Theirs To Protect: a Reverse Harem Romance Read online

  Audrey didn’t know what to say in response to that little speech. Except to know that with every word that came out of his mouth, a certainty grew more and more deep in her stomach—she had to get outta here the first chance she got.

  “Now,” the Commander took in a deep breath and released it, like he was intentionally calming himself down, “this conversation is over. Your fiancés will begin their courtship duties tomorrow.”

  Audrey’s eyes shot wide open. Courtship what?

  The Commander strode toward the door but just as he opened it and made to leave, he paused and turned back to her.

  “And Audrey? I’ve posted sentries at the front and back of the house. If you try to leave again, you’ll only be escorted back to the house. It’s your first night here and I’d hate for it to be filled with unpleasantness. Why not rest, clean up, and enjoy your new life here?”

  He closed the door before she could shout all the obscenities she had stored up.

  Chapter 7

  AUDREY

  Turned out the Commander wasn’t bluffing about those sentries. Three escape attempts later, when Audrey finally climbed into bed, bleary-eyed at five a.m., she gave into sleep the second her head hit the pillow.

  Which meant she was less than delighted when Sophia came bounding in at eight a.m. asking her how she could sleep so late, and didn’t she want to wake up and get a start on the day?

  The silver lining?

  Sophia brought breakfast in bed. And while it wasn’t super exciting—it was largely a sprouted bean and cornmeal mix, there was one precious fresh egg. That wasn’t what had Audrey sitting up in bed and almost hugging Sophia, though. No, that was due to the steaming mug full of black liquid that was the equivalent of gold these days.

  “Coffee!” Audrey exclaimed, cupping the mug to her chest like it was the most precious thing she’d ever held.

  Sophia grinned as Audrey brought it to her lips and sipped. It was hot and bitter and absolutely fucking perfect.

  “We bring it out for special occasions. I can add some milk if you’d like. Margie’s our milk cow. She makes the sweetest, freshest tasting—”

  “No.” Audrey shook her head. “I don’t want anything to ruin this perfection.” She closed her eyes and breathed in the aroma, then took another sip. Sweet baby Jesus that was divine.

  “I’m so glad you like it.” Sophia sounded genuinely pleased. “I’ll let you eat and then you can shower and get cleaned up. I thought we could show you around town today.”

  Audrey perked up and opened her eyes, focusing on Sophia. Getting a look around town sounded fabulous to her. Then maybe she could make a plan more sophisticated than try to sneak out the front door or climb out the window down the trellis in the middle of the night—both obviously flawed plans since the sentries picked her up within five minutes of hitting the yard every time.

  After breakfast and all but licking every drop from the coffee mug, Audrey headed for the shower.

  An actual shower.

  The Commander’s house had its own well. And the solar panels installed on the roof gave enough power for the pump to pipe water into the house—at least on special occasions. Apparently Audrey showing up qualified. They had so much water here they could just throw it away down the drain. Miracle of miracles.

  The water was cold, but Audrey wasn’t going to look a gift horse in the mouth. There’d only been sponge baths in the bunker and washing her hair twice a month in the water bucket Uncle Dale brought down.

  She couldn’t help but luxuriate as she scrubbed her hair clean with the shampoo—real shampoo. It smelled like lilacs.

  Charlie’s dead and you’re letting your captors bribe you with a shower? What the hell, Audrey?

  She squeezed her eyes shut as the lilac scented shampoo ran down her face.

  No, it wasn’t like that. She just had to regroup. Take a few days. Get cleaned up. Eat their food. Drink their water. And then get the hell out of here.

  She couldn’t just keep going off half-cocked. Getting out of here and down to the coast was going to require planning and patience. If the Commander wasn’t bullshitting her and it was as dangerous out there as he said—something her limited experience didn’t exactly contradict, her heart squeezed remembering Charlie’s body hitting the ground—then she’d need supplies. She pushed the image of Charlie away.

  Guns. She’d need guns. At least one. And a vehicle. Making it there on foot by herself just wasn’t realistic.

