Chapter 2
Dexter
The conference room smells like her. Gun oil and antiseptic and something underneath that's just Astra, a scent I catalogued six years ago and never forgot.
I'm standing at the viewport, watching the docking bay crews clear wreckage from the Vex attack, when Zane's voice cuts through my attempt at not thinking about the blood she drew from my throat.
"You're not listening."
I turn. My brother sits at his desk, surrounded by displays showing the station's vital signs like he's monitoring a patient on life support. His marks glow faint along his forearms. Irritation, maybe. Or stress. Hard to tell with Zane anymore.
"I'm listening."
"Then tell me why you're really back."
I could lie. I'm good at lying. Six years of military contracts taught me how to wear any face that keeps me breathing. But Zane's abilities are sharper than mine, his control better. He'll taste the deception before I finish the sentence.
"You asked me to stay. I stayed."
"That's not an answer."
No. It's not.
I move away from the viewport. Sit across from him.
The desk between us is Vaelor crystal, dark blue shot through with silver veins.
Our father's desk. Everything in this office still carries Malachar's fingerprints, and Zane hasn't changed a single piece of furniture. Superstition or paralysis, I don't ask.
"The Vex attack was coordinated," I say instead. "Three entry points, simultaneous breach. Someone fed them the shield rotation schedules."
Zane's marks flare brighter. There it is. The anger he's been containing since I walked off that transport with his security chief's blood under my nails.
"I know. Astra's running the investigation."
Of course she is. Astra would run this station single-handed if Zane let her, fueled by fury and the need to prove she's un-fucking-breakable. I'd know. I'm the one who made her need to prove it.
"She shouldn't be running anything alone," I say. "Not if there's a mole."
"She has a team."
"She has you." I lean forward. "Brother. I can feel what you're broadcasting from here. You're in love with a human woman who was cargo three weeks ago. That's either the best strategic move you've ever made or—"
"Don't."
The word stops me cold. Not the content. The tone. Zane doesn't often use that voice on me, the one that reminds everyone he's the heir and I'm just the weapon he points at problems.
I raise both hands. Yield, for now.
He exhales. Leans back. When he speaks again, his voice has lost its edge, replaced by something that sounds dangerously close to hope.
"She's more than I expected."
"They always are."
"Talia's different. She doesn't flinch. She doesn't perform." His marks pulse soft, steady. The Empri tell for genuine feeling. "She fights me. Every step. It's..."
"Honest," I finish.
He nods.
I think about Astra in that corridor. The knife at my throat. The way she looked at me like I was every sin she'd ever committed wearing skin. No performance there either. Just rage distilled into a blade.
Honest doesn't make it easier. Sometimes it makes it worse.
"The Vex situation," Zane continues, pulling up tactical displays. "Astra believes they were testing our response times. Not trying to take the station. Just measuring."
"For what?"
"A real assault." He gestures to the damage reports scrolling past. "This was reconnaissance. Next time will be war."
I process that. The numbers. The probabilities. The cold mathematics of siege warfare.
"We need better intelligence. On their fleet positioning, their supply lines, their command structure."
"We have intelligence." Zane's eyes find mine. Pale, unsettling, exactly like our father's. "What we need is someone who can extract it from sources that won't talk willingly."
Ah. There it is. The reason he asked me to stay.
Zane leads. I enforce. Same division of labor we've had since we were children playing at running the station. Except now the stakes are measured in bodies instead of toys.
"I'll handle it," I say.
"Coordinate with Astra. She's identified potential targets."
The door chimes before I can respond. Zane's marks flare once, then settle into something warmer. I don't need to guess who's on the other side.
"Come in."
Talia St. Laurent enters like she owns every room she walks into. Interesting, that transformation. Three weeks ago she was property. Now she moves with the confidence of someone who's learned exactly how much power proximity to Zane provides.
She's smaller than I expected. Human-sized, compact, with brown skin and dark eyes that catalogue me in three seconds flat. The mark at her throat glows soft blue, pulsing in time with Zane's patterns. Bonded. Claimed. His.
Her emotions hit me before she speaks. Protective. Suspicious. Territorial. And underneath, something harder than I expected in a woman who was cargo last month. She's killed, I realize. Recently. The taste of it lingers in her emotional signature like gun oil you can't quite wash off your hands.
