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  Despite feeling like a dead woman walking, I’d never been more in love with Navan than I was at that moment. He was the father of my child, the love of my life, the husband I’d never expected, and he had quieted my beloved daughter—a baby who could split open a skull with her addicted wails.

  “Do you think we’ll be safe here?” I asked, shaking out my tired limbs. Navan and I had been taking turns holding Nova throughout our six-hour wait, but he had way more stamina than me, thanks to his coldblood genetics. He was barely breaking a sweat, while I felt like I might crumble.

  He nodded, still rocking Nova. “Mort was right when he said nobody comes here for anything interesting. Nobody will expect us to be here, not even Ezra and Aurelius.”

  “And you think the others will be able to swoop down without anyone noticing?”

  “We only needed to do this the legal way so we could stay low and keep hidden, without worrying about Mallarot authorities blowing our cover or throwing us in some shifter prison,” he replied. “All the others need to do is touch down for a couple of hours, max. They’ll be in and out before anyone has the chance to say anything.”

  “Are you sure?”

  He smiled. “Positive.”

  “Did Bashrik say whether Alfa and Dio were coming along?” He had spoken to Bashrik yesterday, when the brothers checked in with one another. They were coming straight from Lunar HQ to join us, arriving in a few days’ time on one of the modified Fed ships.

  “No, they’ve taken another ship and are heading to rendezvous with Niniver and that Carokian guy,” he replied, giving me a wry smile. “I think they’ve had enough of our problems.”

  I chuckled. “I don’t blame them. Are they okay?”

  “Alfa got picked up a while back. A onceover from the Rexombran wisewoman and he was fine. Dio is much better, too. I think they’re just ready to go back to their old lives,” he muttered. “Although, apparently it was Stone who told Alfa to head back to their junkyard ship. The two of them are best friends; I doubt he’d leave willingly.”

  “Why do you think he did that?”

  “Not sure. Maybe he thought his friend had done enough. I’d say singlehandedly surviving at the rebel base, and taking out hordes of enemies at the same time, is enough to warrant a rest. Or maybe Stone is worried about his business going under, and needs someone to take over while he’s gone?”

  I nodded. “He has been away from the stealing and trading business for a while. Do you think Stone will go back to it, once all of this is over?” It was something I’d been wondering for a while, though I had to admit it came from a selfish place. I was worried he might take Lauren with him, when this madness finally came to an end.

  “I’ve got no idea what that renegade will do when all’s said and done. He doesn’t seem like the kind of guy who’ll ever change his ways, but I didn’t think I’d be the kind of guy who’d change mine, either,” he said, smiling. “It takes the right person and the right circumstances.”

  I leaned into his shoulder, feeling my heart swell. If Lauren and Stone loved each other as much as I loved Navan, then maybe that was enough reason to let her go. If her path led to joining him on his junkyard ship, traveling the universe together, then who was I to stop them?

  “And you didn’t mention Nova?” I asked.

  “No. I thought it best we save that for when we’re all back together. It’ll be easier to explain that way.”

  “I agree.”

  After a few minutes, we reached the pod, which was clamped in a bay in the immigration port. The shipyard was overcrowded and dirty, the sky stormy overhead, with travelers pouring toward the never-ending customs lines that snaked backward. Relieved to be away from it, I waited for Navan to swipe the metal card over the scanner, the clamps releasing as the pod door opened. He stepped in first, lifting a vial from the bag of sweetblood. Pulling out the stopper, he settled down with Nova at the rudimentary pilot’s chair, multitasking as he poured the golden liquid into her mouth and got us in the air.

  I sat behind him, watching us lift away from the shipyard. “What if Mort’s parents won’t take us in?” I asked, feeling a tremor of doubt.

  After all, it wasn’t as though we had many options. If they kicked us out, we’d have nowhere to go… and I couldn’t bear the thought of another night sleeping in that pod with my husband and child cramped in there with me.

  Navan stared through the curved windshield of the pod, his slate eyes fixed ahead. “We’ve got to hope that they do.” He turned to me, smiling sadly. “I mean, they put up with Mort for long enough. I’m sure we’ll be a piece of cake by comparison.”

