Chapter 9
Chapter
Nine
EVERETT
Shiny metal, wire, and tools glitter against the gloom of the rough-hewn cabin floor. How many times have I longed for independence—life without a regulator, without being plugged into the network?
I admired apostates and rebels—Sentinels like Torin who saw beyond the xenophobic reach of Command. But now I’m hollowed out, dead, and too alive all at once. Every neuron in me is overloading.
The regulator no longer flickers or sparks. Static hisses through the comm cradle. I’ve never had to manage any of this before—feelings, sensations, emotion. Now I’m fracturing inside the freedom I thought I wanted.
A singular obsession keeps me together: protect Eden. I reach for more circuitry, rerouting, repurposing, crafting another tiny army of drones to guard her.
Then I sense it—far off, distant, an intention. Like the calm of Mother Tree, but coming closer.
Eden. Her resonance ripples through me, aligning every cell toward her like roots bending toward water.
But no. Not yet.
It’s too risky. The Sentinels could trace her, destroy her despite my safeguards, and that would be worse than death—something I can’t even comprehend.
Remorse floods me. Finally … finally, I understand the drive of my hybrid Wildblood cousins to protect their mates and families at all costs.
I command Rook to intercept her. But then, I realize he’s leading her right to me. Against my direct commands. Fear ripples through me. What have I done by liberating the constructs?
“Dammit.” My head drops; a tremor ripples through my skin, light flickering uncontrolled. I don’t want her to see me like this … out of control, emotional. Worse, I can’t bear the thought of her in danger because of me.
I should’ve denied the resonance, ignored it, kept her safe. But even as her presence draws nearer, I know that was never an option.
Dust spirals up the narrow drive to my cabin. She stops, kills the engine, and stares. Despite my best effort, my skin flickers and pulses. It was hard enough controlling my form last night; without the regulator, it’s impossible.
She steps out—pink and pale denim, hand shading her eyes. The morning glints off her scarlet curls, and my pulse fractures into light. Her freckled face is unreadable, lip trembling, brow knit.
Rook clicks and flies around her head, landing on her sleeve and tugging her gently toward me. She doesn’t fight it, and my heart explodes.
“You’re real,” she says.
I step forward, heart detonating at the sight of my mate. No wonder Command forbids this. I can scarcely breathe, let alone think.
Still, I manage, “You came back.”
Then, she’s in my arms, legs wrapped around my waist as her lips cover my face in kisses. The hum magnifies between us before stabilizing. The air thickens; lights flicker in the forest depths. I can breathe again.
“Eden,” I whisper, tears shining for the first time in my life. “You … you…” I stop, steady myself. “You can be my regulator now.”
She laughs softly, blinking like she doesn’t quite grasp it. “Only if you can be my sanity.”
“Yes,” I answer without thought. Always.
Her hand presses to my chest; a faint light arcs beneath my skin.
“So it isn’t a costume. It’s real.”
Eden’s mind hovers. I feel the anguish as reality shatters like a jigsaw puzzle tossed into the sky.
I do something I shouldn’t. I push deeper, brush my sense of the world against hers until the fragments align. A sob escapes her lips. Her mind expands—vast, luminous, like traveling through space across light-years.
I feed her knowledge while dampening the pain of it.
She gives me order, mending my chaos into meaning, showing me what to hold, what to surrender, what to feel.
We hang in the space between our breaths, suspended outside time. I wipe her tears.
“I need you, Everett,” she whispers. “More than anything in this world … or beyond.” A nervous laugh trembles through the last words.
“But if they come—”
She presses her fingers to my lips. “Send your dragonfly and insect armies.” She glances down. My mind tingles. “Rook. That’s his name, right?”
I nod, pride blooming.
“Send Rook to watch for us.”
The dragonfly whirs past, joined by others—my newly repurposed constructs.
“Now, mountain man,” she murmurs, tugging at my shirt, “make me yours again.”
The cabin is too cluttered, too exposed. I carry her down the porch to the grove, the trees lowering their branches like witnesses.
