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reality of seeing an alphacat up close and personal. Its thick short fur mimicked the colors of the rocky outcroppings he’d just leapt across. He could have jumped right over one and not known unless it snagged him.
    The animal’s mouth sagged open to reveal a double row of unnervingly pointed teeth. He reckoned it weighed three or four hundred pounds easily.
    Guilt twisted in his gut. He’d left her alone. He’d left an injured, helpless girl, alone. He’d taken the DEL, left her helpless.
    He looked to her again. She sat calmly, unfazed.
    The paws were as big as his hands, with un-retractable claws sharp as curved scimitars, yet Cleo didn’t have a scratch on her.
    How in zhang hell did she—
    Libra turned so she couldn’t see his face and swallowed the bile that crept up his throat. He pivoted, an apology filling his mouth, but she stopped him with a raise of an eyebrow that seemed to say, “What? I do this every day.” In fact, she appeared a good deal more composed than he felt. What kind of person could do that? Kill an animal and look so composed?
    Though, her fingers were wrapped tightly around her pendant. And her complexion seemed waxier than it had been.
    “You okay?” he asked.
    “Better than him.”
    “You need a hug, a high-five, a shot of hooch?”
    “Nah, I’m good.”
    Cleo’s lip quivered when she attempted to smile, giving him a glimmer of reassurance that it wasn’t commonplace to slaughter a living creature before lunch, and that under that tough Taiga façade lay a girl.
    A girl he should never turn his back on.
    “Well hell, darlin’, you sent me out for salad while you slayed us some grill.” He meant it to say it lightly, to salvage his compromised Y chromosome, but his voice wavered. He backed away from the dead animal, from between the hunter and the prey, and plopped to the ground in a spot from which he could keep an eye on both of them.
    Zhang hell . He was supposed to hate her, her people, her way of life. But how could he not admire a woman who could take down a wild cat five times her size?
    They sat in silence, staring at the alphacat with seven inches of blade firmly embedded between its lifeless, green eyes.

 
    Seven
    T he sun had crawled to its apex, turning long shadows to short when Cleo finally broke the silence. Without taking her eyes off the kill, without turning her head, she asked, “How did you know my name?”
    “Excuse me?”
    “My name. You said it, earlier, when I had my wobbly moment. How did you know it?”
    Libra gave her a blank look. “Well, you told me. Last night. But you were pretty out of it, so it’s no wonder you don’t recall. And I did tell you mine.”
    She eyed him a moment, unsure if she should believe him, but without reason not to. Cleo stuck out her hand, which had thankfully steadied since facing the cross-breeding disaster designed by misguided scientists who were desperately trying to save any and all species that were near extinction after the Polar War. “Let’s do this again, shall we?”
    Libra hesitated before inching closer to take her hand, but did, per the old customs. Hand shaking went out with the viral outbreaks in the last century, but it was a good way to gauge his grip, his strength.
    As he pressed his dry palm to hers, her ability to assess disappeared faster than the morning mist. Libra’s grip was sturdy, his fingers long and tapered, his hand big enough to engulf her own. Again, the odd texture of the skin on his hands struck her with curiosity. She would ask, but as his pale eyes locked on hers, a fission of electricity passed between them, confusing her thoughts and startling her with its underlying complexity.
    If she had any sense, she’d pull him forward and get him into a headlock and demand answers. But sense had fled when she began enjoying the warmth of their connection.
    “I almost forgot,” he said, snatching his hand back before she could sort the conflicting signals. He reached into his