There was no one who understood her. Her loneliness, yet her need to be alone.

  No one save Tempest, who was a loner herself...and that bitch wanted her man.

  “You’re a spoiled brat,” Tempest snapped. “Stop it. You’ll hurt everyone here with this unnatural glow. Control it!” She grabbed her upper arms, holding her against her like a wayward child. Did she think she was the only one who watched the trainings in this very ring?

  “What the hell’s going on?” Jason’s voice startled her. Shawn was with him. But instead of talking to her, Jason avoided her by asking Tempest what was happening. Like always. Instead he catered to Tempest. They all catered to that beautiful bitch.

  “Why the hell are they all sitting here watching?” Shawn sounded bewildered as he stared at the frozen Xeno Sapiens in the stands.

  So it was okay for them to fight but not the females?

  Nothing could control Lily’s rage. She brought her elbow down on Tempest’s forearm, the tension in Tempest’s locked hold causing Tempest’s arm to break with a jarring crack.

  “Lily!” Jason yelled, glaring at her.

  Damn him for defending Tempest like Lily was the instigator. Did he think Tempest wasn’t used to her bones breaking constantly? Why wasn’t he worried about Lily? No, it was like he just wanted to get away from her. Jason hooked his arm between them, at chest level, pulling her from Tempest. Behind Tempest, Shawn wrapped his muscular arms around her, cradling her, soothing her pain, whispering sweet nothings into her ear.

  The way Jason should be doing for her, but instead he was aggressively yanking her away from the precious Tempest. Pfft. They ought to call her Temple. Temple, the Vessel of Virgins. That was one thing she had on her. Lily had never been a virgin. Not since the moment the technician had his way the moment she woke.

  Tempest’s eyes flashed, eyes seeking Jason’s, well aware that it wasn’t Jason’s arms around her, but Shawn’s. Tempest couldn’t be satisfied with both men crushing on her? She had to have contact with both?

  “Go home, Lily.”

  Jason’s condescending tone was what he reserved for the teenagers. Well, she’d make quite a scene as she left alone, with them all watching her walk away, never looking back. With a blast of energy, Lily pushed past Jason’s arm, shoving Tempest backward into the muscular bodybuilder behind her. Let Shawn have her. She’d make sure Jason stayed free.

  What happened next wasn’t of her planning.

  Tempest’s bones broke of their own accord, using her anger as fuel. Unfortunately, Shawn was her mattress, breaking her fall with his soft human tissue.

  He fell with an oomph, Tempest on top.

  “Shawn!” Tempest screamed, pulling away from him to turn. The pain on her face was excruciating as her bones pulled from his body with a slurp, like blades being unsheathed.

  “Shawn!” Jason yelled it at the same time she did. But Shawn was unconscious, his eyes opened and staring straight ahead.

  Not unconscious. Dead.

  One bone shard had pulled from his heart.

  Dead.

  “No! No! No!” Tempest howled.

  Jason was screaming into his communicator, and now that she was distracted, the other Xeno Sapiens were up, pulling out their frozen state where they sat on the benches around the gladiator stands, watching in horrified silence.

  Everything seemed to move in slow motion.

  As Lily stared at Shawn, his human light—the glow, or battery that powered each person—slowly rose from his shell. Is this what happened when a person died? Their carcass was left behind like a sea creature’s shell? But like a sea dweller, Shawn had to return to the source that created all.

  Lily could make him stay. But not by herself.

  Her glow was instantaneous, whipping through gladiator pits on an instant bright high beam—borrowing energy from anyone who had extra. She reached out, grasping Shawn’s invisible soul and holding it, pulling it, reforming it, mashing it back into his body of holes.

  Jason decided to help her, thumping on Shawn’s chest to start his human heart. Every so often he’d stop to breathe life into his mouth.

  But Shawn’s glow kept trying to escape. She needed to be stronger, needed to somehow anchor him in the area that was so damaged it couldn’t hold the free-form light that was now Shawn.

  She turned her head, catching Tempest’s fear-ridden face. Her cheeks had rivulets of wet running down them.

