Prologue
“Those women turned ten million credits of construction equipment into scrap metal!” The human executive’s hologram jabbed an accusatory finger through the command table. “And now they expect us to write it off as a loss?”
Zeke pressed his shoulders back against the cool stone wall of the command room, watching the translucent figures in front of him posture and preen. Their greed left a bad taste in his mouth. The corporate team had been arguing in circles for twenty minutes, each new accusation more desperate than the last.
“The equipment was already damaged in the earthquake,” Kraath said, his deep voice a total contrast to the executive’s shrill tone. “Ms. Jackson and Ms. Trevor found a way to make it useful again.”
A woman with pinched features and hair that looked like it was glued into place leaned forward, her hologram flickering at the end of the movement. “The construction equipment wasn’t meant to be ‘useful’ as weapons. It was meant for construction and development. Do you know how much those systems were worth?”
“Much less than the lives they saved,” Kraath replied.
The corporate team bristled. A thin man with nervous hands jumped in, his voice pitched high with indignation. “Look here! The equipment—damaged or not—was company property. They deliberately dismantled it!”
The executives nodded in unified self-righteousness. Zeke gritted his teeth until he thought they would break off at the root. These pampered bureaucrats, sitting safely in their plush offices, had no concept of what it meant to fight for survival. To make hard choices when lives were on the line.
“What Ms. Jackson and Ms. Trevor did,” Kraath said in a measured tone as though he was talking to small children, “was show initiative in a crisis. They took wreckage and turned it into a defensive line.”
“Initiative?” The first executive snorted. “That’s what we’re calling it now? They destroyed?—”
“They adapted,” Kraath cut in. “Unless you’re suggesting they should have left the broken equipment lying useless while the garrison was under attack?”
Prince Isan hadn’t moved from his position at the “head” of the table, but Zeke noticed the slight tightening around his eyes. Anyone with eyes in their head could see that the prince’s patience was wearing thin. Zeke couldn’t blame him. The executives’ single-minded focus on their profit margins became more grating by the second.
“The fact remains,” the female said, straightening her already perfect jacket with a pointed movement, “that millions of credits worth of specialized equipment is now nothing but twisted metal. They should have taken steps to avoid destruction of company property. Someone has to be held accountable for these losses.”
“Accountable? Why?” Zeke pushed off from the wall with a snarl. “Even the garrison’s advanced sensor arrays didn’t detect that quake until it hit. Are you suggesting their civilian equipment should have performed better than ours, which is Latharian military grade?”
The executive’s hologram flickered as she drew back. “That’s not—I mean—the issue here is about proper securing of equipment?—”
“During an earthquake that your sensors couldn’t predict?” Zeke demanded. “Maybe you’d like to explain exactly how they were supposed to manage that? How do humans say it? With a ‘crystal ball’ perhaps?”
“The point,” one of the male executives cut in, “is that if Ms. Jackson and Ms. Trevor had taken proper precautions?—”
“The point,” Prince Isan’s deep voice sliced through the room, “is that you seem to have forgotten something rather important.”
He rose slowly from his chair, his pale eyes fixed on the flickering holograms of the humans. “Which is that Ms. Jackson and her team are now considered Izaean citizens, and all Izaean citizens are blood-bonded. As I am also Izaean, and I am a K’Saan—the emperor’s nephew, in fact—that means Ms. Jackson and Ms. Trevor are part of the Imperial House.”
His lips curved in a smile as warm as a razor. “So any complaint about them must go through the correct channels. Would you prefer to explain your grievances to my uncle, the emperor?”
The executives’ holograms wavered as they exchanged panicked glances. The thin man opened his mouth, closed it, and then opened it again. “Your Highness, we didn’t mean to?—”
The command room door burst open behind them, causing every warrior in the room to spin around. A young Izaean stumbled through it, red in the face and breathing hard.
“Commander! Subcommander! Michelle—she’s been snatched by a feral!”
1
She fucking hated being injured. It made her slow, and people kept talking about her resting… which was boring.
Michelle grumbled to herself as she pushed through the construction office's doors, her leg throbbing like a son of a bitch. The splint wrapped around her calf felt tight against the swelling, and each step sent a sharp reminder up her shin that she probably should've taken Zeke up on those painkillers he'd offered yesterday.
Fuck that. The first time she'd taken them, they'd knocked her on her ass, taking her brain offline until all she could do was stare stupidly at the ceiling above her bed. No, thank you. She'd handled worse than a broken leg before, and she wasn't about to start popping pills like that now. Besides, bothering the handsome Izaean medic at—she glanced at her watch—four-thirty in the morning seemed like a dick move, even if he'd told her to wake him if the pain got bad.
The admin office hummed with the low thrum of overnight systems, soft lighting casting everything in a pale blue wash. Liam Graham looked up from his console, coffee mug halfway to his lips. His pale eyes widened in surprise at the sight of her. Caleb Park spun around in his chair, nearly dropping the tablet he'd been scrolling through and looking as guilty as a kid caught with his hand in the cookie jar.
"Fuck, Michelle." Liam set his mug down hard, ceramic clicking against metal. "What are you doing up? It's not even five."
"Couldn't sleep." She limped toward the central console bank.
