to gravel beneath them as they marched through the High Commander’s vast private hunting grounds, and eventually the path dwindled to packed frozen earth lined with old-growth trees. They narrowed their files automatically in response—Quinn pairing up with Captain Maurice Otto at the very front, followed by Smith and Langston—and pushed forth, the dawn at their backs haphazardly shrouded by a canopy of gnarled leafless branches above.
Frost flocked the underbrush, limning the leaflitter in silver. The sun’s fresh glow was short-lived before gray clouds dampened it, leaving them to wend their path in the flat dimness as the winter morning dissolved to afternoon. Evening descended quickly, as it always did this time of year, and they made camp for the first night in a thicket of conifers.
With luck, they would make Earl’s Crossing in time to see the next sunset.
————
Luck, as it turned out, wanted nothing to do with them. He smelled the snow before he actually saw any flakes fall—the faintest bitterness in the air, a sharp edge to the breeze. “Shit,” the general muttered, earning him a glance from Otto to his right. They’d made excellent time so far, a nimble brigade on a mission, but it seemed Mother Nature was about to strike down his fair mood. The forest suddenly felt too still, as if holding its breath for the matriarch's coming wrath.
“Snow.” Captain Otto, who was a decade Quinn’s senior, pursed his lips beneath an unruly auburn beard. “I thought so too.”
A sigh manifested as a silvery whorl in the cold air as Quinn released his breath. He peered through the canopy above, trying unsuccessfully to discern the thickness of the clouds through the branches.
“We’re a half dozen miles yet from the edge of the woods,” Smith called from behind, having caught the same sensation. “We can reassess when we get to the valley.”
Unfortunately, they didn’t need that long. A steady breeze began to whistle its way through the landscape, and soon the precipitation grew heavy enough to work its way to the forest floor. Fuck, Quinn thought, watching as the flakes caught in his horse’s black mane. Just what we need. He brushed the white specs away with a gloved hand as though erasing the evidence might eliminate the source, only for them to be replaced again with the next breath of wind. This certainly didn’t bode well.
Still, none of them—not even the less experienced troops bringing up the rear—were strangers to inclement weather. It wasn’t so much the storm that was the threat as it was the delay it brought. The men knew it, too. He nudged his horse faster, the rest of the brigade eager to match his urgency. It would behoove them to make as much progress as possible before the snow forced them to stop, and it seemed he had no complaints from soldiers eager for action.
The wind assaulted them in a vicious rush as they broke through the tree line and descended into the valley. Snow had already accumulated several inches here, and the path was indistinguishable from the meadow. They meandered down the steep incline toward the half-frozen river, where they followed the dark water’s serpentine path until the old wooden bridge apparated from the mist.
The gusts erased all traces of their footsteps almost as soon as they made them. Submerged as they were in a sea of white, Quinn had the strange sensation that they were floating—that they’d somehow ascended a frigid abyss, hovering in the clouds. He shuddered, unsettled. He couldn’t even see the supply wagon, or the soldiers who surrounded it. Whiteout conditions in open areas like these were always dangerous, no matter how winter-ready those caught in it were. But if they could make it to the trees… “The woods on the other side will give us a windbreak,” he shouted to the men, guiding his horse across the slippery wooden planks of the old bridge. “We press on until we absolutely cannot.”
The flakes in Quinn’s windswept hair melted against the heat of his skin, sending rivulets of moisture down his temples only for them to frost over where his high collar met his jaw. Even with his hood raised, his hair was soaked and half-frozen, and his cheeks burned with winter’s bite. The men on foot would be faring worse, having to trudge through the accumulating drifts. His horse tossed his head against a particularly strong gust, as if in protest too.
They crested the top of the hill on the opposite side of the valley, darting inside the woods without bothering to search for the continuation of the road. “Head count,” Quinn ordered, circling. He pushed his fur-trimmed hood back and raked his fingers through his damp hair as he surveyed the crew. The soldiers’ orderly file had loosened somewhat in their haste to get to the shelter of the forest, but despite their reddened faces and heaving chests, they stood straight and strong and eager.
The captains quickly took attendance and signaled that everyone was accounted for. Quinn raised his voice to address the entire group. “We stay inside the trees and follow the edge to keep our bearings,” he instructed. “Slow movement is better than no movement. We continue until we lose the light.”
And they did. They made camp a hundred yards inside the tree line where the evergreens provided shelter above from the snow, and below from the cold, with their thick carpet of fallen needles. Enough dry wood was scrounged to kindle three modest fires. The men were well-trained for this kind of scenario; they quickly secured their individual shelters, with enough insulation to keep them safely warm if not comfortable, then stripped off their wettest outer layers to dry by the fireside before the damp sapped their body heat in the dark.
The storm howled all through the night. Quinn was the only constant as the other men rotated in and out of watch positions; there was too much to think about to sleep. Otto kept him company for a while, then Smith, then Langston, then the leaders of the Omegas he didn’t know well. When eventually he gave in to slumber, it was only to awaken a couple of hours later, as the blizzard finally began to relent.
A shock of smooth, glittering white greeted them when they tentatively emerged from the forest at sunrise. The wind had sculpted smooth drifts against any irregularity in the land; the rolling hills before them swelled and dipped like suspended white waves until they disappeared into the lingering haze on the horizon. Trees leaned and bowed strangely beneath the weight of snow on their branches, like creatures frozen in a bizarre tableau. Beautiful. Otherworldly. Serene.
And all Quinn could think was, Fuck.
Frustration rose like bile in his throat. “Captain Otto,” Quinn addressed quietly, “who do you trust among your men to lead in your stead?”
The older man, without hesitation, said, “Any of them. But you know this already. What are you thinking, Belvedere?”
“I’m thinking we’ve lost too much time already, and that one man on horseback can make much better time than our full squadron in these conditions.”
“A scout?”
“Exactly.” Quinn locked eyes with the bearded captain, fierce amber eyes meeting icy blue. “Any information at all is better than riding in blind, even if it’s just to discover that all is status quo for now. If your fastest man can get out ahead and report back by this afternoon, we’ll be much better prepared by the time we arrive.” A rush of anticipation brought gooseflesh to his arms that had nothing to do with the cold. “And if the report isn’t good, well…then we can leave one of your men in charge here, and the four of us can ride ahead quickly into the settlement.”
Without needing to be told, Otto whistled for the other captains and briefed them on the plan. Smith relinquished his horse to Rodgers, a younger soldier designated to be the scout, then took up his march on foot without complaint—in fact, the savage leader grinned as he broke through the swells of snow, looking effectively feral and fearsome. Quinn smiled to himself. The militiamen stationed at the Earl's Crossing outpost camp were formidable bastards, to be sure, but with the exception of their high-ranking leader, Colonel Franklin, none of them could hold a candle to the battle-hardened warriors of Thebes’ Ace legion. Just one look at someone like Captain Reginald Smith, whose face was a crosshatch of scars and whose stature was more mountain than man, would be enough to get an enemy quaking in their boots.
His heart drummed a steady but quick cadence in his ears as his thoughts once again turned to contingency plans. Whatever it takes. That’s what the high commander had told him. Carte blanche. And yet no such freedom ever came without a threat, not from a Walther. Wield the might of our empire, Quinnley, the man had said, and do not disappoint me. Danger from two forces, double the pressure and double the potential consequences of failure. So even if they arrived too late, even if they strolled into town to find it populated with corpses, there would have to be an answer.
But one did not bear the trust and favor of Northam’s merciless high commander without possessing a head for precisely those kinds of answers.
He smirked to himself—a dark shadow of a smile, one Chloe Paice might have recognized—and led the company onwards.
————
The scout was delayed.
It could have been the snow. It could have been a navigational mistake. It could have been a lame horse, or a hungry forest predator, or a fucking avalanche for all any of them knew. But Quinn couldn’t shake the feeling that something more sinister was amiss. And his instincts were rarely wrong.
They were to meet at the Hammond’s Creek ten-mile marker at mid-afternoon. By any of their calculations, their scout should have been waiting for them with ample time to spare. You could get in a good afternoon nap while you wait for us, Langston had joked, clapping Rodgers on the shoulder. We’ll see you at the creek.
Quinn clenched his jaw. “I can’t have a group of thirty men stationary this near our destination,” he grumbled, more to himself than to the captains, who were listening anyway.
“We keep going,” suggested Smith. “Gotta get there either way. Maybe we’ll intercept ’im on the route.”
Not impossible, but they all knew it was wishful thinking. Quinn cleared his throat. “Otto and Langston and I ride ahead,” he said. “Smith…lead the men. I don’t think you need to be told to push them as quickly as you reasonably can.”
Smith, still on foot after giving his mount to the lost scout, looked up to him and saluted, his scarred face twisting into a smile. “Aye, General. We’ll be right behind you.”
Smith’s gruff orders pealed through the muted forest behind them as Quinn and his two captains took off at a gallop. The Aces of the group would understand the urgency from a strategy perspective; the younger Omegas would be driven by their desire for battle. Quinn trusted they would arrive to back him up just in time—no matter what they found ahead.
They had to. There was no other choice.
————
The trees blurred together into smudges of white and brown as the formidable trio blasted through the drifts, their muffled hoofbeats sounding more like fluttering wings in the snow than hooves. The closer they got to Earl’s Crossing, the more intense the vibration in his limbs—the anticipatory thrill before a clash settling into his bones like an old friend.
“Whoa!” called Langston, and Quinn tugged on the reins of his horse automatically, gaze following his companion’s.
A chestnut horse, riderless, milling about through the frosty underbrush just ahead. The three of them slowed, and the general swore under his breath. “Where the hell is Rodgers?” They were getting close to the edge of the settlement, running parallel to the main route into town. The lone mount’s trail of footprints meandered in a path that seemed generally to come from the east, possibly suggesting that the mare had lost her rider not much farther ahead, on the edge of town. Quinn’s amber eyes flashed like a predator’s, and he drew out his revolver, the metal ice-cold against his palm.
Fuck.
The route was not conductive to a proper ambush, that much was clear. But they couldn’t rule out other forms of sabotage, including the possibility that the rebels had posted their own guards along the main routes into Earl’s Crossing. And if Rodgers had indeed been compromised…then that would have alerted the enemy to their approach. The townspeople would have had several hours to prepare.
Fuck.
The two captains brought their mounts to a standstill, each coming to similar realizations at the same time. Quinn’s grip tightened on his revolver. Their squadron would arrive within the hour and was likely now expected. What the rebels wouldn’t be expecting, however, was three experienced soldiers alone, with the advantage of experience, stealth, and speed. Surprise might help even the score until their reinforcements could arrive.
Quinn said as much to his companions, his voice hardly above a whisper. “If they have guards along the road leading into town where the woods end,” he said, “we can approach sidelong and eliminate them quietly. It would clear a path for Smith and the rest.” His sharp gaze settled on Langston. “Ride back to meet up with Smith. Warn him our approach has been made and to be on high alert. Otto and I will take care of this.”
With the three men in agreement, they parted ways. Quinn and Otto split, Quinn taking the north side of the road while Otto remained south of it, their urgent hoofbeats practically silent in the freshly fallen powder.
After a half mile, near enough the edge of the trees that he could see the bright glare of the settlement’s open grazing fields, Quinn dismounted. He was not dressed for camouflage with his deep navy coat against the winter white, but the underbrush was thick enough here that he could get away with keeping low and quiet. He crept forward, a long-bladed knife in his hand in place of his revolver (a shot would alert to his presence), peering through tangles of branches like a falcon scanning a meadow for prey. If he was right, and sentries were indeed posted, they would have to be near—there was simply nowhere else for them to hide. I know you’re here, you fucking bastard. Where are you?
As if responding to his will, the sentry moved.
Just a little. The smallest sway, the shifting of weight from left to right. But it was enough.
Quinn crouched behind a fallen tree, his blood thrumming. The man was small and stooped and dressed in drab, his tattered brown jacket blending in with surprising effectiveness against a weathered tree stump. His hands were bare and clutching an old shotgun, the barrel of which was rested across the old wood and supported by gnarled fingers that kept it pointed toward the road. It would be an easy mark with the revolver. Tempting, even. But the general knew better than to give himself away, or to waste valuable ammunition when his own hands would do just as well.
Sneaking up behind the old man was almost too easy. Quinn was twice his size, and it was almost a disappointment that the fellow couldn’t put up any semblance of a fight against him. He snaked his left hand around the man’s head to clamp down over his mouth while his right drew his blade across his throat.
Quinn held him upright for several moments before lowering the body soundlessly to the snow. He wiped his dagger on the man’s jacket before sheathing it at his belt, then took the tarnished shotgun and slung it over his shoulder by its cracked leather strap. Just as he dared step out from around the cover of the stump, a quick, piercing whistle broke the forest’s silence. A smile quirked one corner of his mouth, and he licked his lips before sending a shrill note in response. Otto’s signal, one they’d used years ago together on past missions.
He picked his way back to his horse, the gun heavy on his shoulder, and met the captain on the other side of the road. If the man’s iron-stained hands and wild, proud eyes were any indicator, he’d found and eliminated his mark successfully too.
Otto grinned, catching Quinn’s eyes on his red-dyed fingers. “He was a bleeder,” was all he offered, turning to glance toward the open meadows. His expression turned more serious then. “We’ve bought ourselves the element of surprise, Belvedere,” he said, “but we’ve got a hundred yards or more of open space out there, and we know they’ve got eyes now. We’ll need to move fast.”
Quinn’s pulse accelerated at the prospect, but logic kept him in check. “If we can’t hide, they can’t hide,” he remarked. “We still don’t know the state of the town or the training camp. We certainly won’t be dawdling, but I won’t order a charge unless we’re threatened first.”
Otto held up a hand incredulously and waggled his scarlet fingers. “You wouldn’t classify this as having been threatened?” The general stiffened, to which the captain gave an immediate apologetic salute. “Sorry, General. Smith and Langston and I, we’re using to challenging each other. No disrespect.”
A sigh, a cloud of silver. “No, you’re right. I welcome your perspective,” the Belvedere man replied carefully, “but dead men can’t tell us what we need to know.” His expression hardened, and his tone came out harsher than he’d intended. “This is as much an intelligence mission as it is a combat one. You’ll get your blood. But we’ll get our answers, too.”
Another whistle pierced the air, and soon the soft rumble of hooves heralded the arrival of Captain Langston, returned from checking on the squadron’s progress. “They’re five minutes behind us. Armed and ready,” he announced, breathless.
No sooner did the troops on foot appear from around the bend than a muffled explosion quaked the bald tree boughs and had Quinn reaching lightning-quick for his revolver. They turned to see a plume of thick gray smoke billowing up like a beacon from beyond the ridge, just past the town.
“The training camp,” one of the captains breathed, probably Langston. “I guess we’re just in time.”
Quinn’s expression was sober and serious, but his eyes gleamed. “Looks like we have our threat, Captain Otto,” he said silkily.
Smith, evidently having recovered his roaming horse along the road, trotted up while the rest of the soldiers fell into formation behind him. “What in the blazing fuck was that?” His eyes widened as they settled on the beacon of smoke through the trees. “Christ.”
Quinn’s world seemed to slow to a halt while he ran through their options. The training camp was manned by hardened militia who could certainly defend themselves, but depending on how many soldiers-in-training had been recruited to this foolhardy cause, the leadership could be outnumbered. Even the young recruits there posed more of a threat than the goat farmers in the township, who weren’t as likely to have access to traditional weaponry. Plus, in no uncertain terms, the camp was on fire.
