by Elise Jae
Drift’s jaw twitches as everyone’s attention turns on him and I wonder how he plans to justify it.
“Yes. I thought it was better to keep him….”
“Caged is the word you’re looking for.” I say and I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s mad about it.
“I thought it was because you lived on the other side of the caldera,” Chris says, a questioning tone in that statement.
“He’s the closest of all of us.” Her bondmate—Shock, I think—says, his jaw twitching. “You should have been coming to these all along.”
Kimba gives Drift a long look, but she doesn’t come to his defense. For what it’s worth. He seems to have accepted he deserves the blame.
FAULT
I’ve spent so long retreating into myself, I didn’t realize how easy it would be to retreat into Wren.
In the chaos and cacophony of the Brotherhood, she’s a calm quiet and I drop my head to hers, as though that will let me fall deeper into her.
There have been enough revelations today. I can tell them about the rest later.
The way Wren’s thoughts sometimes slip through my mind… the shivers of future that shimmy the very air around me.
Some of them are worried—though I don’t think any of them are actually scared. But I’m wrong about that.
I glance toward Andrea and Strike... she is.
But she and Strike are expecting another child and will move to a bigger outpost soon. On the other side of the caldera, she won’t need to worry about me.
Drift breaks the meeting up, dusk is settling out the window, and others have a longer trip home than we do.
I’m not surprised when Andrea and Strike leave immediately.
Wren bristles at the sudden exodus, but I squeeze her arm, pulling her closer to me. “You can’t blame anyone for being cautious around me.”
We stay put. I know the others have questions, but I’m surprised when only a few of them stop by on their way out the door. And when they do, it’s to apologize for not noticing why I wasn’t ever there, not to find out more about my changes.
Across the room, I see Kimba and Jessica speaking lowly to each other and I know it’s only a matter of time….
Apparently, she’s agreed to the rules.
I wonder if Trench comes with her to restrain her if necessary.
She starts speaking before she’s even stopped in front of us. “Have you noticed any new growth or changes? Or has it stopped entirely.”
“Hello, Jessica, it’s nice to see you too.” Wren says, her tone bordering on mocking.
“Yeah, yeah.” She waves a hand away. “I don’t have a lot of time. Kimba told me I could only bother you for five minutes, so… have they stopped.”
“Yes, as far as I can tell.”
She narrows her eyes, looking me over like she thinks I’m lying. “Could I take some blood samples?”
“You could try.”
“What does that mean?” It’s Trench who asks this time, but he only just beat Jessica to the punch.
I flip my knife out because it’s just easier to show and drag the blade over the inside of my forearm.
Once again, not even a visible line.
“I hate when you do that,” Wren says, the words low and harsh before she looks back to Jess. “His skin is like kevlar.”
“She won’t shoot me to test the theory out.”
“And no one else is going to either.” She glares at Jessica because we all know she was going to volunteer.
“Okay,” Kimba says, appearing at her side. “Time to go.”
“You said I had five minutes.”
“And then I heard someone talk about shooting someone else. You can ask more questions later.”
“I wasn’t even the one who suggested it!”
With Jessica and Trench shooed toward the door, we’re left alone with Kimba and Drift. He has something he wants to say, and while I know that Wren isn’t going to want to hear it… I have to let him actually say it.
The Brotherhood’s illustrious leader looks more like a kid who’s in trouble. “I feel like I should make a joke about being able to have seen all this coming.”
But the heightened eyesight our Maker’s experiments gave him didn’t have that ability.
“I’m sorry. For isolating you… for not trusting you.”
I can feel that Wren wants to point out that it’s too little too late, but she bites her tongue.
“You had your reasons. Even if I don’t agree with them.”
His jaw tightens and he looks at the floor. It wasn’t what he was hoping I’d say.
“I’ll make a public apology at the next meeting. I wanted to talk to you alone first…. I didn’t want you to think this was performative.”
“I accept your apology now. I’ll accept it then.”
A chirping echoes from the side of the room we’ve all come to call Drift’s war room and he hurries away. I don’t need a connection with him to know that he’s grateful for the excuse to run.
Kimba has been standing nearby, babe in her arms, and Wren takes the child as soon as she’s offered.
“Don’t worry. We’ll brainstorm ideas for how to keep everyone safe. In case the Maker left more surprises behind.”
Wren is distracted by the baby, so she doesn’t see Kimba’s grimace. “I wish things had been different. I don’t know if it would have stopped this from happening… but I wish you had been able to come to someone.”
She takes the baby back from Wren and turns to me. “Do you want to hold them?”
“Are you sure?” Because I am not.
They’re so tiny.
“You’ll have your own to hold soon enough, I’m sure. Might as well get in a little practice.”
That’s not something I’ve seen in our future.
“Maybe next time.” I stuff my hands in my pockets. “When they’re a little bigger.”
Sian babies, half human or not, grow quickly. By the next meeting it will be safer.
By the next meeting, everything should be safer.
Fifteen
WREN
The doorbell rings three nights later, and when I open it, I blink at Kimba. “Is something wrong?”
