A human female from the Splits with no references would never have made it past the first screening. Instead, she broke into my network, insulted my security to my face, and walked away with my full attention.
Amusement curls through me before I can stop it. The sheer audacity of the plan is absurd. Reckless. Brilliant. She risked her life to submit a job application. A laugh escapes me, low and genuine.
“If you’d wanted a job with House Sethrak, there were easier ways to get my attention.”
“Such as?”
“The contractor portal. Applications. Credentials. A screening process.”
She purses her soft lips. “And would you have listened to a lone human female without references?”
The silence between us holds the answer we both understand. A human female in the Splits with no identity, no references, and skills that shouldn’t exist outside a military intelligence division would have been filtered out long before her application reached anyone who mattered.
She hacked my network because it was the only way to force someone like me to pay attention. Unbelievable — and surprisingly inventive. But no one sells their soul to the devils on this planet without a reason. She must have one.
“So here we are.”
The taste of her lingers. Sharper now. More distinct beneath the adrenaline.
Her scent threads through the ambient pheromone blend that saturates the lower levels, standing apart from the engineered sweetness woven into the air. Cheap tea leaves. Recycled air, carrying the flat metallic note that clings to anyone who spends long enoughbreathing the Splits’ ventilation system. And beneath both, something else. A chemical edge my instincts keep returning to, no matter how many times I tell myself it’s irrelevant.
“You’ll receive weekly credits at independent contractor rates. Quarters with atmospheric filtration rated for human respiration. Full provisions. Access to the network systems I designate, expanded as the audit progresses. You don’t wander the Warrens without an escort until I clear you for independent movement. You don’t contact anyone outside the network without my authorization. And you don’t discuss your work, your capabilities, or the scope of the audit with anyone who isn’t me or my senior operative, Resh.”
“So I’m hired then?” she asks.
“That’s better than your alternative, is it not, female?”
I don’t comment on the way her expression closes off after the question.
The Warrens swallow us whole at the third junction. The architecture shifts from transitional corridor into the full spectacle of the entertainment district’s upper levels. Carved stone archways open into vaulted chambers. Bioluminescent panels paint the walls in copper and rose. The temperature rises until the air itself feels warm against my scales.
Her attention catches on every junction and every visible seam where the bones of the old colony show through the luxury layered over them. She’s looking past the silk and lighting into the infrastructure underneath.
Every operative, dignitary, and pleasure worker who walks these halls sees what the Warrens are designed to show them. The beauty. The luxury. The seduction. This human female sees the plumbing.
And the fact that she isn’t impressed, that she’s studying structural weaknesses instead of admiring the architecture, catches me off guard.Most people react to the Warrens. The first-time visitors slow down. They stare. They try not to stare. They look up at the vaulted ceilings and the silk and the light and spend the next hour pretending they aren’t impressed.
She doesn’t even glance twice.
Resh meets us at the junction to the residential tier, falling into step on my left with the silent competence I’ve relied on for years. His gaze settles on the human female for a beat before returning to me.
His temperature is elevated along the jawline. His shoulders are carrying more tension than usual. The combination sets my teeth on edge, but he won’t say whatever brought him looking for me while she’s here. He knows better than to discuss House business in front of an unknown, which is exactly what she remains.
I’ve brought her in from the cold and taken a gamble.
She has yet to prove I’m right.
“Miro Okonkwo.” I pitch my voice for the security feeds that cycle through the residential corridors. “Independent contractor. Minor technical maintenance on secondary network infrastructure. She works for me now. I’m getting her settled in.”
Resh nods and lowers his gaze. He understands exactly what I’m doing without me needing to explain it. The designation is deliberately unremarkable. If Kazren’s audit team reviews the contractor records, her name will sit between equipment maintenance schedules and ventilation calibration reports. Exactly where I want it.
The quarters I designated during transit from the Splits are small by Warrens standards and generous by hers. A sleeping area with actual linens. A workspace with integrated display terminals. Atmospheric filtration capable of producing air clean enough for human respiration without supplementary modifiers.
I unlock the door to her quarters through my wrist comm and step aside. She enters cautiously, her attention sweeping the room. The exits first. Then the windows. Then the workstation.
She’s measuring escape routes before she even sets Percy down. The moment the reinforced case touches the desk, her shoulders drop half an inch. The movement is barely visible, but the warmth spreading across her upper back tells me exactly what it is.
Ever since I pulled her through that window, she’s expected someone to take him away from her. Now, for the first time, she doesn’t.