But dissent rarely sparked from a singular piece of flint. That training facility was populated with the sons of Earl’s Crossing townsfolk and boys from surrounding hollows, families were rarely thrilled to ship off their teenaged children to the brutalities of the militia—particularly agricultural families like these, whose goat farms relied on their labor to make ends meet. Given the advanced age of the sentry he’d killed in the woods, Quinn had a feeling their problem was far bigger than any of them had anticipated, and the rebel group had recruited anyone and everyone who could hold a weapon.
A second, smaller explosion sent a sibling smoke plume from the camp. They had to move. Now.
He bellowed his orders to the men, whose eager energy he could feel radiating from them like heat from a bonfire—contained for the moment, but liable spread to wildfire at the smallest opportunity. They would split up, with roughly two thirds sent to the camp to back up their personnel with Otto and Langston with plans to return to town once it was secure, and the other third heading into the settlement led by Quinn and Smith.
“And listen carefully!” he shouted in conclusion, brows tightly knit as he paced the ranks. “When we have ascertained our victory, we will be questioning the survivors—so be ready to take prisoners when the time comes. Be prepared for surrenders. These are not soldiers; these are not seasoned fighters. Attack no one who does not have a weapon. Thebes still needs Earl’s Crossing to function as a settlement and camp outpost. Slaughtering the entire population is not an option, deserving as they may be.” Quinn’s gaze swept the soldiers, who looked just as eager as he felt. “No one who does not hold a weapon,” he reiterated. “And no children.”
He called to the captains, who rallied in front. Like a well-oiled machine, and the well-trained warriors they all were, they took to formation.
And then they charged.
————
His blood sang.
His whole life he’d heard soldiers describe what overtakes them on the battlefield—a certain blackness, a vignetting of vision, the darkest parts of them emerging from the shadows of conflict. They became different people in a fight, they said. People they didn’t recognize.
But for Quinn, there was nothing dark or unfamiliar about it. His demons broke free from their cages in a blaze of light—a force of blinding energy on the brink of explosion, a burning star on the verge of supernova. It was bright, searing; everything was thrown into sharp, vivid relief. His body wholly alive, his mind crystal clear. And he felt it now, as he did each time, that this was the man he was born to be. The truest, most authentic Quinn Marius Belvedere—precise and dangerous and unyielding.
Quinn wasn’t a different person on the battlefield. He was truly, unapologetically himself. A weapon. A terror. A monster.
Earl’s Crossing was in chaos. The explosion at the camp must have been the signal to the operation in the township, because the patrolling militiamen in the streets were already under siege when Quinn and his troops stormed down main street.
Rebels poured from the buildings on either side of the road, crudely armed but determined. They clearly had not expected Quinn’s squadron’s arrival, or at least not so promptly, and as such were woefully underprepared for such a large-scale physical clash on the street. His revolver blasted against his grip, a bullet burying itself in the chest of a middle-aged peasant man who held a knife to a militia patrol’s throat. The patrolman snatched the rebel’s fallen blade and leapt into the fray.
Gunfire from the camp over the ridge—whose, no one could say—added distant percussion to the din of the street, like a panicked, irregular pulse. Quinn fired off another round that found the neck of a blonde twentysomething.
Smith had abandoned his horse again and was terrorizing on his feet, a trail of scarlet and corpses in his wake. Most of the Aces had gone out to the camp, but the Omegas were holding their own here in town. Quinn swung his horse around, swiping with his long blade as he charged. “Forward!” he roared, echoed by Smith to his left, and they pushed ahead as a unit toward the center square.
A swath of rebel townspeople awaited them, bracing shoulder-to-shoulder in a shaky line. Quinn’s men charged toward them as if they weren’t there. Navy coats shattered the rebels’ quivering hold like ice on a pond, their screams cut short by knives slashed across throats and blades plunged between ribs. More rebels emerged from the alleys, ragtag throngs consisting of older men and women of many ages, crudely armed and disorganized and looking rightfully terrified.
A shot rang out that was not Quinn’s. His head whipped around to see Captain Smith surrounded by a half dozen townsfolk, his revolver plummeting to the cobblestones as a woman with a sword took her first lunge. The burly militiaman’s scream was feral when it sliced into his shoulder, and he stumbled, pushed to his back by a peasant dressed in stained green rags.
Quinn’s body moved as if on its own accord. He swung down from his mount and barreled toward the group, long blade in his left hand while his right cocked the hammer of his own gun. Gracefully, as though it were choreographed, his blade felled one man from behind; and before the bleeding body even hit the ground, he fired a bullet into the skull of the next man, who had spun to face the general attacker—and whose visage maintained its look of bewildered surprise even as it slackened in death. Quinn leapt over the crumpled body without thought, kicking up a glittering cloud of fresh snow as he plowed shoulder-first into the rebel dressed in green, whose arm was raised to deliver Smith’s death blow.
They tumbled hard to the ground. Quinn easily overpowered him, pinning him in the snow and driving his knife under his ribs.
“Belvedere!” roared Smith’s voice.
The general rolled off and levitated to his feet, whirling around to face the fray just in time to see a woman pick up Smith’s fallen revolver from the ground and point it directly at Quinn. He jumped toward her without hesitation, reaching for it. It fired as he twisted the barrel out of her hand, and for a moment, the world slowed. His ears rang from the proximity of the shot, drowning out the roars and screams of battle, and in a strange sort of whistling silence he maneuvered the woman’s arm to her back and yanked upward.
She dropped to her knees. Without hesitation, Quinn dragged his knife across her exposed throat in a bright spray of crimson. Warm droplets splattered his flushed face. It dappled the snow at his feet like paint.
More damp warmth trickled down his bicep as he raised his dagger again to a bearded man in a black tunic. A distant bolt of pain rocketed through his arm when their blades crashed together, and as he threw the rebel townsman to the ground and his weapon glided into the man’s burly chest, he realized that his coat was torn at the shoulder—and that the woman’s deafening bullet had grazed him, a near hit.
A torrent of rage washed through him at the realization. He retrieved the discarded gun from the snow and handed it to Smith as the man approached, who immediately pulled back the hammer with a bloodstained thumb and sent the nearest rebel to whatever afterlife awaited them.
The general and the captain suddenly found themselves in a fleeting moment of calm amidst the bloody storm. Quinn caught Smith’s eye and bared his teeth in a brutal grin, amber eyes feral and gleaming, face freckled by drying blood. “Captain,” he addressed, his voice ragged.
“General,” replied Smith, grinning right back.
They exchanged knowing nods and rejoined the assault. The rebels’ numbers were dwindling now, and their remaining fighters were beginning to tire. The Omega soldiers, with their youth and hard training, had hardly slowed.
Bodies dressed in mismatched rags littered the street and the square, their corpses dusted with fine, sparkling snow. Quinn couldn’t find a single navy uniform among the fallen. The misguided bastards hadn’t stood a chance.
“Bring them in!” he bellowed. “Round them up!” Smith repeated the order farther ahead, echoed by the three Omega captains as they emerged triumphant from the perpendicular alleys. The militia soldiers fell into a sweeping formation in the square, gradually forcing back those left on their feet until they were trapped between a wall of blue uniforms and a wall of crumbling brick.
“Cooperate, and you will be spared for the time being,” Quinn called to the rebel fighters, his commanding voice soaring easily on the crisp wind now that the din of the battle had died down. “Resist and join your comrades on the ground.” He glanced back down the street, where a handful of Omegas were rounding up stragglers. One of the townspeople, a woman in a tattered dress, was pressing herself tightly against the wall of a building, pleading to a trio of soldiers.
With the situation under control in the square—Smith delivering the orders to restrain their captives and line them up—Quinn put his weapons away and wandered toward the younger soldiers. He couldn’t make out what the woman was saying from this distance, but as he got closer, he realized she was hiding a small child behind her skirts, shielding her son from the jeering Omegas. One of them, broad and blond, slapped her across the face. As if her surrender hadn’t already been obvious, she raised her empty hands, her eyes clenched closed. The blond man grabbed a fistful of her skirts and yanked the material with such force that it sent her to her knees at his feet. The soldier laughed, throwing the handful of torn cloth on top of her and stepping toward the child. He bent down, sneering directly in the face of the paralyzed boy.
“Your little whore mother is going to pay her dues,” the blond said, his disturbingly soothing tone a direct contrast to the threat of his words. “I’m going to take this knife”—he drew a blade from his belt, waving it just a finger’s breadth from the child’s nose—“and cut her up into little tiny pieces to feed to the dogs. But don’t worry, I’ll do it to you first. So she can watch.”
The woman cried out and lunged for her son, but the two other men held her back. “Please,” she sobbed, “we’re not part of this. He ran outside, and I—look, look, h-he’s not even wearing his shoes—please—”
The blond soldier pressed the knife blade to the little boy’s cheek.
Quinn felt fury bubble up behind his ribs, but this time it was due to being disobeyed—this unabashed display of insubordination masquerading as duty was precisely the sort of thing he would expect from a cocky young soldier, but not one who had qualified for the Omega squadron. He pulled out his revolver, which still held three shots, and drew back the hammer. The men froze at the sound of the telltale click.
“You’re going to want to step away, soldier,” Quinn growled. He held the gun at his side, primed, lifting it just enough to drive home his seriousness.
The blond had the audacity to pause, his knife still pressed to the child’s face, and swivel his head to look at Quinn. Unmistakable battle rage shone feverishly in the soldier’s gaze—a look the general knew well, knew what was coursing through his bloodstream—but it was no excuse for any of it, including the hesitation now. He withdrew slowly and rose to his full height. The other two abruptly relinquished their hold on the petrified mother, who collapsed into the snow with a cry, afraid to move.
Quinn took a few steps closer. He was near enough to see the rivulet of blood on the child’s cheek. His furious gaze met the woman’s from the ground, and she flinched as if struck, seemingly more terrified of the general than the trio of Omegas. “Take him and go,” he told her through clenched teeth. When she didn’t move, he shouted, “Go!” and she scrambled into action, scooping the bleeding boy from the snow and disappearing into the gray building.
“Your orders were to leave children and the unarmed alone.” Angry breaths billowed in swirling clouds as he fought to keep himself in check. “What part of that did you find difficult to understand?”
None of the three soldiers spoke, none of them moved. Probably wise. Despite the deep maroon stains on their uniforms, they suddenly looked very young.
“I take it you’re aware of the punishment for gross insubordination.” Quinn watched them stiffen. The consequence of disobedience at this level—at any level—was death.
He raised his revolver, but instead of pointing it immediately at one of the offending men, he disengaged the cylinder. A flash of polished metal glinted in the overcast light as he spun the wheel and blindly clicked it closed again. “I have three shots left in here,” he said, his voice low and smooth but full of venom. “One for each of you. Or perhaps…” He leveled a predatory gaze at the blond, the key instigator. Technically, the other two had not harmed either the unarmed mother or her child. “Shall we let fate decide?” He closed the gap between himself and the blond and roughly pressed the ice-cold metal of the barrel against the young man’s temple, hard enough to leave a bruise. Without preamble, Quinn squeezed the trigger.
Click.
The blond’s entire body flinched, and he bit back a scream. His breaths came in panicked puffs through his nose, but to his credit, he stayed on his feet.
“One for the mother.” Quinn narrowed his eyes. “One for the kid.” The trigger glided smoothly with the pressure of his finger.
Click.
This time, the young man dropped to the ground and fell forward onto his hands. He vomited into the snow. Alive.
“Disobey orders again and your fate won’t be left to chance,” Quinn hissed, almost disappointed. “Now, to the square.” The other two traipsed after him as he wove an irregular path around the fallen rebel bodies. The blond remained behind to gather himself, then followed suit. Because even in the foolish soldier’s haze of stupidity, he must’ve sensed the general’s mood—the anger, the determination, the bloodlust—and the afternoon was young yet.
————
Smith and his men had just finished restraining their captives. They knelt in a jagged line, eight bruised and bloodied men, their hands tied behind their backs. A soldier was posted behind each one. Quinn dispatched the other troops to search the rest of the alleyways and sweep the outskirts, while a handful of others went to check on the status of the training camp beyond the ridge.
Smoke and blood perfumed the frigid breeze. Quinn drew long, slow breaths as he paced the length of battered rebels, his stained hands tightly clasped behind his back. Their expressions ranged from defiant and angry to pale and frightened. None had come easily, of course, but at least three of the prisoners had been witnessed giving orders during the clash—which meant there were answers to be had.
“Gentlemen,” Quinn said, with all the dignity and composure of a leader speaking to colleagues over a conference table, or addressing colleagues over dinner. With his blood-soaked coat, spattered face, stained hands, and icy expression, the juxtaposition of his appearance and tone was downright terrifying. He took a moment to look each prisoner in the eye—or at least those who dared lift their gazes from the ground—and raised his chin. “Earl’s Crossing has paid a great price in blood this afternoon for its crimes against Northam.” A pause as he surveyed the men, watching for any kind of reaction. “You already know your town plays a vital role to the region, and to Thebes.
“I am not unreasonable. I have no wish to see your settlement exterminated. That helps no one.” The general cleared his throat. “Which is why I am going to make you an offer. Tell me about your leadership. Names. Objectives. Timelines. Tell me what you know, and if it is of use to me, you will be released.” He spread his hands, as if asking them to decide between red or white wine. The rebels who had previously been looking down suddenly raised their eyes in shock. Quinn saw Smith shift his weight, the only indication of the brutal man’s surprise.
Quinn stepped up to one of the men, the third from the left. “You. What is your name?”
The man bared his teeth in a snarl and spat on the ground. Quick as an adder, Quinn’s blade flashed out, thrusting upward at the apex of the ribcage. Blood bubbled up from the man’s lips, and he coughed, painting another layer of scarlet spatter on the general’s face. Quinn wiped the blood from his knife on the man’s tunic before letting him drop lifeless to the snow.
“I am offering you a chance to rewrite your sentences,” reiterated Quinn, irritation creeping into his civil tone. They all knew what their positions were. If they weren’t to die right there in the square by the general’s hand, they would be escorted back to Thebes to await trial for treason—which meant months of imprisonment and torture. If they survived the interrogation dungeons, it would only end in death at the gallows. Quinn’s offer was an unprecedented mercy. Not a kindness, never that, but a chance rarely afforded, and an opportunity most of the townsfolk had not been so lucky to receive that day.
He turned to another man in the lineup. “Your name?”
“H-Harris.” The man was so pale Quinn wasn’t certain how he was remaining upright. “Harris Palmer.”
“Tell me who organized this sad excuse for a rebellion.” If it were physically possible, Harris would have blanched further. He glanced to his right to another of the captives, but Quinn cleared his throat. “Eyes on me,” Quinn ordered. He adjusted the grip of his blade in his hand and pointed it at the man’s neck. “Names. Now.”
“Morrison—at the camp—sent a missive—”
“Harris, enough!” hissed one of the other prisoners.
A shot rang out, deafening, and the man who’d spoken out of turn fell face-first into the snow. Smoke curled from the barrel of Quinn’s revolver.
“Tell me more about this ‘Morrison,’” the general continued, concentrating his focus on Harris as though nothing had happened to interrupt.
