Kit Rocha's Blog

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Callie had never been this nervous.

She paced from one side of her studio to the other, rubbing at the goosebumps that rose on her bare arms. She had everything in place–easels, pads, pencils. Chairs and drapes. Even a small cooler she’d begged off of Sally in the kitchen, full of drinks and sandwiches and the last of the hand pies made from their tiny berry harvest.

This was her favorite part of the process, chasing the spark of inspiration until it caught fire and bloomed in her imagination. It was fascinating, and it was fun.

So why was she freaking out?

A soft knock on the edge of the door startled her. She had to laugh at herself for being so jumpy, though the laugh died in her throat when she turned.

Sebastian was standing in the open doorway, backlit by the sun, waiting to be invited in.

Her nerves drowned under a wave of anticipation so sharp it sucked the breath right out of her lungs. “Come in. Take a look around.”

He moved slowly across the threshold, his gaze sweeping the room like he was mentally clearing it of dangers. He lingered for a moment on the wall of proudly displayed finger paintings, and again on a row of still lifes painted by some of the more talented advanced students.

Finally, his gaze settled on her. “Where do you need me?”

“Well…” She indicated the sagging couch along one wall. “You can have a seat for now. We have some things to discuss. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m fine.” He moved to the couch and sat on the edge, his elbows resting on his knees, his entire body still coiled as if he might lunge at any second. But he didn’t move, his very stillness unnatural as he studied her.

And waited.

She sat as well, mirroring his posture. “First of all, thank you for agreeing to do this. It often surprises people, how exhausting it is just to sit. If you get tired, please do tell me. I don’t want you suffering on my account.”

His lips twitched. Just a little. “I am sure I’ll be okay.”

She got the sense that any other man would have openly laughed. But instead of feeling self-conscious, she felt her lips curving in an answering almost-smile. “Fair enough. First real point of business: your incognito status. I know I said I wouldn’t draw your face–and I won’t, if you don’t want me to. But I’d like to, even if it means destroying the sketches at the end of each session.”

Another pause. His gaze drifted to the childish finger paintings again. “May I ask a question?”

Callie had expected a silent nod of acknowledgment, or perhaps a single syllable of denial. Eager to hear his question–a freely offered one, at that–she leaned forward. “Of course.”

He gestured to the children’s work. “Art lessons seem out of character for what I’ve seen of Six. Is this something you talked her into doing?”

“It took a little persuasion,” Callie admitted. “But by Ace–Alexander Santana–not by me. Though all he did was tell her the truth. People need different things, and some of the kids need…this.” She nodded toward the displayed art. “Six understands that.”

“What do they get out of it?” he asked, his tone one of genuine curiosity rather than challenge.

“That depends on the kid. For most, it’s fun. Others frankly don’t like it at all. But for just a few, it’s like breathing.” She met Sebastian’s gaze. “Art will save their lives.”

“It’s that important?”

“It can be.”

After a moment’s thought, he inclined his head. “You can sketch my face. But you shouldn’t display it. For your own safety.”

“I don’t plan to display any of this. You have my word.”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Thank you.” She pushed ahead. “How do you feel about nudity?”

That earned her a raised brow. “I can take my shirt off, if that’s helpful. More seems…inadvisable.”

Callie couldn’t resist. “In what way?” she asked innocently.

He just stared at her. “I am not Ashwin, you know. I can tell when I’m being teased.”

She almost managed not to smile, but she couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, nothing more.” She sobered. “Sometimes, when it comes to positioning, it helps if I can physically move you instead of giving instructions. Will that be all right?”

This time the pause was longer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’m in an unfamiliar place, I have instinctive responses and…” His jaw tightened, and he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. “Maybe not this first time? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her chest ached. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she repeated. “Nothing more.” Then she rose. “Shall we begin? The light is beautiful right now.”

Sebastian rose easily, his hands already reaching for the hem of his dark T-shirt. “Where should I sit?”

Callie hurried to pull a stool into a wash of light streaming through a window. “I think this would be a good spot to…” The words died as she turned and caught sight of his bare chest.

He had scars. Not the ridged and puckered kind the people of Sector Three usually bore, remnants of knife fights in dark alleys and stray gunshot wounds. His were small, almost regimented. Surgical in their precision and in their healing, except there was no rhyme or reason to their placement–

Almost no rhyme or reason. They were all located in highly innervated spots. Places that would hurt.

She knew she was staring. But, to her absolute horror, she couldn’t stop. “What did they do to you?”

“They wanted me to stop feeling,” he said without emotion. As if it mattered little. “So they hurt me.”

That never works. Callie blinked away the tears that welled, burning her eyes. She swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m sorry. I…know what that’s like.”

His muscles tensed, rigid like steel beneath his scarred skin. “I’m sorry.”

She started to ask him why he would be sorry when he hadn’t been the one to hurt her. Then she realized he was only echoing her own apology.

“It’s in the past,” she said instead, then patted the stool. “Ready?”

Sebastian moved fluidly to perch on the stool. He rested there, his hands lax on his thighs, his expression still tense. “If you need to position me the first time, I’m ready.”

“No, that’s okay.” Callie picked up one of her sketch pads and went back to the couch. She curled up on it, her legs tucked beneath her, and touched the pencil to the paper’s slightly rough surface. “If you want to ask me things about Sector Three, go ahead. Quid pro quo, right?”

One of his fingers tapped against his thigh. “Tell me about the other teachers,” he said finally.

Callie quickly sketched the slight quirk of his brow. “What would you like to know?”

“You’re not all from Three.” That definitely wasn’t a question. “The history teacher…”

“Leah,” she supplied. “She’s from Sector Two. Like me.”

His gaze flicked toward her for a heartbeat. “But not the same house,” he said. “You don’t have the same training.”

The pencil tip jerked slightly, and Callie smoothed away the smudge. “No, we don’t. Leah was an Orchid. I was a Dahlia. Entirely different….specialties, if you will.”

“Hers included combat.” His finger jumped again, before he flexed his hand and seemed to intentionally still himself. “The woman who leads Sector Four. She was an Orchid too?”

“Lex.” Callie smiled. “Lex is famous–or infamous. My advice?” She arched an eyebrow, subtly mimicking his expression. “Never cross an Orchid.”

His lips shifted almost imperceptibly. “I wouldn’t have underestimated her. Or the one who does the scavenging runs. River.”

“River is Sector Three, through and through.” Callie did two quick studies–the angle of his jaw, and the slope of his shoulder into his upper arm. “She’s a good person. Honest to a fault, and shockingly generous. But she doesn’t trust easily. And if you betray her trust, it’s all over for you. Maybe literally.”

“Few trust easily in the Sectors, from what I’ve observed,” he murmured. “It’s rarely advisable.”

“I won’t argue with that.” Callie outlined the angles of his collarbones. “Have you met Blue?”

“Bren pointed her out, but I haven’t spoken to her.” He hesitated. “She seemed…”

“Innocent? Sweet?” Callie looked up to meet his gaze. “Dangerously so, on both counts?”

“Vulnerable,” he said after a moment. “It’s not something many of us have been allowed to be.”

Out of everyone at the school, Callie understood Blue the best. She recognized the other woman’s determination, even when others misinterpreted it as naivete or ignorance.

“You’ve got it all wrong.” Callie tipped the pad up and rested her chin on it. “No one allowed Blue to be vulnerable. It’s gotten her hurt in the past, and it will get her hurt again. But if she lets that pain change her, harden her, wouldn’t that mean they won?”

Sebastian’s gaze locked on her face, and then, after an endless moment, he inclined his head. “I see the distinction.”

His eyes really were remarkable. As deep and dark as the ocean, sharper than any knife. She stared back at him, willing herself to commit them to memory, though she wasn’t sure when she’d be confident enough to try and put them to paper.

The longer she stared, the harder her heart thumped. Finally, when she was sure he’d be able to hear it, she broke away and went back to her sketches.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Blue’s favorite time was when she had the greenhouse to herself.

She liked the kids, of course. Little ones always loved playing in the dirt, and the older ones tended to treat her like a respected but cool older sister, which was a nice change of pace. Most of the time, people treated her like a nuisance.

It wasn’t that she was particularly annoying–at least, she hoped not. But she was young, and in Sector Three, that was sometimes worse.

It wasn’t even her chronological age that did it. People saw her as young because she was, admittedly, naive. Though an orphan like so many others, Blue had fallen in with a slightly older, harder crowd of kids who had both treasured and envied her innocence. They’d fought hard to shelter her, like nurturing a plant that had sprouted in barren soil. As long as she kept her optimism, it meant there was hope for them all.

Unfortunately, not many folks in Sector Three believed in optimism. It was no better than a fairy tale, a concept for children to outgrow. When they didn’t, it meant they weren’t smart enough to understand reality. And they treated those poor, silly, sunny souls accordingly–like children.

Which was why Blue liked to be alone in the greenhouse. There was no one around to pity her, plus she got to witness that miracle all over again, with the kids and the plants. This time, she got to nurture things until they grew.

“What about kale?”

Of course, the next best thing to being alone in the greenhouse was hanging out with people who didn’t think she was a) silly, or b) a child. Like Hawk and Jeni, who had the greenest thumbs imaginable, and would hop over from Four to help her sometimes.

Hawk had grown up in Sector Six, where huge farms dotted the landscape. They’d been largely destroyed during the war with Eden, but people were starting to flood back in and rebuild. Jeni, on the other hand, had grown up in the city, but she knew so many things that sometimes it made Blue’s head spin.

This time, however, she knew where Jeni was going. “Kale would be good for winter,” she agreed. “We don’t have to plant it in the greenhouse. We could put it in the boxes we’re building outside, and keep this space for more delicate crops.”

“We figured out a lot about conserving space from the roof gardens in Four,” Hawk said, his gaze still studying the unused space. “I know you want the basics, but what are your big dreams?”

He said the word without judgment, without scorn. Blue smiled. “To grow everything the school needs, plus some. There are so many things we could teach the kids then–cooking and preserving food, even how to sell things. We could start a market like the one you have in Four.”

Hawk exchanged a look with Jeni, then nodded. “Strawberries,” he said. “One of my brothers has been cultivating seedlings. They’ll grow in towers and make great jam. Concord grapes, too. Those could go on trellises outside, they’re hardy.”

“Jams and jellies,” Jeni agreed. “Can’t go wrong with small luxuries in a market. Have you thought about livestock?”

