Light Unfolding: A Reverse Harem Science Fiction Romance (Wings of Artemis Book 8)

by Rebecca Royce

  I loved this. Without hesitation, I did just as he told me to. He jumped onto the table and straddled me faster than I could have imagined possible. He held back his abilities, didn’t show himself to the world as the Super Soldier he was. But he could move that fast and I’d never forget how extraordinary he was. Inside and out.

  He pressed inside of me, and I spread wider to let him as deep as he wanted to go. Ro sighed, his body shuddering. “I didn’t imagine how fantastic this was.”

  I shook my head. “Not at all.”

  He filled me so completely, and I’d never felt as cherished as I did when I looked in Rohan’s eyes. He leaned down to kiss me just as he began to move. In and out, his movements were smooth, unhurried, and with each pass, the pleasure inside of me began to grow.

  Our lips were joined, over and over. I breathed him in. When we finally came, it was together with his arms around me. I could hear his heartbeat like it was my own. I’d never, ever let Rohan go again.

  I ran my hands over Ro’s skin. Something was eating at me, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was, exactly. Then as it dawned on me, I wasn’t sure what the protocol for this was. It might not be done to ask one guy I was in a relationship with something about the other ones.

  Rohan’s eyes were closed, but they opened slowly. “I can hear you thinking. Are you not dozing and exhausted because I didn’t do as good a job wearing you out as you did for me? Is the kitchen table just not comfortable? Or is it something else?”

  “I have a question I’m not sure I can ask.” When in doubt, the truth worked.

  He kissed my shoulder. “Ask me anything. Always. If for some reason it’s not okay, I’ll tell you.”

  “Why hasn’t Canyon come to see me? Or did he in the med bay and I don’t remember?”

  He rubbed his eyes. “I thought Jackson would have told you or Ari. Maybe I was just trying to avoid it myself.”

  My heart stuttered. “There’s something wrong. I know he’s here. He got mentioned. Does he not want to see me?”

  Did he blame me for something? Had I done something…

  “Oh, Wavey. That couldn’t be farther from the truth. Canyon would love to see you. But, he’s not… okay.” He sat, shoulders sagging. I’d actually never see Ro look defeated. Terror moved through me, and I gripped onto Rohan’s arm.

  “Rohan.”

  He nodded. “We came into the black hole. Canyon was fine. He pushed time forward for us, cutting our travel time. Everything seemed perfectly fine. And then it wasn’t. Canyon started communicating with us less and less. Ari mentioned something to me about Canyon not talking much. I didn’t take him seriously. I thought he might just be keeping to himself. None of us were very happy. We wanted to get to you, and we couldn’t make it happen any faster. But Canyon thought he could. It consumed him. If he did talk, it was about that, about cutting time. Jackson really cued in at that point.” Rohan looked away from me.

  “Whatever has happened here I don’t think you should be blaming yourself.” His constant need to not look at me spoke volumes.

  Rohan shook his head. “I thought they didn’t understand Super Soldiers, how we can focus, the way we can stay with a problem until we fix it.”

  I got off the table and looked for the pieces of my clothes strewn around the room. I was never going to think of this room the same way again and that was fine. It would be both the place Rohan made love to me until I’d cried out his name, and where I knew he was about to give me the bad news that had to be coming.

  “Rohan? Get to it.”

  He stood. “He doesn’t talk anymore. I mean at all. He seems to still be communicating with the ship. He’s talking to Artemis. Not with any of us. I went to see him when you got back to tell him we had you. I thought it might make him snap out of it. It didn’t. We sometimes get messages from him through the computer.” He put his hands on his knees. “For example, Artemis told us through a readout over the main comms that Canyon thought he could shave more time off the trip back. I… I should have remembered or at least not been in denial that sometimes we go crazy. There is a percentage of Super Soldiers who had to be put down.”

  “No.” I’d never been so sure in my life of everything. “Canyon isn’t lost. If he’s still communicating with the computers then he’s not gone. I won’t accept that.”

