Chapter Twelve

Verity kissed her sleeping son on the forehead and tiptoed out of his room. Cabin lights were off, so she assumed Fury had retired. My husband is waiting for me. They’d shared a bed last night, but today they were married. It seemed different somehow.

Her life had changed—new job, new planet, a husband, aliens. But most of all—safety. That was the only difference that mattered. Nobody could take Brody from her. With her son safe, she could handle the rest.

In the bathroom, she brushed rice out of her hair, cleaned her teeth, and then entered the bedroom. Through a skylight, the pinpoints of distant stars twinkled, but the room was nearly pitch-black. She couldn’t see anything. “Are you asleep?” she whispered.

“No,” came the reply.

She bumped into the trunk at the foot of the bed. “Ouch.”

“Are you all right? Do you need light? ”

“I’m fine. Don’t turn on the light.”

In the future, she’d change in the bathroom. She groped for the nightgown she’d draped over the mattress. She undressed, her skin tingling with awareness. He can’t see anything. But she quickly pulled her nightgown over her head then folded her good clothes and set them on the trunk. She’d hang them up in the morning.

Peeling the covers back, she slid into bed.

“You get him settled?” His deep voice rumbled in the darkness.

“Yeah. I put him in his pj’s, and he never so much as twitched.” Sensitized skin continued to tingle. His body heat and a warm, masculine scent wafted over her.

“He wore himself out talking.”

“Sorry about that.” Kids could be annoying, especially to nonparents, and she’d foisted her son off on this man. He hadn’t asked for a ready-made family. But it was heartening to see her son revert to his normal outgoing self, instead of the scared little boy who’d clung to her when they’d first arrived.

“No problem. The little guy was excited.”

“Thank you for that. Thank you for…everything.”

“You don’t have to thank me. ”

“Well, I’m grateful. I know I forced you into this marriage.”

“You didn’t force me.” He sounded surprised.

“I kind of did. I put you on the spot. You weren’t expecting a package deal.”

“As a friend of mine said, maybe Cosmic Mates gives you what you need instead of what you asked for.”

Even if it were true, it didn’t apply here. Cosmic Mates hadn’t known she had a son. “That friend would be Jason Steel?”

“Yes.”

“You arrived together, right?”

“Yes.”

Ask or don’t ask? Having deduced Steel was the medical miracle patient, she considered pumping Mike for information. Brody acquired his inquisitiveness honestly—he’d inherited it. But although curious about Steel, she was more interested in her new husband.

She couldn’t see in the dark, but she rolled over to face him.

“I was hasty,” he said.

“In joining Cosmic Mates?” He does have regrets !

“In saying I intended to invoke the escape clause at the end of the year. I would like to give our marriage an honest try.”

Warmth suffused her from the inside out. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“I-I would like that, too. We’ve come this far; it would be a shame not to go all the way.” Heat flooded her face at the double entendre, a Freudian slip. A real marriage would lead to sex, wouldn’t it? Her stomach fluttered. Sleeping with him wouldn’t be a hardship.

“My thoughts exactly,” he said. She made out a flash of white. He was smiling.

“I’ve, uh, told you quite a bit about me.” All the important stuff anyway. “I don’t know much about you.”

“What do you want to know?”

Where to start? Where had he been born? Where on Earth had he lived? What school had he attended? What was his occupation, his favorite food? Did he like sports? Did he prefer dogs or cats? “What brought you to Refuge?”

He chuckled. “That’s the first question everybody asks.” He paused. “I worked for a government subcontractor who operated in a morally gray area, engaging in shady practices I no longer wished to be associated with.”

“And you blew the whistle?” she guessed.

“Nothing as noble as that—I tried to leave. It wasn’t permitted. They came after me.”

“What company was it?”

The pillow rustled, and she surmised he was shaking his head. “Nobody you would have heard of, fortunately.”

He didn’t wish to tell her. Why? And why would it be fortunate she hadn’t heard of them? “But they did jobs for the government? Was there fraud involved?”

He laughed. “They did the government’s dirty work. Enabled plausible deniability.”

“Sounds…covert.” And not just morally “gray” but downright illegal. It didn’t surprise her though. After experiencing how the Dorns’ wealth and power had influenced the judicial process, her eyes had been opened. There were two tiers of justice—one for the rich, one for everyone else. That Brody would be handed over to the president’s top campaign donor had been a foregone conclusion; they’d been going through the motions to make the kidnapping look legit. She wouldn’t put anything past the government or any of its contracted agencies .

She had a flash of insight. “You and Steel worked for the same company, didn’t you?”

“Yes, but we didn’t know each other then. Independently, we’d decided to leave but found ourselves on the same spaceship.” He paused. “Now I know where Brody gets his inquisitiveness.”

