by Elsa Jade
“The dogs didn’t want to share the pizza,” Roxi opined. “He was just some guy who needed a lift.”
Lindy straightened. “Was he a big guy? Metallic tats, copper hair, filled out his denim nicely, at least on the back side…” She realized they were all staring at her. “Uh, one of the Halley brothers, maybe?” Although Delta wouldn’t need a lift, not when he had the yurk.
“He was ginormous,” Sasha said. “We would’ve had to ditch my chair and Roxi to fit him in.”
“Ey!” Roxi protested. “I coulda sat on his lap.” She snickered. “See if he really was ginormous.”
Taylor rolled her eyes. “Didn’t get a chance to notice much else,” she told Lindy. “Since I stepped on the gas and got us out of there.”
“But speaking of filling out his denim nicely…” Roxi peered at Lindy with a smirk. “Should we ask how your weekend was?”
“No.” Lindy smirked back. “Not in front of the children.”
They hooted. “I wanna be you when I grow up,” Sasha said with a snicker.
Lindy gazed at them. “Funny. I say the same thing to myself about you.”
“Group hug!” Roxi cried.
It was messy since the dogs wanted in too, but when they finally all went inside and Lindy had the porch to herself again—not even the cats this time—she missed them. But the one person she wanted to talk to most wasn’t around.
“Amber-girl,” she whispered. “Would you hate me if I fell in love again someday?”
There was no answer, of course. Not that she needed one. Amber had always had the biggest heart. She would’ve never, ever begrudged anyone finding love once, twice, a million times. She’d always said the world needed more love, in every shape, every age, every color.
Did that include gray?
A shooting star flashed across the black sky, gone in an instant. Amber would’ve said it was a sign, but really, turn off the lights in Big Sky Country, and the sky was always full of stars; at least a few of them would be falling in any given moment.
Still, she stared upward for another heartbeat, waiting.
And when she finally dropped her gaze—
It wasn’t Delta.
Wasn’t his brother Mach either. She knew that instantly, despite the similar silhouette: too tall, too wide, too still.
And she was too far from her rifle, wrapped in her blanket, with three girls inside.
The drifter.
“Don’t fool yourself,” she said, pitching her voice low despite the high-pitched whine of fear ringing in her brain—something about him wasn’t good, and the dogs were absolutely right about that. “Whatever you’re thinking isn’t going to go well for you.”
“I know.” His voice was even lower than hers, gravelly, as if it’d somehow latched itself to the back of the girls’ truck and been dragged from the turnoff up to the house. “But you need the warning too. The Delta isn’t yours.”
Delta? The Delta? What the hell? “Not sure what kind of warning you mean that to be, but Delta Halley is my neighbor, nothing more.” Oops, did that sound like a lie? Not that an intruder on her property got anything from her but a talking-to and maybe an ass full of buckshot if she moved quick enough.
A thought tilted her fear toward anger. “You with that asshole Tanner Cross? I already told him nobody around here will sell out our land, not me, not the Halleys, nobody.”
He took a menacing step forward. Though he still wasn’t quite close enough for her to make out his features, she swiftly catalogued his heavy, boxy, canvas coat, dirty jeans, and shit-kicker boots. “The land isn’t yours like the Delta isn’t yours. Didn’t your mate teach you that?”
She came to her feet in a rush, shoving off the blanket. What did he know of Amber? Or of Delta? If this drifter threatened either one, she wouldn’t need her gun.
“Much as I appreciate the poli-sci lesson, you best be moving along,” she said. “There’s nothing here for you except me getting pissed.”
“If you keep trying to enslave the Delta, I’ll make sure nothing remains here for anyone for a thousand years.”
Her confusion veered back again. From his threats, he didn’t sound like one of Cross’s heavy-handed development assholes. He sounded more like…a fanatic, or a jealous lover.
She gave him a fierce smile. “Delta doesn’t belong to you either. And this land will be here long after both you and I are gone, but I’ve given it enough of my blood and sweat that it owns me. And I’ll give it your tears if you don’t get your ass off my property and leave me and my neighbors alone.”
