Chapter 2

CHAPTER

TWO

JESSICA

Aside from a few curious glances my way, I stayed in my little bubble and the women headed to their mates and new lives stayed out of it.

If not for the fact that I fell back into my work—and the small cabins available for napping—it might have been a lonely trip.

But the announcement that we’re landing stirs up a riot of new speculation and excitement. And I can’t help but smile along with the others as they start bouncing wild ideas off each other. One suggests that they all keep in touch, referring to them as a pod. I manage to slip away before she can try to get a commitment from me.

I’m in one of the small lavs, washing my face and reapplying what little makeup I wear, when I feel the gravity shift. Putting my glasses back on, I look at myself, wondering who they’re going to hand me off to… what that person will see.

A scientist? Or a woman whose stomach hasn’t stopped doing somersaults for the last hour.

There’s a woman waiting for me when I get out.

“Hi Jessica, sorry to ambush you,” she says with an apologetic smile. “When I found out you were already separated from the group, I knew I had to catch you before you went back.”

“Well, you caught me.”

“I’m Mary.” She gestures to her Agency name tag. “You’re going out the crew exit, so hopefully no one notices that there’s one too few men out there compared to the passenger manifest.”

That makes me pause and then laugh. “Was I smuggled here?”

Mary laughs too. “No, of course not. But none of us want to take the time to explain—to the general public—what you’re doing here.”

Suspicion flutters across my skin. “What am I doing here?”

She pales a little and purses her lips. “I mean, I’m not the person to answer that question.”

“Okay then.” I smile, in spite of the trepidation that flutters across my skin. “I guess you should take me to someone who can.”

She nods. “Is that all your stuff?”

“Except my checked luggage, yeah.”

“Great, follow me.” She leads the way through the ship, away from the room where the rest of the women are, and when we step through a door marked OFF LIMITS, the ceiling is about four feet higher. This is the Sian part of the ship.

It was built for men who are six-foot nine as a nearly empirical rule.

It makes me feel tiny in a way I’m not sure I like.

Mary doesn’t seem to notice the way the dark metal corridor affects me. “I don’t know who you’ve been assigned to, only that she isn’t a part of the Agency. But if you need anything, you can always call me. Any time, day or night, I will be available. I say that as both an Agency employee—if you need something from them—but also as someone who’s been here for a long enough time, I know that things can be… weird.”

“Thank you.”

“Also, my bondmate spends a lot of time traveling, so if you want to get away from your host’s bondmate for a while, I can definitely provide that.”

“Is there a reason I might want to get away from him?”

She shrugs. “You never know.”

She stops at another hatch and looks me up and down. “We’re going to step outside and take a little pause.”

“Okay…” I look from her to the door and back again, a little concerned, now, with what I might find on the other side. “Why?”

“They started pumping fresh air into the passenger cabins as soon as they set down, but you weren’t in there and Isia’s air might hit you a little harder because of it.”

“I thought it was comparable to Earth’s air.” The urge to pull out my notebook, sit down on the floor and start asking Mary a million questions is strong . But now is not the time.

“Comparable, yes. Identical, no. Some women have better and worse reactions to it. You shouldn’t have a problem—I checked your sister’s records, she didn’t, and that’s the sort of thing that has been pretty normal across the board, between sisters, cousins, even mothers and daughters.”

“You’ve had mothers and daughters come here?”

“Yeah, several years ago, a woman in her late thirties came to start a second family. She’d had a teen pregnancy.”

I nod, because it’s not that uncommon.

“And her daughter qualified and came over just a few weeks ago. They are both very happily settled.” She smiles, but it feels a little stiff. “Unless they lied on their surveys.”

I don’t know why someone would, but before I can ask, Mary opens the hatch and my eyes go wide.

I’ve seen pictures, of course. But I’d always assumed those were oversaturated, or edited in one way or another, but no…

Today, the sky is a brilliant shade of purple and the mountains in the distance are a startling blue.

It’s the scenery that steals my breath, not the air itself.

I take hold of the platform railing as Mary closes the door behind us and drink in the colors.

“What a strange and wonderful place.”

“Isn’t it just?” Mary stops beside me, smiling out at the scenery. “I used to think I was going to miss Earth but I’ve grown to love this place more than I ever loved Washington.”

