Survival: A Military Stepbrother Romance Read online

Robin

  Wes damn near drove me into a sexual unconsciousness, and it was lunch time before I could really move again. Still, the rest allowed both of us to recover and rehydrate, and to eat some lunch. After a day and a half of walking and a couple of amazing orgasms, I was happy to take the two hours off.

  While I rested by lounging against my upturned backpack, Wes hunted along the shoreline. When he came back with a handful of what looked like tiny clams, he was grinning. “We’re in business now!” he said, before freezing, his eyes widened in fright.

  Before I could ask him what the hell he was looking at, Wes moved faster than I have ever seen someone move before, his hand a blur to his hip before I heard the snick sound of his knife blade burying itself in the dirt near my head. I rolled to the side, scared out of my wits, and was on my feet before I knew it. “What the fuck!”

  Wes covered the distance between us in four big steps, kneeling down almost exactly where I had been laying, and pulling his knife out of the ground in order to plunge it down again. He pulled his knife out of the ground and wiped the blade on his pants leg before sheathing it again. I stood mute as he reached down and picked up what I first thought was a long piece of rope, or maybe a tree branch, except that it hung limp. It wasn’t until my eyes traveled down the thing that I saw the pattern of scales on the back and realized Wes was holding the body of a snake, one that was at least as thick as my wrist through the body.

  “Sorry, but I didn’t want to startle it by making you move,” he said, turning the carcass upside down and letting the blood drip out onto the ground.

  Wes carried the body of the snake over to the lake, washing it off before setting it on a rock. “I know this sounds weird, but these things are actually delicious. I found out the hard way during my work in Eastern Europe. And it’s a lot easier to prepare than those clams that I dropped.”

  At the mention of his work, I cocked my ear. “Uh, Wes?”

  “Yeah? I’m sorry if I scared you.”

  “No,” I said, waving it off. “That I understand. What I wanted to ask you about was your work. What’s a computer engineer doing eating snakes in Eastern Europe?”

  Instead of replying, Wes stuffed the envelope of snake meat into one of the outer pockets of his bag. Kneeling there, he looked lost in thought for a moment, then turned to me. “What’s your security clearance? DoD-wise.”

  “The Pentagon has me rated top secret, but you know that’s only for the projects I’m cleared on,” I said. “Why?”

  Wes pulled his backpack on and waited while I followed suit, picking up my walking stick. Wes started off, breaking out a ration pack from the side cargo pocket of his pants as he did. “Well, imagine if you can, a young soldier who has just left the military to go to college. He’s fit, well-trained, and has a flair for computer science, as well as a strong desire to serve his country, although not in the strictest of military ways any longer.”

  “Imagine that while he’s at school, he’s approached by some gentlemen who know who he is and offer him a job. Strictly off the books, strictly freelance, his job is to hack the computer systems of other countries, gathering intelligence for certain government agencies. Most of the time, his work can be done from the comfort and safety of a normal office. But his specialty is getting into systems that aren’t linked into normal networks, isolated Intranets that are used within government facilities only, the type of data that when it has to go off-site is loaded onto portable hard drives and carried via armed courier. And finally, let’s just pretend that this person’s last assignment wasn’t so much in Eastern Europe as it was in Russia.”

  I looked at Wes’s face as he kept walking on silently, studying him for any signs of deception or bullshit. He was dead serious, though, and I stopped for a moment, considering yet another change in how I saw the man that a week prior I thought of as just my handsome, yet sometimes aloof, stepbrother. Wesley Brandt, secret agent? “So, uh . . . wow. I have a Mr. Bond on my hands?”

  “Great story, huh?” Wes said as we kept walking. We kept the lake on our right shoulder, the more open terrain and grassland making walking easy. “This person, if they did exist, has seen data files that makes him doubt the sanity of humanity. He’s got blood on his hands, and is getting tired of the game.”

  “I could see that,” I said, keeping my mind working in the same deception he was using, even though we both could easily see the truth. “This person might be a bit lonely, while at the same time desiring isolated getaways.”

