Welcome to the preview of Beneath the Ashes 2!
This is the first chapter.
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It was finally time.
Ethan turned off the shower and for a moment simply stood there, enjoying the basic but intense pleasure of being clean.
He had forgotten just how filthy tunnel crawling ended up making you feel, despite having done it for a year beforehand. He remembered the danger, the darkness, the dread. The constant tension that originated from the knowledge that you might die, and die brutally, at any given instant. Even if you did everything right.
But that lingering sense of sweat and grime and, if you saw any kind of combat, gore splattering across your body, even if you were almost completely protected against it with a suit of survival armor, there still an intense feeling of revulsion that hung around for days or even weeks.
Pulling back the curtain to the shower stall, he grabbed a towel and began drying off.
Today was the day.
He was finally leaving the hospital.
Even though he’d only been in there for a collective four days, it felt like four weeks, given how desperately he wanted to return to this life that he was building. Even with Kiva as a roommate and Ember practically living there with them, it still felt stifling and almost claustrophobic in his room now. He finished drying off, hung up the towel, and stepped out.
Pulling on his boxers, he looked at himself in the mirror, the steam mostly dissipated.
He looked different from how he remembered, but not in any obvious way. He remembered having a similar observation about a month after he’d initially started crawling back at Refuge.
Ethan frowned. Refuge…
He hadn’t thought about it for days now.
Was that good or bad?
Should he feel guilty or relieved?
There was a gentle knock at the door behind him. “Hey, uh, can I use the shower?”
“Yeah, sure,” Ethan replied.
He began to say ‘let me just brush my teeth really quick’ when the door opened and Kiva slipped in. To say that she was comfortable around him was an understatement. She was wearing a simple robe that they’d each been provided with.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she dropped the robe.
Ethan paused for a moment as he looked at her bare backside. Kiva was...a stunning woman. Tall, fit, and rather broad in the hips.
Which, consequently, gave her hips that could, and did, support a huge, shapely ass.
“Good,” he replied.
She started up the shower, slipped in, and closed the curtain.
“That’s good. Your back is mostly healed from what I could see. You will definitely have scars,” she said.
“Hopefully they look good,” he said as he grabbed the toothbrush and got started.
“They do,” Kiva assured him.
Even now, he genuinely could not tell if Kiva was actively trying to entice him or if she was simply that comfortable with taking her clothes off around him and also was very friendly. On the other hand, she seemed to have some measure of difficulty interacting in a way that felt natural with anyone but him or Ember.
He was still figuring her out, but it was not an unpleasant experience.
While she showered, he finished brushing his teeth and then headed out into their shared recovery room. Ember had brought him a fresh set of clothes that she had bought with his pay from the last mission. That one had paid out big time, five times the normal amount given how insanely dangerous it was and how messed up he’d gotten as a result of it. He pulled on a simple, black formfitting t-shirt, black socks, and a pair of black cargo pants, surprised by the quality of it all. He was lacing up some dark gray boots when Ember came back.
“Hey...wow,” she murmured.
“What?” he asked, glancing over at her.
“You just...look better in those than I thought you would.”
He looked down at himself. “You like black clothes I take it?”
“Well, I like you wearing black clothes, apparently.” She glanced at the closed bathroom door. “So...did you do it?”
“Do what?”
“Her? Did you have sex with Kiva?”
“What? No. I told you I wanted all of us to have a serious discussion about that.” Ethan finished tying his boots and stood up.
“I said I was fine with it,” Ember replied. “And Kiva seems pretty happy with the idea.”
“I know. I just want to sit down, all three of us, and have an actual discussion about it. Because it isn’t just sex that’s on the table, it’s our lives. Kiva seems to like it here and has been indicating she wants to live here. I feel like we’ve all been sort of cautiously batting around the idea of asking her to move in with us.”
“Well, yeah...I mean we’re doing that, right? I thought that was obvious at this point,” Ember replied.
“See? Right there. Exactly why all of us need to directly speak on the subject. We’re clearly not on the same page,” he said.
She pursed her lips, then nodded. “That’s a good point.” She smiled and stepped up to him suddenly, carefully hugging him to her. “I’m so glad I get to have you back. I slept in our shack by myself for weeks without much of a problem but now I can barely tolerate it. I have nightmares now that you’re gone.”
“I’m sorry, babe,” he murmured, kissing the top of her head and just taking a moment to enjoy her. Her feel, her scent, her voice. Just her presence. “How’s Hop?”
She laughed softly. “It’s a little hard to tell, but I think he misses you. He’s certainly been more vocal since you left.”
“Well hopefully he’ll calm down once I get home. Speaking of home, did you get the new bed in?” he asked.
“Yes. I went to the Market yesterday and it was delivered this morning. I put it together and I ended up giving our other bed to a couple who just arrived in the Pit not too long ago. They seemed pretty desperate, so I didn’t charge them anything for it,” she replied. “I figured that’s what you’d want me to do.”
“It is. That makes me happy. That’s another thing you and I, and I guess Kiva if she wants to live with us, needs to actually discuss: our goals with helping the people in the Pit.”
Ember smiled broadly as she stepped back and looked up at him. “I’ve been speaking with Lena about that. She’s very excited. She wants to help us.” She slowly lost her smile. “She didn’t seem to fully believe that we were going to help.”
“Why?” he asked.