  Rohan sighed. “You should go see him.”

  “What does Ari say?” I couldn’t imagine that he’d simply accept Canyon lost, considering how he battled daily with his own demons.

  “Not much.” He looked away again. “He says he’s studying the problem.”

  Okay, I had to see Canyon for myself. That much was clear. “Where is he?”

  “He’s always in the engine room.”

  Then that was where I was going. I stopped moving and turned around. I threw my arms around Rohan. “I love you. I’ll always love you, and whatever happened here is not and could never be your fault.”

  He sucked in a breath. “I thought you might hate me. You chose Canyon before me. I kind of inserted myself into this. I thought…”

  “Rohan, you stop that right now. I didn’t have an order. It was a very odd day. I would never have thought I could choose any of you. You’re all my family now. We don’t give up on anyone in this family. Not ever.”

  “Oh, Wavey, how I missed you.”

  I didn’t have long to anticipate anything, but whatever I thought I was going to find, it wasn’t what I saw. I’d never known Canyon without his head shaved. His long, shoulder length blond hair was half in his face, half over his left shoulder. Rohan must have signaled the other two because Jackson and Ari were there as well.

  Canyon stood silently, staring up at the engine. It buzzed, the background noise I’d just gotten used to, suddenly becoming apparent to me again. He was thin. I hadn’t asked Ro how Canyon was doing any of the things he had to do, like eat, drink, or sleep in this state he was in.

  He didn’t turn to acknowledge us at all. I walked toward him. This was the man who had woken up from what should have been a thirty-hour coma when I’d been in trouble just because I needed him. I wouldn’t do less for him, not ever.

  “Canyon?” I found myself hoping he heard my voice and suddenly snapped back to himself. Realistically, I knew better than that, but there was part of me that truly hoped. He didn’t respond at all. With my hand shaking, I touched his arm. No response. There was Canyon. I hadn’t seen him in ten months and thanks to the time differential in the black hole it had been a year, since he’d seen me. But he still seemed lost.

  I wouldn’t let go of his arm. “And this was… stress?”

  “No.” It was the first time Ari spoke since coming in the room. “I don’t think so.”

  “What?” Rohan turned to Ari while Jackson walked over to me. “We talked about this just last week. Like it or not there are things that go wrong with us. I could get lost in my head next week, or start raving about things.”

  A memory wafted through my head. When Ro went through time distortion after time travel he frequently spoke of monsters in the shadows. I’d always dismissed it as nothing. Was that some kind of sign? Canyon used to say he could see colors. Should I have known this was a huge problem? Jackson and Ari spoke of their pasts during those times. Did I miss this?

  Jackson took my free hand in his. “I didn’t want to throw this at you the second you woke up. I should have told you.”

  “I’m not upset with you.” My guys took everything on themselves all the time. I squeezed his fingers. “Ari, can you tell us what you think it is if you don’t think it’s psychological.”

  Ari had his scanner out. It would take a reading of vitals off of whomever he pointed it at. The device wasn’t as effective as the med machine, but it was certainly good enough for a quick reading. He had it pointing at Canyon.

  “After the last time Rohan and I talked, I went ahead and sedated Canyon just long enough to take scans.”

  Jackson put his han
ds on his hips. “We could have helped you with that.”

  “No.” Ari shook his head. “This is on me. He’s my patient. You guys were getting us through the black hole. I should have pushed harder. It’s difficult to know with Canyon. He could be off on a good day.”

  I waited. Ari would get to the point. The fact that he hedged the answer spoke volumes to me. He paused, but then he spoke again. “He only stayed under long enough to let me complete the task, and I swear he fought the machine. In the end, he got up way before he should have, shut the machine down himself, and walked out of my med bay like it was nothing at all. Still, I got what I needed.”

  Crossing my arms over my chest, I let go of Canyon and Jackson. “Ari?”

  “The machines in his eyes, the ones Evander implanted that blinded him, making his brain only respond to stimulus from machines, making him see all of us as light and nothing more.”

