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?
—
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.
—
Sebastian had expected the party to break up after the O’Kanes–including Bren and Six–made their collective exit. He was uncertain why it had been necessary for all of them to accompany Noelle Cunningham to the hospital to wait through what was likely, at best, to be several hours of labor.
But he had underestimated the teachers at the school. They had stepped into the void left behind by Sector Three’s leaders so smoothly, you would never guess it was the school’s first celebration. The older children danced and the younger children played games, and the proud, wary people of the sector followed the music to the heavy tables of food, where River chatted with them to put them at ease.
No one would have noticed if Sebastian had slipped out at that point. Part of him wanted to. After so many months trapped underground with no sensation but agony, the colorful lights and tangled scents and endless, unrelenting noise should have been painful.
They weren’t. Maybe the past week had given his brutalized senses a chance to begin healing. He felt like the desert that surrounded the sectors–parched and needy. That first deluge of feeling had been too much after such a long drought, but now he drank in the rich smell of freshly baked bread and the tartness of spilled punch and the soft twinkle of the strings of lights, along with the sweet, unrestrained laughter of children.
You look better.
Ashwin had said those words to him as they sat in near silence and watched the party progress. The other Makhai soldier had been lethal tension, barely leashed, and watching Ashwin’s gaze track the pretty blonde through the party had made the reason clear. Bringing the woman he loved to a place where Sebastian could identify her was an act of trust so profound, it still felt surreal. It didn’t matter that Ashwin hadn’t introduced them. Sebastian had seen the woman’s face. He could identify her. He could betray her existence to the Base.
He never would.
The party was starting to wind down when a sleepy-eyed little girl climbed up onto the bench next to Sebastian. Dee–the girl who had offered him her stuffed dragon–yawned as she put down a stack of crumpled paper and three expensive looking markers. “Uncle Ace left them for me,” she explained, as if picking up a conversation in progress. She fussed with them for a few moments, lining them up just right, and then smothered another yawn before peering up at him. “Are you having fun?”
Fun was an abstract concept, a dictionary definition he had memorized and a tactical weakness he’d been trained to exploit. Was that what that odd reluctance to leave the gathering had been? The unwillingness to reject what should have been tedium at best and sensory overload at worst?
Sebastian didn’t know, but Dee was staring up at him with big expectant eyes, and he was loath to disappoint her. “I am.”
It was clearly the right answer. She grinned at him and then uncapped one of her markers as she settled into place against his side. He fought the need to tense as she snuggled closer, a soft and vulnerable warmth tucked against his arm. So small. So trusting. Only a fool would leave a child in the care of a trained killer.
He should be furious at them for being so careless, again. But it was something else that was unwinding inside him, a feeling he’d worried the Base had torn from him so completely he could never trust himself again.
Dee leaned against him with her lower lip caught between her teeth, coloring in a desert sunset with vivid orange, and feral protectiveness nearly choked him. The Base had spent decades trying to threaten and torture and burn this impulse out of him, but they had failed at every turn because it was the only part of him that had ever made sense.
Sebastian had been given so many gifts. Strength and stamina and speed, strategic genius and mechanical aptitude. Of course he was meant to use them to make life better for the people who needed it most. Nothing else had ever made sense.
They’d broken parts of him, had given him sharp edges that might cut those he wanted to protect. But right now, he knew in his bones that he would die to protect this sweet child whose pen strokes were slowing as her chin dipped. When she tilted her head against his arm and closed her eyes, he carefully eased the precious marker from her lax fingers and capped it, knowing that such a luxury was a treasure she would hate to lose.
Then he sat, rock still, reluctant to wake her and lose this quiet moment of certainty, the first moment where he’d felt like himself in so many years that he could barely number them.
“Did she fall asleep?” The low whisper came from behind him, drifting through the night air the same way Callie drifted into view. Her hand hovered over Dee’s shoulder, and a soft smile curved her lips as she caught sight of the little girl’s face. “I’m sorry.”
He liked to see Callie smiling. “She did,” he murmured. “I’m afraid to move. I don’t want to wake her.”
“Oh, you won’t. You couldn’t.” Before he could protest further, Callie lifted Dee into her arms and tucked the girl’s face against her neck. The child didn’t even stir. “She can fall asleep anywhere. It’s good to see, honestly. She wasn’t always like this.”