We lie among the green shadows, fingers searching, breaths mingling. When I slide into her, reforming the bond, it feels less physical than cosmic—a resonance finding perfect symmetry.
We move as one, external and internal humming, as I learn her body and her mind all over again. Enough to die for … enough to find a way to live.
“Now I know I can survive this,” she whispers, stroking my beard before kissing me again. “Because even if nothing else makes sense—if everything was a lie—you are my anchor.”
Torin’s words echo. Is this what he meant by tether? I kiss her eyebrows, eyelids, nose, chin.
“And you,” I murmur against her mouth, “are my peace from the noise.”
Her hand rests over my glowing heart.
“Ask me anything, my little Earthling.”
“What are you?”
I chuckle. She has so much to learn, and since losing the regulator, so do I.
“Sentinels. My kind have been here for millennia—recording, watching, protecting.”
“Protecting what?” she asks.
“The Earth. Its people. Your evolution. We observe and guard—keep other visitors from interfering.”
She frowns.
I hesitate, knowing I could share it telepathically but sensing she needs words.
“Humans aren’t alone. And Sentinels aren’t the pinnacle either. Most off-world travelers are free-will species. But not all. Not even Sentinels. We monitor guests. Keep the ill-intentioned ones from taking over.”
“Because we’re so primitive?”
“Misinformed, yes. Unenlightened, maybe. But no longer primitive, which presents new problems.”
Her tongue skims her lips. I taste her before she can finish.
She giggles. “Being in your head has advantages. I know how much you like licking me.”
A smile breaks across my face. “Would you like me to demonstrate?”
“Not fair. You’re trying to distract me.”
“Who’s distracting who?” I growl, kissing her until we’re breathless.
When we part, she asks, “So, Sentinels. Watching humans like a cosmic Truman Show. But what about the killer robots, the Wildbloods, the rebellion?”
“The rebellion’s coming. You and I are part of it now.”
“Because we’re abominations … threats to purity?”
“No. Because we’re symbols of free will. Of what Sentinels can’t control.”
“You tried to wipe my memory last night. Why?”
“I thought the truth would break you. I didn’t realize I could guide you through it—or that our aligned frequencies make us traceable. I doubted a human-Sentinel bond could hold. Until it did.”
“And that thing in your neck?”
“My regulator. It kept me numb, obedient. It’s gone. You’re my regulator now.”
“So that isn’t a metaphor?”
“Not in the least.”
“What do we do now as rebels in a galactic chess game?”
I meet her gaze. “We regroup. Find allies. Bring the whole structure down.”
“Against your own kind?”
“Against anyone who tries to keep us apart.” I pause. “Never doubt how fiercely humans guard their secrets—your men in black.”
In the distance, I sense motion: constructs on patrol. Not mine.
“They’re coming,” I warn. “We have to move.”
We dress quickly, hearts pounding in sync. I call back my drones, scan Rook’s feed. “Multiple constructs awakening nearby.”
“What do we do?”
“Come.”
At the comm-cradle, my fingers blur through code—rerouting a dormant unit’s protocol, my first rebellion spreading. Lines of alien script rewrite themselves into defiance.
Eden hovers close, pulse quickened. Her rhythm becomes my metronome. I can’t fight the network, but I can misdirect it.
Her fingertips brush my cheek; the bond flares. I draw on her emotions to power the override. Love amplifies resonance. I should’ve known.
The constructs launch, streaks of light against the sunlit sky. While the world watches the Starborn Range, we disappear into its woods.
I take her hand, kiss her palm, breathe her vanilla-and-cinnamon scent, now mingled with Star-honey.
“Come. We’ll go to Mother Tree.”
Beneath its sheltering branches, the orbs glow pale and translucent—their harmonics masking us from detection. Not perfect, but enough.
“If they come, I can’t run,” I tell her. “But I won’t let them take you.”
She cups my face, thought to thought: I’m never leaving you again.
The resonance hums between us—steady, sure. Proof of control, not chaos.
In the distance, Rook and his kin shimmer, watching, waiting.
For the first time, the silence doesn’t feel like exile—it feels like home beneath Mother Tree’s glow.