I've altered one small part of the previous chapter, but just to change tenses. Many, many thanks to FlorentineQuill for looking this over for me!
The light never shut off, so Caine paced until his head ached with the need for sleep, then lay down with his arm over his eyes. He couldn't remember his dreams when he woke, but there was a fresh set of clothing and another food packet waiting.
He ran through his usual exercises - those he could do in such bare and limited space, anyway - and washed at the sink before pulling on the new tunic and trousers. Caine knew he was being monitored, but he'd spent more of his life with a camera on him than otherwise and it simply wasn't a factor.
And he ate, because there was no point in going hungry, and he would need to be strong no matter what came.
When the door slid open again, what was probably a couple of hours later, it revealed another three guards - not Thalassa's personal lycantants, but Splices obviously bred for speed and strength. A couple of techs were behind, one looking bored and one slightly apprehensive.
Caine stood still, hands relaxed at his sides, as the guards moved into the chamber and trained their stun pistols on him. The techs came after, the nervous one shooting twitchy glances at the guards, and Caine suppressed the urge to smile with all his teeth; the man knew that if Caine tried anything, the guards would stun all of them if their line of sight wasn't clear.
But he had no intention of doing anything. He held still and let them run scanners over his skin, wondering briefly if the healed cut on his arm would show up somehow. The bored one took a few strands of hair and a swab of Caine's cheek; the nervous one had been saddled with the tissue sampling, and Caine felt petty enough to stare coldly at him for a moment before extending his arm. Just because he was cooperating didn't mean he was harmless.
Like his knife cut, the tissue punch only stung a little. The tech, who had managed to stop his hands from shaking, sprayed the small wound with ReCell, and it closed up in seconds. Caine watched his skin regrow, the nerves beneath soothed and restored, and thought with heavy irony that Thalassa was treating him better now than she had since he'd been old enough to walk. ReCell wasn't an option for misbreds.
They were done soon enough, and he watched them retreat out the door with the guards backing out behind them, and sat back down on his cot with a sigh.
Cooperation was his best strategy. Fighting them would win him only further restriction. His mission was patience, this time, and he was a hunter.
He understood patience.
The hours passed slowly. There was another food packet, then a long period that Caine eventually assumed was night, though the light remained on. He tried to sleep again, but it was hard, with old memories whispering up around him whenever he closed his eyes.
It hadn't been like this, at first; he'd been part of a litter, after all. In the earliest days, those he could only remember as dim sense impressions, they had all been kept together in one bed in the creche, warm soft bodies curled around one another, whining and snapping when the attendants would pull one out for examination.
But that stage hadn't lasted long, and though he'd lived with his siblings in the same room as soon as they could all walk, Caine had found himself pushed to the edge of things. Smaller, weaker, he just couldn't keep up. And while a lycantant litter would instinctively pull together to protect each other from outsiders, within the group he quickly became the problem, the burden, the annoying baby.
He hadn't even seen Thalassa during the first three years of his life, though he'd been told that she was present at nearly every decanting, to examine the newborns. But she'd always been there nonetheless, a heavy presence throughout the facility. Everything Caine had learned, everything he'd done was by her plan.
Your Splicer is your god.
He did remember the first time he saw her.
It's time for another checkup, part of the routine; Caine follows his littermates and their caretaker into the medical wing, not thinking much about it. The examinations are always the same - visual inspection, heart-breathing-blood scan, puff into the air filter, open wide for the mouth-scope, don't squirm for the tissue sample - and hold your head high, because pain is beneath a lycantant's notice.
But before the physician even begins, the exam room door slides open again, and Simone Thalassa steps inside. It's reflex, even if it had only been practice before; at the sight of her, Caine and his siblings all drop to their knees, though the doctor and their caretaker merely bow their heads.
Caine can't help sneaking a peek upward, though, and he knows his littermates are too. Not at Thalassa, but at the two lycantant guards behind her. The guards are what they all hope to be someday; huge and strong and dangerous and worthy.
Thalassa paces slowly down the line of them...and pauses in front of Caine.
If he was as he should have been, he would have been frightened and thrilled to come to her attention. Instead, he's only terrified.
