I’d figure it out. This wouldn’t be my forever.

  The internal pep talk helped. I would do whatever I needed for however long I had to, one way or another.

  My belief in my abilities fled when the call happened. Lydia answered the ring on her tablet and turned to me. “Yes, she can go. Thank you.”

  She was pale as she regarded me. “There’s a client here to see you. They want you to go.”

  I nodded, my pulse skyrocketing and my stomach hurting instantly. I really didn’t want to go. Sex was private and should be consensual. I didn’t want to do it on a view screen so Clarke could make more money off me.

  Maybe Amias was right. Maybe I should have gone out in a blaze of glory like he did. Or like he’d tried to do, since he was frozen and might never be awake again.

  I wiped at my few stray tears and steeled my back. Okay. This was happening.

  I left Lydia’s med rooms and headed to the dressing area. Four other women made preparations for similar meetings. We never looked at each other in these rooms, like we gave each other privacy while we still could.

  But for once, I intended to break some protocol. “I think you’re all amazing.” There I’d said it. “Strong and beautiful.”

  All four of them turned to me with equal surprise on their faces. I didn’t expect responses, and I didn’t get any, beyond baffled expressions. I hadn’t broken a rule, since Clarke wouldn’t care.

  I changed, looking at the tablet in the room as I did. It usually said the name and information of the guy we would service. I didn’t know the one who claimed me—a Timothy Erad. I couldn’t see more than his name. Okay, Timothy, please don’t be too awful. Was I praying to the universe? Maybe. Would it make a difference? Never had before.

  I put on my uniform—a sparse brown knit with holes intended to reveal my bare skin beneath the dress. I wasn’t to wear underwear and didn’t have any to put on anyway. Instead, I pulled my hair into the braids they required we wear and slid into the brown heels to match the outfit. We all looked the same for our clients. Regardless of our height or figure, the outfit made us all look wanting and available.

  Tonight, it made my skin itch.

  Two of the women in the dressing room had already left when I went to meet Timothy, but one had remained. “I think you’re amazing, too,” she whispered.

  I smiled at her. Maybe we weren’t too broken. Maybe we can live through tonight and still have souls tomorrow?

  Steeling my spine, I walked down the hall, listening to my shoes click on the hard floor. Amias once told me babies could recognize their mother’s footsteps coming down the hall. Did we ever stop and listen to our own footsteps? To think about where we’d been and where we might someday go? Tonight, I have to do this. Tomorrow, who knew where my feet would take me?

  I was practically an optimist.

  My shaking hands betrayed my confidence as I opened the door to meet Timothy. I sucked in a breath.

  “Hello, Timothy.” I didn’t look at him yet. They liked it when our eyes were on the floor. “I’m here for your pleasure tonight.”

  “Uh, hello,” the voice answered me. Okay. It might be his first time, but that didn’t mean it wouldn’t be a disaster for me.

  I lifted my gaze and almost fell backward in shock. JoHanna’s father? The man whose daughter I saved from poison looked mildly horrified as he gazed back at me from across the room.

  His gaze went to the camera above my head, and if possible, he looked even paler. Okay. I shut the door. What is happening here? Did he want to fuck me? I never got that impression from him on his planet, where he seemed devoted to his wife and daughter. How did he even get off the planet, not to mention find his way to me?

  A red light flashed, and he took a deep breath, holding up one of those devices again. They really were useful. “Twenty seconds until they notice they can’t hear you. All their cameras just went down. Come sit here. Wait. That is what they said to tell you. Sit here. Wait with me. Be safe.” He rushed through the words, his eyes rather frantic. “I was happy to help. You saved my daughter. I’m helping to save you and bring you home.”

  Realization dawned on me. The guys are here. “How? It’s not time yet and…”

  He let go of the device and shook his head, patting the sofa next to him as he sat down. I could sit. And wait. And be safe. That’s what they’d told him to tell me.