Harris’ eyes were locked on the tide of crimson slowly staining the snow beneath his crony’s body. “Gerald Morrison,” he whispered, voice breaking. “Works at the camp, a-an overseer…he works with the new recruits—”
“What other name does he use? How does he sign his missives?”
“I-I don’t…I don’t think…”
Quinn’s gaze intensified. “Does the name ‘Clover’ mean anything to you? To any of you?” The name rolled off his tongue like a warning, or perhaps an omen. He searched each face in turn for any sign of reaction, of recognition. He gritted his teeth at their blank, frightened stares. These people were not soldiers; they were not trained to withstand torture or to keep secrets. Their expressions were open books, too easily read. Fuck. He’d wanted so badly for this mission to uncover something, some clue to identifying the man at the heart of the newest rebel movement in Thebes…but the longer he stared at these bedraggled, bloodied farmers who play-acted at being soldiers, the more obvious the futility of interrogation became. Petrified men like Harris might be willing to sell Earl’s Crossing’s secrets to save their own skins, but the information was useless to Quinn Belvedere in the pursuit of Clover.
“Nothing?” he continued. There was an edge to his voice as sharp as the knife he’d sheathed. “Not even in trade for your lives?” He looked up, meeting Smith’s narrowed gaze over the heads of the prisoners. The captain gave a slight, nearly imperceptible nod of understanding (or perhaps encouragement), his eyes still bright from battle. Quinn paced to the end of the lineup and stepped behind them.
“Then there is only one final gesture I can offer you.” The finality in the general’s voice was chilling, and the younger Omega soldiers in the vicinity automatically straightened their posture at his tone.
There was a pause. A click. And then a gunshot.
Harris Palmer fell lifeless to the ground.
Three of the eight captives, dead. Quinn readied the sixth and final shot in his revolver. Aimed. Pressed the barrel to the back of the next traitor’s head. Fired. The brass casing flitted through the air and landed on the dead man’s shoulder as he collapsed.
The remaining four weren’t so lucky as to receive a bullet. With his pulse drumming furiously in his ears, Quinn dragged his knife across the necks of each in turn—a quick slaughter. They fell alongside the others, unglamorous and gurgling, until an unnerving silence met the square once again.
Eight traitors against Northam. Executed.
For several moments he didn’t move; he simply stood, knife blade steaming with hot blood in the frigid air, and waited for the song in his own veins to decrescendo.
Smith broke the stillness first, limping slightly on his left foot as he approached.
“Captain Smith,” Quinn addressed, turning to face the man. “We’ve done what we came to do. Well fought.”
The captain saluted. “Well fought, General Belvedere.”
He raised his voice to address the militiamen. “Well fought, men. Hold the square until the others return from camp. We’ll reassemble here in two hours.”
Quinn sighed. Their mission had been a success—stop the assault, secure the settlement, control the camp, determine whether there was any connection with Clover. He was aware that intelligence operations weren’t always cut and dried; and in this case, a lack of information was still information. This attack, and these people, possessed none of the finesse Thebes had begun to associate with Clover. The fact that it was an unrelated event meant exactly that: it was unrelated. Still useful knowledge. But Quinn couldn’t help but feel…disappointed. They were no closer to discovering Clover’s identity than they’d been before.
One of the men shouted his name suddenly across the square, from the direction of the grazing fields. When he turned, despite the heat that still clung to his skin from the clash, the blood in his veins turned cold as ice.
Because he recognized the woman who was being led by the soldier who had called out, and he couldn’t quite believe his eyes. Even from this distance, even bundled up in winter garb with packed snow clinging to the cloth.
“Chloe.”
The trek back and around towards the town was swifter than she had anticipated, considering how cautiously she walked amongst the trees. It was important to not appear as a spy might, as someone who knew how to keep hidden. She was just a seamstress coming to inquire about luxury wool that would elevate her offerings to high end clientele. Soon, she came upon some soldiers towards the outer edge of town - two that must have been set to maintain a guard at the perimeter after…after whatever had transpired here.
“Halt!” One of the militiamen called as soon as she made herself visible. Clover had the good sense to appear startled, clutching both hands at one of the straps of her pack. “What is your business? Do you live here?” Astute gaze caught sight of the way he reached for his sword at his side.
“I - I-“ Chloe stammered, stepped back before suddenly holding up her hands in defense. “I’m supposed to meet someone about wool.”
“Do you live here? Who do you know here?” His tone was sharp and rimmed with violence. Blonde hair was slicked back and he wasn’t wearing any type of cap or covering on his head despite the cold. He advanced slightly and Chloe shrunk back, making herself appear smaller than her usually noticeable height.
“No. No - I’m just set to meet a man about wool. I work in T-Th-Thebes and I just -“ She choked out a terrified sob. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t know this was a militia base. I never would have come. No one told me.”
Out of the corner of her eye, head turned down towards her boots in the snow, she caught sight of the young men conferring. One of them gestured rudely towards her as she cowered there, all the while she wanted to just slit their throats with the blade strapped against her thigh - thankfully covered by the length of her winter coat. They didn’t seem the type to rape and kill her, but she’d be a fool not to be on her guard around them. Men, especially those under her father’s command, were dangerous.
“Come forward.” The blonde declared and she was starting to regret her decision to make herself known. She may have been able to outsmart some men in the trees… but no point in wondering about that now. She hesitantly looked around and took a few steps forward, staying out of the reach. Chloe sheepishly looked up at them.
“I can go back but with the storm…I don’t know if I would make it and it’s so dark at night. I had to walk here from the wagon. He wouldn’t bring me this way for the snow and I just need a bit of food and then I can leave, I promise.” The rambling length of her sentences and the hurried, yet stammering cadence of her words, conveyed a young woman who was very afraid. Most women of her class were around militia. It was best to be meek, it was best to be subservient to soldiers who thought they were her better.
“How do we know you’re not a townie, a spy, a rebel?” The blonde snapped, clearly already irritated with the entire situation - likely because he had been relegated to guarding a lesser-used entrance to the town. Clover briefly wondered what he might have done to have been saddle with such a task considering it appeared he was slightly higher rank than his companion.
“A- a rebel?” She squeaked, jumping at the accusation. “Is that… oh no, is that what has happened here?” Even though the spymaster had already discerned that from the screams she had heard from her perch, her voice gave no indication that she suspected anything was amiss. Irritation flared over the man’s face and he reached out to grab her by the back of the elbow. He moved faster than she had anticipated but it was too risky to try to kill him. Play the part. Play the part. Play the fucking part. Chloe made a startled noise and let her body go more limp, though not completely. Compliant.
“Don’t play dumb, bitch.” His grip tightened to the point that Clover’s fingers briefly went numb inside of her glove.
“Orik…” his partner interrupted softly, placing his hand on the blond man’s shoulder. “Remember. There will not be a second chance with the General.” Whatever that meant, it settled some of the anger in the man’s face. Clover studied him briefly and knew that something had already transpired…a reprimand? A citation? That was clearly the source of his sudden rage at the woman. Mommy issues?
“Do you have proof? Prove who you are.” He snarled but Orik’s grip lessened even that the sensation returned down her arm.
“I- I have my pack only. It has my tools. “ he tilted his chip up and released her arm. The other man’s hand stayed on his sword as she swung her bag shakily around and unclamp the buckles. Her hands visibly shook the entire time, taking long enough that the blond militiaman shifted in frustration in the snow. She threw back the top and held it open for him to see. It was filled with her thread, wool samples, measuring tape, and a bound leather sketchbook. Thick, bloodstained hands rummaged around the pack. Maroon flecks transferred to the soft cream sweater she had brought as a change of clothes. Clover internally scowled, narrowing her eyes imperceptibly in a desire to strangle him for ruining something of hers.
“And this?” He stabbed the pristine pages of the General’s gift with his grubby fingers. I’ll cut them off if given half a chance.
“A sketchbook. For drawing my clients’ clothing design. I just finished a gown for Maria Belvedere’s wedding if you,” a visible swallow “if you’d like to see it but they are rather private, as you can imagine a general’s daughter would be about her drawn form.” The name made the man recoil from her pack as if it had suddenly caught fire and burned him. Surprise flickered in her gaze as he gestured for her to close it. Orik and the reasonable man at his side conferred again.
“I’m taking you to the General.” He declared flatly. “He’ll sort you out. Find what lies you may hide.”
Chloe shouldered her bag and ran through the list of ranking generals that the High Commander would assign to such a task. There were about three that she considered and of those three she had made General Keller a suit, General Posult’s wife a dress for his promotion and General Shearer’s daughter a christening gown. They would recognize her in some capacity and she may be able to talk herself out of this disaster of a trip.
Dirty fingers pressed through the thick fabric of her jacket, keeping a firm grip on her arm. He all but dragged her, taking whatever rage towards women he had out on her. She stumbled through the quiet streets at his side - the other guard having stayed at the town entrance until a change of guard could be sent. It was a larger town that she had anticipated. Clearly it had grown significantly in the last five years. Houses and shops lined a few streets, though it wouldn’t have been hard to map the layout after a half day of exploration. Stormy eyes flickered back and forth, taking in the scenes that they passed. She did not find one person that was not dressed in military blues. Blood splattered the snow and the scent of urine met her nose intermittently, despite the fact that a number of the bodies had already been removed - to where she was not sure.
As they traversed a side street another man called out to them. “Best be careful, Orik. Don’t want to rely on the general’s roulette again, eh?” One laughed and the pair continued moving a mangled body out of a home and back the way that the seamstress had been dragged. At the words, the grip on her arm tightened and she could not hide the way she buckled under the pressure. Chloe let out a whimper of pain and tilted her body towards him to lessen the discomfort.
Commotion sounded ahead of them and Clover knew they were approaching the town center, where a large collection of the military had gathered. Hurricane eyes lifted to take in the scene in the square the moment the man at her side called out. Mind heard the words individually but something akin to shock prevented her from processing what he had said. General. General Belvedere. Belvedere. Belvedere.
Quinn.
Gaze darted from the lips that formed her lover’s name to the man that turned when it was called out across the space. She would recognize his form anywhere, being well acquainted with the intimate details of nearly every muscle. Rising from the ground, silver met gold across the expanse. Intelligent eyes took in his face, his general’s jacket, his hair. Where thick curls usually waited ready for her fingers to tangle into, hair was slicked back with snow and a combination of mud and blood. She traveled down to his brow and cheeks where a smattering of blood in various stages of drying resided. Bright red stood starkly out against the deeper burgundy of older stains., indicating a long battle just complete. A day-old stubble rested against his jawline and she recalled, despite his current presentation, how it felt against her thigh. Heat exploded through her body to the point she forgot the pain of the grip on her arm. Quinnley was making his way towards them now, an expression she couldn’t place upon his face, as the guard continued to tug her forward.
There was a wild darkness to the corners of his eyes and within the firm set of his mouth. The shade squirted around him like a living breathing entity. It settled over him like a shroud, wrapping around his limbs and torso as if Clover could see her own darkness given shape. The seamstress had sensed it, felt it from him during their two previous encounters, but now the madness was given form. She saw him in an entirely new way - his true self presenting before her despite the fact he struggled now to conceal it. As if she didn’t have that same evil lurking aide her own blood - the High Commander’s blood. The breath in her throat hitched and her eyes were drawn, by some hidden force, to look behind him. To see the dead bodies collapsed in pools of their own blood. With the freshly fallen snow, the scene was vividly red - splatters of heme sprayed across the trampled white. It was a scene painted by a master, with a blade rather than a brush. In his own way, Quinn was a master artist and Clover was seeing his chosen medium for the first time.
The rebel leader had known what her lover did for a living. She had known the moment she accepted his invitation to make his suit. She knew, deeply, that they were on opposing sides of a decades long war. She knew that she should never have touched him, never gone willingly to his bed, never straddled him in the abandoned room of Avondale. But something in him called to her and now she witnessed what that was - the madness of the beast inside of him.
Her name left his lips - her first name, not Miss Paige- which belied his surprise. She could not suppress the shiver that traveled through her body. Chloe, however, found no appreciation in the display behind him as he strode forward. She placed her hand to her mouth, startled and appalled. She turned her head away, towards the terrible man still holding her arm and forced herself to wretch on his bloodied boots. The contents of her stomach had been terribly limited due to the journey taking longer than she had thought it would. She had only had her last remaining slice of bread more than six hours prior. A sufficient amount of bile expelled itself and splattered across Orik’s boot leather and the snow beside. Chloe brought the back of her jacket to her mouth, holding it there before trying to straighten again.
“I’m so sorry,” she breathed right as the man shoved her disgustedly away from him with a mumbled curse. He gave an irritated sound as he released her, trying to use the snow to wipe it off his shoes. She stumbled, thrown off-balanced by the pack on her back, in Quinn’s direction. Her shoulder pressed into Quinn’s sternum and her gloved hand against his chest to catch herself. Hood of her jacket had fallen back during the push and her cheek pressed against his shoulder.
“Found her trying to enter town. Says she’s a seamstress. Thought it best to bring her to you considering the circumstances, sir.” The man straightened before his general, likely expecting a commendation for his handling of the situation.
When Clover withdrew, she trembled slightly - the flood of emotions coursing through her body. Shock. Apprehension. Fear. A morbid appreciation…Blood transferred from his jacket to the soft, exposed skin of her cheek and brow. It smeared across her skin, bright against her pale flesh.
“Hello Q-.” Was all she managed before she fainted.
The syllables escaped his bloodied lip in a silvery cloud on the winter air, swirling before him like a spirit.
Chloe. It didn’t make any sense.
Quinn’s eyes locked on the seamstress. He charged forward, the troops milling about parting for him like a river parting around a stone. What was she doing here? In Earl’s Crossing of all places, on this day of all possible days?
He couldn’t read her expression. Behind cheeks rouged with cold, her complexion had blanched, and her bewitching storm-blue eyes were wide with shock and something else he couldn’t decipher. It almost looked like…awe.
But that couldn’t be right.
As he approached he attempted to block her view of the worst of the carnage behind him, but it was little use; the square, and all the streets leading to it, were painted with bright red blood on stark white snow. Not to mention his own appearance, which was perhaps just as startling as the environment from which he stalked.
For all he’d fantasized about showing his dark side to Chloe—who had somehow lulled his demons into an unprecedented sense of security—the reality of standing before her now, with broad daylight glinting on every fang and talon and horn, made him feel…not ashamed, not weak, but vulnerable. And the brigadier general was certainly not used to that.
The hair on the back of Quinn’s neck rose as her gaze swept over him, taking in his grisly appearance. The seamstress’ hands and graphite alike had explored every chiseled plane of muscle of his body, had danced over all the hard angles of his fighter’s frame; she had seen every inch of him unclothed and unabashed, and he had reveled in it, proud and confident. Yet he felt more exposed now than he ever had when they’d tangled together beneath his silken sheets. In the sanctuary of his bedroom, or the dim hideaway of the Avondale storage room, the real General Belvedere could live as lore, a character in a gruesome fable. But here, the evidence of what he was capable of—the proof that married myth to reality—was plainly soaked into his coat and splashed across his face.
The man who came to a halt before her now was every bit the monstrous soldier his reputation whispered about. His hair was damp and disheveled, thick with the moisture and grime of winter battle. A gradient of reds from mahogany to scarlet freckled his face and stained the scruff that clung to his clenched jaw. His lower lip had been split open, and a cut along his eyebrow slowly leeched yet another shade of crimson along his right temple that he smeared quickly away with the back of his hand.