“We have some. Six hates it, but chickens only make sense. They don’t take up much room, they’ll eat anything, we can compost the shit for free fertilizer, and eggs.” Blue bit her lip. Six didn’t like farm animals, so she’d been hesitant to share her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about converting one of the abandoned buildings to a barn. We could have more chickens, and maybe even some goats.”

“Goats,” Hawk agreed immediately. “The Reyes family has been trying to offload some of their animals to focus on horses and cattle. You could get them at a steal. But Six might dig her heels in.”

She probably would, but she’d eventually give in. Six’s bad memories of growing up on a farm wouldn’t stop her from doing what was best for the school. “I’ll mention it to her. Do you have diagrams for the towers and boxes?”

“I’ve got something better.” He pulled one of the new folding tablets out of his pocket and snapped it open, revealing a wide screen. “Mia in Sector Eight decided the rooftop gardens were too good an idea to waste. She and Noah did some computer wizardry and made this.”

As she watched, Hawk input the size of the greenhouse and then tapped his fingers over the screen. “It lets you plan out what sort of structures you want and then exports a list of required resources and building instructions.” He held the tablet out to her.

There was some text on the program, but the interface mainly consisted of images and symbols.

Blue swallowed hard. She could read…sort of. Her education had been as haphazard as everyone else’s in the sector. Her grandmother had raised her, and she’d spent most of her time teaching Blue about plants–what would grow and when, and under what conditions. How to look at them and tell what they needed to thrive. It was the only education she’d had to pass on, so she had.

After her death, Blue had relied on the other kids in her gang to teach her things. One girl had been smart–so smart, maybe even smarter than Six. She’d told Blue that she needed to be able to read, at least a little. Enough to tell safety from danger.

But this program managed to be understandable, even without words. Just knowing there was someone out there, in a whole other sector, thinking about how people might need something like this? It made her throat ache.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “I’ll go over it with River. She’ll be scavenging as many of the materials as she can.”

“Let us know if you come up short on anything.” Hawk’s sudden smile transformed his usually serious face. “Trust me, I know how cranky Sally gets when her supplies are subpar.”

“Thanks, Hawk.” She threw her arms around him for an impulsive hug, then turned and hugged Jeni, as well, mindful of the swell of her pregnant belly. “You guys are the best.”

“Let us know if you need any help with labor, too,” Jeni urged. “We’ll load up a bunch of strapping O’Kanes and drop them at your feet.”

Blue laughed. “Don’t, you’ll make me swoon.”

“Hey.” Jeni sobered. “There’s always a place for you in Four. Dallas said so himself.”

It was tempting, Blue had to admit that. Just like it was tempting to settle in One, or Five, or any of the other sectors that had subtly, respectfully offered to set her up. It would be a fresh start, a chance to be someone new.

But there was no outrunning the past. It would always be part of her, no matter where she went. Besides, Three was her home, and Six needed her. The kids needed her. “Thanks, but I’m staying put. We have a lot of work to do right here.”

“Understood. Remember what I said about the extra hands, though.”

“I will.”

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

The solar panels on the roof of Six’s main school building were a disgrace.

No, they were an insult to disgraces.

At some point, Sebastian supposed these would have been considered cutting edge. After all, Eden and the Sectors had originally been envisioned as the city of the future. It had been constructed by experts in the field of self-contained renewable communities. Eden had been designed to be self-sufficient and sustainable for generations.

Whoever had installed this solar array probably hadn’t reckoned with the Sector being firebombed and then left to decay under the ravages of the weather, time, and neglect. A set-up like this should have produced enough power to power a city block. Now it wasn’t even keeping the building going.

Someone had wired a truly horrifying hacked together biofuel generator into the building’s power supply to make up the difference. It spat ugly smoke and smelled vaguely of the garbage that had been recycled into the fuel that ran it. It offended Sebastian even more than the truck engine had.

And Six was proud of it. Probably because this was the best her empire had.

Sector Three was a heartbreaking mess. Crumbling at the edges, held together with grit and stubborn hope and pride. They refused to admit they were all but broken.

They didn’t have to be. He could help.

He wanted to help.

The roof access door opened, hollow metal scraping over the patchy tar. “Hello?”

Sebastian turned, his entire body tensing at the unfamiliar voice, and found himself facing the young woman who’d been sitting with River and Six at breakfast.

She seemed an unlikely threat. Of middling height, her soft curves and sweet expression stood out in a Sector that seemed full of hard-edged, wary predators. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and her flowered sundress revealed pale skin freckled by the sun. A tiny streak of blue rested high on one cheekbone, and the hands clutching a picnic basket in front of her had nails with paint embedded underneath them.

So. This was the artist. “Hello.”

“Hi.” She stared at him, her body stone still and her eyes roving over his face.

And this was why he hadn’t wanted to meet her. As guileless as those brown eyes were, there was something about the way she was looking at him that set his instincts on high alert. His entire life had been a life-or-death struggle to hide the unacceptable parts of him.

Being seen was intensely uncomfortable.

The silence dragged on until he cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

That broke the spell. She shook her head a little and surged forward, one hand outstretched. “Sorry. I’m Callie. I teach here.”

He stared at her hand. His fingers itched. Did his promise to Bren extend to engaging in social rituals? No doubt if he asked, they’d reassure him that he could draw whatever boundaries he wished. Everyone here was positively frantic to protect him. Even the tiny children.

His pride finally pushed to the breaking point, he ignored his unease and reached out to clasp her hand. Her fingers were warm in his, smaller than his own but surprisingly strong. Her skin was soft, but she had calluses on her ring finger and thumb.

Definitely the artist.

His skin buzzed where they touched, but he ignored it. He was good at ignoring things. “I’m Sebastian. Bast.”

“From the Base, I know. You weren’t at lunch, and Bren said you were working on the power, so I brought you a basket. I thought you might be–” Her breath caught, staunching the flow of her words. “You’re beautiful.”

Sebastian blinked. “Excuse me?”

She blinked as well. “What? No, I mean… You… I’m an artist, and your face…” She sighed. “Your face is art.”

Sebastian quite literally did not know what to say. He stood with his hand still extended, grasping hers, utterly at a loss for words.

She relaxed, as if speaking had opened a pressure valve. Her smile was brilliant as she released his hand and lifted the basket. “Can we talk while we eat?”

He thought, briefly, about turning her down. But the earnest brightness in her eyes felt like something rare and precious. He didn’t particularly enjoy crushing people’s joy–much to the Base’s chagrin–and he was hungry. Eating was rational. Sharing the meal was a fulfilment of his obligation to Bren.

Such clever rationalizations. It appeared even he was vulnerable to having people say nice things to him.

Moving slowly, he unbuckled the heavy tool belt from his hips. “Thank you for bringing me lunch.”

“It’s my pleasure.” She ducked beneath the tattered awning that had been set up adjacent to the roof stairwell enclosure.

There was a table there–for breaks, he assumed. Callie set the basket on one of the rickety folding chairs and pulled out a tablecloth, which she unfurled over the rough stone surface.

She made quick work of unpacking the rest of the basket, then stood there, her hands on her hips, and surveyed the spread. “Just sandwiches, but I snagged an extra bottle of lemonade and some coffee.”

“Sandwiches are good.” He picked up a towel and scrubbed it over his hands, though he had grease as deeply embedded under his fingernails as the paint was hers. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I’d like to hire you.”

He hesitated with one hand on the back of the second chair, confused again. “If you need something fixed, it’s not necessary to hire me. I’m here to help.”

“Not for that.” She sat and primly unfolded a napkin across her lap. “As a model.”

His fingers clenched around the flimsy chair. The metal bent slightly under his grip. He’d been demoted from terrifying monster to purely decorative over the span of thirty-six incredibly baffling hours.

“You want a model,” he said flatly. “Do you know what I am?”

“Of course. You’re Sebastian Montoya.” She opened one container and looked up at him. “Green beans?”

Bren and Six were warriors to their fingernails. River was clearly a survivor, and dangerous in her own right. And the child this morning hadn’t known the kind of beast she was poking.

But Callie did. She sat there, sweet-faced and utterly earnest, staring up at him like he wasn’t strong enough to bend metal with his bare hands and trained to do the same to human necks without feeling or regret.

Only he didn’t find it quirky this time. Or odd. Or mildly irritating or reluctantly amusing. Her vulnerability enraged him. She shouldn’t put herself at risk like this. She shouldn’t trust him.

Bracing one hand on the table, he bent down until his face was even with hers. “Men like me are dangerous,” he said softly. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. But if you approached another Makhai soldier like this, you likely wouldn’t survive the experience. Tell me you won’t.”

Her smile softened into something almost sad. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. I know all about dangerous men. But you do have my word–I won’t approach any other Makhai soldiers.”

It didn’t soothe him. If anything, the sadness in her eyes made the itching under his skin worse. And that resigned tone of voice, the echo of pain. Soft, almost hidden…but it had been hidden on the Base, too. Sebastian had manufactured the reassignment–and eventual rescue–of more than one domestic handler assigned to his colder Makhai brothers.

Callie was likely from Sector Two. It was unlikely the men there presented the same kind of physical threat as a Makhai soldier, but there were many ways to abuse power. So many ways to hurt people.

Swallowing the need to extract a name from her, he slid into the chair and made a peace offering. “I like green beans.”

Her smile returned, clear and brighter than ever, unencumbered by pain. She served the plates and passed him a wrapped bundle of cutlery. “I understand if you’d rather not make any firm commitments, or if the idea of being paid for something like that…” She trailed off, then cleared her throat. “You could do it as a favor to me, and I would owe you one. Or several.”

Making her smile felt better. He parted his lips to agree, just to do it again, but his brain caught up. “I’m a man who isn’t supposed to exist. It might be best if my face isn’t displayed publicly. And safer for you, after I’m gone.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Callie bit her lower lip, then reached across the table, her hand stopping just shy of his. “I’ll work around it. If you don’t want your face to be visible, I’ll do profiles, or maybe shadows. And I’ll swear to you right now, up front, that everything will remain private. No one but us ever has to see it. No one else even has to know.”

Her fingers were too close. He could feel them, even though she wasn’t touching him. At least he had regained enough self-control not to show it by jerking his hand away. He held himself perfectly still and considered her offer.