  JoHanna’s father’s name was Timothy, a minor and meaningless point for my mind to focus on when it couldn’t quite stop jumping from thought to thought. An explosion sounded somewhere in the distance, and Timothy nodded. He lifted his hand and showed me his fingers in a countdown from five. Another explosion echoed in the distance.

  They happened again and again after that. Shouts. Gunfire. I covered my ears. It was loud, terribly so, and I didn’t want anyone except Clarke and his men to be hurt. Maybe I was a bad person for even wanting that.

  Timothy rose. “I think it’s okay to talk now. They said by now no one would be listening in here.”

  “How did they do this? The lightning.” I ran a hand through my hair and started pacing the room. “I don’t understand.”

  “Right.” He got up, too. “The bad guy who poisoned my daughter—Net—he had a ship, and there were things on the ship. I’m sorry, I’m not being articulate. There were things. And they used them to make their shuttles work.”

  That made sense. This is nuts. “So the four of them, and you, came for me? That’s impossible.” Tears flooded my eyes again but this time they were happy. “I never would have dreamed it.”

  “The four of them? No, I mean, yes, they’re all here. I mean…most of the planet is here. Some people who came, I haven’t even met. They left two just in case, but they’re all here. No one was okay with Clarke kidnapping you. You’re ours. I mean, you belong to yourself, of course, but you are on our planet, which makes you our responsibility. They love you, and that gave the others all kinds of hope or something. No, it’s not just the four of them.”

  My knees gave out and I would have fallen, but the door swung open. Gunnar was suddenly there, catching me in his arms.

  “There you are.” He kissed my forehead. “You’re okay. Little overwhelmed? I’ve got you. Always.” He kissed the end of my nose. “I’m sorry it took so long for us to get here. Are you okay?”

  “Took so long?” I hadn’t expected to see them ever again. I threw my arms around his neck and held on tight. “You’re a miracle for my eyes to look at.”

  “Oh, Raven.” He kissed my lips. “I cannot do without you. The four of us need you like we need air, okay? No one will ever take you again.”

  He kissed me all over my face until I was dizzy. When I finally pressed my lips to his it was the sweetest feeling in the whole universe. Gunnar is here.

  I pulled back to find Timothy vanished. Where had he gone? “Gunnar, I have to tell you something. Maybe it’s too late. Oh no.”

  He yanked me even tighter against his hard body. “What? Talk to me.”

  “Okay?” Mace was suddenly there, pressed against my side. “Why is she crying? Are you hurt? Did they hurt you? Who the fuck do I have to kill?”

  “Oh,” I threw my arms around him then. He smelled so good. So familiar. So home. “I was just going to tell him Stone and Amias are alive. The doctor—Lydia—she put them in cryo. They still have to be fixed, but they’re there. In the med room.”

  “Really?” Gunnar laughed. “Fuck. Amazing. Okay. Let’s go there. Nothing happened in the med bay. We never blow a hospital up.” He took my hand and Mace took the other one. “Crew and Ransom and everyone has heard you. Let’s go see the situation there.”

  When I reached their location, I found Lydia and Cambree huddled together in the corner. I let go of my guys’ hands to rush to them. “It’s okay. They’re here to rescue me.”

  “And put a stop to all of this shit,” Ransom added as he rushed into the room. “No more of Clarke and his crap, Butterfly. He’s done terrorizing this planet.” Ransom grabbed me and kissed me. “I don’t know who he sent to take you, but if you see him, point him out, will you?”

  My mind stuttered. What was I going to do about that? “Um, sure. If I see him.” I made eye contact with Cambree. I’d just lied to Ransom, but if he noticed it, he didn’t say a word. Instead, he picked me up in his arms and kissed me, hard.

  We weren’t alone, but he didn’t seem to care as he lifted his head to talk to me. “I love you. Okay? It’s a foreign word to us. Not one we expected to ever use, but I love you. We should have ended it years ago, and then we could have found you and brought you home where you would’ve been with us even longer, but we didn’t know what was happening here. I’m sorry we didn’t. I love you.”

