Chapter 15

FIFTEEN

The outpost didn't burndown while we were gone. Trench and Arc are both still alive. The trip may not have uncovered my would-be murderer, but it did prove that I can leave them to their own devices for a few days.

Or, maybe not.

"What do you mean, there's been another cavrinskh attack?"

Riann grimaces, glancing away from his camera, and I wonder if the door to his office is open.

I hope not.

"There have been three more," he says.

"Why am I only hearing about them now?"

"Because they were all last night." Riann looks at me like he expects me to give away some secret. "While you were gone. It's like they knew."

"That's ridiculous," Kimba says as she comes to join me. "We know they're intelligent, but there's no way they're tracking individual movements."

Riann glances past me and dips his head, greeting her.

"Ridiculous or not, it's too big of a coincidence to ignore." He rubs his eyes and I can see the telltale signs… he hasn't slept in a few days. "No one sees them come in to the communities, no one sees them get back out. If we hadn't seen one in the incident involving Richter's mate mix up, I'd question if this wasn't just a weird cover up or attempt to blame the cavrinskh."

"Something has changed." Kimba says, slipping her hand into mine and squeezing. "We need to find out what."

"I think you need to get Trench digging a little harder. How do they say it on Earth?" He looks at Kimba. "Set him on fire?"

She tries to hold in her laughter, but it comes out as a snort. "I think you mean ‘light a fire under him'?"

"Is that not the same thing?" Riann smiles, but I imagine he's embarrassed by the mix up.

"Not quite." She looks at me. "Maybe Trench needs some help? Fresh eyes… is there another brother who could help?"

"I have an idea." But I don't think anyone's going to like it. "I'll see if I can make it happen."

"You should know… all three of these men also have ties to the Company… One of them had two undocumented children. They've been run through every database we have. He wasn't their father and even though we have DNA matches, we can't find either parent."

A cold slither crawls through the bond and Kimba says, "That is a problem."

"Yes." A dull chirp echoes on his end and he mutters a curse under his breath. "I've got to go. But I know you wanted to be updated. If you can think of anything that might help me figure out where I should start looking for these guys before they get their throats torn out, that would be great."

"I'll see what we can come up with."

The screen goes black and my eyes adjust as I look down to Kimba.

She's still glaring at the darkness. "Why do they have children that aren't theirs?"

"I don't know." But I don't think I'm going to like the answer once we find it.

Kimba straightens her shirt and glances toward the door.

We're going to have company. Soon.

It's a meeting night.

"Here." I hand her the small case that was delivered a few hours ago. "If you have the same issues with Cindy… you're going to need those."

She pops it open and her brows quirk when she sees the two lenses, suspended in an inert solution.

"They're tinted, and they should help with the brightness, without making you act… oddly."

We'd agreed that we would take some more time to figure out the strange effect on her eyesight before we started asking questions of the other bonded women.

"Thank you." She goes to the bathroom on this level to put them in and when she returns, her eyes look black to me. I know they won't to anyone else.

"Just in time," she says, as a familiar teal car pulls into the garage.

Richter and Laurel are the first to arrive, but not by much of a distance. Core and Cindy are close behind. Hazard too.

They come in, greeting each other and congratulating Kimba. I watch for any sign they find her eyes odd, but they don't. And she doesn't wince when she sees Cindy.

As the rest of them arrive, I let them get settled. All of the brothers on this side of the caldera and their bondmates—only three other women, right now—sit on that circular, sunken couch.

What few introductions are needed are made quickly and I tell them what we've learned.

Laurel's reaction to the cavrinskh and the dead Company men is as expected. Arc's… is not.

I watch him as he paces near the windows, but I don't tell him to sit down.

"I've done a little digging." Kilo says, and when Trench scowls at him, he says, "Discreetly."

"What kind of digging?"

"We all know there are people who don't want you here—in both of our home galaxies—I set myself up to be… approachable to that sort of person."

"And were you approached?" Kimba asks.

"Yeah." He points to the man on the screen whose skin is a deep caramel yellow. "By him."

There's a brief moment of pandemonium as the others start talking over him.

"Enough." Kimba pinches the bridge of her nose. "I don't need a headache. Let him talk."

Kilo smiles at her and dips his head. "Thank you, dajzha."