It seemed harmless. It would clearly ingratiate him to her, and undoubtedly please Bren and Six. But more importantly, if she was from Sector Two…

The irrationality of the people in this sector was threatening to succeed where the Base had failed. If he couldn’t find a way to understand them, he really would crack. Surely a woman trained to understand people–the woman who had created the art in his room with such naked clarity of vision–could explain the people here to him.

“Not a favor,” he said firmly. “An exchange.”

She opened her mouth, and he could see the eager agreement she hadn’t yet voiced. Then she stopped, arched one eyebrow, and eyed him with something approaching skepticism. “What do you want?”

“Information.” He settled back in his chair, sliding his hand from hers. “I don’t understand the culture or people here. I don’t know how to contextualize their behavior. I suspect you do.”

“I’m not from here,” she told him dubiously, “and I’m not sure how much contextualization has to happen. People in Three tend to pretty much say what they mean.”

“I’m interested in your insight regardless. Especially as someone not from here.”

Callie took a deep breath and released it on a small sigh, her shoulders falling. “Honestly? This doesn’t seem fair to you. I’m asking for literal hours of your free time, and you only…want me to tell you what the people here are like?”

Sebastian nodded. “I asked for what I wanted. You can accept or decline.”

“I accept,” she said quickly, her hurry melting into a rueful smile. “I don’t approve, but I accept.”

He caught her gaze and held it, stifling another surge of irritation at her sincere lack of self-preservation. “One thing you can always trust is that a Makhai soldier knows how to look out for their own interests. You should be more suspicious.”

She just nodded politely, smiled again, and took a bite of her sandwich.

He could have proved his point. Risen from this chair and snapped the stone table in half with his bare hands, or any number of intimidating displays of his genetically enhanced danger. He suspected at this point that it would only earn him a disapproving look, like a school child who’d decided to misbehave.

Whatever else the people of this sector were, they were certainly survivors.

And Sebastian was no bully. Destruction for the sake of intimidation was–

pain. fire in his veins.

–wrong.

He swallowed down the nausea that always came with challenging their attempts at recalibration, and reached for one of the sandwiches. It was simple but good, made from fresh ingredients. His appetite was slowly returning. Surely that was a good sign.

Maybe he wasn’t entirely broken.

“Lucky you, you get a head start.”

“A head start?”

“Yes.” She rewrapped half her sandwich and braced her elbows on the table. “Ask me anything.”

He considered for a moment. He wanted to ask about her–and about who might have put that shadow of pain in her eyes, so he could find them and remove from them the capacity to repeat the experience–but it felt too revealing and too raw. So he asked something safe. “Tell me about Bren and Six.”

“Six is local. She had a difficult time under the last sector leader, Wilson Trent. He hurt her. She spent some time over in Four with the O’Kanes, and now she’s back, running the place.” Callie retrieved one of the bottles of lemonade and tilted it back and forth, a slow-motion agitation. “She has a plan to rebuild–I’m guessing that’s where you come in. But nothing is more important to her than this school.” She shrugged. “I don’t know as much about Bren. He’s from Eden, got booted from Special Tasks, then fell in with O’Kane over in Four. That’s how he and Six met. But sometimes…” She hesitated. “Sometimes, I get the feeling his background isn’t so different from Six’s. He’s got the same street-kid air as some of the others. It’s sad.”

“Is that why they’re spending so much time on the school?”

Callie’s gaze sharpened, filled with appraisal as she studied him. “I think so, yes.”

“It’s questionable strategically,” he explained, in response to her look. “The resources she’s put into this could have already rebuilt their manufacturing capacity. Given the rebuilding going on in multiple sectors, that would be the quickest way to achieve financial independence. That’s the way people are trained to think on the Base. Resources first, people second.”

“How very short-sighted of them.”

“Mmm.” He finished his sandwich and washed it down with a sip of tart lemonade. Six and Bren could be investing in the future of their Sector–an educated work force would be able to produce at a far superior level. But Sebastian suspected their motivations had been more personal.

More irrational.

He finished the lemonade and exhaled, bracing himself for the question he had to ask. “When would you like me to sit for you?”

She bit her lower lip. “Tomorrow afternoon? I’m free after two.”

During daylight. That felt safer, somehow. Perhaps the intimacy of being alone, under her too-observant gaze, would be somewhat blunted by fierce sunlight. “I should be available, as long as I can fix these solar panels today.”

“If you need to change it, just let me know.” She rose and began to efficiently gather the remains of their lunch. “You’re the one doing me the favor. I’ll rearrange my schedule, if I have to.”

What were you supposed to say to end a conversation like this? He’d had so few, nothing felt natural. His chair almost collapsed under him as he shoved it back, and he rose swiftly and found himself hovering, unsure if he should help clean up.

Enough.

Enough.

He might not be conversant in pretty manners, but he was a grown man who’d navigated far more treacherous waters than this. He’d survived and even sometimes thrived on a Base that wanted to destroy the essence of who he was.

He would not be skittish around one small, harmless artist.

Clearing his throat, he moved to hoist his tool belt. “I’ll make the schedule work. Tomorrow, at two. Where should I meet you?”

“I have a studio next door to the greenhouse–upstairs.” Her smile turned shy as she handed him two extra bottles of the lemonade. “I’ll see you then.”

She vanished through the door, taking her brightly colored sundress and pretty picnic basket with her. The roof seemed sadder and grayer than before, somehow. The grimy solar panels more desperate, the sputtering generator more neglected.

That was dangerous. He’d started ascribing moods to inanimate objects.

Feelings were truly insidious.

He set both bottles of lemonade down on the sad little stone table and turned his back deliberately on them. Then he buckled on his work belt and told himself that his determination to finish rewiring the solar panels tonight was about getting this building back on efficient power, and nothing else.

Lying to himself was insidious, too.

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

“River’s holding out on us.” Blue thumped her mug of tea down on the teachers’ table in the courtyard. “You’re holding out on us.”

River glared over the rim of her coffee, still looking cranky at being out in the early morning sun. She always looked cranky before her second cup of coffee. “What am I holding out on you about this time?”

“The new guy, obviously.”

Callie looked up from pushing her eggs around her plate. As far as she knew, Sector Three’s newest arrival had been keeping a low profile so far. “You’ve already met him?”

“Oh, that.” River reached out to snag a donut. “Yeah, I spent a few hours with him last night. You should have seen the shit he was doing. He built a solar battery for my truck out of spit and prayers, and converted my engine to run on it. I don’t even think half of what he did is possible, but she runs like a dream now.”

“He fixed your truck already?” No wonder Six and Bren had opened their doors so readily, despite the supposed danger.

Blue rolled her eyes. “Forget about the truck. We want details.”

Speak for yourself. Callie didn’t say it aloud, of course, which was good, because she immediately regretted her momentary irritation. She was well enough acquainted with Blue to know there was nothing mean-spirited or small about her request for gossip. She was simply curious about their new, apparently brilliant colleague, and there was nothing wrong with that.

“Eh, Six wasn’t lying. He’s jumpy as hell.” River snorted. “Almost brained me with a wrench because I startled him. Make lots of noise if you’re coming up on him, I guess. He’s one of those.”

Blue grinned and reached across the table to nudge River’s arm. “You’re one of those.” Then she arched one eyebrow. “Is he cute?”

Callie stifled a sigh.

“Well, I can’t ask Six,” Blue protested. “You know she only finds Bren attractive.”

“So she finds one man attractive. She’s still ahead of me.” River finished her coffee and reached for the pot to refill her mug. “I mean, he’s a genetically engineered killing machine, Blue. He looks like what you’d get if you built a dude to be big and strong and deadly. I wouldn’t fuck with him in a dark alley.”

“Okay, but would I fu–”

“Have you tried the croissants yet?” Callie picked up the tray and held it out in front of Blue. “I think Kaz has just about perfected his technique. They’re just like the ones the cook used to bake at the House.”

Blue peered down at the tray, her eyes gleaming. “Really? That fancy?”

“Nothing fancy,” Callie countered. “Just flawless technique. Buttery, flaky technique.”

It worked. There was one thing Blue loved more than anything else–more than working in the greenhouse, more than leather boots, more than men.

“Carbs,” she purred, wiggling her fingers over the tray.

Leah passed by the table, then paused at the end of it with a frown. “Don’t you have an early class that started a few minutes ago?”

Blue glanced at her watch, then squeaked and grabbed two croissants. “To be continued!” she called over her shoulder as she rushed off. “I mean it!”

River eyed the croissants with suspicion before transferring the same look to Leah. “So you care about the times classes start and end suddenly?”

Leah gazed back at her with an expression that somehow managed to be innocent and amused, all at once. “Of course I do.”

“Uh-huh. Remember that next time you’re having a dance party.”

Leah’s gentle, vague smile didn’t waver as she spun around, her gauzy skirt swinging in a perfect arc around her, and walked away.

Her eggs were getting cold, but Callie took another bite anyway. Anything to avoid watching River watch Leah. “When you were growing up, were there dangerous people in Three? People everyone knew not to mess with?”

“Sure.” River made an amused noise. “Most of them are dead now, thank God.”

“We had them in Sector Two, as well. They were called Orchids.” No hint of recognition, so Callie tilted her head. “Leah was one.”

River choked on her coffee. “You’re shitting me.”

Her surprise was almost comical. Just because Leah draped herself in flowing pastels and wore her shining blonde hair in artfully artless curls around her face, River thought she was soft. Worse, she thought she was weak.

River had fallen for the age-old trap that Orchids represented–with such pretty wrapping on a potentially lethal gift, almost no one bothered to peek beneath the paper until it was too late.

“I would never shit you,” Callie told her solemnly. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she’s a bad person. But when you look at her…”

“You see exactly what she wants you to see,” a voice said from next to them. Six swung a chair around at the head of the table and straddled it. “You of all people should know better than to underestimate someone based on how they look.”

River shoved the coffee pot toward Six, still looking rebellious. “You’re telling me the princess in the flouncy skirt who’s clearly never broken a nail is a stone cold killer of men?”

“I didn’t say that.” Six flipped over a mug and poured herself some coffee. “All the Orchids I know are pretty equal opportunity. Though I guess Jyoti isn’t technically an Orchid, is she?”

Callie pushed her plate away. “Jyoti trained at Rose House.”

River’s brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”

Roses were trained to be hostesses and entertainment, estate managers and concubines. “It means perfection. I was a Dahlia. I had it easy. All I had to do was fake innocence.”