  In the corner, Cambree cried, and they all turned to look at her. “They really love you. I mean…they really do. They did this whole thing for you.”

  “We do love her,” Mace said and stroked a finger down my face. “She is our forever and our reason why.”

  “We love her so much,” Gunnar proclaimed walking over to the cryo machines. “This is incredible. I haven’t seen this kind of tech since Evander fell.”

  Explosions were still going off in the distance. A bizarre moment, I realized, with the dichotomy of my sweet reunion with three of them and the mess still happening out there.

  Ransom looked at me. “Some of the others are helping the frightened women. They’re not thrilled with us, because we’re Super Soldiers, and I can certainly understand why. Hopefully, they’ll soon figure out we’re not here to take over where Clarke left off. We’re here to remove him, the others, and give you back your planet.”

  “Really?” Lydia cleared her throat. “You’re going to leave?”

  “Yes.” Mace nodded. “We have a home. We’re going back there.”

  “Could I come?” Her voice shook. “Please. I don’t want to stay here anymore. Not one more day here.”

  I whirled around into Mace. “She’s a doctor, pretty much. I can explain later, and this other woman—Clarke held her brother in cryo to make her do what he wanted. Can you let her go? On a ship with her brother, so they can just go? On their way to wherever they want to be.”

  He nodded. “Of course. Just wait a minute, miss, until the bombs stop, and I’ll see to it you can take off in peace.”

  “Really?” she outright sobbed. “But…”

  “No buts,” I practically shouted. “This is good news.”

  She sucked in a breath. “Okay.”

  I didn’t know what they’d do if I admitted Cambree took me. She was a woman—they’d never hurt her or anyone else who didn’t threaten them—but they weren’t going to be happy about it. I just wanted her to be able to go. She’d find a way to make amends somehow, in the future with someone else. I didn’t need it. I was going home.

  “Stop right there.” I winced. Clarke. It was Clarke. And he was there. A red light danced on my head. Oh fuck. He has a gun pointed at my head. “You little bitch, you…”

  One second, he spoke, the next, he was flat on his stomach on the floor. Crew lay on top of him, holding him to the ground. “You were always so bad at this. A mediocre soldier at best. Do you remember me?”

  Clarke actually whimpered, and I caught my breath. The man tormented us all, took over our planet, killed my father, let us die from things that we should have never had to face, and now he was what? Crying because Crew held him on the floor. I blinked. I couldn’t really believe my own eyes.

  “Not so tough when you don’t have your group with you? Guess what? They’re dead or they’re no longer able to hurt anyone, so it’s just you, me, and a few of my closest pals.” He flipped Clarke over before he picked him up and shoved him into the wall, the structure shaking slightly. The room was so silent we could have heard a pin drop, yet Clarke didn’t even move a muscle to fight back.

  “You remember me?” Crew repeated his question.

  My tormentor nodded. “Yes.”

  “I remember you. What a blowhard you were! What a ridiculous waste of space. You should have died on Earth and spared the universe putting up with the likes of you. We were given a chance when Evander fell. They wanted to put us down. We escaped, and we had the chance to be men, like the ones we saw who beat us. Like the humans who fought for their lives, their homes, and their families. Who said no to being hurt by us or anyone else who dared to come and try to take what was theirs. We had the chance to be like them, yet instead you went and enslaved a planet. You abused people with no chance of fighting back against you. You made yourself into some kind of demigod. Guess what? You’re not. Gods can’t die, but you can.”

  With a shaking voice, Clarke finally answered. “I wanted us to have what we deserved. We spent years under Evander’s control. For once, I wanted us to be the ones with power.”

  “You don’t deserve anything. The universe doesn’t open and dish out things based on who deserves what. The people on this planet lived under Evander, too. They had their resources stripped, their people kidnapped. They finally had a break, and girl babies were being born. Then you showed up and destroyed them again. You hurt the love of my life. Took her from me. I don’t care to hear your excuses or rationalizations. You’re done.”