  I knew he meant well, trying to make me laugh, but it was all a bit too raw. One day, I’d be able to grin and chuckle and reminisce about all the things that had happened with the errant shifter, especially knowing my own death wouldn’t have stopped Mort from cracking jokes, but I needed a bit more time. So, I simply put on a smile and watched my husband feed our daughter, while measuring out the tiniest drop of sweetblood for myself… just to take the edge off this doozy of a week. Hell, this doozy of a year.

  Chapter Two

  As I watched the planet’s surface whizz by below us, everything was tinged with a rusty orange palette. The ground itself seemed to be forged from a burnished orange dirt, which swept across a vast, barren landscape in dense plumes of swirling dust clouds, whipped up by fierce winds that buffeted the pod. At least we didn’t have to worry about Aurelius tracking us—the pod was fitted with a stealth mode that prevented anyone from picking it up. Plus, Navan had double-checked for any hidden trackers.

  Beyond the main towns and cities situated around the immigration port, there didn’t seem to be much in the way of community out here. Even then, those towns had been unpleasant to the eye, nothing but a series of dull cubed towers, all made from the same brownish-red stone, with blacked-out windows that peered across the landscape like the dead eyes of a shark. The smaller structures and houses in the suburbs, which extended from the town centers, were no better. They were made up of uniform lines of boxy buildings that lacked any uniqueness whatsoever, each one identical to the next.

  Now, in rural Mallarot, there was nothing but endless fields of churned, rusty-orange earth. Twisted black plants emerged from the dirt, but they had no leaves or flowers to speak of, and nothing grew from their feeble branches. Whatever they were growing—gumshi, most likely—was clearly buried deep belowground. Miles and miles passed between one ranch and the next, and the farmhouses were stark and simple, raised from a basic wood structure with verandas wrapping around the outside. These were nicer than the townhouses and tower-blocks of the cities, but they were no less uniform.

  In the fields, shifters toiled away, ripping strange, pallid gourds out of the ground. I couldn’t help thinking they looked like skulls, the tough exterior glinting in a sickeningly bone-like way.

  Then again, maybe I’d been around death and battle too long, prompting me to see decay where there wasn’t any.

  “How far away are we?” I asked, turning away from the latest batch of gumshi farmers below.

  They barely looked up as we passed, focusing intently on their work. Back in Texas, Mr. Churnley had insisted there was a certain peace to be found in farming—in the certainty of it, and the rhythmic repetition of the day’s tasks—though the three of us girls had been too distracted to ever find that peace.

  Now, I had to wonder if he’d been right.

  “The navigation system says we’re ten minutes away,” Navan replied. We’d been in the air for almost half an hour, powering across the landscape of Mallarot. Nova was asleep in her usual compartment, sated by the sweetblood. I envied her ability to curl up and go to sleep wherever she liked, though I didn’t resent her for it. I supposed this creeping sense of exhaustion was just the inevitability of being new parents.

  I smiled at him, moving across the pod to sit beside him. “How are you still going?”

  “What do you mean?
”

  “How are you still powering through? I mean, don’t get me wrong, you look like you could do with a decent wash and a sleep, but nobody would think you’d been up for days from the way you’re swinging babies around and keeping this pod from plummeting to the ground.”

  “Call it coldblood tenacity,” he said with a chuckle. “We’re like clockwork; you wind us up and we’ll keep going until we have absolutely nothing left. Anyway, I have my two girls to think about. If I fall asleep at the wheel, or collapse from exhaustion, I risk putting you in danger. I’ll push through anything to stop that from happening. Plus, I haven’t recently pushed a living being out of my body—you’re entitled to feel pretty wiped out. Any complaining I did would pale in comparison.”

  I smiled. “I love you, Navan Idrax, you beast of stamina.”

  He leaned over, a laugh rising from his throat, before tilting his head to kiss me. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” he whispered, his lips grazing mine. “I love you, too.”

