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Her father leaned in, the lines around his eyes deepening with curiosity and concern. ‘Got wind of your wild incident earlier today.’

She tensed as the memory ofhimloomed behind her eyes, the improbable missile, the unbearable close call, the impossible man. Her breath caught, just for a second.

His eyes narrowed on her face. ‘What happened?’

She exhaled and closed her eyes for a beat before opening them. ‘A Lombardi stealth fighter rode dark inside the safe perimeter. I was alone and must have surprised it. It deployed an illegal warhead, aHadesvariant I’ve never seen. Full kinetic payload. I couldn’t outrun it.’

Her father’s brow furrowed, arms crossing.

‘But then,’ she hesitated, the words absurd even as they left her mouth, ‘another Corvette showed up out of nowhere. It matched my trajectory precisely, like it had me clocked down to the heartbeat. This man, no helmet, no gear, leaped onto my racer. Absorbed the missile’s momentum. Rerouted it. Threw it back at the Lombardi ship.’

Enrico blinked. ‘He caught it?’

‘With his freakin’ bare hands, papa.’ Her voice dipped. ‘He had this energy around him, violet flames, black and gold glyphs, glowing. Like he’d been stitched with aether and xentium.’

Repeating her saga made the encounter sound even more absurd.

Her father muttered a curse. ‘Stronzo!’

Then, after a beat, ‘Amostro.’

She jerked her head in surprise. ‘You think?’

Enrico arched a brow and nodded. ‘It’s plausible. We engineering folks get gossip from the freelance mechanics and equipment haulers below. We’ve intercepted chatter that themostrofly among us, that they’ve organized into forces and clans all of their own and have unknown sources of tech and weapons.’

Savvine took a jagged breath, her mind replaying the scene of the man who saved her transforming into a spectral wolf form.

One so familiar to her, the same vision from her dreams.

Yet undeniably amostro, one of the forbidden.

After the Great Apocalypse, Earth had burned, and with it, new species and creatures rose from the ashes.

Tradition and laws were hastily redrawn by fear, mostly from purists and conservative thinkers.

In the chaotic years that followed, the Holy See in the Vatican and the Syndicate Commission cracked down on what they called ‘racially mixed unions’: relationships between humans and those altered by the nuclear fallout; shifters, metas, and enhanced beings.

The mafia world, already steeped in tradition, aligned with them. Bosses sent quiet directives through bloodlines and ranks, warning against concubinage or marriage with non-human entities.

Too many young mafiosi had fallen for those with otherworldly blood, drawn to the lure of the forbidden, which stirred even more unease among the clans.

Brotherhood, the Church argued, was one thing.

Bloodlines were another.

Before the flotillas ever left Earth for Pegasi, the laws had calcified.

Human citizens were forbidden from marrying shifters or shape changers.

Permanently.

For humans, especially those of pure blood, being seen in the company of a mostro was frowned upon unless conducting business.

Dating or marrying them was worse, like, actual clan betrayal level banishment.

Which meant the man she saw was out of bounds, she thought, even as a frisson of desire arced through her.

She focused on her father. ‘I’ve heard similar. Not sure how much of a worry themostropresent to us now,’ she muttered. ‘We need to focus on the fact that the Lombardis are escalating, throwing out banned ordnance like it’s confetti. I need to find out who’s supplying them and if thesemostro,as you say, have sources for it, perhaps I’ll start there. The one organization that might have a clue is Signet. They’ve got their fingers and eyes in every corner of this flotilla, perhaps even making deals with themostroand Lombardis behind our backs.’