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.

—

 

On the Base, the vast array of solar panels were cleaned remotely and automatically, using a set of brushes and a supply of highly filtered and demineralized water. Removing the human element minimized the potential for accidents, and the carefully maintained schedule prevented any buildup that might render the solar panels less efficient.

The solar panels on the roof of Six’s school looked like they hadn’t been cleaned properly in decades. Soot from the makeshift biofuel generator had collected along the edges and lingered in hard to remove smudges, and Sebastian could feel the slight tacky residue of soap beneath his fingers–a magnet for dust and dirt, and a rookie mistake.

Scrubbing the panels clean by hand was an exacting and precise task, especially for someone with the strength to shatter glass with an irritated flick of one finger. Sebastian chose it because it required control, and that was what he needed right now.

To feel in control of something. Of anything.

Steady, measured footfalls crunched on the graveled tar behind him–tactical boots. Too heavy to be Six coming to stab him for upsetting Callie, which was a mild disappointment. Guilt was a sick churn inside him, almost strong enough to drown out the memory of fiery agony.

He didn’t think Bren was here to stab him. And that irritated him. Bast sprayed the next panel with filtered water and started scrubbing in the top left corner. “Is Callie okay?”

“Yes and no.” Bren knelt beside the array and watched him work. “Worried about you.”

Of course she was. Because no one in this fucking sector seemed to have an ounce of survival instinct, despite claims to the contrary. “It’s my fault,” he said bluntly, scrubbing away the grime on the glass. “I knew sitting for her was a bad idea. I’m not stable.”

“Yeah.”

He hadn’t realized he’d been braced for some cloying denial until the tension in his shoulders eased. At least Bren wasn’t going to pretend he wasn’t a threat. “Why aren’t they scared of me? Don’t they know what I am?”

Bren didn’t hesitate. “Not entirely. But they know more and better than you think they do. They just believe people can change–their behavior, their circumstances. Their lives.”

Sebastian let that sink in as he sprayed more water on the panel, washing away the lingering grit. The sky reflected back, an endless perfect blue with only a few wisps of fluffy, cheerful clouds. “I suppose they need to believe that, here.”

“I know I did.” Bren huffed out a laugh. “That was the first thing Dallas O’Kane told me–that he didn’t give a shit what I’d done in the past, only what I planned to do going forward.”

Sebastian glanced at him. Not a soldier from the base, like Lorenzo Cruz. But still Special Tasks, who had basically been the Council’s hit squad. The chances were good Bren had done his share of terrible things. “How did you end up in the Sectors to begin with?”

Instead of answering, Bren picked up an extra spray bottle and a brush. “Like this?” he asked as he spritzed the glass, then began to clean it in careful strokes.

“Yes.”

Bren hummed and sprayed the glass again. “Some bad shit went down, and the higher-ups at Special Tasks needed someone to take the fall. I had already started having too many doubts, asking too many questions, so I was the clear choice. They booted my ass out. Can’t say I’m sorry, either.”

Bitter amusement twisted through the pain still burning him up from the inside. “I asked questions, too. I wish they’d settled for booting my ass out.”

“So do I.” Bren sat back on his heels. “If you knew it was a bad idea to pose for Callie, why’d you do it?”

Why? Because she’d been bright and shiny and so insistent, plowing into him at full speed with picnic baskets and lemonade and promises of acceptance that were more tempting than money or power.

And because there was pain in her. Men had hurt her before. Given what he knew of Sector Two, most likely one man–specifically and repeatedly. And yet she’d come up here with her bright eyes and her green beans, determined to set him at ease.

“I didn’t want to make her sad,” Sebastian muttered, attacking the next panel with a little too much vigor. The bristles slid wildly across the glass, and he immediately corrected the pressure. “I miscalculated. Obviously.”

“There’s nothing wrong with wanting things to be different.”

“But they’re not different.” Sebastian closed his eyes, dragging in a deep steadying breath. “I am what I am. This isn’t just training, or trauma. They made me different in my blood and bones and DNA. Wanting can’t change that.”

Silence. Then, “It did for Ashwin.”

His heart lurched, like it would pound straight out of his chest. He’d tried not to think about Ashwin, even as the thin scar across his wrist burned in remembered promise in the dark of the night. Because Bren was right.

Ashwin, the prototypical Makhai soldier, the one held up as the gold standard by trainers and generals alike…

Ashwin was apparently in love.

Sebastian swallowed the ache of it and resumed his careful scrubbing. “Do you know how it happened?”

Bren snorted. “You’re gonna have to be more specific.”

“I don’t know if I should be,” he admitted, glancing at Bren. “Giving another Makhai soldier information about the woman Ashwin Malhotra loves is a good way to end up dead. Even me. Do you all understand that?”

But Bren only laughed. “Don’t worry, I’m not about to tell you anything Ashwin wouldn’t share. I don’t need to.”

Sebastian raised an eyebrow. “Then tell me what you think matters.”

Bren tossed his brush aside with a sigh. “Ashwin found a home, a place where he could be himself, and that was enough. Falling in love didn’t save him. Finding his place in the world did that.”

Simple words, but the impact of them almost rocked Sebastian over. He sat back on his heels, thinking back to the promise Ashwin had extracted from him.

Six months.

No. Six months surrounded by problems that needed solving, people who didn’t know how to fear him, and orphans who wandered into his room to lend him their stuffed animals whenever he had nightmares.

Maybe miracles were possible, because it seemed like Ashwin understood him after all. “So that’s what all of this is about. Ashwin thinks this is my place in the world.”

“He thinks it could be, like Sector One is for him. Like Four was for me. But what matters is what you think.”

“I think I’m still too tired to think.” The spray bottle was a comforting weight in his hand, something he understood. Something he could control. He sprayed down the next panel and didn’t look at Bren as he spoke. “I don’t know if there’s anything in me to save. But I like having work to do, and you have plenty of that. It’s something.”

“No rush.” Bren rose. “You should probably find Callie and apologize. Or let her apologize to you. Probably both.”

The scrub brush creaked as his fingers tightened around it. But Sebastian had survived a year of torture. He could survive a few moments of discomfort. “I will.”

“Like I said, no rush.”

Bren’s exit was heralded by the fading crunch of gravel and the eventual soft click of the door. A riot of conflicting emotions churned through Sebastian–hope, dismay, mild terror, desperate relief… contradictory and confusing and exhausting…

But the pain had stopped. At some point during their conversation, the acid burn through his veins had faded away, leaving only the soft ache of memory and sweet relief. Sebastian savored it, and let the riot in his mind sort itself out.

He’d learned long ago that he couldn’t control his emotions. Only his actions. So he turned back to his meticulous work, scrubbing until the sky reflected bright blue from each panel in turn.

When he felt the same clarity inside, he would seek out Callie.

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.

—

 

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck.

Shit.

Callie’s hand shook as she knocked on Six’s office door. “Six? Six. Oh God, please be in there.”

The door jerked open to reveal Six with a gun in one hand. “Callie? What’s wrong?”

“I broke him.” She could barely gasp out the words. “I broke your supersoldier.”

Six’s brow furrowed. “You what?”

Callie brushed past Six and paced the floor in front of the couch. “He was posing for me in my studio. He agreed to let me sketch him if I would tell him about Three and the people here. But then I mentioned the bombing in Two.” The memory of the look in his eyes made Callie shudder. “I didn’t know it would upset him. I’m so sorry.”

After a moment, Six closed the door and moved to her desk. She placed the gun on its surface and gestured to the couch. “I’m pretty sure you didn’t break him,” she said gently. “The Base already did that.”

Callie managed not to flinch–barely. “He was doing me a favor, and I upset him so badly, Six. How do I fix it?”

“Sit, Callie.”

She dropped helplessly to the couch, her hands twisted together in her lap.