  And whatever she did, she couldn’t allow any room for distractions.

  She rinsed her hair and then quickly finished with the shower. Sophia had left her clothes to wear and just like the shower, it felt unspeakably good to slide into a fresh, clean pair of jeans and a t-shirt.

  A knock came at the bedroom door, and then Sophia’s sunny voice. “You decent? I heard the shower turn off a while ago and I want to a start on our day.”

  Audrey glared at the sound of Sophia’s voice. “Catch more flies with honey,” she whispered to herself. Her mom used to always say that.

  Then she smirked, cause once she’d said it in front of Uncle Dale and he’d just gotten this confused look on his face. “You’d catch a helluva lot more flies with some Die Fly. Sprinkle a little of that around and you can kill a thousand flies, easy. After the Fall, all those dead bodies piling up, we were up to our eyeballs in flies, lemme tell you. Don’t know what we woulda done without our barrel a’ Die Fly.”

  But that was Uncle Dale for ya, always with a tale of how to best mix lye in order to dissolve decomposing bodies the quickest, or how his militia helped secure the western border in the bloodiest battle of the Texas War for Independence against the Southern States Alliance, or how he’d pooped into a plastic bag for two weeks while he dug out his outhouse.

  Audrey shook her head to rid herself of the memories and called back, “I’m dressed.”

  Sophia burst in the door, wide smile on her face. Did she just smile so much her face got stuck that way, or what? Seriously, it was not natural to flash that many teeth so often.

  “Come on, your tour of town awaits!”

  “Oh goody.”

  Sophia was also apparently immune to sarcasm. She just laughed and grasped Audrey’s elbow, pulling her forward out of the room.

  “Oh hi, Nix,” Sophia said as soon as they stepped out the front door. Audrey had been watching Sophia as she slipped the door key back in her pocket but her head whipped up at the name.

  And there stood the too large, overly muscled, overly tattooed man with his bulging arms crossed over his chest. The menacing scar running diagonally down his face. He leaned against the porch rail like he’d been waiting on them.

  He dipped his head. “Morning, Sophia.” Then his eyes moved to Audrey. Dark gray eyes that were too attentive, too intense. She pulled back, ignoring Sophia’s grip on her arm.

  “Audrey,” was all he said to her, a smirk curling up one side of his lips.

  “What’s he doing here?” She turned to Sophia.

  “He’s our bodyguard. Well,” Sophia smiled. “Your bodyguard anyway. All the married women have one. One of their husbands.” Her eyes went a little dreamy.

  Audrey glanced at the scarred giant. Of course all the women had one of their ‘husbands’ watching them twenty-four hours a day. More like prison guards. Audrey huffed out in disbelief.

  “Next year I turn nineteen, you know,” Sophia said conversationally. “And then I’ll get my own lottery. I can’t wait, I’m so excited.”

  Audrey eyed her in disbelief. Surely she wasn’t that innocent to want to invite this bullshit, was she?

  “Don’t get ahead of your britches, girl,” Nix said, brows lowering at Sophia. “There’s plenty of time before then.”

  For the first time since Audrey’d known her, Sophia finally got some fire in her eyes. “You all think I’m still a child. But I’m not. I’m ready to take my place in the community. To have a clan of my own.”

  Yep. She
’d definitely been drinking the cool aid.

  “So where to first, trusty tour guide?” Audrey asked, taking Sophia’s arm again. Time to get her lay of the land so she could get the hell out of here.

  ***

  Audrey thought Sophia would make more of a show of everything as they walked the couple blocks into town, but they passed most buildings without a single explanation, even when they came to the picturesque town square.

  The streets were full of people. Mostly men, but Audrey glimpsed a few women here and there. Just walking around free as could be. No one mobbing or harassing them.

  Horses clattered down the pavement and a line of people curved around the block outside a building with a rudimentary sign proclaiming Food Pantry. Out of an open front window, a woman served man after man steaming bowls of food.

  Audrey had a hundred questions but Sophia just kept marching forward like she had a particular destination in mind. Nix followed behind several paces behind them, dark eyes watchful.

