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It took me months to catch a break between clients and battles with the Nebulous Empire, Novarks, and corrupt Terran security, so I could track down my own target.

I should’ve never left her side. But I was a stowaway at thirteen that the police wanted to catch for their orphan corps.

The wavy-haired brunette at the opposite end of the bar sets her empty glass down with a dirty, bleeding hand that shakes. I can see it from where I sit.

Leaning back against the wall, I tune my hearing to isolate her voice among the drone of the others. She can’t afford another drink, but it looks like she needs one.

Jaaka’s gaze flashes to mine. I nod.

“On the house,” he says to her.

I’d give her everything if I could. But if I’m not careful, I might end up taking it all away. I know she’s up to something strange based on the erratic shipping patterns that don’t match the munitions needs of her clients. Carrying dry goods is simply a code for shipping missile husks and other internal components, minus the explosives.

But why use a ship with so many extra cargo bays? Why race through deep Sol space? What are you hiding, Zariah?

A strand of hair slips from her ponytail to frame her face. She swipes it away and looks up, almost at me. My core pulses faster.

I haven’t been able to stop thinking about her. She has consumed every spare moment since the day she broke into a hangar so I could hide on a departing ship.

Heat rushes into my groin. I want her to see me but on her terms. I can’t bring myself to take anything from her when I know how much she’s already been through.

Maybe she doesn’t remember me.

It has been a couple of years. She’s good at concealing her ship’s location, a trick I’m sure she learned from her father. It makes it difficult to keep tabs on her.

Her dark eyes look down at her drink and then over her shoulder while she keeps her head down.

She doesn’t want people to recognize her, and she doesn’t trust those in here not to attack her. But I’m watching them too, including the two federal agents by the windows.

I know who her father was. I encountered him a few times before a poisoned trap around a healing crystal finally took him out and the rest of his regular crew. Somehow, his son survived. It makes me wonder why.

It’s the reason I had to find her. I know everyone’s gunning for his credits. It’s always easiest to take down an empire when the leader is dead, and a new leader is still establishing their place in the hierarchy.

“Hello, handsome,” a female with green skin like mine leans in against the bar counter. Her voice is a loud drone when I’m in hyperfocus mode. I ease back and give her a glance.

“Not many of our kind left,” she adds.

I am surprised to meet someone from our solar system. There are only a handful of us Lazarsin left, which means this can’t be a coincidence.

She’s not Lazariot like me, or she’d be taller and have gold eyes. Larisiens have all perished, which makes her Lathlion. Her deep green eyes confirm it.

Should have a tail.

She tilts her head and plays with her ebony hair like it’s going to get my attention. But I’m not interested in her.

I glance at Zariah. She’s finally eating and now listens to a message from her mother.

Gently, I take the wrist of the Lathlion beside me, knowing she’s been sent to me by someone. I can’t get distracted because there’s a threat somewhere else they’re trying to hide.

“You were told to keep me busy, yes?” I whisper.

Her jade lips curl inward, and she sways a little like she might be drugged. But she nods subtly, once. I check her wrist for a marking while I keep my hearing tuned to Zariah. My homeworld kin has been tagged by an alien trafficker.

“Be quiet,” I tell her. The playfulness in the Lathlion’s eyes fades and is replaced by fear.

I draw a blade from my chest harness and cut the tracker out from beneath her tattoo. Her jaw clenches. She lets out a soft growl.

One squeeze pushes it out from beneath her skin. I crush it between my fingers and toss the pieces under the bar counter. “What’s your name?”

Air rushes through her teeth. “Jiuli. You?”

“My name doesn’t matter.” I cover her wound with a rapid healing patch from a pouch in my armored vest and then draw her in for what I hope looks and feels like a hug.

Inside the cover of our bodies, I slip her a chip card with funds, not much but enough to get her out of here. I lower my voice so only she can hear. “For the record, you are beautiful but far more precious. All I want is for our kind to be free.

“There’s a transport leaving dock Five Bravo in ten minutes. It’s headed to Pieris Spaceport. From there, catch a shuttle to Eniph. Ask for Catarina when you arrive. They will help you get your freedom back.”

“Thank you.” Her tail grazes my cheek as blue tears fill her eyes. “Lingon. His name is Lingon.”

Then she backs up and runs through the rear exit of the bar.

I down the last of my beer and check on Zariah. I want to talk to her, but after a couple of years, it’s a challenge to find the right words.

As I lean to check on her, I’m interrupted again by two federal investigators. One is human, and the other is Retterwan.

“Captain Elix, Private Security,” the human remarks. He’s a dark-skinned human with gray-brown eyes and blue tracework embedded around them. “We need your help tracking a person of interest who’s shipping illegal goods onto Terran soil.”

His left eye twitches at the word goods , and I know he means something else. Likely drugs. I hope he’s not talking about Zariah. “I’m not a K-9 unit.”

The Retterwan glances at his partner and blinks his double-lidded eyes. His pulse ratchets up. I can hear it with a brief focus on his neck.

“We need your skills to solve this one. Trackers have all gone silent. Our operative has gone missing.”

Zariah’s desperate shout cuts through our conversation. The feds barely throw her a glance, but I’m already on my feet, trying to push past them to find out what’s wrong.

“We don’t want to have to legally bind you,” the Retterwan says. When he shifts to reach into his pocket, I see the name on his chest.