Six crouched in front of her and covered her hands with her own in a warm, comforting grip. “Let me worry about him. Are you okay?”

“Well, I’m down a stool in my studio,” she answered tightly, “but he didn’t hurt me, if that’s what you’re asking.”

“It’s not.” Six squeezed her hands. “Remembering that day can be hard for everyone.”

If Callie closed her eyes, she could still hear the rumbling whine that had heralded the first bomb.

If she rubbed her fingers together, she could still feel the blood drying, tacky and thick, on her skin.

She pinned Six with an open, unblinking look–and told the truth. “I’m upset, but not about that. I promise.”

“Okay.” Six gave her hands a final pat and exhaled roughly as she rose. “I don’t know a lot about Sebastian and his secrets are his own to tell or not. But the one thing I do know is that he disobeyed orders after the bombs, and they punished him for it.” A short, harsh laugh. “Tortured him for it, more like. That’s probably what it is, and you couldn’t have known. It’s not your fault, any more than it’s his. We’ve all got scars, Callie.”

“I know.” She’d seen his. She just hadn’t known they were so intertwined with her own. “So what do I do?”

“Let Bren check on him. He’ll make sure Sebastian’s okay.” A small fridge sat in the corner, and Six pulled two glass bottles out of it and brought one to Callie. “And just…treat him the way you’d want to be treated if someone had stepped on one of your bruises. You don’t need to make a big deal about it.”

Hearing that should have been helpful. Instead, it twisted the knot in Callie’s gut even tighter. If she’d freaked out like that at someone, she would want to crawl into a hole and never come out. Her mortification would never allow her to look that person in the face again.

What if Sebastian felt that way, too?

“I’ll leave him be,” she whispered, cradling the bottle close to her chest. “Give him some time and space.”

“It’ll be fine.” Six dropped to the couch next to her, her legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles. “You remember what it’s like. So do I. The first time you find a place that’s safe… it takes a while to believe it.”

And some never did. Callie pushed the thought away. “What was it like for you? When you first went to Sector Four?”

Six took a sip of her hard cider and smiled. “Messy. I didn’t trust any of them. Damn near tried to bite Lex’s fingers off once. And I slipped into Dallas’s bed.” She made a face. “Not my proudest moment.”

Callie couldn’t stop herself from grimacing in sympathetic embarrassment.

“Exactly.” Six patted Callie’s shoulder. “If I could come back from that, Bast will be fine. Honestly, I’m surprised he was sitting for you to begin with. Bren got the impression he planned to stay pretty much to himself.”

Guilt surged again, and Callie almost confessed that he hadn’t wanted to. It was true, after all. She’d pleaded, cajoled, even bribed him–everything short of outright coercion. “I’m sure he will, after today.”

“Really?” Six took another slow sip, and shook her head. “My money’s on him tracking you down to try to apologize.”

“Oh, God.” Callie covered her face with her hands. “That would be worse.”

“Possibly.” Six wasn’t always physically affectionate, but her fingers ghosted over Callie’s hair in a soothing touch. “I can’t tell you how to deal with it. That’s your pain, too. Your scars are all tangled up with his. But it’s not your fault. You hear me, Callie?”

Callie nodded, drawing in a slow, deep breath. It would be easier, in some ways, if Six could be right. But the deep, present nature of Sebastian’s pain eclipsed everything else. And even if it hadn’t…

Thinking about the bombing of Sector Two hurt. It always would. But that agony mingled with so many other feelings–relief, righteous indignation, and pure, murderous spite–that Callie couldn’t keep it all straight. And she certainly couldn’t separate them.

But wounding Sebastian was simple. And it had been her fault. “Can you check on him, or get Bren to do it? I would, but…”

“Of course.” Another soft brush of fingers, then the couch creaked as Six rose. “He’s one of ours, now, too. We’ll take care of him.”

Of course they would. Six and Bren were used to calming the skittish strays they collected. They’d fix everything.

And if Sebastian wanted to keep his distance from her, Callie would just have to live with that.

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 loathed being stared at.

On the Base, it had been an inevitability. Even if Makhai soldiers weren’t rare enough to be instantly recognizable, he was the only one who was permanently stationed there, and thus an object of intense scrutiny and fascination.

People stared at him out of fear and morbid curiosity. They gaped at him and whispered when he passed, they nudged each other and pretended they weren’t watching his every move, because he wasn’t a person to them but a monster left to wander loose. A predator off his leash.

They’d all stared, but no one had seen him.

Bast expected that Callie had noticed more about him in the past thirty minutes than the gawkers on the Base had in a decade, and for the first time he imagined he understood how those terrified fools had felt.

Very little scared him. Being seen did.

“Can you turn your face a little more toward the window?” she asked softly. “And tip your chin up–yes, just like that. Thank you.” Her pencil scratched furiously over the paper.

The men who had tortured him in an attempt to break him would be grimly amused, he imagined. They’d gone to great lengths to attempt to elicit even a fraction of the discomfort Sebastian felt now. All they’d needed was a sweet-faced, dreamy-eyed artist with a pencil and paper.

Of course, that was the crux of it. Callie would be horrified if she knew how uncomfortable he was. And that made him more uncomfortable. If being seen was unnerving, being cared about–even in an abstract way–was outright upsetting. It scraped along nerves he’d thought safely cauterized.

Maybe that was why this whole damn place had him off balance. Even the children were trying to soothe him.

None of it made sense.

“Do you need a break?”

Sebastian blinked, and slanted a look at her. Was his discomfort obvious after all? “I’m fine, if you want to continue.”

She stared at him for a moment longer, then relented with the shrug of one shoulder. She returned to her sketching, then spoke again without looking up. “Do you want to know what I did before I came here?”

Not at all a safe path for the conversation. “You were from Sector Two,” he said carefully.

“Yes.” Callie tilted her head. “Would you like to know or not?”

A fair question. Any story from Sector Two was likely to be tragic, and he wouldn’t be able to hide his anger. Not from her.

But…he wanted to know. “If you would like to tell me.”

The corner of her mouth tipped up. “I was an art forger.”

Sebastian glanced at her before he could stop himself, both eyebrows going up. “Really?”

She laughed softly. “Truly. There was a robust market for it in Eden, and my patron made liberal use of my talents.”

That made sense. Surely, in their hearts, the wealthy citizens of Eden must have understood that any great work of art was likely a fake. Travel across the Mississippi was rare, even now. But he supposed the provenance didn’t matter–only the rarity. Owning something no one else could have. “Do you still do it?”

“No. I was only doing it in the first place because my patron forced me to, and I–” Her voice failed. “He’s dead. When the city bombed Two. So now I teach, and I make my own art. Not other people’s.”

He couldn’t stop his body from tensing. Fire seared his veins, unexpected in its ferocity. He couldn’t tell what hurt more–the obvious pain in her eyes, or the vicious sensory memory of his first round of brutal reconditioning.

The bombs. That had been the beginning of the end. Cruel, unnecessarily brutal weapons dropped on the heads of helpless women and children–all the more galling because the men with power, the corrupt bastards who’d kept Sector Two’s brutal system of sexual exploitation in place–had been given the warning to run.

If Callie’s patron hadn’t escaped, he’d either been useless, greedy, or stupid.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice grating with the force of his agony. “I tried to stop them. The bombs.”

Her gaze softened, some of the pain giving way to gratitude. “Thank you. It means a lot that you tried.”

“I failed.” He curled his fingers toward his palms, hoping the bite of nails would distract him from the pulsing flames beneath his skin. “I should have done more. It was inexcusable, what they did to you.”

“Inexcusable, yes.” Callie frowned and set her sketchpad aside. “But it wasn’t your fault, Sebastian.”

Wasn’t it? Perhaps he hadn’t given the order, or pushed the button. But he’d spent decades fixing the Base. Streamlining their power consumption. Working on drones, and planes. Computers and other tech. There had been a thousand–ten thousand–points of failure that might have stopped a catastrophe like this, but he’d been the glue holding the whole thing together.

