“Six hundred fifty-six, sir.”
“How many humans with the Critamal?” he asked.
“Eighteen, according to the crafts above them.”
His focus turned inward, and Romy squeezed through the waiting crowd to reach him. She placed a hand on his and he jerked, fixing his grey eyes on her.
“Houston’s trying to back me into a corner by sending humans along. He knows I don’t want to kill them,” he said in a low voice.
“Six hundred fifty-six refugees,” she said in an undertone. “You know he’ll force them to join the Renegades.”
Atlas gave a tight nod, saying to the gathered group, “When the Critamal charge, they’ll leave the Renegade humans behind. The aliens are faster. Instruct our air force to wait for that moment to open fire on the aliens. Tell them to avoid killing the Renegades, but none of Houston’s force are to make contact with the settlement.”
“Yes, sir.” The woman hurried away.
“Cronus,” Atlas said. “Deploy our forces to the area immediately for refugee pickup.”
Cronus grunted and turned away, barking orders in his floral shirt.
“How did I do?” Atlas asked Romy, after speaking to a few people.
She answered without a shred of a lie. “I wouldn’t have thought of that. You’re great at this.”
He exhaled and it baffled Romy anew that Atlas cared so much about how she saw him. “I have complete faith in the decisions you make,” she added.
Red stole up his jaw.
She’d really hoped to tell him about what happened with Deimos, but now wasn’t the time, and Romy knew if she brought it up, he’d insist on dropping everything. “You’re busy,” she said. “I’ll catch you later.”
“I’ll be back early tonight.”
She smiled at him. “We’ll talk then.”
Romy started heading for their room, but when she got into the elevator, she pressed the button for level seven instead. She didn’t want to be alone, and she didn’t want to see anyone other than Atlas who might gauge her mood and pry.
The space soldiers were in the gym, the only space other than the Mess able to accommodate the majority of them. Some were on equipment working out, some had ventured into the shooting range running parallel to the gym, but most had congregated in their knots on the large fighting mats and talked quietly.
“Want an Earth lesson?” she called to them, crossing the gym.
Half an hour later, a huge group of space soldiers sat on the floor in front of Romy, who perched on a bench press.
“What happens if you have two of one kind of card, and three of another?” a space soldier called from the back of the gym near the treadmills.
Romy answered, “That’s a full house, a pretty good hand, especially if you have three of the same picture cards.”
“I do,” the large man said, beaming.
“Great,” she said. “But remember, you’re not supposed to let anyone know what you have.”
His face smoothed and he lost the ‘Bambi’ look. “I apologise, mother hen.”
A few of the Amach members working out in the gym were sending her odd looks.
“Uhm, what are they doing?” Charlee asked, weaving between the sitting soldiers to reach Romy.
She smiled. “Playing poker.” Or more accurately, practicing a poker face. The soldier’s clueless expressions had to go, and this was a not-so-subtle way to achieve that.
“You’re teaching them poker?” Charlee burst out laughing. “I needed that so much today.” The woman placed her hands in the pockets of her pristine lab coat.
“Are you on a break? How’re the tests going?”
“Uh, too early to tell. I’ve got a range with various percentages of your blood in them. But I don’t feel like that’s the answer. There’s something I’m missing.”
Romy glanced around. “Do you need me to help?”
“No, no. I was actually going to ask you about Deimos.”
“The one I’m not sure if I’m forgiving yet?”
Charlee gave her a look. “Oh, I thought that was sorted now. I just spoke to Elara.”
“No,” Romy said hotly. “I listened to him but I haven’t decided.”
The Irish woman smoothed her already neat bun. “Okay, but when you do forgive him, do you think you could get a measure on what he thinks of me? You know?”
Romy winced. “Yes, I know. And ew, I’ve never spoken to any of my knot about that stuff, ever. Aside from listening to Elara. Unwillingly.” Romy shuddered.
“Come on, help a girl out. You know my intelligence scares everyone off.”
