LITMIR.BIZ

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hitching up his gun belt. “The bitch is too old and stringy, anyway.”

      “Thanks, brother!” Dean chuckled, slapping the hated man on the shoulder in a friendly manner. “I owe you one!”

      His face a mask of repressed fury, Hannigan lumbered out of the tavern, firing his blaster at a corpse in the gutter for no valid reason.

      “Thanks, but I’ve never seen you before,” the woman said, wiping the blood from her face with a sleeve. “I broke my nose running away from the first wave of coldhearts as they came over the wall.”

      In case somebody was watching, Dean drew back his arm as if to cuff the woman. “He would have raped you, girl,” he whispered urgently, “and I won’t.” He stepped closer and she flinched. “Now come with me if you want to keep sucking air!”

      Unsure for a moment, she looked into his eyes and was startled to see only kindness there. Nodding in understanding, she did nothing as Dean grabbed her by the collar to roughly drag her to an undamaged house across the street.

      As Dean approached, a coldheart walked out with a skinny, bucktoothed young woman. She was dressed in rags, most of her body fully exposed and covered with dark bruises.

      “Hey, Tiger, done found me a virgie!” The coldheart laughed. “That be a first.”

      “Good work, Natters!” Dean complimented the man, feeling sick to his stomach for the woman. Her shoulders kept moving as if she was crying, but there were no tears on her cheeks. “You done in there?”

      “All yours, brother!” Natters laughed, leading his captive away like a dog on a leash.

      Going inside, Dean checked over the house. It was small, with just one room and a single door, no windows. Perfect. Closing and locking the door, he sighed in relief. “Okay, this buys us some time,” he said. “Wish I could help your people more, but I’ve been treading water with these bastards for a while, and they still don’t completely trust me yet.”

      Silently, the woman stared at him, not sure what to do.

      “Come on, scream,” Dean ordered, taking a chair and sitting. “If somebody passes by, it has to sound like you’re fighting for your bastard life, or we both get aced. Savvy?”

      “You…a roughrider?” she asked hesitantly, clutching the front of her ripped shirt.

      Though he’d never heard the slang word before, Dean could make an educated guess to the meaning. “No, I like women in my bed,” he said honestly, and then for some unknown reason felt compelled to add, “Not that I’ve had that many.”

      That comment caught her totally by surprise. Suddenly, she decided to trust the handsome stranger.

      Taking in a deep breath, she cut loose with a blood-curdling shriek.

      Startled, Dean blinked from the sheer ferocity of the cry, then smiled as he heard a couple of coldhearts laugh outside, and somebody thump the locked door.

      “Not so hard, Tiger!” a voice called. “Let her breathe some, unless you like riding the peach off a corpse!”

      “Shut up, I’m busy!” Dean shouted back, punctuating each word with a grunt.

      Chuckling, the coldhearts walked away, singing and firing their blasters.

      “I’m Althea,” she said. “Althea Stone.”

      “Dean Cawdor.”

      “Tiger?”

      “Just a nickname,” he said with a scowl.

      “What should we do?” Althea asked, sitting on the bed.

      “Better rip those clothes some,” Dean replied, pulling out a knife and tossing it over. “Then cut me on the cheek. Gotta make this look real.”

      Making the catch, Althea tested the balance of the blade, then slashed out, her hand a blur.

      Caught completely off guard, Dean jerked at the stinging touch of steel, then used fingertips to check his face. There was a shallow cut along his jawline. Damn, she was quick!

      Flipping the knife over, Althea slashed at her clothing, then added a few cuts to her legs. Dean was impressed. The blood would make folks think he had been her first, which would prevent most of the other coldhearts from bothering her, acknowledging an unspoken rule that she was his. He would have to keep a watch out for Hannigan. Someday soon, he would have to chill the man.

      Finished, Althea threw the knife back. It thudded onto the floorboards between his boots. “Can’t let them find me with a weapon,” she said, starting to remove her clothing.

      “Hey now, that’s not necessary,” Dean said, raising a palm.

      “Gotta make this look real if somebody checks,” she replied, letting the tattered garment flutter to the floor.

      As she finished disrobing, Dean said nothing, transfixed by the unbelievable beauty of the young woman. She had scars, of course—everybody alive did—but her skin was beautiful anyway, glowing with health. Her breasts were pert and firm, her stomach flat, and the delta between her legs was completely hairless.

      “You shave down there?” he asked, his throat oddly tight.

      “Never had no hair there,” Althea replied, sitting on the bed, which squeaked slightly. “Guess mebbe I got a little mutie blood in me. Most of the people in this ville do. We had a former baron who… Well, to say that he was crazy as a shithouse rat wouldn’t half load the blaster on that story.”

      “Reckon so,” Dean said, crossing his legs. The little cabin felt uncomfortably warm.

      “Now what?” she asked, pulling a blanket to cover herself. She wondered how it was possible that she was feeling an attraction to the coldheart. He had a kind face and intelligent eyes, but he was still an invader destroying her home and everybody she loved. Yet he had gentle ways, and the mixed messages confused her greatly.

      “Now we wait for the chilling to stop. That should be sometime around dawn,” Dean said, removing his gun belt and laying it on a rickety table mostly held together with duct tape. Then he hesitated, not really wanting to take off his shirt or his pants, although for vastly different reasons. Choosing the lesser of two evils, he pulled off the buckskin shirt.

      Inhaling sharply, Althea felt a visceral surge at the sight of his powerful chest and broad shoulders. Dean had the muscles of a blacksmith, and his wide chest was thickly matted with black curly hair, except for three white strips that looked like old knife wounds.

      “I can see why they call you Tiger,” Althea said, starting to reach for the scars, then stopping herself. She was inexplicably drawn to the gentle killer.

      “Anything’s better than Mud Puppy,” Dean snorted.

      “What?”

      “Never mind. Spent brass.” Turning away, he took off his combat boots and pants, then paused again, unwilling to turn around in his turgid state.

      Guessing the cause of his unease, Althea turned down the oil lantern.

      Relaxing slightly in the darkness, Dean padded barefoot across the cabin to sit in the wooden chair alongside the little bed.

      “Mebbe you should join me under the covers,” Althea suggested.

      Finding it difficult to think, Dean cleared his throat, trying to choose the correct words and not offend. He felt dizzy, almost drunk, and his heart was pounding.

      Moving onto the bed, he sank into the ancient mattress as he lay next to the young woman. He could feel the heat coming off her naked body.

      After drawing up the covers, he didn’t move for a long time. Then Althea whispered his name, and he pulled her close. Hugging each other tightly, they both tried to ignore the pitiful screams and wails coming from outside. Unexpectedly, there was a prolonged chatter of blasterfire, followed by an ominous silence that was infinitely

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