  “I’m sorry,” Lily mouthed. But she needn’t have said anything because her words were drowned out in the swirl of power rushing through the pits.

  She had to bend Tempest’s mind. A glazed look came over Tempest as she reached out and placed her hand over Lily’s heart. Her silly, love-sick, useless heart. She gave Lily her power.

  And Lily sucked Tempest’s energy, her pure Xeno Sapien power, her strength, through the open palm that she gave so willingly.

  Though at this moment, she’d never remember how willing she was.

  The energy flowed, and his soul began to re-anchor. His heart started, thanks to Jason’s furious chest palpitations. The doors to the pit opened, and human doctors rushed in, taking over for Jason. She was barely aware of a tube like device being attached to his mouth, forcing him to supply oxygen to his starved lungs.

  But he didn’t have time. The doctors couldn’t fix all of this, not on their own. Not with his weakened human system. When she withdrew her power, his living force would again leak through the punctured wounds, zapping away before they could patch all the holes.

  Unless...

  “Tempest,” she whispered, and her voice echoed on the power that thickened the air around them. She felt the edges of Tempest’s mind reaching against hers, seeking information to see what Lily needed. But she couldn’t connect through Lily’s broken telepathic link. Then a slow nod to acquiesce. No matter what Lily wanted, Tempest was willing to give.

  Tempest leaned over Shawn’s body and everyone froze. Lily expended a bit more power to make sure her bones re-aligned with his stab wounds. Then with a quick surge, she pushed a rush of air to force her bones through her skin yet again.

  Tempest screamed, a blood-thirsty shriek that pierced the ears.

  This time, the same shards plugged his holes.

  “What the—”

  The human doctors were baffled of course. But they had no idea of what they were doing. Lily was so tired, she didn’t know if she could finish this.

  “End it, Lily!” Tempest screamed at her. “Don’t stop now!”

  Of course. She’d been mentally chanting at her, reminding her of what needed to be done. The link knocked at a door in Lily’s mind, but she couldn’t open it. Since her kidnapping, Lily didn’t even have enough energy to maintain the mental link, so Tempest had to resort to words.

  Lily used the last of her power. “I’m so sorry,” she said to Tempest. And she was. With one last furious surge, she broke Tempest’s bones, the shards remaining in Shawn like macabre, molten plugs. But it worked to hold his pure, white soul inside the broken human body.

  Tempest’s second high-pitched shriek sent tingles through everyone present. While she’d always had the pain of bone breaks, she’d never once had the pain of detachment. Of permanent amputation. Could she regenerate from this? Grow bone? Could her genetically modified body recover?

  It was unknown. But in this, Tempest had aligned with her and was in agreement. It wasn’t Shawn’s fault...this fight had been hers and Lily’s. And Shawn shouldn’t have to pay with his life. Tempest would rather give her own than to allow him to pay that price.

  As would Lily. She loved Shawn. He was her friend.

  With that last thought, she collapsed, her last view was of Tempest’s still beauty shrieking in pain, even as she lost consciousness.

  Chapter Eleven

  Lily sighed, the sound echoing through her own skull. She tried to pull herself from the dark, murky depths of where her consciousness rested.

  “Lily?”

  She opened her eyes to the harsh bright lights. Robyn looked into her eyes, her hand on Lily’s forehead. On her other side was Amanda, her head peering right next to Robyn’s.

  “Her vitals are stabilized, and she’s awake. I’m going to stop the drip.” Amanda flipped the knob of the machine that was feeding a liquid into Lily’s veins.

  Everything came rushing back. Lily tried to sit up, garbling her words around the tube in her throat.

  “Don’t talk,” Robyn said. “Jason will have our heads for this.”

  Jason? If he cared, where was he? Was he still upset with her?

  Amanda seemed to read her thoughts. “He was here the entire time until I banned him. We wanted to wake you up, and he wouldn’t allow it. Nor will he allow us to let you go deeper to heal your split consciousness.”

  Wake her up?

  “It looks like she’s stable,” Amanda said to Robyn. “I’ll go check on the others and let myself into Jason’s.” Her lips had a small smirk.

