There All Along by Megan Hart, Lauren Dane

dangerous.
    His kiss wasn’t safe. It was hard and fast, a gnash of teeth, the nip of her bottom lip. He branded her with that kiss. “Your lips are still swollen from my cock,” he spoke against her mouth at last. “Haldeman noticed that.”
    “Yes.” She tried not to pant, but it was difficult.
    “Mine.”
He kissed her hard one last time and stepped back. “Watch out the window. Keep the lights off. Lock this place down and do not come out unless you get the signal or are escorted by one of us or Haldeman’s men. Promise.”
    She nodded.
    He grabbed two rifles and headed out. She went down, checked the locks on the windows and pulled the heavy plates down, covering the doors and windows. She slid the bolts and locks into place and headed back upstairs, doing the same on the main door from the back stairs. She’d keep the exit down the back stairs, up to the attic, down to the cellar and her tunnel to escape locked, but accessible. The lights went off all over town as the runners spread out. Shutters clanked shut, locks clicked out through the night.
    She only hoped they were ready to repel the assault she knew in her bones was coming.
    •   •   •
    H e gathered his team, who’d already been on alert and were all ready.
    “They had a group of about twenty that I could see.” Indigo indicated a map on the table nearby and they moved over. Haldeman and several of his men were there as well, watching, ready for orders. In a situation like this one, Loyal would be the commanding officer.
    “They were here.” Indigo pointed.
    “There’s a trail just ahead.” Haldeman drew a line from the river toward the garrison. “It would take them around the bridge, but they’d still have to cross the river. Right now it’s swollen with melting snowpack. Several feet above the normal levels. And brutally cold. Too cold to swim across and live.”
    “Other than the main bridge, where else can they cross safely?”
    “Nearer the pass.” Haldeman pointed miles east of the garrison, higher up in the mountains. “There’s a bridge up that way. They can cross there. Even if they ran it would take them an extra day, day and a half. The climb is brutal. Maybe it’ll discourage them.”
    “Depends on the why of this attack.” Stace looked over the map. “I can get to the bridge up on the pass. Blow it so they can’t cross.”
    “What do you mean depends on the why?” One of Haldeman’s men stood forward.
    Trinity shrugged. “You can’t count on the brigands to do things how you might. They don’t think like we do. If they’re hungry or angry at having to walk extra they may not give up like you or I might. Go pick an easier target. No, they might figure the extra work is worth whatever you got in these walls. Or they may be so mad that they see this as revenge for making them work so hard. Or maybe they’re starving and they’ll come no matter what. They don’t think like regular folk is what I’m saying. They’re brigands. Closer to animal than people at times, ’specially times like these when they’re on a hunt.”
    Trinity knew them well. Her family had been taken by them. She’d been raised as a camp slave for several years until she’d escaped. Just ten years old, she’d leapt off a moving brigand vehicle and into the road in the path of a lawman’s escort. It was lucky they hadn’t shot her but stopped to help. Against regulations to do such things, but it had saved her life and she’d been with the lawmen ever since.
    “I’m going to advise you let Stace blow that bridge.”
    “It’s a way for us to hunt without having to go all the way around.”
    “I understand that. But if you can slow down a gang of brigands that’s going to be better than having to deal with rebuilding it when it’s warmer. You see my meaning? We may not be here the next time. You blow that bridge and they have no other choice but to come over the main bridge. It cuts down their avenue of attack. Makes it