Sebastian picked up her coloring sheets and her markers and held them out. “She told me as much, the first time we met.” He sought Callie’s gaze, and almost smiled. “She broke into my room to try to give me her stuffed dragon. She said it protects her from nightmares.”
“Mmm, yes. Sir Puff. I’ve made his acquaintance.” Callie winked at him, then turned and carried the sleeping girl away.
She wasn’t the only one leading or carrying a sleepy child off to bed. While he’d watched Dee fall asleep, it seemed the rest of the party had finally broken up. Only adults were left now–the kitchen staff he had not yet met, who were carrying dishes back into the main building, and a trio of men Bren called the old timers, who were folding up chairs as they talked in low voices.
A heavily tattooed man who met the description of Bast’s elusive neighbor–Zayan, the techie–was breaking down the speakers and stereo system. Sebastian was actually considering going over to introduce himself when a clatter sounded behind him, followed by heavy stomping boots and River’s voice. “I’m approaching loudly, do not stab me.”
Sebastian turned slowly, raising both empty hands to indicate he was unarmed. River snorted and held out a broom. When he didn’t immediately reach out to claim it, she waggled it at him. “Well are you just going to stand there, or are you going to pitch in? I can’t believe these little monsters were throwing food.”
The O’Kanes had laughed off her outrage, but Bast could remember being a child on the Base during the darkest years after the Flares. As a Makhai trainee, his nutritional needs had been prioritized over residents who offered less practical value to the Base’s strategic goals. A clinical way of saying that he had watched the children of cooks and gardeners go hungry in the same way River must have once scrambled for enough to eat.
Even if he had been prone to laughter, he would not have found her trauma amusing. He accepted the broom before inclining his head. “As reckless as the waste must feel, it speaks highly of how safe you have made these children feel.”
River narrowed her eyes at him. Then she flung up her hands. “Ugh, dancing and art and food fights. We’re all going to get so soft.”
He wasn’t sure how to reply to that, but River didn’t wait for one. She spun and stomped off to help the old timers, who welcomed her into their circle with a pride Sebastian recognized–the pride of an older soldier who had watched a mentee grow into their potential. Her battlefield might not have been the kind Sebastian would recognize, but River was like him. She had her broken edges, and they could cut her up as easily as they sliced someone else.
Ashwin had been right. Sebastian understood these people.
He let the old timers soothe River as he focused on his task. By the time Callie returned, a wet cloth in one hand, he’d managed to sweep up most of the carnage from the children’s impromptu war.
She gestured to the mound of ruined food. “Don’t throw that away. Blue will want it. To separate out the compostables,” she clarified.
He’d spoken to Blue only once, and that brief interaction had been enough to recognize that the cheerful girl who ran Six’s gardens had endless curiosity and too few survival instincts–a dangerous combination around a fractured Makhai soldier. He’d avoided surveying the greenhouse out of concern he might hurt her without meaning to.
Maybe that had been a mistake. He found a bucket near the back door to the kitchens and began filling it with the spoiled food. “I would like to see what sort of equipment she’s using. It’s possible I could upgrade some of it.”
Callie laughed. “Undoubtedly. She keeps a compost pile behind the greenhouse. It’s four posts and chicken wire, and she turns it twice a week. With a shovel.”
Oh, he could do so much more. There were safe chemicals that could hasten decomposition, and others to enrich what it produced. A dozen ways to make it easier to turn. “Maybe you can introduce me to her tomorrow.”
It took Callie a moment to answer, and she did so with a shy, pleased smile. “If you like.”
With his emotions still in turmoil, that smile did funny things to him. He wanted to find the words to explain what had changed in those fleeting moments when Dee had curled up trustingly against his side and tilted his world, but he barely understood himself.
He was still broken. There was still every chance that his brutalized instincts could trigger a dangerous–even fatal–attack. Every excuse he had given for keeping his distance still applied. Withdrawing into solitude was the only logical choice to keep everyone around him safe.
Maybe the only difference was that he no longer wanted to withdraw.
His mouth was dry. A physiological response to nerves? He swallowed and parted his lips, still unsure what to say but determined to try. “Callie–”
“Listen up!” The loud cry interrupted his words as Leah emerged from the building, climbed onto a table, and held aloft a bottle of tequila. “Noelle had her baby!”