“Of course not. It’s girls’ night and it’s time to fully initiate you into the bondmate’s wives club.” She smiles like it’s a joke, and then, just in case it wasn’t clear. “We don’t actually call ourselves that.”
“Girls’ night… did I know about this?”
“Probably not… but you should have. My guess is we all just assumed someone else had told you. But! I won’t take no for an answer.”
When she smiles, I know that’s a lie.
Hand wrapped around my waist, Fault spins me, just a little. “You should go. If you spend all your time here, how are you ever going to miss me?”
He kisses me, a sweet and tame press of our lips—no doubt toned down for Kimba’s sake.
“You’re sure?”
He nods against my forehead. “Go, have fun. Get answers to those questions I’ve felt bouncing around in your head.”
“Okay. I’ll be right back.” With a glance back at Kimba to gauge the probable dress code, I escape downstairs.
It takes me less than a minute to pull on real pants, a bra, and fish one of my flowier shirts out of the closet.
The basin the city sits in shouldn’t have snow this time of year, so I pull on my favorite pair of flats and head upstairs.
“Do I need to bring anything?”
“Nope. Whatever you drink, Margot will put on Fault’s tab.”
I stutter to a stop. “We’re going to Margot’s.”
“She’s technically closed tonight. It’ll be just us ladies.”
Fault’s smiling behind me. I can feel the laugh he’s biting back.
I throw a glance his way over my shoulder, and clip my comm to my waistband. “Alright. Then let’s get out of here.”
She heads to her car and I turn back to Fau
lt. “Don’t do anything silly when I’m gone.”
“I promise I won’t do anything silly without you.”
“Good.” I press up onto my toes, hand around his neck as I pull him to me in a kiss that puts the other one to shame. “Remember… your days are numbered. Mister.”
He smiles, down at me hand squeezing my hip. “Soon.”
I grab my coat on the way out the door, even though I don’t know that I’ll need it.
Despite Fault’s size, Kimba’s car is larger than ours. And when we make our third stop, it’s not hard to figure out why.
All three of the Ardem sisters join us, and it takes a little too long for me to realize what’s bothered me about their being here.
“Where are your kids?”
Kimba is the first to laugh. “Sian men make amazing fathers. It’s like they know how to handle their children on instinct. So none of us have ever questioned whether we should leave them alone with the kids… or how early is ‘too early’.”
Laurel—pregnant with her second—is behind me. “If it weren’t for the whole ‘feeding them’ thing, we could probably hand the kids off and disappear for months. Not,” she said as though she’s holding up a finger I can’t see. “That any of us want to do that.”
FAULT
Before the doorbell rang and Kimba whisked Wren away, she’d been working through the Maker’s files again. And even though I knew she was trying to keep a lid on her emotions, I could feel them, and I know what she was looking at that made her most uncomfortable.
Picking up the pad, it takes a bare moment to navigate back to the screen....
Back to the money.
Because that’s what made her so uncomfortable.
There’s an account that now exists in my name with nearly five million credits… and it’s accruing interest daily.
Blood money. I refuse to believe anything that man earned was done through legitimate enterprises. The fact that the money still exists tells me that the governors probably just didn’t know how to prove it.
And now I have to figure out what to do with it….
There was something that Hazard had mentioned a while back, an off handed reference to a group….
Typing in a random search, I have to refine it three times before I got to what I wanted.
There were still hundreds of orphans on the planet—the monsters were selective in gender, not age. And there was a central organization that saw to their care.
I read through their information twice before switching over to the donations page.
And there, I hesitate. Not because I’m not sure I want to do this, but because I don’t want anything back from it.
So I change the payer terms.
If someone wants to dig, it will be easy enough to know it came from Wren and I… but most people won't. And I’d rather the Brotherhood receive any acclaim or scrutiny for it.
The transfer takes all of three minutes to arrange.
I can only transfer a million of the credits… but that just means that the remains will accrue more interest until the governors will let me transfer more.
The account offers to set a reminder for the next transfer window and I accept it before closing out.
The Maker did so much harm in his life… maybe I can use his death to do a little good.
Sixteen
WREN
The club is strange on my second time inside. And not just because there are no men—no patrons at all.
Just us, and a woman who’s name I know even though I’ve never seen her before.
She’s younger than I expected. Her hair is woven into a long braid down her back—and it makes me wonder just how long it is when she lets it loose.And when she turns to me, her scrutiny is shrewd.
“Hello, new girl. Wren, is it?” The woman looks me over, eyes narrowed as she takes me in. “Glad to see you decided to come through the front door this time. I’m Margot.”
“This time?”
Jess looks at me sharply. “Did Fault bring you here before.”
“Not exactly.”
Margot snorts. “Not exactly at all.”
She turns Jessica toward the doors to the back and then puts her arm around me, walking in at my side. “I’m not sure if I should pay you for that night or not.”
“I was more than compensated.”
