Bree has recovered from surgery, but we’re still scheduling these ahead as we work on a secret project! Mwahahahaha! This serial was originally posted (mostly!) on Patreon, and has been edited and finished to be posted live on our blog over the next few weeks. But for those who just want it NOW, or who hate reading on a blog and would like an epub… Well here is the epub!
Return to the world after the Beyond Series and meet the residents of Sector Three…
When Ashwin asks Six & Bren to take in an emotionally fractured Makhai soldier, there are a thousand things that could go wrong. But they are hard at work building their school and rebuilding their sector, and Sebastian is a genius who can fix anything. Anything. In return for his help, all they have to do is give him a safe place to find out if his emotional wounds can be healed.
Just one traumatized supersoldier in the middle of a school filled with former feral street kids, war refugees from exclusive brothels, and a few dozen kids who barely know what a school is.
What could go wrong?
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DISCLAIMERS: this is a serial meant for existing readers of the series. it contains full series spoilers for the Beyond Series and may not make sense if you haven’t read it.
It is also NOT erotic. This is the first part of a very very very slow burn romance between a broken Makhai soldier and an artist who escaped Sector Two after the bombings. There may also be a few other romances a brewing… consider this more like a TV show with multiple members of the cast up to hijinks, even if there are two main characters.
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River had been wary at first when Six returned to Sector Three as a newly minted member of the infamous O’Kanes. Dallas O’Kane’s reputation had always been one part violence and three parts debauchery, and none of that had seemed like a recipe for excellent leadership.
River had learned swiftly that the O’Kanes’ reputation was mostly marketing. Oh, they could be violent when the situation called for it. And they loved a good debauched party. But underneath all the sex and stabbings was a fierce family that showed up when one of their members was in need.
Sector Three had gained a ton of practical advantages from Six’s connections once she took over. O’Kanes were in and out all the time, lending expertise and time and most especially ridiculous amounts of actual money. River could appreciate all of it.
But her favorite part was how willing they were to step onto the training mat and take a swing at her. Survival had taught her plenty of dirty tricks, but sparring with Lorenzo Cruz, former Special Tasks soldier in Eden and current O’Kane badass, taught her how elegant a fight could truly be.
Of course, it also provided frequent lessons in how to lose gracefully–something she was still working on.
Her back hit the mat with a solid enough thud to steal her breath, and she bit back a growl of frustration as she stared up, and up and up, at the towering figure of Cruz. His skin was a lighter brown than her own, and his brown eyes were always very serious, but his dark hair had lost some of its short military precision, and there were shadows under his eyes.
Twin babies probably did that to a guy. She let her smug superiority over avoiding that fate wash away the bitterness over her failure.
Cruz didn’t seem to think she’d failed at all, though. “That was good,” he said, extending a hand. When she clasped it, he pulled her effortlessly to her feet.
“So good I ended up on my ass,” she muttered.
“So good you almost didn’t,” he countered. “There aren’t many people who could have avoided it. But you’re quick and you’re smart and you’ve clearly been training with Six.”
The sop to her pride worked, but River still shook her arms to loosen them as she prepared to go again. “How can you tell?”
Cruz rubbed a hand over his jaw. A reddened spot had risen where she’d clocked him just before he took her down. “That elbow to the face? Classic Six.”
It was true, but River scowled at him anyway and bounced lightly on her toes. “Nah, Six would have just bitten your face off.”
“Is that so? What an interesting strategy.”
River stiffened at the light, breezy voice–so casual and so irritatingly familiar. She turned, expecting to see Leah in her inevitable flouncy skirt and fluttery blouse, and instead got an eyeful of…
Well, everything.
Not that Leah was naked. The icy blonde wore sleek baby blue leggings that molded to her toned legs and covered her to mid-calf. The matching sports bra probably offered some support, even though it was cut like high-fashion, with some sort of ridiculous asymmetrical single shoulder strap and a diagonal slash of pale fabric that matched Leah’s skin tone so precisely that for a second River worried the whole thing would fall apart at the first movement.
But it stayed firmly in place as Leah stretched her sleekly muscled arms over her head, giving every impression that she was here to work out.
Jesus, that was just what River needed.
She turned her back on the other woman, only to find Cruz smiling at Leah in welcome. “She’s not wrong. I’ve been on the sharp side of Six’s teeth once or twice.”
“Lorenzo,” Leah greeted him warmly. “It’s so good to see you. How are the children?”
“Adorable and exhausting in equal measure.” He rolled his eyes. “They’ve taken to sleeping on opposite schedules. Thank God there are three of us, and lots of aunts and uncles who like to babysit.”
“Enjoy them while you can. Before you know it, they’ll be grown.” She glanced at River, then returned her thousand-watt smile to Cruz. “You don’t mind if I cut in, do you, Lorenzo?”
“Not at all. I promised Bren I’d meet up with him soon anyway.” The traitor grinned at River as if he wasn’t cutting and running. “Same time next week?”