“It’s complicated,” he rasped. “I may not be at fault, but I’m certainly complicit.”

She rose–and reached for him. “Sebastian–”

He jerked back hard enough that the stool wobbled. Springing to his feet, he listened to the dull clatter of wood crashing to the floor. Her hand hung there, too forgiving, too close, and if she touched his skin the fire burning him to ash from the inside might consume her too.

“I’m sorry,” he said, reaching for the stool. The top of it came off in his shaking hands, and he dropped the wood and backed toward the door. He couldn’t trust himself with his own strength right now, which meant he couldn’t be trusted.

Not here. Not with these reckless, relentless fools who refused to fear him.

Turning his back on Callie’s stricken face, he fled.

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.

—

Callie had never been this nervous.

She paced from one side of her studio to the other, rubbing at the goosebumps that rose on her bare arms. She had everything in place–easels, pads, pencils. Chairs and drapes. Even a small cooler she’d begged off of Sally in the kitchen, full of drinks and sandwiches and the last of the hand pies made from their tiny berry harvest.

This was her favorite part of the process, chasing the spark of inspiration until it caught fire and bloomed in her imagination. It was fascinating, and it was fun.

So why was she freaking out?

A soft knock on the edge of the door startled her. She had to laugh at herself for being so jumpy, though the laugh died in her throat when she turned.

Sebastian was standing in the open doorway, backlit by the sun, waiting to be invited in.

Her nerves drowned under a wave of anticipation so sharp it sucked the breath right out of her lungs. “Come in. Take a look around.”

He moved slowly across the threshold, his gaze sweeping the room like he was mentally clearing it of dangers. He lingered for a moment on the wall of proudly displayed finger paintings, and again on a row of still lifes painted by some of the more talented advanced students.

Finally, his gaze settled on her. “Where do you need me?”

“Well…” She indicated the sagging couch along one wall. “You can have a seat for now. We have some things to discuss. Would you like a drink?”

“I’m fine.” He moved to the couch and sat on the edge, his elbows resting on his knees, his entire body still coiled as if he might lunge at any second. But he didn’t move, his very stillness unnatural as he studied her.

And waited.

She sat as well, mirroring his posture. “First of all, thank you for agreeing to do this. It often surprises people, how exhausting it is just to sit. If you get tired, please do tell me. I don’t want you suffering on my account.”

His lips twitched. Just a little. “I am sure I’ll be okay.”

She got the sense that any other man would have openly laughed. But instead of feeling self-conscious, she felt her lips curving in an answering almost-smile. “Fair enough. First real point of business: your incognito status. I know I said I wouldn’t draw your face–and I won’t, if you don’t want me to. But I’d like to, even if it means destroying the sketches at the end of each session.”

Another pause. His gaze drifted to the childish finger paintings again. “May I ask a question?”

Callie had expected a silent nod of acknowledgment, or perhaps a single syllable of denial. Eager to hear his question–a freely offered one, at that–she leaned forward. “Of course.”

He gestured to the children’s work. “Art lessons seem out of character for what I’ve seen of Six. Is this something you talked her into doing?”

“It took a little persuasion,” Callie admitted. “But by Ace–Alexander Santana–not by me. Though all he did was tell her the truth. People need different things, and some of the kids need…this.” She nodded toward the displayed art. “Six understands that.”

“What do they get out of it?” he asked, his tone one of genuine curiosity rather than challenge.

“That depends on the kid. For most, it’s fun. Others frankly don’t like it at all. But for just a few, it’s like breathing.” She met Sebastian’s gaze. “Art will save their lives.”

“It’s that important?”

“It can be.”

After a moment’s thought, he inclined his head. “You can sketch my face. But you shouldn’t display it. For your own safety.”

“I don’t plan to display any of this. You have my word.”

“Then it’s fine.”

“Thank you.” She pushed ahead. “How do you feel about nudity?”

That earned her a raised brow. “I can take my shirt off, if that’s helpful. More seems…inadvisable.”

Callie couldn’t resist. “In what way?” she asked innocently.

He just stared at her. “I am not Ashwin, you know. I can tell when I’m being teased.”

She almost managed not to smile, but she couldn’t stop her cheeks from heating. “Whatever you’re comfortable with, nothing more.” She sobered. “Sometimes, when it comes to positioning, it helps if I can physically move you instead of giving instructions. Will that be all right?”

This time the pause was longer. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “I’m in an unfamiliar place, I have instinctive responses and…” His jaw tightened, and he swallowed whatever he’d been about to say. “Maybe not this first time? I don’t want to hurt you.”

Her chest ached. “Whatever you’re comfortable with,” she repeated. “Nothing more.” Then she rose. “Shall we begin? The light is beautiful right now.”

Sebastian rose easily, his hands already reaching for the hem of his dark T-shirt. “Where should I sit?”

Callie hurried to pull a stool into a wash of light streaming through a window. “I think this would be a good spot to…” The words died as she turned and caught sight of his bare chest.

He had scars. Not the ridged and puckered kind the people of Sector Three usually bore, remnants of knife fights in dark alleys and stray gunshot wounds. His were small, almost regimented. Surgical in their precision and in their healing, except there was no rhyme or reason to their placement–

Almost no rhyme or reason. They were all located in highly innervated spots. Places that would hurt.

She knew she was staring. But, to her absolute horror, she couldn’t stop. “What did they do to you?”

“They wanted me to stop feeling,” he said without emotion. As if it mattered little. “So they hurt me.”

That never works. Callie blinked away the tears that welled, burning her eyes. She swallowed hard and nodded. “I’m sorry. I…know what that’s like.”

His muscles tensed, rigid like steel beneath his scarred skin. “I’m sorry.”

She started to ask him why he would be sorry when he hadn’t been the one to hurt her. Then she realized he was only echoing her own apology.

“It’s in the past,” she said instead, then patted the stool. “Ready?”

Sebastian moved fluidly to perch on the stool. He rested there, his hands lax on his thighs, his expression still tense. “If you need to position me the first time, I’m ready.”

“No, that’s okay.” Callie picked up one of her sketch pads and went back to the couch. She curled up on it, her legs tucked beneath her, and touched the pencil to the paper’s slightly rough surface. “If you want to ask me things about Sector Three, go ahead. Quid pro quo, right?”

One of his fingers tapped against his thigh. “Tell me about the other teachers,” he said finally.

Callie quickly sketched the slight quirk of his brow. “What would you like to know?”

“You’re not all from Three.” That definitely wasn’t a question. “The history teacher…”

“Leah,” she supplied. “She’s from Sector Two. Like me.”

His gaze flicked toward her for a heartbeat. “But not the same house,” he said. “You don’t have the same training.”

The pencil tip jerked slightly, and Callie smoothed away the smudge. “No, we don’t. Leah was an Orchid. I was a Dahlia. Entirely different….specialties, if you will.”

“Hers included combat.” His finger jumped again, before he flexed his hand and seemed to intentionally still himself. “The woman who leads Sector Four. She was an Orchid too?”

“Lex.” Callie smiled. “Lex is famous–or infamous. My advice?” She arched an eyebrow, subtly mimicking his expression. “Never cross an Orchid.”

His lips shifted almost imperceptibly. “I wouldn’t have underestimated her. Or the one who does the scavenging runs. River.”

“River is Sector Three, through and through.” Callie did two quick studies–the angle of his jaw, and the slope of his shoulder into his upper arm. “She’s a good person. Honest to a fault, and shockingly generous. But she doesn’t trust easily. And if you betray her trust, it’s all over for you. Maybe literally.”

“Few trust easily in the Sectors, from what I’ve observed,” he murmured. “It’s rarely advisable.”

“I won’t argue with that.” Callie outlined the angles of his collarbones. “Have you met Blue?”