He stared at her hard. She couldn’t see his face, but she felt the furious glare somewhere under a heavy thatch of black hair. She’d dealt with angry men before, though, and no blustering bully had ever seen the light merely because he opened his eyes—most of them needed the clarity provided by a vigorous application of the same sort of violence they liked to wield.
She wasn’t even surprised when the drifter finally laughed, a grating sound, but actually sincere, she thought.
“No wonder the Delta fell into your orbit,” he said, his rough tone almost approving despite his earlier threat. “He is lost and yearning for a master, and you have the gravity to trap him and pull him in.”
She sniffed. “If you’re saying I’m fat, let me step inside and grab my scales of justice”—by which, of course, she meant her gun—“and we can even up.”
He shook his head, black hair ruffling. “If you love your land—and your life—you’ll stay away from the Halleys.”
She’d barely noticed her neighbors for fifty years—and suddenly that seemed incomprehensible. As if the nebulous warnings from this drifter weren’t odd enough.
“Can’t imagine why you’d think I’d listen to you,” she told him. “You can’t say anything I want to hear so—”
“The Delta is an alien.”
She blinked. In the long list of insults, bluster, and threats she’d heard from the aforementioned angry men in her life, this had to be the most bizarre. “His family has lived next door to mine for more than a century. I figure he’s at least naturalized by now.”
“A space alien,” the drifter said, enunciating each syllable. “Not human. An extraterrestrial. Specifically, a cyborg, so he’s only half organic.”
At least he’s not gluten-free, amiright? Lindy swallowed a tight giggle. She was facing a disturbed individual, not just a bully or even a lawyer.
The drifter stepped forward, and though the yard light was still behind him, not shining on his face, a flash of silver chased across his heavy features. The same metallic sheen as Delta’s circuitry tattoo.
A secretive neighbor with cybernetic skin, flying across the moon on a dino-fucking-saur. Named Delta? Really?
She’d told herself there was an explanation—classified, black-ops, “tell ya but then I’d have to kill ya” b.s.
But all this time there was a simple explanation. And this drifter had just given it to her.
“I’m not saying it was aliens…” she muttered.
“It’s always aliens,” the drifter said.
“Then you’re one too,” she accused. She held her breath, half hoping—
“I am,” he confirmed, dashing her hopes. “We shouldn’t be here. Our ship crashed, stranding us here. And there is no part of us that can be with Earthers.”
“Half is organic, you said.” Why was she arguing with a mentally ill man…who might be an extraterrestrial?
“That’s the most dangerous half.” The drifter’s one eye flared bright silver. There was no way she could pretend that didn’t happen.
No way to pretend she hadn’t seen a half-hidden hint of the same in Delta’s gray gaze.
Her heart was doing strange things, stuttering and jolting like someone had put sugar in her tank. Except this wasn’t any sort of prank, not even a cruel one.
She lifted her chin. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because you must set the Delta free. He h
as already primed to imprint on you, and if I just kill you, his impression encoding will be locked in waiting mode forever.”
The words meant nothing to her—except the killing her part—but something of the meaning seemed to trickle through the thunder of her pulse.
Locked in waiting mode forever. Was that what she was for the last five years? It had felt like forever. Until Delta.
And all this time he’d been the alien next door.
All of Diamond Valley could say she was crazy—some of them had certainly said it before—but she knew the drifter was telling the truth.
She stared at him. “If you want him to be free to make his own choices then I’m not going to tell him what to do.”
“You won’t be able to help it. You know what he is, you’ve seen what he can do, you’ll want that power for yourself—and you’ll wield it. Wield him.”
Sputtering, she threw up her hands. “So we had sex. A few times. I’m not wielding him.”
“That’s how it starts,” the drifter said darkly.
“Oh, you’re sexbots?”