“I’ve no doubt you were.” She says it low enough, I can’t begin to wonder what she actually means. “Now, is he still on the stopper, or am I pouring you a non-alcoholic drink.”
“God,” Jess says as she picks up a light pink drink. “I hope I’m not the only one actually drinking tonight.”
“You’re not.” Cindy holds up a glass of what looks like champagne.
“That doesn’t count!”
Chuckling, Margot leads me to the bar.
“The woman who tamed the giant? I’d guess you’ll want either whiskey on the rocks, tequila shooters, or… maybe you’re a beer kind of gal.”
“None of the above, but I’ll take a Manhattan if you can make it. Extra cherries.”
“Honey, I can make anything.” She pulls bottles from her racks and I almost question if she’s talking to me when she asks. “Did you come looking for him?”
The question fits. The offhandedness of it does not.
“No. I just wanted one night before I had to leave the planet. Fault was my fate.”
Her smile falters for a moment. “Fate can be just as kind as she is cruel.”
I almost ask about her bondmate, but she slides the drink across to me. I take a sip, not wanting to overstep.
“Knowing what I do of Laurel’s story… maybe even without it.... It’s possible you’re the luckiest woman on this planet, or any other.”
“I highly doubt that. But I do feel incredibly blessed.”
A circle of chairs and sofas have been pulled up closer to the stage, some of them are normally out here, others—I look at the white rose patterned loveseat that looks like something you’d find at a grandmother’s home—definitely aren’t.
The bondmates—and they are all here, even Andrea who watches me warily—and a few of Margot’s employees are already there, a handful of conversations buzzing under the music that’s probably a quarter of the volume it had been.
Margot makes the introductions for the women I don’t know, finger bouncing around the circle as though she’s saying ‘duck’ instead of their actual name. But there is no goose.
“Okay, new rule.” Jess says loudly. “No talking about the guys. None. I don’t even want to hear their names!”
Cindy chuckles. “Did Trench do something wrong?”
“Not at all. But now that the rule is in effect, we can’t even talk about each others’ okay?” Jess points at all of us in turn.
Mumbled agreements echo around the room, and I find myself a little sad. Because there is one bondmate I’m very curious about. Though I’m not sure Margot would have spilled her beans if asked.
“Oh!” Cindy jiggles back to sitting upright. “I never got to tell you the news!”
I’m almost afraid to ask as she turns a too-wide smile on me.
“I finally got the access to your DNA profile, and I was right. You are related!”
“I’m not surprised,” Margot leans back in her chair, gaze bouncing back between laurel and I. “But you really didn’t know?”
“You’re first cousins.” Cindy says, her smile so wide I have to smile back.
“Really?”
She nods, taps a couple dozen commands into her tablet and turns it around. “Your mothers are sisters. Jess said their mom was adopted, so it would make sense that you didn’t know.”
“And the Maker kidnapped Chris to bring her here… specifically for the three.” Kimba scowls, still focused on Cindy. “Please look into what might have made him focus on their family.”
“My mom was very secretive about her past. I don’t think I ever actually met anyone who was actually related to us.
She always said everyone was dead.” I wrinkle my nose. “It’s actually one of the first reasons I considered the Agency. No chance I’d wind up dating a first cousin if I was halfway across the galaxy.”
“No, you’d just wind up accidentally switched with one at an airfield.” Laurel laughs into her drink, placing her hand on her stomach.
“Here’s to finding family halfway across the universe.” Jess raises her glass, one of the few of us who is actually drinking.
“And to making more family here as well.”
A shadow in the doorway catches my eye, and it doesn’t take me more than a glance so know who it is.
Hannah hovers in the dim hallway, and I excuse myself, pretending to need the bathroom.
I’m glad she doesn’t run away.
She’s almost a different person. Some of the frantic look is gone from her eyes, and she’s wearing something not meant to seduce anyone. But her coloring is better, the pallor is gone and she looks like she’s been trying to talk herself into coming out to join us.
“Hi, Hannah, are you okay?”
She nods, shakily. “I’m sorry about coming to your home.”
“You were in pain. You thought Fault could help you.”
“I wasn’t myself.” Her smile is… tortured. “If you hadn’t been there… it would have been another mistake.”
“What happened with us was an accident. He would have turned you down even if I didn’t exist.” Though I know he would have been kind about it. “Circumstances being what they were two weeks ago… he couldn’t have made the commitment you needed, and I think, someday, maybe someday soon, you’ll be glad of that.”
“Were you the one who let the Agency know I was spiraling?”
“I called a friend.”
“Thank you. I was a little off the rails… Maybe I still am. And you could have ignored me as soon as I was out of your sight.” She lets out a breath that is almost a sigh, or maybe a laugh. “Honestly, you could have called the cops and had me arrested for… trespassing, attempted assault… any number of things.”
“I think the look in your eyes that day would have haunted me forever if I’d tried.” Taking a deep breath, I look back at the others as someone lets out a loud cackle. “Come join us. The rules tonight are that we don’t talk about our bondmates. Anyone caught trying to, or forgetting, volunteers themselves for babysitting duty.”
