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She tapped her fingers on the edge of the sheave in front of her, the third in a very detailed annotated bibliography Dev had put together to supplement his lecture of the previous week, and doodled little geometric shapes down along the coils of the third spiral notebook she'd started to fill.

Stinger had driven her back into the city last Monday afternoon, after getting Dev settled into the other spare bedroom he had - another thing she hadn't thought about when she'd made her impulsive offer.  She'd spent the whole week in a haze of all the complications her life was developing in just the immediate scale, let alone the galactic one.

Her mother's suspicion had been palpable when she'd left again last night, the "helping Katherine for the weekend" story clearly already wearing thin even though she'd come back last time with cash in hand (thanks to Stinger, and how ridiculous was it that she'd had to borrow money from him to maintain her ruse?). Vassily, at least, proved an unwitting ally there, happy with the cash and eager to encourage this entrepreneurial enthusiasm.  So her mother had glared at them both as Jupiter slunk out the door.

The thing that grated most was no word from Caine. The promised "no more than two weeks" had arrived, and she missed him with a building ache in her chest.  Stinger said not to worry, and she'd certainly experienced the monotonous drag of Orous, but all the things she'd been reading about the complexities of legal and economic status of genomgeneered humans left her jittery and uneasy when she thought of Caine negotiating with the Legion. He'd been bred for them. They'd fucking bought him, and while she'd read that splices could be released from their contracts by fiat of the contract holder, fulfilling the terms of their service debt, or far more rare, purchasing out their gene-debt, a purchased contract splice had no right beyond what the owner of that contract allowed them.

"Splices can be hired without contracts, or for short-term assignments," Dev had told her. "Some are even sub-leased out by their contract holders. In the case of splices bred for very specific industrial tasks, splicers lease them outright, but maintain primary ownership, as most of them are so heavily modified as to be unfit for more generalized use, and their contracts have no re-sale value."

Jupiter had wondered what her expression must be, because Dev had hurried to add, "But for most of us contracts give security and stability, and in some cases, such as advocate Gembel, a semblance of power, even as it leaves one at the whim of their contract holder."  

Caine had been the finest soldier, Stinger had said, that he'd ever seen. What if the Legion wanted to keep him?

She'd asked around that question when Dev had started to explain contracts and purchasing. "Well," he'd said, "the Legion is quite another issue. They are by far the most influential user of genomegeneered stock, and have their own system of contracts and purchasing."

Purchasing. Like they were office supplies.  How was it any better than slavery for splices purpose-bred to a specific task, some so specific that they were, quite literally, equipment?  How was it, when you owed a debt against your very genetic composition, anything more than a polite fiction to talk about contracts and buy-out rights?  Granted, it wasn't like Earth was immune to that, given how many people have had their genes patented out from under them by corporations, and well, slavery was still alive and well in so many forms.

The words on the sheave blurred together and she pushed it away with a sigh, to see Dev staring wide-eyed at something across the room. She twisted in her chair and shot right out of it. "Caine!"  

She skidded to a halt when Caine executed a formal little bow and said a quiet, "Your Majesty." His eyes flicked between her, Dev and the bureaucratic disaster that was the kitchen table. "Am I interrupting?"

"Never," Jupiter said and flung herself into his arms.

That was apparently all the encouragement he needed; he caught her up and pulled her tight against him, one hand curving up around the back of her head, fingers buried in her hair as he nipped at her jaw, her chin, her bottom lip before kissing her.

"Missed you," she whispered, trying not to cling to him, a little overwhelmed at the surge of utter relief at having him there, solid and warm.

"Mmhmm," he murmured against her mouth. "Looks like you've kept yourself well distracted." 

Jupiter glanced over her shoulder at the loaded table and Dev's wide-eyed surprise. "Well, just a little." She reluctantly slid out of Caine's arms and drew him toward the table.  "Dev Scofl, Caine Wise. Dev has graciously signed on as my personal advocate."

"I'm sensing," Caine said, "that there's more of a story here."

"Indeed there is, Mr. Wise, but suffice to say I am pleased to join her Majesty's fledgling enterprises, and pleased to meet you." Dev stood and offered Caine the same kind of formal little bow.  "And what is your position in her Majesty's household?"

Caine raised a brow. "That is a good question, Mr. Scofl." He cut a small, wry, side-eyed smile Jupiter's direction as he took her hand. "May I request a private audience, your Majesty?"

"Yeah, totally." Jupiter stuffed down the immediate idea of a private audience upstairs in the bed, instead following Caine as he opened the front door and ushered her out onto the porch.

"Hi. Welcome back. Sorry about all the," and she waved a hand toward the door, "stuff."

Caine handed her onto the rickety porch swing and settled down next to her, ignoring the alarming way the wood shivered and creaked under him. "Stinger did mention that you'd had unexpected visitors when I commed in to say I was entering orbit."

"Yeah, Dev and his stuffed-shirt asshole boss showed up last week, and I kind of..." Jupiter shrugged, leaning into Caine with a sigh. "I'm really glad you're back."

"As am I."  He tucked her against him, but not before tilting her face up.  "You look tired."  

Jupiter closed her eyes, enjoying the ghost of his fingers along her jaw, across her mouth. "It's been a week." She blinked her eyes back open to find him regarding her with no small amount of concern. "I'm okay. Really. Just absorbing a lot."

She took his hand, slipping her fingers between his, the material of his gloves rough against the webbing between her fingers.  "How about you? Did everything go okay?  Are you..."

"Pardoned and released from the Legion. I am now fully at your disposal, your Majesty." He said it with a small, pleased smile, but in light of everything she'd learned in the last week, Jupiter shuddered at his word choice.

"Jupiter?" The concern returned full force, and she buried her face against his chest.

"What you said, on Captain Tsing's ship, about royalty and splices. What does that mean for you, if we're together?"

Silence greeted her question and she sat back to see him staring out at the cornfield.  "To most Entitled," he said eventually, "splices are tools or playthings. Most will assume I am a passing fancy for you, nothing more than an especially coddled guard, or possibly even a bed toy. Those assumptions mean nothing to me," he said as she opened her mouth to object to that characterization. "I have been considered far worse in my life, and I have little concern for the supposition of those who will disregard me on sight."

"But it's not going to get you in trouble, is it?  I mean, people on Earth can be pretty terrible if they think someone doesn't belong with someone else. I can't imagine how horrible Entitled who feel that way could be."

"You are the First Primary of one of the most powerful Houses in the known universe."  Caine pulled her close, burying his nose in her hair.  "Given that, it's unlikely anyone would risk your ire - personal, political or economic - because they were offended by my presence in your life. But," he said, cupping her face in his hands, "even if it were a risk, I would not care. You are worth anything."

"Caine," she whispered and all but crawled into his lap to kiss him.  His thumb dragged down her spine and she arched into the touch. She kissed his mouth, his cheek, the tip of one ear, which pulled a low groan from him, the sound soft and sweet enough to the tension of the moment and allow her to laugh and relax against him.  "Sorry, I didn't mean to make your welcome home so... fraught." 

He mouthed at the curve of her collarbone, and said against her skin, his voice full of the smile she couldn't see, "That you're concerned about this, that you wish this clear between us?  Do you have any idea how astonishing that is?"

Sadly, after everything she'd learned this last week, she did, a little. "Well, all those relationship quizzes in Cosmo are pretty clear on the importance of communication." Kiza's heartbreaking reaction the week before once again loomed large, dousing her attempt at humor. "You'll tell me, right? If this is ever something that doesn't work for you, or if I ever... I don't want to ever be like them, Caine. I want you to be with me, not work for me or serve me or-" The rush of denials twisted into knots on her tongue.  

"Jupiter," Caine said with enormous gentleness, "I am here for you. Not because of your geneprint, or this," and he grasped her arm, stroking his thumb across her Entitlement mark. "Just you."

His steady certainty cut through the worst of her anxiety and she forced herself to breathe through the rest. She was not alone. She could do this. For him, for Stinger and Kiza, she would make this work. "Okay. Okay. I promise, no more freak-outs today."

"Good," he said, "because I have something for you."  He slid her off his lap and reached down, rooting under the bench until he dragged out a large box.  

"Caine, you didn't have to..." She poked at the box until she found a button that popped it open, and she squeaked in delight. "Oh my God.  Are these-?"

"Flying boots." Caine said with a grin as Jupiter lifted them free and set them on the porch. "That's what took me a few extra days. Quartermaster had a hell of a time finding a pair small enough.  Even most of the smaller splice breeds in the Skyjackers apparently have giant feet."

"Oh my God, Caine, you're- this is-" Jupiter yanked off her sneakers picked up one boot, sticking her hand inside, peering at the fastenings. "Do I just put them on?  

"Allow me."

He knelt at her feet, cupping the heel of one foot to position it and slide the boot on. Jupiter bit her lip hard at the sight of him bowed before her on his knees. Two weeks of freaking out over people looking at her like she was this power-hungry galactic dictator, and here she was with her panties getting uncomfortably damp at the sight of Caine on his knees before her.

Caine nosed at her knee, up the inside of one thigh, sniffing delicately, and the slow curve of his mouth as he peered up at her certainly did not help the situation.  He slid the other boot onto her foot, locked the latches and helped her tug on the gloves before he rose and pulled her to her feet.  She clomped around on the porch for a few minutes, getting used to the feel them and examining the controls on the gloves. Caine showed her how to activate them and explained each function. 

"Your Majesty."  He held out his hand and helped her down the porch steps and out to an open patch of ground. "We'll start with the basics, let you learn to balance on them once the grav field is active." Shrugging off his coat, he rolled his shoulders, and Jupiter gasped. 

In her relief at seeing him, she'd forgotten.  She'd totally forgotten why he'd left in the first place.

His wings.

They flared out wide, a rich warm mahogany brown that glowed in the sun, hints of gold glinting among the feathers.

"Oh my God," Jupiter said. With a pleased little smile, he fanned them to their full extension before curled one around behind her.  She spun to follow it as it the feathers brushed against her arm, surprisingly soft. 