Callie joined the chorus of cheers, raising both arms over her head as she turned to Sebastian, and it was as if every smile he’d ever seen had been the softest whisper of happiness. The joy lighting her face now was a shout that echoed in all the empty places inside him, filling them with a dangerous bubbly warmth. Maybe all the rumors were true, and the Makhai were psychic after all, because he swore he could feel the purity of her happiness like sunlight on his skin.
His mind reeled, but his body moved. Not on instinct–nothing in his life or training prompted him to lift his arms and wrap them around her, to pull her close enough for her hair to tickle his cheek and for the light floral scent of her to overwhelm him. For one terrified heartbeat she seemed frozen, and he thought he’d done the wrong thing.
Then she folded her arms around his neck and sighed, a soft exhalation that sounded…
All of his dictionary definitions failed him. He’d thought he understood emotion, but he’d been measuring himself against his fellow Makhai brothers, men who had never truly felt, or had forced themselves to forget how simply to survive.
Callie’s incandescent smile was joy and that soft breath was want and the way her heart beat so rapidly that he could feel it in his own chest was excitement and he could list the words but words were useless as he dragged in an unsteady breath and turned his face just enough for his chin to brush her temple.
Sweet. Soft. Accepting.
More words that failed to convey this perfect moment, where touching didn’t mean pain or danger or death.
The word finally came, as her breath tickled against his throat and her fingers brushed the side of his neck, feather-light and soothing.
Pleasure. This was pleasure.
Panic came hard on the heels of the realization, as if months of reconditioning were trying to reassert themselves. Pain skittered up his spine in warning, but he didn’t jerk away. He memorized the feel of her pressed close before slowly dropping his arms and taking a gentle step back. “I’m sorry–”
“No.” She shook her head and reached for his hand, though she stopped short of touching him and just shook her head again. “It’s okay.”
In defiance of the pain still slithering through him, he let his fingers brush hers for just a moment. And it turned out he knew the words he wanted to say after all. “I may always be too broken to fit in here,” he told her softly. “But I want to try.”
Her lower lip trembled, even as she smiled, and her eyes glittered with unshed tears. “I’ll help you,” she whispered. “We all will.”
What on earth could anyone want with more than that? Hell, she didn’t even mind when the heat of the day mounted, and everything started to smell like cow shit.
A tequila-induced giggle bubbled up, and Blue stifled with it with a louder laugh. The celebratory shots after an evening of spiked punch had been a truly bad idea, and she’d be paying for it tomorrow if she didn’t take precautions.
Instead of veering around the side of the large building, toward her apartment, Blue slipped into the greenhouse. She kept emergency electrolytes in the corner stall that served as her office, just in case any of the kids needed them on warmer days. But they went a long way toward beating back a looming hangover, too.
She picked up the song again, some tune that had played earlier that night and lodged itself directly in her brain. She had just opened her mouth to sing the few lyrics she actually knew when a dark stain on the wall caught her eye.
Blood.
Fresh blood.
It reminded her of the day someone had broken into the first aid shed for bandages and medicines. But this wasn’t a tiny smudge. It was a handprint, a huge one, that had slapped hard against the wood and smeared away.
There was more blood on the floor, droplets and even bigger patches that could almost be called pools. Blue reached for the pistol at the small of her back and crept farther into the darkness, her finger on the trigger.
She may have grown up soft, for Sector Three, but she’d still grown up in Sector Three.
But what she heard wasn’t an intruder ransacking the place.
“Medkit. I need a medkit.” A quiet, muffled groan of pain punctuated the words, and Blue rounded a raised planting bed to find a man bleeding out on her greenhouse floor.
“Fuck.” She stowed her pistol and slid to her knees beside him. He’d obviously been in a knife fight, one so brutal that his shirt was practically shredded. And the ragged rip in the shoulder of his jacket looked like a bullet hole. “You need a hell of a lot more than that, mister.”
The man surged up and grabbed her upper arms. His brown, bloodshot eyes blazed with feverish intensity as he murmured a plea through parched, cracked lips. “Don’t turn me in.”
His touch burned her skin beneath the short sleeves of her tee shirt. “I won’t,” she promised reflexively. Without thinking.
He slumped back to the floor, unconscious, and Blue exhaled shakily as she sat back on her heels. She had a bleeding man in her greenhouse, one who had been in one hell of a fight and was possibly a fugitive.
And she had just sworn not to rat him out.
“Fuck,” she murmured again, then rose and ran for her medical kit.