Quantum

by Jess Anastasi

“Colonel Captain McCarty has been doing just fine running things the past couple of days. He doesn’t need you hovering. Come on. I’m taking you up to your stateroom, and you’re not leaving until we reach Beta Seven. And even then, I’m only letting you see off those who want to leave before I put you back to bed.”

  He wound an arm across her shoulders and sent her a heated look. “I’ll stay in bed, but you’re going to have to work hard to keep me there.”

  “That’s easy. I’ll just tie you down.”

  His heart skipped a rushed beat, and he tightened his arm around her. “Really?”

  The look she sent him was nothing short of chiding. “Not for the reason you’re hoping.”

  He sighed, long and loud. “A man can only dream.”

  Her hand came up to settle in the middle of his chest, right over his heart. “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of you.”

  “So long as I can take care of you in return, every day for the rest of our lives.”

  Gray eyes sparkled with the bloom of unshed tears. But of course, practical as she always was, Mae blinked them away then leaned in to hug him. He held her close, enjoying the simple pleasure and wondering how in the hell he’d gotten so lucky. He might have just sent his life into a black hole, which would lead him god only knew where, but he couldn’t remember things ever feeling so right. The simple truth was as long as he had Mae with him, nothing else life threw at him could ever be wrong.

  Epilogue

  The sound of laughter and chatter drifted up to the bridge from the communal room–slash–galley down the passage, the crew sitting down for dinner together as they often did. Rian scanned the plate Zahli had brought up for him a while ago, taking in the food with detached interest. While he was too practical to let any food go to waste, he didn’t exactly have an appetite.

  Not an appetite for food, anyway.

  His penchant for Violaine was alive and well and humming through his veins with a low, seductive temptation, luring him to go find a bottle and taste hard ambrosia. His only other appetite, the one he’d never worked out how to satisfy, the one that moaned for violence, death, and destruction, he turned inward, with the promise that one day soon he would feed it with the slaughter of countless Reidar.

  But it wasn’t enough anymore.

  The realization had been creeping up on him, lurking in the back of his mind like dark matter. Time and distance were gradually giving him perspective and better control over the demons inside him. Added to the fact that Ella had once taken some of the darkness from his soul when she’d healed him from a wound, he’d actually thought for a nanosecond that maybe it wasn’t his fate to be eternally damned.

  Yet he could feel himself slipping back, like he’d reached as high as he could drag his sorry, damaged carcass and had found nothing at the top but another sharp downward slope that would send him straight back into black oblivion.

  His little altercation with Ella had been the proof he hadn’t wanted to find. And in the two days since they’d left the flagship, she hadn’t looked at him. Not even once. It was as if he’d ceased to exist, even when he was standing right in front of her.

  Not that he’d been looking for her company. He could count on one hand the number of times she’d been in the same room with him in the last forty-eight hours. The bridge and his quarters were the only two places he’d ventured, apart from the brig once or twice, where they were keeping that possible Reidar prisoner who’d caused nothing but trouble since they’d brought him onboard.

  No doubt Zahli was getting primed to give him a lecture about shutting people out and letting others help him. But he just didn’t know how else to protect everyone. The more locked down and detached he was, the safer they’d all be.

  Despite how deadly the Reidar were, there wasn’t anything more deadly in the universe than himself when he didn’t have a tight chain of control wrapped around the throat of his emotions.

  The control panel in front of him pinged—a coded, incoming transmission. He tabbed the icon on the screen, and the viewport flickered to show Zander sitting in his stateroom onboard the Swift Brion.

  “Captain Admiral. How are your plans coming along?” Rian leaned back in his chair, shoving down the lingering cold tendrils from his unhelpful introspection.

  “Don’t you mean our plans? I seem to remember this idea was mostly you and that swashbuckling cousin of yours.”

  He sent his friend a small, cutting grin. “You get caught, I’m pretending like I never knew you. Got enough people after me without being implicated in stealing a flagship.”

  “Thanks,” Zander muttered. “I’m so glad I got stabbed for you.”

  If Zander could make a joke about almost getting killed, then things must be looking up. At least from his perspective.