With his eyes cast down, all Caine can see is Thalassa's shadow, but he can smell her, a powdery sweet scent that dries his throat. She doesn't speak, and a few seconds later she moves away, but he knows. She's noticed him, and she knows he's not right -
Caine knew now that she'd already been aware of his flaws; she followed the progress of each Splice she bred with close attention, even if she didn't often see them in person. But to the pup he'd been, it had been a loss of hope, that he might go unnoticed until he'd somehow caught up to his siblings.
They'd graduated to a dorm room soon enough; it wasn't until later that he'd been split off from his litter and put into a solo room like the single-bred Splices. It had been hard, being apart, and he knew his siblings had suffered too, but the litter was about to become a pack and he would have lowered its value.
The room had been a lot like the one he was in now, with just the basic amenities, and Caine had known at the time that it was because he wasn't expected to survive the separation.
Sometimes, he was still surprised that he had. He didn't like to remember that time either - the desperate loneliness of solitude, the aching silence that lacked the breath and heartbeat of others, the chilly air that held only his own scent. He'd curled up tight on the cot, clutching the blanket to him because it was the only warm thing in the room, and fought the despair that wanted to swallow him whole.
Somehow, he'd won. He'd shut away the softer parts of him, that craved kindness and closeness and the acknowledgment of a smile, that were hungry for the touch of a sibling or a packmate. He'd forged himself into the perfect fighter, hunter, soldier, hiding anything that could become a chink in that armor. R-2788-B7 walked out of Thalassa's splicing facility, was given the name Caine Wise, and made it his own. And was nothing but that perfect soldier until he'd met Stinger and learned that he could, just possibly, be a friend as well.
But he'd dreamed of nothing more until Jupiter.
Now Caine was back where he'd started, and it seemed a worse cruelty to lose what he'd gained during the last two years. But it's not lost, he told himself firmly. Jupiter would find him. His Queen would not abandon him.
He had only to wait.
The time fell into a routine. A fresh set of clothing was delivered with a meal, and Caine dubbed it morning; a little while later another set of techs and guards came to examine his muscle tone, his lung and heart functions, and other physical traits. He allowed each one; for one thing, it filled some time. It wasn't as if anyone had given him something to do, or even read, and he was used to filling his off-time with study if nothing else.
Afternoons brought a different sort of examination. The techs gave way to more senior scientists, and they were more interested in the inside of his head than the rest of him. The first tests were simple; he remembered a few from childhood, absurdly easy now that it was obvious what the answers should be. Caine quickly graduated to more complex questions, but they were still no challenge. The Legion's screening tests were trickier, and he'd had no problem with them.
When the tests were done, there would be another nutrient pack, utterly boring. Caine would eat it quickly and take up pacing, or sit on his cot and wait to become drowsy enough to sleep under the light. When he woke, he would exercise and wash, and it would all begin again.
He didn't see Simone Thalassa. If she was studying him instead of his test results, she was doing it remotely, but he preferred that anyway; the old reflexes were still with him and it was disturbing.
And underneath it all, he was trying very hard not to be afraid.
It was mostly the memories that brought back the fear. Caine had spent so long being afraid as he grew that the very walls of the room seemed to breathe it back at him. The first nights he'd spent alone as a child had nearly overwhelmed him.
But something in him had refused to give in and fade away. He'd set his teeth into life and hung on stubbornly, even though he'd had no good reason to do it. Though it wasn't until he'd walked out of the facility and into the Legion that he'd finally left fear behind completely.
And then I found it again, in a weedy grainfield on a backwater planet.
Not that he'd realized it at the time. He'd thought it was just anger that someone had stolen Jupiter from him, and anxiety that he might not get a pardon for Stinger after all. He'd only gradually understood that fear for another was worse than fear for one's self.
But he wouldn't give up a single second, because with the fear had come the joy, and Jupiter's love was worth any amount of terror.
Caine shifted on his cot. The scars where his wings had been were neater this time, and well-healed, but they were still a little sensitive. He put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes, summoning up good times to take him out of his cell for a little while.
And there were so many to choose from, now. From the kiss Jupiter had given him when he'd left, all the way back to the first time he'd inhaled her scent - hers, not Seraphi's - and felt it take hold of him, most of them had Jupiter in them too.
There were others, of course. The solid pleasure of his first real meal after leaving the Deadland; seeing Stinger's new wings unfold, and the joy on his face as he sprang into the air; Kiza strong and healthy again; the weight of Caine's restored commission on his uniform tunic.
