Chapter 7

SEVEN

F elix glanced over his shoulder, setting his target in his sights. He pivoted and snapped his moving leg out behind him, landing a kick right in the center mass of the weighted bag. With barely a pause, he threw another kick, this one high and to the side. Two punches followed. His right fist delivered a solid thwack , the force of the strike thrumming pleasantly back along his arm. His left merely caressed the bag, little more than a distraction. Felix imagined his hiss to be the pain of his opponent. The unconscious outward breath as they prepared to defend themselves against another attack.

He'd never fought back against the stin. Not physically. He wasn't stupid. An unarmored and unarmed POW, he could do little but fight with his mind. He'd refused to show the fear they supposedly thrived on until he understood his stoicism pleased them more. Then it had simply been a matter of breaking. Of making himself as unchallenging a target as possible.

The shame of his capitulation formed the core of the rage he carried in perpetuity. Dr. McMann had identified that in their second session. The shame of that discovery formed his lower mantle. The upper, just beneath his crust, his skin, was his day-to-day brattitude.

He just wasn't a pleasant person, and couldn't remember if he ever had been.

The bag had stopped swinging. Felix tossed himself into action again, feinting, punching, whirling and kicking. He attacked his rage until sweat stung his eyes and even strapping couldn't save the skin on his right hand. Blood thundered through his veins and his chest felt like a barrel, too big to fill yet still sealed.

After his fit, a silence poked through the miasma of his sweat and funk, and Felix realized he'd been yelling. His throat hurt. And not all the salt in his eyes was sweat. Sniffing, he wiped the damp strapping across the lower half of his face and turned away from the bag. A shadow reclined in the corner of his quarters aboard the Chaos . A man with broad shoulders and a trim waist. Massive arms folded over his chest, legs crossed at the ankle. A closed posture.

"How long have you been here?" Felix grabbed a bottle of water and squeezed it into his mouth, slaking the thirst that left his throat feeling raw.

Zed pushed off the wall. "Long enough." He nodded toward the bag. "Did you kill it?"

Snorting, Felix tossed the empty bottle aside and grabbed another. "I can't kill it. I have to learn to live with it."

"Flick."

Felix flinched at the gentle tone of Zed's voice. "What are you doing here? Shouldn't you be resting or something?" That'd been the plan after a debrief with Theo and Central.

"Why didn't you come back to the suite?" Zed asked.

"It's not big enough for my kind of meditation, and I didn't think Theo would appreciate me punching holes through the walls."

"I would have come with you."

"Looks like you already did."

Sighing, Zed rubbed at the crease between his brows. Felix squashed the urge to join his thumb to Zed's, help him erase that dreaded line of tension. Instead, he closed his eyes and counted backward, ten to one. When he opened his eyes again, he felt no less agitated, but he made an effort, for his sake and for Zed's.

"How's your head?"

Zed responded with a pained expression.

Felix stepped in, hand raised to tend that crease. He stopped just short, though, hand falling back to his side. "Tell me what I can do to help."

"Don't run off without leaving word, and check your bracelet for messages."

Glancing down, Felix did just that. The message light pulsed insistently, indicating he had a number of unanswered pings. He chewed on his lip. "Sorry."

"I get it, all right? Today was…even if Harrar hadn't been there, today would have been hard."

"You don't have to speak to me like I'm a child."

"I'm not."

"Yes, you are. I handled it, okay? I didn't freak out." Much. "I didn't do anything to fuck up the convocation."

"We're only halfway done. We've got the fete tomorrow."

"I'm not going." And not just because fete sounded all formal and fancy.

Zed took a step back. "You have to be there. We're all going. Even if this wasn't the most important event of our lives, this is history. We've met an entirely new species. Now we're going to make friends with them. You get that, right?"

"I'm not a friendly guy."

"You're human and you're a symbol. You're a survivor of the most brutal war humanity has ever fought. You need to be there."

Felix had been pondering how little help he'd managed to offer since asking what he could do. He was an ass and Zed thought he was a symbol. Swallowing, he considered his next response before making it.