I approve immediately.
"Dexter." Her voice is sharp. "The brother who left."
Zane makes a sound that might be a warning. She ignores him. Her eyes stay locked on mine.
"The one who came back," I correct.
"Temporarily?"
"Permanently. If my brother needs me."
She considers that. Her emotions shift. Testing me, maybe. Deciding if I'm threat or ally. Smart. In her position, I'd be doing the same assessment.
"Good," she says finally. "Zane needs people he can trust not to abandon him."
The knife slips between my ribs so smoothly I almost don't feel it. Almost.
I let myself taste her emotions more carefully. Protective, yes. But not possessive. She's not trying to control who Zane keeps close. She's warning me. Establishing terms. Making clear that if I hurt him, she'll find a way to make me regret it.
Not the soft debtor I expected at all.
"Noted," I say.
She nods. Turns to Zane. Her entire demeanor shifts, softens. "The debrief's ready whenever you are."
"Go ahead and start. I'll be there in ten."
She leaves without another glance at me. The door closes. Zane is smiling, just slightly, his marks still glowing with whatever he's feeling for her.
"She threatened you," he says.
"She did."
"You liked it."
I can't quite hide my own smile. "She's got teeth. That's useful."
"She's also mine. Remember that."
"Hard to forget when she's wearing your mark like a collar."
Zane's expression goes flat. I've crossed a line I didn't know existed. Interesting. The possessiveness is stronger than I calculated.
"The mark isn't a collar," he says, voice gone cold. "It's a connection. There's a difference."
I raise my hands again. Second time today I've yielded to my brother. That's a record.
"Understood."
He studies me. I let him. I've got nothing to hide from Zane, not really.
He knows what I am. What I've done. The calculations I make that he refuses to.
He's known since we were children and I told him, matter-of-fact, that if I had to choose between saving him or saving the station, I'd save the station.
He looked at me like I'd grown a second head. I looked at him like he was soft.
We've been complementary ever since. His conscience. My ruthlessness. Together, we might be one functional leader.
"Astra's running the security brief in twenty minutes," he says. "You're expected."
"I'll be there."
"Dexter." He waits until I meet his eyes. "She's not going to make this easy."
"I know."
"She might try to kill you. Again."
"I'm counting on it."
His marks flicker. Confusion. Maybe concern. "Why?"
Because if she's still trying to kill me, she's still feeling something. And feeling something means the door isn't completely closed.
I don't say that. Zane wouldn't understand. He's never had to calculate his way back to someone's heart from the outside.
"Because," I say instead, "it's what I deserve."
My new quarters are three corridors from Zane's. Smaller. Still obscenely comfortable compared to the places I've been sleeping for the last six years. The bed is too soft. The air smells recycled but clean. The viewport shows a slice of stars I used to navigate by.
Home. For certain definitions.
I drop my gear on the bed. Standard loadout. Two plasma pistols, combat knife, the neural jack that lets me interface with tactical systems. Everything I own fits in one bag. That's deliberate. You can't be tied to places when the mission might take you somewhere else on six hours' notice.
Except I don't have a mission anymore. Just a station. A brother who needs me. And a woman who wants me dead.
I sit on the edge of the bed. Let myself feel what I've been containing since the docking bay.
Six years.
I've thought about Astra Venn every single day. The calculation I made. The choice. The ninety seconds I had to decide whether to go back for her or complete the extraction. Thirty percent chance of saving her. Eighty percent chance of failing the mission if I tried.
The math was clear.
I left her.
I chose correctly.
And I've hated myself every day since.
But I'd do it again. That's the thing she'll never forgive. Not that I left her. That I would leave her again. Given the same situation, the same math, the same impossible choice between one life and the mission's success, I would make the same decision.
That's who I am.
A man who can love someone completely, feel their pain as his own through the empathic connection we all carry, and still sacrifice them if the numbers demand it.
My marks flare without my permission. Bright enough to light the room. The Empri tell for strong emotion breaking through control.
I force them down. Breathe until the glow dims to nothing.
She deserves better than what I am. She deserved better than what I did.
She's not going to get it.
The console on my desk chimes. Priority message. I cross the room, open it.
Security briefing. Twenty minutes. Conference room seven. Attendance mandatory.