Romy glared at her. “What about one of these ones,” she gestured around. “I fixed their faces.”
The doctor peered around the gym. “You made them worse. I preferred the innocent look over the blank-faced soldier look.”
The soldiers did look slightly creepy without any expression.
She sighed. “Okay, well, if I forgive Deimos, I might mention it.”
Charlee kissed her on both cheeks. “Good biatch. Knew I could count on you.”
* * *
“Is Japan okay?” Romy asked as Atlas entered their room that evening. It had been a long, emotional day, and she was glad it was finally at an end. She wanted to get into bed with Atlas and forget about everything.
“It is,” he answered. “The crafts with the refugees landed at one of our bases an hour ago.”
“What about the human casualties on the other side?”
“We suspect four or five.”
“It’s as good as we could have hoped,” Romy noted.
“Tina told me you had a bit of trouble with the Critamal today yourself.” He washed his hands at the sink.
Shame twisted her gut. “Yeah, I did. I don’t know why; I’ve fought them all my life. I just couldn’t operate. I freaked out.”
“Fear doesn’t make sense,” he said, glancing back over his shoulder. “From Tina’s report, you snapped out of it in the end. That’s more than most are capable of in that headspace.”
Romy shrugged. “I feel terrible about it, actually. Like I failed or something.”
“I pissed myself on my first mission against the Critamal in space.”
Her jaw dropped.
His eyes lit with amusement at her response. “True story, I swear. Don’t sweat it over what happened. You’ve seen them face-to-face. Now you know what to expect.”
“What if I freeze when it’s some crucial moment?” she asked helplessly, trying to imagine the bravest person she’d ever met peeing their space suit.
He splashed water on his face and grabbed the drying cloth. Watching him do this was one of her favourite times of the day. Atlas was a routine man, and for some reason she found that fiercely attractive.
“I like to imagine the worst thing that could happen if I don’t overcome my fear,” he said. “Some people like to envision themselves succeeding. You just need to find the thing that is more powerful than that fear.”
She groaned. “You know, I thought my day couldn’t get any worse after that, then my knot tied me to a chair so I’d listen to what Deimos had to say.”
Atlas was pretty still most of the time, but always had a tell to show what he felt underneath the mask: a half smile, running his hands through his hair, a softening of his eyes.
When Atlas was angry he went completely still.
“They tied you to a chair?” he asked in a mild voice.
“Well,” Romy backtracked, sensing this wasn’t going to bode well for her knotmates, “I wasn’t listening to them.”
He unfroze and bent to unlace his heavy boots. “That’s a yes then. What did Deimos have to say for himself?”
Romy wondered if she should ask whether he was going to do anything to her knot, but his face looked mostly calm, so she relayed what Deimos had said.
Atlas ran a hand through his hair when she was done. Back to normal. “Sounds like he was messed up and has a lot of regre
ts.”
“Yeah.” She clenched her hands together. “I do feel sorry for what he went through alone. I knew he was darker and angrier, but I didn’t realise he was so . . . twisted up inside.”
“What’s holding you back from forgiving him, then?”
“I couldn’t tell any of this was going through his head back then,” Romy admitted. “How do I know he won’t do it again? I don’t want to trust him again because then he might hurt me a second time.”
Atlas ran a thumb over her cheekbone as he sat next to her. She was a little cold and the heat of his skin made her shiver. He smiled. “You would recognise the signs now,” he said.
Would she? Romy wasn’t so sure.
“You know,” Atlas spoke again. “You were able to hide a lot of what you went through at Houston’s hands.” The words weren’t condemning, though Romy knew it had hurt Atlas to hear she’d kept secrets from him during the testing on her brain.
“Have you considered the parallels between you and Deimos?” he asked.
She straightened. “You mean to say he was taken advantage of by Houston?”
Atlas’s jaw clenched as it always did at talk of the doctor. They’d been best friends and each other’s only support for years prior. “Yes. It seems that Houston’s forte is making people conceal things from people they love.”
