3013: MENDED

3013: MATED by Laurie Roma

3013: RENEGADE by Susan Hayes

3013: CLAIMED by Laurie Roma

3013: STOWAWAY by Susan Hayes

3013: SALVATION by Laurie Roma

3013: MENDED by Kali Argent

A scroll with exceptional abilities, Camille Brighton lived a life of wealth and privilege until tragedy changed everything. The gifts that had once made her special are suddenly a curse to be feared, and she finds herself a captive in her own home with a world of possibilities just beyond her reach. When the demons of her past return, though, forcing her to flee to the outer rim of Alliance territory, she soon realizes freedom isn’t exactly the adventure she’d thought it would be.

Running from his own past on Helix, Tariq Navarra has spent the last nine years as a mechanical engineer on Beta Station 4. Life has proven the only person he can depend on is himself, and he’s built an impenetrable wall around his heart, wearing suspicion and distrust like a second skin. Then a slip of a woman carrying the scent of fresh rain and lavender turns his world upside down with just a smile. He’s never wanted anything or anyone more, and he’ll go to the ends of the universe to keep Cami safe. With danger lurking at every turn, he may just be forced to prove it—even if that means protecting the angel from himself.

Betrayal left them broken. Can love see them mended?

To Laurie and Susan, thank you for letting me join you on this amazing journey.

The year is 3013.

Earth barely survived the Alien Wars that have ravaged the planet, and an unknown virus had nearly wiped out the entire population. On the brink of extinction, humans struggle to rebuild their civilization, although nothing would ever bring back what once was.

Enforcing martial law, a new age of mankind is born, where warriors rule and women are the ultimate prize. Only the elite earn breeding rights and are granted leave to claim a woman in pairs. Men dream of the day that they will be able to claim a woman to love, but for those chosen being claimed means the end of their freedom and a beginning to a lifelong bond with two strangers. The warriors may have the choice, but the battle for their woman's heart has only begun…

Curling her fingers around the balcony railing, Camille Brighton looked out over the sparkling waters and smiled as the afternoon sun warmed her skin. In the distance, past the lake nestled behind her home, gleaming structures stretched toward the sky in the heart of Light City.

It had been many years since she’d seen the buildings up close, and likely, she never would again. Some days her heart ached when she thought of all the things she’d never experience, but she knew she shouldn’t complain. As her father like to remind her, things could always be worse.

“Cami, what are you doing out here?”

Jumping at the sound of her father’s voice, Cami schooled her features into an expression of careful neutrality before she turned to face him. “You startled me.”

“You know you shouldn’t be out here. It’s not safe.”

According to Canaan Hart, nothing was safe for her. “It’s such a beautiful day. I like watching the ducks swim in the lake.” It had been something she’d done with her mother once upon a time, though that life felt more like a fading dream with each passing year. “Would you like to join me?”

Canaan shook his head curtly, his cerulean blue eyes narrowing at the corners as he beckoned her back into her bedroom. “I can’t. I’m needed downstairs to oversee the final preparations for tonight’s celebration.”

With a last, yearning look at the sparkling waters, Cami pushed away from the railing and glided back into the house. “I could help.”

She’d been looking forward to the celebration all week, hoping and praying he might change his mind and let her attend. She already knew what his answer would be, though. He’d say it wasn’t safe, that it was too dangerous for her.

Canaan adjusted the cuffs on the long sleeves of his black, button-down shirt and sighed. “We’ve already discussed this, Camille. I’m sorry, but you know how crowds affect you.”

“I could do it. Just for a little bit,” she pleaded, her well-rehearsed argument falling by the wayside as her emotions took over. “Please, I haven’t seen Lucas in months now.”

Nine years her senior, Lucas wasn’t just her brother. He was and always had been her best friend and champion. Though Lucas had already graduated from the Academy and been given his first off-planet assignment by her tenth birthday, they’d remained close. He came to see her as often as he could, and she always looked forward to his visits.

In reality, she saw Lucas every time she looked at her father. While Cami had inherited her mother’s thick, raven-colored locks, pale skin, and storm cloud-gray eyes, Lucas was the spitting image of Canaan, only younger.

The celebration was to honor him, to celebrate his promotion to commander, and Cami would give anything to be there.

“Lucas will be here soon, and you can see him before the celebration begins.” Cradling her cheeks, he brushed his thumb over the inky black scroll tattoo that adorned the skin near her right eye. “I’m just trying to protect you. You know that.”