“Bren pointed her out, but I haven’t spoken to her.” He hesitated. “She seemed…”

“Innocent? Sweet?” Callie looked up to meet his gaze. “Dangerously so, on both counts?”

“Vulnerable,” he said after a moment. “It’s not something many of us have been allowed to be.”

Out of everyone at the school, Callie understood Blue the best. She recognized the other woman’s determination, even when others misinterpreted it as naivete or ignorance.

“You’ve got it all wrong.” Callie tipped the pad up and rested her chin on it. “No one allowed Blue to be vulnerable. It’s gotten her hurt in the past, and it will get her hurt again. But if she lets that pain change her, harden her, wouldn’t that mean they won?”

Sebastian’s gaze locked on her face, and then, after an endless moment, he inclined his head. “I see the distinction.”

His eyes really were remarkable. As deep and dark as the ocean, sharper than any knife. She stared back at him, willing herself to commit them to memory, though she wasn’t sure when she’d be confident enough to try and put them to paper.

The longer she stared, the harder her heart thumped. Finally, when she was sure he’d be able to hear it, she broke away and went back to her sketches.

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.

—

Blue’s favorite time was when she had the greenhouse to herself.

She liked the kids, of course. Little ones always loved playing in the dirt, and the older ones tended to treat her like a respected but cool older sister, which was a nice change of pace. Most of the time, people treated her like a nuisance.

It wasn’t that she was particularly annoying–at least, she hoped not. But she was young, and in Sector Three, that was sometimes worse.

It wasn’t even her chronological age that did it. People saw her as young because she was, admittedly, naive. Though an orphan like so many others, Blue had fallen in with a slightly older, harder crowd of kids who had both treasured and envied her innocence. They’d fought hard to shelter her, like nurturing a plant that had sprouted in barren soil. As long as she kept her optimism, it meant there was hope for them all.

Unfortunately, not many folks in Sector Three believed in optimism. It was no better than a fairy tale, a concept for children to outgrow. When they didn’t, it meant they weren’t smart enough to understand reality. And they treated those poor, silly, sunny souls accordingly–like children.

Which was why Blue liked to be alone in the greenhouse. There was no one around to pity her, plus she got to witness that miracle all over again, with the kids and the plants. This time, she got to nurture things until they grew.

“What about kale?”

Of course, the next best thing to being alone in the greenhouse was hanging out with people who didn’t think she was a) silly, or b) a child. Like Hawk and Jeni, who had the greenest thumbs imaginable, and would hop over from Four to help her sometimes.

Hawk had grown up in Sector Six, where huge farms dotted the landscape. They’d been largely destroyed during the war with Eden, but people were starting to flood back in and rebuild. Jeni, on the other hand, had grown up in the city, but she knew so many things that sometimes it made Blue’s head spin.

This time, however, she knew where Jeni was going. “Kale would be good for winter,” she agreed. “We don’t have to plant it in the greenhouse. We could put it in the boxes we’re building outside, and keep this space for more delicate crops.”

“We figured out a lot about conserving space from the roof gardens in Four,” Hawk said, his gaze still studying the unused space. “I know you want the basics, but what are your big dreams?”

He said the word without judgment, without scorn. Blue smiled. “To grow everything the school needs, plus some. There are so many things we could teach the kids then–cooking and preserving food, even how to sell things. We could start a market like the one you have in Four.”

Hawk exchanged a look with Jeni, then nodded. “Strawberries,” he said. “One of my brothers has been cultivating seedlings. They’ll grow in towers and make great jam. Concord grapes, too. Those could go on trellises outside, they’re hardy.”

“Jams and jellies,” Jeni agreed. “Can’t go wrong with small luxuries in a market. Have you thought about livestock?”

“We have some. Six hates it, but chickens only make sense. They don’t take up much room, they’ll eat anything, we can compost the shit for free fertilizer, and eggs.” Blue bit her lip. Six didn’t like farm animals, so she’d been hesitant to share her thoughts. “I’ve been thinking about converting one of the abandoned buildings to a barn. We could have more chickens, and maybe even some goats.”

“Goats,” Hawk agreed immediately. “The Reyes family has been trying to offload some of their animals to focus on horses and cattle. You could get them at a steal. But Six might dig her heels in.”

She probably would, but she’d eventually give in. Six’s bad memories of growing up on a farm wouldn’t stop her from doing what was best for the school. “I’ll mention it to her. Do you have diagrams for the towers and boxes?”

“I’ve got something better.” He pulled one of the new folding tablets out of his pocket and snapped it open, revealing a wide screen. “Mia in Sector Eight decided the rooftop gardens were too good an idea to waste. She and Noah did some computer wizardry and made this.”

As she watched, Hawk input the size of the greenhouse and then tapped his fingers over the screen. “It lets you plan out what sort of structures you want and then exports a list of required resources and building instructions.” He held the tablet out to her.

There was some text on the program, but the interface mainly consisted of images and symbols.

Blue swallowed hard. She could read…sort of. Her education had been as haphazard as everyone else’s in the sector. Her grandmother had raised her, and she’d spent most of her time teaching Blue about plants–what would grow and when, and under what conditions. How to look at them and tell what they needed to thrive. It was the only education she’d had to pass on, so she had.

After her death, Blue had relied on the other kids in her gang to teach her things. One girl had been smart–so smart, maybe even smarter than Six. She’d told Blue that she needed to be able to read, at least a little. Enough to tell safety from danger.

But this program managed to be understandable, even without words. Just knowing there was someone out there, in a whole other sector, thinking about how people might need something like this? It made her throat ache.

“Thanks,” she muttered. “I’ll go over it with River. She’ll be scavenging as many of the materials as she can.”

“Let us know if you come up short on anything.” Hawk’s sudden smile transformed his usually serious face. “Trust me, I know how cranky Sally gets when her supplies are subpar.”

“Thanks, Hawk.” She threw her arms around him for an impulsive hug, then turned and hugged Jeni, as well, mindful of the swell of her pregnant belly. “You guys are the best.”

“Let us know if you need any help with labor, too,” Jeni urged. “We’ll load up a bunch of strapping O’Kanes and drop them at your feet.”

Blue laughed. “Don’t, you’ll make me swoon.”

“Hey.” Jeni sobered. “There’s always a place for you in Four. Dallas said so himself.”

It was tempting, Blue had to admit that. Just like it was tempting to settle in One, or Five, or any of the other sectors that had subtly, respectfully offered to set her up. It would be a fresh start, a chance to be someone new.

But there was no outrunning the past. It would always be part of her, no matter where she went. Besides, Three was her home, and Six needed her. The kids needed her. “Thanks, but I’m staying put. We have a lot of work to do right here.”

“Understood. Remember what I said about the extra hands, though.”

“I will.”

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.

—

The solar panels on the roof of Six’s main school building were a disgrace.

No, they were an insult to disgraces.

At some point, Sebastian supposed these would have been considered cutting edge. After all, Eden and the Sectors had originally been envisioned as the city of the future. It had been constructed by experts in the field of self-contained renewable communities. Eden had been designed to be self-sufficient and sustainable for generations.

Whoever had installed this solar array probably hadn’t reckoned with the Sector being firebombed and then left to decay under the ravages of the weather, time, and neglect. A set-up like this should have produced enough power to power a city block. Now it wasn’t even keeping the building going.

Someone had wired a truly horrifying hacked together biofuel generator into the building’s power supply to make up the difference. It spat ugly smoke and smelled vaguely of the garbage that had been recycled into the fuel that ran it. It offended Sebastian even more than the truck engine had.

And Six was proud of it. Probably because this was the best her empire had.

Sector Three was a heartbreaking mess. Crumbling at the edges, held together with grit and stubborn hope and pride. They refused to admit they were all but broken.

They didn’t have to be. He could help.