True, but wouldn’t any woman be curious about the stranger she’d married? And like he’d said, finding out what had brought a person to Refuge was the first thing everyone asked. “Am I too intrusive?”

“I was teasing.”

But she sensed he hadn’t been.

“Any other questions?” He diverted the conversation under the guise of being open.

His caginess aroused her curiosity, but she’d let him off the hook for now. “How old are you?” An innocuous question.

“Thirty-two,” he said.

“Same age as me. We have something in common.”

“I think we have a lot in common.”

“You do?” she asked.

“We both left a bad situation. We’re both starting over. We met through Cosmic Mates. We both decided to give the marriage a genuine try. ”

She smiled. “I’ll bet neither one of us has lived or worked on a ranch before.”

“We both came here with somebody,” he added.

Learning about each other had turned into a game.

“We arrived in a rickety, drafty wagon driven at breakneck speed by Gozar?” She assumed that’s how he’d gotten from the intake center to Haven.

He chuckled. “Yes. And neither one of us had encountered a horniger before.”

“I’ve seen them, I haven’t encountered them yet,” she said. “Does that still count?”

“Absolutely. And…we’re both from Earth.”

“We’re both human,” she said.

He hesitated. “There is that.”

“Among the few on Haven Ranch,” she added and stifled a yawn.

She didn’t think he’d heard, but then he said, “You’re tired. We both had a long day. Most likely tomorrow will be the same. We should get some sleep.”

She wished they could talk some more but recalled he’d hiked in from the range and was probably very tired. “Good night, Mike.”

“Good night, Verity.”

* * * *

Fury listened to her breathing slow as she fell asleep. He had the wife he’d always dreamed of, and the unexpected bonus of a family, but lies tainted the dream.

He wasn’t thirty-two. He’d claimed to be because that’s how old she was. In fact, he was closer to the kid’s age than hers, having been birthed from the gestation tank as a mature adult ten years ago.

Age, race—the most basic, innocuous, noncontroversial personal facts—were among his darkest secrets. How many more falsehoods and misdirections would he have to tell to maintain his cover story? As Steel had said, one should not lie to one’s wife, not one you hoped would love you, who you could easily fall in love with, perhaps had done so the moment she stepped out of the conveyance.

A fierce protector, a loving mother, a nurse who healed people, Verity was pure and good. He was the opposite.

His explanation for seeking sanctuary, while technically true, was laughable. Shady practices? There was nothing morally gray about his soul; it was as black as a Refuge night.

He killed people. Murdering pedophiles, serial killers, and terrorists could be excused, but what about assassinating political adversaries, candidates and elected officials the members of the deep state did not wish to see in office? Solutions had taken out more than a few of those. He hadn’t personally murdered any politicians, but plenty of his other targets had been questionable. He usually, but not always, had received a dossier on the target to facilitate a clean execution. But did the files contain facts or disinformation? Were the individuals truly guilty of the accusations against them? There was no way to tell.

Cyborgs did not have consciences. They did not question orders.

Except he had questioned. Did that mean he had a conscience?

Highly unlikely. He just wanted out. He didn’t wish to kill anymore. He’d never enjoyed killing—he wasn’t a sociopath; he knew that about himself—but he’d done it because his creators had ordered him to. Which still made him a monster.

A monster who had married a beautiful, kindhearted, wonderful mother with an innocent young child. He squeezed his eyes shut, but the image of her nakedness replayed in his brain. Smooth, pearlescent skin. Generous breasts and hips. Her red hair wasn’t just on her head. She’d had no idea he could see her in the dark. He’d ogled her shamelessly—and never said a word. His tumescence still hadn’t subsided.

Silence was the least of his deceptions. How peacefully she slept, so blissfully ignorant. His omissions were ten times worse than her failure to disclose she had a child.

A man with a conscience would tell her the truth. But he couldn’t until he could prove to her that he’d changed and presented no threat to them and would protect them with his life. Unless he could do that—she’d never accept him, and even then, the chances were slim. He had a better chance of taming a horniger.

Besides, he wasn’t even sure he had changed. He would never harm her or Brody—he’d kill himself first, but under the right set of circumstances, he wouldn’t hesitate to take a life again. Some people deserved to be dead.

Like the Dorns. He’d off them in an instant. And anyone else who tried to harm his family. The fact was, he could list quite a few individuals he believed should be dead.

He didn’t know how to find a way out of the morass. Perhaps all he could do was enjoy what he had while he still had it. Maybe an idea would come to him. Maybe he’d never need to tell her the truth. Steel wouldn’t expose him. But what about Honoria? He’d talk to Steel. If those two held their silence, his secret would be safe.

He caressed Verity’s smooth cheek with a fingertip. My wife. Maybe things would work out. They had to. He wouldn’t be able to stand it if they didn’t.