"Wow, they're... Can I..." Her fingers hovered over one of the gold feathers, and at his nod, she traced the shaft of it with a fingertip; he shivered slightly, and Jupiter wondered how sensitive they were. "When Stinger said they were prosthetic implants, I didn't expect anything so beautiful." She probably should have; both his boots and his gun were finely-made, elegant in a way that showed as much attention to aesthetic as function.  As Dev had explained, the Legion, and thus the Skyjackers, were in all reality, a tool of the Entitled. 

Emboldened at his obvious pleasure in her reaction, she gently threaded her fingers through the feathers, earning a shuddering, contented sigh. "They're strong enough to lift you?"

"I could do a standing take-off if needed, but that's not easy. They're primarily for precise aerial maneuvering and the boots do most of the propulsion work."  He spread them wide again; extended, they cast a broad shadow across the ground.  "I'm glad you like them."

"I do. They're amazing."  And they were, but the thing that really caught her breath was Caine himself: the lack of tension in his broad shoulders, the subtle lift to them, the confidence that blazed from eyes and his strong, straight back.  "How do you feel?"

Both wings curved back in, both swooping in behind her, pressing her close to Caine, who tucked her under his chin, lips pressed to her temple. "Whole," he whispered into her hair. "Complete."  

It took another week (filled with teasing about her "date") after they gifted it to her for Jupiter to set up the telescope.

There was a flat little ledge over the back of the house, an expansion that Vassily built years before Jupiter, her mother and Nino arrived.  It was cramped, and the peaked roof of the house's second story blocked the sky to the west, but it was sturdy and had room enough for her, the telescope and a guest.  

Her mother sat on the pile of blankets Jupiter had dragged up, flipping through Jupiter's well-worn copy of "Backyard Astronomy." She had been quiet from the moment they climbed up here, her stillness like the heavy, aching silence before a storm, anticipation drawn taut like a bowstring.

"So, what is up there tonight?"  Her mother's uncharacteristic soft tone startled Jupiter as much as the fact she'd finally spoken.  

Jupiter glanced up. In a geosynchronous orbit was Captain Tsing's ship, here for two days on a routine patrol, a courtesy offered by the Aegis until, as Captain Tsing had explained, Jupiter appropriately secured her alcazar. Jupiter had blinked until she realized Tsing meant Earth. 

Beyond that, somewhere between 365 and 601 million miles (Jupiter couldn't remember where planet Jupiter and Earth were in their respective orbits, though she could touch the little button hidden behind her ear and ask Mr. Percadium to calculate it for her), lay the tangled remains of a terrible machine, at the heart of a terrible storm, on a deadly and beautiful planet whose name she shared.

Beyond that... 

Jupiter sighted the scope one more time. "Not much that we can see here. The city's too bright. A few bright stars. Mars and Saturn. Jupiter."

"That damned planet. I told him we would name you Jupiter over my dead body," her mother said with a light air, as if sharing an amusing family anecdote,but kept her head bent to the book and pressed her hand against the currently open page."I told him that, and ten minutes later he was dead." She closed the book with a snap and creaked to her feet. "Sometimes I think Nino is right, and we are cursed. That I cursed him, disparaging what he loved. That the universe decided I did not deserve him, and gave him to his stars." 

"Mama..." Jupiter's throat was suddenly thick, and her vision blurred with tears as she reached out and grabbed her mother's hand. She went into her mother's arms when Aleksa tugged. 

"Oh, child, I don't think he would have ever thought the stars as bright once he had seen you. Sometimes that is what I am most angry about, that he did not wait to see you, and then I feel terrible for thinking such thoughts of him, and then I get angry that I feel so bad."     

Jupiter snuffled a damp laugh against her mother's shoulder.  "Will... will you tell me more about him?"

Her mother's embrace tightened, to the edge of uncomfortable, and then she released Jupiter in a rush, dashing the tears from Jupiter's face with a brisk brush of her fingers.  "Soon.  But now, come show me this planet, the planet, this biggest and most beautiful planet in the skies, even though it is basically a giant orange ball."

******

Jupiter's phone chimed while her hands were covered in salt and club soda, kneeling before the slowly fading remains of a well-dried red wine stain spread across the lush - and of course white - carpet in the Haights' house. She sluiced salt from her skin in the bucket of clear water she had next to her and scrubbed her hand on her jeans, drying them enough to unlock her phone and check her messages.  It was from Dev: I have information about the contracts question you put to me.  Please contact me at your earliest convenience.

His formal texting made her smile; she could clearly read the "your Majesty" in there, even though she'd forbidden him from using the honorific in messages. Last thing she needed was Mikka or Vladie getting a hold of her phone and seeing that.  

Give me an hour and I'll call you, she sent back, stuffing her phone in her pocket and attacking the wine stain with renewed vigor.

It was their last house of the night, and after she helped them load all their supplies in the back of the station wagon Jupiter kissed her mother on the cheek, gave Nino a hug, and said she was going to stay in the city for a bit.  

"You meeting your boy, hmm?" Her mom had yet to call Caine by name, outside the few times she'd met him, but she did not say "boy" with the acid edge every previous boyfriend had gotten.  Jupiter counted that a significant victory.

Nino elbowed her and hugged Jupiter back.  "Ignore her. Go, have fun," she said, pushing Jupiter gently down the sidewalk as her mom yelled, "Not too late!"

The Haights lived in a condo near the Riverwalk. Jupiter meandered along it, the post-dinner crowds starting to filter out of the restaurants. She settled on a bench, watching the boats ease down the river as she pulled out her phone and pulled up Dev in her contacts.

Dev had taken to a smartphone with surprising enthusiasm, compared to Caine's poorly-hidden distaste, even though he'd agreed that texting was less conspicuous for Jupiter than all of the space methods of communication at his disposal.  "It's very... simple," Caine had said. "Thanks."  Jupiter had kissed him on the cheek and immediately send him a poop emoji.

Dev answered on the third ring. "Your Majesty. How do you fare this evening?"

"Very well," Jupiter said with a smile. "How are things out at Chez Apini?"

"Much the same. Mr. Wise and Mr. Apini test each others' patience when Mr. Wise is not moping about in your absence, and Miss Apini is quite done with it all." 

The image he painted pleased Jupiter to no end."So you said you had something for me on the contracts thing."  

"I do. But your Majesty, this plan of yours..."

She cut him off with a firm, "Can we do it?"

His "Yes, your Majesty, it can be done" dragged out reluctantly. 

She'd come up with the plan when, one morning the second week after Caine had come back, as they lay drowsing in bed before she had to go home,Caine had said, "I need to tell Dev soon what my position in your household is to be so he can prepare a contract. What do you want me to do?"  

Sleepily, Jupiter had replied, "But I don't want you to work for me, remember?" and had almost faded back into sleep when he finally replied, quiet and strained:

"As you prefer, your Majesty."

Stinger had shown up outside her house two days after that. "Caine says you don't want to give him a position," he said after she'd climbed into this truck and he'd driven a few streets over to give them some privacy.

"Well, no, because I don't want him to work for me. It just feels weird." 

"Majesty, do you..." Stinger scrubbed his hand through his hair and then started again. "Do you understand that if you don't, the Legion will reactive him?"

"What?" Jupiter gaped at him and violently shook her head. "That doesn't make any sense. Caine said he was released from his contract with the Legion, that he was done with them, free and clear."

Stingers mouth thinned to a hard line.  "Released from his contract, yeah, but the Legion still hold his gene-debt, so it's provisional on him making repayment. If he defaults, they'll repossess his contract and remand him back to the Legion at base rank.  He'd have to start over again. Infantry. Would lose his wings again."

Bewildered, Jupiter stared at him. "But he said he was done. Why would he tell me that if he really wasn't?"

He spoke slowly, gently. "Majesty, it wouldn't even have crossed his mind to bother you with it. No doubt he expected you to pick him up on contract and planned to use his wages to pay against the debt."

Jupiter didn't remember getting out of the truck. She didn't remember storming down the block. She did remember kicking the brick wall of the real-estate agency around the corner, yelling, "Fuck!" when pain burst sharp across her toes. Her stomach twisted, queasy and cold, vision tunneling like when Titus' smooth, gentle voice had informed her of what she'd held in her hands, even as she admired the vibrant blue hue of it.

The slam of a car door jolted her out of the memory.  Stinger had pulled up to the curb, and gotten out, leaning against the door as he watched her."You all right?"

"Not even remotely." Jupiter paced back and forth in front of him. "Okay. How do I fix this?  I give Caine a job, a contract?"

Stinger shrugged. "Any contracted title would work. Head of your security. Something like that.  Or you could just pay off his gene-debt from the Legion."

Jupiter cut a sharp about-face in the middle of her pacing."Right," she said, drawing it out as she pulled out her phone to text Caine an apology.  She could buy out his debt.  And Dev's, if he wanted, and Stinger's.  And that of the never-ending list of splices she'd inherited.  "I can do that."

That night she'd texted Dev: I want to buy out the gene debts for every splice Seraphi held a contract for.  And then offer them actual employment contracts and fair wages or severance. Their choice. Can I do that?  How can we make that happen?

With an obscene amount of money, apparently.

"I have completed the detailed inventory," Dev said, "and calculated the debt costs for each individual.  I am sending you the information now."

The number he quoted was astronomically obscene.  "That's..."

"A significant fraction," he said, "but hardly one that will bankrupt you, even after we factor in your plans for wages and severance."

That was terrifying in its own way, but if she still had that much to work with... "Okay, so what about all the splices contracted to the House? Like Advocate Gembel? Do I have authority to offer them the same deal, or can Titus and Kalique intervene?"

Dev's sigh spoke volumes. "That is more complicated, but as Primary you may have the authority to enact such a requirement of the House staffing services. But I do suggest that we do this in stages, your Majesty. A mass contract turnover such as this is bound to draw attention. It makes a statement."

