6 Months Later

When I slither farther down my seat in Combat Room 4, it takes all my willpower not to let my body slip into a melancholic puddle on the floor.

I don't know much about other civilizations, but I assume most races invent technology to make their lives easier—to make their jobs more efficient.

Not the Xani. Everything they've created eludes logic. Even Kai, a bonafide tech geek, is at a loss for many of the different gadgets I'm assigned to have working knowledge of.

"What the hell is that?" he asks, pointing to what looks like a particularly nasty pile of busted gears in the middle of my table.

"No idea."

When he leans over, I can feel the obsidian whiskers of his cheek brush against my ear.

With the threat of Dean's looming presence gone, he picks up exactly where he left off. When the heat from his proximity reaches my core, I force my body to stay still as the tremor courses through my bones.

I don't want him to know he has an effect on me. I refuse to allow either of those two absentee meatheads to know what's going on in my life for the last few months. Being recently contracted to new, very excited women, they both seem to be behaving as if that life was eons away from where we are in Combat Room 4.