  Ten minutes later, as promised, a shack came into view on the dusty horizon. It was exactly the same as the other ranch-style buildings we’d seen, the whole thing built from battered wood, which had taken on that same reddish tone of the surrounding land through years of weathering.

  A male shifter was working on a small patch of gumshi, close to the farmhouse, raking through the dirt with what looked like a curved, oversized spoon. He kept pausing every minute or so to scratch at the back of his neck with a frankly nauseating vigor, his red-veined eyes rolling back into his head with a look of intense pleasure. Unfortunately, it was impossible to look away. I wondered if it was the reddish dust, getting into his folds, causing him irritation.

  I got up and walked over to the compartment where Nova was sleeping, picking her up and plucking a fresh vial of sweetblood from the bag. I put a few more in my pockets, just in case this meeting lasted longer than anticipated. Navan turned to look at me, a furrow of worry on his brow.

  “I’m going to feed her another vial to get her through the next few hours, that’s all. She went a long time without it back there, and she’ll still be hungry,” I explained. “The last thing we need is her wailing, and Mort’s parents having the same reaction as that customs official. Relax, I’m not having any more until tonight. Three drops a day, as agreed.”

  “I wasn’t—”

  I cut him off with a knowing glance. “I understand why you’re concerned, but I’ve got it under control. I’m not going to slip up again.”

  “But if you do, I just want you to know that it’s okay. I’ll be here, no matter what.”

  “Another reason I adore you,” I said, feeling unbelievably lucky despite our less-than-favorable situation.

  Slowly, the pod descended toward the dusty earth, setting down in a stretch of arid land to the side of the farmhouse. The male shifter watched the vessel land, his red-veined eyes narrowed in curiosity as he stopped what he was doing and leaned against the shaft of his spoon-like equipment. All the while, he scratched away at the back of his neck, going at it with unsettling ferocity. I wished I had a cream I could offer him to stop him from scratching in such a stomach-churning manner.

  The pod door slid open, and the three of us—Navan, Nova, and I—got out, heading for the male shifter, who was watching us intently. The ground below our feet was soft and spongy, giving like fresh snow, leaving deep imprints of our footsteps as we closed the gap between ourselves and the waiting shifter.

  Reaching him, I cradled Nova in my arms, feeding her the last of the sweetblood vial.

  “Hello there,” Navan said brightly, as I continued with what I was doing, focusing on tipping the bottle slowly. Too much at once, and she tended to splutter. “We’re here to give Mort’s parents a message. Are you his father?”

  The shifter frowned. “Did Mort send you?”

  “In a way… yes.”

  “How did you find us?” His gaze flickered toward the vial of sweetblood, where it stayed, even as Navan was speaking to him. The shifter was looking at the golden liquid with such greedy hunger that I almost bolted back to the pod out of fear.

  “The customs officials gave us your address after we told them who sent us,” Navan continued, undeterred. “I hope you don’t mind the intrusion. We thought we’d better come and deliver the message face-to-face, instead of sending a note or something.”

  He grunted. “Okay, well, I guess you’re here now. Would probably be rude of me to leave you out here with no kind of hospitality.” He sighed, as though we were a burden, his eyes still fixed on the vial of sweetblood. “The name’s… just call me Bosen, like everyone else does. It’ll be easier for all of us, instead of you butchering my proud name. And yes, for my sins, I’m the father of that worthless gumshi maggot.”

  Navan offered out his hand, evidently trying to distract him from the vial. “I’m Navan Idrax, and this is my wife, Riley. The baby is Nova.”

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Bosen muttered bluntly, licking his lips. “Funny mix, the pair of you. I’d ask how you ended up like this, but I’m not an idiot. You coldbloods always think we’re the lowest of the low, don’t you? Well, not old Bosen, I can promise you that.”

  It seemed the shifter was harboring some resentment toward Navan’s species, reinforcing the fractured, strange relationship between the two—coldbloods and shifters. They worked together, yet across the majority, they hated each other. I wasn’t sure I’d ever understand it.