She wanted to be churlish–the man was abandoning her with the princess–but Cruz taking time out of his extremely busy life to help her train meant something. Not just to River, but to Six and Bren–and she owed it to them to be gracious. “Same time next week.”
Cruz clapped her lightly on the shoulder and headed for the door.
Once it had swung shut behind him, Leah raised one perfectly manicured hand. “Should I wrap them, or do you lean in to the whole street fighter thing?”
Six and Callie had tried to warn her, but even with all her lean muscle on display, it was hard to look at this powdered and pampered darling in her designer high-fashion workout gear and see a threat. Not that Leah wasn’t graceful–River recognized that at least–but some stone-cold killer?
Well, there was one way to find out.
Crossing the room, River swept up the tape and tossed it to Leah. “This is just some friendly sparring, right?”
“Of course.” Leah yanked off a long strip with a firm, decisive jerk. “What else would it be?”
River started taping her own hands. “Payback for tattling on you to Six?”
She just chuckled, a soft, melodic sound that was somehow both cute and a little scary. “That isn’t my style.”
“What, payback?”
Leah hummed.
Very enlightening.
River tossed the tape to the side and strode to the middle of the floor. “I hear you were some kinda hotshot in Two.”
“Sadly untrue.” Leah rubbed the last piece of tape into place and placed the roll on the end of a bench lining the wall. “I was no one.”
That seemed unlikely. River had been no one. When you were no one, you had nothing. No fancy clothes, no fine manicures, no sexy workout gear tailored to your every curve. When you were no one, you could disappear without a whisper and not a soul would care.
But she supposed she’d always had one thing going for her–at least her life had been hers. Enough of the girls who’d come over from Two told a different story. River had recognized trauma in their hesitant gazes. She’d recognized survivors under the pretty dresses they discarded so gratefully.
But Leah hadn’t discarded anything. She clung to her perfection like armor and stared down her nose at all of them, as if her education and accomplishments simply granted her status as a higher class of human.
Or maybe she just made River feel that way.
She was doing it right now, her perfect lips quirked in an amused smile, as if laughing at a joke she’d told herself. River flexed her fingers, suddenly wary. “I’m ready when you are.”
“Excellent.” Leah folded her hands in front of her…and waited.
After a tense thirty seconds, it became clear Leah wasn’t going to take the first swing. So River did, coming in fast and easy only to have her hand slapped away in a chiding fashion as Leah flowed out of her path.
Then it became clear Leah wasn’t going to take the second swing either. In fact, nothing River could do would provoke her into joining the sparring match. She parried and blocked, delivering more than a few gently swinging swats to arm or wrist as she pivoted out of the way with the grace of a dancer.
But she wouldn’t. Fucking. Swing.
Five minutes in, River didn’t know if she was impressed by the other woman’s flexibility or irritated by whatever game she was playing. “Is this all you’ve got in you?” she growled. “Dodging?”
“No, but it’s a wonderful place to start.” Leah grinned, a mischievous quirk of the lips that vanished in a heartbeat. “And a terrific way to observe your opponent.”
Belatedly, River realized she was right. Angry heat rose in her face, because she hadn’t had the luxury of tutors and formal instruction in the finer art of reading an opponent. River had learned to fight in a brutal school of survival–fast and dirty, doing anything it took to even the odds, because the chances were always good that whoever she was fighting was faster, stronger, and wanted her to hurt.
Leah probably hadn’t been trying to hurt her, but River’s pride could only take so much battering in a single day. She stepped back and dropped her hands. “I’m not here to play weird head games. If you want something, just tell me.”
This time, it was definitely remorse that flitted across Leah’s face. “I’m sorry. It’s just…that’s what a fight is, isn’t it? A head game. Otherwise, whoever was fastest or carrying the biggest knife would always win.”
River snorted. “Whoever’s fastest or carrying the biggest knife usually does win. The only way to beat a bigger bully is to take them down before they realize the fight has started. You won’t survive long enough to play mind games.”
“I can teach you.”
Just like that. A simple offer, and River didn’t understand it. “Why would you?”
“Because I want to learn, too.” Leah moved–not to attack, but to close the distance between them. With only inches between their faces, Leah stared at River, her blue eyes chips of ice hot enough to burn. “I dodge because it’s what we were taught, all we were allowed to do. I can fight properly…but not the way you can. And I want to.”
A sarcastic reply died on River’s tongue as she stared into those suddenly intense eyes. This was what she’d never seen in Leah before–the fire and scorching anger it took to survive in the sectors. And that anger made River wonder why they’d train their pretty dolls to move like championship fighters but never throw a punch.
Actually, no. River could imagine exactly why they’d do that.
“Okay,” she said, keeping her voice low. This close together, the almost-whisper felt unbearably intimate. But they were talking violence, not sex. “I’ll teach you to punch, you teach me how to not get punched.”
A slow smile curved Leah’s lips. “Deal.”
They may not have taught Leah how to throw a punch over in Sector Two, but that smile was a deadly weapon, and it landed square in River’s chest.
Fighting, she could handle. But with Leah? She was in way over her head.