He scowls at the man in question. "He told me just enough to read between the lines, but not enough to actually incriminate himself if I was a CSS stooge." He turns and looks at Andrea and says, "What is a stooge?"

She looks at him like he's gone insane and then shakes it away. "I'll tell you later."

Nodding, he glances at Laurel. "Are you sure you want to hear this?"

"No, but tell me anyway."

"They're pulling women from the Agency roster by pairing them up with men who don't want them. ‘Giving' them to men who don't qualify for bondmates and then putting the children into creches where they will have no human involvement whatsoever."

"They told you all of that?" Kimba asks, her disbelief echoes my own.

"Of course not. I followed them and let them talk to each other when they didn't know I was there." He glances at Kimba and the other three women with an apologetic wince. "I've left out the colorful commentary, so you didn't have to hear just how much these guys hate humans."

"Do you have names?" I ask.

He looks at me and unclenches his jaw. "Give me your CSS contact's information and I'll do what I can to help him find the others."

"You said they couldn't find the parents of the two children they found?" Cindy asks.

"That's right."

"Then they're either holding them somewhere… or they're dead." She says it with so much conviction, everyone turns to her.

She shrugs. "No woman who came here through the Agency's criteria would give her baby over and not be desperate to find it."

"She might be scared of reprisals," Hazard offers.

Kimba grimaces. I don't need to look at her to know it. "Did you meet this guy at Margot's?"

"Yeah, actually." Kilo says. "We don't really hang out in many other social settings, so I decided to start there. I got lucky."

"I'll give you the contact info," I say. "And I'm sure he'll have more questions."

"I don't see how any of this relates to you being on someone's ‘hit list'." Hazard lounges in his seat, sipping on his coffee. "I mean, the escaped cavrinskh are a problem. The Company and these stolen kids are a problem… but do we think they're connected to Kimba being hired to kill you?"

"No." I say as she responds, "Yes."

She looks at me with pinched brows. "You cannot deny there's something here. All four of those men were in my garage with the guy we still can't find."

"If he hired men to go with him, it makes sense that he would have pulled from the Company's ranks. Bad men do bad things."

"I think she's right." Laurel says, staring me down.

I don't voice the question that leaps to mind. Would you say that just to argue with me?

"Me too." Cindy says. She doesn't look like she'd like to stab me just to see if the knife would sink through.

"Even if she isn't—and I'm not guessing one way or another—you should at least look into the possibility." Arc holds up his hands. "Stop thinking about this like you're invincible. Ric's the only one in this room that could take a bullet to the head and probably survive it. You are as soft and scraped up as the rest of us."

He runs his thumb over one of his own scars, as if he needs to prove his point. "But that is, of course, up to you."

The rest of the meeting is spent going over reports and observations since the last meeting.

Nothing said in this room truly required an in person meeting. All of it could have been disseminated via comm, or relayed on a call.

But that's because it's not about the information.

I watch as Cindy and Andrea exchange notes. Laurel grills Kilo on the things he's learned… and Trench and Hazard talk about something I didn't catch to begin with and can't hear now.

These meetings are about making sure they come together. I look out at the Zone. The snow flurries are minimal tonight and from here, I can see the faint light of the closest outpost. They are so isolated, even from each other.

By the time they start to leave, I've heard Hazard demand a bakat rematch from Strike, Cindy has questioned me on my favorite baked goods and Andrea has let me know they're naming their weeun Kodi, after his mother, and that Margot managed to get mango imported for her.

D asks Trench to stay behind and I hang back with them, watching as the cold boys are the last to leave.

D's wrong about those three.

Shock and Risk aren't going to boot Arc out of their outpost. They're holding onto him for dear life.

They're so careful to constantly be in contact with him and he… something is broken, and I already know the three of them are going to have to figure it out on their own.

"I'm not saying ‘no' to help. I just don't think you're going to find anyone willing." Trench offers me a smile as I join them. "As for the theory they chose to attack three men specifically because you were gone… how would they have known you were gone?"

"I thought it was ridiculous too," I say.

"Ridiculous or not," D glances at me. "We need to figure it out."

"I'll see if I can't figure out what's going on in their brains… with whatever pieces I'm able to collect."

He goes, and I take the lenses out. "They helped," I tell D. "But I don't like the way they feel."

"Me either."

He takes my hand and heads for the stairs. "Let's put those away and practice breeding you again."