He wanted to help.

The roof access door opened, hollow metal scraping over the patchy tar. “Hello?”

Sebastian turned, his entire body tensing at the unfamiliar voice, and found himself facing the young woman who’d been sitting with River and Six at breakfast.

She seemed an unlikely threat. Of middling height, her soft curves and sweet expression stood out in a Sector that seemed full of hard-edged, wary predators. Her brown hair was tucked behind her ears, and her flowered sundress revealed pale skin freckled by the sun. A tiny streak of blue rested high on one cheekbone, and the hands clutching a picnic basket in front of her had nails with paint embedded underneath them.

So. This was the artist. “Hello.”

“Hi.” She stared at him, her body stone still and her eyes roving over his face.

And this was why he hadn’t wanted to meet her. As guileless as those brown eyes were, there was something about the way she was looking at him that set his instincts on high alert. His entire life had been a life-or-death struggle to hide the unacceptable parts of him.

Being seen was intensely uncomfortable.

The silence dragged on until he cleared his throat. “Can I help you?”

That broke the spell. She shook her head a little and surged forward, one hand outstretched. “Sorry. I’m Callie. I teach here.”

He stared at her hand. His fingers itched. Did his promise to Bren extend to engaging in social rituals? No doubt if he asked, they’d reassure him that he could draw whatever boundaries he wished. Everyone here was positively frantic to protect him. Even the tiny children.

His pride finally pushed to the breaking point, he ignored his unease and reached out to clasp her hand. Her fingers were warm in his, smaller than his own but surprisingly strong. Her skin was soft, but she had calluses on her ring finger and thumb.

Definitely the artist.

His skin buzzed where they touched, but he ignored it. He was good at ignoring things. “I’m Sebastian. Bast.”

“From the Base, I know. You weren’t at lunch, and Bren said you were working on the power, so I brought you a basket. I thought you might be–” Her breath caught, staunching the flow of her words. “You’re beautiful.”

Sebastian blinked. “Excuse me?”

She blinked as well. “What? No, I mean… You… I’m an artist, and your face…” She sighed. “Your face is art.”

Sebastian quite literally did not know what to say. He stood with his hand still extended, grasping hers, utterly at a loss for words.

She relaxed, as if speaking had opened a pressure valve. Her smile was brilliant as she released his hand and lifted the basket. “Can we talk while we eat?”

He thought, briefly, about turning her down. But the earnest brightness in her eyes felt like something rare and precious. He didn’t particularly enjoy crushing people’s joy–much to the Base’s chagrin–and he was hungry. Eating was rational. Sharing the meal was a fulfilment of his obligation to Bren.

Such clever rationalizations. It appeared even he was vulnerable to having people say nice things to him.

Moving slowly, he unbuckled the heavy tool belt from his hips. “Thank you for bringing me lunch.”

“It’s my pleasure.” She ducked beneath the tattered awning that had been set up adjacent to the roof stairwell enclosure.

There was a table there–for breaks, he assumed. Callie set the basket on one of the rickety folding chairs and pulled out a tablecloth, which she unfurled over the rough stone surface.

She made quick work of unpacking the rest of the basket, then stood there, her hands on her hips, and surveyed the spread. “Just sandwiches, but I snagged an extra bottle of lemonade and some coffee.”

“Sandwiches are good.” He picked up a towel and scrubbed it over his hands, though he had grease as deeply embedded under his fingernails as the paint was hers. “What did you want to talk about?”

“I’d like to hire you.”

He hesitated with one hand on the back of the second chair, confused again. “If you need something fixed, it’s not necessary to hire me. I’m here to help.”

“Not for that.” She sat and primly unfolded a napkin across her lap. “As a model.”

His fingers clenched around the flimsy chair. The metal bent slightly under his grip. He’d been demoted from terrifying monster to purely decorative over the span of thirty-six incredibly baffling hours.

“You want a model,” he said flatly. “Do you know what I am?”

“Of course. You’re Sebastian Montoya.” She opened one container and looked up at him. “Green beans?”

Bren and Six were warriors to their fingernails. River was clearly a survivor, and dangerous in her own right. And the child this morning hadn’t known the kind of beast she was poking.

But Callie did. She sat there, sweet-faced and utterly earnest, staring up at him like he wasn’t strong enough to bend metal with his bare hands and trained to do the same to human necks without feeling or regret.

Only he didn’t find it quirky this time. Or odd. Or mildly irritating or reluctantly amusing. Her vulnerability enraged him. She shouldn’t put herself at risk like this. She shouldn’t trust him.

Bracing one hand on the table, he bent down until his face was even with hers. “Men like me are dangerous,” he said softly. “I’m not here to hurt anyone. But if you approached another Makhai soldier like this, you likely wouldn’t survive the experience. Tell me you won’t.”

Her smile softened into something almost sad. “Don’t worry, Sebastian. I know all about dangerous men. But you do have my word–I won’t approach any other Makhai soldiers.”

It didn’t soothe him. If anything, the sadness in her eyes made the itching under his skin worse. And that resigned tone of voice, the echo of pain. Soft, almost hidden…but it had been hidden on the Base, too. Sebastian had manufactured the reassignment–and eventual rescue–of more than one domestic handler assigned to his colder Makhai brothers.

Callie was likely from Sector Two. It was unlikely the men there presented the same kind of physical threat as a Makhai soldier, but there were many ways to abuse power. So many ways to hurt people.

Swallowing the need to extract a name from her, he slid into the chair and made a peace offering. “I like green beans.”

Her smile returned, clear and brighter than ever, unencumbered by pain. She served the plates and passed him a wrapped bundle of cutlery. “I understand if you’d rather not make any firm commitments, or if the idea of being paid for something like that…” She trailed off, then cleared her throat. “You could do it as a favor to me, and I would owe you one. Or several.”

Making her smile felt better. He parted his lips to agree, just to do it again, but his brain caught up. “I’m a man who isn’t supposed to exist. It might be best if my face isn’t displayed publicly. And safer for you, after I’m gone.”

“Oh. I didn’t think of that.” Callie bit her lower lip, then reached across the table, her hand stopping just shy of his. “I’ll work around it. If you don’t want your face to be visible, I’ll do profiles, or maybe shadows. And I’ll swear to you right now, up front, that everything will remain private. No one but us ever has to see it. No one else even has to know.”

Her fingers were too close. He could feel them, even though she wasn’t touching him. At least he had regained enough self-control not to show it by jerking his hand away. He held himself perfectly still and considered her offer.

It seemed harmless. It would clearly ingratiate him to her, and undoubtedly please Bren and Six. But more importantly, if she was from Sector Two…

The irrationality of the people in this sector was threatening to succeed where the Base had failed. If he couldn’t find a way to understand them, he really would crack. Surely a woman trained to understand people–the woman who had created the art in his room with such naked clarity of vision–could explain the people here to him.

“Not a favor,” he said firmly. “An exchange.”

She opened her mouth, and he could see the eager agreement she hadn’t yet voiced. Then she stopped, arched one eyebrow, and eyed him with something approaching skepticism. “What do you want?”

“Information.” He settled back in his chair, sliding his hand from hers. “I don’t understand the culture or people here. I don’t know how to contextualize their behavior. I suspect you do.”

“I’m not from here,” she told him dubiously, “and I’m not sure how much contextualization has to happen. People in Three tend to pretty much say what they mean.”

“I’m interested in your insight regardless. Especially as someone not from here.”

Callie took a deep breath and released it on a small sigh, her shoulders falling. “Honestly? This doesn’t seem fair to you. I’m asking for literal hours of your free time, and you only…want me to tell you what the people here are like?”

Sebastian nodded. “I asked for what I wanted. You can accept or decline.”

“I accept,” she said quickly, her hurry melting into a rueful smile. “I don’t approve, but I accept.”