Jupiter thought back to that morning that started all this, to Caine's strained acquiescence to her careless decree. "Dev, that's kind of the whole point."

"While I do admire your forward thinking, you can't change the whole universe at once, my queen."

"No," Jupiter said, resolute.  "But I have to start somewhere."

 Caine accepted her offer to buy out his gene-debt with startled gratitude and a faintly forlorn, "But then what am I supposed to do?" 

He accepted her mass buy-out plan with less equanimity, though that was, he said, mostly because of the risks to her, contemplating which made him frown so severely that Jupiter said, "Please don't try and talk me out of this." 

Caine blinked, breaking the furrowing of his brow, and huffed a low laugh. "I am fully aware, your Majesty, of the futility of that. I have serious concerns, but no, I have no intention of convincing you otherwise." 

Stinger, on the other hand...

"Are you out of your Entitled mind, Majesty?"

Jupiter sat in a chair in the kitchen and watched Stinger stalk back and forth, twelve precise steps before a precise about-face, feathers rustling even though his wings were locked down tight between his shoulders. He muttered an exhaustive list expletives under his breath.

He was very creative in his negative assessment of her idea.

"No," Jupiter said when he paused for a breath. "I've thought about this. I've talked to Dev. And Caine. I can do this." Caine, who stood in the doorway between the kitchen and living room, winced at the venomous look Stinger shot him. 

"Caine should damn well know better," he snapped as he spun away from Caine and back to Jupiter. "Do you know what kind of message it sends?  What kind of challenge this will be seen as?"

"Yes," said Jupiter. "That's the point."  

"Is that what all this is, an Entitled tantrum to mark your ascendance?"

"Stinger!" Caine said, aghast.  

Jupiter shoved to her feet, the chair skidding back, heat rising in her face. "What this is, Stinger, is that I will not own people. I may not be able to stop the Harvests anytime soon, but I can damn well do this."

"Stop the..." Stinger stared, dumbfounded. "Who do you think you are, girl?"

All the uncertain fury at Stinger she'd held at bay these last weeks, since he held a weapon on Caine and sent them both, however unwitting in her case, to their deaths, broke free. "The fucking queen of the universe, or so you all keep telling me!"

"Sting, you need to back the fuck off right now." Caine appeared between them, strategically herding Stinger back until he'd pushed Stinger right out of the room.

The anger rushed out of her as quickly as it had flooded in. Their heated voices followed Jupiter as she slunk out of the house, an agitated, buzzing escort swirling around her. At home after a fight like that with her mom she'd have gone to needle Vladie, or climbed up to to the roof, or gone for a run to burn off the frustration that thrummed under her skin. A walk along the quiet dirt road that ran the length of the cornfields sounded appealing, but she didn't want to give Caine a heart attack by taking off alone, especially after the concern he'd displayed about this entire venture.

She wandered around to the back of the house and saw Kiza bent over one of the hives.  Some of the bees buzzing around it broke off to join Jupiter's escort, and Kiza looked up as she approached, mouth turning into a slight but distinct frown.

"Sorry," Jupiter said. Already worn thin from Stinger's fury, she wasn't sure she could handle a repeat of her last interaction with Kiza. "I'll go."

"No," Kiza said, discontent sighing out of her.  "You're fine, your Majesty."

Jupiter wavered, but took her at her word.  "What are you doing?"

"Introducing a new queen," Kiza said, crouching down to pick up a small box. She opened it and held it out to Jupiter.  In it lay another tiny box covered with wire mesh, with a bee in it. Kiza took the little box out, murmuring to its occupant as she examined the tiny cage.

"The hive's queen died, and to give a hive a new queen, you have to give them time to adjust to her scent, to make herself smell like the hive." Kiza placed the tiny cage into the hive, fussing with the placement. "So you cage the new queen in this little box that's stoppered up with something sweet, like candy sugar, and put her in the hive between frames of brood comb - that's where the eggs and larva are - and the nurse bees will take care of her in the cage until the workers can eat through the candy," Kiza mimed chomping with her fingers, "and release her.  It gives them time to get used to her, to think of her as theirs. Otherwise, they'll kill her."  

That, Jupiter thought, was possibly a terrifyingly on-the-nose metaphor for her new life. Kiza thought so, too, because her eyes flashed wide and gold and she clapped her hands over her mouth. "Oh beeswax, I didn't mean that to sound so..."

"Entitled?" Laughter geysered up and Jupiter sat abruptly on the ground, clutching her sides as the utter absurdity of it all burst out of her.

She dashed the tears from her eyes to see Kiza, eyes even wider, shoulders shaking. "It does, doesn't it?" Kiza said between her fingers still covering her mouth, and that set Jupiter off again.

"Oh my God, I just pictured Titus-" Jupiter could hardly get out the words. "Titus gnawing his way through a box to get at me and kill me..." She made the same little chomping motion with her fingers and Kiza choked out a series of high-pitched giggles before collapsed down next to Jupiter.

"That actually," Kiza said, hiccuping out another laugh, "doesn't sound very funny, your Majesty."

"It's way funnier than what actually happened," Jupiter said, wiping the last few tears from her face as she collapsed back on the grass. Her sides hurt a little, but she felt lighter, clearer.

"I heard you arguing with Da."

"I'm pretty sure the next county heard it." Jupiter rolled onto her side and propped her head on one arm; Kiza lay staring up at the sky. "Do you think it's a bad idea?"

"Oh, Da's right that it's terribly dangerous," Kiza said. She sat up and reached for the bucket next to the hive, pulling out a gleaming, dripping chunk of honeycomb.  Breaking off a piece, she handed it to Jupiter. The setting sunlight shone warm umber through the translucent gold. "But," and she smiled, a small, but please smile. "I like it."

Taking the piece of honeycomb, Jupiter grinned and licked the honey that dripped down her fingers.

*****

Later that week Jupiter lay sprawled across Caine's chest. It was on the edge of cold in his Sears Tower hideout, but they'd made a cozy nest of pillows, blankets, and cushions, and Caine himself ran hot, and she drowsed in a cocoon of warmth and contentment. "Hey," she said. "So what do you want to do?"

"Hmm?"  The sound rumbled softly in his chest and she pressed a kiss over his heart before propping herself up to look at him.

"When I offered to buy out your gene debt, you asked what you were supposed to do now."

He cracked one eye open, then the other, blinking sleepily. This might be the least alert she'd ever seen him, though his mauler was within easy reach, and he'd pointed out a half dozen sensors and alarms placed in this room alone, so she wouldn't trip them, and the Aegis were once again in orbit. He yawned, cat-like, and rolled them onto their sides, so they lay nose-to-nose. "I'm purpose-bred, Jupiter. I was made to fight, to serve." His breath feathered across her cheek and his pale eyes clouded. "This is uncharted territory. Without a function, or objective..."

She traced along his jaw, across his bottom lip, up the strong line of his nose to gently press the furrow in his brow smooth. "You can just be you."

"And what if," he said, halting, his arms around her gone rigid. "What if I don't know who that is?"

Jupiter kissed him, soft and slow, gentling the tension from him.  "I think you do.  You know you're loyal, and smart, and terrifyingly competent at a lot of things, and you love Stinger and Kiza and would do anything for them." She skimmed her fingers along his side and he huffed. "You're ticklish right there," and lower she rubbed her thumb in the chiseled hollow of his hip, pulling a much deeper, strained sound from his throat. "You like," she said with a grin, "to be touched there." 

She didn't stop the caress as she went on:  "And don't think I haven't seen you scrolling through Wikipedia on your phone whenever I mention something you don't understand. Or playing Candy Crush." A flush rose in his cheeks, as much, Jupiter thought from chagrin at that revelation as from how close her fingers were to his cock. "And you came back for me." 

"Always," he said, thick and low, pulling her flush to his body and burying his nose in her hair.

When he'd relaxed completely against her, she asked, "Is that what you planned, to come back for me, and be with me, to protect me?"

The furrow was back between his brow, and his sigh bordered on plaintive. "It's what I know how to do."

"I get that, and believe me, I'm not complaining, but what do you want to do? Go to school? Play an instrument? Learn to dance? Write a book?" Jupiter grinned. "Take up underwater basket weaving?"

Rolling his eyes, Caine said, "I've never really thought about it.  Before, there was the Legion, and there would always be the Legion. And after, all I thought about was surviving."

Jupiter kissed the hollow of his throat, and his fingers tightened on her hip.  "Well, now you can. Think about it, do whatever you'd like." She kissed him there again and gently bit under his chin before she tipped it down to see his face.  "I just want you to be happy, you know that, right?"

His eyes were clear now, mouth curled up in a small smile.  "And if what I like, what makes me happy, is taking a position in your household?"

"Then you can have Dev do whatever he needs to make that happen. If," she stressed, "it's what you want." 

"Okay." He kissed her mouth and nuzzled under her chin to return the gentle bite before rolling away and coming back with his phone.

"What's up?"  

Caine shrugged, but the quiver in the corner of his mouth as he fought not to grin ruined his nonchalance.  "Just looking up where I can learn underwater basket weaving."

Jupiter's smug satisfaction at using her "extra wages" for "helping Katherine" as an excuse to buy a car lasted as long as it took to drive the beater Jeep Cherokee (the old bright blue Mustang had called to her, but she'd needed something Caine would fit in comfortably, and the Jeep was the cheapest thing on the lot that fit the bill and still had under 100,000 miles on it), home from the used car lot.

She pulled up in front of the house and Mikka charged out, slid in, and said, "Vladie said since you have a car now you can take me to dance lessons."

Jupiter stared at Mikka as she fussed with her duffle bag. "What?" Mikka said when she caught Jupiter's frown.

"I honestly don't know how I didn't see this coming," Jupiter said as she pulled away from the curb, Mikka stuffing her earbuds in her ears.

Mikka did dance twice a week since she was four. Ballet taught by a tiny, ancient Russian woman Vassily knew from back home (which was the only reason Vassily was willing to pay as much as he did for her lessons) in an old converted warehouse in a crumbling industrial corner on the edge of the city. At least there was plenty of parking.  

