Cavalon scratched his left arm and looked down at his new tattoos, then back at Rake. Hers weren’t black like his new Sentinel Imprints. And though they weren’t gold and bronze like his royal ones, the effortless, perfectly geometric formation they took up as they slid down her arms told him they definitely weren’t the black-market kind either.
Not just any Legion soldier had real Viator Imprints. In fact, he’d only heard of that combination of colors once before.
“Wait—Rake? Adequin Rake?”
Her impressively flat, stony glare persisted.
“I’ve heard of you.” He couldn’t hide the fascination in his tone as he leaned forward. “You were spec ops. A Titan under Praetor Lugen, right?”
“No one here is who they used to be. Not you, not me. You need to get used to that.”
He had to consciously force his gaping mouth closed. “You’re a goddamn war hero. How’d you end up at the Divide?”
For what seemed like the first time since she stepped in the room, Rake blinked. But she recovered instantly. “You should do your best to forget who you used to be. You can have a fresh start if you’re willing to take it.”
“That’s just…” He scoffed. “Sorry, I was trying to think of a nice word. Delusional. It’s delusional.”
A fire lit in Cavalon’s stomach as Rake reached across the narrow table and grabbed him by the front of his hooded vest. His eyes went wide as hers narrowed.
“You might be a big deal back on Elyseia,” she said, her quiet tone disturbingly level, “but this isn’t Elyseia. This isn’t the Core, this isn’t even System Collective territory. You’re no one on the Argus except a soldier. An oculus. And you’re lucky we even let you be that. No one here gives a shit about you. If anything, they’ll despise you because of who you were.”
Heat flared in his chest. “I’m not my grandfather,” he growled.
His chair tipped onto the back legs as she shoved him, then released her hold. “Prove it.”
Rake marched toward the door and it slid open, but she hesitated in the doorway. She took a deep breath before looking back at him. The anger in her eyes had softened, replaced with the same look of tired defeat she’d walked in with.
“Life on the Argus doesn’t have to be hard,” she said. “But we’re Legion, you have to remember that. Your comrades are not going to respond well to this entitled-prince attitude. Do yourself a favor and cut the shit.” She turned and disappeared around the corner before calling back, “Bray, give this one a psych eval.”
“Oh, come on,” Cavalon groaned as the door shut behind her.
The “good soldier” stick lodged in Bray’s ass seemed to slide away, and he relaxed his shoulders, grinning at Cavalon. “Great first impression, princeps. Nice job.”
Cavalon let out a breath and smoothed the front of his rumpled vest. That’s what he’d always been best at. Great first impressions.
CHAPTER TWO
Adequin Rake sat on the bridge of the Argus in a captain’s chair she had no right sitting in. She’d trained as a fighter pilot, a tactician, a marksman. But she did not have the skills of a dreadnought captain. Even for an immobile dreadnought.
Though, she might have felt more comfortable if it were in active service. She couldn’t fly the thing if her life depended on it, but at least there’d be some tactics involved. Some kind of strategy, a way to utilize her training and expertise.
She wiped at the grease still smudged across her cheek. She’d had the chief mechanic teach her some basic life-systems maintenance so she could feel more useful, and got a whole load of feeling useful this morning when one of the thermal control units in Novem Sector decided to fail. Despite the inconvenience of waking at zero two hundred to fix it, she’d enjoyed the manual labor. At least she’d accomplished something.