He caught her gaze and held it, stifling another surge of irritation at her sincere lack of self-preservation. “One thing you can always trust is that a Makhai soldier knows how to look out for their own interests. You should be more suspicious.”

She just nodded politely, smiled again, and took a bite of her sandwich.

He could have proved his point. Risen from this chair and snapped the stone table in half with his bare hands, or any number of intimidating displays of his genetically enhanced danger. He suspected at this point that it would only earn him a disapproving look, like a school child who’d decided to misbehave.

Whatever else the people of this sector were, they were certainly survivors.

And Sebastian was no bully. Destruction for the sake of intimidation was–

pain. fire in his veins.

–wrong.

He swallowed down the nausea that always came with challenging their attempts at recalibration, and reached for one of the sandwiches. It was simple but good, made from fresh ingredients. His appetite was slowly returning. Surely that was a good sign.

Maybe he wasn’t entirely broken.

“Lucky you, you get a head start.”

“A head start?”

“Yes.” She rewrapped half her sandwich and braced her elbows on the table. “Ask me anything.”

He considered for a moment. He wanted to ask about her–and about who might have put that shadow of pain in her eyes, so he could find them and remove from them the capacity to repeat the experience–but it felt too revealing and too raw. So he asked something safe. “Tell me about Bren and Six.”

“Six is local. She had a difficult time under the last sector leader, Wilson Trent. He hurt her. She spent some time over in Four with the O’Kanes, and now she’s back, running the place.” Callie retrieved one of the bottles of lemonade and tilted it back and forth, a slow-motion agitation. “She has a plan to rebuild–I’m guessing that’s where you come in. But nothing is more important to her than this school.” She shrugged. “I don’t know as much about Bren. He’s from Eden, got booted from Special Tasks, then fell in with O’Kane over in Four. That’s how he and Six met. But sometimes…” She hesitated. “Sometimes, I get the feeling his background isn’t so different from Six’s. He’s got the same street-kid air as some of the others. It’s sad.”

“Is that why they’re spending so much time on the school?”

Callie’s gaze sharpened, filled with appraisal as she studied him. “I think so, yes.”

“It’s questionable strategically,” he explained, in response to her look. “The resources she’s put into this could have already rebuilt their manufacturing capacity. Given the rebuilding going on in multiple sectors, that would be the quickest way to achieve financial independence. That’s the way people are trained to think on the Base. Resources first, people second.”

“How very short-sighted of them.”

“Mmm.” He finished his sandwich and washed it down with a sip of tart lemonade. Six and Bren could be investing in the future of their Sector–an educated work force would be able to produce at a far superior level. But Sebastian suspected their motivations had been more personal.

More irrational.

He finished the lemonade and exhaled, bracing himself for the question he had to ask. “When would you like me to sit for you?”

She bit her lower lip. “Tomorrow afternoon? I’m free after two.”

During daylight. That felt safer, somehow. Perhaps the intimacy of being alone, under her too-observant gaze, would be somewhat blunted by fierce sunlight. “I should be available, as long as I can fix these solar panels today.”

“If you need to change it, just let me know.” She rose and began to efficiently gather the remains of their lunch. “You’re the one doing me the favor. I’ll rearrange my schedule, if I have to.”

What were you supposed to say to end a conversation like this? He’d had so few, nothing felt natural. His chair almost collapsed under him as he shoved it back, and he rose swiftly and found himself hovering, unsure if he should help clean up.

Enough.

Enough.

He might not be conversant in pretty manners, but he was a grown man who’d navigated far more treacherous waters than this. He’d survived and even sometimes thrived on a Base that wanted to destroy the essence of who he was.

He would not be skittish around one small, harmless artist.

Clearing his throat, he moved to hoist his tool belt. “I’ll make the schedule work. Tomorrow, at two. Where should I meet you?”

“I have a studio next door to the greenhouse–upstairs.” Her smile turned shy as she handed him two extra bottles of the lemonade. “I’ll see you then.”

She vanished through the door, taking her brightly colored sundress and pretty picnic basket with her. The roof seemed sadder and grayer than before, somehow. The grimy solar panels more desperate, the sputtering generator more neglected.

That was dangerous. He’d started ascribing moods to inanimate objects.

Feelings were truly insidious.

He set both bottles of lemonade down on the sad little stone table and turned his back deliberately on them. Then he buckled on his work belt and told himself that his determination to finish rewiring the solar panels tonight was about getting this building back on efficient power, and nothing else.

Lying to himself was insidious, too.

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.

—

 

“River’s holding out on us.” Blue thumped her mug of tea down on the teachers’ table in the courtyard. “You’re holding out on us.”

River glared over the rim of her coffee, still looking cranky at being out in the early morning sun. She always looked cranky before her second cup of coffee. “What am I holding out on you about this time?”

“The new guy, obviously.”

Callie looked up from pushing her eggs around her plate. As far as she knew, Sector Three’s newest arrival had been keeping a low profile so far. “You’ve already met him?”

“Oh, that.” River reached out to snag a donut. “Yeah, I spent a few hours with him last night. You should have seen the shit he was doing. He built a solar battery for my truck out of spit and prayers, and converted my engine to run on it. I don’t even think half of what he did is possible, but she runs like a dream now.”

“He fixed your truck already?” No wonder Six and Bren had opened their doors so readily, despite the supposed danger.

Blue rolled her eyes. “Forget about the truck. We want details.”

Speak for yourself. Callie didn’t say it aloud, of course, which was good, because she immediately regretted her momentary irritation. She was well enough acquainted with Blue to know there was nothing mean-spirited or small about her request for gossip. She was simply curious about their new, apparently brilliant colleague, and there was nothing wrong with that.

“Eh, Six wasn’t lying. He’s jumpy as hell.” River snorted. “Almost brained me with a wrench because I startled him. Make lots of noise if you’re coming up on him, I guess. He’s one of those.”

Blue grinned and reached across the table to nudge River’s arm. “You’re one of those.” Then she arched one eyebrow. “Is he cute?”

Callie stifled a sigh.

“Well, I can’t ask Six,” Blue protested. “You know she only finds Bren attractive.”

“So she finds one man attractive. She’s still ahead of me.” River finished her coffee and reached for the pot to refill her mug. “I mean, he’s a genetically engineered killing machine, Blue. He looks like what you’d get if you built a dude to be big and strong and deadly. I wouldn’t fuck with him in a dark alley.”

“Okay, but would I fu–”

“Have you tried the croissants yet?” Callie picked up the tray and held it out in front of Blue. “I think Kaz has just about perfected his technique. They’re just like the ones the cook used to bake at the House.”

Blue peered down at the tray, her eyes gleaming. “Really? That fancy?”

“Nothing fancy,” Callie countered. “Just flawless technique. Buttery, flaky technique.”

It worked. There was one thing Blue loved more than anything else–more than working in the greenhouse, more than leather boots, more than men.

“Carbs,” she purred, wiggling her fingers over the tray.

Leah passed by the table, then paused at the end of it with a frown. “Don’t you have an early class that started a few minutes ago?”

Blue glanced at her watch, then squeaked and grabbed two croissants. “To be continued!” she called over her shoulder as she rushed off. “I mean it!”

River eyed the croissants with suspicion before transferring the same look to Leah. “So you care about the times classes start and end suddenly?”

Leah gazed back at her with an expression that somehow managed to be innocent and amused, all at once. “Of course I do.”

“Uh-huh. Remember that next time you’re having a dance party.”

Leah’s gentle, vague smile didn’t waver as she spun around, her gauzy skirt swinging in a perfect arc around her, and walked away.

Her eggs were getting cold, but Callie took another bite anyway. Anything to avoid watching River watch Leah. “When you were growing up, were there dangerous people in Three? People everyone knew not to mess with?”

“Sure.” River made an amused noise. “Most of them are dead now, thank God.”