“Look, Tenac, I’m on another mission. So unless you have a commission contract in there, I’m going to get back to my job.”

“You are obligated to help.” The human wrinkles his nose. Even he doesn’t like the words that come out of his mouth. His nametape reads Harlten. He’s calmer than Tenac but still fidgets like he’s nervous.

“I have no information for you because I’m not on that case. You are. Someone might get hurt if you don’t let me go. So all I can tell you is the only scent I picked up that might be what you’re looking for was on Deck Four near the medical hangars. I didn’t think much of it because of what else they transport. But that might be a decent cover. Try there.”

“How long ago was that?”

“Twenty minutes.”

Tenac and the human hustle out the back door of the bar, uncaring of the fight going on at the other end.

I’m not a drug dog, you fucks. The Sol Federation agents have often tried to use my species skills since I joined. At least they compensate me. Many species don’t show restraint. They’d cage me and starve me, force me to work like my ancestors for them if they had a choice. I’ve been used like a K-9 unit and a manufacturing plant for life-saving serum.

I’m certain that if I hadn’t complied with something, they would’ve tried to shackle me with a buzz collar and make me help until I was of no use. They’d let me go afterward because they’re real civil like that. But even the feds have shadow ops who feel like they can get their hands dirty under the cover of our desperate times thanks to the ruthless Nebulous Empire.

Most don’t know Sol’s dark side exists. I make it my business to know every threat in my area and any who threaten it.

When I turn to focus on Zariah, I hear that the half-breed before her is holding her mother’s last gift. He looks ready to tear it in two. Her red face says I might be too late.

I draw my Haxgun, slip through the onlookers with quick, silent steps, and press it into his back. The charge tube spools quietly with a storm of green light as I lift my other hand with my Harrowgun.

The room around us stills. A few of the shipping captains make subtle movements for their weapons. I see the Ginarigon dart his eyes to his left. The man beside him slides his finger over one of the glowing red throwing knives on his chest. I can hear the susurrus of his skin sliding over the metal. Another man shifts his feet, his finger tapping the handle of his gun: tap tap tap , waiting for me to twitch in a way he doesn’t like.

It was over-stimulating as a child to hear and feel so many things, but it’s essential to listen if I want to survive this place and every other in this war-torn universe. And this time, it’s not just my ass on the line.

I initiate my wristband weapons with one thought.

Harrow Spindle-ignite.

My wrist swells with the light of twenty targeting blades. In my vision, I confirm targets with illuminated brackets.

Zariah slowly steps around the man she called Lingon, clutching an item in her hands and looking up at me in utter surprise.

I shake my head. Please don’t say my name. Not with so many listening.

“Get your things,” I say, trying to block out the sight of her looking at me like I mean something. It only makes it harder to fight the urges that stir within me. My erection strains against my armor. Heat curls out from my core into my limbs. I am furious anyone would threaten her, yet I’m fighting to rein in my desire, so I don’t cock this rescue up.

She lifts the paper. “This is all I brought.”

“Back door, go.”

Zariah glances around her as she runs out the back door. I had hoped to chat longer, but this seems to be the way we see each other—in passing.

“You’re going to regret this!” Lingon says.

I press my gun harder into his back. “You’re going to regret all the women you have hurt over the years, Lingon. They are the most precious thing in this universe, and you treat them like garbage.”

“Not all of us care about the future,” he defends. “What’s the point of procreating if we cannot enjoy the life we have?”

I steel my emotions, shift my sensory parameters to the males most ready to shoot, and plan my escape route. Jaaka closes the bar behind a shield. And everyone else hurries out.

“You don’t get it. And I pity you,” I say.

He cackles. “ You don’t get it. But you are going to get a lot of lead to pick out of your teeth in Hell, Nytheralian.”

“Wrong.” Few have seen one of my kind, but I know he has.

“Must be so miserable,” I jeer, as I switch my Harrow unit to a smoke canister. The lights blink on, showing me which port will fire.

“What’s that?”

“To not know love.”

I launch the smoke grenade, filling the bar with a rush of green clouds, then slam myself to the floor as the bullets whiz overhead, and scramble out through the back door.

Zariah’s scent fills my nostrils as I leave the bar behind. I scramble up and chase her path through the hallways, hoping she’s safe. Voices follow but become more distant the further I get from the bar. I don’t pick up the scent of others with hers, but I can’t stand the thought of letting her get away from me again. My core compels me like a starved junkie.

I track her scent to the stairs and burst through the doors onto the stairwell to pace the landing. Her scent fades going up but comes back to me on the descending side. I take the steps down to the next level and find she’s dropped another.

I exit into a maintenance room with an array of steaming heating systems and a maze of pipes. A few paces inside, a slender stick of rebar swings toward my head.

The angle is too low, the movement too slow to be a threat to me. I catch the bar with one hand and look down as Zariah’s sweet aroma consumes me. Each time I’ve seen her, the pull grows stronger. I hear her rapid pulse, the breath that escapes her. Time slows for a blink.

“Elix?”

“Zariah—” I rasp, hoping she thinks it’s just because I’ve been running and not from the scorching desire that tears through me.

Her ample hips sway as she slumps to rest against a row of pipes, and it nearly kills me to just stand here like a helpless idiot. But I cannot take her. I won’t for moral reasons. That’s all anyone has ever done to her.

I have to tell her the truth and find a way to make her mine. Just don’t fuck it up this time.