With an echoing sigh, Cami closed her eyes and nodded. “I know, Daddy.”

Bending, Canaan pressed a kiss to her brow and hugged her tight before stepping away. “I’ll be back soon. No tears,” he added. “What have I told you about emotions?”

Cami blinked rapidly to dispel the moisture gathering along her lower lashes. “Only children and fools let their emotions rule them.”

With a nod of approval, Canaan brushed his short, dark brown locks back at the temples, turned, and strode out of the room without further comment. Cami hadn’t really thought she could persuade him to let her attend the festivities for the evening, but she’d hoped for more than his casual dismissal.

For star’s sake, he hadn’t allowed her to leave the house in over a decade…not since the
incident.
No one ever spoke of the past, but Cami remembered every painful and tragic detail of that day.

After a four-year stint in space, Lucas had been reassigned to a position at Fort Nacht near the border of the badlands. His homecoming just so happened to coincide with her holiday break from the Academy, and after much begging and pleading, she’d finally convinced her parents to let her visit.

Of course, she’d only been fourteen at the time. Refusing to allow her to travel alone, Cami’s mother had made arrangements to escort her to the military base. Even back then, Cami knew whatever Lillian Brighton-Hart wanted, people usually tripped over themselves to give it to her. Since it often worked to her advantage, Cami had never found reason to complain.

Something had come up at the last minute, preventing Canaan from traveling with them, though Cami never knew what. In the end, only her mother and her other father, General Derrek Brighton had made the short journey with her.

And nothing had been the same since.

Staring at her reflection in the glass panes of the double doors that led to her private balcony, Cami traced the delicate lines of the scroll tattoo on her face. Without conscious decision on her part, her free hand drifted to her abdomen, pressing flat against her belly button through the thin fabric of her dress. 

At the age of ten, all boys underwent testing to determine if they would be chosen for military service. Only the strongest, brightest, and most disciplined, like her brother, were selected to receive the genetic enhancements to become elite soldiers. After their tenth birthdays, girls received testing as well, and for better or worse, the outcome of those tests had shaped many futures.

Fertile females received specialized scroll tattoos, just like Cami’s, declaring to the world, and to the elites who would one day claim them, that they were special, valuable, and to be protected. Those females who had not escaped the effects of the virus brought to Earth during the war—infertile females—were marked with a simple star to proclaim they had been tested and deemed inadequate.

Cami’s tattoo had grown darker over the years until it finally reached a deep, mercurial black on her eighteenth birthday. She’d also had her birth control implant deactivated that same year. Though most other women waited until they had formed a bonded unit with a pair of elites, Cami didn’t have that option, not anymore, and she didn’t need her implant.

Heavy boots pounded down the corridor, but before Cami could investigate the reason for the noise, her bedroom door burst open.

“Luke!” Running to him, she threw herself in her brother’s arms and squeezed him with all her strength. “You’re here!”

He looked just as she’d remembered him with his dark hair a little longer than regulation and his blue eyes filled with warmth and love. He hadn’t changed into his dress uniform yet, and she found it odd seeing him in simple jeans and a faded T-shirt.

“I missed you, chipmunk, but no time for that now.” Lucas eased her away by the shoulders before producing two data chips from his pocket. “We have to go.”

“Go? Go where?”

Dropping both data chips into her palm, he closed her fingers over them and shook his head. “There’s no time to explain. We have to get you to the cruiser.”

Private space cruisers, even small ones, were a luxury most civilians couldn’t afford. As owners of the largest pharmaceutical corporation in the galaxy, however, Cami’s family possessed two.

“Luke, what’s going on?” She hadn’t been allowed to leave her house in ten years, let alone the entire freaking planet. “You’re scaring me.”

“Everything’s going to be okay.” The worry lines etched into his face told another story, but he just grabbed her by the elbow and pulled her toward the door. “The white data chip is credits. The black one is instructions.”

“Instructions for what?”

A mighty crash that shook the floor beneath her feet echoed from the lower level of the house, followed by her father’s loud shouts and angry curses. Anxious and wanting answers, Cami broke her own personal rule and lowered her mental guards to scan her brother’s mind.

“We’re running out of time. We have to hurry before he finds her.”

“Who’s going to find me?” she blurted without thinking.

“Damn it, Cami!”