"So how's tall, blond and brooding?" 

Jupiter's smile bloomed without even a thought. "Good." Only her mom and Nino had met Caine so far, but she'd seen Mikka and Moltka pressed against the front window on the few occasions Caine picked her up at the house, usually in Stinger's old pickup. He insisted on getting out and handing her in every time, which Jupiter thought sweet but inefficient. Still, it clearly pleased him to treat her so, and so she allowed it, while Moltka made kissy-faces against the window in the background.

"I bet." Mikka waggled her eyebrows and Jupiter made a face.

"Gross. You're like, twelve and not supposed to be thinking about that."

"I don't just think about it, Jupe."

Jupiter shot her a wide-eyed glare. "Please tell me you're not expecting me to have the talk with you. And that somebody other than Vladie has had it with you."

Mikka held up her hands in surrender. "Health class and Scarleteen. I'm all good, safe choices and everything."

As Mikka, still laughing under her breath, put her headphones back in and bobbled her head to her music, Jupiter stole another look at her. She forgot sometimes that Mikka was almost a woman grown, not the gangly twelve-year-old girl who raided Jupiter's makeup and snuck downstairs late at night to watch Star Trek with her. It had been so easy, these last years, to let her life slide by in discontent, and miss what happened around her.

Her ascendance had complicated the hell out of her life, but it had also reminded her to open her eyes and see the good in it, too.

She pulled up in front of the dilapidated building that housed the dance studio and tapped Mikka's shoulder. "Your chariot has arrived."

"Thanks, Jupe."  Collecting her bag, Mikka paused, hand on the door handle. "Hey, I know you're busy lately, but do you want to come in and watch?" That last bit came out in a rush and she chewed at her lip.

"Yeah," Jupiter said, blinking away the image of Mikka lying so terribly still Balem's factory. "I can do that."

******

Despite all his hemming and hawing over what to do with his life, Caine took to sleeping in like a champ, prompting Jupiter to ask, as he lolled in the early morning sunlight and grunted irritably when she tried to drag him out for breakfast, if he was sure it was canine and not something feline he'd been spliced with.  

Jupiter clattered down the stairs and slammed to a stop at the bottom when she saw Stinger seated at the kitchen table, back to her. She and Stinger hadn't really spoken since their blow up, other than awkward pleasantries. She slid a hand into her pocket and fiddled with the cred chit card Dev had prepared for her the week before.  Taking a deep breath, she strode across the kitchen and set the chit card on the table.

"What's this, then?"  Stinger tapped it with the tip of a finger, a sharp, precise staccato.

"Enough to buy out your gene debt. Kiza's, too. If you want." Jupiter twisted the hem of her shirt, shoving her hands in her pockets when she noticed. "I didn't want to presume anything, so I thought this would be better than having Dev handle the transaction. I don't even know what you're doing these days. Are you still working for the Aegis?  Are you going back to the Legion?"

She clamped her teeth shut before anything else spilled out. She'd intended to hand him the card and flee, but that would be even more awkward now.  So she spun on her heel and retreated as far as the coffee maker.  When her cup couldn't hold any more, she turned back to find Stinger looking strangely sheepish.

"Thank you, Majesty," he said, tapping the corner of the card against the table.

Jupiter swallowed a gulp of coffee, winced as it burned her tongue and throat.  "You're welcome," she said into her cup. "I'm just going to go talk to Dev-"

"I work for you."

Coffee sloshed over the rim of her cup as she spun back to Stinger. "What?"

The tap-tap-tap of the card increased in tempo. "Back when Dev first came, I asked him to draw up and submit a contract buyout to the Aegis."

A lot of paperwork had crossed in front of Jupiter that first whirlwind week, but still... "I think I would remember having signed off on that."

Tap-tap-tap. "As your personal advocate he has the authority to submit such personnel requests on your behalf, and I might have just let him assume that I was your castellan, and that he was handling a simple administrative formality." 

Jupiter filed "castellan" away for a later visit to dictionary.com and set her coffee on the table. She cupped her hand over his, stilling the rapid-fire tap of the card. "Why?"

Stinger scrubbed his other hand through his hair, glancing away. "I can't just sit idle. And this is work I can do. Was doing. And the Aegis didn't need a Marshall here anymore once you took Earth off the Harvest registry."

"None of that even remotely answer my question." Jupiter bit out each word.

"It made sense at the time," he bit back, yanking his hand from under hers. "You said you wanted me to tell you how things worked. Better to do that in your employ than the Aegis'."

"And you just forgot to mention it?"   

His sudden weary sigh cracked the rising tension. "Would it have mattered?"

Jupiter pulled out a chair and sat. "Yes. I really don't understand, since sometimes I think you can't stand the sight of me."

He folded in on himself, like she'd punched him in the gut. "Some days I can't, but that isn't anything to do with you, girl. I have always thought myself a man of honor. The Legion beats it into you, even as they bleed you dry. And I threw my honor away when I sold you out to Titus, you and Caine."

Stinger glanced over his shoulder at the stairs. Caine stood there, eyes flicking between them until Stinger squared his shoulders and turned back to her. "I regret it with every breath in my body and I'd do it again, Majesty, in a heartbeat, if I had to. And most days I just don't know what to do with that. Or why the hell you want anything to do with me."

There were times Jupiter regretted, just a little, not letting Caine kill Titus when he'd asked.  Not really, but maybe. "Because I know what it's like to do anything for your family. Because you could have sent me packing when we showed up.  Because you were kind to me when you didn't have to be.  I'm done with this whatever it is with us. You know what I plan to do, Stinger. I need you, but I won't have us at each other's throats about it. And I won't be your penance." 

Stinger looked away, but there was relief in his gravel-gruff voice when he said, "I can work with that."

*****

Caine Wise, when whole and relaxed and happy, was a delightful asshole. He was also considerate, affectionate, quietly competent at everything he put his mind to, smart and unexpectedly funny, apparently endlessly charmed by her ridiculousness, and when he looked at her like the stars rose and set in her eyes...

But he was still an asshole, because once he realized what it did to her, what it really did to her when he said her title, especially in that low, rough voice he only used with her, he did it all the time, especially at the most inconvenient moments.

Like lunch with her mother and Aunt Nino. Three months of Jupiter's weekend "helping Katherine" trips had stretched Aleksa's credulity into razor wire, and her suspicion burned so bright one night as Jupiter shoved clothes into a bag for another trip that Jupiter blurted out: "Okay, I have a boyfriend."

The pronouncement succeeded in swinging her mother's laser focus away from her excursions, but now Jupiter had a whole new battle to fight. Which was how Caine ended up meeting them for lunch between houses the following Tuesday. He showed up in tight jeans and a plain, blue long sleeve shirt, ears rounded, his wings a barely discernable lump between his shoulders. Jupiter jogged ahead and reached up to trace her finger around the shell of his ear. The point was still there.

"Wow, space ear invisibility tech, that's cool," she said, and he grinned as he leaned in. The points of his also-invisible canines grazing the soft skin under her ear, followed by soft lips and the warm drag of his tongue, and he whispered, "I am pleased you approve, your Majesty."

And then her mother was there, glowering, and Nino asking him his sign, and he offered her mother his arm and escorted her into the restaurant, where he charmed the crap out of Nino and brought Aleska's maternal hackles down a notch, and doled out hot, sloe-eyed looks to Jupiter, who squirmed in her chair and hoped her face wasn't as red as it felt.  Hours later, having stewed in the memory of that little scrape of his teeth and the simmering heat in his voice and his eyes, they finally made it up to his hideout in Sears Tower. "Oh my God, you are such a jerk." She grabbed him by the belt and pushed him against the nearest wall as she fumbled with the buckle. "Seriously, in front of my mom?"

"I do believe your Majesty quite liked it. Besides," Caine cupped her chin. "You spent the whole time being mad at me and not worrying about what she was thinking."

Jupiter narrowed her eyes at his tactical logic, which was sound, but also at least seventy percent bullshit. "Bite me," she said.

Caine's grin bordered on wolfish as he wound his fingers into her hair and tipped her head back, exposing her throat. "As you command, your Majesty," he said against the thrum of her pulse.

His breath on her skin sent shivers down her spine. She wouldn't trade the heady rush of their first days and weeks for anything, but few things thrilled her more than watching him open up for her, like a flower to the morning sun, unfurling the man he'd hidden away for so much of his life. Knowing she did that to him made her gloriously dizzy.

"Maybe your compass really wasn't ever broken, Jupiter," Katherine said one day a few weeks later, as Jupiter sprawled back on the freshly made bed and waxed poetic about Caine, unable to quell the rush of affection that drove out ridiculous praises. It should be embarrassing, but she couldn't bring herself to care.  "Maybe it was always leading you to the right person, at the right time."

Jupiter sat up and said, "That is a load of trite bullshit, Katherine."

"Uh huh," Katherine returned with a grin. "Tell me more about his eyes."

"Fuck you," Jupiter said, gleefully flinging one of the decorative pillows in Katherine's direction, earning herself a delighted laugh.

(She totally told Katherine all about his eyes.)

*****

Dev's list only had five books on it, but law text books, it turned out, were enormous.

After he'd wrangled her galactic affairs into manageable shape, Dev started on her Earth-bound ones. Like how to trickle her wealth to her family without arousing their suspicion and dissecting US immigration law for ways to get citizenship for herself, Nino and her mother, after Jupiter explained that situation to him. "It would be embarrassing if you were deported on your own planet," he said, "and not to mention Mr. Wise and Mr. Apini would be terrible to deal with."

Jupiter set him up with access to Amazon and all the law subscription sites she could find, but the five books on the list were out of stock online. Jupiter figured she'd pick them up at Beck's next time she was near one of the locations.  She ended up buying a backpack just to carry them.  

