Some of my brothers are already at our usual table. Heavy sits with his back to the wall, watchful as always. Cannibal hasthree plates in front of him and is working through them with single-minded determination.
Ines takes in the scene. She sees my brothers too and has to note that they are loud and physical, shoving each other and arguing about something I can’t hear from across the room. Cannibal gestures with a fork, meat juice flying. Heavy rolls his eyes. Someone laughs.
This is a family. Not just a crew.
I guide her to the table and she slides onto the bench. I take the seat next to her, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from her small body. Her scent fills my lungs again. I breathe it in deeper than I should.
She’s still not compatible.
“Hook’s Bride, Leah, works at the mine too,” Cannibal says to Ines, barely pausing between bites. “In the tech department. You should interview her.”
“I’d like that,” Ines says. “Is she here?”
“She’ll be by later. She takes lunch at the end of the rush.”
The conversation flows around us. My brothers ask Ines questions about New Earth, about Singapore, about her work. She answers easily, comfortable with the attention. She makes Cannibal laugh with a story about a food market in her home city. She asks Heavy about his mining equipment with genuine curiosity.
I watch her and find myself leaning closer without meaning to. Our shoulders almost brush.
Jana appears at the table, her apron off, her shift apparently winding down. She slides onto the bench across from us and Heavy’s hand immediately finds her waist.
“You wanted to interview me,” she says with a warm smile. “I have some time now, if you’d like.”
Ines pulls out her tablet. “Thank you. I appreciate you taking the time.”
“Of course.” Jana settles into Heavy’s side. “What would you like to know?”
“How did you end up on Timbur?”
Jana and Heavy exchange a look. Something passes between them — a shared memory, maybe. Or a shared wound.
“I was a chef at the Hunter Station,” Jana says. “That’s where I met Heavy. He was visiting his brother Daxon.” She pauses, her fingers finding Heavy’s on the table. “We claimed each other that night. And the next morning, he was gone. Just a note on my pillow that said ‘Goodbye.’”
Ines’s stylus hovers over her tablet. “He left?”
“I thought he did.” Jana’s voice is careful. “Two months later, I found out I was pregnant. I tracked him here to Timbur and got a job in this cafeteria so I could find him and tell him he was going to be a father.”
“And when you found him?”
Jana’s laugh is soft and sad. “He walked through my food line on my first day. Looked right at me.” She shakes her head. “He had no idea who I was. Glared at me like I was a stranger. I thought... I thought he’d just used me and walked away. That everything he’d said that night was a lie.”
Heavy’s jaw tightens. His hand grips Jana’s harder.
“But that wasn’t what happened,” Ines says quietly.
“No.” Jana looks up at my brother. “Someone attacked him that night, after he left my quarters. Wiped his memory. Left him to wake up in a drunk tank with no idea what had happened. He came back to Timbur not knowing he had a Bride. Not knowing I was carrying his child.”
“He was dying,” I tell her, the words rough in my throat. “I remember those months. Watching my brother fall apart from Claim separation syndrome. When a mated male is separated from his Bride, he dies. His body knew he had a mate somewhere. His mind didn’t.”
Heavy speaks, his voice low. “I still don’t remember that night. There are gaps. Whole chunks of my life that are just... gone.”
“But his body remembered me,” Jana says softly. “Even when his mind couldn’t. Eventually, it pulled him back to me.”
Ines is quiet, her stylus still. But I can see her thinking. Her eyes have that sharp, focused look I’m starting to recognize. “The attack on Heavy,” she says carefully. “Was it ever investigated?”
“Minecorp said it was random,” Jana answers. “A bar brawl gone wrong. Case closed.”
“And you believe that?”