I don’t ask her if she means the state or DC, because someone clears their throat and I turn to look down the ramp at a Sian man glowering at us.

His skin is a deep and vibrant blue and his eyes are completely black. That’s not normal .

Mary straightens and pulls her blazer down. “I should have known you’d be the one to collect her.”

The man dips his head to her and I count the scars I can see on his skin.

He’s wearing something that reminds me of a wetsuit or the single-piece clothing that goes under a space suit in old sci-fi movies. The long coat he wears over it looks like it’s made of the same material, and when the wind makes it flutter, I clock the gun strapped to one thigh.

“Jessica, this is Drift,” Mary says once we make it to the bottom of the ramp. “Drift is the head of the Shadow Zone Brotherhood.”

“His reputation precedes him.”

Drift’s smile is momentary. “Her sister does not like me,” he says. “But, to be fair, I gave her plenty of reasons not to. So, I cannot blame her for it.”

Mary clears her throat and looks uncomfortable. “Yes, well. I’m remanding her into your care until you convey her to her hosts.”

She turns to me and smiles, so widely it feels like an assault. “Good luck,” she says, taking and squeezing my hand. “I have to go get those women to the men they were promised, but, like I said, call me for anything you need.”

When she releases me, there’s a small slip of transparent material in my hand, like vellum.

“Thank you, I will.”

I watch her hurry up the ramp and back into the ship as I slide that information into the front pocket of my bag.

“So,” I say, turning to look up at Drift. “What am I doing here? Because I have a feeling the part of the packet I didn’t have time to read has some need-to-know stuff that I don’t know yet.”

He nods and then gestures to the car. “We have a long drive ahead of us. I will tell you what I can as we go.”

I get into the car as he loads my suitcases in a compartment at the back. When he joins me, I glare at him until the top of the car is closed and we’re past the line of Sian men and human women who’ve just met and are headed off to bang it out.

“You said you’ll tell me what you can. Does that mean what you’re willing to?”

“I am not a scientist.”

So he’ll tell me what he knows.

That makes me feel a little less hostile.

“Okay. Tell me what you can.”

“We have a problem and there are no Sian scientists who want to deal with it.”

“Why not?”

“Because doing so would mean living on the edge of the caldera. And there is nothing fun or glamorous about what I’ve brought you here to do.”

“What you brought me here for…?”

“Yes. I petitioned our government and yours to have you, specifically, brought here to help with them.” He glances at me. “It helps that your sister is here and that you, too, have been trying to come here. I hope that your desire to be here will translate into a desire to help us while we help you.”

“What is the problem?”

“The cavrinskh.”

“I read that word in the packet notes.” I didn’t know it was pronounced like that. “What is it?”

“Laurel didn’t tell you about our monsters?”

“No.” I say the word slowly because, what the hell, Laurel. “She conveniently forgot to mention them.”

He nods. “She probably didn’t want you to worry.”

“Remind me to thank her for that omission when I see her.”

“The cavrinskh are technically the reason Laurel is here… the reason all of you are.”

“They’re what killed your female population?”

He nods again. “At least, that’s the story we’ve all been told. I’m hoping you can help us better understand them. One of the brotherhood has been studying them since we were posted here, but I’m afraid he’s hit a wall. And their behavior has changed. I don’t know how to explain any of it. Hopefully you will.”

“I’m only here for three months.”

“And if you haven’t found the answer before you leave, no one will blame you for it.”

I glare at him, because it feels like a guilt trip, and I don’t have a follow up to that. So, I ask him the other question that’s been tickling at the back of my mind.

“What’s with your eyes?”

“They are lenses. I see too much without them in.”

Again, I glare at him because I don’t have a follow up.

“Well then,” I say, sitting back and looking out at the icy walls to either side of us. “I guess I’ll just have to wait until my host can clear things up for me.”

We pull off the main road and into a cave shortly after, but as soon as my eyes adjust I find it’s man made. Smooth walls, doors… It’s a garage and one that looks military grade at that.

He stops the car, but he doesn’t turn it off. He doesn’t even go to the door. He just pulls out my suitcases and nods. “Good luck.”

“Thanks?”

Drift looks at me for a moment, and then toward the wall, as if he can see through it. “As a warning… If you want him, you have to keep him.”