The comment struck her dumb. She said quietly, “I hadn’t thought about it that way.”
“Might be some food for thought?”
Her stomach rumbled. “Have you considered putting chocolate cake on the menu here?”
He snorted, getting to his feet. “Can’t say I have.” Reaching to the back of his neck, Atlas drew his black T-shirt off over his head.
Holy meteor shower. Romy stared, blinked, and averted her eyes to the wall.
“Are you going out again?” she asked. There. That almost sounded normal.
“No.”
“No?” What was he doing? Should she look? Romy didn’t want him to think she was perving on him.
His face pressed into the crook of her neck and he rumbled against her skin in a low voice, “No.”
“No?” she asked again, and hurried to add, “I mean, why?”
He brought his nose up to her ear and she giggled at the tickling sensation.
“Because two days ago a beautiful woman asked me why I hadn’t taken off her clothes yet, and I haven’t been able to think of anything else since.”
Romy grinned. “Oh? Was she very beautiful?”
He pulled her onto his lap. “The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She let her eyes roam over his broad shoulders and sculpted arms before peeking up to his face. Grey eyes as soft as clouds looked down at her. “I can’t think when you look at me like that,” she said.
“Then we hold the same power over each other,” he answered. “Would you like to join me?” He glanced down at his bare chest and back up at her with a playful grin.
She’d only been thinking about this since they’d started sharing a bed. “Yes, but I’m wearing coveralls.”
“Don’t I know it,” he grumbled.
Romy laughed and drew the zipper in the middle down to just above her belly button. The cool air kissed her skin as she pulled her arms out of the long sleeves and pushed the coveralls down, avoiding his gaze.
He inhaled and put a finger under her chin to lift her mouth to his in a soft kiss. He reached for her hands and placed them on his chest. “You can touch me,” he said, placing another kiss on her mouth.
She’d expected to feel embarrassed when this happened, but she should’ve known better. He was always so matter-of-fact, and Romy really had been waiting weeks for something more. Trying not to smile, Romy traced a finger across his collarbone, stomach erupting into butterflies when Atlas inhaled again. She glanced at him and saw he watched her with a heated gaze. Emboldened, she placed her palm above his heart and swept it slowly down his side over his taut stomach. He was perfect.
“You can touch me, too,” she said in a husky voice.
He groaned. With obvious restraint, he did just that, mimicking what she’d done by brushing a warm finger over her collarbone and grazing her breasts to span both of his hands across her stomach on either side. His hands hovered above where her coveralls pooled around her hips. He swallowed audibly and, taking a breath, grabbed the ends of her sleeves and knotted the coveralls around her hips. “So I don’t get tempted.” He rested his forehead against hers.
“What if I want you to be tempted?” Romy wasn’t cold any longer.
“I don’t think you need to worry about that.”
Atlas knelt on the bed. Sitting back on his heels, he slid his hands around the back of her hips and pulled her onto his lap, one of her knees either side of his thighs. They were at the same eye level now.
One of his hands held her pelvis close, and the other ran up her back. She sighed, and decided that touch wasn’t enough. Romy pushed her lips against his in a hungry kiss.
Atlas’s grin at her attack didn’t last long. He melded his lips to hers with equal hunger, pulling her closer still. Romy rested her hands on the tops of his shoulders and gasped for breath, determined the kiss wouldn’t end.
The need to keep her mouth on his was greater than any comfort air could bring. She smiled as the kiss continued and then grinned as his face widened into a smile as well. He was everything she wanted.
They broke apart, panting.
She held the back of his neck, staring into his wild grey eyes, her other hand on his arm melding their bodies together. His chest heaved and he watched her, unspeaking and almost unblinking as she did the same.
The door swung open. “I felt bad, so I actually brought you chocolate—”
Romy screamed as her knot filed in.