The Loop store was packed. Beginning of the term, Jupiter realized. Students crowded the aisles and she bumped into a guy while she was trying to get one of the books off the shelf, and again after the checkout as she shouldered the stuffed-full backpack. "Sorry," she said, and the expression that flashed across his face, something cold and sharp-edged that almost looked like a smile, sent a small shiver down her spine. "Okay," she muttered as she eased through the throngs. 

Lately, the early fall mornings started crisp, but the day had warmed and Jupiter debated heading up to the Museum campus for a quick trip to the planetarium despite the bazillion pounds of books. She hadn't had this much time to herself in ages and found herself three blocks up Michigan Avenue before she'd consciously made a decision.

Halfway there, she stopped to reshuffle the load in the backpack when she caught someone staring at her from back down the block: the guy from the bookstore. And then he was gone.

Great. All she needed was a pissed off creeper.  She yanked the backpack on and managed to catch a nearby bus just before it pulled away.  She got off two stops later and took a careful look around before she moved on.  She'd just crossed onto the block at the Hilton when the hair on the back of her neck prickled. The reflection in one of the hotel's big windows showed Bookstore Creep across the street. Watching her.

Someone stopped next to him and he turned, and Jupiter breathed a sigh of relief that it was just some weird coincidence. Until the new guy glanced her way and she stopped breathing at all. It was him. The guy from the store.

There were two of him. They smiled, razor-edged and so very cold.

Twins, her brain rationalized as she fumbled for her phone. Danger! shrieked something more primal in the back of her mind. Jupiter slipped through the revolving door into the Hilton's lobby and worked her way through a crowd of wedding party and guests until she had some cover and a clear eye on the door. Five minutes passed and her rational brain had just about subdued the shrieking part when two men pushed through the door.  

Them.

She took a deep breath, hit the panic button Caine had programmed into her phone, tapped her emergency signal on her com button, and tried not to run screaming. Caine has taught her all the signs of pursuit and how to remove a pursuer.  She could do this. Keeping low, she bee-lined for the nearest door back to the street. She glanced over her shoulder just as one of them swing his head and his eyes pinned hers.

She dropped the backpack and burst out the door.  

Jupiter tapped her com button again, panic flaring at the answering silence. Charging across the street to a cacophony of horns and squealing tires, she raced into the and into the Formal Gardens. Cars honked again but she didn't dare look back, dodging around startled tourists. Her skin crawled. This was too open. If she could get into the Field Museum there would be plenty of places to hide. 

A man stepped out of the crowd, mouth curled in a vicious, familiar almost-smile and Jupiter stopped so suddenly she skidded to her knees. 

Had they gotten ahead of her?  Or, oh God, were there more?  She shoved to her feet as he strolled towards her and she veered back toward Michigan Avenue, darting again through screeching traffic.

She ducked off the street and down an open alley to cut between blocks and halfway down someone yanked her to the side and a hand clapped over her mouth, cutting off her instinctive yelp of surprise. She kicked out at her abductor and got her teeth around one finger and bit down, hard.

A familiar voice hissed, "Fuck, ow!" in her ear.

Caine.  It was Caine.

"You didn't answer!" It burst out with her gasping breath.

"I'm sorry. They had some kind of jammer. I got your distress call but then it cut off-" He squeezed her tighter, burying his nose in her hair. "If we hadn't been in the city...  Are you okay?  Please, are you, okay?"

Jupiter slung her arms around him and scratched gently down the back of his neck. He held her to the point of discomfort, but it anchored her and her heart began to slow its frantic beat.  "I'm okay, Caine.  I'm okay."

A tight growl was her answer and he scooped her up into his arms and they were airborne.  He didn't take her far, just up to the roof of the Hilton, where he scanned the area, one hand on the grip of his mauler, the other clutched around one of her hand.

"What about those guys? What are they?"

"Assassins. Cloned. Adaptable but disposable. Stinger's on them. He'll click me when he's got them all." The tiny snarl in his voice made it clear exactly how Stinger was going to deal with them. 

"I'm sorry I bit you." She lifted their twined fingers to her mouth and kissed the back of his hand.

His laugh was strained. "No, you did the right thing. You did well. I'm sorry I wasn't there. I'm sorry, Jupiter. When your signal cut out-"   A thump behind them cut off his self-castigation and made Jupiter jump around to see Stinger striding toward them as he licked at a split, bloody lip that was strung wide in a feral smile.

"Well, that tears it," Stinger said. "You're going to Ouros tomorrow and collecting her guard assignment." He clapped Caine on the shoulder before taking Jupiter by hers, eyes sweeping over her with ruthless efficiency. "You okay?"

Jupiter hiccuped a laugh.  "Sure. Nice day, good run, what's not to love..."

Caine's fingers tightened around hers as Stinger pulled her into a quick, hard embrace. 

*****

The story she concocted about spending the week helping Katherine's aunt out of town - "Yes, Mama, I know it's last minute, but she really needs my help" - strained even her belief, but Stinger refused to let her leave the farmhouse until Caine returned.

"Clones like that don't come cheap, Majesty," Stinger said, voice tight and hard as he laid out four really big guns on the kitchen table,  Dev efficiently clearing away stacks of sheaves and notebooks. "This wasn't a warning. This was an opening salvo."

"The buyout." The paperwork was still wending its way through Orous' administrative labyrinths, but clearly somebody had eyes and ears, or a big mouth. She exchanged a look with Dev. "You both warned me."

Stinger grunted, slinging one of the bigger guns up onto his shoulder, and stomped out the door.

"I admit to some surprise that Mr. Wise would leave under these circumstances," Dev said as the echo of the slamming door faded.

Jupiter shrugged. "Yeah, that was a fun discussion." And by discussion she meant a snarled argument with flared wings, a lot of swearing, Stinger pulling rank and Caine telling him where to shove it, and offering to do the shoving. It ended only when Jupiter sat down on the Hilton's roof with a thump and said, "If this is going to end up with you beating the crap out of each other like that one time, can we move it somewhere more comfortable?"

They finished the "discussion" in Stinger's kitchen waiting for the transport ship Dev had called in, while Jupiter sat on the couch, shaking fingers clutched around a cup of coffee supplied by a wide-eyed Dev. "I'm sorry, but I lost the books," Jupiter said. "I dropped them when..."

"Oh, your Majesty..." Dev's fingers settled gentle, hesitant, on her wrist. "The books are replaceable. You, are not."

Caine had appeared then, pulled her into a tight embrace, and said, "I'll be back as soon as I can."  

"He'll be a better judge of their intentions with that nose of his," Stinger told Dev later that evening, as Jupiter washed every dish in the kitchen, Kiza quietly helping her dry, all three of them studiously not watching her. "And he's very motivated to bring back the best."

Four days later she had her face buried in her second cup of coffee, staring at the useless jumble of tiles on her stand while Kiza laid out "gothzavpa" on the Scrabble board that now shared the kitchen table with Stinger's increasing arsenal, insisting, "Its the galactic standard word for cheesecake", when Stinger poked his head in the door. "Transport's hitting atmosphere now."

A squat ship about the size of the dilapidated barn shimmered into view above the cornfield five minutes later. Bees surged out from the hives to swirl around Jupiter as she clattered down the front steps to see the ship hover about ten feet off the ground, flattening the corn stalks beneath it in a wide circle before it shimmers and vanished again. A familiar figure dropped out from beneath it, boots glowing blue as Caine landed and flashed her a small smile. 

Jupiter squashed the urge to run to him and leap into his arms, because five more figures dropped down right behind him. They were a motley collection; all splices, she thought, all different shapes and sizes, from one that towered over Caine to one who might be barely taller tahn Jupiter, and none of them looked much less human than Caine. Some furred ears here, a pattern of color across the bridge of the nose of another.

Stinger eyed the group with a frown as Caine led them forward. "I called in some favors, but apparently not enough." The look he shot Caine could strip paint. "This is it? This is what they assigned her? This is what you accepted on her behalf?"

Caine's jaw clenched and he took a deep breath. "Sting, you sent me because you thought I'd make the right call for Jupiter-"

"Don't start that shit, pup, and don't tell me you aren't as mad as I am-"

Jupiter skirted past Caine and Stinger, now locked in a heated conversation of glares and wrinkled brows, and turned to the new arrivals. "Hi."

They all went to a knee, though not without a few glances between them, and Jupiter sighed. "Please, up. No standing, well, kneeling, on ceremony around here." They rose as commanded and Jupiter jerked her head at the heated, muttered argument happening behind her. "Any of you guys have an idea what's going on with that?"

The big one, who towered like six inches over Caine and was about twice as wide, grinned as he bowed to her. Even cut short his brown hair looked unruly, and his top canines were enormous. "Mr. Apini is offended on your behalf, your Majesty."

"Got that. But why is that, Mr....?"

"Sargeant Urs Thorskind. Because we're not Royal assignment quality." 

"Because you're all splices?"

"A little, but mostly because we're all rejects," Urs said cheerfully.

"What Seargent Thorskind is saying, Your Majesty," another of the Legionnaires stepped forward and bowed as he said, "we are meant as a deliberate insult." 

Jupiter glanced over at Caine and Stinger, the argument now escalated to furious whispers and fingers jabbed in her direction. She hoped punching wasn't next. "Awesome, so I'm making friends already. And on that note," she stuck out her hand. "Jupiter Jones, reluctant space queen. Sorry you guys got stuck with the Entitled noob." 

The splice stared at her hand, wide blue eyes with pupils that looked permanently blown sliding up to meet her gaze before he sucked in a long breath and clasped it. Caine had clearly given them some idea what to expect. "Jester Pax, Captain of your Royal Guard assignment." He shook her hand once, firm and sharp, before stepping back. "You've met Mr. Thorskind," the big man grinned at her, "and that is Jhori Beshi, Calish Hals and Zethr Talis."

Jupiter reached out to offer her hand to each of them as they glanced among each other and to Jester, who gave a tiny nod. Jhori, the one who wasn't that much taller than her, stepped up first. The tufts of hair on the tips of his pointed ears twitched, and he blinked cat-like green-gold eyes as he carefully cupped his hand around hers. He had little bumps on his knuckles that reminded her of the part where a cat's claws extended. "Your Majesty."