  “I assume you didn’t contact me on this super-secret coded transmission to tell me you’re never going to let me live that down.”

  “Though I will endeavor to do that at least once every time we see each other, you’re right. I actually commed to let you know that we made the stop off at Beta Seven waystation, and not a single person elected to leave. We’ve got an entire crew aboard willing to fight for you, Rian.” Zander paused as though giving him a moment to digest that staggering fact. “As we speak, Mack is in the command center overseeing the ship going dark—we’re shutting off all beacons and systems connected to the IPC and have set a course for the Barbary Belt. In the next hour or so, the IPC are going to realize we’ve gone off the grid. But I’m confident we’ll make the Belt before they can use any secondary systems to find us.”

  Goddamn. This was huge. Though he’d come to terms that Qae and his crew, plus Zander and Mae, had taken up his cause without hesitation, the fact that almost three hundred people he didn’t even know were willing to put their lives on the line for this unofficial war that had pushed them beyond the fringes of society pretty much imploded his brain. It was going to take a while to sink in that they had the startings of a real force to face the Reidar.

  “Is that shock I see on the face of the infamous Rian Sherron?” Zander was quite obviously amused. And why not? It had been a long time since anything had surprised him.

  “No, it’s complete bewilderment that there are that many stupid people willing to follow me into hell, where most of them probably won’t come back.”

  Zander’s expression sobered, but then something distracted him as he glanced over his shoulder.

  “How’s he taking the news?” Mae asked offscreen a moment before appearing and sitting down next to Zander.

  “About as pessimistically as you’d expect. He’s already taking a body count.” Zander dropped an arm over Mae’s shoulder, looking more content than Rian could ever remember seeing him.

  “So you two are an actual thing now?” He tried, but he couldn’t quite keep the aversion out of his voice. Not because he begrudged two of his oldest and closest friends finding happiness with each other in these dark times, but because he couldn’t imagine anything worse for himself. Plus, he was faced with yet another couple making goo-goo eyes at each other whenever he got stuck in the same room as them.

  Zander gave a short laugh, while Mae sent him an indignant look through the screen. “Wow, Rian, don’t sound so ecstatic about it.”

  He held up a hand in surrender before Mae could start making plans to punch him next time they saw each other. Considering he’d nearly gotten Zander killed, he probably deserved it. “Sure, I’m glad, and you can thank me later, since you might never have even met if I hadn’t sent you after him.”

  Zander’s humor turned to exasperation. “Because all that secrecy and manipulation was so helpful.”

  Maybe his methods weren’t always principled, but they were effective.

  “It’s the only currency I have left to deal in.” He glanced away from the screen. Ever since he’d come back after being a prisoner of the Reidar, he’d always felt like there was a gulf or invisible barrier between him and ever
yone else around him, one that was impossible to breach. And in that moment, he was more aware of it than ever.

  Pushing his isolation down, he looked back up at the screen, turning his thoughts to his plans as he always did. Going forward, pushing toward his goals—it was the only lifeline he had to hold on to.

  “I’m a few days out from the Belt myself, and I’ve got a couple of things to follow up on. You and Qae will need to greet Corsair Blackstone when you arrive, but he knows you’re coming, so you’ll be fine without me. If you have any problems, just comm me, and I’ll be there as soon as I can burn the Imojenna’s engines.”

  Zander nodded, not seeming the least bit worried about the fact he was sitting on a stolen flagship that the IPC would likely blow into a million pieces rather than allow to go AWOL. “Fly safe, brother. We’ll be waiting to hear the latest exploits of the IPC war hero when you get back.”

  He sent Zander a scowl. “You know I hate my frecking reputation. And why do you assume there’ll be any exploits to talk about?”

  “Because wherever you go, Rian, destiny always finds you.”

  The simple words sent a fine ripple of energy down his spine, like there was something bigger and far greater than he could understand at work. Except he didn’t believe in fate, and he sure as hell didn’t believe in any kind of god.

  What he did believe in was his weapons. And the knowledge that death was a constant he could rely on no matter where he went in the universe.

  “Good luck going dark.” Before Zander could offer any other cosmic-destiny bullshite, he leaned forward and cut the transmission, leaving his hand to rest on the crystal screen of the consol.