Except it hadn’t all been fake. The men of Sector Two had been cunning predators, creatures who could scent artifice from miles away. The only way to survive in Two, much less thrive, was to live the lie. You had to become the very thing they expected, wanted.

At least until you couldn’t do it anymore.

Six reached out to squeeze Callie’s hand briefly. Then she pinned River with a look. “Callie warned you. If you keep poking at Leah, don’t be surprised if she pokes back with a knife.”

“Hey, at least that’d make her interesting,” River said lightly. Then she grabbed a croissant and pointedly changed the subject. “Everyone wants to know if Sebastian’s hot,” she informed Six, gesturing with the pastry to the table where the newcomer had just taken a seat with Bren. “Pretty sure Blue’s going to fall in love with him. He seems like her level of brooding loner.”

“Blue’s smarter than that,” Callie said automatically, purely to distract herself from looking, but it didn’t work. Her gaze skipped across the distance between the tables, and she froze.

She had no idea what she’d expected. Perhaps big and strong and deadly, all the words River had used to describe him. They were apt, no doubt about that. He was obviously a trained soldier, a warrior. But he was also…

Beautiful. The word echoed through Callie’s soul. His face was finely carved, his features bold but still refined. It was a face meant to be rendered by the masters, outlined with aged oils and gazed upon with rhapsodic ecstasy.

Her fingers itched for a pencil, a piece of charcoal, even a fucking crayon or tube of lipstick. Anything she could put to paper at that very moment.

“Okay,” River murmured. “Callie thinks he’s hot.”

He wasn’t hot. He was art. Callie opened her mouth, the denial hovering on her tongue. Then, across the courtyard, Sebastian turned his head, his dark gaze locking with hers.

She forgot to breathe. It shouldn’t have been possible. The autonomic nervous system governed respiration, and looking into a pair of bottomless, magnetic eyes couldn’t change that.

But she forgot to breathe.

Six’s fingers tightened on Callie’s again. “Don’t forget he’s a Makhai soldier. They’re not exactly cuddly.”

As if she gave a damn. “Do you think he’d sit for me?”

“What, like naked?” River asked.

Her cheeks heated, but still she didn’t look away. “No, not naked. Look at his face.”

River propped her chin in her hand and stared at him. When Sebastian glanced at her, she lifted her other hand and gave him a cheerful wave. After a brief hesitation, he inclined his head and then turned his attention back to Bren.

“I guess it’s a nice face,” River conceded. “Can’t say I’d hang it on my wall, but I’ve been told I don’t properly appreciate art.”

“You do when it’s wrapped in a flouncy skirt,” Callie muttered.

River’s intense gaze swung back to her. “Not in a million fucking years,” she said, far too fervently.

Never say never. Good advice, words she herself should have taken to heart. After all, she’d been so determined to steer clear of Sebastian Montoya, and all it had taken to shatter that resolve?

Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Even trapped in a nightmare where fire licked over his skin, burning it to ash, Sebastian heard the squeaky creak of the unoiled hinges on his bedroom door.

He flashed from sleep to battle-alertness in an instant. The pain faded more slowly, the heat of acid in his veins still vivid. He ignored the memory of it the same way he’d ignored the reality, and kept his breathing to the easy, steady rhythm of sleep.

The footsteps that followed were all wrong. There was no stealth in their even whisper, but they were still soft. Small feet, a short stride. Not hurried, not furtive. A child’s gait, more likely than not. Young.

Children could be dangerous, too. Especially in a place like Sector Three.

There was a gun under his pillow, two knives tucked between his mattress and the wall, and enough of an electrical charge in the ring around his thumb to drop a grown man when activated. Sebastian thought about Bren, asking him if he liked the violence, and throttled back the instinctive need to engage an enemy.

The footsteps approached his bed. The shoes squeaked. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell that the room was light enough that he’d slept past sunrise. Unsurprising when he’d spent most of the night finishing his upgrades on the truck. But it didn’t explain why there was a child on the fourth floor. In his room.

Anger burned in his gut. Not at the intrusion, but at the sheer recklessness of these people. No one should allow a child this close to him unsupervised. He could break the bones in an adult body without even trying. Children were so terrifyingly fragile.

And he was a monster.

“I know you’re awake,” a quiet voice whispered. “It’s okay. I pretend too, when I’m scared.”

The voice sounded so young, but the words held a weary wisdom. Pricked by the sympathy in them, Sebastian opened his eyes and turned his head.

A girl stood next to the bed. She had huge brown eyes, freckles, and dark hair in a messy braid. Bits had escaped to curl around a serious face that was still thin, likely from recent malnutrition. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but her gaze was far from childlike.

She was clutching a huge stuffed dragon in one arm. It was vividly colored, bright orange and green, with cheerfully vicious felt teeth. As Sebastian watched, unblinking, the girl gently reached out and deposited the dragon on the edge of the bed.

“My uncle Ace gave him to me,” she said earnestly. “He protects me from nightmares. You can borrow him.”

Sebastian studied the girl. “Why do you think I need protection from nightmares?”

“I could hear you through the door.” Her gaze scanned his face with innocent concern. “It sounded bad. I have bad ones, too. Were you in the war?”

Lying there while a tiny child stared at him was too awkward. He’d gone to bed in pants and a T-shirt, so he picked up the dragon and slowly rose to swing his legs over the bed. Seated on the edge, he was only a few inches taller than her. “Something like that.”

“A lot of people here were in the war.” She shifted her weight. “I’m Dee.”

At a loss, Sebastian stared at her. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be up here, Dee. Six would not like it.”

Her cheeks pinkened. “It’s not exactly against the rules,” she said far too quickly. Her defense tumbled out with the conviction of someone who’d already practiced it in anticipation of having to use it. “I’m allowed to come see Zayan when he’s here. And I can’t know if he’s here if I don’t come up and check. But then I heard you and I didn’t want you to be scared. Now you don’t have to be.”

Sebastian turned the dragon over in his hands. It was high quality, clearly sewn with deep love. Glittery thread outlined each individual scale, and the fabric felt hand-woven, instead of the synthetic stuff they made in Eight. For a child from an impoverished Sector like Three, it was an almost impossible treasure.

He was still trying to decide how to respond when he heard the door at the end of the hall crash open. The bootfalls approached at a near-run, and Sebastian wasn’t surprised when Six appeared in his open door, her expression blank and her fingers already curled around the butt of the gun strapped to her hip.

She took in the situation rapidly, with the sort of professional assessment he would expect of someone with her training. And her fingers stayed curled around the pistol. “Dee,” she said sharply.

Dee drew in a deep breath. “I’m allowed to come see Zayan when he’s here, and I can’t know if he’s here if I don’t–”

“Hallway.” Six didn’t raise her voice, but the crisp command brooked no nonsense. “Now.”

With one last worried look, Dee scrambled past Six. She turned at the last minute to peek around Six’s waist. “You can keep Sir Puff until you feel better.”

Six spared him the necessity of figuring out how to reply. “Sally’s waiting for you in the kitchen, Dee,” she said without taking her gaze off Sebastian. “After breakfast, we’re going to talk about the rules again.”

It should have sounded like a threat from a woman gripping a firearm. But Dee heaved an aggrieved sigh and disappeared down the hallway. A few seconds later, he heard light footsteps skipping down the stairs.

Six exhaled and lifted her hand from her holster. “I’m sorry. It’s not personal–”

“Don’t,” he snapped, more harshly than he intended. But his temper, thwarted by his bafflement over Dee’s behavior, roared back to life. “I don’t want you to apologize for treating me like a threat. I am a threat.”

Six sighed and leaned back against the doorframe. “Everyone in the damn building is a threat, Sebastian. Did you forget to lock your door, or did she pick the lock?”

He honestly couldn’t remember. He’d been tired when he’d finally sought his bed, and the last thing he’d been worried about was the possibility that a child would try to get into his room. He was usually the one being locked out. The monster people tried to keep away.

Besides, the kinds of things he feared couldn’t be stopped by a lock.

Just like that, his temper fizzled. “I might have forgotten,” he admitted. “I won’t in the future.”

“We should also upgrade your lock.” Six’s lips quirked in a half smile. “Dee is…precocious. And she has way too many indulgent aunts and uncles.” Six hesitated, then nodded to the stuffed dragon he was still holding. “I take it you were having a nightmare?”

“Apparently.” Not that it was unusual. It had been a long time since Sebastian slept without nightmares. He hadn’t realized he verbalized the distress though. Not that the Base would have told him. He was sure there was an observation file somewhere detailing every twitch and groan in minute detail, but he’d declined Ashwin’s offer to obtain it for him. Sebastian preferred not knowing which memories were real.

Six sighed. “It’s a thing here. Dee’s sensitive to it. The first month she lived with us, she’d wake up screaming. Ace painted her walls with dragons and gave her Sir Puff to guard her dreams. So now she wants to protect everyone else.”

The name hadn’t registered before, but Sebastian tilted his head as the memory clicked into place. Even a Makhai who almost never left the Base was drilled in the power players in various Sectors. “Ace is…Alexander Santana? The O’Kane artist?”

“Mmm. He’s mentoring one of Dee’s brothers. She adores him, and he’s not immune to her big eyes.” Six huffed. “No one is except me, which means I’m going to have to be the bad guy. But I’ll make sure she doesn’t come up here again. For everyone’s sanity.”

Relieved and still oddly at a loss, Sebastian held out the dragon. “You should return this to her.”

“I will.” Six accepted Sir Puff, her fingers stroking over the shimmering scales. “I know what it’s like, you know. To come from someplace terrible, and all the crazy fuckers in this new place are acting like reckless lunatics and talking wild shit about family and safety. It feels like bullshit. It’s fucking scary.”

It was too accurate. Sebastian said nothing.

“I’m not going to talk wild,” Six continued. “We’re not all safe here. We’re not even all a family, yet. Because most of us came from someplace terrible. And we all have nightmares, Sebastian. Every fucking one of us.” She met his gaze firmly. “That’s why Ashwin sent you here, you know. Because you’re one of us, even if you don’t know it yet.”

Something inside him cracked, the pain so sharp he almost hissed. He curled his fingers around the mattress and rode out the pain of it. He knew why the words hurt. They were a fantasy, the cruelest sort imaginable. A Makhai soldier didn’t belong anywhere but the Base, and barely there. It was the first lesson they learned, ground into them every time they faced the fear and horror in the eyes of the people they’d been created to protect.