  “He might.”

  “What does his family know?”

  “His parents wouldn’t know anything, although if he could, he’d tell his stepsister, since he’s been in love with her since they were teenagers.”

  I lengthened my stride to catch up with Wes, reaching out to take his gloved hand. We walked in silence for a while, stretching at least a mile or so of lakeshore, before I spoke again. “So, this freelancer, does he make good money? Because his stepsister probably isn’t exactly having the most success in her own career. She doesn’t want to end up destitute and leeching off her parents, after all.”

  Wes smiled and glanced over at me. “Let’s just say that he’s got enough of a nest egg that he could retire right now and live well for a very long time. One of the perks of his contract is that if he can hack enemy financial institutions, he’s allowed to. Right now, he owns shares under various aliases in about three dozen major corporations, as well as a decent-sized Swiss bank account.”

  “Well, if such a man like that existed, I think his stepsister would be one lucky girl to have him then,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze. “And would love to be part of his life, as close as he can let her be, at least.”

  In normal Wes fashion, instead of answering with words, he smiled and handed over a granola bar from the ration pack. We kept up our companionable walk for the rest of the day, giving the cryptic talk a rest. We took ten minute breaks every hour to stretch, rest and make sure we were both staying hydrated. At about four in the afternoon, the shadows started getting long, and we started looking for a place to camp. We had gotten all the way past the first lake, and were now following the river that connected it with the next lake in the chain. It wasn’t that big, maybe only about thirty yards across, but it was pretty.

  At this point, I was actually starting to enjoy our little adventure. I just wish it hadn’t started the way that it did.

  Our campsite that night was actually pretty comfortable. Some long-ago avalanche or something had tumbled boulders along the valley we were currently in, their humped forms slouched and worn after who knew how many years of weathering. After carefully checking the wind, Wes had us set up our lean-to on the calm side of a pair of boulders that had come together into a kind of V shape. With our fire going, it was halfway decent, although I was still cold.

  Using sticks, Wes and I roasted our snake meat over the fire, looking for all the world like we were roasting marshmallows. Sadly, the meat was bland, like unseasoned chicken, until Wes broke out another ration pack and mixed the meat with the stuff inside. It was weird eating spaghetti, meat balls, and snake with a seasoning of Tabasco sauce, but it was filling, and I went to bed with aching feet, a full belly, and the strong arms of the man I loved around me.

  Wesley

  We kept up our travels for the next day. I was impressed by how little complaining Robin did and how quickly she adapted to the rigors of cross-country travel. She got really good at identifying edible bushes and plants, although she was always careful to double check with me. We gathered as we hiked, always keeping our eyes and ears out for any sign of humanity.

  The silence and isolation, which I had craved so much when I was trying to get my head right after a mission, had become both a bonding agent for us and a frustration. Our food supply was okay for a while, but the fact was, our vacation had turned into a survival scenario. While part of me wanted things to never end, to just live in the wild with Robin and play mountain man, we both kne
w that our plane would have been missed by now and that search parties would be starting to comb the mountains. Unfortunately, unless the pilot had made a last-second radio check-in, there was no way they’d really know where to look for us.

  We kept going, not pushing the pace too quickly. As long as our foraging skills were going along, we were in no danger of running out of food, and the mountains were providing well for us. Because I didn’t want to take the time to try and hunt or trap, our gathering was limited to berries, nuts, and roots, although the snake did help out. I didn’t want to have to slow down anymore by being forced to trap or fish for our food. I couldn’t even let myself think about what our parents were going through.

  I was moved the next afternoon, the day after the snake, when Robin used my cooking kit to warm up some water. We had stopped early, maybe only three in the afternoon, because the map showed a gap in the forest that I didn’t want to have to try and camp in overnight with no defense against the wind or any weather.

  After setting up our lean-to and getting the fire going, she started fussing around, making me curious. When I asked her what she was doing, she shushed me away, telling me to go get some more wood for our campfire. Intrigued and somewhat confused, I wandered off, getting another armload of wood. It took longer than before, since I had picked a spot with fewer trees nearby, but when I returned, the walk was worth it.

