Page 13 of Destinies of Diamond
Much to my surprise, Selene’s eyes filled with tears. “It feels like I am,” she confessed.
Her voice sounded sharp and broken, and it reached out to me in a way I’d never thought possible. I felt as if I’d just taken a blow so powerful it cracked my whole sternum. My circuits and analysis engine started to run a thousand different processes and diagnosis attempts, a natural response to my alarm.
“Selene? What is it? What are you so afraid of?”
Instinctively, I reached out and brushed my fingers over her shoulder. I should have known better. She pulled away from me and her face shut down, her vulnerability hidden under a mask as strong as Brendan’s. “Nothing. I’m sorry, Sir. I’m still a little out of sorts after the earlier incident. Is there anything else or can I be excused?”
Our conversation was nowhere near over. I still wanted to talk to her about her assignment and how we’d work around that to accommodate her pregnancy. But she clearly had no desire to be in my presence any longer and I couldn’t bring myself to force her. “You’re dismissed for now, Acting Pilot Renard. Go rest. We’ll speak again in the morning.”
“Yes, Sir,” she replied with a quick salute.
Selene fled my quarters as if a horde of rampaging apsids was after her. As I watched the door close behind her, I considered the information I’d just found out and the meaning behind her strange behavior.
Was her relationship with her fellow tamers at risk in some way? Why had she made that comment? Was it related to the minor change in Brendan’s demeanor?
I didn’t know, but one thing was certain. I had to find out, and not just for the sake of the rebellion.
Dangerous Anomalies
Knox
“But there has to be something we can do. We can’t let things stand. It’s too dangerous.”
I tried not to glare too fiercely at Selene, but I must have failed because she glared right back. “Don’t you think I know that? But we have to focus on our real enemies. So far, Commander Trevor hasn’t shown any interest in harming me. He could have easily used this information to expel me, or worse, but he hasn’t done so. At least for now, I don’t think he’s someone we need to worry about.”
“That’s fair enough, Selene,” Brendan answered, “but we still can’t ignore taking all the precautions. Please. I know things have been a mess lately, but indulge us in this.”
Selene clenched her jaw and didn’t answer. Instead, she made her way to her chimera and entered the cockpit of the Sphinx.
We were in the Grand Chimera hangars, and we had an actual practice lesson to participate in. But before we could get down to business, we’d gotten distracted by the topic that had been on our minds since yesterday.
Selene had told us that somehow, Commander Trevor had figured out she was pregnant. I assumed he must have used some kind of technique related to his cyborg nature. Either way, it was bad news, and we were seriously considering taking preemptive measures to remove him.
The problem was that if we did that, Selene would get even more pissed at us. She hadn’t forgiven us for the incident in Gaia’s Haven, although she was doing her best to move on. And truth be told, we couldn’t always rely on this method when someone was inconvenient. With Brendan’s father, it would be necessary, but right now, we just weren’t sure where Commander Trevor stood.
To make matters worse, Commander Trevor hadn’t actually asked Selene who the father of the baby was. Logic stated that it should have been the very first issue to address. He’d ignored it, and that was suspicious as fuck.
“Do you suppose he guessed something about the child’s parentage?” I asked.
“I doubt it. Our situation is a little… unique.”
“He may have made some unfortunate guesses,” August mused. “If the child inherits some features from his father, I can only assume the pregnancy will have a different energy output than that of a human being. Since he hasn’t run around screaming and threatening us, I suspect he might know about my situation and concluded I was the one involved.”
Oh. Yeah, that would make sense. If Commander Trevor could detect the child was part-apsid, he’d automatically assume August was the father. But that also meant it was urgent to find a secondary way for Selene to escape, if something went wrong. So far, Commander Trevor didn’t seem inclined to hand Selene over to The Grand Judiciary, but we couldn’t exclude any possibilities.
It was too risky to discuss the topic further when we were in the hangars, even if we’d kept our words vague. We temporarily shelved the debate and headed into our own chimeras. By the time I entered the Cerberus, Selene had already launched the Sphinx into the air and was expertly maneuvering her machine over the training field.
The possessive beast inside me reared its ugly head. I wanted her so much and most of her recent actions seemed designed to taunt me. She owed us nothing, but I still craved her more than I craved air.
“You have to settle down, pup,”Cerberus warned me.“At this rate, you’ll consume yourself before I get to consume anyone else.”
I clenched the controls tighter in my hands. His voice had started to echo louder and louder inside me since the battle with the apsids. We were trying to find a way around that, but so far, nothing we’d tried had worked.
“It’s just… wrong. She’s ours. She’s supposed to be with us, not carrying another man’s baby.”
“Yes, but that child will belong to your pack, regardless. And that’s not the biggest problem, is it? You’ve already made her a promise, so it’s not like you can get rid of the apsid now. There are other more dangerous things we have to handle.”
“This crazy assignment.” I let out a deep sigh. “I wish I knew what it was all about.”