Quinn met her gaze up close for a fraction of a second before she turned her head and expelled the meager contents of her stomach onto her escort’s boots.
“What is the meaning of—” the general began, but suddenly Chloe was stumbling into him, her shoulder colliding with his chest. He absorbed the impact instinctively, protectively, his left arm curling up and around her back, pulling her against him. Her cheek rested against his blood-soaked shoulder, and he held her there until he was certain she was steady.
“Found her trying to enter town,” the familiar blond soldier explained, his shoulders thrown back in attention. “Says she’s a seamstress. Thought it best to bring her to you considering the circumstances, sir.”
He released Chloe without a word and reeled on the Omega soldier. He grabbed hold of the man’s uniform collar and tugged him roughly forward, bowing his head to meet the blond’s startled gaze. “Orik, is it?” The man flinched when Quinn spat his name. “This is the second time I’ve found you manhandling an unarmed woman.” The general’s gaze pointedly strayed to Erik’s temple, where a deep circular bruise had already blossomed from the barrel of Quinn’s revolver colliding with the tender skin. The soldier’s eyes widened a fraction. “I’m concerned it’s becoming a habit.”
“But, General, sir, she could be lying—”
Quinn pulled back his free fist and slammed it into the blond’s nose. Blood gushed from his nostrils as he staggered back, swallowing a pathetic whimper behind hands that immediately reached up to staunch the flow. “You were right to bring her to me,” the general told him gruffly, “but not to treat her in such a way. You are neither a magistrate nor a captain. It is not your job, nor are you qualified, to sort lies from truth.” Only then did he trust himself enough to glance to Chloe, whose pallor had somehow blanched to the same shade of white as the snow beneath their feet. Her eyes were glassy when they met his, as though not quite seeing him.
He sensed what was about to happen just a beat before she crumpled—
—and he leapt forward, catching her limp form before she could hit the snow.
“Shit,” he muttered under his breath, his concern audible only to Chloe, whom he clutched to his chest. He slid his arm under he knees and hoisted her into his arms. “Orik,” he addressed. “Run ahead and ensure Captain Smith has finished setting up temporary headquarters.”
The blond hurriedly snapped into action, despite the blood still trickling from his swollen nostrils.
It was common practice to establish a centralized point of contact in the aftermath of a battle, whether it be a tent amongst camping troops or, in this case, a dilapidated inn whose front doors nearly fell off their rusted hinges when Quinn pushed through them. There was a flurry of activity inside which stilled when the general stepped across the threshold. Captain Smith lurched to his feet.
“Bystander,” was all Quinn offered in explanation, “she’s fine. She just needs a place to lie down.”
Smith waved a hand. “Five convalescent rooms upstairs. Pretty sparse, but beats a snowbank, I s’pose,” he drawled. “Three are occupied. Otherwise, not a lot o’ wounded. For us, anyway.” The captain’s fevered eyes twinkled at that, and Quinn’s lips cocked in a predatory half-smile in return.
He took the rickety stairs two at a time until he reached the second floor landing, then slipped inside the first open room to his right. Well…calling it a room was generous; it was a glorified closet, with a bare cot in one corner and a cracked porcelain washbasin in the other. It was only when he lowered her to the dusty canvas of the cot that he dared to look at her again.
When he did, his amber eyes were dark, his expression furious. He tore his gaze away and turned to the door, his posture rigid beneath his ruined jacket. A warm rivulet of blood trickled down his arm inside his sleeve, the graze wound having opened again with the effort of catching her—or perhaps the force of the punch he’d landed on the haughty blond soldier. But instead of leaving, he forced the door into its crooked frame and swiveled suddenly back to face her.
“Miss Paice.” Quinn’s voice was silken, dangerous, masking the sting of worry that pricked anew with each frenzied beat of his heart. He took a step toward her—the room was so small, a single pace brought her within reach, should he extend his arm—and pressed his lips together in a tight line. Eyes flashing, he swept his attention over her from her dark hair to her muddy boots, surveying for any obvious bodily injury.
“Are you all right?” he finally asked, more softly than he’d intended. But then his brows knitted together, and the darkness was back; even if his fury was only a guise donned by his concern, it was no less intense. The question left him in a hiss, low and demanding. “What are you doing here, Chloe?”
A roaring occurred in her ears and blackness crept at the corners of her vision, blurring the edges. Clover swayed slightly and everything felt suddenly empty and vast. She heard something, like words and a crack – bone? Wood? And she saw amber eyes, his beautiful haunting amber eyes look down before she felt a terrible weight draw her downward. What a surprise to see him again. What an unexpected turn.
Clover didn’t hit the ground but was unaware of anything until she heard the rumble of his commanding voice. She felt the vibration against her cheek. The spymaster had not fainted in…well, ever. It was an odd sensation, coming back to consciousness. She stirred just slightly against him just as he barreled through the swinging doors and into the old tavern. Eyes remained loosely closed, breathing steady as he carried her. Bystander. She almost smiled.
The information was quickly tucked away – minimal casualties for them, meant this was closer to an ambush for the town. All the rebels would have been slaughtered, and if the scene behind General Belvedere had been any indication – there would be no survivors, no one for the seamstress to make contact with. This trip was a complete and utter disaster, leaving her desperately wishing more than anything that she did not make the trek to Earl’s Crossing.
But he was here.
The thought came unbidden as he topped the stairs, pushing open the door to a room that felt entirely too small for them both to fit into. The pack slid off her back and onto the floor beside the cot. The worn canvas sagged beneath her limp frame as he lowered her down. Clover could feel the fury radiating off him in waves, thick and deadly. It was the same kind of darkness that had ended the lives of the rebellion leaders in the square…that led to all that blood, so much blood on the snow. She stirred slightly when he respectfully said her name. The shift in her body was minimal, head lolling to one side and exposing her bloodied cheek. The spy released a soft humming noise, lashes fluttering against her cheeks. Eyes remained closed, despite the alluringly soft tone that shifted into something more forceful.
“So demanding, Quinn.” She murmured, an attempt to tease, reaching over to rub the back of her right elbow with her other hand. She still felt the pressure of Orik’s hand against her jacket, tight and angry. There would be bruises along her pale flesh and she winced when she brushed it.
“I’ve been better.” Clover breathed, honestly, meeting his gaze directly. It was brief, before she allowed her eyes to roam around the accommodations. It really was a closet, especially in comparison to the two other rooms that they had shared together. Spiderwebs, long abandoned by their creators, hung in the corners collecting dust particulates. Pushing herself upward, she groaned slightly as a wave of nausea rushed over her. Steading herself, muddied boots settled firmly on the ground as an anchor. Hurricane eyes examined the floor before rising back up to him again. He was so close. So close.
“I was…I was supposed to meet a man, about his wool. It’s supposed to be…supposed to be from this rare type of goat that they thought was lost.” Laughter bubbled up out of her, like a shock reaction gone wrong. “I just…I was just going to see if I could buy a sample and see if it would work for the new batch of scarves.” Silence enveloped them, this tension pulling taut. It was one thing to sleep with a military officer as a spy. It was another to lie to him, in his capacity as a murderous general bent on discovering some truth she hadn’t quite figured out yet. And still, still she had this urge to reach out and touch his face, to wipe at the blood that was painted across his cheeks.
“Are you all right?” She asked, gesturing to his split lip. “That looks like it…looks like it hurts.” She studied his face, remembering the monster lurking there…but was that what it was, or was that just the man? Was that who he was – that powerful, forbidding force beneath a carefully cultivated exterior? That deep darkness that sang to her a beautiful siren song. She searched for it now, hunting for that pull she found irresistible. She longed to reach out and run her hand against the stained stubble of his jaw. Clover tried to stand, and the nausea tugged her back down, causing her to clench her eyes shut for a moment.
“I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come. I just…I had no idea. I’m so sorry, General.” She wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing – but it was something that Chloe would do. She reverted to his title – this was not a tryst. This was dangerous. She was at his mercy and at the hands of the militia. If they suspected…but how could they? Her alibi, her story was air tight. There was no reason to suspect anything…besides to marvel at the coincidence that brought them together yet again.
“I didn’t expect this.” Stormy eyes swirled. Clover licked her lips and held his gaze. “I didn’t expect you.”
For all he’d avoided looking at her while he carried her up the creaking stairs, now he couldn’t rip his gaze away…even if he wanted to, even if he should have. It was a different breed of anger that rushed through his veins now than the one that seized him on the battlefield; this was one closer to frustration, to confusion, and it burned cold rather than hot as it flowed through him. And wasn’t that worse, more dangerous, more volatile? Like the frozen river snaking its way through the snow-drenched valleys, it was difficult to say whether its ice or the swiftness of its undercurrent posed the most risk to those who dared cross it.
And the thought of what might have happened if she’d arrived even five minutes sooner than she had…
The muscles of his jaw flexed as he clenched his teeth against the notion. The blond asshole Orik was not the only soldier among them with a streak of cruelty and a tendency to reinterpret orders to suit their own brutal whims—he was just one who had been caught. Still, Quinn wished suddenly he’d done more than just break the man’s nose. He flexed his right hand into a fist at the thought, then relaxed it when he felt the pull of tender skin across his knuckles. He knew how to hit without injuring himself, but the blow had been hasty, and at close range. Nevertheless, the reddened ridges on the back of his hand only sharpened his craving for violence. The monster had been fed, and it wanted seconds.
It wasn’t fair to be angry with Chloe, not really. It wasn’t her fault that she’d chosen the worst possible day to visit Earl’s Crossing, wasn’t her fault that she’d endured a wicked early-season snowstorm only to stumble head-first into a massacre. Yet his capacity for sympathy was throttled by an overwhelming sense of dread—dread over what had not transpired but what so easily could have.
And the fact that it bothered him so much made the whole thing even more infuriating.
So demanding, Quinn. “God damn it, Chloe.” Quinn’s voice was so low it wasn’t clear whether he was speaking to himself or to her. The fact that she had the wherewithal—and the gall—to make light of the situation was probably a good sign, but it made him want to wring her neck himself. “Don’t test me. Not here. Not right now.”
The general kept his fierce gaze trained on her, taking note of every hint of discomfort, from the wince that twisted her features to the way she swayed as she eased herself upright. There was little room to step back as she swung her legs gingerly to the side of the cot, her wet boots finding the floorboards just inches from his own. “Wool,” Quinn repeated, eyes narrowing. It made sense, but all of this…for fucking wool? Her incredulous laughter startled him, but even though he agreed with the sentiment—with how ridiculous this whole situation seemed—his resolve did not soften at the sound. It was insane. Fate seemed intent on throwing them together, no matter the risk.
“Christ.” Slowly he shook his head. “You could have been wounded,” he hissed, half-admonishment, half-simple fact. “You could have been killed.” The urge to reach out to her was infuriatingly difficult to resist. But, as it happened, an excuse to do just that presented itself as the seamstress attempted to stand. She swayed, and he reached out with both hands, planting one on each of her upper arms to steady her as she lowered herself to the cot again. The contact, even through her thick winter coat, was enough to send a jolt up his arms. He could still feel the phantom pressure of her body against his chest as he’d carried her, and part of him—the part of him that had been shelved for the battlefield—longed to wrap her in his arms again. The protector, the shield. Even if what he needed to save her from was himself.
Quinn’s composure fractured a little, just enough to ease the razor-sharp edge to his scowl, and he heaved a heavy sigh as the tide of his rage slowly ebbed. After a stretch of silence, he finally answered her question. “I’m fine,” he conceded, tongue sliding over the cut in his lower lip on reflex. But as if on cue, he felt another rivulet of blood trail down his arm inside his jacket. He almost looked sheepish then. “I think the blood on your cheek might be…might be mine, though,” he confessed, the hint of an apology coloring his tone. He wasn’t sure if that made the fact that there was blood on her face at all better, or worse.
Expressionless, he reached down to unfasten the belt of weapons that was strapped over his ruined coat around his waist. He eased the empty revolver and collection of sheathed blades to the floor, then slid off his fur-lined coat, draping it unceremoniously over the foot of the cot. A simple vest of leather armor stretched over his chest and torso, and the thick long-sleeved wool base layer he wore beneath clung tight to his damp skin.
He twisted and lifted his arm, inspecting the graze wound on his upper arm through the gaping hole in the gray fabric. A simple flesh wound, as he’d suspected, hardly worth mentioning. But its location meant routine movement kept reopening the cut, causing it to bleed. The crimson-saturated stain on his sleeve was evidence of that. More an annoyance than an actual threat to his health, but still.
“You have your sewing tools with you?” he asked, but it was more like a statement; her pack sat behind her on the cot. He lowered his arm and met her gaze, gold sparking against silver. “Fabric and flesh surely aren’t so different. I can’t have this papercut ruining every shirt I own.” The faintest flicker of humor in his eyes. He lowered himself tentatively on the edge of the cot, as if afraid the canvas might rip beneath his weight. “If you refuse, then I’ll have to go next door and risk Corporal Clemson maiming me permanently. I trust a seamstress of your caliber far more than a soldier.”
The sigh he released sent a shiver down her spine. It was heavy, weighed down by all that had transpired, but beckoned her to the memories of a different sigh. The warm sigh of his breath against her neck and the way he sighed her name when they came together. Clover swallowed hard, trying to focus on anything but the way he licked his lip. How ridiculous she felt then. Adrenaline and fear and surprise having coalesced into a quick faint, only to have far more forbidden emotions rise up inside of her. If she had the capacity for it, she mind have chastised her foolish thoughts. It was just a physical response to stimuli - nothing more.
Surprise flickered in her eyes as she reached up to touch her cheek, feeling the crusty sensation of dried blood beneath her fingertips. She hadn’t really noticed in the thick of things just outside the town square. She wondered how his blood had gotten there before her mind sharply turned to the general as he began to undress. Heat blazed to life in her chest and her heart stuttered against her rib cage, both at the sight of him and the signs of battle that remained against his skin and clothing. Astute gaze noted the weapons, without meaning to, just more out of habit. Clover made a point, however, to study them with a slightly alarmed expression. After all, seamstresses weren’t used to that type of blade - well that many blades on one place.
The request surprised her and she blinked before catching his golden eyes. Of course she could sew up wounds. She had patched Aaron together more times than she could count, and Rose before she had passed. Clover considered herself somewhat of a prodigy with the healing, so perfect were the stitches that they were left just silvery scars rather than hunks of gnarled flesh.
“I can certainly try.” She breathed, lowering her pack to the floor beside her. The weight of him against the cot, close enough to touch, sent a thrill through her. There was nowhere to run, not that she wanted to. Yanking off her gloves, she set searched for a place to set them before deciding that the only place left would be the floor. The seamstress unbuttoned her own jacket slowly, pausing before she pulled her arms out. The fabric chaffed against the bruises around her elbow and she hissed softly before letting the thick jacket join her gloves. She paid no mind to the blade strapped at her upper thigh.
Attention turned to her pack where she rummaged but sighed frustratedly as Orik had rendered her careful organization a complete mess. She withdrew her soiled shirt from his grubby, stained fingers and then she pulled out the leather sketchbook. Clover set the item on her other side, resting it gently on the little canvas of the the cot. She continued on without acknowledging it but knew he must have seen it, knew he would be able to see how much it meant - since she had made the effort to bring it all this way. Finally, she found the small kit of sewing needles and thread, as well as the small leather case with scissors, seam rippers and more.