  While I was gone, Robin had used the warm water, a spare t-shirt from her bag, and a small bar of soap to give herself what could best be described as a field bath, or perhaps a quick wash up. She had even bitten the bullet and used straight water from our drinking bag to rinse and then wash her long hair, although it had to have felt freezing to her as she washed.

  When I came back into our camp, I found her just pulling her fresh change of clothes on and brushing her hair out with a small comb that we had kept as part of our toiletries kit along with our toothbrushes. I had to stop, a few pieces of wood falling from my hands as I looked at her. Robin was kneeling next to the fire, but without her boots on, looking into the crackling flames as she quietly hummed to herself, brushing her lustrous hair as she went. I had never seen her more beautiful as she smoothed her hair out until it was fully combed through and hung over her right shoulder in a single long, slightly twisted cable. It was only after she finished and put her comb down that I found the ability to walk again and picked up my dropped wood to come closer. “You look beautiful,” I said, making sure to not startle her. “I mean, absolutely gorgeous.”

  Robin blushed and smiled at me. “Sorry, but after three days of walking, I needed to take a moment to just clean up some. I like sharing the sleeping bag, but last night was a bit funky, you know?”

  Setting down my load of wood, I nodded. “One of those things I kind of forgot about with so much other stuff on my mind. Have I really been that stinky?”

  Robin shook her head and looked at me with those black eyes of hers, which I swear are hypnotizing. “You’re a guy, it’s different for you. Besides, I like your smell.”

  Lifting my arm up, I took a quick sniff of my armpit, and I shook my head. “There’s pheromones, and then there’s that,” I objected.

  Seized by a sudden burst of childishness, I tore off my clothes until I was down to just my boxer briefs that I was wearing under my long underwear. Running across the grass, I was tempted to leap into the water, but I knew it was pretty shallow, so instead I ran in quickly, the frigid water shocking me into a high-pitched bellow that I don’t think I’ve made since I got a basketball in my nuts by accident back in high school.

  I’ve taken showers in colder water, but not much colder, during my deployments. I knew the drill, rubbing my body as furiously as possible to try and get as much of the dirt and grime off as I could before hypothermia set in or my balls shriveled to the size of raisins. Ducking my head, I let the water stream through my hair and down my neck and started wading toward the shoreline.

  I saw that Robin was waiting for me with a shocked expression on her face as she held the t-shirt she had used to dry off with when she washed up. I waved it aside, instead going near the fire and jumping up and down, letting the water flow off of me naturally while the exercise and the fire warmed my body somewhat. When I was what Rebekah calls “drip-dry,” I took the t-shirt and rubbed myself all over until my skin glowed pinkish. I finished off by rubbing my hair dry, then sitting down on top of our sleeping bags to wipe as much of the dirt from the bottom of my feet as I could, while Robin pulled out a spare set of clothes for me.

  “Thanks,” I said, pulling on the fresh underwear and thermals. “I forgot how damn cold doing that can be.”

  Robin laughed and grinned. “Well, it was quite a show, even though it may have been the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And you forgot to use soap.”

  I could tell she was joking, but I played along, reaching for my top and pulling it up my torso. “Well, if I gotta do it again . . . ”

  Chapter Eight

  Wes

  It was another two days before we made it to Williston Lake, which was the largest of the chain of lakes I had been walking us down. The only problem was the size of the thing. I don’t know exactly how the lake came to be, although on the map I saw a dam, so I guess it’s not entirely natural, but Williston Lake is huge, at least a hundred and fifty miles long. My map didn’t have any sort of details as to what was around the lake, but I knew we had to reach some sort of civilization by the end of it, if anything at the dam itself.