They wrenched to a halt on the threshold, frozen at the sight of her and Atlas wrapped around each other on the bed. The chocolate cake in Phobos’s hand fell to the floor and splattered everywhere.
Thrym shouted, “What the f—”
“Get out.” Atlas interrupted him. He lifted his brows, still as a rock underneath her. Romy tried to shift to pull her coveralls up, but his grip was like iron. “Get out. Now.”
Her knotmates stared at him mutinously—except for Elara, who was fanning her face behind the boys and mouthing, ‘Hawt’.
“Uh, could you guys give us a sec?” Romy said with a pointed look.
Phobos was on the verge on fainting. Elara tugged him backward.
“We’ll be in the hall,” Deimos said.
Thrym added, “Waiting to speak with Romy.”
“Don’t bother,” Atlas called after them, silkily. “She’ll be busy.”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Romy covered her face with her hands. “That was embarrassing.”
“Your knotmates need to learn how to knock,” Atlas remarked. He stroked her back and a grin spread over his face. “They wanted to hurt me, you know?”
“Present tense,” she corrected. “They want to hurt you.”
Atlas took her wrists and lowered her hands from her face. “That was some kiss,” he said, pursing his lips. Untying the knot around her hips, he brought the coveralls up for her to slide her arms through.
She climbed off his lap. “You’re going to stay for this, right?”
One side of his mouth lifted as he rested back against the wall. “I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
Spinning to locate his shirt, Romy picked it up and padded over to hand it to him. “Let’s not antagonise.”
As he put it on, she straightened up the room, shook her hands to get rid of a wave of nerves, and swung open the door.
“Finally,” Elara said, pushing off the opposite wall. “Got any snacks?”
“I brought cards,” Phobos said.
“Wait.” Romy stopped them from entering. “What are you doing here?” Her eyes rested on Deimos, who lurked at the back.
“We gave you all day to think,�
�� Elara said.
Thrym interjected, “I tried to stop them.”
From inside the room, Atlas called, “What if she decides not to forgive Deimos?”
This time four sets of eyes glared over her shoulder as Atlas came to stand behind Romy.
“Forcing a decision on her that isn’t hers will fail. Where has the support gone for Rosemary?” he continued. “Are you taking advantage of her good nature? Is that what you’re doing?”
“We would never. . .” Elara said in outrage.
“Looks that way to me.”
Romy folded her arms. “I do feel a little betrayed that you’ve ganged up against me when you know how I feel about this. You tied me to a chair so I’d listen and you have no idea how that made me feel after being strapped to a medical table for months on end.”
Phobos’s face lost colour. “Ro, we never meant—”
She held up a hand. “Give me time to decide what I want to do. I’ll come and find you myself when I know.”
Elara’s lip trembled. “Do you want to play poker?”
Her chest squeezed at the sight. Crap. But she’d made a stand already. “Not tonight, Ellie. Another time,” Romy said, biting her lip.
“Come on, Ellie, we’ll go get snacks somewhere else,” Thrym said, pulling her down the passage.
Phobos muttered, “Sorry,” and followed.
Deimos was last. He gazed at Romy across the hall. “I’ll understand if you don’t forgive me,” he said in a hollow voice. “I don’t deserve it.”
She watched, feeling like the worst person in the world as her knot walked off down the passageway without her.
* * *
“How’re they doing?” Romy asked Phobos in the gym the next day.
Their team had been pulled from normal duties in light of the negotiations with the Mandate being finalised. Their knot would be going into the cities once that happened.
Houston had successfully conquered five cities in Europe, and now was headed west toward the Mandate’s New Britain cities. The Mandate’s desperation had to be climbing, and this was what Atlas had been waiting for to throw his weight around in negotiations with them. He’d only slept for a few hours the previous night before waking to go out again. Romy had barely slept herself, thinking about their kiss all night. Not one bit of her was glad the kiss had stopped where it had, and she had plans to rectify that as soon as everyone demanding Atlas’s attention went away. She shuddered at the thought that might never happen.
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