"Any chance I can get you guys to call me Jupiter?"

"None at all, your Majesty," Calish said with a small smile and bow. Rangy and lean, he reminded her of a coyote, though other than an unearthly green hue to his eyes and the barest points to his ears, he looked entirely human.

"-not even a full complement!" Stinger's voice rose out of the murmur of the bees. "What the fuck are we supposed to do with only five of them?  The standard fourteen would have been spread thin-" 

"Sorry," Jupiter said. "He's..."

"Rightly concerned, your Majesty." That was Zethr. As tall as Caine, built like a Mac truck, a faint sheen of blue-green scales creeping up his neck and across his cheeks. Lidless eyes that reminded her of a snake regarded her, and his fingers were slightly cool on her skin as he took her offered hand. "Mr. Wise told us of the recent attack. We are not adequate to the task of protecting an Entitled of your status."

Urs snorted, rumbling, "Speak for yourself, slitherbrain," and she caught Jester roll his eyes and sigh. Ragtag and motley they might be, but she liked them already.  

"Captain Pax, do you agree?"

Jester, too, looked human, other than his wide-pupiled eyes. He drew to attention. "Zeth is right, your Majesty, but I would like the chance to prove otherwise."

Out of the corner of her eye she saw Stinger throw up his hands in surrender when she jerked a decisive nod and said, "Well, then, welcome to Earth."

Later, Jupiter nestled against Caine on the front porch swing, watching the fireflies blink in and out among the wildflowers. Urs' bulk was visible in the fading light as he and Jhori marched a perimeter, and Dev's calm baritone murmured from inside the house as he, Stinger and Jester sorted out the administrative logistics of housing and feeding her new Royal Guard.

God, did that sound weird.

Caine's eyes tracked Urs and Jhori, but he leaned into Jupiter, practically limp in relaxation. "You like them," Jupiter said.

"Despite Stinger's opinion," Caine said dryly, "they're all very capable. As if I'd allow anyone I didn't think capable anywhere near you. And they will suit you far better than the usual rank and file Legionnaires that are usually assigned for royal guard duty." 

"Thanks for not bringing me a bunch of rank and file jerks." Jupiter silently preened that Caine had thought about how they'd fit with her, as much as how well they could protect her. 

"Only the best misfits for you, my Queen." He played with her hair, fingers soothing against her scalp, and she buried her face against his warm skin.

Mrs. Malkofsky was an early client of Vassily's. Retired, her kids grown and gone, she didn't need much in the way of cleaning these days, but every Tuesday Mama and Aunt Nino dropped Jupiter off to do a dust and sweep while they went on to the Dornings'. It took her an hour at best, and that only if she helped Mrs. Malkofsky with a load of laundry and a cup of tea, which gave her another hour blissful freedom until Mama and Nino swung back to pick her up. 

Before space happened, Jupiter spent that time in the coffee shop down the street, sipping a mug of plain tea and reading bodice-ripper romance novels she picked up 3 for a dollar at the used bookstore.  She still did, sometimes, but these days she was more likely to indulge in one of the ornate cookies the owner made fresh every morning as she scribbled in her notebook in between texts with Dev. Today's theme was mineral rights on four planets in her holding. Dev kept meticulous records, and informed her daily of changes to her holdings, but Jupiter liked to write the information and amounts down herself. It made them real, if terrifying, when the lowest amounts numbered in the billions after Dev adjusted everything to U.S. dollars for her convenience. 

"I knew it! You are up to something big!"

Jupiter shot up, knocking her chair backwards right into Vladie. "Holy shit, Vladie, what are you doing here?"

"Calling your bluff, Jones. What's your angle, and how can I get in on it?" He lunged around her, almost knocking her cup of coffee over as he grabbed for her notebook. "Holy shit. Is your math right?  How many zeroes are we talking here?"

Jupiter smacked his hands away as a shadow fell over them. Vladie stumbled back with a squawk, his protests cut into short silence by Urs' broad hands engulfing his shoulders. Urs grinned as Vladie went still, and cocked his head at Jupiter. "Is he bothering you?"

"Perpetually," Jupiter said. "But it's okay. I'm used to it."  She sat back down and closed her notebook. "Vladie, this is ridiculous even for you. Sit."

Urs propelled Vladie to the chair across from her and pressed him into it before fading back to his post. For someone his size, Urs blended in surprisingly well; he'd been sitting two tables away, between Jupiter and the door, the iPhone she'd gotten each of her guard dwarfed in his hand.

"What the hell, Jupe? Are you collecting a matryoshka set of giant boyfriends?"

Urs' low growl carried clearly and Jupiter rolled her eyes at him and said, "Down boy," before Vladie either bolted or peed his pants. "Seriously, Vladie, what are you doing here?"

Vladie crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, the nervous twitch of his foot ruining his attempt at badass nonchalance. "You're up to something. Or into something."  He waved a hand at her stack of notebooks.  "Something big."

If only he knew. Jupiter mirrored his pose and added a sharp glare. "How long have you been following me?"

"Two weeks." That was Urs, who had given up all pretense of covertness. He shifted so he had one eye on the door, the other watching Vladie squirm. 

Vladie schooched his chair closer to Jupiter's and whispered, "Did you join the mob?"  

"Does he look like the mob?" Kiza had taken it upon herself, with Jupiter's blessing, to outfit the royal guards with Earth appropriate wardrobes. Urs sported a look that Jupiter could only describe as hipster lumberjack, but it worked for him.  "No Vladie, I did not join the mob.  Why have you been following me?"

Voice still pitched to conspiratorial, Vladie said, "I found your notebooks. The ones with all the numbers. Like those."  He pointed to the stack on the table in front of them. 

Jupiter grabbed his finger as it inched closer to the stack of notebooks and twisted.  "Found them where?"

He at least had the good grace to look a little sheepish through his grimace of pain as Jupiter bent his finger backward. "Under your bed."

"For fucks' sake, Vladie." Jupiter fought down the urge to punch him, and not a little panic. What if he'd found the sheaves she often kept there? Or the little pulse pistol Caine was teaching her to use? Granted, hiding them under her bed probably wasn't the most secure location.  "Not that it's any of your business - and oh my God, if I find out you were under my bed again I will break this finger for real and a few others - I'm taking an economics course online."

That set him back. "And he's what," Vladie jerked a thumb at Urs, "your study buddy?"

"You disbelieve I am capable of such intellectual pursuits?"  Urs moved quietly for a such big guy; he now stood behind Vladie, arms crossed, sporting a wide grin that would have displayed enormous pointed teeth if he hadn't been wearing an appearance masker.

Vladie grabbed her hand and shot an admirable attempt at a stern look at Urs. "All bullshit aside. Are you okay?"  

Jupiter stood and tugged him to his feet.  She hugged him, hard, then shoved him away. "I'm fine. Really. Now get the hell out of here before I decide I want to punch you for snooping through my stuff after all."

"Fine."  He skirted a wide arc past Urs as he crept toward the door. "I can help, Jupe. Really. Trust me."

As the cafe's door closed behind him Jupiter slumped back into her seat, dropping her hand into her hands. "Why didn't you tell me he was following me?"

The chair across from her creaked alarmingly. Jupiter glanced up to see Urs leaning back in it, watching her. "Once Wise confirmed who he was, it didn't seem something you needed to be bothered with."

"Yeah, other than someone was following me for two weeks and I didn't even notice." She shuddered.  It'd been weeks since "the incident downtown," as she preferred to call her near-death-by-creepy-clone-assassins experience, and she still sometimes woke up thinking about that chilling, terrible smile on too many faces.

"That, your Majesty, is our job."

"It still feels so weird, all this. All of you."

Urs quirked an eyebrow and Jupiter scrunched her nose at him. "You're not weird." She started to shove notebooks and pens in her bag. "Its this whole situation. I mean all of it, but especially needing people to protect me."  She slung her bag over her shoulder and picked up her cup and gulped down the last swallow. The content were cold, but she was never one to waste really good coffee, even now. "I mean, you could get hurt, or worse, because of me.  Because of a once in a million lifetimes arrangement of my DNA.  And that's..." That's terrifying. "That's just wrong."

Outside, after Urs had scanned the street, he turned to her. "I am what I am, my queen. A soldier.  Getting hurt is in the job description. And I have risked far worse for those far less worthy."  

"You say that now, but you guys barely know me. I am terrible at being an Entitled."

Urs laughed, a sound that rolled out of his chest like a jetliner's engine.  "Do you not understand that is part of your allure?"

Jupiter rolled her eyes, but Urs shook his head and said, "You think of me as you think of any person walking down this street. You think I matter. You think we matter. Your buyout of gene contracts, just the way you speak to us as if we exist for more than your service."

"I..."  Jupiter shrugged, vaguely embarrassed by his awe at what she thought was just basic courtesy. "I just like things to be fair."

"Very little of the Gyre is, Your Majesty.  So allow us the honor of protecting this bit of it."  

She heaved a theatrical sigh, but the quiet admiration in his eyes did not fix her unease.  She liked Urs, liked all of them, and the thought of any of them, or God, Stinger or Caine dying to protect her... "I still don't like it."

A familiar rattle sounded from down the street and Vassily's station wagon rounded the corner.  Urs sketched her a little bow with a huge grin.  "I would not expect you to, my Queen,"  he said, ambling away down the sidewalk, as her mother pulled up to the curb.

*****

The third time that her phone chimed in the span of five minutes, Jupiter sighed and stripped off her gloves. Her mother had given her a blistering earful just two days before about the increasing number of calls and message she got every day while they worked, so she'd been turning it off. She still had her little com button for emergencies.  She gave Nino an apologetic smile and said, "I just need a second," before leaving her aunt scrubbing the grout in the DeGavin's enormous walk-in shower.