  With a twist of his hands, Crew snapped his neck like it was nothing. Clarke fell to the floor before Crew ripped his head off, throwing it aside. It was the same move he’d used with Net, only there was no fire to burn Clarke’s remains.

  We all stared until finally Crew turned to me. He opened his arms, and I rushed into them. He’d killed that man for me—for all of us, but mostly for me. It was all for me. I closed my eyes and let him hold me.

  “I need to bring you home. No one will take you from it again without your permission.” He kissed me, gently, like a caress. “But please don’t leave. Please stay, because it isn’t home without you. Either that or take me with you wherever you go.”

  I closed my eyes and pressed my head against his cheek. Clarke was gone. His palace was gone. His people were out of commission or dead. I wouldn’t have to prostitute myself anymore, and neither would anyone else.

  “He was selling me soon. A man…never mind. I want to go home. I want to go so much.”

  Crew scooped me into his arms. “Let’s get things finished here and then we can go.”

  I woke up on their shuttle but we weren’t in the air. I lifted my head and Ransom stroked my back. “Hey there. You don’t have to be up. I’d rather if you slept for days and days.”

  I rolled toward him and put my head in his lap so I could breathe him into my lungs. He seemed so warm, so real, and I’d missed him. “Why are we still on the ground? The sooner I leave here, the better.”

  “We had some logistics to work out before we could take off. A surprising number of people wanted to come with us, for starters. Then we had to deal with the cryo situation. He had so many people locked up so he could blackmail other people. We had to figure out who is in there, who is sick, and who is just stuck in there. Your doctor friend is helping us sort through the cryos. Your friend with the brother left. I’m not sure what her deal was, but she hurried off. There are others… It’s all just taking a little time, but we should be leaving…” His voice trailed off. “Soon. Right now, actually. They’re coming. Stone and Amias are here—still in cryo, but with us. Lydia needs to treat them before we can attempt to wake them.”

  The shuttle was filled with my guys, so I forced myself to sit up. “What happened to Timothy?”

  “He’s with Gator. They’re good friends, as they do some work together. He was so happy to help. Jumped at the chance. Everyone wants you with us. Chanel, who wants to be your friend, runs a boarding house. I think she’s going to be full of women. Some others will have to step up, too, if we want to house everyone. It’s going to be interesting.” Crew sat next to me. “I need to look at you and just see that you’re fine. You’re pivotal. Essential.”

  They were too. “I thought…I thought that would be it. You were stuck. And then I’d be sold off, and you’d never find me in time, because the man who was buying me was intent on hurting me until he killed me. By the time you could come—and I sometimes thought maybe you wouldn’t, because I’m just not used to anyone doing that for me—it would be too late.”

  Mace knelt in front of me. “We will always come for you, Raven. You’re our family. Our love. The center of our hearts and our home. We would never not come for you, and we will never be too late.”

  “Thank you.” I let my tears fall. I felt things and I didn’t have to hide them. They wouldn’t decide I was too much because sometimes I cried.

  “Don’t ever thank us,” Gunnar whispered. “Let’s just get out of here.”

  I was so glad to be going home.

  The street was the quietest I’d ever seen it. The bar’s lights were off, and so were the ones up and down the street. They all came for me; everything was shut down. I had arrived on their planet soaking wet and terrified but determined. Now, despite the bumpy landing thanks to the lightning, I was home.

  As we got off the shuttle, Crew bent over, and I climbed on his back. They wanted to carry me around, to see that I slept and ate. For the time being, I would allow them to spoil me a little. I was tired—bone tired—but I was home, and I would heal there.

  However long that takes.

  “Is Raine okay?” I asked them, not caring who answered.

  “She’s very glad you’re back. She offered to come by if we needed her, but it seemed best to have her stay behind with Kitty.”

  He was right. Their planet was magic. The people were, too. Maybe she and I could both find our way.

  When they carried me upstairs to the bar, I missed the sounds of the music and the people talking downstairs. “Can we open tomorrow night?”

  “If you want.” Mace pulled on the end of my hair. “Whatever you want.”