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I want or I’ll contact your Regent and advise him you’ve not complied with my requests as he assured me you would. Care to see my papers from your Regent?”
    She bet her next paycheck he expected her to cave after that spiel. Disappointing him would be her extreme satisfaction. A slight grin tugged at her lips, but she killed it a moment later.
    “Yes, I would like to see your papers from my Regent.” Kella rose to her feet, strode around her desk and retrieved the wind-up toy from Stone’s grasp. He looked up at her, but his eyes got hung up on her breasts for a moment before traveling to her face. Pig! “Now look who’s lying. The Regent himself.” He opened his mouth to speak, but she kept talking. “You need a new fact checker since they missed I was female. Hard to know everything about me if that vital detail was missed.”
    The words settled between them. Stone’s jaw clenched, and she suspected he ground his teeth. Ignoring the sudden unease of his men, made obvious by the way they resettled their weight, she gave her husband a fake smile. “Bring me those papers, and you’ll have my full cooperation. Until then, I’m not a citizen of your Quadrant and not obliged to follow your directives.” She strode to the door, opened it, and motioned toward the exit. “Good day, gentlemen.”
    James gave her a hard look before turning his gaze to Stone. “We could force her.”
    A chill raced along her spine. They could demand her compliance with ease and given his rank, even her Regent wouldn’t do anything about it. There might be some pomp and political tangoing because he failed to follow the right protocol, but at the end of the match, Stone would still have his way. At the suggestion, she noticed a few of his soldiers’ slack frames went taut.
    Stone shook his head and rose to his feet in a move that revealed more of a predatory nature, rather than a life filled with political pageantry. That resulted in a rush of nerves. She knew next to nothing about him anymore.
    Three of his six soldiers moved out of the room onto the wooden sidewalk, two taking point on either side of the opening and the other one disappearing from her line of sight.
    Stone didn’t even look at her as he moved toward the door. Just as she was about to sigh in relief that his larger-than-life presence vacated her office, he clutched her throat in his hand. Their gazes locked, and her breath vanished, not because of his hold, but because of the way her body reacted immediately to his touch.
    “I’ll return tomorrow.” His hold pinched where his thumb pressed into her neck, right over where his ownership-tattoo was etched into her skin but hidden thanks to the elders’ contraption. “I’d caution you not to run, but I think I might enjoy the chase.”
    And with those words, he released her and pulled on his gloves as if he hadn’t just kind of threatened her. He joined his soldiers, and the lingering two vacated her office a minute later. Only James remained. He gave her a smirk while using the tip of his knife to clean from beneath his fingernails. She understood his silent threat. He’d slice and dice her with pleasure if Stone required a heavy hand.
    Once they were out of sight, she breathed a sigh of relief.

FOUR
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    S tone stepped on the sidewalk and peered up and down the city street. Quadrant2 was hundreds of miles from his southern Quad13. The structures were mostly made of wood. Even the sidewalks were crafted from timber, giving it what he imagined a cowboy town might’ve looked like. His city was built from concrete and steel, safer in his tornado-prone landscape.
    Dragging his fingers through his hair, he pondered the girl inside. Mack Ellason. His wife had been named Mackella. He couldn’t dismiss the similarities. Mack was an archeologist, while Kella had loved reading about relics, and she’d spent countless hours staring at the ones his family owned. He’d believed Mack Ellason to