Jupiter leaned against the hallway wall and pulled up her messages. Five from Caine, all to the effect that something had happened, and it wasn't urgent, but it kind of was urgent. She called him. "What's wrong," she said when he answered. "Is somebody dying?"

He hesitated, and Jupiter's stomach dropped. "Maybe."

"I was joking." She clutched her phone so hard the case creaked. "Oh my God, is somebody dying? Caine, what happened?"

"It's not..." Caine's sigh stretched out like a rubber band and snapped back with, "Kiza found out what Stinger did to try and get her the recode. She was, well, not happy."

Caine Wise, master of understatement. "Is she okay? Is Stinger okay?"

"Well, there was a lot of yelling. She punched him. Might have broken his nose. Stinger's holed up in the barn, drinking.  I've got Urs making sure he doesn't drown himself in a bottle. Kiza took off."

Jupiter pinched the bridge of her nose. If she had to start all over again with Stinger and all his crap about what happened... She got why Kiza was pissed, but Jupiter might still strangle her. "Can you find her?"

"I think it's more likely she'll find you. Calish is on alert."

Caine was right. Two hours later, when Jupiter managed to duck out without earning her mother's ire, she found a text from Calish, and Kiza right where Calish had said he found her, huddled on a bench half a block down the street. Kiza shot to her feet as soon as she caught sight of Jupiter and Jupiter had to lunge to keep her from prostrating herself at Jupiter's feet right there on the sidewalk. Her golden eyes were dull, puffy and red rimmed, and she had a wadded-up ball of tissue clutched in her fist.

Jupiter pulled Kiza into a hug and Kiza sobbed once against her shoulder before shoving her away. "Stop it!  Why are you being so kind about this!"

Plucking the sodden wad of tissue from Kiza's grip, Jupiter dug in her bag and gave Kiza a fresh handful.  "Come on," she said, and started off down the street, Kiza trailing behind her and Calish mirroring their steps from across the street.

The planetarium was always her spot when she needed soothing, but for once Jupiter wanted nothing to do with anything space-related, so she paid for three tickets to Shedd, handing one to Calish, who melted into the crowd ahead of them. Two soft beeps from the little com behind Jupiter's ear signaled it was safe, and she gently pushed Kiza on ahead of her.

"I'm not always kind about it," Jupiter said as they stood in front of the glass cylinder of the Caribbean Reef. The colorful cacophony of fish spiraled soothingly around the enormous glass cylinder.  "I mean, I think we've worked it out, but... It's still hard sometimes. Sometimes, I wake up, and I think I'm still on Titus's ship, and I'm alone, and I don't know what to do."  She glanced at Kiza. "Don't tell Caine that."

That got her a tiny eyeroll, and Jupiter bumped against Kiza''s shoulder. "You okay?"

Kiza let out a long breath. "No. Maybe. It's just... How can you not hate me? Caine almost died because of me. Titus would have killed you. Da sold your life for mine. How are you okay with that?"

Jupiter shrugged. She was okay with it now. Really. Mostly. "He didn't know what Titus would do."

Golden eyes blazed, pinning Jupiter like a butterfly for study. "That's a load of shit, your Majesty." Kiza sounded so such like Stinger in that moment Jupiter had to bite back a laugh. "Da's not an idiot. As soon as he knew you were an Abrasax Recurrence, he would have known what Titus would be willing to do. He knew he traded your life for mine." The flush of anger faded from her cheeks and she wilted. "I don't know if I can be okay with that."

Guilt churned Jupiter's stomach. Maybe she should have told Kiza herself right from the start, laid it out before Kiza found out like this and felt like a pawn. God knew Jupiter hated that feeling. She let the silence stretch between them, and when Kiza made no more move to speak again, Jupiter said, carefully, "I never knew my dad. He died before I was born. Murdered."

"Oh." Kiza rocked back, surprise moueing her mouth in a perfect little circle. "I'm sorry."

"But she didn't send anyone to their death."

Jupiter laughed. "One day you'll meet her, and you'll know she'd be perfectly capable of it."  She took Kiza's hands.  "Look. I'm not telling you how to feel about this. It's crappy all around, and you can be pissed at him all you want. That's between the two of you. But I'm past it. And I think he did the right thing. You're his whole world."

"I know," she whispered at the fish swimming behind the glass. "That's what makes it all so horrible, I guess."

That broke Jupiter's heart a little. "It's not easy, feeling like you're responsible for someone else's feelings like that, is it?"

Kiza's eyes welled and she dashed the tears away with the back of her hand. "It's stupid. You're the one who almost died and here I am-"

"Not stupid at all." Jupiter pulled Kiza into a hug.

Kiza sagged into the embrace . "You're really not mad? You really think he did the right thing?"

 "I really think that," Jupiter said, and Kiza nodded against her shoulder, pulling away.

"I should go talk to him."

"Caine said he was pretty wasted."

That got her a small smile. "That's the best time to talk to him. He makes all kinds of promises."

"Think you can get him to promise to stop singing that horrible Legion drinking song?"

Kiza took Jupiter's hand, and her smile, while a little watery, still shone.  "It's a deal."

*****

Balancing the tray with the memories dredged up from her short-lived waitressing job in high school, Jupiter backed into Stinger's living room and announced as she carefully turned, "Coffee, anyone?"

Three faces whipped to her, all identically shocked despite their disparate features.  Dev, seated across from them, masterfully hid a smile at their reaction.

"Your... Majesty?"  The one in the middle ventured as she set the tray down on the coffee table and started to place cups along its edge.

"Jupiter Jones," she said, "at your service."

This was the sixth time she'd played hostess to a selection of her ever-growing staff.  Accepting their queen's offer of the buy-outs had been relatively easy for most of them, it turned out, once they were convinced it was not some kind of trap or loyalty test.

Accepting Jupiter being Jupiter was proving harder for many of them, however, and Dev had hit upon the idea of pre-screening the most promising candidates he'd selected to build her personal retinue in same way he'd been introduced to her.  It worked, but the whole thing sometimes felt like some weird audition, Jupiter performing a parody of herself for people who looked at her and saw a completely different woman with her face.

Later, Jupiter carried the tray back into the kitchen and set it in the counter with a thump.  Dev, Caine and Stinger had all approved of this plan, they'd all said it made sense, was necessary even, to make sure she was surrounded by people capable of dealing with her unusual circumstances,  but sometimes Jupiter still felt like a selfish heel for pushing the splices' boundaries on top of the upheaval she'd created in Seraphi's empire.

But she just couldn't bring herself to play the part of Entitled queen in her own - well Stinger's - home. 

"Am I really that bad?"  The cooling, untouched cups of coffee said nothing, but Zethr replied: "You unnerve them." He melted out of the shadows and she was proud that she didn't jump.  By far the quietest of her little guardian quintet, he'd never yet spoken to her when not spoken to first.  Jupiter wondered how much that was him, and how much was her being, well, her.

Jupiter sighed.  It's not like she didn't know that, but having it stated so baldly was more of a gut-punch than she'd expected. Caine, Dev and Stinger and Urs aside, her household expected a queen that Jupiter just wasn't sure she could provide. "Do I unnerve you?"

Zethr's mouth quirked. "Not so much anymore. Not once I saw how different you were from her."

Her. Jupiter's cosmic twin, her dark mirror. "Seraphi? You knew her?"  

Reptilian eyes regarded her, unblinking, and Jupiter thought, calculating. "Not as such, but I did royal guard duty for an associate of hers when I first entered the Legion, which was not long before she died."

Jupiter busied herself with emptying and washing the untouched cups.  She'd known from the moment she walked into that room that none of the three would be comfortable joining the farmhouse staff.  "When they looked at me," she splattered soapsuds on the counter as she waved her hand in the direction of the sitting room.  "What do they see?  What did you see?"

Dozens more questions crowded up and died on Jupiter's tongue. Washed away by the memory of the agony and the rage in Balem's eyes.  Would he have followed that path, recreated himself anew, with more time?  "I'm not sure I'll ever get past them looking at me and seeing someone else." 

Cool fingertips settled on her wrist, brushing away glimmering soap bubbles with extraordinary gentleness. "We see you."

The Entitled social scene was, not shockingly, a complex dance of politics, finances, showmanship and scheduling. Some large events held no significant distinction, and a few practically private affairs had empire-shifting levels of influence. Selecting events for attendance was almost as cut-throat a task as actually attending, and not for the first time in the last few weeks, Jupiter sent Dev a silent thank you for Kamira.

The sinking feeling, the icy burn of humiliation when Caine, his hand so steady as he held his gun trained between Titus' eyes, told her what Titus had planned.  And that was the worst of it.  She'd known he'd do something.  But it hadn't even crossed her mind that he planned tokillher. How stupid and naive-

"Your Majesty."

That buoyed her, enough that she marched through the arch leading into the dome with her head held high, even as all eyes in the room turned to her. She paused, as Kamira had suggested, letting them all get a good look before sweeping across the room to greet their host - she'd practiced the slight pivot and elegant glide for half a damn day before Kamira had pronounced it acceptable.  Then she'd practiced it hour another two hours that night, until Caine had reached out on one of her passes and tumbled her into bed.  "Be you," he'd said as she rolled over and buried her face in a pillow.

"Me is a hot mess."

Caine had wrestled the pillow from her and rolled her onto her back, settling over her like a large, gorgeous blanket. Jupiter trailed a fingertip around the simple dark gold band around his bicep. There hadn't been any ceremony involved in naming him her Consort, only a ream of sheavework and a trip to a market planet Stinger had suggested, where Jupiter had wanted him to get the finest Consort band she could buy, but he, of course, picked the plainest. They'd made their own celebration that night when she put it on him, and she'd surprised him with a slightly more ornate collar band, too. 

He wore that when they were alone. Something just for them.

Jupiter clung tight to that memory, to the sight of the band around Caine's strong arm as the host appeared, an Entitled woman from a House ranked below Abrasax, but, according to Kamira, considered significantly influential due to her artistic tastes.  Jupiter thought that was astonishingly positive, in the grand scheme of Entitlement, until Kamira explained that much of her collection was taken from worlds right before they were Harvested. 