Nestling them in her lap, Clover turned to him. The wool shirt was completely ruined. She gathered the fabric between two finger and could suppress a snort. She could have made him something better, more comfortable and moisture-wicking. With steady hands despite her fatigue, scissors glided up from his wrist and to a few inches above the wound, leaving him with a one-armed shirt. She studied the wound. It was deep but it was slightly jagged. The goal was alignment of the tissue without excessive tension. The seamstress selected a medium density thread, even though it was silver in color. It would do.
Before starting, she drew out a clean and soft cloth sample and wet it with water from her canteen. Delicately, and without meeting his eyes, Clover tended to the wound. Her fingers brushed across his skin, testing it. Every movement was cautious because she knew what happened any time their skin met. She knew she was drawn to him, moth to flame. She removed the crusty dried blood and the fresh hot red that dripped down his arm. Over the course of the next fifteen minutes, she strategically and expertly placed ten individual sutures along the length of the wound. She made certain to take her time - after all this wasn’t something that she should have done very often. The ends were approximated and the tissue irritated but no longer oozing. Finally, silver met gold once more and she realized how close to each other they had become in that tiny room.
“That should last a few days, but you’ll need to keep it clean. Just cut the threads when it’s healed and they should slide out.” Clover had to use some lubrication on her last stitch removal, she recalled. “You won’t be permanently maimed,” a teasing smile played her lips, “but you will likely have another scar to add to your collection. Though if it did ruin every shirt…you might have an excuse to have some new ones made.” Eyes danced like trees in a springtime storm. Everything was placed back into it’s appropriate place, once she had cleaned the bloodied needle.
“I hope my presence here….doesn’t make things difficult for you. I can be gone tomorrow.” Though that would be difficult, with the deposits the blizzard had left along the roads. Clover could do it. Chloe wouldn’t be able to. “I…wasn’t aware what this place was or I wouldn’t have dared come.”
It still felt strange to be sitting next to her here, in a room barely large enough for the two of them, in a remote town far from the finery of Thebes. They were both a little worse for wear; Quinn, expectedly so, having just led a bloody skirmish, and Chloe, the victim of terrible coincidence. But even in these lackluster surroundings, distanced from any familiar context in which they’d ever known one another, her presence here affected him in a way he never could have anticipated—and had never even considered.
Their interactions had always been the direct result of specific circumstances. As firmly as Chloe had rooted herself in his mind and his thoughts, he’d never once pictured their paths crossing in a place like this, with cobwebs and grime and blood and death. Grappling with it now, he didn’t know how to act…in part because her presence was somehow both jarring and perfectly natural at once. The seamstress was an enigma, like opposites coming together in one—demure but bold, soft but fierce, bright but dark. So why would this be any different? Why did it somehow make sense that she found her way to him?
Quinn’s breath caught as she unbuttoned her own coat. Heat kindled behind his ribs, spreading slowly through him—not like a wildfire, blazing and out of control and hungry, but like a drink of fine wine, the comfortable warmth infiltrating his veins with each pulse of his heart. This was not to be some electrifying tangle like the storage room at Avondale, but he couldn’t help but feel it was still…intimate. He could feel her nearness on the cot as though she’d commandeered a sixth sense. He was hyperaware of how she held herself, how her gaze avoided his, how she hissed in pain when the material of her outerwear scraped over her tender forearm…
“That fucking Orik is a piece of work,” he growled, extrapolating what must have happened to cause the soreness. A shadow returned to his brown eyes. “I almost killed him once today.” His left fingertips absently traced over the red knuckles on his right hand, and he added, “I still might.”
He watched then as she opened her pack and drew out its contents, dredging her sewing kit from the bottom. His heart skipped a beat when she eased her leather-bound sketchbook from beneath the flap. Ah. The faintest curve of a smile tugged at his mouth, but he said nothing, reveling in the fact that she’d carried his gift with her all this way. For sublime and terrible beauty, he’d written inside. Apropos for a battlefield, and for whatever strange force kept bringing them together. He hadn’t known when he’d penned those words that they’d find meaning in a place like this.
Her fingers on his bare skin were featherlight, almost as if she were afraid to touch him. He wanted her to touch him, he realized; the brush of her hand across his heated flesh was somehow an acknowledgement that she saw him, had seen the wildness in his eyes and the darkness of his actions and still chose to stay at his side. To help him, even.
Sublime and terrible beauty, indeed.
She worked silently, efficiently. The first pierce of the needle was always the worst, but Chloe’s mastery of her tools lessened the telltale sting. He clenched his fists as the thread tugged through the jagged flesh, breathing deeply through his nose and exhaling through parted lips. Sutures without the luxury of anesthesia was a common reality for soldiers in the field. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was a shallow laceration. He’d had far worse, as evidenced by the collection of scars the seamstress had already seen…and touched.
“I thought I was hallucinating,” he said at last, breaking the strange silence that had settled over them as she worked. Through his gritted teeth, his tone sounded angrier than he felt, at least now that the shock of seeing her in Orik’s clutches had ebbed. “When I saw you. It didn’t make any sense, why you would be here.” Amber eyes fluttered closed beneath brows knitted tightly together, partially against the pain in his arm, partially in response to the memory of her appearing across the square. “You couldn’t be real.”
The general hissed suddenly as she tugged the final stitch, pain twisting his features for only a startled moment before relaxing to amusement. “I imagine if you weren't real, this would hurt a hell of a lot less,” he quipped. She looked up from her handiwork then, and he met her stare, a measure of warmth returning to his gaze. They were close; he could distinguish the flecks of silver in the deep blue of her eyes, like glinting waves in a gale. Her touch lingered on his bare arm, and he had the sudden overwhelming urge to kiss her. It would have been so easy, to angle his chin just a few inches forward…
But then she was joking about making new shirts, a teasing smile illuminating her face, and Quinn leaned slightly away, unable to suppress a smile of his own. A real one, this time, albeit tired and cautious. “Is that why you came all this way, then? For me?” he joked, quirking a brow. “A bid to bankrupt the Belvederes with fine clothes?”
He sighed, some of the lightness dissipating to be replaced by more tension in his shoulders. He should have risen to his feet then, but instead he shifted back on the cot until his back touched the dusty wall. “This town has always had a military presence. The camp over the ridge was one of the first outposts in the region, set up by the man who came before my father. It used to be small. But as the town and the surrounding settlements grew, so did the need to train more recruits,” he explained. “There’s never been an issue with violence or interference here. On any other day, you would have had your wool. You couldn’t have known.”
Resting his head back against the wall, he felt gooseflesh raise on his bare left arm. “So no, your presence is no interruption,” he told her honestly, but a hint of the general returned to his tone. “You’ll stay until the route is clear. I can’t have you out there alone in conditions like these.” The general lifted his shoulder experimentally, feeling the tug of the stitches as his muscles contracted. “My captains at the camp will be working to get communication to Thebes back up and running. If you need to contact anyone at your shoppe, I’ll make sure your message gets through. Until then…” He stopped himself, a pause as he searched for her eyes once more. An echo of her voice—I am not an object to be moved easily from one spot to another—rang through his head. When he continued, he amended his wording, removing the edge from his order to offer the closest semblance of a choice he could, given the current situation. “Until then, you’ll stay...I hope you'll stay...until I can escort you home.”
You should have. Clover wanted to whisper. You should have killed him. He’s a mongrel, a bastard and he’s hurt someone innocent again- just to make himself feel more powerful. But Chloe wouldn’t dare condemn another human to death - so the seamstress bit her tongue when she placed the sutures. Instead, she smiled at his teasing. “A girl has to make a living somehow. At least you’ll be well dressed during your descent into bankruptcy.” Eyes twinkled merrily as she tucked all of her items back into her pack.
The movement of his recline brought her closer to him - the canvas not made for the weight of two people. She slid slightly and their forearms brushed, his bare and hers not. Instead of moving away, she followed suit and leaned against the wall behind them. Their heads were close. If they both turned, she’d capture his lips. She’d taste the salt and the copper. A longing flared inside of her to know the aftermath of the beast he kept hidden from her. She wanted to savor the flavor of his victory as his lip reopened from their passion.
Much like the general, however, she resisted. His words did nothing to ease the pressure that the spymaster felt at her failure of a venture. Chloe couldn’t have known but Clover should have. She should have had enough intelligence on the movements of the militia to know that they were going to strike the wayward rebels residing here. Still, Quinn continued and proved to distract her from her barrage of anxious thoughts. The authoritative tone returned and she marveled momentarily and the easy way he slid fluidly from the man she knew to the brigadier general to this brooding masterpiece of darkness. It had taken years of careful practice from what she surmised.
Yet, he backtracked and she smiled slightly, turning her dark head until their eyes met. She fell into those amber pools, watching them spark lightening in the brown depths. Clover held his gaze firmly, the smile slipping until she gave no indication of her true thoughts. Quinnley Belvedere proved to be more irresistible than a one night stand had any right to be. A man of his standing could have any woman - literally - whether by charm or force and yet…he didn’t, at least not by force. The charm, however, lured many a willing participant to his bed. This was not his charm though, it was genuine. He was attempting to respect the demand she had made in the storage room. She was not an item, not a member of his squadron. She was a human - had desires and a will of her own. The command could be issued, enforced - but he didn’t want to do that and that’s what surprised her now the most. That’s what made her ache for him anew.
“I suppose I could.” Clover finally acquiesced with a wry smile. Eyes swirled with a promising storm. “Though…” her words trailed off and she pointedly broke their stare to glance around their tiny quarters, “I would hope the General might be able to obtain a room that might better fit two people.” The seamstress licked her lips then, rising forward slightly to twist her body towards his. She examined his arm, gooseflesh prickling there again the winter air that permeated the thin walls of the tavern. She reached out without thinking, to trace the prickles along his skin. “That is if the offer to stay extends to your private quarters.”
Clover proceeded to tell herself that staying in a military camp might be the perfect opportunity - one that would salvage this disaster of a reconnaissance mission. She would find some lesser militia man, when Quinn was occupied, and play the dim witted damsel that asks silly questions that give her more information than he realized. She could provided medical assistance for small wounds and learn in that capacity. Despite herself and the reasons she used to convince herself that a few days wouldn’t be so bad, she wanted to stay. She wanted to stay with him.
Bright gaze met his again as her finger trailed off the side of his arm and back into her lap. “Though I understand if that would lead to…unwanted gossip amongst the men. Can’t have them thinking you’re taking advantage of a poor, simple woman in her time of need.” She grinned, mocking their first encounter. “A wicked thing, corrupting a simple tradeswoman…” she beckoned him back to the couch in his bedroom, drawing them both into the memory with a devilish grin.
A new wave of gooseflesh ran up his exposed skin as their arms brushed, only this time it had nothing to do with the wintry chill of the unheated room. The sagging canvas of the rickety old cot angled them together, as though gravity itself was laughing at their self-restraint. He made no motion to pull his arm away, and to his silent satisfaction, neither did she.
It always took several hours after a battle for his body to settle, for all the excitement and rage and energy after a fight to dissipate. Quinn could feel that sensation starting now, the gradual descent from the soaring, violent high, his toes just beginning to brush the cold ground of the aftermath. Chloe Paice’s presence at his side was another tug bringing him down to reality, but it was a gentle pull, perhaps even a necessary one.
The warmth of her proximity—the way the length of their arms locked together side-by-side, the gentle pressure of her thigh against his—was a strange comfort he hadn’t known he’d needed. The general had survived plenty of dangerous battles over the course of his military career, yet not once could he recall a time when he’d permitted himself to decompress so soon after the cessation. Where most lower-ranking soldiers would celebrate in the nights following a victory, Quinn had never allowed himself that same luxury. He was always thinking ahead, preoccupied with next steps, never allowing his guard down until he was back in Thebes in his own bedroom at Avondale. It was a leader’s responsibility to be on and present at all times, and Quinn Belvedere had been nothing if not the picture of an ideal general since before he’d even achieved the rank.
He wanted the moment to stretch on longer, to keep all the strategy and politics on pause. He knew Captain Smith would be taking care of things downstairs for now; he could hear, distantly, the comings and goings of troops through the rickety doors and the marching of boots across the groaning floorboards. Freezing time was, of course, impossible. But Chloe, as she traced her soft fingertips across the exposed skin of his arm, her blue-gray eyes glinting with mirth as she teased him, made it seem—just for a moment—that the world might wait for him. Might let him take a breath, just to breathe her in.
Lifting his head from where he’d rested it against the hard plaster of the wall, Quinn arched a brow. “My captains will be securing lodging for the troops for the night,” he confirmed, the hint of a general’s tone lingering in his voice, “so you will not be expected to stay here.” His expression softened a little, a strange juxtaposition with the specks of dried blood that still dappled his face like freckles. He slipped his bare arm from beneath her touch, wincing only a little as he lifted it up and around her upper back. “Frankly, I’m surprised this place hasn’t collapsed into a heap of rubble already.” The general’s gaze flicked down to Chloe’s lips as her tongue darted out to wet them, then met her stormy eyes with an amused look of his own. “It seems an invitation to my quarters is the least I can do for the seamstress who stitched me up.”
At her next comment, however, he felt a dark chuckle shake his shoulders. “Don’t worry, they know all about my wickedness,” he quipped, a shadow crossing his brown eyes. “I can do what I want, and there’s not a damn thing any of them can do to stop me.” He tightened his arm around her shoulders, drawing her closer to him as he twisted away from the wall to face her. “Like this,” he murmured, bringing his lips so near hers he could smell the faint metallic tang from where a splotch of his blood still remained near her nose. He inhaled slowly, deeply, hovering there for a long, heady moment before he placed a surprisingly delicate kiss to her waiting lips.
With that, he broke away, his leather armor creaking as he rose back to his feet. A cacophony of muffled voices from the lower level reached his ears as he stood, and no sooner did he reach for his coat than an urgent knock tapped on the door frame. “General Belvedere,” a soldier’s voice called, “Otto and Langston have returned. You’re needed downstairs right away.”
“Be right there,” Quinn replied, and turned regretfully back to Chloe. He slid his right arm into his coat before easing the bare left one awkwardly into its torn sleeve, settling the thick jacket over his broad shoulders. “Duty calls,” he said gruffly, fingers making quick work of the silver buttons. He retrieved his belt from the floor, his eye catching on the knife strapped to the seamstress’ thigh as he straightened. “I can teach you how to use that sometime,” he offered, nodding to her blade as he buckled his own arsenal of weapons over the waist of his coat. “In case you ever find yourself in the middle of a battlefield again. I’m very good with a blade.” A lopsided grin tugged at his mouth before it faltered, his expression sobering. “I will send someone up for you. To escort you to your lodgings,” he said. “And then I will meet you there tonight.”
Clover slid towards him eagerly, despite herself, every fiber of her being longed to be closer to the general. She expected his mouth to crash against her, hungry and furious and wanting. The kiss sent a shiver of surprise rushing through her, so delicate that she almost thought she had imagined it. Eyelashes fluttered against her cheeks as she opened them to search his face as it rose above her. A frown danced briefly across her lips - not at the kiss, but at his departure. Attention whipped to the door at the intrusion, knowing that he was being summoned back to his troops.