  “Jason’s suite is locked from the inside,” Robyn said to her. “We talked him into believing you were stable and heading to shower the blood from him. You were moaning in pain, so we used meds to numb you. Unfortunately, they stopped your breathing, so we had to intubate. I flipped his locks. He can enter, but he can’t get out until I ‘unjam’ the locks.” With her fingers, Robyn motioned air quotes. “It was the only way we could get him out of our hair. Now, I’m going to try to answer all of your questions. Or at least the questions I can anticipate. We’ll take you off the ventilator later, once we’re sure you’re breathing is stable. Your body was so weakened that unconscious reflexes controlled by your autonomic nervous system were not operable. Therefore, without the tube, you can’t breathe. As for everyone else, Shawn is stable but unconscious. I have no idea where you and Tempest got the idea, but somehow the shards of her bones melted, filling his wounds and then slowly dissolving as his flesh knitted. It was brilliant. We won’t even need to stitch him. Tempest is awake but still in an extreme state of pain. We need to put her under to get her bones to regenerate, but she refuses until Shawn wakes. We may have been able to talk Jason into getting her to go under, but he’s been another problem also.” She sighed. “He blames her for your fight. He was harsh—more so than he should have been. It was ugly.”

  Lily widened her eyes. Jason blamed Tempest? The fight wasn’t her fault, it was Lily’s.

  Robyn caught the movement. “What? Oh, God. You’re not trying to tell me it was you?”

  Lily blinked excessively. She had to fix this. Tempest didn’t deserve this.

  “I’ll take that as affirmative. No wonder Tempest refuses to go under. She’s probably afraid someone will slash her throat.” Robyn winced. “I don’t know what happened with you and her. But Jason’s going to believe you over anyone else.” She paused for a minute. “He loves you, Lily. He’s been worried sick.”

  Lily signaled with her eyes again. He didn’t love her. He’d ignored her as best as he could while he focused on Tempest.

  “He does,” Robyn insisted. “Lily, let me give you a briefing on where you stand medically. After Jason brought you back to Xenia and you were unconscious, it sped your mental maturation. Yet you’re only three quarters of the way there. You’ve been going back and forth. Sometimes you’re a teenager...and then you’ll flip into being a woman. It’s been a yoyo. You know this. But...we wanted to bring you into full maturity. Doing that will open your memory pathways of what you endured in the labs. Jason had originally agreed, but your nightmares during the beginning of the procedure were horrendous. He made us stop. We argued that it was best to get you through it, but he couldn’t bear to watch you suffer.” Robyn sighed. “Not even for himself. We all knew he loved you, Lily. As a human...trust me, Jason’s horrified. Horrified that he could love someone who was so recently a teenager. We have human reactions and feelings, even though we’re aware that as Xeno Sapiens, we need to adapt in dealing with your people in a different way. It just isn’t easy. So now we locked him up and will have to deal with his wrath for putting you under to full maturity. If that’s what you want, that is. Remember it’s a trade-off. Horrible memories for full maturity.”

  Lily blinked rapidly. How could anyone want to be in limbo? For people to wonder which person she was, the teen or the woman? Bless Jason for being so protective, but she’d take the pain, no matter what it was. And she had a feeling it was going to get much worse than the pedophile she remembered.

  “Deep breath,” Robyn instructed. “I’m going to count to ten. By the time I’m there, you’ll be under.”

  JASON’S FRONT DOOR unlocked, announcing entry.

  “Dr. Amanda Becker. Status: sibling.”

  Jason came barreling from the back bedroom. “It’s about time,” he snapped. “What the hell’s wrong with the lock?”

  Amanda shrugged, closing the door behind her. “Robyn said it was a glitch in the system but not a big deal. She’s fixed it.”

  “Not a big deal? I’ve been trapped in her for an hour and a half.”

  “To be fair, you just discovered it locked you in,” Amanda reasoned. “Some of that time you were showering.”

  “In the meantime, Shawn lies near death, Tempest is suffering needlessly, and Lily—” his voice broke.

  He found himself wrapped in his sister’s arms. “She’s going to be fine, Jace. The Xeno Sapiens are tough.”