  Waverly’s light… I could practically hear him saying that. I loved that description. Would I never hear it again? No, I wouldn’t give up hope.

  Ari went on. “They malfunctioned. Started creating loops. I can see it on his neuropathway. He doesn’t hear us, not really. He hears the machines. His brain has checked out of this reality and created a new one. With inanimate objects. Artemis is more real for him right now than we are. His mind is projecting a different reality than ours.”

  “You could tell all of that from the scan?” Jackson raised his eyebrows. “What did you do?”

  “I tapped into the nanos in his eyes. Projected it to the screen. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at. It was all numbers and light. Took me a long time to extrapolate. I can speak with fluidity about what he sees and doesn’t. Then we got through the hole and that was that. It had to pause for a minute.”

  A muscle ticked in Rohan’s jaw. “All the years we were together in that place, I wish we’d laid Evander to the ground.”

  I touched his arm before laying my head on his side. “Don’t do what ifs. They don’t help. Trust me. What do we do, Ari?”

  “I’m not Cash or Dane. I wish I were. But I’m all we have and I’m afraid if we wait too much longer his neuropathways are going to rewrite themselves so badly we’ll never get them straightened out. As it is, this is going to be rough, because he is clearly able to take control of my machines. I couldn’t do this alone. With you here, Waverly, I’m going to have to attempt to take out the machines in his eyes.”

  It sounded easy, but if that was the case, they’d have done it on The Farm before I ever got there. “What could go wrong?”

  “Best case scenario, we get the machines out, and I can repair the eyes. I have to do that manually. The med machine’s one weakness has been and always will be the eye. If I can’t, I leave him blind. I take away the little he could see at all. There’s also the possibility that removing him from the machines leaves him brain dead. I think Cash knew that. It’s why they didn’t do it.”

  He answered my unasked question. My whole body went from burning worry to cold numbness. “What do you need?”

  “I need his consent and obviously I can’t get that. I mean here he is alive, seeing, actually making our computer system better. I can’t pretend he isn’t capable of deciding for himself. I can’t—won’t—blind him or risk possible brain death without his consent. He isn’t ill, he’s just not—him.”

  Desperation clouded his voice, but there was nothing I could do to soothe him in this regard. He wasn’t wrong. The ethics of this made it horribly complicated.

  “What if we could ask him?” Jackson had been quiet, listening.

  “How? He hasn’t communicated except about the black hole and ship function for weeks.”

  Jackson pointed at Ro. “See? But he is. That means somewhere in there is left a sense of needing to communicate. We use the VR.”

  I didn’t know what that was. “The what?”

  “Sterling brought it with him when they came through the black hole. You can travel with it. It’s a virtual reality. Runs for an hour at a time. He gave it to us to kill time on the ship. I’ve been swimming. We hook him up to it. It’s a machine. And we ask him. In that virtual reality.”

  I didn’t understand mechanics well enough. “You think it would work?”

  “I think we could try. Fast. Before his nanos rewrite it. We know it works on him. The same concept ran the US sex machines he used at Evander too, that all the Evander employees used to be chemically castrated. Same mechanics. You can ask him, lady.”

  I swallowed. “It couldn’t hurt him, right?”

  Ari shook his head. “I don’t see how.”

  “Then we do that.” It was something to try.

  4 Percentages

  Ari was willing to sedate Canyon again to take him out of the engine room, but with Rohan’s help that proved unnecessary. It took a Super Soldier to make another Super Soldier do something they didn’t want to do. Canyon didn’t want to leave the engine room.

  Now that they’d decided there was no time to lose. Canyon’s attention turned to the machines in the med bay. One of the blood storage units had been running a little bit sluggishly, drawing too much battery and it powered up when we got inside. Ari stared at it for a moment before turning his attention to Jackson.