But Jupiter was at the center of most of them. There were more happy moments than he could count, now, but he remembered every one - every kiss, every touch, every smile, every time his Queen assumed he was her equal, without doubt or equivocation. Every time she made him feel worthwhile, valuable...loved.
Jupiter dressing him up in his best uniform and making him escort her to an Entitled function, serenely ignoring the stares and whispers. Jupiter tackling him, giggling, and Caine letting her shove him down onto the mattress even though he could catch her without even rocking on his feet. Jupiter resting her chin on his chest and asking him to tell her what his prison sentence had been like, but only if he wanted to.
Jupiter waking in his arms, rumpled and warm and sweet. Jupiter tossing him a tongfruit too high just to see him catch it anyway. Jupiter laughing with Stinger and treating him like an equal too.
Introducing him to her family as "my boyfriend". Making up holidays so she could give him presents. Hugging him tightly when he woke up from a nightmare. Making sure he had a lunch break.
Gasping in ecstasy as he pleased her, stunned at his own good fortune.
Sobbing against his shoulder when her new life was too much, and letting him comfort her.
Her face lighting up when she saw him, and sometimes he thought that this alone would be enough to make him hers.
His Queen. His love. His center of gravity.
Jupiter.
For a long time he dwelt on those first few days, her evolution from fear to determination to the beginnings of a Queen. He'd liked her, right from the start; maybe because she had no idea what a Splice was or how one should be treated, maybe because she liked him, but it didn't matter. He'd kept himself in check, the whole thing was impossible and she just didn't know it yet, but she kept trying. Kept stepping into his space, kept offering herself, kept being herself.
And he'd been lost, long before he knew it.
"Wait - " And he does, he can't not, even in the middle of a firefight. Her breath is soft on his face, and he expects a request, an order, a protest.
But her hand is equally soft on his cheek, and then - then -
With her kiss, he thinks later, he ceases to be Caine Wise, and becomes someone else, someone better and brighter and more worthy. But just at that moment he is all sensation, lightning running through every cell like an Entitled's recode, nothing existing but Jupiter's mouth on his and her taste exploding through him.
Then she does it again, and all that was empty in him is filling with unfamiliar joy, and that is when he learns one of the most important lessons about her Majesty Queen Jupiter Jones - she has chosen him, and there is no point in fighting it any longer.
"In case we don't get the chance again," she says, and the joy spills over. He has to taste her one more time, because she's right, breathe her in and make sure it's real, and then he has to go -
Caine smiled.
It took days.
Jupiter was ready to scream by the end of the second one, except that would just freak everybody out and she was trying to be a ruler as different from Balem as was humanly possible. Or - generally possible, anyway, she was trying not to be speciesist these days either.
It would have been easier if she'd had someone to talk to, but Kiza was in the middle of exams two galaxies away, Stinger was gone, and Jupiter couldn't quite see herself going home and pouring out her troubles to a mother who still believed that her daughter was acting as a translator for a Russian businesswoman somewhere in Europe.
At least Stinger kept sending her status updates, if annoyingly brief ones. They mostly consisted of still safe, no news yet, but occasionally there was an addendum from Officer Percadium with comments like half the post is terrified of Commander Apini on sight and how is it that every Legion post smells like old socks and here I thought the Aegis food was bad, and Jupiter blessed him through her snickers because she really needed the boost.
But the fact that Stinger couldn't seem to find anything worried her a lot. It meant that whatever had happened to Caine wasn't a mistake or a crossed wire or a missing message - it was a deliberate cover-up. Somebody out there really had taken Caine, and was trying to hide it.
The third day, Jupiter sat down at her desk during her lunch break and grabbed one of the catch-all sheaves she used for note-taking, and began compiling a list. She scribbled down names as they came to her, not bothering to rank them just yet; Titus, he's always in there somewhere, and anyone on the board of Nectar Ltd., and that dumbass Gorg Li Nye ever since I blocked his motion at the last Ways and Means meeting -
When she finished, it was a screen and a half of names and titles. Jupiter sat back and scrolled up and down them, slightly astonished that she'd managed to make so many enemies in so short a time. "It used to be just the mean girls at school," she murmured, then smirked. Too bad they can't see me now.
