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“It’ll find its way back to the ocean, and I don’t think the Pacific is going to miss it too much.”

She giggled. “I guess there’s plenty more where that came from.” She rubbed her face against his muscular chest, enjoyingthe feel of his body against hers. “But I should probably get it out of the facility and clean out the debris.”

“Will that take long because I kind of want to get you home.”

She giggled into him again. “Think of everything you want to do to me when we get there. By the time you finish coming up with a few fantasies, I’ll be done.”

He groaned. “I’ve been fantasizing about you for months now, Astrid. It’s torture.”

“Months?” She put her chin on the top of his chest, “You’ve been interested for months?”

He nodded, then leaned down and kissed her. “It was really difficult to keep away from you because I’ve felt a pull to you that is entirely new. When you wouldn’t leave me alone, it became impossible.”

She kissed his chin. “I’m all done.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Ironically, cleaning up the water is the easy part. I mostly let it do what it would but speed it along.”

“You are fascinating.” He nuzzled into her hair. “How do you want to get home?”

She sighed and gritted her teeth. “I guess flying is best, right?”

“Will you be ok?”

“Well, it’ll be my second time flying, so it should be easier, right?”

“I promise you will be safe. Just keep your eyes closed and consider what you want to do with me when we get back.”

“I’m thinking a blindfold.”

He reached down and pinched her butt. Astrid laughed as she felt his body shift. The next things she knew, they were in the air. This time, she kept her eyes shut and enjoyed the feel of his body under hers.

Afterword

Mending, Not Breaking

Several weeks passed, and Astrid was researching curses while Phoenix participated in his third teleconference. Having wrapped up her project the previous week, she had decided to take the rest of the year off to consider what to do. When she moved to the area, she had expected to take a few years to figure out what had happened to her brother, and she wasn’t sure if there would ever be closure. While she hadn’t learned the details of what happened, Astrid realized that Phoenix was probably right—she had an idea of what had happened. Getting into the details wouldn’t help her at all. His goal had been to protect women with abilities from being exploited, and, for now, the people he had targeted were gone. And it seemed nearly impossible for them to recover.

News had spread about an “accident” that had destroyed the facility. The military had withdrawn all support from the research, feeling that the company had even less understanding of the company’s function even two decades later. And based on a bit of hacking she had done, they were quite disturbed to learn about the kinds of experiments that were planned.

After twenty years of being angry at the military, she was glad to see that they weren’t quite as bad as she had thought. It was true that her brother had suffered in the military, but she suspected it was because it conflicted with his caring nature.

“What are you up to over there?”

Astrid looked up. “Just doing some research.”

He stood up, and she watched his muscular frame as he stretched. “Man, I really hate all of these meetings.”

“Well, maybe you can delegate that to someone else for a while. After all, you’ve been at it for a long time. Can’t you step down or something?”

“Not if I want to eventually remove my father from his position.”

“Ah, right; the long-term goal.”

He walked over to her. “Have you thought about what you want to do once you are rid of me?”

Astrid put the tablet to the side and stood up. “I haven’t given it any kind of thought.”