"Theo is a better symbol. He's like you. A hero and all tidy and…nice. He knows how to do the ambassador shit and the party stuff. He speaks Ashushk and Stin, for fuck's sake. I know five words of Ashushk and I've spent nearly every day of the last two and a half years sitting next to Qek." He sucked in a quick breath. His chest still felt like a barrel. "I'm sorry I ran off after the convocation thingy. I needed to break things and I figured you could use the time to meditate. This has all got to be draining for you, right?" Felix offered a nod meant to encourage Zed to agree with his point. When Zed didn't respond, Felix rolled on. "I'm really not the best guy to take to this party."

"You're my partner, Flick."

Felix stepped back.

"And Theo is already going to be there. Ambassador means representative, remember? He is humanity, as far as Central is concerned. Can't go anywhere without Theodor Paredes."

Had he only imagined Zed inserting the word fucking in between Theodor and Paredes ? He sensed Zed didn't like the guy, but couldn't put his finger exactly on why. He couldn't still be upset over the palm-reading thing, could he? Wasn't like Felix had said "Here, fondle my hand." It had been innocent. Mostly. On his part, anyway.

"He's a good guy, Zed. Honestly, the fact he is the ambassador kind of blows me away. It's like humanity did something right for a change. Theo is honest and compassionate. He cares about people. He wanted to be a soldier for all the right reasons."

"If you're such a fan, you should be looking forward to the party then."

"What is your problem with Theo?"

"I don't have one."

"Could have fooled me. Every time his name comes up, you look like you've tasted Gagorian tubers. Is it because he's an ex?"

"No." But the flicker of tension along Zed's jaw said yes .

"You know what ex means, right?"

Zed didn't answer for a moment. Then he spoke quietly, his tone at odds with the tension snapping through the air. "What happened with you two? Why did you break up?"

Felix shook his head, but Zed held his gaze, apparently determined to have his answer. Exhaling, Felix gave him what he was looking for. "I ended it before training finished because I didn't want someone else to leave me behind."

Zed winced. Then, he had the gall to ask: "Did you love him?"

"Did you love Riley?"

"N—" Zed's lips disappeared as his mouth formed a long, hard line.

"She must have thought so to think you were up for a marriage proposal."

"Riley isn't here."

Felix turned away, dismissing a conversation that would take them nowhere useful.

"Are you coming to the party or not?"

"I didn't think I was being given a choice."

A sigh. "Just get a shower and meet me back at the suite at 1800. We need to get you measured if we're going to requisition something for you to wear in time."

"I already know what size I am. Should be in my profile." He had put on some weight over the past few months, though, making most of his pants a little tight around the waist. But agreeing to be measured felt like giving in.

"We're not ordering your suit from Mercenaries 'R Us."

Felix pressed his palms to his eyes. "Do I seriously have to wear a suit?"

The snick of the hatch sliding closed after Zed's abrupt departure was sadly undramatic. Letting his hands drop to his sides again, Felix eyed his kick bag, but no rage answered his call. Instead, a sick swirl moved through his middle—an emotion he couldn't, or didn't want to identify.

Parties had once been a regular occurrence in Zed's life. His parents had frequently socialized with their peers or potential business contacts, generally making themselves appear available. Zed had grown up understanding that this was an essential part of networking and business. He and his brothers had been expected to attend every gathering—when they were young, a nanny would herd them off after a short appearance, but as they got older, their parents encouraged them to stay and soak up whatever knowledge they could.

No matter how hard Zed tried, though, he couldn't pretend he was at one of his parents' parties. The ballroom was much like the ones he remembered from his childhood—and he didn't find it surprising that Central's fancy flagship had such a space for formal events—but it felt… wrong . There were no cityscape vistas to be admired beyond the windows, no marbled white-and-blue globe hanging in the black like a jewel on velvet.

The people were different too. At first glance, they seemed similar—smiling and laughing, everyone with a drink in hand, a low buzz of conversation permeating the large space. But the presence of the stin—known antagonists—and the resonance—an unknown quantity—meant there was a tension humming beneath the surface that had never been present at the gatherings of his childhood.

The resonance loomed next to Zed. On the other side, Flick stood a few paces away—fidgeting, clearly uncomfortable with the formality of the event, but here. Amelia O'Day, his government liaison, had arrived earlier and stood closer to him than Flick, which bothered him on a number of levels but was unavoidable. He liked Amelia—he just didn't like what she represented. A leash.

