Chapter 66: Circle Gets The X

"My apologies, Alpha. I will go tend to her," Nova said immediately, pulling out of Derek’s grip, kicking herself internally for misstepping already.

She knew protocol and she heard Derek’s pitch to the elders. She was to be a slave for Celeste. She knew the deal. It had just been such a whirlwind when she arrived that she wasn’t thinking.

To her surprise, Astra pushed her back down. "7709 isn’t cleared for duty."

Nova blinked a few times. 7709 was what people called her, but Astra had made a point to ask her what her name was earlier. It made her feel like she had done something wrong.

"Have we regressed to the barcode again?" Derek cut in immediately. "Her name is Nova, for fuck’s sake."

"The slave’s name is irrelevant to the transfer," Alpha Thunderfang said without looking at either of them.

"Alpha Thunderfang, with respect," Astra continued, voice cold. "I don’t care where the Starborne princess wants her. ’The slave’ is not cleared to report on medical order. I have her on six different medications through direct injection to stop the spasming. The silver degradation on her nervous system makes me really nervous. Bottom line, the cuffs need to come off."

Alpha Thunderfang turned for the door without a word. No argument. No acknowledgment. Just a man leaving a room he didn’t want to be in.

"Landon," Derek called.

He didn’t stop.

"I need your help. I won’t be able to remove them without you."

Alpha Thunderfang’s hand was on the frame. His knuckles went white. He stood there for a long second, back to the room, jaw working, every line of his body saying leave.

The words hit the air wrong. Too honest. Too bare. Derek’s voice had been stripped of every joke, every deflection, every performance he’d been running all night, and what was left was a man asking his brother for help.

Alpha Thunderfang stopped. He didn’t turn around immediately. When he did, his eyes went to Nova and stayed there long enough to make her wish she could disappear into the cushion. He looked at her like she was a problem someone had placed in his life without his consent and he was calculating the cost of tolerating it.

"How long does this take?" Alpha Thunderfang asked, his tone suggesting he had more important places to be.

"Right." Derek stood, crossed to the far wall, and pulled a marker from the shelf. He uncapped it and pressed it to the glass.

The line glowed.

Bright green luminescence trailed behind the tip like a vein of light drawn into existence, hovering against the dark glass with the clarity of a hologram and the permanence of ink. The marker left glowing words and lines that burned steady and clean against the storm outside.

Nova clapped in her soul. It was the little things in life.

Derek stopped mid-stroke and turned to look at her.

"You’ve never seen these."

Nova didn’t know how he knew. She shook her head once, face going red because for all she knew, glowing markers were as basic to these people as running water and she had just internally applauded an office supply.

Derek held the marker up and twirled it between his fingers. "I’m going to get you some."

"Oh, that’s not-"

Alpha Thunderfang exhaled through his nose. Nova stopped mid-word. His expression flattened into something that made her stop. The message was clear. You don’t get to enjoy this. You don’t get to be comfortable here. You are a task I am completing for my brother and nothing more.

"I’ll get you one too, brother. Don’t worry." Derek turned back to the wall. "Thunderfangs can sense electrical current. I felt what was happening in your cuffs earlier in my quarters." He drew a lopsided circle on the glass. It glowed green against the rain. "This is your—"

THUMP THUMP THUMP.

Maria Emberclaw took the stairs three at a time in a dry Emberclaw one-piece, looking like a woman who had been crying recently and running currently and saw no contradiction between the two.

"NOVA!"

She crossed the sky deck at a speed that suggested personal boundaries were a concept she had reviewed and rejected, and pulled Nova into a hug so fast the blanket almost came off.

Her eyes were red. Puffy in the way that only sustained, soul-deep crying produces, the kind that leaves evidence for hours. Nova felt a pang in her chest because the last time she had seen Maria, Maria was in a tough spot.

Nova hugged her back and hoped the squeeze translated that she deserved every good thing the Goddess had to offer and the Thunderfang Beta was lucky to have her.

Alpha Thunderfang turned away from Maria and Nova and looked out the glass like he would rather be anywhere else.

Maria pulled away and grabbed a fistful of Nova’s hair, holding it up to the light.

"Your hair is so thick. And it’s still glowing."

Nova looked down at it. The white strands were radiating a faint gold luminescence that had dimmed since the clearing but refused to fully surrender. Her hair was staging a one-woman protest against normalcy and winning.

"Oh, I forgot it was," Nova admitted softly. She glanced down at her hands that were no longer glowing.

Alpha Thunderfang glanced at her hair, then away, with the disinterest of a man who had seen better tricks from cheaper women.

Maria opened her mouth to say something else but footsteps interrupted her.

The Thunderfang Beta took the stairs at a pace that suggested the stairs were also a problem he hadn’t consented to. He arrived winded, scanning the room in one sweep: Nova in a Thunderfang uniform, Maria in Emberclaw colors, Astra leaning against the bar, Alpha Thunderfang radiating approachability levels of an arctic shelf, and Derek standing next to a glowing abstract drawing on the glass wall.

His breathing was still recovering when his eyes locked onto Derek’s masterpiece. "What the hell is that?"

"Her cuff," Derek said, pointing the marker at the circle like it was obvious.

Nova tilted her head, studying the drawing, trying very hard to see a cuff in the shape on the glass.

Derek looked over his shoulder at Nova, who was still tilting her head, and immediately drew a large X through it.

"And now my mate is judging me."

"Your property," Alpha Thunderfang corrected. Nobody responded. Everybody heard.