  “I can assure you, I don’t think shifters are beneath anyone,” Navan replied calmly. “We wouldn’t be here at all if it wasn’t for your son’s heroism. He has been a good advocate for your species.”

  Some of the time, I added silently, with a fond smile.

  Bosen snorted.

  “My son, heroic? Don’t make me laugh.” He turned toward the ranch, tearing his eyes away from the sweetblood. “Now, you coming in, or what? I’ve got work to be getting on with, but the missus will see to it that you’re fed, watered, and whatnot. Might even have a bed for you, if you’re tired. I mean, you both look like you’ve seen better days—bad trip, was it?”

  Much like his son, there didn’t seem to be much of a filter between Bosen’s thoughts and his mouth.

  “Something like that,” I said curtly, readjusting Nova so I could slip the now-empty vial into my back pocket, alongside one of the full ones. I’d get rid of the empty bottle later, when creepy-creeperson and his eager eyes weren’t watching my every move. Part of me wanted to dash back to the pod, to hide the bag of sweetblood better, but it was too late now. If I detoured, he’d know why.

  “Okay then, you’d best get inside and give us this news,” Bosen remarked. “I’d get you to tell me out here, so I could get right back to hoeing my gumshi, but the missus would never forgive me. She likes to have her snout in everything first, you know what I mean? I imagine you do, Navan, am I right? These wives of ours always nagging at us, getting in our business?” He nudged Navan roughly in the shoulder, but Navan barely smiled.

  “Thank you for your hospitality,” he replied coldly.

  Bosen gave his neck a firm scratch, before stomping up the ranch steps, muttering under his breath. “Strange and sourpusses. Bet you two are barrels of fun at parties.”

  I grasped Navan’s arm. “Did you lock the pod?”

  “Nobody is getting in that thing without the emergency device.” He patted his pocket reassuringly, the two of us exchanging a worried look.

  “Good.” I breathed a sigh of relief, though a whisper of doubt remained.

  A long time ago, or so it seemed to me now, Navan and Ronad had told me never to trust a shifter. No matter how much I’d ended up caring about Mort, and how much he’d proven himself in the end, he hadn’t always been good. I needed to remember that, to keep my perspective clear. Their warnings rang in my head. Until Bosen won my trust, I had to keep my wits about me.

  The boys were right. Never trust a shifter.

  Chapter Three


  “Bosen, that you? I thought you’d be out all afternoon. I hope you aren’t slacking when you ought to be harvesting,” a surprisingly deep voice echoed from the back of the farmhouse. “If I have to get those boys back over from the next farm across to give you a helping hand, I won’t be pleased. I don’t like losing my earnings to some other folks, all because you’re a lazy sack of spudniks.”

  The farmhouse was neat and clean, with chintzy décor that reminded me of something from an old horror movie—the unsettling, shifter equivalent of porcelain dolls and dogs playing poker. A cramped hallway, decorated to within an inch of its available wall-space, led into a spacious main room, with two armchairs drenched in lace and worn blankets set near a fireplace. Shelves were packed with ornaments and figurines, coiling mermaids set beside unusual animals that I’d never seen before, let alone seen in figurine form.

  “Who you calling a lazy sack of spudniks?” Bosen called back, mumbling something rude. “I brought you guests, if you must know! I know how much you love to entertain, showing ‘em all your useless trinkets, boring the life out of them. I’m surprised I haven’t died of boredom yet, having to listen to you chatter on all these years.”

  “You take that back, Bosen, or I’ll come out there and pluck your tongue out of your head!”

  I shuddered at the visual, flashing a half-amused, half-horrified look at Navan. It didn’t seem like there was much affection between Mort’s mother and father, though I knew it wasn’t a shifter trait to loathe one another so openly. I’d seen pairs of shifters in love before, during my first journey to Vysanthe. They’d been on that first team, all of us traveling from Earth on the Asterope. For the first time in a long while, my mind turned to Kalvin, the coldblood rebel who’d been skewered by Gianne while saving our necks. All of that seemed like a dream now, a life that had belonged to a different person.