An apology played on the tip of her tongue, but she bit it back. “Lucas James Brighton, you tell me what this is about right now.”

With a grunt, Lucas rubbed a hand through his dark hair and finally met her gaze. “He’s here, Cami.”

“He…” The room began to spin, and the blood drained from her face. “How?”

Lucas didn’t answer her. “Come on, we have to get you as far away as possible. Get to the cruiser and plot a course for Station: X4.”

“Are you crazy? I don’t know how to do that.”

Lucas pushed her toward the door, ushering her out into the empty hallway. “It’s all automated. Just tell the computer where you want to go, and it’ll take you there.”

Glancing down at her feet, Cami realized she didn’t have any proper shoes. She couldn’t go gallivanting through space in her favorite purple slippers. “What happens when I get there?”

“Go directly to Commander Garrett Quinn and give him the black data chip. I mean it, chipmunk.” Lucas slowed his pace just long enough to glare at her. “Find Garrett. Don’t give that chip to anyone but him. He’ll protect you.”

“What about you? And Dad?” Her bottom lip wobbled when she spoke, but she managed to hold her tears at bay.

“Don’t worry about us. I’ll meet you when I can. When you get to X4, clear the navigation so there’s no record. Got it?”

“I think so.” She’d be lucky to remember half of what he’d just told her.

At the base of the stairs that led to the landing pad on the roof, he pulled her close and kissed the top of her head. “I love you, chipmunk.”

“I love you, too. Luke, I’m scared.”

The harsh set of his mouth softened into the hint of a smile. “Do you trust me?”

Biting her bottom lip to hide its continued trembling, Cami looked up at Lucas and nodded.

“Then go.”

* * * *

When Lucas had told her she needed to get far away, Cami hadn’t taken him literally. Thirteen days and nine hours later as she made her approach to the docking bays on X4, however, she was forced to admit he’d been completely serious.

While luxurious in its abilities, her craft didn’t afford much in the way of comfort. The food console provided basic meals and beverages, but a girl could only survive on sandwiches and hot tea for so long. Cramped quarters made the trip feel longer, and by the time her destination came into view, Cami was going stir-crazy.

Or maybe her anxiety stemmed from the fact that she hadn’t been inside a space craft of any kind since the shuttle ride home from the hospital when she was fourteen. At the time she’d begged her parents to escort her to Fort Nacht to visit Lucas, she hadn’t known her father, Derrek, had been placed on mandatory medical leave because of his increasingly erratic behavior. She also hadn’t known that said behavior began as the result of the same curse that had plagued her for the past fourteen years.

The most powerful of the Class-A Telepaths could not only hear thoughts from those around them, but they could also catch flashes of images, just for a second or two. Unfortunately, it wasn’t always an easy gift to control. When tired or emotional, Cami found it nearly impossible to block out the thoughts of those around her, including their constantly bickering neighbors back home.

Cami didn’t know the entire story. She’d never learned why, upon landing at Fort Nacht, Derrek had suddenly lost what little sanity and reason he had left. The pain—white hot and all-consuming—she did remember. She recalled her mother’s wide, sightless eyes—eyes that looked remarkably like her own—and the angry, erratic thoughts of the guard standing over her.

It had all happened so fast. Before anyone had really known what was happening, Derrek had already disappeared into the badlands, leaving three guards and his own chosen dead. By all accounts, Cami should have died along with her mother on that shuttle, but what she’d suffered instead was a worse punishment than death.

“
Beginning final approach sequence
,” the onboard computer informed her in its pleasant, feminine lilt. “
Engage autopilot docking protocols?
”

“Uh, yes?” Cami hoped that meant the craft would land itself, because she didn’t have the slightest idea of how to accomplish that task.

“
Thank you. Passengers, please prepare for docking.
”

Fifteen minutes later, her craft finally touched down on the landing pad outside the docking bay of the space station with only a slight bump and a barely audible whir. Anxious to find Commander Garrett Quinn, Cami almost forgot her last bit of instructions from her brother.

“Computer, wipe navigation programming.”

“
Confirm deletion of navigational programming?
”

“Confirmed,” Cami answered.

A series of lights blinked on the craft’s command console before the computer spoke again. “
Navigational systems removed.
”

“What? No.” It was something of an injustice that the one language in the entire universe she’d never learned to decipher was tech. “Computer, enable navigation systems.”

“
Unrecognized command. Error 404, program not found.
”