“We had them in Sector Two, as well. They were called Orchids.” No hint of recognition, so Callie tilted her head. “Leah was one.”

River choked on her coffee. “You’re shitting me.”

Her surprise was almost comical. Just because Leah draped herself in flowing pastels and wore her shining blonde hair in artfully artless curls around her face, River thought she was soft. Worse, she thought she was weak.

River had fallen for the age-old trap that Orchids represented–with such pretty wrapping on a potentially lethal gift, almost no one bothered to peek beneath the paper until it was too late.

“I would never shit you,” Callie told her solemnly. “And don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying she’s a bad person. But when you look at her…”

“You see exactly what she wants you to see,” a voice said from next to them. Six swung a chair around at the head of the table and straddled it. “You of all people should know better than to underestimate someone based on how they look.”

River shoved the coffee pot toward Six, still looking rebellious. “You’re telling me the princess in the flouncy skirt who’s clearly never broken a nail is a stone cold killer of men?”

“I didn’t say that.” Six flipped over a mug and poured herself some coffee. “All the Orchids I know are pretty equal opportunity. Though I guess Jyoti isn’t technically an Orchid, is she?”

Callie pushed her plate away. “Jyoti trained at Rose House.”

River’s brow furrowed. “What does that even mean?”

Roses were trained to be hostesses and entertainment, estate managers and concubines. “It means perfection. I was a Dahlia. I had it easy. All I had to do was fake innocence.”

Except it hadn’t all been fake. The men of Sector Two had been cunning predators, creatures who could scent artifice from miles away. The only way to survive in Two, much less thrive, was to live the lie. You had to become the very thing they expected, wanted.

At least until you couldn’t do it anymore.

Six reached out to squeeze Callie’s hand briefly. Then she pinned River with a look. “Callie warned you. If you keep poking at Leah, don’t be surprised if she pokes back with a knife.”

“Hey, at least that’d make her interesting,” River said lightly. Then she grabbed a croissant and pointedly changed the subject. “Everyone wants to know if Sebastian’s hot,” she informed Six, gesturing with the pastry to the table where the newcomer had just taken a seat with Bren. “Pretty sure Blue’s going to fall in love with him. He seems like her level of brooding loner.”

“Blue’s smarter than that,” Callie said automatically, purely to distract herself from looking, but it didn’t work. Her gaze skipped across the distance between the tables, and she froze.

She had no idea what she’d expected. Perhaps big and strong and deadly, all the words River had used to describe him. They were apt, no doubt about that. He was obviously a trained soldier, a warrior. But he was also…

Beautiful. The word echoed through Callie’s soul. His face was finely carved, his features bold but still refined. It was a face meant to be rendered by the masters, outlined with aged oils and gazed upon with rhapsodic ecstasy.

Her fingers itched for a pencil, a piece of charcoal, even a fucking crayon or tube of lipstick. Anything she could put to paper at that very moment.

“Okay,” River murmured. “Callie thinks he’s hot.”

He wasn’t hot. He was art. Callie opened her mouth, the denial hovering on her tongue. Then, across the courtyard, Sebastian turned his head, his dark gaze locking with hers.

She forgot to breathe. It shouldn’t have been possible. The autonomic nervous system governed respiration, and looking into a pair of bottomless, magnetic eyes couldn’t change that.

But she forgot to breathe.

Six’s fingers tightened on Callie’s again. “Don’t forget he’s a Makhai soldier. They’re not exactly cuddly.”

As if she gave a damn. “Do you think he’d sit for me?”

“What, like naked?” River asked.

Her cheeks heated, but still she didn’t look away. “No, not naked. Look at his face.”

River propped her chin in her hand and stared at him. When Sebastian glanced at her, she lifted her other hand and gave him a cheerful wave. After a brief hesitation, he inclined his head and then turned his attention back to Bren.

“I guess it’s a nice face,” River conceded. “Can’t say I’d hang it on my wall, but I’ve been told I don’t properly appreciate art.”

“You do when it’s wrapped in a flouncy skirt,” Callie muttered.

River’s intense gaze swung back to her. “Not in a million fucking years,” she said, far too fervently.

Never say never. Good advice, words she herself should have taken to heart. After all, she’d been so determined to steer clear of Sebastian Montoya, and all it had taken to shatter that resolve?

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.

—

 

Even trapped in a nightmare where fire licked over his skin, burning it to ash, Sebastian heard the squeaky creak of the unoiled hinges on his bedroom door.

He flashed from sleep to battle-alertness in an instant. The pain faded more slowly, the heat of acid in his veins still vivid. He ignored the memory of it the same way he’d ignored the reality, and kept his breathing to the easy, steady rhythm of sleep.

The footsteps that followed were all wrong. There was no stealth in their even whisper, but they were still soft. Small feet, a short stride. Not hurried, not furtive. A child’s gait, more likely than not. Young.

Children could be dangerous, too. Especially in a place like Sector Three.

There was a gun under his pillow, two knives tucked between his mattress and the wall, and enough of an electrical charge in the ring around his thumb to drop a grown man when activated. Sebastian thought about Bren, asking him if he liked the violence, and throttled back the instinctive need to engage an enemy.

The footsteps approached his bed. The shoes squeaked. Even with his eyes closed, he could tell that the room was light enough that he’d slept past sunrise. Unsurprising when he’d spent most of the night finishing his upgrades on the truck. But it didn’t explain why there was a child on the fourth floor. In his room.

Anger burned in his gut. Not at the intrusion, but at the sheer recklessness of these people. No one should allow a child this close to him unsupervised. He could break the bones in an adult body without even trying. Children were so terrifyingly fragile.

And he was a monster.

“I know you’re awake,” a quiet voice whispered. “It’s okay. I pretend too, when I’m scared.”

The voice sounded so young, but the words held a weary wisdom. Pricked by the sympathy in them, Sebastian opened his eyes and turned his head.

A girl stood next to the bed. She had huge brown eyes, freckles, and dark hair in a messy braid. Bits had escaped to curl around a serious face that was still thin, likely from recent malnutrition. She couldn’t have been more than seven or eight, but her gaze was far from childlike.

She was clutching a huge stuffed dragon in one arm. It was vividly colored, bright orange and green, with cheerfully vicious felt teeth. As Sebastian watched, unblinking, the girl gently reached out and deposited the dragon on the edge of the bed.

“My uncle Ace gave him to me,” she said earnestly. “He protects me from nightmares. You can borrow him.”

Sebastian studied the girl. “Why do you think I need protection from nightmares?”

“I could hear you through the door.” Her gaze scanned his face with innocent concern. “It sounded bad. I have bad ones, too. Were you in the war?”

Lying there while a tiny child stared at him was too awkward. He’d gone to bed in pants and a T-shirt, so he picked up the dragon and slowly rose to swing his legs over the bed. Seated on the edge, he was only a few inches taller than her. “Something like that.”

“A lot of people here were in the war.” She shifted her weight. “I’m Dee.”

At a loss, Sebastian stared at her. “I don’t think you’re supposed to be up here, Dee. Six would not like it.”

Her cheeks pinkened. “It’s not exactly against the rules,” she said far too quickly. Her defense tumbled out with the conviction of someone who’d already practiced it in anticipation of having to use it. “I’m allowed to come see Zayan when he’s here. And I can’t know if he’s here if I don’t come up and check. But then I heard you and I didn’t want you to be scared. Now you don’t have to be.”

Sebastian turned the dragon over in his hands. It was high quality, clearly sewn with deep love. Glittery thread outlined each individual scale, and the fabric felt hand-woven, instead of the synthetic stuff they made in Eight. For a child from an impoverished Sector like Three, it was an almost impossible treasure.

He was still trying to decide how to respond when he heard the door at the end of the hall crash open. The bootfalls approached at a near-run, and Sebastian wasn’t surprised when Six appeared in his open door, her expression blank and her fingers already curled around the butt of the gun strapped to her hip.