  “If he says yes, I’m going to need your help. I can do the surgery. I can get the nanos out. Or at least the production unit that links from his brain to his eyes. Then the nanos in there should die in a matter of hours. One way or another, they’ll be dissolved by his body.” He paused. “But I am going to need your help with it, Jackson. His body may try to fight me. If it were simple, it would be done already. I am absolutely the last doctor who should have been left to do this.”

  “Don’t say that,” I had to interrupt. “You’re as talented, if not more, than the others, and I’m not just saying that.”

  He adored me with his eyes for a second before he spoke again. “I’ll need your input on the machines.”

  Jackson nodded. “Whatever I can do. Rohan will need to pilot the ship, but he’s got that under control.”

  Rohan leaned against the wall. “Black hole piloting is point and click. No problem whatsoever. No ships. No debris. I can hardly use thrusters. One benefit of Canyon doing this is the ship is really running great.”

  “And I’m going to need you, too, baby.” It took me a second to realize Ari spoke to me. Ari never used nicknames with me. It had been a bone of contention for us for a while.

  I ignored it for the second time. Now wasn’t the time. “Ari, I’ll do what I can, but I’m not sure I have the skill set you need.”

  “I’m not sure I have the skill set I need.” He sighed. “I might hallucinate. The delusions have never caused me to screw up medically, but I can’t be sure it won’t happen. I’m going to need your help clinically and to make sure I don’t do anything to hurt him.”

  That I could do. “For sure. Here’s the thing, though. After I go in this VR and speak to him, assuming I get his permission, we aren’t doing this until after all of you have slept eight hours. I mean it. Ari, when was the last time you slept?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe a year ago.”

  Exhaustion was written all over all of them. “I think before anyone operates on anyone else’s brain, we go into a sheer sleep cycle. Take something if you have to. I don’t care. But everyone sleeps. Unless we think Canyon is in immediate danger, we wait twenty-four hours to do this.”

  Ari nodded. “Fair enough.”

  I put out my hand. “Hand me the VR.”

  That part I wanted to get done. I needed to see Canyon in whatever way I could. I just hoped this worked.

  He sat so still, so unmoving, staring at the wall. He hardly blinked. “How long will I be in there?”

  “An hour. No more. This thing has a timer. It’s an entertainment device. I use it to go to warm places.” Jackson shrugged. “One thing about living on a ship is the constant temperature control. At least it’s never cold. But I like heat
. Can’t get enough of it. So I swim, go to the beach. I’m putting you in that setting, since I have no idea what Canyon would choose for leisure activities.” He stopped. “Wait, do you want to pick, lady?”

  I shook my head. “Beach sounds fine. I’ve been exactly once. Whatever works.”

  “Okay. Lift the glasses to your eyes. If you want to get out, just think the word release, and it’ll bring you back. Otherwise, automatic shut down in an hour. Good luck. Say hi to Canyon. Maybe he’ll know how to bring himself back, and we won’t have to operate at all.”

  Ari snorted. Yes, I pretty much agreed with that sentiment. I didn’t find that particularly likely at all.

  I put the glasses on.

  I blinked, the smell of the ocean hitting me first. I sniffed the air. It wasn’t exactly the same as the beach on Sandler One, but then I’d been five when I got to go, so maybe I didn’t remember it correctly. Memory was funny like that. I looked around.

  Canyon stood by the seashore, staring at the ocean, his hands on his hips. His now long hair flowed in the light breeze. We were both shoeless, and I was in a white dress I’d never seen before. Was this part of the automation?

  It didn’t matter. I had an hour, and I’d not asked Jackson how things moved in here. Was it slower? Longer? The same? I had no time to dawdle.

  I ran toward Canyon, who the system had put in khakis and a white t-shirt. Clearly, there was a color theme going on.

  “Canyon.”

  He whirled around, blinking fast. “Waverly? Is that you? I don’t understand.” He rubbed at his eyes wildly and the nurse in me reached up to grab him before he hurt himself or accidentally scratched his cornea. Not that he could in here, I didn’t think.

  He stared at me, his mouth falling open. “I can see you. Actually see you. How are you here? How can I see you? What is going on?”