The dagger at her leg suddenly burned her skin through the thick pants. She had forgotten about it - foolishly. What kind of woman cared a blade? Not a seamstress from Thebes. But a smart one might, one that knew and feared what would happen to a woman alone. Clover knew she could help Chloe spin the tale without drawing too much attention. Especially if it could lead to a pleasant distraction that would leave his mind more occupied with other exciting thoughts. Chloe smiled with a blush. “Silly to have it but it…makes me feel safe.” She gave him a grin that hinted, just barely, at wickedness. “I wouldn’t mind being your student.”
The promise to return made a knot coil in her stomach, tight and yearning and unbidden. Chloe blushed, nodding before the room felt too vast despite its size. Without him, everything grew colder as the wind whipped through the poorly constructed walls. The leader of the rebellion dropped her head into her hands and heaved a weary sigh. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She had sworn herself that the wedding was the final time. How had fate twisted its malicious little fingers around them once again? Of all the generals in Northam…of all the towns…A knock disrupted her wallowing, and she cleared her throat.
“Yes?” Tentative, a bit afraid even though she could expertly wield the weapon at her side.
“General Belvedere has instructed me to escort you to the lodgings that have been made available to him, Miss Paice. Whenever you are able, I will be happy to lead you there.” Despite the words the smooth voice spoke, she could detect a thin current of irritation. He was higher-ranking. He was more valuable to the militia than a seamstress’ babysitter. Interesting. Clover’s mouth curled upward slightly at the twist in her fortune. Higher-ranking meant better information. Better information meant a better-informed Rebellion.
“Oh, that is lovely. Would, would you be able to help me with my pack? I can’t lift it. I-” a pause, purposeful, “I have injured my arm.” It wasn’t a lie. The deep purple bruises were already beginning to form beneath her sweater. It would be difficult to see for long period for a few days.
“Certainly, Miss.” He opened the door as she stood, pulling her jacket on tenderly. His left arm was in a sling, clearly have injured himself during the skirmish – during the massacre, she reminded herself. The Sergeant, judging by his distinctions on his bloodied uniform, was tall and strikingly handsome. It surprised her, that it was one of the first things that she noticed about him. Clover often found little appeal in anyone in Northam’s growing army, though that seemed to have taken a sharp turn a few months ago. He had blonde hair dappled with strands of near white and his eyes were a brown so dark it bordered on black.
“It seems you are also injured.” Clover made a soft smile pull Chloe’s cheeks upward. “I think I can manage if it is not too far.” She lifted the pack up over her shoulder, the arm that was not terribly bruised.
“A little ways walk, but I can carry it for you.” The sergeant straightened, as if offended at her insinuation
“Nonsense. One of your arms can’t even move. Just lead the way, please.” She smiled up at him and she saw a curve twist his lip just slightly.
“If you insist.”
“I do. I also insist on your name, if that is appropriate.” She added the last bit a little shyly, feigning at trepidation for being bold to a militiaman.”
“Sergeant Pervical.” He responded, leading her down the stairs and through the men. Some whispered, she could hear them muttered about her after a brief silence. The seamstress’s focus remained on the man at just a step before her. He didn’t offer his first name and she decided that he was taking this job extremely seriously. That was rather irritating.
“A pleasure.” She murmured, lowering her head, and keeping it down until Percival slowed before this finely built home. It was brick, and so so old, but well-maintained. Two stories but small – perhaps six rooms from her exterior point of view. Vines rose from the earth and wrapped around the sides of the brick. It looked quaint, reminiscent of an era long since dead outside of the finer mansions of Northam’s elite. At first Clover smiled at the red buds beginning to bloom around the leaves – winter roses. A little bit of life amongst all the death. She took a few more steps forward, surveying the property that was slightly set away from the rest of the homes. The village must have been successful over the last few years to restore or erect such a beautiful place. Of course, the commanding general would be permitted to have his choice of homes to stay in while settling matters. Clover doubted that he had even seen it. Likely he had ordered Sergeant Percival to escort her to the rooms set aside for him and gone off.
Stormy eyes grew dark at their final approach, realizing that the blooms were specks of villagers’ blood. Blood from whoever had resisted the assault from the brutes that worked under her father. Ice slid through her veins and her teeth gritted tightly together. She wondered if there was blood on the stairs, in the rooms…Resolve settled in her as she stood staring, oblivious to the escort calling her name repeatedly. Finally, it broke through and she cleared her throat before following him inside.
The foyer was grander than she imagined it might be, a slender staircase rising straight up to the second floor where three rooms branched. Beside here was a small living space and a dining room which led to, what she could only assume, was a kitchen. A small room resided discretely beneath the stairs. Clover leaned slightly to see and noticed it was a bathroom, complete with a bathtub that obviously meant the house was plumbed for water. Whether it was hot or not was unknown, but to be able to cleanse the grime from her body was a miracle in and of itself after the disaster of a trip she had had so far. She looked up expectantly at the attractive man at her side.
“You can have any room, Miss. I will wait here,” he gestured to the living room that possessed a few worn chairs and a couch around a small, empty fireplace. “When you are ready, I can take you to the mess – the uh, dining station.”
“Do they have running water?” She asked, tilting her chin to bathroom door.
“I believe it is plumbed, miss, but I am not sure if it is functional.” His response was kind but clipped. It would take the seamstress a bit of time before she was able to crack his exterior. Clover had corrupted more difficult cases, she mused as she smiled slightly, nodding, and going straight to the bathroom with her pack. It was a tight squeeze, to fit herself and the pack into the room while closing the door. It had been a long, long time since she had experienced the pleasure of running water. Turning the handle, a loud noise occurred further away before it gushed water through the faucet of the tub. Chapped lips curled upwards. She held her hand beneath the pouring water as it grew warmer and then peaked at something just slightly above lukewarm. It could have been frigid and she still would have slid eagerly into the water.
Gooseflesh erupted across her skin as the water lapped against her and she reclined her head back against the rim of the tub. She reveled in the dirt leaving her skin. A number of various glass bottles with stoppers and lids rested in the small window by the tub. She reached out, sampling the each with a worrying kind of delight. Part of her wanted to reward herself for the trials of the last few days and part of her fretted that she was wasting vital time with self-indulgence. Rolling her eyes and giving a grunt of annoyance, she slipped beneath the water to wet her hair. Clover finished her bath swiftly, irritated at herself as she scrubbed the grime from her skin until it was red and tingling. Angry fingers avoided the deep purple purses along her skin. She turned her elbow this way and that, five distinct finger-shaped impressions along the pale skin. Given the chance for sunshine, her skin would golden in the sun – but the seamstress was often hidden inside and conducting her true business under the cover of night.
Dried and smelling faintly of lemon, Clover dressed in her cleaner sweater, a new pair of leggings and then the same pants. She would need to clean them – or burn them- immediately upon arrival home but for now they would supply her best as she was escorted to the mess. Pack was deposited in one of the bedrooms upstairs – the medium one e so that Quinn would not presume that they would share. The idea made a warmth curl inside of her, heating her skin. He had promised to come to her tonight and Clover was uncertain if she should look forward to it as much as she was.
Percival had clearly fallen asleep in the chair for he jerked and stood erect when he heard her footsteps that she had purposely made louder as she approached the living space. She dipped her head slightly, twisting her hands in front of her as though she was nervous.
“Ready, Miss?” He asked, taking a few strides towards her and the door.
“Yes, though I am fully capable of finding it myself.”
“I have been instructed by General Belvedere to remain at your side at all times.”
“Surely that cannot be necessary. I am sure a man of your station,” she paused for emphasis, “is not meant to babysit a seamstress all day. You must have better things to do.”
“Not at all, Miss. General Belvedere was very clear as to my duties today.” His resolve was absolute, and Clover sighed.
“Well, I hope you don’t resent me for this assignment. He can be rather…demanding, the general.” She said, almost as if saying it to herself and not to him. However, astute eyes caught the slight tick to his lips, and she knew she had found a small common ground with the serious man assigned to her.
“Never, Miss.” He responded, before leading her in silence through the town to the area that they have designated as the mess. Several tables and makeshift chairs had been placed in the snow and mud outside of a wooden structure whose chimney billowed smoke into the blue sky above. Percival led her inside the building that was strikingly warmer than the mayor’s brick abode. The smell of fresh bread filled her nose and she inhaled of it deeply.
A weary woman kneaded bread on a counter, while a young boy clung at her side. His hand was balled tightly in her skirts, other hand holding tightly to a ragged doll. Two other women were hurriedly slicing bread and layering on some kind of meat and stacking the makeshift sandwiches for the militia’s lunch. Some still had blood on the corners of their skirts, Clover noted, as they approached the counter. Infantry men parted for them, casting glances at her and whispering slightly before exiting to eat their food. There was a bustling atmosphere to the place that made the rebel leader feel oddly at home.
The woman stopped kneading bread and wiped her hands on her apron. She approached when they did, clearly displayed her concern for Chloe in the hands of the sergeant. She searched the seamstress for signs of distress and instead found her smiling back at her.
“Do ya need something?” She asked, casting a wary glance at the injured man at her side.
“Oh no, don’t mind just, we’ll just grab one of the premade.” Chloe said, moving towards the end of the counter where they waited and were being taken at a steady pace by the other members of the military.
“Nonsense. You’re the first…woman that’s not…” she seemed to be searching for the words that would not offend Percival.
“Militia?” Even though Chloe doubted that any women made it through training and into the service. Maria had completed the work required but had likely been encouraged to step aside. The baker nodded her head.
“Yes, unfortunate timing. I was to meet a man about some wool but…” She gestured slightly and Percival looked down at her, curiosity lingering in his eyes but too rigid to ask. The woman cast her eyes down briefly before Chloe continued but addressed her escort instead. “Would you mind, terribly, if I have a bit of…womanly time with her. I need some items that I do not think you would be able to procure for me.” The sergeant appeared terribly uncomfortable for a moment before nodding and stepping back. The baker, surprised, permitted Chloe around the corner of the counter and exchanged a few quick words with the other female workers.
The back room of the bakery was filled with flour and eggs and dried herbs. It smelled amazing and caused the seamstress’ stomach to rumble, but she forced that aside. It was quite in the back, pleasant. She wondered if this woman was well acquainted with the men that created the wool, if she knew about the rebellion. It would be imprudent to ask outright, but Clover was exceptionally skilled at such things.
“What can I get ya?”
“A change of clothes would be remarkable and perhaps a sleep gown, if there are any to spare.”
“Plenty.” Bitterness crept into her voice despite herself. “My sister and aunt were mu- killed and they won’t be needing their clothing. I can have it brought to ya. Where are ya staying?”
“The brick house just-” The baker cut the her off.
“I know it. I’ll have it sent.” Chloe’s brows furrowed at the woman’s words.
“Are you…can I help you?” The seamstress asked, stepping forward to touch her arm. The woman’s gaze rose to meet hers and shimmered with tears.
“I am fine. It has been a trying day. I’ll have that sent for ya shortly.”
“Do not rush, I can do without it. I just thought…thought you might need a friend.” The woman clearly swallowed her worry, her tears and nodded slightly.
“Do not take offense, miss, but all my friends are dead now.”
Chloe’s heart ached at those words, and she hesitated. The woman had been through so much, experienced so much death and violence today that she hated to make her relive it. Yet, she may have information that could be important – other cells, other rebels, further information.
“I could be a new one, if you’d like.” And for some reason the woman reached down to rub her son’s head and divulged the day’s events in a cautious way. She did not discuss her involvement in any sort of treasonous activity but did go so far as to indicate that a number of her family members were no longer among the living.
“And…and it ended and I thought that we had escaped the knife.” She rubbed her son’s head again, his face buried in her skirts, only tentatively peeking out at his mother’s companion. “And these soldiers they…came for me.” And that was all she had to say, because Clover was also a woman and understood the unspoken words. “But this general – the one in charge- ” Clover’s heart began to pound against her ribcage. Had he judged him so wrongly – had she truly taken that kind of monster to her bed? “He stopped them and he…almost killed him for his assault and ya, ya wouldn’t believe it because then he killed my brother.” One of the men in the square, one of the rebel leaders, had been her brother. There was no way, then, that she had not been aware of his activities – the idea that she might even had assisted in them entered the rebel’s mind. The spy released the tight breath she had been initially holding from the fear that Quinn had been the one leading the assault, when in actuality he had prevented it.
“They didn’t want anyone to interrogate? That is unlike them.” Clover was prying now, but with an edge of concern to her voice mingled with surprise.
“The general offered our – the men a deal and they refused and so he killed them. All of them. He killed them himself.” A sob choked out now. Clover had not failed to notice the woman’s little blunders over the course of the tale she told. She was one of them, she was certain – a member of the little rebellion that had started here. It would be a slow recruitment, but an easy one. There was still information to be had here. The information she gave was confusing to her though. No one would pass up that opportunity for intelligence. No general would murder a group of rebels without taking a few back to the Mother’s Lament – that was lunacy, foolish. Clover set the idea aside so that she could ponder over the problem later. General Belvedere was proving to be quite the enigma.
“I am so sorry. I would love to visit you tomorrow. I am not much for baking but I would be happy to lend a hand in whatever way I could.” Chloe offered, softly. The woman sniffed, dried her eyes on the back of her shirt and straightened. During their talk, her son and settled to the ground and fallen asleep. He clearly was comfortable in the bakery and the woman lifted him up only to place him on a small cot beside some bags of flour.
“I might like that.” The baker smiled and led her back up front. Clover made a small show of thanking her profusely for the items that would be sent her way. They were handed two sandwiches, larger than the others, with toppings that she assumed would add more flavor. The seamstress wasted no time unwrapping the sandwich, which had been cut for ease of eating. She took a large bite as they walked back in the snow.
“Did you want to sit,” she asked through a mouthful of bread and what was clearly thick-cut ham, “with your friends? I can find my way back.” Percival cast his eyes down at her, narrowing them as if wondering whether he should be irritated of amuse. She smiled, a smear of mayonnaise at the corner of her mouth. “What?”
“Those men are not my friends. They’re Omegas.”
“Ah. I met one earlier. Delightful fellow.” She grinned wider, wiping her thumb at the aioli. Percival scrutinized her face for a second before he gave her a slight smile, very slight. “Did I just make you smile?” She inquired, taking another bite.
“Absolutely not. A twitch only. I only smile when things are funny.” He responded and Chloe about choked on her sandwich.
“Was that a joke?”
“Absolutely not.” But his eyes danced slightly and Chloe smiled, chewing thoughtfully to prevent inhaling any more food.
“We might get along just fine, Sergeant, for the next few days that you’re relegated as my guardian. For which I am still sorry, by the way. I could do just fine on my own – I don’t have a male guardian in Thebes and I still have all my fingers.”
“This is not Thebes, Miss.”
“Fair point.”
Clover had finished the sandwich by the time they arrived at the blue door of the house. She shrugged off her jacket when she entered and hung it on the hook that was vacant by the entrance. She closed the door behind Percival and moved into the living room as he made a move to sit at the dining table.
“It’s freezing in there. Eat in here, I’ll start the fire.”
“I can start it, Miss.” He interjected, moving towards her.
“Absolutely not.” She mimicked him and smiled to herself when he gave her a deadpan look. She leaned down by the fireplace that was surprisingly clean. Bright blue eyes flickered over the embers that sparked to light and then ignited into a fire on the kindling before hungrily eating at the logs. She settled herself at the fire’s hearth, wrapping her arms around her legs. “How long have you served? And has it always been with Q- General Belvedere?” She asked, letting it slip that she would call him by his first name.
