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The afternoon passed quickly into evening. After Alara left, Mia spent her time studying Xeruvian culture, in between fielding questions from her fellow abductees. Somehow, she had fallen into the role of coordinator, a position to which she had never aspired.

“Lady Kerus,”she grumped. “What will they do next, deify me?”

A polite cough interrupted her. Mia glanced up and saw Emma Mitchell standing in the open doorway. Emma was, like many of the abducted women, roughly Mia’s age. She stood slightly shorter than Mia with a willowy build, and while Emma wasn’t conventionally pretty, her features were arresting, especially when she smiled.

“Is this a bad time?” Emma said.

“No, of course not. Sorry. I was just wondering if you knew my mother. She used to be with the CDC before she and my father shifted into aid work.”

Emma had cut her teeth on fieldwork with the CDC before landing a research position with the CAH. She tilted her head now, her eyes narrowed. “I don’t recall meeting her. Does she still publish?”

“Not in a while.”

Mia rattled off the title of her mother’s last paper, published half a decade before, on the subject of post-epidemic immunity in a rural African village that had been savaged by viral hemorrhagic fever. Admittedly, not a recent publication. Mia had been working on her doctorate at the time and hadn’t had time to read the paper when it was published.

“I remember that one,” Emma said. “Quite interesting. It may be pertinent here.”

“I think any cross knowledge will be useful. That’s what I’m doing now, trying to figure out how to integrate human and Xeruvian research.”

“Could we somehow combine JSTOR with their database?”

“Excellent idea.” Mia automatically reached for a pen and notepad, then glared at her desk. “I really need to find some paper.”

“Ask Jyrak. She’s been an amazing resource. If her specialty was closer to mine, I’d totally steal her from you.”

Mia shook her finger in mock admonishment. “Get your own Xeruvian to pester.”

A shadow crossed Emma’s face.

“What?” Mia said.

Emma’s mouth worked for a brief moment, then she said, “You have to know we have questions.”

“About mating?”

“And other things.” Emma glanced away, her fingers pulling at the seam of her lab coat. “How did you know Zoran was the one?”

“I didn’t,” Mia admitted. “He chose me. Why? Has someone approached you?”

“Something like that.”

“One of the ones who took us?”

Emma shook her head.

Tentatively, Mia said, “Is he your mate?”

“I don’t—” Emma shook her head and overtly shifted her expression to one of polite professionalism. “That’s not why I dropped by. I’ve been thinking about our food supplies. The plants and pollen we’ve undoubtedly exposed ourselves to. The diseases.”

Alarm rippled through Mia as the implications sank in. “Oh, hell.”

“Precisely. No one’s shown an adverse reaction so far, but I’d like to do allergen tests as soon as possible, particularly for Xeruvian foodstuffs so we don’t have to rely on irregular shipments from home.”

“You are just chock full of ideas. And no,” she added fiercely, “you do not have to ask my permission to do that.”

Emma’s eyebrows rose. “I wasn’t asking permission. More like trying to coordinate efforts so there’s less overlap.”

“And I’m the de facto coordinator.” Suddenly, Mia understood why Zoran snarled all the time. “You know, I didn’t ask for this. I’m not even a particularly good leader.”