He scowled back at her. “We are shrouds. Among the most lethal, feared cyborg armies in the traveled galaxies.”
“Then Delta has nothing to fear from an old lady rancher, does he?”
“Not every part of us is blaster-shielded plasteel.”
Again, she didn’t know all the words but she got the meaning.
The drifter was saying that Delta had a heart.
Of some kind. But considering how many pieces hers had been left in, maybe she could use some bionic repairs too.
“If you can’t kill me”—she stepped to the edge of the porch steps, looking down at him—“then leave.”
He stared up at her, and for a heartbeat, she caught a glimpse of Delta in him—maybe not the part that unabashedly liked donuts, but a whisper of some desperation. She’d thought it was just a need to get laid, but obviously there was more, so much more she didn’t understand.
“What do you want?” His hoarse whisper carried through the night air.
“Nothing you can give me,” she said.
He backed away a step, lowering his head the way a wild bull would—right before it ran. Which way it ran was always the question.
“You could lose everything you love,” he warned her again. “Including your world.”
“I have before,” she said softly. “And I’m still here.”
It wasn’t until he disappeared, fading back into the darkness right before her eyes, with one last glint of silver, sharp as a knife, that she replayed his words, one at a time.
And reflected that he might’ve meant her world literally.
Chapter 6
As the sun was setting, Delta looked up at the first star of the evening, anticipation making his blood thrum.
Two nights ago, after Mach and Lun-mei had busted him with Lindy, and after he told them about the potential return of the Omega, Mach had ordered a patrol of the ranch, hoping to catch a glimpse of their wayward matrix-brother. Though they’d expanded in ever-widening circles, they’d found no sign of him. Not surprising—he was a shroud, after all.
When they returned to the house briefly in the early morning, Mach and Lun-mei got into a fight.
Mach wanted her to go back into town and stay there. “Cosmo is dangerous,” he told her. “Even if he’s just passing through, he can be trouble. Like…a wounded bear.”
“Wrong analogy,” Delta muttered.
Just as he’d expected, Lun-mei put her hands on her hips, her expression mulish in the way of all recalcitrant mules. “I’m a veterinarian,” she reminded Mach. “Wounded animals are kind of my thing.”
Mach glowered. “Cosmo is nobody’s thing. His only purpose as the matrix Omega was to end the fight—quickly and permanently—when all other options were gone. You don’t heal death.”
Delta coughed quietly. Even he knew that was an unfortunate challenge to Lun-mei’s professional skills.
She crossed her arms, and the crackle in her dark eyes made him and the dogs slink away. If Mach wanted midnight fire, good for him; Delta was waiting for clear blue eyes.
But the day went by without a chance to see Lindy. That afternoon, he and Mach widened their patrol for Cosmo, and he was careful not to ask how the fight had ended. Asking a CWBOI such a thing would normally be pointless—shrouds never lost a battle. But in this case, Delta rather suspected that the pretty little lady doc had won the day.
So Mach’s moody silence went unbroken and there was no sign of Cosmo.
But they did find a section of downed fence; just a couple of slack strands over a short distance, but of course the wily cows had found it. A few head of the Fallen A and Strix brands were mixed together, which seemed pleasingly appropriate to Delta.
The two ranches should’ve been this close the whole time. Except of course Lindy hadn’t needed him before now.
Not that she needed-needed him, but he thought maybe he’d made himself somewhat desirable to have around
As the sun was on its downward trajectory, he went to the Strix Springs Ranch to tell Lindy about her escapee cows and see if any of the Fallen A herd had wandered too far her way—and admittedly, merely to see her, to bask in her presence like she was his rising sun. But at the house he found no Lindy, just three young Earther females he recognized only because of his nanites’ diligent recording system.
“Miz Lindy is away for a bit,” one of the females—ID of Taylor—told him. “We’re in charge while she’s gone. Sasha and I will ride out, take a look for your missing cows.”
Sasha, the one in the mobility device, gave him a nod. “Thanks for letting us know.”