The citizens of the Base liked having monsters on chains to do the monstrous things that kept them safe. They even faked a grotesque sort of respect. But all the extra coffee rations and fresh fruit in the world couldn’t turn the way people had skittered out of his path in instinctive horror into anything but rejection.

Sebastian was Makhai. That was what he was. The only brotherhood that could ever say you’re one of us and mean it.

It had to be true. Because if it was a lie, Sebastian would have suffered for nothing.

“I am what I am,” he forced out, faking a calm he didn’t feel. “I’ll install a proper lock on my door tonight. The truck is fixed. Do you have a new task for me?”

“I’m sure Bren’s got a list.” Six tilted her head. “He’s going to be at breakfast soon. The staff usually eats before the kids show up, if you want to join him. That way you two can run before the full mob descends.”

Sebastian preferred taking meals in his room, but he had promised Bren one week. Six more days of engaging with these aggressively irrational people, and then he could retreat and crush the fantasy of being anything other than a broken tool.

“I’ll be there,” he promised. And he would be.

After all, he’d survived the worst torture the Base could throw at him. What was the worst a handful of whores and street orphans playing at being teachers could do to him?

Bree may be away healing, but she has left behind a thank you gift! For the next few weeks, Tuesdays & Thursdays will feature new posts from a serial featuring some old friends. This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

People had strange ideas about endurance.

Leah lowered herself to the floor, stretched out on her toes, her palms spread flat against the uncomfortably cold tile. She kept her movements slow and tightly controlled, just as she’d been taught. After all, jerky movements weren’t very graceful, were they?

She almost grimaced at the thought. Instead, she kept her expression serene, relaxed, with a tiny smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Just as slowly, she began to shift her weight. When she was bearing it entirely on her hands, she lifted her toes from the floor. She wobbled for a moment, then balanced, and her smile turned into a real one.

At least she’d kept up her core strength. It was important for so many things valued at Orchid House–posture, skillful dancing, overall fitness.

The ability to take a punch to the gut without dropping.

The idea flitting practically, casually, through Leah’s head would horrify most of the other teachers at Sector Three’s tiny school. None of them seemed to remember that she’d come from the Flower District, much less that she’d been an Orchid, for Christ’s sake.

Or maybe they’d never been able to wrap their brains around that fact in the first place.

The muscles in Leah’s arms began to tremble. Her abs and her back burned.

She held steady.

From what she’d learned in her research about Three, most of its residents understood trauma as well as anyone. They’d lived it, but in an overt, visceral way. An ugly one. Their trauma looked like shattered factories, crumbling tenements, weeping children whose mothers turned to sex work to keep them from starving.

Leah’s mother had sold her into sex work instead, traded her for a year’s wages and the promise of a better life for her only daughter.

The trainers at Orchid House had kept that promise, after a fashion. Leah had never been hungry, or cold, or lacked medical care when she was ill. She’d never lived on the street, been forced to band together with other kids just to share the intel and supplies and skills necessary to survive.

No, her trauma looked much different. It had been full of hand-to-hand combat training interwoven with lessons on comportment, etiquette, and psychological manipulation. Perfectly coiffed hair, luxurious spa treatments, dazzling parties, whispers about the best way to defuse a man’s anger so that he let go of your throat instead of strangling you.

How could anyone here see her trauma, when she’d been trained to hide it so well?

She’d held her position for so long that her arms were on the verge of collapse. But she forced herself to lower position back to the floor in a controlled motion. Always controlled.

She released a shaky breath and rolled to her back. Everyone in Sector Three could think she was naïve, perhaps even a bit vapid. It was better than having them know the truth.

If Leah didn’t keep herself under control, she’d fly apart.

We spent much of our winter channeling our inner Mercenary Librarians by using our 3D printers to solve problems in our communities. For those who missed it, you can hear the whole saga of The Whistle Coven here, or check out the Verge article profiling us here. Long story made short: the fact that we were quite visibly organizing our fellow nerds in a very Nina, Maya & Dani way brought new attention to the Mercenary Librarians series.

Tor noticed, and for the month of April they’ve agreed to set the price for all three ebooks to $2.99! There has never been a better time to grab this trilogy about book nerds who just want to build a library and instead find themselves constantly having to fight against the evil tech bros of the world. (Also featuring our early obsession with 3D printers and freeze dryers, both things we own now! LOL)

You can get the cheap ebooks at your favorite ebook vendors below, or learn more about the series here.

Deal With the Devil: iBookstore, Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Kobo, Google
The Devil You Know: Nook, Kindle, Kobo, iBookstore, Google
Dance with the Devil: Kindle, Nook, Kobo, Google, iBooks

The sequel to Daughter of Tides is out in June, finishing the story of Aleksi, Naia, and Einar! It also ties up some of the plot points left open at the end of Queen of Dreams. This is a duology you’ll definitely want to read in order, but we think it’s well worth it. The ebook and the audiobook are both available for preorder now, but if you like print we have a special treat…

If you order the print copy from one of our partner bookstores, they will send you your book with a special custom made Sea Goddess bookmark! We have been 3D printing these for the last few weeks to make sure we have enough, and they turned out amazing. The picture can’t do the shimmery sparkle of the ocean waves justice, but we promise it’s super amazing!

To get one, preorder the book from Tropes & Trifles (Minneapolis), The Ripped Bodice (LA/NYC), or Love’s Sweet Arrow (Chicago).

For folks in the UK or Europe, we are also so happy to be partnering with The Portal Bookshop again, so you can also get some cool swag! Order your copy here, and they’ll send you a bookmark as well!

Bree may be away healing, but she has left behind a thank you gift! For the next few weeks, Tuesdays & Thursdays will feature new posts from a serial featuring some old friends. This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Bren hadn’t lied to him. Sector Three was a mess.

Sebastian frowned as he assembled a new battery block for the truck parked behind him. Bren had only wanted to try to patch the engine up well enough to put it back into use, but Sebastian didn’t see the point when he could build a better solution.

The engine was from another time. 2028 or ‘29, most likely. This particular manufacturer’s attempt to disrupt the rising dominance of solar power during the run-up to the Energy Wars had failed dramatically, but pure biofuel engines had remained popular with a niche population. Mostly people too paranoid to trust the sun and too frugal or miserly to afford the newer, high-capacity solar batteries or the hybrid engines. As ugly as these things were, they could run on garbage if you had a working fuel convertor. That big recycling plant Six and Bren had reopened was no doubt churning out biofuel for everyone who still used it. Some people would never let go.

Still, fifty plus years was a long time to keep repairing an engine that hadn’t been all that well designed to begin with. Sebastian had created more elegant solutions as a teenager when the Base hadn’t been all that much better off than Sector Three was now. At least the tools were new, and in good repair. He’d found three partly disassembled engines and a few solar battery packs that just needed a little love. Combined with the scrap parts that lined the heavy shelves, he had more than he needed.

Sebastian had made more from less. Many times.

Of course, the lack of challenge meant the task didn’t hold his attention.

He didn’t like the feeling.

From the time he’d been old enough to understand the concept of work, he’d had more of it than he could finish in a lifetime. He’d been seven when he’d realized that the quirk in his brain that made him good at salvaging tech could be leveraged against the trainers. Every time they beat him for being insufficiently cold, he weathered the pain by solving puzzles in his head. It had been clear to him even then that he’d need to be too useful to kill if he wanted to survive as a Makhai soldier.

Sebastian was very, very useful. And the Base had used him, right up until the day he’d decided that survival wasn’t worth the price.

After that, resisting the attempts to break him had been its own sort of work.

He caught himself grinding his teeth and forced his jaw to relax. But the tension wouldn’t leave his body, and the furtive scrape of boots on cement behind him triggered an instinctive reaction.

He tried to stop. Tried with everything in him. But his body moved faster than the bruised part of him that remembered where he was. His fingers closed around battered leather, the wrench in his hand more than capable of breaking bone. He finally regained the control to release the damn thing mid-swing, flinging it off to the side where it crashed into a shelf of tools with a clatter.

“Fuck!” He saw a flash of black hair, a hint of brown skin. Then he was clutching an empty leather jacket and staring at the business end of a vicious looking knife.

“Fuck,” the woman repeated, watching him with wary brown eyes. “Are you attacking me, or just freaking out?”

Sebastian thought the tools still spilling off the shelf where he’d tossed the wrench was sufficient answer, but maybe she didn’t understand how much self-control it had taken not to eliminate a perceived enemy. “You startled me.”

“My fucking mistake.” She exhaled roughly, letting the knife drop to her side. She didn’t, however, slide it back into the sheath on her thigh. “You gonna give me my jacket?”

Watching the knife, Sebastian extended his hand. The woman plucked it out of his hand and studied him for a long time before finally sliding the knife away. Then she shrugged into the jacket, covering muscular arms covered in tattoos. “I’m River.”

One of his neighbors. The teacher. “Bast.”

“So I heard.” She strolled over to the pile of tools and retrieved his wrench. She flipped it over in her hand as she circled widely around him to get a look at the workbench. One of her eyebrows went up. “You ripped that shit engine out of my truck, huh?”

“Your truck?”

“Well, it will be.” She tossed the wrench onto the bench and hoisted herself easily up to sit on it, her booted feet swinging. “Me’n my apprentices need something better for scavenging runs, now that the roads are decent enough for driving. This will be perfect.”

Sebastian didn’t want his interest piqued. He’d resisted most of the leading comments Bren had tossed out over dinner, because he didn’t want to know about this sector or its people. And Bren hadn’t pushed him. Bren hadn’t even stuck around after showing him the shop, giving him all the space he wanted to settle in. That should have pleased him. Sebastian wanted tasks to keep his hands busy and quiet to let his mind heal, and above all else he wanted to be alone.

When you were alone, you didn’t have to feel anything. Feeling things had gotten him into this hell in the first place.

The silence lengthened. River didn’t rush to fill it any more than Bren or Six had. She didn’t stare at him with any particular expectation, either. Her boots swung and her gaze cataloged the progress he’d made with the battery pack, the sharp interest in her eyes making it clear she knew enough to be impressed with his creative solutions.

That was intriguing. Damn it. “Your apprentices?” he asked.