  “Just a bit further,” I said, trying to put a brave spin on things. The pure math was, we could walk another five days just on the lake itself before reaching the dam if we had really bad luck. We had only two ration envelopes left, and the snake meat gave out the day before. I was starting to feel the effects of slow starvation and Robin looked even worse. Her body was nowhere near as prepared for this as I was, and her normally lean, sexy figure was becoming a bit gaunt. Her cheekbones, which I had always thought lent her a bit of an air of aristocracy with their high, rounded curves, now stood out even more and had taken on a sharpish angle.

  It was all the exercise, I knew. Back in the plane, I had lied to Robin when I said that we could get by on only one ration pack each with supplementation from foraging. That would have been true if we had been able to follow our first plan, where I had us staying by a lake shore and just relaxing, going on five or six mile nature walks and a lot of lounging around. Instead, we were hiking twenty to thirty miles a day, wearing packs, and sleeping out of doors constantly. Our bodies were going through calories at a very high rate, plain and simple. We should have been eating two, maybe even three rations a day, and even with supplementation we weren’t eating half of that.

  I had tried my best to keep Robin as strong as possible. I don’t know if she noticed, but when it came time to divvy out the rations, I made sure she got the tastier ones, and a lion’s share of the foraged food. Also, whenever I set aside parts of my ration for the next day’s breakfast, I made sure she ate at least half of my share as well as all of what she had set aside. I had a bit more experience with the conditions we found ourselves in and could keep going longer. Still, both of us were starting to show the signs of our slow starvation, and I wanted to get attention as quickly as possible.

  “All right, let’s take a break,” I said, looking around. I wanted to see the lay of the land, and see if there were any potential sites of civilization closer than just hoping and staying on the same side of the lake we started on. Also, I wanted to find some food. “Ten minutes?”

  Robin nodded and slung her bag off, much lighter than it had been when we left the plane a week earlier. She plopped down on the ground, her head nodding between her knees, and I watched her for a minute, concerned that it was time to take a day off to go hunting and trapping. I didn’t want to make Robin eat grubs and bugs, but if we had to, I’d do it. Hell, I have done it. After a moment, though, she looked up at me, and her eyes were clear, if tired. “Ten m
inute break, then we keep going,” she said, her voice determined. “But you so owe me a weekend in a five-star hotel after this.”

  “Deal,” I said encouragingly. “Nothing but spa treatments, pampering, and room service.” At the mention of room service, my stomach grumbled, loud enough for both of us to hear. Robin giggled and patted her own stomach. “I think we might take the next hour to scout out some foraging as well,” I said. “There’s gotta be some sort of nut trees around here.”

  Walking away, I kept my eyes open, looking for any signs of man or food. The lake was like milky glass, a shiny, slate gray that did not lift the spirits at all. I kept scanning and hoped for the best. Robin needed it.

  Robin

  While Wes was down by the lake, trying to see something that could help us, I let my body relax but kept my senses open. The incident with the snake had taught me a very important lesson, and I kept my walking stick near me, my ears open, and my eyes unfocused, trying to detect any movement I could.

  I heard a sound off to the left, turning my head on a swivel. The wolf was big, a male who had obviously been outcast from his pack, at least from the scars on his side. He moved in, and in an instant I was rolling to my right, my stick in my hand.

  I had been pretty good with the staff during my days in martial arts, although I’d never had to use anything I had learned outside of the classes. Wes was out of sight, maybe a hundred yards away through the trees, and I focused on the wolf instead of calling for him. There was no way he could get to me in time, and I knew I couldn’t waste any of my focus on anything but the wolf.

  The staff, so similar but still so different from what I had used in martial arts, had become an extension of my arm over the past few days. Thicker near the top and tapering toward the end, I brought it up in my hands in about a one-third, two-thirds split, giving me reach but still balancing the weight. I didn’t have time for any other adjustments as the wolf charged, a growling cry tearing from its throat. My eyes felt almost supernaturally focused, and an intense sense of calm that I had only barely felt the wisps of before dropped over me. When the wolf’s rear legs tensed for the final leap, I started my thrust, jabbing the tapered bottom of my walking stick where I somehow knew the wolf was going to be.