"I will field initial interactions," Amelia murmured. "Hopefully we'll be able to avoid any further unpleasantness."

She meant conflict with the stin. Zed bristled and thought about pointing out that he hadn't instigated the bullshit on the ashie ship. Before he could say anything, a human got up the courage to approach the entourage.

"Senator Dana Wokowski," Amelia announced in a soft voice, just loud enough to carry to Zed's ears.

Zed dredged up a smile. According to his memory, Dana Wokowski represented the eastern region of North America in the Central government. He'd studied the roster in between his other work as the resonance's translator. Heaven forbid the Guardians' emissary not know each of the attendees.

"Emissary."

"Senator Wokowski, may I introduce One-Who-Gleams-Under-Clouded-Moonlight?" Zed moved slightly to the side, gesturing to the smallest resonance delegate. When he'd prompted the delegates for a name to present, they had responded with an image, a fleeting, breathtaking alien landscape that his mind had translated into a string of words. The image had seemed to belong to one delegate, though they all shared parts of it in a way Zed hadn't quite unraveled. His translation wasn't quite right, though Gleams—as he called the delegate privately, for his own sanity—had approved. He had not yet asked for the other delegates' assignations. Naming one alien per day was his limit.

"A pleasure." The senator, obviously well educated in interspecies etiquette, smiled a closed-mouth smile and bowed her head, making no attempt at physical contact.

Zed turned to Gleams. "This is Senator Dana Wokowski, a ? —"

"Wo-kow-ski. Wo-KOW-ski. Meaning?"

Not for the first time, Zed wished the Guardians had given the resonance a crash course in spoken language. Because they could not speak and did not have ears, they had never developed one, instead communicating solely through mental concepts and images. Zed wondered if trying to assimilate a language was as difficult for Gleams as trying to communicate without one was for him.

"A name in an Earth language that I do not know," he said, layering it with unknown and apologies . "She is pleased to meet you."

"We are pleased to be met. Happiness, welcome, excitement, joy."

Zed couldn't help but smile as he turned back to the senator. "They are very pleased to meet you as well."

Senator Wokowski matched Zed's grin. "Are they enjoying the social?"

Zed passed along the question, then nodded, his smile growing at Gleams's enthusiastic response. "Yes. They are incredibly happy to be making friends."

"Have they shared with you any information about their culture or their world?"

"Yesss. What secrets are they sharing with only you, Emissssary?"

Harrar stepped forward, towering over Senator Wokowski. She blanched and backed away, and Amelia moved to intercept the stin.

"I would ask that you wait, Mr. Harrar, so we don't overwhelm?—"

Harrar hummed at Amelia, an unobtrusive sound of annoyance, then moved closer to the resonance. Zed glanced at Flick, only to discover that he had disappeared. Good. He didn't want his lover anywhere near this creature, not ever again.

"I asked you a quesssstion."

Zed met the dead black stare of the stin without flinching. "I'm not keeping any secrets, Harrar."

"Isss that so?" Harrar stared at Zed for a moment, his gaze unwavering. "Where is their home planet?"

"That is not something they've shared." And understandably so, considering they had only met the rest of the galaxy a day ago.

"Do they have the same functions as organic beings? What do they eat? Do they shit?"

Zed pressed his lips into a thin line. Fucking stin. Dealing with them and their need for conflict was exasperating, but Zed wouldn't give Harrar an excuse to complain to his government. The answers Harrar sought had been shared in bursts of thoughts and concepts—an exchange of very basic information, not all of which had made sense. Zed had reciprocated to the best of his ability on humans, the ashushk and the stin.

"They are organic," Zed said, trying to relax his jaw and keep his voice neutral, "though we haven't yet achieved a complete understanding of their biology. They ingest nutrients via a sort of osmosis, and yes, they expel waste."

Harrar grinned, showing rows of sharp teeth. An aggressive expression. "Do they fuck?"

I am clear, I am calm. "They reproduce asexually."

Their reproduction occurred when resonance combined their genetic material—through touch, Zed thought, but as far as he could tell from the ideas shared, it wasn't the sort of touch that worked for humans. They had been fascinated with the sexual process of procreation. Thankfully, Zed had almost a year's experience dealing with Qek's curiosity on the same topic.