Curiously, he eyed the slanting, studded wheels of her device. It was low-tech compared to any of his parts, of course, but the design was elegant enough. Too bad a CWBOI’s nanites were too specifically adapted to share. And probably this girl wouldn’t be interested in becoming a code-slaved killer.
Obviously noting his attention, she stared back at him, her jaw set. “Plenty of ranchers use ATVs these days. You think I can’t round up your cows?”
“I’d be right grateful if you did,” he said, letting his voice fall into the camouflage cadences he’d cultivated for a half-dozen of her lifetimes. “And sorry for the imposition.” He hesitated. “Any idea when Miz Lindy will be around? I was hoping to have a word with her.”
“Just a word?” The third girl, Roxi, snickered. “Is that what the kids are calling it these days?”
Sasha elbowed her in the thigh, but Delta chuckled, and it wasn’t manufactured amusement as disguise. “A gentleman never tells,” he told them.
Roxi smirked. “Huh, never met one of those before.”
He supposed technically she still hadn’t. But he wasn’t explaining that anymore than he would be detailing his kisses with Lindy. “So you expect her back…?” he prodded.
Sasha shook her head. “Later,” she said repressively.
They didn’t quite chase him off, but Taylor on horseback and Sasha in a larger, tougher version of her wheeled chair paced him to the main road before peeling away toward the hills.
He itched to go with them, keep watch over them while Lindy was away. But probably if she trusted them to ride her land, he should trust them too.
Also, he’d been aware that while Sasha and Roxi engaged him in dialogue, Taylor had faded back through the front door—where the rifle was hanging, no doubt. Anyway, she had it in a scabbard at her horse’s withers as they followed him to their boundary, and the ranch dogs ranged behind.
He hoped they never learned how little their small, brave militia could do against even a lone shroud.
Where on Earth was Cosmo?
He spent the rest of that night and the next day searching, to no avail. When night fell again, he ran a training session with the yurk. She was sluggish and snappish—another growth spurt left her sleepy—but he coaxed her through her wing exercises and obedience lessons with indivi
dual tiny huckleberries, which she adored. Much better than the sub-lethal blaster prods and involuntary reprogramming that would’ve been her fate as part of an activated matrix.
But after he put her to bed with a rack of raw beef ribs and a loaf of burnt toast, he found himself roaming the yard like his internal mapping system had gone offline. With each circle, he found himself yearning toward his neighbor to the north.
Something inside him stronger than plasteel, fiercer than the yurk, needed-needed-needed to see Lindy.
He held back as long as he could—about a nano-second—and then he saddled his favorite horse and angled overland toward the Strix property.
Since reviving the yurk, Lun-mei had done some careful experiments with the nanites after the aging mare had come up lame on a cold morning. One injection of the nanotech, stripped of most of its code, had left the mare dancing impatiently in her stall. And put a new shine in her hazy eyes.
A silver shine.
She stepped out under the moonlight like a slightly smaller, somewhat wiser version of the yurk, her eager breath pluming in the snappy chill. Delta kept her to a walk; if he broke her leg in a fall, Lun-mei would end him. But he couldn’t keep the anticipation out of his bones and he knew his butt in the saddle was urging the mare forward even as the touch of reins on her neck called for caution.
He crossed between their properties at a wired gate near the newly restrung fence. A barb pierced his palm as he pulled the wire loop back into place, and he grumbled as his nanites rushed to fix the damage. Too bad he couldn’t get nanites to ride the fence line all the time…
As he remounted and turned the mare onward toward the Strix house, a silhouette on the hill stopped the mare in her tracks. She blew out a hard breath and stomped once—a warning.
Yeah, definitely more yurk-like now.
Delta soothed her with a hand on her neck, his own pulse pounding harder.
Because he recognized that pale outline.
His queen, beautiful in the moonlight as the flawed diamond on her finger. Her silver-gold hair was unbound under her hat, and restless strands caught the night wind to blow toward him. That was her only motion toward him.