“Mmm,” she said, as if picking up the conversation after an awkward gap was no big deal. “I’m kind of the survival teacher, I guess. Six wants the kids to get book smarts, and that’s good. But I’m not going to let them forget their street smarts.”

It made sense. Judging by her age, she was likely an orphan of the original destruction of Sector Three. When Eden had rewarded labor strikes with bombs, they’d wiped out an entire generation of workers and caretakers, leaving behind older people broken by grief and children hardened by survival.

River had likely been a toddler at the time. Perhaps she’d survived with the help of older children. Maybe she’d been on her own. All of the reports Sebastian had read about the sector indicated it had gone bad decades ago, its leaders useless and greedy, its population making their living as scrappers and scavengers.

Scavenging must have a different cachet now, with the recycling factories up and running. Almost anything could be broken down into its component parts and used as raw materials in 3D printers. Six would have a profitable industry on her hands in a few years, if she could get them up and running efficiently.

He didn’t want to be interested in that, either. But he was. Damn it.

“Hey.” River snapped her fingers near his face. “I don’t like that look.”

Sebastian furrowed his brow in confusion. “What look?”

“You just got all melty-eyed.” She waved a hand at herself. “All of this?” She flicked her fingers at him dismissively. “Not for the likes of you. No offense, but big broody warrior men are not my type.”

It was odd, feeling the urge to laugh. He couldn’t remember the last time he had wanted to. He wasn’t sure he remembered how. It was possible he wouldn’t be able to–the Base might have burned that out of him with the ability to disavow violence. But he felt his lips twitch. “No offense taken.”

“Oh, come on. Be a little offended.” She kicked her feet again, grinning at him. “I’m fucking hot.”

Ashwin was right. These people were insane. She’d clearly been briefed on the danger he represented. They’d come within heartbeats of a fatal clash that likely would have left him bleeding and her dead, simply because she’d walked into the garage too quietly.

And she was laughing at him. Taunting him.

Picking up the wrench, he turned back to the battery. “You are, by all objective standards of beauty, incredibly attractive.”

“But I’m not your type, either, huh?”

The question slashed through him, an unexpected knife through a vulnerable crack in his armor.

Sebastian had never had a type. The Base, so limited in its thinking, had sent him a dozen domestic handlers over the years. Women, to start, because Eden’s warped concept of morality and intimacy had infected the Base early on. But when he’d shown no interest in using them to relieve whatever sexual needs they assumed he would find overwhelming, they’d quietly tried sending him a man.

It had never occurred to them that his problem wasn’t the people. It was the situation. He had no intention of sharing something as potentially compromising as sexual intimacy with someone whose job it was to manage him and report on him to the Base. Many of his fellow Makhai soldiers had solved that quandary by weaponizing sex to subvert the loyalties of their handlers.

The thought had always turned his stomach.

Then they’d sent him Marissa. Sweet, terrified Marissa. The perfect trap. Half his age and facing a far worse situation if she didn’t succeed in seducing him. Some Base psychologist had no doubt thought themselves tremendously clever when they’d found the perfect levers to pull, using the compassion and protectiveness they viewed as flaws against him.

It had worked. Her fear had sparked his compassion. Her vulnerability had triggered his protectiveness. But he hadn’t been her type, either. She felt no desire for men, and the cruelty of the Base sending her to him as a sexual outlet had prompted his first quiet rebellion.

Sebastian had taught her how to lie to them.

“Hey.” River’s voice was gentle. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to kick a sore spot.”

Sebastian glared at the battery and swallowed hard. “You didn’t.”

“If you say so.” Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her feet resume their swinging. “We’ve all got them, you know. That’s all Sector Three is. Scrappy street kids, snarls, and bruises. You think you’re the first person who’s tried to bash my head in because I startled them?” She snorted. “You think I’ve never tried to bash someone’s head in because they startled me?”

He finally looked up, and even trying to control his expression he knew he was glaring. “Yes, but you’re all of, what? Five feet tall? I’m a genetically modified soldier with training in assassination. I don’t get to be jumpy and I don’t get to make mistakes.”

“Fuck you, I’m five foot four.” She kicked one leg up, showing off motorcycle boots with a thick heel. “Five foot six in these. And I was killing men your size when I was still five feet tall, so get over yourself. Bren’s a scary sniper, Laurel can literally kill you with math, and if Six gets pissed she can summon a whole horde of O’Kanes to come beat you into dust, and those fuckers play for keeps.”

Insane didn’t cover it. These people had an active death wish.

Shaking his head, Sebastian turned his attention back to the battery pack. It was discomfiting, being so…unfeared. Especially by people who knew what he was. River didn’t discount the danger he represented. She just…didn’t care.

It was uncomfortable. It was upsettingly irrational.

But a tiny, illogical part of him…didn’t hate it.

Damn it.

Bree may be away healing, but she has left behind a thank you gift! For the next few weeks, Tuesdays & Thursdays will feature new posts from a serial featuring some old friends. This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

“Ohhhh my God, I’m so glad I gave you this couch.”

“I bet you are.” Six settled Noelle’s legs across her lap before handing her a pillow. “Here, put this behind your back.”

Noelle accepted the pillow and twisted awkwardly to settle it behind the small of her back. Then she relaxed backwards with a moan of relief, linking her hands together protectively over her hugely pregnant belly. “I love you, Six.”

“I know you do.” She gave Noelle’s leg a gentle pat. “And I’m glad you gave me the couch, too. You were right. The kids come into my office to talk more.”

“You just needed to make it a little more comfortable,” Noelle said. “You were already most of the way there. I just put on the finishing touches.”

She’d done far more than that. Over the past two months, Noelle had all but taken over design and execution of Six’s new office at the school. Her office at the bar had been small and efficient, all necessary supplies with no space for anything frivolous. In that space, Noelle had been forced to confine her attentions to the single bookshelf, filling it to overflowing with weekly gifts.

The new office showed Noelle’s touch everywhere. The furniture, the lighting, even the art she’d insisted on hanging. A massive portrait of Six standing fierce and triumphant in the cage at Fight Night–painted by Ace, of course–dominated the wall behind her new desk and evoked distinct embarrassment every time she looked at it, but Six had learned enough from Lex to recognize a power move.

She didn’t need Lex’s help to understand why Noelle had gotten so fixated on Six’s office. As her due date approached, Jasper hadn’t been the only one to go into overprotective asshole mode. Dallas and Lex were almost worse, hovering over Noelle any time she took a step outside the barracks and leaping to stop her from doing anything that might result in so much as a stubbed toe or broken fingernail.

Six had been her only safe escape. Not even Jas grumbled too much when Noelle was tucked safely in Six’s office–though he usually parked his ass at the bar across the street and broodily nursed a beer until his self-control snapped.

It would probably snap soon. Noelle had already made Six position two freshly delivered chairs across from the couch and organize a new, impossibly giant bookcase. Six didn’t see the point of having that many books when it was easier to carry them around on her tablet, but Noelle caressed the pages like they were some kind of holy object, so Six didn’t ruin her fun.

Besides, now that it was done…she didn’t hate the bookshelf. Her office looked…fancy. It looked smart. The kids who came in here would get used to the idea that they belonged in places like this. Places with nice things and a ridiculous number of books.

They’d never have to feel as out-of-place and inadequate as Six had.

“So…” Noelle nudged Six with her toes. “When do I get to meet him?”

She had that impossible glint in her eyes. All mischief and curiosity, but zero survival instinct. Six stared back at her and played dumb. “Meet who?”

“You know who.” Another nudge. “I want to meet the Makhai soldier.”

Of course she did. She’d probably tell him how nice it was to meet him and then try to hug away his pain, and if she didn’t end up provoking some sort of lethal attack she’d probably terrify him back into his room, never to emerge again.

Besides, Jas would shit a damn brick. “You can meet the Makhai soldier when you’re ready for Dallas and Jas to lock you into your suite for the next three to five years.”

Noelle scrunched up her nose. “Come on, Six. You wouldn’t have him here if he was a danger to your kids.”

“No,” Six countered. “I wouldn’t have him here if I didn’t have a plan to protect the kids from any danger he might represent. If you think I’m tossing any toddlers at him–”

“I am not a toddler!”

“No, you’re worse. A toddler would probably be wary. At least a Sector Three toddler would. You like to pet dangerous killers and bring them home like stray cats.” Six snorted. “I should know. I was one of them.”

“That just shows my good taste.” Noelle pursed her lips and tilted her head. “What’s he like?”

“Who, Sebastian? Like Ashwin used to be, in a lot of ways. Hard to read. Definitely dangerous.” Six hesitated, remembering the way Sebastian had studied his room. The look in those impassive brown eyes. “He’s like I was, in those first days. He doesn’t trust us or believe this isn’t a trap.”

“Poor baby,” Noelle murmured.

“He’s probably older than Dallas,” Six protested.

“And sometimes he’s a poor baby, too.”

Dallas O’Kane. A poor baby. It would be near to blasphemy if it wasn’t so freaking absurd.

Noelle wasn’t joking, though, which was a good reminder. Noelle was sweetness and light wrapped around steel, and even Dallas O’Kane, war hero and emperor, usually backed down when she dug her heels in on a topic. Punching people in the face was one kind of power. Noelle’s was quieter but no less real.

Six still wasn’t going to let her play with a potentially unbalanced Makhai soldier. “I’m sure you’ll meet him eventually,” she said instead. “But let’s go easy on Jas’s nerves, eh? He means well.”

“He does,” Noelle agreed, her eyes warm with affection. “Yesterday he–”

An abrupt knock cut her off, two hard thumps against the office door that told Six who was on the other side. Six gave Noelle’s legs another pat before she slipped out from under them and rose. “Come in.”

The woman who slipped through the door moved almost silently, in stark contrast to the vigor of her knock. River was Six’s mirror in a lot of ways–early 20s, short, lean, hard. Deadly. Her skin was medium brown instead of tanned, and her shoulder length black hair was braided back from her face on one side and shaved on the other.

The severe hairstyle couldn’t do much to harshen a heart-shaped face that was pretty in a way Six had never been, but River’s flat, unwelcoming stare discouraged most people from trying to flirt.

Her brown eyes flickered over the office, taking in Noelle’s latest decorations with mild dismay, then froze on Noelle. The irritated set of her features softened a little as Noelle smiled widely and awkwardly maneuvered herself into an upright position. “River!”

“Hey, Noelle. I didn’t know you were here.”

