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My voice is flat, and Orien slowly pulls his hand back. The playful, predatory flirtation drains from his face. The spymaster returns, his eyes narrowing as he processes the sudden, violent shift in the room’s atmosphere. He sees the panic. I know he sees it.

“It is entirely voluntary,” he says quietly. “No one is forced into a scanner.”

“Good.” I stand up. The chair scrapes harshly against the concrete floor. “Because I prefer to author my own disasters.”

I step away from the table, putting the width of the small room between us. “The food was adequate. But I have deployment schedules to finalize before morning. If you will excuse me.”

Orien doesn’t move immediately. He stares at me, his gaze moving over my face. The intelligence turning behind those burning orange irises is terrifying. He knows he hit a nerve. He just doesn’t know which one.

Slowly, fluidly, he stands.

“Of course, Commander.” He doesn’t bow this time. He doesn’t mock me. He merely inclines his head.

Then he walks to the doorway, his boots silent against the floor. He pauses at the threshold, glancing back over his shoulder.

“We are not the monsters in the dark, Maggie,” he murmurs. “You don’t have to fight every war alone.”

I straighten my posture. “I am perfectly comfortable alone.”

“A lie,” he replies softly. “But a beautifully delivered one.”

He steps into the hallway, the metal door swinging shut behind him with a definitive clang.

I stand in the center of the tiny room for a full minute, listening to the silence return. Then, my knees buckle.

I drop onto the edge of the cot, my chest heaving as I drag oxygen into my lungs. My hands shake violently. I reach across my body, gripping my left forearm, my fingers pressing into the fabric of my sleeve directly over the scar.

A match. A genetic scan.

They are hunting for wives, and they have brought the medical technology to catalog every surviving human on this island. If Orien brings one of those machines near me…

I close my eyes, forcing my breathing to slow. Inhale for four counts. Hold for four. Exhale for four. Control. Control is the only currency that matters.

I will work with the alien spymaster. I will use his glowing sword and his tactical brilliance to slaughter the creatures trying to consume my city. I will even let him sit in my private quarters and buy me off with synthesized Bordeaux.

But I will never, under any circumstances, let him see my blood.

7

ORIEN

Margaret Elmsleigh is a master of evasion.

For three rotations following our dinner, she treats me like a radioactive hazard. I arrive at the war room for our scheduled tactical sessions and find only her dour-faced quartermaster waiting with a stack of inventory reports. I seek her out in the communications hub, and she conveniently departs through a secondary blast door the moment I cross the threshold.

She builds her walls higher, mortaring the bricks with busywork and delegated authority.

It is entirely futile.

I am an Avaren spymaster. I have extracted state secrets from warlords and dismantled entire planetary defense grids. A human female wielding a clipboard and a bad attitude presents an entertaining challenge, not a deterrent.

SUBJECT: ELMSLEIGH, MARGARET.

CURRENT TACTIC: AVOIDANCE.

EFFECTIVENESS: ZERO.

I find her in the armory on the fourth day.