  The low light of the display backlit the beads on his wrist, making some of them sparkle, mixing colors and blurring shapes. Sometimes those beads felt like they weighed a ton, dragging down his arm and everything else with them. Other times, like now, they felt like a tether, leading him somewhere he couldn’t see but knew he needed to go.

  He clenched his fist and slid his arm off the console, out of sight. Leaning back in the chair, he returned to his solemn contemplation of void-space streaking in a flashing rainbow of colors past the ship.

  Out there, in every corner of the universe, the Reidar were lying in wait, no doubt getting ever closer to the final invasion.

  It had never been his intention to save the universe, even before he’d left the IPC military. It had been all about revenge, simply tracking down the Reidar, especially those who’d had a hand in his torture, and cutting them down where he found them.

  But strangely enough, other people, good people like Zander, Mae, Qaelen, and everyone else who’d joined their cause, actually cared whether the collective galaxy got screwed in the ass by a bunch of power-hungry sociopaths.

  And when they looked at him now, he got this sense of claustrophobia, because they saw him as some sort of leader, as the noble hero who was fearlessly heading the charge in an impossible war.

  They’d see the truth soon enough. He hadn’t wanted to lead anyone anywhere, but this force might be the key to seeing through his personal vendetta to destroy the bastards. It was the best chance he had of finally purging both the universe and his mind of the monsters lying in wait.

  Zander might have made light of his so-called pessimism about the crew of the Swift Brion joining their fight, but the truth was, he didn’t see soldiers winning the day. All he saw were bodies to step over on his march to the inevitable end.

  He only hoped that when they went down, it wasn’t by his own hand.

  Want more Rian and Ella? Leave a review and you will receive a bonus scene!

  After you leave the review, email the page link to jess@jessanastasi.com, and Jessica Anastasi will personally send you the scene.

  Did you love this Entangled Select Otherworld? Check out more of our titles here!

  Acknowledgments

  To all the fans and reviewers who became so instantly invested in Rian and his demons, thank you for all the awesome reviews and appreciation of him. I know you were probably hoping that this would be his book, or his book would be coming out soon. It will, I promise, but a few other elements need to come into play before we get there. And Rian needs to be ready to face the things developing between him and Ella. But Rian will continue to be the sun that everyone else in the Atrophy universe revolves around, so he’ll find plenty more trouble in the coming books before I write his and Ella’s story.

  As always, a huge thanks to my very talented and wonderful editor, Robin Haseltine. As usual, you took a concept that made sense in my head and ensured that it made sense on the page. Plus, how can I resist when you continually encourage me to further torture my characters both emotionally and physically. It’s what makes my day as an author.

  To Liz Pelletier, thank you for your continued belief in my books and this series in particular. Knowing that you’re in my corner, part of my team working in the background, is something I once could have only dreamed about, and some days I still have to pinch myself to know that, yes, I am here, and we really are doing this.

  Everyone else at Entangled who had a hand in getting this book out—thank you, because this book obviously wouldn’t be here without your input, no matter how small a role was played.

  And lastly, to some of the awesome women from our little Central Victorian Writers lunch group—Keri Arthur, Bec McMaster, Nicole Hurley-Moore, and Robyn Enlund. I had a bit of a rough start to 2016, and if it wasn’t for you guys and the wonderful advice and support you gave me, I might still be sitting in that hole with no idea what to do. You helped give me confidence and reaffirmed that moving forward was the only thing to do. It was easier to take that huge leap, knowing I had a net if I fell. And I’ve been so much better off since. Whatever the future now brings, I don’t hesitate in saying that it couldn’t have happened without you all. All I can say is thank you, even though it doesn’t begin to convey my gratitude.

  About the Author

  Jess has been making up stories ever since she can remember. Though her messy handwriting made it hard for anyone else to read them, she wasn’t deterred, and now she gets to make up stories for a living. She loves loud music and a good book on a rainy day and probably spends too much time watching too many TV shows. Jess lives in regional Victoria, Australia, with her very supportive husband, three daughters, two hyperactive border collie dogs, and a cat who thinks he’s one of the kids.

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