Chapter 2
Two
Despite her mounting panic, Gus retained enough calm to realize the question had been posed in Tuann. A language few humans understood.
None of whom were likely to be on Titan.
Caius gave her another little shake. “Answer.”
Again, he spoke in Tuann.
“I-I don’t understand,” Gus stammered in Consortium standard.
A human would be scared in a situation like this—well, even more scared than she was. Since her current identity was that of a human, human behavior was what she would model.
Outwardly, at least.
Caius muttered a curse in Tuann before switching languages. “Who are you? How did I get here?”
“I found you,” Gus said, letting herself stumble a bit over her words.
Caius was known for his shrewdness. The slightest deviation in behavior would spark questions. Questions Gus wasn’t inclined to answer when his hands were wrapped around her neck.
Lucky for her, the Tuann didn’t have a clear understanding of the human psyche. As long as she acted within the expected framework, she should be fine.
Fear. I am fear.
Gus repeated the mantra as Caius bent her backward via the hold he had on her throat. She went with his flow, conscious of the incredible strength in his hands. If he wanted to, he could snap her neck with a twitch of his fingers.
The boy made an unconscious sound of distress from where he’d pressed himself against the wall.
“Are you with them?” Caius gave her a slight shake for emphasis. “Did they send you after me?”
“N-no.”
Surreptitiously, Gus brushed a finger against one of the dermal patches she kept on the back of her hand. Just below the knuckles.
Considered the weakest of the forty-three, with no real offensive skills beyond some basic hand-to-hand combat techniques, Gus had needed to turn to alternative methods to safeguard her life. She found them in poisons and the like.
There were five patches on each hand. One for every knuckle.
Each patch contained a different toxin. Some killed quickly. Others slowly. Still others made someone wish they were dying.
The patch Gus chose for this occasion held a sedative. Quick acting and reliable even against a Tuann immune system.
It was a creation of her own making. Tested on herself and refined over the years.
The patches themselves were something she’d picked up from Titan’s criminal underbelly. Undetectable and hardy enough that they wouldn’t burst by accident. But also, fragile enough to provide easy access.
Gus dug a fingernail into the patch, feeling the slight give and then cool liquid as the sedative oozed out. Swiping a finger protected by its own dermal patch through the sedative, she reached up and lightly touched the hand around her throat.
“Don’t lie,” Caius said. “Anandra told me what you did.”
Gus counted down in her head.
Three.
Two.
One.
Impatiently, Gus waited for the sedative to take effect.
Any time now.
Several more seconds passed before Caius’s hand finally went lax and slipped from around her neck.
He wobbled. “What did you do to me?”
He collapsed before she could give him an answer.
Gus turned to take in the commander’s unconscious form, rubbing her throat where he’d grabbed her. “That took entirely too long.”
She’d have to recalibrate the sedative’s potency.
Again.
Gus suppressed the urge to kick Caius’s unconscious body.
What kind of individual tries to kill the person who just saved them?
See—this was why she was a hermit. People were confounding.
Annoyed, Gus looked up, pinning the boy in place with a glance. He clung to the wall, pressing against it as hard as he could as if in hopes of merging with the metal.
“Come here,” Gus ordered.
She supposed she shouldn’t be surprised that the boy had sided with Caius. People stuck with what they knew, even though points of commonality were by no means the protection most people thought they were. You could be betrayed just as easily by someone you grew up with versus a stranger.
Actually—maybe even easier. With a stranger, there was some resistance. A guard. When it was someone you knew and trusted, it was that much harder to protect yourself against their duplicity.
“I-is he—?”
“He’s not dead,” Gus snapped.
More’s the pity. A lot of Gus’s problems would be solved if he was.
“What did you do to him?” the boy asked.
He shot a glance at Caius, a look of relief crossing his face as he caught the rise and fall of his chest.
“I gave him a sedative.” At the boy’s surprised look, Gus shrugged. “He seemed tense.”
The boy had an odd expression on his face as his eyebrows rose.
“He called you Anandra. Is that your name?” Gus asked, crouching to get a better look at Caius.
They’d sure done a number on him. Where he’d gotten the energy to threaten her, she did not know. There were two puncture wounds in his abdomen. Another on the left side of his chest; alarmingly close to his heart.