But even when she arranged them in order of likelihood, none of the names jumped out at her as someone who would have kidnapped Caine in order to get to Jupiter. Either they're not smart enough or not subtle enough. Or they think it would be beneath them to even notice that a Splice exists, let alone that one is important to anybody.
She sighed. The list wouldn't do her any good without a direction to go in, anyway; she needed more information.
Jupiter tossed the sheave aside and closed her eyes, tipping her head back against her chair and trying not to imagine the worst. It's not like he hasn't been through the worst already, what with the airlock and the prison time and the clipping and practically his whole fucking life.
Except that she knew very well by now that there was plenty of worst that she couldn't even conceive of, in this new wider universe. And being a queen wasn't necessarily a defense against that, even for those she loved the most.
Pressing her palms to her eyelids, Jupiter thought hard even though she didn't believe in psychic phenomena or any such bullshit. Caine. We're looking for you. Hold on. Hold on…
Jarvis made the gentle throat-clearing noise it used as an alert. Jupiter almost told it to shut up, but instead she dropped her hands and bit back another sigh. "What is it?"
"Miss Vee is at your door, ma'am. The conference call with HA Holdings' directors begins in fifteen minutes."
Jupiter muttered something that would have earned her a glare from her mother. "Okay. Let her in, and order me up a fresh supply of patience, okay?"
Jarvis' delicately sarcastic murmur of "At once, ma'am," wasn't quite enough to make her smile.
She got on with it. Her duties and chores weren't going to disappear just because she was stressed, so she put a pleasant face on things and deflected inquiries with a casual shrug and a reminder that Caine hadn't known how long his mission would take, because a Queen couldn't show fear in public. Which was a real pisser.
Underneath it all, though, Jupiter felt the anger growing, swelling beneath the fear and the near-panic. It didn't really matter, she realized, why Caine had been taken. What mattered was how far Jupiter was willing to go to get him back.
And the answer to that was all the way.
"What's he like?"
The tech's voice crept through his dreamy consciousness, and it took Caine a little while to make sense of the words. He'd been removed from his cell and sedated for yet another scan - not enough to put him out, just enough to keep him docile during the exam - but he wasn't fighting. Cooperation was still his best strategy.
"No teeth so far," the other tech replied, voice barely carrying over the hum of the big machine. The one handling the scanner was a Splice herself, something herbivorous from - Caine thought - one of the Vesto desert worlds; Thalassa liked to breed her own talent when possible. "Are you sure he's a lycantant?"
The first tech snorted. "Zero Pete said he took out most of two squads of Legionnaires when Madam picked him up, and then burned through anesthesia in half the time he should have. Maybe he's just seen sense."
The scanner clicked, passing over Caine slowly and then returning. He kept his eyes closed.
"He is an odd one," the scanner tech said. "Lycantants aren't supposed to be able to make it on their own."
"Well, look at him." A rustle, as if the first tech had folded their arms. "He's a leucistic runt. Who knows what else is wrong with him?"
"Madam," the scanner tech replied darkly, and sniffed.
Click, hum. Caine drifted.
"He has to be smart," the scanner tech offered after a while. "To have made it this far."
"Dunno about that." A rude chuckle. "He actually thinks the Abrasax queen will bother to look for him."
"She might. She's weird even for Entitled. You should hear some of the stories." A beep, a deeper hum.
"She can if she wants to. But Zero told me that Madam paid off the Legion when she bought him back, to keep the deal private. Something about not wanting Entitled messing in her business."
Hum. Click.
The words filtered slowly through the haze. Caine felt as though he saw them, hanging in the darkness behind his closed lids. They burned.
He burned.
She won't be able to find me.
All his assurance was gone. If Thalassa had bribed Atadie, then there would be no record of what had happened to Caine, and no trail for Jupiter to follow.
He was on his own.
The sedative still controlled his muscles and his heartrate. But deep below the drug, a rage was building that Caine knew would engulf him entirely, and welcome. With it came determination.
He'd been on his own most of his life - without a pack, a family, even a friend until he'd met Stinger. But unlike then, now he had a goal: to get back to his friends. His family.
His one-person pack.
Jupiter can't get to me.
So I'll have to get to her.
Dulled by the drug, his hands curled slowly into fists.