Unlike the ashushk, the resonance had no concept of male or female. They were all permanently gender-neutral so they did not understand pronouns. Where ashushk who had not gendered usually preferred the pronoun "it" as an indication of their neutral status—unless they served on a human ship like Qek—the resonance had no such attachment. So Zed had started referring to Gleams as "she." She just felt female. If the resonance had picked up on the designation, they gave no sign of caring.

Harrar buzzed, clearly disappointed that his crude questions had not encouraged a volatile response.

Zed narrowed his eyes. "Perhaps you could try speaking to them rather than treating them like inanimate objects?"

The stin looked at his ambassador, then glanced back at Zed. His buzzing changed cadence, dropping into the range that had pained the resonance on the ashushk ship.

"Harrar, enough," Ryrrk barked from across the room.

The humming ceased. Harrar offered a mocking bow of his head and moved back to Ryrrk's side.

Zed let out a slow breath.

"Unpleasant," Gleams shared.

Zed sent back a silent agreement.

He turned his attention to the rest of the crowd. Keeping an eye on things was partially out of an ingrained desire to be aware of his surroundings, but mostly because he wanted to find Flick. Crowds were hard for Flick—hell, they weren't a picnic for him, either, but with the presence of the stin, Flick couldn't be in the best mental space at the moment. Still…Zed hoped he'd come back now that Harrar had retreated to the other side of the room.

Hope that was dashed when he saw Flick and Theo sharing smiles and chuckles at the edge of the crowd.

He'd never really understood jealousy before. Oh, he'd felt it a couple of times in his life, a slight, aggravating tingle he could push aside and ignore until his rational brain came back online. This felt different. Stronger. Maybe it wasn't jealousy. Maybe it was…envy. Because Theo stood there without a damned crease between his brows, with his shoulders unbowed by the weight of galactic peace, wearing the accoutrements of an AEF officer who had retired with honor and respect and who still held the good regard of the organization he'd served. There was an ease about him that Zed had once possessed, that sense of knowing where you fit in the galaxy, what your role was and how you could best serve humanity.

Zed's life had turned left when Theo's had turned right. With different drivers, they could have been looking at each other from the other's spot. And maybe then Flick would be standing beside him , his expression open and almost happy, instead of how he'd been when they'd walked in—tense, tight and pissed off.

Gentle fingers brushed his mind and he shoved thoughts about his personal life aside. "Yes?"

"Important?" The facets of Gleams's face caught the light of the ballroom. Images cascaded through Zed's mind—memories, he realized quickly, of Gleams watching him and Flick together.

The Guardians had once told him that the ability to love was solely a human trait. Stin were strength, ashushk were intelligence, and humans…humans were their hearts.

What aspect did the resonance embody?

Wasn't like he could come out and ask that—if they even knew—so he focused on answering the question. "He is my partner."

"Confusion, questioning. Only one?"

It took Zed a minute to understand. "Humans usually pair-bond, but some have more than one partner."

"Only one." Gleams felt as if she was pondering this news. After a moment, the presence in Zed's mind brightened. "Special, to keep you."

"Yes, he is very special."

She turned to the other delegates, gesturing. "Partners. Unit."

"Unit?" Zed eyed the four of them, then something clicked. "This is your family?"

"No. Not family. Unit ." With those words, something softened about Gleams. The other resonance moved in, but their gaits had lost the lumbering, shuffling uncertainty he'd seen earlier. In a step, they'd closed ranks around Gleams, their armlike appendages reaching out to make contact. A vibration rose from the group, resonating through Zed, culminating in his neck, where a shard from one of these aliens resided.

It felt…good. Weird, but good.

"You resonate beautifully," Gleams said. "Pleasing, happy, welcome. Friend."

So the resonance were poly…something. Romantic? The images that Zed had received earlier made more sense with this context—there'd been a sense of multiple resonance involved with procreation. More than two. Four, apparently.

Images slipped into his mind. Groups of resonance—always a quartet, working together, a strong foundation to build upon. Solid, true. A team, a unit, moving toward a common goal. Stray, gentle touches, almost ritualistic in their regularity. An affirmation of resonance.

Pleasure thrummed from Gleams. "Yes."

Zed had always thought he had that sort of harmony with Flick, but now…now he wondered. If Flick had the opportunity to spark something with Theo—normal, respected Theo—would he?