  On the far side of the square was a long strip of buildings. Sophia headed for one several doors down. City Hall, the sign overhead proclaimed in peeling gold paint. Though old and weathered, the sign looked original to the building—or at least pre-D Day.

  The visitor area was sparse but well kept. A man in a sharp pin-striped suit sat behind a desk with several books open, making small notations in a ledger. Light from the large front window bathed the room in light.

  “Hi Henry,” Sophia said brightly.

  The man’s head lifted and his eyes locked on Sophia. “Sophia.” He said her name like a caress. He had to be close to Sophia’s dad’s age. The way he was looking at her was anything but fatherly though.

  Audrey flicked her eyes back and forth between them. And the plot thickened…

  “Oh,” Sophia blushed and moved to the side. “This is Audrey. She’s new.”

  “Yes,” Henry smiled, eyes never moving from Sophia. “I gathered that.”

  But finally he turned to Audrey. “Lovely to meet you, Miss…?”

  “Just Audrey’s fine.” She narrowed her eyes at him. This guy was entirely too smooth. And he was perving over a girl half his age. Okay so Sophia might be eighteen already, but still.

  “I wanted her to meet Graham,” Sophia said.

  “He’s in the back, excelling at being a hermit as always.” Henry waved to the hallway that led further back into the building.

  Sophia said goodbye to Henry and then led the way. There weren’t any windows so it was dark until they came to the end of the hallway where it opened to another large office.

  Where a young guy with heavy black glasses sat at a desk typing furiously away on a laptop.

  A working laptop.

  He looked up at Audrey’s gasp.

  “Oh. You’re here.” He pushed his glasses up his nose and blinked owlishly at them.

  “Graham,” Sophia laughed. “Get up. Come say hi.”

  “Oh. Right.” He laughed self-deprecatingly, pushed his glasses up again and then got to his feet. He was tall and lanky, with thick brown hair that hadn’t been cut recently and curled at the back of his neck.

  He had on a gray t-shirt that said in faded lettering, My Password is the Last Seven Digits of Pi. He held his hand out to Audrey. His eyes slid slightly to the left when he looked at her, like he couldn’t quite handle eye contact.

  Her attention was quickly drawn back to the laptop though. Talk about precious commodities.

  Audrey looked at the ceiling. She remembered what Sophia had said about where the electricity came from for the water pump back at the house. “Solar panels on this building too?”

  Both Sophia and Graham nodded but it was Graham who spoke up. “Twenty-one buildings in town have panels.”

  Audrey felt her eyebrows go up at that. “So many?”

  “There was a company in town who installed them before… well, before,” Sophia said.

  Graham nodded. “After the Commander took over and established Jacob’s Well as a township, the first thing he did was start prioritizing energy needs.”

  “Lemme guess,” Audrey couldn’t keep the snark out of her voice, “the Commander decides who gets the electricity?”

  Graham looked confused. “Uh… no. Community members submit requests and the council votes on them.”

  Oh. Well. That wasn’t what Audrey had expected.

  “Every request goes into a category of need,” he explained. “Shelter, food, and security requests come first. Then on down the list to things like entertainment.”

  “When we can manage, we have movie night over at the old theater,” Sophia added.

  “And the laptop,” Audrey said, hoping her eagerness wasn’t showing too much, “You’re online?”

  Graham looked surprised at her question. He nodded. “Most people don’t even know there is an internet anymore.”

  Audrey shrugged. “My Uncle was well prepared.” That was one word for it. Uncle Dale had taken the term Prepper to the extreme, way before the Fall. He inherited the fallout shelter from his dad along with a healthy paranoia that one day the world was gonna go to hell in a handbasket. And then… when it did, he was one of the few with all the supplies and know how to survive. Including EMP-proof computers that stayed linked to satellite backups of the basic internet infrastructure.