He reaches up and pulls the car’s roof closed, then drives away, leaving me alone in a cold garage with more questions than I started with.

“What the hell is going on?”

TRENCH

The sensor went off a few minutes ago, but no one has come in.

Odd.

It’s not like any of the brothers to linger in the garage. I heard Drift talking with a woman, but the car leaves, and it’s silent now.

I’ll ask him what he wanted later.

A tone peals overhead and I look up at the ceiling, eyes narrowed.

It’s been so long since someone used the doorbell, it takes me a minute to register that’s what it is.

They never knock. They certainly wouldn’t ring the bell.

Stripping off my gloves, I toss them into the sanitizer and leave the cold room.

Whoever it is, they’re patient enough they don’t ring the bell again. When I open the door, all I can do is blink down at the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.

My brain short circuits for a moment as I inhale the scent of her. And I immediately shove the possessive thought away. Mine.

Definitely not mine.

But if I saw her at Margot’s, I’d pray to all the Saints that she walked my way.

The woman looks up at me with a cautious smile and pushes her glasses up her nose. “Hi.”

“Hello.”

“Your doorbell was really hard to find.” She’s holding a bag. There are two suitcases behind her. And no car to convey her swiftly back to wherever she came from.

“Um… I’m Jess.” She grimaces and sighs through an open mouth so I see her blunt teeth biting her tongue. “Did they not tell you I’d be here today?”

“Are you sure you’re in the right place?”

Her shoulder’s drop, puffy white coat rustling, and she pinches the bridge of her nose, lifting those glasses. “I swear to God if this is a practical joke… Can I at least come inside while we get this figured out?”

Of course, she’s cold, but I hesitate because the last woman who came into my outpost left it thinking I was the monster.

“Yes.” I say tentatively, mapping out the route that will keep her away from the half of my home that Suzette had likened to an abattoir.

Jess leaves her suitcases outside, and I move myself so I block the hall that would lead her to my workspace.

I hold my hand out toward the other end of the outpost. “You’ll be more comfortable through there.”

She nods, but she stares back at me over my shoulder as she walks. “Drift dropped me off here, so I don’t think I’m in the wrong place.”

Eyes narrowed, she looks me over. “Are you, or are you not, the brotherhood’s scientist?”

“I am not.” I’m their ghoul. “But I am the one who studies the cavrinskh.”

“Then this is where I’m supposed to be. Did he not tell you I was coming?”

I almost say no , but then I remember… Drift was working with his contacts to get someone who could help with the cavrinskh. He did not mention it would be a human woman.

“He failed to mention that it would be you, or that you would be here today.”

She mutters, “One more item on the list of reasons not to like him.”

It’s low enough I don’t think she intended for me to hear it, so I pretend that I didn’t.

“Well, I’m here, and I’m here to study all the things, so I guess you’re just going to have to get used to me.”

She may not feel that way for long.

A different woman’s sharp recriminations echo in my head as though they echo through the hall again.

She’d called me a monster in the room Jess and I step into. She’d thrown a knife at me before she’d calmed down.

“Holy cow,” Jess says, pulling me out of that memory as she sheds her coat and walks past everything else in the room, going straight to the wide windows. “I knew it was huge, but I didn’t realize… How many of you patrol it?”

“Sixteen.”

“So few?” She goes quiet and I watch her scan the blue valley between the caldera rims.

It gives me a moment to let my gaze wander over her.

I’ll remember her standing at that window when she’s gone.

She’ll haunt me just like Suzette does.

She turns back to me, her eyes wide with wonder.

I’ll remember that too.

This time, she glances around my living space and her scrutiny lands on different places within the rooms. Her brows pinch. “You’re not bonded.”

“I am not. Will that be a problem for you or your bondmate?”

Lips pursed, she fidgets. “I don’t know if it’s going to be a problem for me, but I’m not bonded either.”

“Oh.” Oh no . My mind supplies the possibilities, and my cock twitches. I take a deep breath and shove those thoughts away. She is not mine.

Next time, you’ll have to claim her before she can run away.

Arc’s advice after my disastrous pairing rings in my mind. But that would be a very bad idea.

Jess—thank the Saints—didn’t have to be party to any of that.

