“Really?” Director Swan asked Dawn. “You haven’t heard from him in three days? He’s been making his regular check-ins with dispatch.”

  Dawn tried not to let a twinge of hurt enter her heart hearing that. Of course, she’d considered she was just being an overly attached mate, but…

  She and Chance had become close. And much closer since the fall of New Davenport and Dawn’s move to Des Moines. It had been months since the last time a day had passed without at least a text. However there had been nothing for days now.

  She’d even sent pictures of her body, which Lira had expertly helped her shoot. The redhead had surreptitiously sent copies to herself, so Dawn was certain humans found them worth looking at. Chance in particular had spent a great deal of time showing he could not get enough of her, so his continued silence was very concerning.

  She worked her fingers together in anxiety, unsure whether or not to press the issue. Fortunately, Director Swan resolved it for her. She sighed, and stretched before meeting Dawn’s eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Dawn. I shouldn’t have been dismissive. Those check-ins don’t catch changes like this in operative’s personal lives. This is concerning. He was in contact with you during your expedition last week?” Director Swan’s eyes were tight, and her smile a little forced. Unsurprisingly, the regional director of AEGIS was stressed during a wave. One more thing to make Dawn feel wrong for pressing this.

  “He was, each day and each night, at least a little bit. I wouldn’t have brought this to your attention if it wasn’t very odd.” Dawn explained, trying to keep the roiling unrest in her chest out of her voice.

  “I understand,” Director Swan replied. She reached across the desk to still Dawn’s fidgeting fingers, squeezing them comfortingly. Even still, there was a look behind her eyes Dawn didn’t like. “I’ll ask surveillance to get more eyes up there. We’ll figure out what’s going on.”

  Dawn nodded, squeezing the Director’s hands in return. She rose, ready to leave the busy woman to the duties she’d put on hold to hear Dawn out.

  “Thank you, Elizabeth Swan,” she said. The Director gave her the same tight smile, and turned her attention to her display. Dawn turned and left the office.

  She did not, however, continue out of the building. She crouched outside of the office door, putting one of her large cervine ears to the door. People tended to focus on her nature magic, and forget the natural advantages her body gave her, the excellent hearing of a prey animal counted among them.

  “Still nothing out of Winnipeg?” She heard Director Swan ask, a note of panic in her voice. Coming from The Director, that was almost enough to induce panic in Dawn.

  “Goddamn it,” She sighed in frustration. “I’ve got intel that Freeflow may be compromised as well.”

  She paused.

  “I know, if that’s the case god help us all. We still have to check, there’s ways to spoof the check-ins, but when you don’t respond to your girlfriend’s nudes, something’s up. Speaking of, shit.”

  The Director’s voice rose.

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “I can see your shadow Dawn! Please, some privacy!”

  Dawn cursed, bounding down the hallway and out of the Pantheon building. Her hands worked themselves in and out of fists. After overhearing that, she was more stressed than when she’d gone to see the Director. She needed to calm down.

  She did her best to appreciate the natural beauty of the AEGIS campus. Dawn had contributed a lot to it herself, assisting the gardeners in caring for plants that otherwise wouldn’t survive in the region. Every tree, every flower, every blade of grass was kept in perfect health as she nurtured them with her magic.

  It wasn’t enough. The plants might be surrogate children to her, but they weren’t companions, and she knew that was what she needed right now.

  Heading towards the Palace, she wondered if her team would be up to keep her company during some Attenborough classics.

  She walked into the apartment to find Gwyn directing a cloud of nano-bots to repair the door to Breastman’s room, which hung off its hinges.

  “Dawn!” Gwyn yelped at her entrance. “Why aren’t you with the team?”

  “What? I was coming to find them. I could use some support.” Dawn replied, surprised at the normally quiet girl’s outburst.

  “So could they!” Gwyn gestured, and a cloud separated from the main body, resolving into a live news feed.

  BREAST MAN and a horrifically stretched Sonder formed a net over an enormous distorted clownfish. As Dawn’s hackles began to rise, the monster started to spew blood, and slumped to the ground. A few moments later, Amaranthine burst out of the top of its head. The caption below noted that she was making a rare fully clothed public appearance.

  “Where is this!” Dawn asked, already summoning her staff. “Never mind, get me Samsara!”

  Dawn had been born feral, and up until the last few months had never lived as a permanent part of human society. As such, she was not in the habit of obsessively checking her phone, and didn’t have the same fight or flight response many humans had trained to its buzzing.

  Looking at it, she found plenty of texts and missed calls from her team. None from Chance.

  She patched into comms to hear the team wondering about her whereabouts, and her heart fell. She cut the connection. The fight was over, and she’d been far too late to help, not that it looked to have been necessary.

  “They seem to have it handled.” She said, heading to her room.

  Gwyn turned to look at her, door fixed and really focusing on her for the first time.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asked. The two weren’t close yet, but Dawn doubted someone would have to be to notice she wasn’t her usual self.

  “I… I am very worried about Chance,” she admitted, changing course to sit heavily on the couch.

  “Freeflow?” Gwyn asked, clearly concerned, but also confused as to why someone would worry about him. “Besides Cait, he’s probably the last person on earth you’d have to worry about being okay.”

  “And yet….” Dawn gave Gwyn a tight smile. She knew this kind of thing was outside of the girl’s comfort zone, so the fact that she sat down and wrapped Dawn in a hug was all the more appreciated. Her body was soft, and warm. Absolutely perfect for hugs.

  Our betentacled friend is a lucky man, Dawn thought, allowing herself a tight grin.

  There was a rainbow flash, and the rest of the team appeared in the room.

  “Damn, Dawn,” said Cait, still absolutely covered in gore but not missing a beat. “Fucked up to skip out on a team fight to put moves on a teammate’s girl.”

  The Amazon was immediately drowned in slaps from Breastman and Kennedy.

  “Shut up ass!” hissed Kennedy. “Come on, lets go find Lira.”

  She dragged Cait out of the room, leaving Dawn, Gwyn and Breastman.

  The tentacle monster was much more tuned into the feel of a room than his friend, and wrapped Gwyn and Dawn in a tight multi armed hug. Dawn returned the hug to both of them, squeezing her graceful arms tight around both of them.

  At least I know these friends are safe.

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t there,” she said softly.

  Breastman gave a gurgling coo in response. He was getting much better at making those sound comforting. Dawn felt the tip of a tentacle begin to stroke the top of her head, and tried to laugh. It came out as a sob.

  [news]Hey guys! Just letting y'all early readers know I popped up a cheeky popularity poll back in , let me know who was your favorite character in book 1! [/news]