  Graham nodded, letting out a low, impressed whistle. “It took us awhile to find a laptop that wasn’t fried by the EMP attacks but we finally managed. Satellites stored back up images of big portions of the internet and once President Goddard got us access keys, we’ve started rebuilding. It’s still pretty basic stuff, but we’ve got global communications, satellite imagery, commerce and trade. It’s a start.”

  Audrey eyed the laptop and she fought the impulse to bite her lip. She still had three weeks to make it to the coast in time for the meetup with the Nomansland representative. But if for some reason she missed that window?

  She’d need to contact them again for a new set of coordinates.

  Just one problem.

  No matter how many hours she spent with Uncle Dale at the computer, she was total crap at programming and learning to follow the million rabbit trails on the dark web it took to contact Nomansland in the first place. She just never had a head for math. Charlie, he’d been the mathlete.

  Sophia must have mistaken her intense stare of concentration at the laptop.

  “I know, just looking at it makes you want to check your email, doesn’t it?” Sophia joked. “I was glued to screens when I was a kid.”

  Audrey jerked her eyes away from the laptop and smiled at Sophia and shook her head. “Me too. But God, that feels like a hundred years ago.”

  “It wasn’t healthy anyway,” Sophia said. “The kids in our community are growing up knowing the important things.”

  Audrey stopped herself midway through rolling her eyes but she apparently wasn’t fast enough because she caught Nix smirking at her reaction. When had he even come in?

  She took a step closer to Sophia and turned her back on him.

  “Well, you guys should get going,” Sophia said, looking from Audrey to Graham, toothy smile showing. “The town won’t show itself.” She gestured toward the door.

  What? Wasn’t Sophia going to—

  “Oh. Yeah, um, I mean. Yes.” Graham pushed his glasses up his nose and tugged on the bottom of his t-shirt. “I’ll be your tour guide today.” He smiled at Audrey, his eyes quickly shifting slightly to the side of her gaze.

  “Well, I’m off,” Sophia said enthusiastically. “Great to see you, Graham. Y’all have fun. Ta ta!”

  Then Sophia was off, fairly prancing down the hall. Audrey tilted her head watching her go. Yep. Prancing was the only word for that.

  “Why’s she in such a good mood all the damn time?” she muttered.

  “I don’t know, but maybe you should take notes.”

  Audrey glared at Nix, her mouth dropping open. Had he really just insinuated—?

&n
bsp; “Come on,” Graham said, completely ignoring Nix. “There’s so much to show you. Santiago is the town’s premier engineer and he’s been doing some really amazing things this year.”

  While no one could stand up to Sophia’s bubbly cheer, Graham did sound excited. A pretty obvious ploy, if you asked her. Use the town’s two least offensive, most cheerful members to try to sell the place.

  Flash some running water, electricity, and technology at a girl and the shine of it all was supposed to make her forget the fact that they’d raffled her off like the prize pig at a fair last night? Fat chance.

  Graham waved to Henry as they passed him in the front office and then it was back out into the sunshine of the morning on the town square.

  “What did Sophia show you already?” Graham asked, holding a hand up to shade his eyes as he looked around.

  “Nothing really. She pretty much just made a beeline to your office.”

  He nodded and dropped his hand, pushing his glasses up his nose as he did. “Okay, well, this is the town.” He gestured awkwardly with both his hands. “There’s the Food Pantry. Everyone who comes into town is given a ration card. Two square meals a day. Now,” his face scrunched, “it’s not the most amazing food. There’s a lot of sprouted beans and grains. But they do make sure everyone gets a daily amount of Vitamin C so no one gets scurvy and Michelle—she’s the town’s nutritionist works with the Commander and Henry in there to coordinate imports and exports—”

  “Imports and exports?” Audrey raised her eyebrows.

  “Bartering,” Nix growled from behind them, making Audrey jump. How did he keep sneaking up on her? “He means bartering.”

  Graham turned to Nix. “It’s thinking like that that’s keeping the economy in the dark ages. While yes,” he waved a hand, “we still do mostly exchange goods and services, the army pays their soldiers in paper script. It won’t be too long before we’re back to a currency-based economy.”