“I asked her. She said what has happened, without fail in her experience, is that those who survive joining the Crawlers move out of the Pit almost immediately. Sometimes they’ll help out, sometimes they’ll stick around for a bit, but inevitably, they all leave, and they forget about the people in the Pit. It’s happened every single time. So, naturally, she’s skeptical. Though she wanted me to tell you that she didn’t think poorly of you or me,” Ember explained.
“I’ll be happy to break the cycle.”
They both glanced over as the shower shut off.
“Did you at least see her naked?” Ember murmured.
“You are perverted, you know that?” he replied. She crossed her arms and raised an eyebrow. He sighed, then laughed. “Yes. Her ass.”
“And?”
“Probably the best ass I’ve ever seen. Except for yours.”
Ember rolled her eyes. “I know you love me, you don’t have to tell me I’m the best at everything. I don’t need to be coddled.”
He laughed. “Yeah, unless you’re feeling oh so delicate and whine about every little thing if you get woken up in the morning.”
“I’m not a morning person!”
“I noticed.”
Ember growled and grasped his shirtfront. She had to stand on her toes to raise herself up so they were face to face.
The bathroom door opened up and Kiva walked out wrapped in a towel. She paused as she saw them. They both looked over at her.
She smiled and sat down on her bed. “Don’t mind me.”
Ember sighed and let go of him, a small smirk on her face. “Just get ready,” she said. “I’m fucking starving.”
“Yeah, all right,” Ethan replied.
When she turned around, he smacked her ass. She whipped back around and stared at him, her cheeks turning red.
“Yes, dear?” he asked.
She stared at him for a few seconds longer, then her eyes cut quickly to Kiva, who was still watching them with what appeared to be great amusement. “Just get your shit,” she muttered finally.
Ethan laughed and gathered up his clothes. Kiva stood and moved only somewhat behind the curtain that separated their beds. She dropped the towel and then began to dress. Ethan saw Ember take a long look at her.
At some point over the past few days, something had shifted in their relationship. Something he liked. Ember was a very tough woman, and he had been glad to see that it hadn’t hardened her or turned her cruel. But it had begun manifesting in a more...surly personality. It was a trait that he was finding he rather enjoyed in his women.
Of the dozen or so women he’d gotten together with over the course of his life, (almost all of them one or two night encounters), the ones who lingered were the confident ones with a touch of attitude. There was just something about women who weren’t afraid to fuck with him, just a little, (or a lot sometimes).
“All right,” Kiva said, emerging from her poorly concealed changing space, “I’m ready to go, too...are we still all going somewhere together?”
“Yes,” Ethan replied. “I want to swing by our place to drop off my spare clothes and to see Hopper for a little bit, and then I want to take you both out to dinner.”
“Hopper?” she asked. “Oh! Right, your pet...bug. Cricket?”
“Cave cricket, yeah,” Ember replied.
“I’m happy with this plan,” Kiva said.
Ethan thought she was a little anxious, which made sense. They’d sort of just batted around the idea of what they were going to do after getting out of the hospital. He’d been fucked up enough on morphine through most of it that he didn’t remember half the conversations the three of them had had.
The thing he remembered the most was that Ember had fucked him yesterday when his back had finally healed enough and though she hadn’t watched (as far as he knew, maybe she had), Kiva had at the very least been in the room listening.
Ethan led them out of the patient room, glad to be free of it, and began navigating the hospital, following the signs towards the main entrance. He had admittedly been sorely tempted to ask Kiva if she wouldn’t mind coming over to his bed for the night. Ember’s beauty was staggering to him and her personality meshed pretty well with his own, but Kiva gelled with him in a different way and her own physical attributes were...deeply alluring.
He loved tall women. He loved built women. And he had discovered that he apparently had a particular love of short blonde hair.
And he had dreamed at least twice of fucking her doggystyle so far.
Her ass really was the best he’d ever seen in his life.
But it didn’t seem right to ask it yet and neither of them had really been in proper condition for it anyway.
Plus, fucking in a hospital bed actually wasn’t all that fun.
Well, okay, it was, but fucking in a bed at home was preferable.
They arrived at the front desk a few moments later and, as soon as they did, a vaguely familiar person hopped up out of their chair.
“Ethan,” he said, walking over.
“Yes?”
“I’m Xander. Security for Crawler HQ. Captain Donovan sent me to speak with you. Are you and Kiva in fighting shape?”
“Yes,” Ethan replied, glancing at Kiva.
“I am, yes,” she said.
In truth, he was still sore and in some pain, but the accelerated healing agents had done their job and the doctor had given them both a clean bill of health.
“Good. Ethan, Donovan wants you to report to Crawler HQ tomorrow at eight AM sharp. Kiva, if you are still interested in joining the Crawlers, then he would like you to be there as well. He would also like to apologize for not managing to visit you again, but he has been extremely busy. We all have. And we could use your help.”
“I’ll be there,” Kiva said.
Ethan nodded. “We’ll be there on time.”
“Good. I have to go.”
Xander about faced and walked out of the hospital.
Ethan felt a cold stone settle somewhere deep in his guts. He’d been more or less disconnected from the world while he’d been recovering. Ember had been telling him a few things, but for the most part, her world was limited to the Pit right now, and they had their own problems.
Had something else gone wrong?
Ethan and Kiva both quickly pressed their thumbs to a tablet, confirming they were being discharged, and headed out of the hospital.
One way or another, he would find out, and soon.