Noelle beamed at her. “Oh, I’m just hiding out from Jas again.”

A knife appeared in River’s hand, and she raised an eyebrow as she flipped it over and caught it by the blade. “Want me to stab him?”

It was a quasi-serious offer. River had been stand-offish and discouraging the first time Noelle had turned up, but as Six knew well, it was hard not to warm to someone who just genuinely wanted to adore you for exactly who you were. Unfortunately, River mostly still showed affection by offering to murder people… and River had not warmed to Jasper.

Noelle shook her head, barely hiding a smile. “I appreciate the offer, but if I decide he needs to be stabbed, I should probably do it myself. Or ask Lex to do it.”

“If you say so.” With another flourish, River made the knife vanish. “I can come back later if you two are busy.”

“No.” Six leaned back against her desk. “It’s fine. What do you need?”

River braced herself, her hands on her hips. “You have to talk to Leah. I get why you want the kids to learn history, but she keeps letting her classes run long, and for the most useless shit. Half of my apprentices didn’t show up for our training run yesterday because she started some impromptu dance lesson.”

Six bit back a sigh. “Dance isn’t useless, River. It’s good exercise, and it teaches coordination.”

“So is sparring,” she bit back. “And that will save you if you get jumped. How many times growing up did you tell some perv to back up or you’d dance at him.”

“Not everyone’s going to be a brawler,” Six said. “That’s the point of all of this, River. They won’t have to worry about being jumped all the time.”

“So we’re going to make them soft?”

“No, we’re going to give them options.” Six held up a hand to cut off River’s protest. “But you’re right. The schedule needs to work. We’re still figuring this out. I’ll talk to Leah.”

“I still think it’s a mistake,” River muttered. “Reading and math, yeah. They should be smarter than we got to be. But art and dancing and worrying about things that happened a thousand years ago? That’s rich people bullshit, Six.”

“That’s sure what the rich people always wanted us to think.” Six shook her head. “Let me think it over, then we’ll have a meeting. I need to deal with our newest recruit first.”

River snorted. “Thanks for putting him next door to me, by the way. Always wanted a psychic murderer for a neighbor.”

“I’ll make it up to you.” Six turned to flip open a box on her desk and surfaced with a set of keys dangling from her fingers.

River’s brown eyes widened. “My truck? It’s fixed?”

“It will be soon. It’s our new friend’s first project.”

With a rare smile, River reached out. Six slapped her palm, knocked the back of their hands together, then twisted to grip her wrist as River did the same. A silly, childish ritual born of shivering through long rainy nights together huddled under a listing overhang or a collapsed wall.

River had grown up like Six–hard and brutal, with no one ever reaching out a hand except to hurt her. Their teenage friendship had fractured when Six had fallen for Trent’s seductive promises that he’d give her the power to make things better. River’s gut-deep loathing of the man had sure as fuck turned out to be the wiser path.

River had never been broken down like Six had. But that meant River had never rebuilt herself, either. She’d never fallen in with a group like the O’Kanes, who could teach her that survival was vital, but shouldn’t be everything. It would take her time to appreciate the value in art and dancing and history.

That was okay. They had time.

“Here.” Six tossed the keys to River. “Bren should be in the garage with the new guy. Why don’t you go meet him. Let me deal with Leah, okay?”

“Better you than me,” River grumbled, shoving the keys into the pocket of her leather jacket. “Her Highness can’t be bothered with the peasants.”

“River…” Six warned.

“Whatever.” River tossed a salute to Noelle. “Remember, girl. If that bearded mountain gets too annoying, I know some people who can smuggle you to freedom.”

“I’ll remember,” Noelle said solemnly. “Take care.”

“You too.”

When she was gone, Six exhaled roughly and dropped back to the couch. Noelle made a sympathetic noise. “Trouble with the staff?”

“More like culture clash.” Six closed her eyes and scrubbed a hand over her eyes. “Half my teachers grew up as street kids here in Three. The other half are from Sector Two. From the houses.”

“That is a culture clash,” Noelle agreed. “Who’s Leah? I don’t think I’ve met her.”

“Leah,” Six said wryly, “is an Orchid.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Uh-huh.” And unlike some of the other teachers who’d let down their guards, Leah was still an Orchid to her fingertips. She’d arrived with perfect nails, golden hair in intricate braids with deliberately careless curls framing her expertly made-up face, and a full closet of tailored outfits, pristine silk in prim cuts that flattered her pale skin and emphasized some asshole’s fantasy of an hourglass figure.

A few years ago, Six would have dismissed her. Thanks to Lili, she recognized that wardrobe for what it was–an extremely specialized sort of armor. She also recognized the grace in Leah’s movements. “River doesn’t understand that a dance class from an Orchid might as well be combat training. She thinks Leah’s purely decorative and completely useless.”

“And Leah lets her think that?”

“No, Leah encourages her to think that.” Six let her hand fall away and turned to face Noelle. “I can’t tell if Leah’s poking at her, or if she just doesn’t trust us enough to relax yet. Could be both.”

“It could be,” Noelle agreed. “Someone should warn River not to poke back, though. Mia’s the sweetest Orchid I’ve ever met, and she could have taken that knife from River without breaking a sweat. Or a nail.”

Another potential explosion to add to the list, right underneath the fractured Makhai soldier. “I think they just need time. And I need to make sure they’re not clashing because of bad planning.”

“If River is poking at Leah, this might not have been bad planning.” Noelle lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Getting all of River’s students so excited about dance that they stayed late and fucked up River’s schedule is kind of a power move.”

Six let her head fall back against the couch with a groan. “I do not have the patience for stupid politics shit.”

“You’re a sector leader now, Six.” Noelle patted her shoulder, then heaved herself off the couch with a groan. “Okay, let’s deal with it.”

Six hopped up, almost reaching out to steady Noelle before checking the movement. She was pregnant, not fragile, and the last thing she needed was hovering. “What are we dealing with?”

“Scheduling.” Noelle moved around Six’s desk and sank into the chair, adjusting it to accommodate her belly as she activated the new display embedded in the desk’s surface. “I can’t make it totally immune to power moves, but I can get close. And since your net connection is finally stable…”

She activated the holographic display with a couple lazy flicks of her fingers, then typed in a code. After a few long beeps, Mia’s face appeared, her curly hair pulled up onto her head in a knot with several pencils sticking out of it. “Six!” she said with a smile. “Noelle. How are you? What are you doing in Three? Aren’t you about to have that baby?”

“Soon,” Noelle said with a grin. “But not today. Today, I’m helping Six. I want to design a program to help with scheduling for her teachers and students, but I need help building an entity-relationship model.”

A what?

“Oh, those are fun.” Mia waved her hand over her desk and a display popped up next to her face. “Pull up a chair, Six, and talk me through what’s going on.”

Feeling like she was in a car that had lost its brakes and was barreling toward a cliff, Six hooked a plain wooden chair with her boot and pulled it over. Apparently having finished reorganizing Six’s office, Noelle was about to start on the school. And she’d co-opted Mia to help.

They both looked so gleeful, Six didn’t have the heart to stop them. Besides, she wouldn’t know an entity-whatever if it shot her point-blank. They were way out of her comfort zone, talking about shit she could barely understand.

Which was why she needed to do this. And add tech skills to the growing list of classes. Sector Three’s next generation was going to grow up smart and educated and ready to fuck up the world.

And if that wasn’t the ultimate power move, Six didn’t know what was.

Bree may be away healing, but she has left behind a thank you gift! For the next few weeks, Tuesdays & Thursdays will feature new posts from a serial featuring some old friends. This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!

Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…

When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.

Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.

What could go wrong?

—

DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.

It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.

—

Callie adored all of her students, but the little ones were her favorites.

Of course, she loved watching the older kids open up to the true impact of art as they learned to employ subtlety and technique to express themselves. But nothing could match the tiny ones for sheer freedom and wonder. They were so full of life, with everything cranked so high. They could break her heart with a sob, then mend it in the next breath with a smile or giggle.

She finished organizing the pastels from her previous class and then leaned against the wall to watch as Alexander Santana–better known as Ace–sprawled across the floor on his stomach in a sea of tiny artists. The fact that they’d covered the floor with big rolls of paper had kept most of the finger paints off it, but the same couldn’t be said for Ace. Tiny colorful fingerprints decorated his face, his tattooed arms, and most of his clothing.

He seemed oblivious. Hell, he seemed as gleeful as the kids, as he used the tip of his finger and the chaotic collection of tempera paint to produce elegant sketches of one kid after another as they squealed in delight and tried to copy him.

“Five minutes,” she warned, and the squeals turned into protests and groans.

“Hey now.” Ace finished his final portrait with a flourish before rolling to his knees. “No backtalk to Miss Callie. Clean up good, and maybe I’ll bring you a surprise next time I visit.”

One of the girls, a gregarious five-year-old named Marin, scratched her nose, leaving a green smudge of paint behind. “What kind of surprise?”

“You’ll just have to find out, won’t you?” Ace swiped at her nose with his thumb, taking most of the paint away, and dropped a kiss to the top of her head. “Go wash up, or Six will yell at me when you all show up to lunch looking like you got in a brawl in a paint factory.”

Callie covered a smile. “And be sure to thank Mr. Ace before you go.”

A chorus of voices rose as the kids jumbled into a mass that almost resembled a line. Their social duties discharged, they chattered as they filed into the washroom at the back of the class.

Callie propped her hands on her hips. “They never want you to leave, you know.”

“No one ever does,” he replied with a wink. He rose gracefully to his feet and swept up a towel to scrub at his hands. “I’m ridiculously loveable.”

“Oh, is that what you call it?”

“Around little ears, it is.” With most of the paint cleaned from his hands, he tossed the towel aside and strode to the table under the window, where he’d dumped a huge duffle bag on his arrival. “Lucky you, you don’t have to wait for your surprise.”

“Are you trying to flirt with me?” she asked, even though she knew he wasn’t. There was something about Ace Santana that translated into an elevated resting state of attractiveness. Charm, her trainers would have called it.

“Pfft.” He waved a hand. “I’d never flirt when Rachel isn’t here to join in. She thinks you’re adorable.”

“You like to make me blush.” Her cheeks heated, and Callie covered them out of habit, then shook her head. “Show me what you brought. And if it’s more expensive supplies, I should warn you that Six threatened to start paying you.”