  “Not Lily. She’s the size of a peanut,” he snarled, and grew offended when Amanda covered a grin by pretending to cough.

  “What?” she asked, feigning innocence as he glared. “Women are tough, no matter how small they are. She’s got two strengths right there, femininity and Xeno Sapien DNA.”

  “Whatever. Let’s get to her before she wakes and is horrified by what she did when she was under her teenage persona.” He jerked on the doorknob.

  It remained in place, frozen. Locked.

  “What the fuck? Not again,” he groaned. “Why the hell did you close the door?”

  “Who would expect it to jam again?” she said, unperturbed. “Let me just call Robyn. Oh, hell.”

  “What now?”

  “I left my communication watch on the counter before I left.” Her voice sounded faintly apologetic, and yet not. “I was in a hurry to get to you! You were impatient at being locked in.”

  “Now I’m locked in again.” This time with his sister. Would this day never end?

  “I’m ordering a team to get to Robyn and tell her it’s a priority to stop what she’s doing and get this damn lock undone. And to fix whatever computer glitch is doing it.”

  “Patrick—” he snapped, as soon as his acting second in command answered.

  “Wait.” The somber tone in Amanda’s voice made him pause. “Disconnect the communication. I have something to tell you.”

  “Never mind,” Jason said into the comm, suspicious suddenly.

  He turned to Amanda, eyes narrowed.

  She raised her chin, looking every bit the cool, immaculate Dr. Becker. “Robyn and I locked your quarters purposely. We intend to bring Lily to maturation.”

  “Are you fucking crazy?” He snarled, feeling slightly guilty when she flinched with his temper. “Let me out of here.”

  “No. This is for Lily’s sake.”

  “You’d be willing to make her suffer?”

  “If she chooses it. Robyn will make sure to ask her.”

  “She can’t make that decision! What if it’s her teenage self that emerges?”

  “So? She’ll know what she wants, no matter if she’s sixteen or twenty six. If she chooses not to go ahead with it, Robyn will suspend the procedure.”

  He clenched his fists, feeling helpless.

  Her gaze softened. “It will be all right. I promise. She’ll be fine, and we’ll take you to her so you’ll be the first one there when she wakes.”

  A STEADY HUM IN THE air grew louder.

  Whrr. Whrrrrrr.

  The noise was annoying to say the least. Lily tried to focus on something else, but what else was there?

  There. A steady drip...drip...drip. Constant. Almost like a pattern.

  “There you go,” a male voice said. “We are awake now. Success.”

  “Congratulations, doctor.” The second voice spoke differently, heavier. The syllables rolled.

  “Aquatic features are still negative. The DNA not strong enough to support those features in pulling them from hibernation.”

  “So again, she’s useless.” The first voice was heavy with frustration.

  “What will we do with her?”

  “She’s too expensive to destroy,” the first one snapped. “We have nothing to lose by continuing to try to get her to reach her other side. Force those damn gills to exude and get rid of the lungs.”

  “It was a good try. I honestly thought waking a handful before full maturity would give us a broader hand at experimentation.”

  “It was an excellent idea, Harold,” the first voice agreed. “Trying to catch some before adulthood. We know in our species children are more able to adapt than adults. But in the case of the other DNA, I’m afraid it just isn’t so. Or it’s stubborn. I’m not sure which.”

  “She has functioning ovum. Perhaps we should relegate her to the breeding rooms?”

  “See if TJ-63 likes children?” The first voice laughed. “Eventually. But not right away. Let’s give it another couple of weeks of trying to force those lungs to inactivate. Other than that, I imagine a breeder is all she’ll be good for.”

  There was a snapping sound as he peeled the black gloves from his hands, beady eyes peering at her over the rims of his safety goggles. She couldn’t see the rest of his face, the bottom part of him was covered by a mask that draped over his mouth and nose.

  He moved away, talking with the others, their voices growing fainter as they headed toward the doors. There was a zip of an opening and then all sound was cut off as the door closed again.

  But she wasn’t alone. The one called Harold now centered his face over hers. “Hello, my pretty. Such a soft, soft girl.” He hadn’t removed his gloves and the material ran down the length of her arm.