“A few years. He’s a good man.” Percival struggled to unwrap the sandwich with one hand, and she crawled over and undid it for him, laying it out on his lap. He appeared slightly surprised and appalled at her help, but she didn’t make a point of addressing it before resuming her prior position.
“I haven’t known him long – I made his sister’s wedding dress and his suit.” She picked at the hem of her sweater, where the smudge of dried blood from the Omega bastard remained.
“I saw it. It was finely made.” At that Clover’s head tipped to the side. He was higher ranking but not high enough to receive an invitation. “He did not have much time to change before our departure.”
“Oh, I though you meant Lady Belvedere’s dress. That was my true masterpiece.”
“The suit wasn’t too bad either.” He said, finishing the first half of his sandwich. Clover’s eyebrows rose and she smiled.
“You’ve gotten funnier since we first met a few hours ago, Sergeant.” She narrowed her eyes playfully at him. “Or you’ve realized that I am the only company you’re going to get.” They fell into a gentle silence as the fire crackled behind her and warmed her body. She unplaited her damp hair and it felt in loose waves down her back, a stark contrast against the pale sweater. The heat from the fire began to full dry the strands. “When…when did y’all leave Thebes? I hadn’t heard anything about an uprising, or I wouldn’t have come, obviously.” Clover picked at her sweater before raising her gaze.
“Got the word night of the wedding – pulled the General from it I think.” He shrugged, balling up the parchment with his free hand.
“Very quick then.” That concerned her – if the storm hadn’t hit, they would have been here extremely quickly. That kind of ability to mobilize and decimate an entire town from just the faintest whiff of rebellion was extremely concerning. “No wonder I was completely oblivious. The worst of luck.” She smiled then, resting back on her hands, and stretching her legs out in front of her. “Well, except that I got to make your acquaintance.” She scrutinized him before noticing that his jacket was ripped and chastised herself for not noticing sooner.
Before he could protest, she had brought down her sewing kit from upstairs and engaged in a small argument that she readily won. With his jacket in her lap, she began to repair the damage. They engaged in meaningless conversation, and she learned about his life, his new wife waiting for him at home – she worked for a milk distribution company in Thebes and according to the sergeant makes the best homemade butter. They spoke well into the evening until there was a knock on the door. He jumped to his feet and appeared torn about his ability to swiftly put his repaired jacket back on.
“It’s fine. Sit. I can get it. Who could it be besides another of you?” Clover answered the door and a young woman stood there with a wrapped parcel.
“Marigold asked me to bring these to you. She also sent along something else to eat, in case you were still hungry.”
“Please thank her for me. Let her know I’ll be along tomorrow.”
“Of course, Miss.”
“Just the baker dropping by the items I requested. And some food, if you’re still hungry.” She came back bearing the items and they spent the remainder to the night eating the items in the basket and discussing minutia of their lives before Clover stretched and yawned. “I think I am going to retire for the evening, Sergeant and hopefully you can get some sleep too.” He stood when she did and she waved him back down. “Get some rest. The general won’t judge you for a respite after such a battle, surely.”
“I must do my job, Miss.”
“And you have. Sleep well, Sergeant.”
Clover changed into one of the nightgowns in the parcel. The rest of the clothing she examined on the bed and was pleased to see a thick, long skirt of green wool along with a few cotton shirts of varying thickness. Stormy eyes surveyed it all before packing it back and setting it on the small dresser in the room. She donned the nightgown and marveled at the intricacy of the lace. Someone had sewn this with an extensive amount of care and attention. It fit well, though a little large in the bosom and clung to her hips just slightly but overall was comfortable. She wondered where Quinn was – the thought occurring suddenly and with a pang of longing. The spy sighed very irritated at herself for wishing he had come to her. But it was getting so late and still he didn’t show up.
Perhaps he wasn’t coming. Their fling had been magnificently explosive but that is what it had been – a fling. And she wouldn’t permit herself to feel slighted by something that she shouldn’t have even engaged in to begin with. Yet, still, the fear crept in and twisted itself around her. Had their unions not been enough for him? Once was great but the second time – in the dusty, old room with the vintage Belvedere furniture – must not have lit the fire in him that it had in her. Clover paced the room, thinking of him and why he would no longer be interested in her, when she should have been reviewing all the information that she had gathered from the baker and inadvertently from the clueless sergeant. So long did she fret that she wore herself into exhaustion and had fallen asleep across the bed, curled slightly.
There he was. Fucking General Quinnley Belvedere. He was covered in blood splatter, dappled across his cheeks where other people had freckles. A force to be reckoned with, surely, with a powerful stride and an expression she couldn’t quite place. Something in the darkest depths of her being longed to run to him, fling her arms wide and hold him against her. It thrilled at the animalistic nature of his movements, the monster after having won a battle. Clover ached for him, to see that feral nature in his eyes as he looked down at her. Gold eyes flittered above her and his hand slid around to clasp the back of her neck, holding her there. She breathed him in as he said her name – her name.
A knock on the closed bedroom door woke her and she jolted slightly. Blinking repeatedly to push the sleep away, Clover slid off the bed and pulled the door open to a brighter light behind a large form that she would recognize even in a sleepy state. She rubbed at one eye with a bent forefinger.
“General?” She stepped back slightly so that the frame of the door blocked her from the light, and she could examine him better. Quinnley appeared exhausted but remained the same devilishly handsome gentleman that suckered her in the first time. She frowned slightly. “I thought you weren’t coming.” She admitted to both him and herself.
The cacophony of voices quieted to a din as soon as the sound of Quinn’s boots on the stairs heralded his return to the inn’s ground floor. Captain Smith met his gaze from across the room, the man’s swollen lip pulling into a toothy grin. Two men standing across from him turned around at that, and Quinn immediately breathed a sigh of relief—Otto and Langston, looking battle-weary but otherwise intact. They smirked as he approached.
“Camp status?” Quinn inquired.
Otto barked out a laugh. “A Belvedere’s business never quits,” he exclaimed hoarsely, clapping the general on the left shoulder.
Quinn inhaled through his teeth with a hiss, angling his wounded arm away. “Bullet,” he muttered in explanation, almost sheepishly. “Just a graze.”
“And it was my gun,” Smith volunteered with a roguish smile, as if the fact that he’d lost possession of his firearm were something to brag about.
Quinn shot him a convincingly venomous look, which only made all four hardened men chuckle like boys. “And to think it was all to save your sorry life,” the general drawled.
Captain Smith shrugged, eyes glittering with a feral mirth. “I can’t be blamed f’ your bad decisions.”
“Well, Otto lost a tooth,” offered Langston as consolation, tapping his dirty cheek with a finger.
Otto rolled his eyes and puckered his left cheek, revealing a gap in his lower molars. “Are we really comparing battle wounds like we’re fresh out of the academy on our first assignment?”
“Well, Belvedere did try opening with business,” Langston said.
They shared another laugh. The banter was little more than thinly veiled relief—relief that all of them had come out alive and as well as could be expected, that they’d been fortunate enough to survive a skirmish none of them had anticipated would be so abrupt and so bloody.
The status from the training camp was mixed—the militia had emerged victorious, but it was clear that the majority of the cadets had willingly joined in on the rebellion. As such, the Northam-loyal lower supervisors had been easily overpowered, and nearly half the modest arsenal had burned. Colonel Franklin, the highest ranking officer, suffered a handful of flesh wounds but nothing more serious, and had remained at the camp to help oversee the restoration of communications with Thebes.
“Franklin’s a good fellow,” Otto said. “Told us to pass along his thanks to you until he can tell you ’imself later.”
Quinn nodded. “Any word on the state of the comms?”
“Nothing yet. Abbott wasn’t sure how much of the equipment was damaged on purpose, if any, and how much was just the shit weather.”
The general ran his tongue over his split lip, which had long since ceased bleeding but now boasted a raised, swollen line just off center. “And a third of the Aces remained behind at camp?”
“Aye, General.”
“Anyone out of commission?”
“Nothing fatal. Cuts and bruises and sprains, the usual. Percival dislocated his shoulder and rode back with us. Valdez took a knife to his side and Brady broke a wrist, but they’re gettin’ fixed up by the camp medic.”
Quinn leaned against one of the wooden pillars. “And where is Sergeant Percival now?”
“Around here somewhere.” Otto scanned the room, then shrugged and raised his voice. “Oy! Anyone seen Percy?”
“With the horses outside, sir!” someone shouted back.
“Fetch him.”
A bruised soldier, one of the older members of the Ace squadron, did his best not to limp as he approached the captains and the general. His damp blond hair, a little too long to be regulation, tumbled into his dark eyes as he saluted with his uninjured arm across his chest. “You asked to see me, Captain? General?” he said.
Quinn looked the man over from head to foot, whose left arm was in a makeshift sling of stained white cloth. “Well fought, Sergeant,” he greeted, but his tone was absolute—a general about to give an order, and the sergeant straightened in preparation. “I have an assignment for you.”
The captains all leaned in with interest as Quinn continued.
“There is a civilian here from Thebes who was unlucky enough to arrive in Earl’s Crossing just as our efforts were winding down. Someone my family keeps in our employ, a seamstress by the name of Chloe Paice.” Quinn’s face was stone. “She is recovering upstairs. She’ll need to be escorted to a room for the night—when Ainsbury is finished arranging my lodging, take her there. You’re not to leave her side.”
If the experienced sergeant had any misgivings about his orders, he was too well-trained to show them. He bowed his head in salute.
“Oh, and Sergeant,” added Quinn as the man turned toward the stairs, “you will treat her with the utmost respect, do you understand? You are her escort, not her captor. Treat her like…like you’d treat a Walther.”
“Or you’ll have to answer to Lady Maria,” Langston joked, nudging Quinn with his elbow.
Quinn shot the captain a withering look. “Or you’ll have to answer to me,” he corrected icily.
“Understood, sir,” Percival affirmed.
Expressionless, the general watched as the sergeant limped slowly toward the staircase. He doubted Chloe would be thrilled at the prospect of a glorified babysitter—part of him wished he could see the look on her face when the sergeant introduced himself, if only to tease her about it later—but it was necessary for their situation, given everything. Quinn may have had his victory, but the city was far from stable; what citizens remained were threats until proven otherwise, and he’d not even been on the other side of the ridge yet. The bloody clash was over, but the fight for order amidst chaos he’d played a part in sowing was only just beginning.
He turned back to the captains, who finished the rest of his briefing. Other troops, including a handful of Earl’s Crossing patrolmen, slowly began to file out of the old inn. “I need to speak with Colonel Franklin at the camp,” announced Quinn with a frown. “Smith, I’d like you to stay here and finish what you’ve started with securing the streets.” The burly captain grinned and nodded. “Langston, if you could touch base with the Omega captains…”
“Way ahead of you, General,” the captain responded, already heading toward the door and gesturing for a few additional soldiers to follow.
Quinn pressed his lips into a thin line. “Otto, if you’d accompany me to the camp…please see to it that our horses are prepared.”
With everyone scurrying to follow his orders—how quickly they all jumped to attention, as was wise—he was able to take one last glance at the map his captains had laid out on the table. It was crudely drawn, clearly not rendered by one of the high commander’s cartographers, but it was a close enough approximation to what he’d seen so far of Earl’s Crossing that it would do. The path to the training camp was a serpentine line drawn in charcoal across a wide expanse of grazing field. Quinn reached out experimentally and ran his finger over the black demarcation, smudging it like ash where it curved around the two-dimensional ridge. He rubbed the particulates between his thumb and forefinger, reminded of the soft dust of graphite from Chloe’s pencil that had stained his skin silver. An inexplicable shiver quaked his spine.
He finished committing the map to memory and made his way outside. The lingering Omega troops followed him like hesitant ducklings into the bright white afternoon, leaving the temporary headquarters empty but for the remaining few getting stitched up on the second floor. He mounted his black horse, more than a little relieved to be moving again; it eased the lingering energy that buzzed relentlessly in his bones.
The route to the camp by now had been well-trampled through the snow, but maneuvering around the ridge was still treacherous with the rocky terrain buried beneath the drifts. Quinn allowed Otto to lead the way, and after a brief ascent and a traipse across an open field, they approached the fortified gates of the training outpost. The snow was blinding even with the cloud cover above, and the camp walls rose like jagged teeth from a deceptively smooth landscape. Blood splotched the road near the gate, the vibrant red softening to a muted pink as their horses hooves’ upturned the snow.
The colonel greeted them just inside, so beat up that Quinn wouldn’t have recognized him if it weren’t for the remnants of his tattered military blues. One eye was swollen shut; the other was framed with a deep indigo bruise. A line of fresh sutures stretched from his temple to his ear, and a wooden crutch was tucked under one arm.
“Belvedere, sir, it’s good to have you at last,” Franklin said hoarsely, his attempt at a smile coming across more like a wince.
“Colonel Franklin,” Quinn returned politely. He dismounted, unable to keep his eyes from narrowing as he regarded the battered man up close. “I wish it were under better circumstances. You look like…”
“Hell?”
“I was going to say ‘shit.’”
Franklin’s subsequent laugh turned into a cough, and he spat a wad of pink-tinted spittle into the snowbank. “You should see the other guy,” he rasped, but even through his strained voice was that familiar hint of madness, that soldier’s mania Quinn recognized all too well. It was the same one the colonel had exhibited after spending the day below ground at Mother’s Lament just a few months prior; the same one that had heated Quinn’s own blood in the thick of the commotion, and whose feverish heat he could still feel lurking beneath his skin now.
Because, despite the cliche, ‘the other guy’ he referenced was certainly dead.
“I heard you put on quite the display in the town square,” Franklin went on, carefully wedging his crutch in the packed snow before taking a tentative step toward the offices. “Judge, jury, and executioner, eh?”
Quinn snorted. He clasped his hands behind his back, matching the man’s slow pace. “They weren’t worth my time,” he replied silkily.
Franklin spared a glance at Quinn and smiled, the injuries on his face loaning his expression a truly gruesome edge. “This day will go down in the history books. If this country didn’t already know your name, they certainly will now,” he said. “And for good reason.”
The general worked his jaw but said nothing, taking a quick survey of the inner courtyard as they rounded the corner. The air smelled of smoke and blood, and he noted now that flecks of gray ash dappled the snow. Trampled drifts and splotches of red indicated that some of the skirmish had indeed spilled out toward the gates, but that the worst of it had been on the training yard itself, just outside the log cabin barracks. Quinn was glad to see that most of the bodies had been removed already, as was protocol.
“It happened fast,” Franklin said suddenly, pausing alongside the general. “They timed it well, I can give them that. The attack had already begun by the time the first explosion happened. I daresay you and your men got here just in time. A moment later and you might’ve found a very different scene up here.”
“I’ll need a full debriefing.” Quinn ran his tongue over the split in his lip, his gaze suddenly far away. “And a status report on the comms.”
The colonel ushered him inside, Captain Otto slipping in just behind. The outpost facilities were smaller than Quinn had expected given the size of the training yards, but the offices seemed to have been well-equipped prior to being ransacked by the rebelling recruits. They tread over a carpet of ruined paper that crunched and ripped beneath their wet boots until they reached the very back room.
Three men—an Ace soldier Quinn knew as Abbott, and two dressed in the winter fatigues of the outpost—scrambled to their feet as the door pushed open, their arms crossing their chests in salute. The space was clearly the camp’s communications dispatch; a dusty switchboard lined one wall, and the opposite corner sported a myriad of switches and dials for radio. It was a little antiquated even by current standards, but for how remote Earl’s Crossing was from any larger city, it was an impressive collection of equipment.