She took in the situation rapidly, with the sort of professional assessment he would expect of someone with her training. And her fingers stayed curled around the pistol. “Dee,” she said sharply.

Dee drew in a deep breath. “I’m allowed to come see Zayan when he’s here, and I can’t know if he’s here if I don’t–”

“Hallway.” Six didn’t raise her voice, but the crisp command brooked no nonsense. “Now.”

With one last worried look, Dee scrambled past Six. She turned at the last minute to peek around Six’s waist. “You can keep Sir Puff until you feel better.”

Six spared him the necessity of figuring out how to reply. “Sally’s waiting for you in the kitchen, Dee,” she said without taking her gaze off Sebastian. “After breakfast, we’re going to talk about the rules again.”

It should have sounded like a threat from a woman gripping a firearm. But Dee heaved an aggrieved sigh and disappeared down the hallway. A few seconds later, he heard light footsteps skipping down the stairs.

Six exhaled and lifted her hand from her holster. “I’m sorry. It’s not personal–”

“Don’t,” he snapped, more harshly than he intended. But his temper, thwarted by his bafflement over Dee’s behavior, roared back to life. “I don’t want you to apologize for treating me like a threat. I am a threat.”

Six sighed and leaned back against the doorframe. “Everyone in the damn building is a threat, Sebastian. Did you forget to lock your door, or did she pick the lock?”

He honestly couldn’t remember. He’d been tired when he’d finally sought his bed, and the last thing he’d been worried about was the possibility that a child would try to get into his room. He was usually the one being locked out. The monster people tried to keep away.

Besides, the kinds of things he feared couldn’t be stopped by a lock.

Just like that, his temper fizzled. “I might have forgotten,” he admitted. “I won’t in the future.”

“We should also upgrade your lock.” Six’s lips quirked in a half smile. “Dee is…precocious. And she has way too many indulgent aunts and uncles.” Six hesitated, then nodded to the stuffed dragon he was still holding. “I take it you were having a nightmare?”

“Apparently.” Not that it was unusual. It had been a long time since Sebastian slept without nightmares. He hadn’t realized he verbalized the distress though. Not that the Base would have told him. He was sure there was an observation file somewhere detailing every twitch and groan in minute detail, but he’d declined Ashwin’s offer to obtain it for him. Sebastian preferred not knowing which memories were real.

Six sighed. “It’s a thing here. Dee’s sensitive to it. The first month she lived with us, she’d wake up screaming. Ace painted her walls with dragons and gave her Sir Puff to guard her dreams. So now she wants to protect everyone else.”

The name hadn’t registered before, but Sebastian tilted his head as the memory clicked into place. Even a Makhai who almost never left the Base was drilled in the power players in various Sectors. “Ace is…Alexander Santana? The O’Kane artist?”

“Mmm. He’s mentoring one of Dee’s brothers. She adores him, and he’s not immune to her big eyes.” Six huffed. “No one is except me, which means I’m going to have to be the bad guy. But I’ll make sure she doesn’t come up here again. For everyone’s sanity.”

Relieved and still oddly at a loss, Sebastian held out the dragon. “You should return this to her.”

“I will.” Six accepted Sir Puff, her fingers stroking over the shimmering scales. “I know what it’s like, you know. To come from someplace terrible, and all the crazy fuckers in this new place are acting like reckless lunatics and talking wild shit about family and safety. It feels like bullshit. It’s fucking scary.”

It was too accurate. Sebastian said nothing.

“I’m not going to talk wild,” Six continued. “We’re not all safe here. We’re not even all a family, yet. Because most of us came from someplace terrible. And we all have nightmares, Sebastian. Every fucking one of us.” She met his gaze firmly. “That’s why Ashwin sent you here, you know. Because you’re one of us, even if you don’t know it yet.”

Something inside him cracked, the pain so sharp he almost hissed. He curled his fingers around the mattress and rode out the pain of it. He knew why the words hurt. They were a fantasy, the cruelest sort imaginable. A Makhai soldier didn’t belong anywhere but the Base, and barely there. It was the first lesson they learned, ground into them every time they faced the fear and horror in the eyes of the people they’d been created to protect.

The citizens of the Base liked having monsters on chains to do the monstrous things that kept them safe. They even faked a grotesque sort of respect. But all the extra coffee rations and fresh fruit in the world couldn’t turn the way people had skittered out of his path in instinctive horror into anything but rejection.

Sebastian was Makhai. That was what he was. The only brotherhood that could ever say you’re one of us and mean it.

It had to be true. Because if it was a lie, Sebastian would have suffered for nothing.

“I am what I am,” he forced out, faking a calm he didn’t feel. “I’ll install a proper lock on my door tonight. The truck is fixed. Do you have a new task for me?”

“I’m sure Bren’s got a list.” Six tilted her head. “He’s going to be at breakfast soon. The staff usually eats before the kids show up, if you want to join him. That way you two can run before the full mob descends.”

Sebastian preferred taking meals in his room, but he had promised Bren one week. Six more days of engaging with these aggressively irrational people, and then he could retreat and crush the fantasy of being anything other than a broken tool.

“I’ll be there,” he promised. And he would be.

After all, he’d survived the worst torture the Base could throw at him. What was the worst a handful of whores and street orphans playing at being teachers could do to him?

Bree may be away healing, but she has left behind a thank you gift! For the next few weeks, Tuesdays & Thursdays will feature new posts from a serial featuring some old friends. 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.

—

 

People had strange ideas about endurance.

Leah lowered herself to the floor, stretched out on her toes, her palms spread flat against the uncomfortably cold tile. She kept her movements slow and tightly controlled, just as she’d been taught. After all, jerky movements weren’t very graceful, were they?

She almost grimaced at the thought. Instead, she kept her expression serene, relaxed, with a tiny smile playing at the corners of her lips.

Just as slowly, she began to shift her weight. When she was bearing it entirely on her hands, she lifted her toes from the floor. She wobbled for a moment, then balanced, and her smile turned into a real one.

At least she’d kept up her core strength. It was important for so many things valued at Orchid House–posture, skillful dancing, overall fitness.

The ability to take a punch to the gut without dropping.

The idea flitting practically, casually, through Leah’s head would horrify most of the other teachers at Sector Three’s tiny school. None of them seemed to remember that she’d come from the Flower District, much less that she’d been an Orchid, for Christ’s sake.

Or maybe they’d never been able to wrap their brains around that fact in the first place.

The muscles in Leah’s arms began to tremble. Her abs and her back burned.

She held steady.

From what she’d learned in her research about Three, most of its residents understood trauma as well as anyone. They’d lived it, but in an overt, visceral way. An ugly one. Their trauma looked like shattered factories, crumbling tenements, weeping children whose mothers turned to sex work to keep them from starving.

Leah’s mother had sold her into sex work instead, traded her for a year’s wages and the promise of a better life for her only daughter.

The trainers at Orchid House had kept that promise, after a fashion. Leah had never been hungry, or cold, or lacked medical care when she was ill. She’d never lived on the street, been forced to band together with other kids just to share the intel and supplies and skills necessary to survive.

No, her trauma looked much different. It had been full of hand-to-hand combat training interwoven with lessons on comportment, etiquette, and psychological manipulation. Perfectly coiffed hair, luxurious spa treatments, dazzling parties, whispers about the best way to defuse a man’s anger so that he let go of your throat instead of strangling you.

How could anyone here see her trauma, when she’d been trained to hide it so well?

She’d held her position for so long that her arms were on the verge of collapse. But she forced herself to lower position back to the floor in a controlled motion. Always controlled.

She released a shaky breath and rolled to her back. Everyone in Sector Three could think she was naïve, perhaps even a bit vapid. It was better than having them know the truth.

If Leah didn’t keep herself under control, she’d fly apart.