She'd practiced the greeting too, and was glad of it, the formal words rolling off her tongue rather than forced through gritted teeth. "You do House Abrasax a great honor with your invitation, Lady Baranat," Jupiter said. 

Lady Aloecia Baranat, Primary of House Baranat, smiled wide but cold. "No, your Majesty, it is you who honor me.  To have the Primary of House Abrasax here, engaging with my life's works...  You cannot know how much it means to me." 

Jupiter was pretty sure she did know - Lady Baranat was not subtle in her calculations of how much Jupiter's presence would benefit her. "Your collection is... intriguing."

"Oh, yes. This particular exhibit is based around three inhabited worlds in the same system. All were Harvested at the same time, you see, creating a fascinating comparative snapshot of their development, and-"

Caine's broad hand settled between her shoulders and she leaned into the touch as Lady Baranat waxed rhapsodic about her trip to the Harvested worlds and how profound the silence was as she basically robbed planet-sized graves.  A slight nod from Kamira gave Jupiter the signal she'd passed the necessary threshold of politeness and she bailed on Baranat's horror story the minute the woman took enough of a breath for Jupiter to get a word in and excuse herself.

"Okay, made it through that without a disaster, so off to a good start, right?" Jupiter squeezed Caine's wrist, turning to check out the room now that she wasn't tunnel-vision focused on not embarrassing herself.  Did Entitled shindigs have open bars?

And then she saw him. Titus.

Her breath caught for a moment before it released in an unexpected, relieved rush.

He looked so... Small.

And Titus was trying to write her part for her.

Fierce indignation roared in her chest. Fuck that.

"Here he comes," Caine murmured; Titus rose from his little pocket of admirers and abandoned them with a casual wave. Famulus appeared at his side - she'd probably informed him Jupiter was here the minute her ship jumped into the system - and out of the corner of her eye Jupiter watched him glad-hand and preen as he strolled in their direction, like he didn't have a care in the universe: plucking a glass from the tray of a passing bot server, and striking up a conversation with everyone he passed.  He clearly planned to drag this out as long as he could, let the anticipation and anxiety build, just like he'd done on his stupid ship.

Yeah, Jupiter decided. She wasn't playing his game any more. "Full speed ahead," she muttered, ignoring Caine's startled, "Jupiter?" as she took off across the gallery, lifting up the front of her gown so she wouldn't ruin the moment by tripping and ending up face-first on the floor.

Famulus, serenely smug, stepped into Jupiter's path. She opened her mouth but Jupiter ducked right past her and stopped in front of Titus. "So they let you out on the Entitled version of good behavior?"

“Jupiter.” He sketched her a little bow, one hand to his chest in faux-shock at her appearance, like he hadn't watched her approach out of the corner of his eye. “What a pleasant surprise.”

“I'm pretty sure it's neither,” Jupiter said as her little entourage caught up with her, Caine looming over her shoulder.

Titus's gaze cut to the cuff on Caine’s bicep.  "I see you called your dog to heel, Jupiter." His eyes slid back to her, the artfully arranged expression of benign contempt so blatant that she laugh out loud, startling wide-eyed looks out of the guests close enough to hear.

Jhori was right. Titus was dangerous. He could hurt her. But that didn't mean she needed to fear him. Not with Caine at her back, not with Stinger and Dev anticipating and derailing his plans. 

"I see you, Titus.  Every useless, petulant, pathetic part of you. And you know what? You’re not worth giving a shit about. So you keep on with your desperate little ploys to pretend you're still relevant, and I'll just keep being me to remind you that you aren't, and never will be again."

Jupiter smiled wide and bright and cold as space between the stars as his jaw twitched, and put her hand on Caine’s outstretched arm. Caine grinned, politely feral, and tossed a loud “Woof,” over his shoulder as they turned their backs on him and walked away.

Caine steered her right back the way they'd come, and out into the gallery's antechamber. Jupiter sagged against him as the sounds of the crowd faded, her people filtering out behind them. "Maybe that was dumb, but it felt awesome."

"Not the way I'd have suggested playing it," Jester said around a shit-eating grin, "but well-played, Majesty.  Well-played."

They all crowded around her and she reveled in it -  her little, fierce army of misfits who had her back. She'd face down a thousand Titus' with them.  for them.

"Hate to break up this merry conclave," Stinger broke into her internal celebration like a grumpy wet blanket. "But as uplifting as that little display was, I think we should make ourselves scarce while the getting is good. He's not going to be happy about being embarrassed like that."

Caine glared at him as Jupiter wilted just a little, but even Stinger's probably-sensible concern couldn't completely erase the elation that still thrummed through her veins.  

*****

They'd been steady when the assassin appeared out of nowhere, like he'd blipped into existence right in front of her, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the street where she'd been walking after leaving a job downtown.  Had he found her five minutes earlier and Mama and Nino would have been there.  And then Jhori was there, shouldering her out of the way as he lunged for the assassin, one of those creepy clones, Jupiter realized in that sort of slow-motion stretch of time before the assassin collapsed and Jhori stumbled back, and as someone screamed about a foot behind her, Jhori went down and she saw all the blood.

Her hands been steady when she hit her panic button. They'd been steady when she'd pressed them to the hole in Jhori's side until Caine and Stinger dropped out of the sky and the van squealed to the curb, Urs and Calish bursting out to gather her and Jhori inside as Stinger and Caine grabbed the fallen assassin and vanished down an alley.

They'd been steady when the shuttle picked them up, winging them up to the ship, where Calish hauled a blustering Jhori - who insisted he was fine and was her Majesty okay? - off to the little medical bay while Urs herded her off the shuttle and with small touches steered her to her suite, and then into the opulent bathroom, turning on the water at the basin-like sink with a wave of his broad hand.

Jupiter stuck hers under the soothing, warm flow, watched the blood - Jhori's blood - swirl away.

Later, back at the farm, everyone crowded into Stinger's kitchen, she leaned back against Caine as Dev said, desert dry: "Well that didn't take Titus long."

"If it was Titus." Stinger stomped in from the other room. "Could be half a dozen other families, based on some of the reports I've been getting."

"Reports?  What reports?"

Stinger swung his livid gaze to Jupiter. "The kind I've been collecting for months from informants."

"And why am I just hearing about these now?"

Caine's arm tightened around her. "We didn't want to worry you."

"You didn't want to worry her," Stinger snarled. "And I said that was a dumb fuck idea. She needs to know that this shit is only going to get worse the longer she plays house and swans around the city like everything is normal. They know she's the most vulnerable there. Too much territory for us to cover, and when you add here and the damn ship, that's too many locations that need to be secured at all times and not enough bodies to do it. We can't do our jobs like this, and you damn well know it."

Behind her, Caine growled. "Damn it, Stinger, you don't need to pull this shit now."

Everyone carefully looked at anything but her, and her hands were still shaking.  "I'm sorry," she burst out, and ducking under Caine's arm, fled from the house. The dark shape of the barn loomed in the setting sun, and Jupiter climbed into the hayloft, chest tight and hot, and not from the dust disturbed by her awkward clamber up the broken ladder.

It wasn't long before the ladder creaked under the sound of heavy boots ascending.

"I'm sorry." Jupiter says. "That was..."  Unprofessional? Embarrassing? Expected?

"We're sorry, too. I'm a shit, and that back there was uncalled for."  It was Stinger, not Caine as she expected. He settled down next to her with a gusting sigh reaching over to pluck strands of hay that had gotten caught in her hair, absently twisting them together. They crumbled in his fingers.  "I never thought I'd be back at this.  I'd finally come to terms with my very quiet future here, embraced it, even, and then Caine showed up with you in tow, and blew all my hard work all to hell.  And to be honest, I resented it, a little. The glimpse of what I'd had, or at least a shadow of it, back in my grasp."

Weariness she could only start to imagine after these last month deepened the lines around his eyes and mouth.  Jupiter wondered how long he'd been here, grounded on her world for the crime of caring.  "Stinger, we can go,  You don't need-"

He cut her off with a snort. "I need to get over myself. I've been expecting you to accept a great deal of difference and change these last months, and very quickly and I've not given the same consideration in return. It's not fair to either of us, and it's not going to help either of us do our jobs."

"Every time I think I have a handle on all this, something falls apart.  Two steps forward, and then I fall on my ass. And one of these days, when I do, I'm going to drop all these balls I'm juggling and let you all down.  Or worse." Jupiter rubbed her palms on her pants, weird prickles crawling over her skin like something was still on them. 

"Oh, my girl." Stinger cupped her chin and forced her to look at him. "You do not have to carry this alone. We won't abandon you."

She clutched his wrist. "Please don't let me fuck this up."

"Your Majesty should give herself more credit. You're smart, for a tercie and all."

She wanted to laugh at the gentle teasing, wanted to cling to it and let that be the end of it, the sitcom tag that wrapped up the episode, nice and neat, all consequences forgotten.  "No, I mean...  that too, but," and it tumbled out all of a sudden: "I don't want to end up like them, Stinger.  I don't want to be who they want me to become. I'm me, and I want to stay me and I think I am, I told Caine I was still me no matter what but..."  She couldn't stop the fearful torrent she'd been holding back since she stood in a candle-lit room and stared at the terrible mirror of her own face in effigy. "What if I'm wrong?  Please don't let me become... I don't think Caine will do it, if it comes down to that.  And I can't... I won't take that chance, not with him, or my family or any of you.  So promise me you will.  Please."

His shoulders squared and the drone of the bees that always follow him smoothed into a calm harmony for the first time since they set foot back here, and she realized that she had finally, finally granted him the only forgiveness that he would ever accept for his betrayal.  Stinger pushed to his feet and facing her, dropped to his knee just as he had that sunny afternoon when her life spun away from her like a satellite knocked out of orbit, and the bees swirled around and between them.