“Sergeant Abbott,” Quinn addressed, sparing only a quick glance to the other two young men. “Any progress?”
“Power is restored,” he replied, gesturing to a set of five blinking jewel-toned lights on the nearest console. “That was the storm’s doing. Some of the components of the transceiver are fried, which is what Joel and Martin are working on here”—he pulled back a hinged metal panel, revealing a tangle of multicolored wires—“by pulling spare parts out of the switchboard, which I’m told is rarely used and can afford to be out of commission until the parts can be replaced.”
“How much longer until we’re operational?”
Abbott looked to his two companions, who seemed anxious to be in the presence of a brigadier general and their colonel, and furrowed his brow in consideration. “Another hour or two at the soonest. These parts are brittle, and the wires are frayed.”
Quinn’s brow furrowed just enough to indicate his disappointment, which Abbott took in stride. The Ace soldier barked an order to his companions, and they sprang into action as Franklin led the general back to his personal office.
“Word will spread fast, you know,” Franklin said, lowering himself with a grunt into his chair. Few items remained on his desk; most of it was on the floor, trashed, and Quinn leaned back in the chair opposite, surveying the damage. “No one will be surprised to hear of your exploits, with a pedigree like yours. But you won’t just be Marius Belvedere’s son anymore.”
Quinn tapped a finger on the mahogany, drawing a line in the ashy dust that had dulled the glossy surface. “Do you work so hard to flatter all your guests, Colonel?”
“Hardly,” retorted Franklin, something like surprise shifting his swollen expression. “I just like witnessing history, is all.”
“Hyperbole will get us nowhere,” scoffed Quinn. “We earned a victory today. One tally amongst a thousand, and we’ll have a thousand more. Am I thankful for this outcome? Of course. But it’s hardly different from any of the others. And the work is not yet done.”
“I know better than to contradict a general of your caliber,” Franklin rasped, “so I won’t tell you how wrong I think you are. Shall we get down to business?”
Quinn cracked a lopsided smile. “Yes. Let’s get it over with. You look like you’d prefer not to be upright for much longer.”
“That is the truth!” the colonel exclaimed. He launched into a full debriefing of what had happened from the very first moments of the attack to the immediate aftermath, to the general’s arrival at camp.
By the time the two high-ranking men wrapped up their discussion, evening had descended. Franklin looked as though he wouldn’t make it across the yard to his living quarters, and Quinn began to feel the true toll of the day settling like a cold ache in his bones. Hunger and thirst gnawed at him, their teeth sharp enough to conjure a headache in his temples and further crop the already-shortened fuse of his temper. So when Sergeant Abbott knocked on the door, triumphant with the news that they’d made radio contact with Thebes, Quinn had to bite his tongue to keep from snapping about how long it had taken.
“You’re no good to anyone if you drop dead in the comms room,” Quinn told Franklin. “I’ll handle this.” The man departed gratefully, leaving the general to sort out what to report to Thebes.
The sound of crackling radio static hissed from a boxy speaker mounted to the wall. The noise pierced through Quinn’s headache like a blade, and it took everything within him not to cringe at the audial assault. “Is this a secure frequency?” he asked, turning to the sergeant.
Abbott shook his head. “We’re limited to a short range for the moment. The antenna was damaged in the fire, and the cloud cover isn’t doing us any favors. We’ll take what we can get, though, sir.”
The static rose and fell in irregular waves. Abbott tuned a large silver dial on the console, and a high-pitched whine swept through the din like a teakettle left too long on a flame. He leaned into the microphone. “Echo-Charlie-105 to Compound,” the sergeant said robotically, enunciating each syllable with care. “Come in. Echo-Charlie to Compound.”
Quinn rolled his shoulders back, ignoring the stabbing ache of his fresh sutures. But he couldn’t ignore the memory of Chloe’s touch against his arm, not just as she’d sewn up his flesh, but as she’d traced the goosebumps on his forearms. As the uneven cot had pulled them together, as the tiny room had filled with their warmth, as the rest of the world fell away…
He shook his head to himself. He needed to decide just how much sensitive information to reveal over a potentially compromised radio channel. He couldn’t be thinking about the seamstress waiting for him back at the town…
A loud garbled voice startled him back to the present. “Tango-Bravo-Sierra reporting,” it said. TBS. The generic call sign for Thebes’ central communication center. “Routing frequency message to Compound Interior. Stay tuned. Over.”
“Received. Standing by.” Abbott looked pleased with himself, but the satisfaction in his eyes faltered when he met the general’s stony gaze. “They’ll send our frequency to Compound,” he explained. “It’s not ideal, but I wouldn’t recommend relaying any message to central comms directly. Compound will reach out to us. All we have to do is wait.”
Quinn nodded. He was no communications expert, but it made sense, even if he was in no mood to wait around. A sigh escaped him. To hell with it, he wanted to say. Word would be out about what happened in Earl’s Crossing by the time the sun rose the next morning. What did it matter if someone intercepted his message and found out a few hours sooner? But he was bound by protocol, and being tired wasn’t an excuse for sloppy information management. He was the commanding general. There was no room to be lax, especially not now.
Still, the minutes stretched like hours as they waited for a voice to come through the noise. Quinn’s thoughts once again strayed to Chloe. He glanced to the clock above the console—nearly eleven o’clock. Fuck. He’d promised to visit her that night, and yet instead of winding down in her company, he was seated in a musty old comms room listening to nothingness drone through a tinny speaker.
Twenty minutes later: “Compound calling Echo-Charlie. Speaker: Massey. Come in.”
The voice was nearly unintelligible, let alone identifiable. “This is Echo-Charlie receiving,” Quinn spoke into the mic. Abbott hovered over his shoulder, monitoring the levels on the dials. “Speaker: Belvedere. Over.”
Lieutenant Massey’s voice faded out, then in again. “Good—hear—from you—sir, over.” Abbott jumped to adjust a knob, and the signal got clearer.
“Let the high commander know the outpost has been secured,” Quinn said slowly. “Minimal casualties. We hold the town. Over.”
“Received—”
A loud crackle startled all four of them, and the room was plunged into sudden silence. Quinn looked to Abbott, whose bloodshot eyes widened with surprise then narrowed with annoyance. “Fucking antenna,” he muttered under his breath. “We’ll work something out tomorrow. It’s too dark to finagle it right now.”
“At least they know we’re alive,” Quinn sighed. He swiveled in the chair to face the three soldiers. “Well done, men. Nothing here that can’t wait until daylight, as the sergeant said.” Rising to his feet, he felt heavier than usual, as though the weight of the day were a physical pressure. “Summon Captain Otto, please. Have him meet me at the gate with my horse.”
————
“You’re not staying here tonight, sir?” Otto handed the black horse’s reins to the general, who took them with gloved hands. The temperature had plummeted with the loss of daylight. With cold snow blanketing the ground and the skies now clear, they were in for a long, frigid night.
The clouds of their breath caught the silvery moonlight just inside the gate. “There are things I need to attend to in town,” Quinn replied. Where he wanted to sound dutiful, instead he just sounded weary, as they all did. He pulled up his fur-lined hood, which relieved his tingling ears. “Stay here tonight, Captain. I have a feeling Franklin will be glad for the support, in his state.”
“Aye, sir. We really did get here just in time, eh?”
Quinn sighed for the umpteenth time that evening, slipping his foot in the stirrup and swinging himself into the saddle. “We did,” he agreed, nodding down at the man. “I’ll be back here tomorrow morning at 0800. Get some rest, Otto. You’ve earned it, certainly.”
“So have you, Belvedere.”
The gate swung open, the groaning of its massive hinges drowning out Quinn’s genuine “Thank you,” to his trusted captain. He maneuvered his horse into the winter night, their treacherous pathway blessedly illuminated by a gibbous moon high above. The town itself in the distance was blackout dark; only a few lanterns still glowed from hooks outside the occupied buildings, and the only motion was from the rotating shifts of troops keeping watch overnight.
Quinn held up a hand as he made his way down the main road. The guards noticed him immediately and appropriately drew their weapons. “Stand down. Continue your patrols,” he ordered. They saluted in unison and carried on.
He rode toward the center square. The scene of such slaughter and bloodshed that afternoon was peaceful and empty in the shroud of night. A distant chorus of men’s laughter sliced through the silence—off-duty soldiers fighting their exhaustion with celebration from one of the buildings on the perimeter. Quinn continued until the din died away behind him, until the muffled footfalls of his horse’s hooves in trampled snow were the only whisper on the freezing breeze. He followed the route he’d memorized from the rough map at the inn, turning right.
Ahead was a gathering of empty tables aligned in crooked rows. An oil lantern on its last drops of fuel flickered from its hook outside a ramshackle building, casting a faint yellow glow over the makeshift mess area as he passed. Gritting his teeth, he came to a pause outside the bakery while his hunger warred with a bone-deep exhaustion. Did he even have the energy to chew and swallow? His stomach let out a growl in response. He’d pushed his body to an extreme today, and he was in desperate need of something to eat and drink…
“Fuck,” he muttered to himself, dismounting and tying his horse to the post outside.
As the commanding general, he supposed he didn’t need to knock, but he rapped on the wooden doorframe gently with a gloved knuckle anyway. It was well past midnight, and likely everyone inside had left or gone to bed. He was on the verge of reaching for the handle to let himself inside when the door suddenly cracked open. A woman peered outside, her eyes widening at the sight of him. A faint glow from the interior silhouetted her face, and the aroma of baking bread hit his nostrils like a blow.
“Apologies for the disturbance at this late hour, but I was hoping you had something—anything, really—left over that I could eat,” he said, some of the formality of his usual speech replaced with weariness.
“Of course,” the woman breathed nervously, opening the door with trepidation. “Come.”
Warmth enveloped him along with the perfume of spices and yeast as he stepped over the threshold. He pushed back his hood, following her into the dimly illuminated kitchens. When the woman turned around, her hand flew to her mouth to stifle a gasp. “General,” she squeaked, her gaze falling to the silver stars emblazoned on his coat. Her expression careened from shock to fear to hatred. A look he was used to.
He held up his hands, still sheathed in black leather gloves. “I’m just looking for…” he began, then abruptly halted. The woman had taken a step back into the light, which painted her face bright gold—a face he dimly recognized, especially now that it was contorted in fear again. “I know you,” he said, gaze sweeping from her face to her feet and back again. She had changed clothes, and her hair was tied back now, but…there was no mistaking that it was the woman he’d rescued from the leering Omegas. “Is your son well?” he asked, slowly pulling the gloves off his hands. She tensed when he slid them into his pockets as his hands hovered momentarily near his belt of weapons.
“As well as can be expected,” she answered, her shaking voice hardly more than a whisper, finally looking up to meet his eyes. He saw her scorn waver for a moment, though he did not smile, and she turned toward a wooden shelf in the corner. “I…I was getting a head start on tomorrow’s supply…” She slid out a silver tray lined neatly with bread rolls, balancing it on one hand as she plucked two from the lineup. “I’m sorry, we don’t have any sandwiches left. The farm delivery won’t get here until dawn.”
Quinn took the proffered bread, which was still slightly warm against his palm even through the white cloth it was wrapped in. It was all he could do not to tear into it right then and there. “This is just fine. Thank you.”
The woman stared at him, unmoving, for so long the general nearly asked if she was well. Tears glinted in her gaze, but she was too stubborn to let them fall. All at once, she whisked past him, her long skirts stirring up a cloud of flour that had fallen to the floor. He turned, startled, and found her approaching with a small bundle wrapped in brown paper. “It’s the last of the goat cheese,” she said, her fingers trembling with either fear or contempt or both. She thrust it at him and took a cautious step away.
He understood—it was a gift of gratitude for saving her and her son from the blond asshole Orik, but Quinn was still the commanding general who had bathed her town in blood. He would not fault her for her rage if she did not act upon it.
“Thank you,” he told her, sincerely, and headed back around the counter toward the door. “Northam appreciates your contribution,” he said, lifting the wrapped bread to indicate the food she’d worked to provide his men. He knew she had little choice, so the words felt hollow. He pulled up his hood again, casting his face in shadow. “I extend my personal gratitude as well.”
The woman’s eyes fell to the floor as she closed the door behind him.
The bitter cold was painful on the exposed skin of his hands, but he tore into the bread and cheese as soon as he mounted his horse. By the time he reached the old brick house, his fingers were stinging and red, but he’d devoured it all. He replaced his gloves, tied the horse, and entered through the front door.
Embers of a mostly-dead fire glowed faintly from the parlor fireplace. Sergeant Percival leapt to his feet. The man looked as bleary and tired as the general felt. “I assumed you were staying at the camp tonight, sir.”
Quinn glanced to the staircase, his tired pulse quickening.
“She’s sleeping upstairs,” Percival added, following his commanding officer’s stare.
“You may retire for the night, Sergeant.” Quinn gave a nod to the blond man, who looked relieved. Percival walked stiffly toward the back of the house toward one of the bedrooms on the first floor, the sound of a door latching echoing down the corridor.
Quinn ascended the stairs, unbuckling his belt and unfastening his coat as he hauled himself upward. Of the three bedrooms upstairs, only the middle door was pulled closed. A knot of tension in his gut seemed suddenly to loosen, at the same time that an anticipatory thrill raised more gooseflesh on his arms. He strode up to the door, coat and weapons draped over his elbow, standing there with his ridiculous mismatched sleeves…
And hesitated.
Should he wake her? It seemed cruel, after the day she’d had, after the bloodshed she’d been unfortunate enough to witness. He flexed his right hand, remembering the feeling of his knuckles colliding with Orik’s nose; he lifted his left shoulder, remembering the sensation of her tender touch through the pain of his wound.
Chloe deserved whatever rest she could muster in a place like this. He absolutely should not wake her.
Yet his hand was already balled into a fist, and before he could stop himself, he was gently tapping on the door. Softly at first, and then more insistent.
The door cracked. The sight of her—sleepy-eyed and squinting as the hall light slipped through the opening—melted the ice in his bones with a flood of warmth that radiated from his ribcage to his toes.
“Chloe.” His voice was low and husky when he spoke. I didn’t want to wake you, he could have admitted, and almost did. Except that’s exactly what I wanted. Instead, to her doubts about his arrival, he said, “I am a man of my word.”
She opened the door a little wider, the glow from the corridor illuminating a tapered path into the bedroom. Quinn stepped inside.
He peered through the darkness as the seamstress moved to the lamp on the nightstand, clicking it on to the fill the space with gentle ambient light. The room was drab by Avondale standards, lavish for Earl’s Crossing, and palatial compared to a tent in the winter woods. With a pang of guilt he took note of the mussed bedding where she’d been slumbering just minutes before.
“I shouldn’t have disturbed you,” the general finally conceded. He hovered near the door, coat still draped over his arm, and searched for Chloe’s gaze. “I…” He met those familiar eyes that swirled with a storm even when heavy-lidded with sleep, and paused. This time, when he sighed, it was with all the heaviness of the day having caught up to him at last, and he was too tired to care if she saw it. “I tried to get away sooner,” he said at last, taking a step closer to her. He looked down into her eyes which, despite her being a tall woman, was a steeper angle than usual given her bare feet and his thick-soled boots. “Would you be pleased to know how distracting it was, knowing you slept here waiting for me?”
