“Christ, don’t tell her that or we’re all in for it. She’ll go for his jugular for assuming she can’t handle herself,” I mutter. “Besides, if you didn’t know, that sod promoted her to the beta level last week. I trailed her around Syria for hours the other day and watched her rescue a bunch of journalists while taking out a garrison of guards—all with no magick. It was eye-opening.”
Blinking, she stutters. “B-beta level? Like you? Already?”
I nod and sigh. “You should have seen her fight, love. It was as graceful as a ballet and even hotter. She was carrying Precious and used her like a first chair violinist wielding their bow. Mikhail’s only calling to ride my ass—he’ll not do a bloody thing to her. She doesn’t even have to do any paperwork, for fuck’s sakes.”
“He said they were writing them off as training exercises and sticking to the less pious. But it pleased him you two took out a street gang, a cocaine cartel, and a human trafficking ring. Good thing you took her with you on your exploits.”
I snort. “Good thing I brought her with—sodding hell, woman, they were all her bloody idea!” I make a face, pondering how sheselected such deserving targets, and then shake my head. “It’s not a problem, then. If it helps, we found out that virtue is a bitter pill to swallow.”
Talia slithers closer, and I chuckle. Her palm rests on my cheek for a moment, her smile soft. “That’s what you get for going outside the lines, my bad boy. It sounds like she will get a pass this time and, hell, maybe every time. You, however, get crocheting.”
I roll my eyes and kiss her palm. “Are you ready, love? I’m feeling like I need to see a party about a girl.”
Our connection swells a bit, and I feel my primary reaching inside me to feel my need to get to my wife. She matches it with her eagerness to get to him. She thinks I don’t see it, but there’s a part of her wanting to see how her new mate reacts to the outfit as well.
She pulls Baby out of the sheath, spinning her before sliding her home. “Oh, yeah, I’m ready. Wait until they get a load of us.”
I chuckle and take her hand, popping us to the home of the hour and our waiting mates.
It’s time to get this party started.
The Blade Is Ready To Party
TALIA
There were many moments in my career where I could have knocked Taurus bloody, but rarely did I feel the urge so keenly as when Mikhail called me today, howling and ranting about the latest round of their escapades. Taurus’s messes usually arrived in my inbox in the form of incident reports—breached protocols, unapproved contact with assets, or an occasional drunken brawl in a neutral city. But this was different, and I could sense it even over the encrypted line, the way Mikhail spat every syllable like it was designed to burn me. My ears are still ringing from his ranting. It was almost impressive, the volume and intensity he mustered through the dampening protocols of the Company’s lines.
My primary has never been one to respect rules, no matter whose they are.
I can’t decide if Mikhail genuinely wanted Taurus’s ass reamed, or if this was just another move in the endless game of dominance the two of them played. The Company had always relied on that tension—it made them effective, as a team and as individuals—but lately, the stakes had changed. I relayed themessage as instructed… The Company was waiting for a slip-up. They’d been sharpening the knives for months, maybe even years, ever since the new girlfriend entered the scene. Mikhail’s own pet project, Taurus’s precious ‘kitty,’ had become the axis around which all their careers now revolved.
He’s gonna hate that shit when he figures it out.
When Taurus finally blustered his way into Mik’s office a month ago—boots still caked with mud from a mission, coat draped across his shoulders like a flag of insurrection—he demanded the one thing no other clone in the building would have even dared to suggest: a fast track for his new partner. Not just a transfer or a team-up, but a seat at the table, maybe even a protected spot in the next round of gene-locked fieldwork. He said it like a man who’d already decided it was inevitable, like the request was just a formality. There are times when I wonder if Taurus doesn’t understand the rules, but I know in my heart that he simply refuses to let them apply.
Surprisingly, Mikhail and Oversight indulged the idea.
I wasn’t privy to the inner motivations of our bosses, but I can guess. Taurus’s evaluation of recruits was almost never wrong, and he’d never thrown his own career weight behind anyone else before. The kitty must be extraordinary in the field. From the outside, it probably looked like favoritism, but the truth was less sentimental. The Company trusted Taurus’s instincts more than their own screening tests. His word was a currency, and in this case, it bought the new girl a probationary status before she’d even finished her baseline contract.
Word will spread fast; offices buzz with rumors.
No one will understand why the Company is interested in a tabby who’d barely cut her teeth on a handful of soft missions. Mikhail didn’t tell anyone he’d boosted her clearance, especially not Taurus and definitely not me, but it’ll get around now. I’ve known Taurus as long as anyone, and nothing surprises him, but even he seemed blindsided by the info that she was doing beta missions. She’s now almost his equal in job status, not just at home.
I wonder if that would change things between them.
My assumption was that the Company would want to protect the miracle baby, and they’d keep her doing little things. There’s a market for that sort of thing if they can figure out how it worked—the offspring of an engineered super-soldier and a supernatural being, I’m sure. The Company doesn’t need to be imaginative to be dangerous; they just need to be persistent.
I know for a fact that Mikhail would love to get his hands on data to present, run things through every test until there isn’t a single secret left. But neither Deli nor Taurus are stupid—shielding her from the white rooms and the bleeding-edge diagnostics is high on their list. Nobody wants their kid to grow up a pincushion, even if her dad was grown in a test tube and her mom is a high priestess with a kill count.
There’s a special kind of tension when the people you trust most are also the ones most likely to destroy you. Taurus and I both know The Company’s motives are never pure. Part of me suspects that granting the kitty her advancement was less about merit and more about leverage, a way to pressure Taurus into compliance. They’d always kept him on a long leash, but now there’s something else to threaten. He must have sensed that, because for the first time, his bravado seemed tinged with caution. He’d never admit it, but he was scared—scared for her,for the kid, for what the Company might do if they ever fell out of line.
But then, we have no idea what our miracle kitty can or will do if someone threatens their child; I have the feeling it’s beyond what I could imagine.
The thing is, Taurus knows how to survive. He kept his head down, played by the rules (or close enough), and made sure every mission was a success. The prospect of fatherhood makes him even more dangerous because the stakes are real. The kitty rises to every challenge, sometimes spectacularly, and sometimes with catastrophic results. But she learned fast, faster than anyone I’d ever seen, and it wasn’t long before people started talking less about her as a curiosity and more as a real contender.
At first, I watched her assignments trickle in—low-level, low-risk, designed to test her resilience more than her skills. The Company’s way of hazing, I suppose. But as the weeks went by, her missions became more complex, her responsibilities heavier. She didn’t complain, not once. If anything, she seemed to relish it. Maybe it was a relief to be judged on performance rather than pedigree or relationship. Maybe she just wanted to prove herself. I can relate.
Still, the Company’s curiosity hadn’t abated. Every success was scrutinized, every mistake logged and analyzed. I’m sure Mikhail was writing entire volumes on her psychological profile. But the more she accomplished, the less anyone could argue with the results. Even the skeptics started to begrudgingly respect her place on the team. She’d become indispensable, and that’s when I knew things were about to get interesting.