“I’m here for three months.” She takes a breath and exhales it slowly. “And then I’m going back to Earth.”

“I see.” Three months of abject torture.

I tell myself this need will fade. She will become nothing more than a colleague and temporary roommate. Perhaps a friend.

“I think I should show you where I work and you can tell me if you’d rather stay with Drift and his mate, or Richt—”

“I am not staying with Richter and Laurel.” She shudders. “I love her, but I do not want to accidentally walk in on them doing it, and I definitely don’t want to be in the way after she’s had the baby.”

I had not expected that kind of reaction. “You are friends?”

“Right, they didn’t tell you anything . Laurel is my little sister.”

I tip my head to the side and retrace the lines of her face. “I see the resemblance now, though I would not have guessed it on my own.” I almost tell her there’s “something about her chin,” but she wouldn’t understand that it was a joke, so I don’t.

“Richter’s outpost is the closest, but Drift and Kimba’s is not too far…”

“No, I…” she takes a deep breath and again mutters under her breath, “I can behave myself.”

That sparks interest, but I can’t let my curiosity get the better of me.

“I think it’s best if I stay here. I work weird hours, so it will be better if I have access to things when I need them, instead of just when I’m here.”

I nod. But I’m still not certain she’s going to want to be here once I show her the rest of this level.

“Is the Earth expression ‘tear the bandage off’?”

“Is it that bad?”

I shrug, because the answer is probably yes. “I am desensitized to the horrors of this place.”

That does make her balk, but not for long. “Okay… lead the way.”

We go back the way we came.

The lab takes up sixty percent of this level, but it is completely cut off from the living spaces, save for this hall.

We pass through the sanitizing field and she scrubs at her arms and legs. “That’s going to take some getting used to.”

“It keeps contaminants out and specimen pieces in.”

“They’re not alive, are they?”

“No, I meant things you might track out: blood, hair, spines, the like.”

She nods. “Gotcha.”

The lights are brighter here—to counteract the lack of windows—and she looks at everything .

She looks at the roll-up door and then to me.

“Access from the garage, so I don’t have to haul carcasses in through the hall.” I tell her.

She hums something that sounds like approval and continues her perusal.

It’s clean. There are no parts left out to rot.

There’s a half-dissected cavrinskh visible in the cold room. And though her mouth twists in a grimace, she doesn’t step away from it.

“This is not as bad as you made it out to seem.” She looks up at me. “Don’t get me wrong, it is definitely the kind of place to inspire nightmares, but… studying monsters is a monstrous business, right?”

“It is.” Thank the Saints she understands that.

The tightness in my chest loosens as she steps through the second sanitizing field and over the threshold into the cold room.

Her breath mists and she tucks her hands inside the sleeves of her pale orange sweater, so I quickly explain. “Samples decay rapidly. That’s why it’s so cold in here.”

“That makes sense.”

She walks slowly between the tables, looking at the pieces of them I’ve recovered, taking a peek at the microscope with my latest slice. “What is your disposal system like? It feels like you’re far enough out here that you don’t have normal trash pick up, much less biohazard collection.”

“That is in another part of the facility.”

It’s the reason I was given this outpost to convert into my workspace.

We step back out and I hold the door on the other end open for her as she hurries out, rubbing at her arms. “I will get you insulated clothing for when you are in there.”

“Thanks. They told me to bring cold weather gear, but it’s puffy and cumbersome.”

She follows me through, walking down the steps that lead to the deepest part of my outpost. The closer we get, the hotter it gets. “Laur said these outposts were heated by thermal pools.”

“Yes. Mine is a little different though.”

“Different how?”

I pull a heat glove off the wall and drag the hatch open. Jess wrinkles her nose, and I don’t blame her.

“Sulfur?”

“Be careful. Don’t get close to the edge.”

“Is this…” She gasps and gets a little too close for my comfort, so I take hold of her arm. I shouldn’t have.

Keeping her safe means I know the feel of her skin. She looks at my hand and then up at me, her eyes wide, the red glow of the pit painting strange shadows on her skin.

“You have an open lava pit in your home?”

It’s a question that doesn’t require an answer, but I nod anyway. Maybe this is what will change her mind.

She looks back at me with a smile that should probably scare me. “That’s so cool.”