“Yes, and that’s Cai,” Anandra answered, an expectant look on his face as he waited for Gus to offer her name.
He would wait an eternity. Gus didn’t plan to get any more involved than she already was. The fact that he’d seen her face when so few ever had was bad enough. There was no reason to bring names into this too.
“We were attacked.”
Gus cut him off before he could say anything more. “I don’t need to know what happened.”
Anandra closed his mouth, looking like he was struggling not to cry.
“I’ll provide safe harbor until this guy is healed enough to protect you. You’re on your own after that.”
Don’t get involved. That was the forty-three’s motto. Until now, Gus had followed that directive to the letter. No bereft little boy was going to jeopardize that. Especially not after she’d gone to the trouble of saving him only to have him turn around and lie.
Oh, yeah, she’d caught his little omission. He’d been smooth about it. Using the shortened form of Caius to try to fool Gus. If she wasn’t already familiar with the power brokers of the major Houses, she might have fallen for it.
Maybe there was hope for him yet.
“He’s hurt pretty bad. What if he doesn’t heal?” Anandra asked.
Gus had to admit that she was a little concerned about that herself.
His wounds were bad enough, but it was the fact that he wasn’t wearing any synth armor that worried her most. It made no sense. Caius should have earned his own set long ago.
Synth armor was created by embedding the scale of a lu-ong into a Tuann’s body.
Overtime, the scale would replicate under the surface of their skin.
Piece by piece until finally there was enough to cover the entire body.
The process could take up to a decade depending on the quality of the first scale seed.
Longer sometimes if it was of poor quality.
The older the lu-ong the quicker the scales replicated and the stronger they were said to be.
From there, the Tuann made certain modifications to allow the armor to reach its final shape.
There should have been a patch of skin on Caius’s body that was rougher than the rest. The location differed based on the House you were sworn to. For Roake, it was always over the left pectoral muscle.
Gus touched where it should have been, gentle as she traced the edges of a raw, angry looking hole.
They tore it out, she realized.
The fact Caius hadn’t died or gone mad was surprising. The sheer tenacity to survive something like that.
While the Houses had their ways of extracting the armor, it was rarely done. Mostly because it usually resulted in death. The general consensus was that once earned, an armor could not be reclaimed. You had to do something truly heinous for it to even be considered.
“Spawn of a corn cockle,” Gus cursed.
The hope she’d been holding onto that all Caius needed was a quick patch job before she dumped him and the kid somewhere very far away—all before he woke up again—died a slow, agonizing death.
Caius needed more intervention than her limited med kit could provide.
She was going to have to take him into the heart of her sanctuary. A place no other had ever stepped.
Worse—she was going to need Anandra’s help getting him there.
“What?” Anandra asked, catching Gus’s look.
“I hate to admit it, but I might need your help,” Gus confessed.
She’d struggled moving Caius the handful of feet necessary to reach the container. There was no way she would be able to relocate him into the heart of her sanctuary without assistance.
Anandra looked startled but happy. “Of course.”
Sadly, his response did nothing to help Gus’s mood. The idea of allowing anyone—even a child—into her lair was abhorrent.
Gus wanted nothing more than to toss these two out and forget everything that had happened.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t an option. Caius was too injured and the boy already knew their location. Gus gave him half a day before he was recaptured. Those ears of his and the perfect symmetry of his features ensured he’d stick out like a sore thumb on Titan.
When that happened, he’d lead his captors right back to her doorstep.
“Grab his feet,” Gus ordered, moving around to Caius’s head.
Anandra held up the Nawana orchid. “What should I do with this?”
“Place it on the table over there. I’ll get it settled later,” Gus ordered, a little surprised the boy hadn’t already ditched the orchid.
Given how leery he’d been in the beginning, she’d expected him to have already rid himself of it.
How thoughtful. Or maybe he was more scared of Gus than the toxic plant.
If so, he was smarter than she’d given him credit for. Right now, that orchid meant a lot more to her than he did.
Anandra found an empty spot on a nearby table and set the pot on it before taking a look around at the shipping container that served as Gus’s entryway.
Of the nineteen containers Gus had repurposed for her own use, this one’s contents could be considered the simplest, least attention grabbing.
As long as one ignored the priceless works of art decorating the walls.