“Yeah, yeah. She can whine about it all she wants.” Ace rolled his shoulder, stretching the arm Callie knew he’d injured in the war, then unzipped the duffel. “Most of this is for the kids, but I thought you might like something nice. And since I just got a box of the samples…”

Grinning, he pulled out a long, sleek box and offered it with a flourish.

Callie gasped. “Your paints!”

The front of the box was understated in that classy way that usually meant something cost a fortune–she’d seen that marketing trick used often enough during her days in Sector Two. No, it was the back of the box that startled a laugh out of her.

It was a picture of a shirtless Ace, all his sex appeal on display right alongside his tattoos. She grinned, then flipped the box open and gasped again at the sight of the rich, vivid pigments they’d managed to infuse into the oil paints.

She closed the box, held it out with a bow, and gave her honest opinion. “I hope you make a million credits off this line, Santana. You deserve it.”

“I’m planning on it. And I’m not taking that thing back with me. I got some good canvas for you in that bag, too. You deserve it.” For a moment, his brown eyes took on an earnest expression that made the charm of his flirtation seem mild. “You’re doing good here, Callie. You’re giving them something none of us ever had.”

“Six is doing that,” she protested. “I’m just grateful I can be a part of it.”

“Bullshit,” he retorted. “Six is my sister in my bones, but I know that girl. She doesn’t give a shit about art. You helped her see that some of them don’t just want it. They need it. For some of us, it’s the only way out of all the shit we’ve seen.”

For Callie, it had been more than a way out. It had been a lifeline, an outlet that had literally kept her alive in her patron’s home. “I have something to show you, too.”

She’d stowed the painting beside the tall shelf behind her tiny desk, and nerves had her hands shaking as she retrieved it. Ace had seen her work before, plenty of times. He’d seen her portraits and scenes and even her reproductions of famous works, all faithfully done with an eye toward accurately capturing the minutest detail.

But they weren’t her. She had a stash of paintings that no one had ever seen or would ever see–not even Ace–but this one was closer. It wasn’t as realistic–she’d used colors in the desert landscape that hadn’t really been visible–but it was the first piece of herself that she’d felt comfortable sharing.

She uncovered the landscape and propped it up on the desk, holding her breath as Ace studied it, his gaze utterly focused. Two fingers touched the edge of the canvas, smoothing along the edge. “There you are. Your sharp edges are peeking through. You should let them. Your eye for colors is fucking amazing.”

“You think it’s good?”

“I think it’s stunning.” He slanted a look at her. “I’m not going to go chasing after whatever you’re hiding from me. Yet. But give me more like this and I’ll put it in my gallery. And sell it to those fancy city fuckers for enough money to make you dizzy.”

“I don’t care about the money.” The words were as giddy as they were true. “But you can’t have this one. It’s a gift for someone.”

“Oh really.” Ace propped his hip on the table and raised an eyebrow. “Who’s the special someone?”

“I haven’t met him yet. The new guy Six hired? Ashwin’s friend from the Base.”

“Ahh.” A small furrow creased Ace’s brow. “Have you ever met Ashwin?”

“Just once, when he came over with Deacon and Laurel.”

Ace rubbed his thumb along the edge of the canvas again. “This is an amazing gift. Just…don’t take it personally if the new guy doesn’t seem to give a shit. Ashwin’s pretty much the cuddliest Makhai soldier ever, and he’s got all the emotional warmth of a brick most of the time.”

Six had warned them of that, and worse. There was some question as to the man’s stability–enough, at least, for Six to deliver strict instructions on what to do if he freaked out. “You’re biased, Ace. I put a painting in all the new people’s rooms, and three-quarters of them don’t even notice.”

“Heathens.” Ace reached out to tug lightly at her hair. “Okay, just don’t go getting yourself into trouble. And whatever you do, don’t ask this guy for any favors, okay? It’s a whole damn thing with them.”

“Very well. I bow to your superior acquaintance with Makhai.”

“You’d better, since I sleep curled around a naked Base soldier every night.” With a grin he pushed off the table. “Tell Six if she wants to pay for anything else in the bags, she’s welcome to come right over and staple the credits to my fine backside.”

Callie waved him away. “What Six does with your ass is between the two of you. But Ace?”

“Yeah, sugar?”

“Thank you. For everything.”

“Of course.” He started for the door. “Next time I come, I want to see more of your art. More of those sharp edges.”

“I’ll try. Tell Rachel and Cruz I said hello, and kiss those babies for me.”

“Always.”

The door creaked shut behind him. Callie began to rewrap the painting in its dropcloth, but stopped and traced one fingertip over a whorl of paint.

Ace was kind to warn her not to expect a reaction to her gift. He couldn’t know the truth–that she didn’t want one. This painting was special, a tiny peek into her soul. She couldn’t risk giving it to anyone who might look at it and see too much, glimpses of what Ace had perceived. No, the only safe person she could give it to was Sebastian Montoya, formerly of the Base’s Makhai program. He wouldn’t look too closely. He wouldn’t care to.

And that was just fine with Callie.

#

Sebastian set his pack on the floor of his new quarters, acutely aware of Six’s presence on the threshold. She’d stopped deliberately outside his domain, the toes of her boots clear of the doorway, and she waited there with the practiced patience of someone used to coaxing wary, broken creatures to let down their guard.

She wasn’t anything like he’d expected. O’Kanes were supposed to be sultry barbarian seducers covered in tattoos, unable to take ten steps without fucking against a wall. Sebastian had always attributed a fair bit of the Base’s censure over that to envy–not everyone enjoyed the puritanical standards normalized by their decades of association with Eden.

But Six was none of that. The tattoos, yes. They circled her wrists and climbed one arm, bright and vivid. But she dressed like a soldier. She moved like a soldier. She was short, the top of her head barely brushing his shoulder, but she was the kind of lean that came from a childhood of hunger, and the kind of hard that came from a lifetime of fighting for survival. Anticipation burned in her brown eyes. Some part of her would always be expecting an attack.

Six would be the kind of enemy he didn’t turn his back on. The kind who might actually take down a Makhai soldier, because even the Makhai fell prey to instinctive overconfidence in the face of a physically weaker opponent. One fraction of an opening, and a survivor like Six would rip out your jugular with her teeth if that was the only weapon she had.

Sebastian would not make the mistake of underestimating her.

“The bathroom’s through that door,” she said, tilting her head to the left. “Most of the teachers are down on the third floor, but we’ve been finishing the suites as people need them. You want a bigger room, you’ll have to help us wire it for electricity.”

“This room is sufficient,” he told her. “But if you require assistance with the wiring…”

“We need help with everything.” Six’s lips curled in a brief, wry smile, but in moments she was back to business. “But not tonight. Bren’ll be by to take you to dinner in an hour or so. Until then, just settle in. You’ve got two neighbors on this floor, but they’re not always here.” She pointed behind her. “Zayan’s across the hall. He’s our chief tech expert, so I’m guessing you’ll spend some time with him. And River’s next door. She’s one of our teachers.”

Sebastian slotted the names away into the mental file he was building on Sector Three before he could stop himself. Collecting data shouldn’t matter. Bren would get his week, and then Sebastian could spend six months pondering whether the fractured pieces of his psyche could be reformed into a life that was survivable.

Or if he even wanted them to be.

“If you don’t need anything else…” Six’s words trailed off with raised eyebrows. When Sebastian shook his head, she nodded, waved two fingers at him in a silent farewell, and took her leave, closing the creaking door behind her. He followed the sound of her footsteps fading down the hallway. There was a freight elevator at the far end of the corridor, but instead of the rumble of its gears he heard the squeak of the unoiled hinges on the door to the stairs, and the rapid thump of her boots going down.

No one would be coming onto the fourth floor silently. Not unless they came through a window, anyway. The unoiled door might be an oversight. Given the state of the rest of the building, that was entirely possible.

Two long strides brought Sebastian to the bathroom door that Six had indicated. He inhaled deeply, sorting through the layers of scents. Concrete, wood. Fresh paint–not the industrial kind produced in Sector Eight, but the organic mixture popular in Sector One. And beneath that, faint but detectable, at least to a Makhai…

He reached out with two fingers and pushed the door. It swung silently shut on well-oiled hinges.

Silicone.

Maybe his fourth floor neighbors were also the kind of people who slept better knowing no one could approach their rooms silently.

He turned to survey his home for the next six months. It was small, compared to the accommodations he’d had on the Base. As a rare senior Makhai soldier who was stationed permanently on Base, he’d had his own house. Modest, compared to the homes built for senior generals, but still a rare privilege. He’d had two bedrooms, an office, a private workout room, a full kitchen, and even a little scrap of land off the back where his domestic handler had planted a–

Pain spasmed through him. Sebastian squeezed his eyes shut and leaned back against the door, letting it take his weight as his muscles trembled in remembered agony.

He couldn’t think about Marissa. Couldn’t think about the Base, or ten months of torture, or anything outside of his new quarters. Six meters by five meters. No closet. One bathroom. Forcing his eyes open, he cataloged the furniture in time with his slow, careful breaths.

Bed. Dresser.

Bedside table. Lamp.

Desk. Chair.

His slow progress around the room snagged on the painting hanging above his desk. The canvas was hand stretched, and he could tell from here that it was real paint, not a chemical print. When his knees steadied, he moved closer, running his fingertips along the textured brushstrokes.

Oil. He could still smell it. Oil paint was expensive in most sectors and downright precious in a place like Three. The rest of his furniture was serviceable, the loving polish not doing much to hide the fact that it had been second rate before it was hard used. But the painting…

It was a desert scene. But not the desert as he usually saw it captured. Whoever had painted this had captured the colors most people never noticed. The way light had a quality, gradations within itself that shimmered off everything it touched. He could taste the rose gold of the sand. The indigo of the sunset. He could hear each individual thread of light, like a tapestry woven with breathless skill.

Sebastian had always wondered why most paintings seemed to capture a duller world. It had taken decades to fully understand that was simply the world most people saw. It wasn’t particularly remarkable for a Makhai soldier to have heightened sensory processing–it was the root of the rumors that they were psychic, for the most part.

But this painting couldn’t have been done by a Makhai. He would believe that Malhotra had fallen in love, but imagining the soldier had also cultivated oil-painting as a hobby was simply too ridiculous.

So there was a human here who saw with sharp, observant eyes. Sebastian would have to figure out who they were. That would be his first mission.

His second would be to avoid them.