3013: SYNERGY: A 3013 Novella (3013: The Series) by Laurie Roma

I’m not
done with you yet. I know it was you. I’ve heard you’re an empath, and you
can’t keep your nose out of everyone’s business.”
    She jerked away from him as an angry
snarl filled the air. Morgan turned to see two of her friends coming toward
them. The twins, Rhen and Sabar Torven, had come to X21 to set up a trading
post in preparation for the Xenon joining the Alliance. Sabar pushed a Tarin
female behind him as he and his brother stepped forward. Both males’ amber eyes
were burning with anger as they stared at Lorn.
    “Watch your fucking mouth when you
speak to her,” Sabar growled.
    “And if you touch her again, we’ll have
to rip your hands off,” Rhen added.
    Lorn sneered at them. “Mind your own
business, cats.”
    “Our friend is our business,” Sabar
corrected.
    “Morgan? Are you well? I can feel
something is wrong.”
    She relaxed a little when she heard
Orion’s voice in her head. “I was just about to come back up to you when
Lorn grabbed me. He knows I’m an empath, and that I’m the reason he isn’t going
to be an ambassador.”
    “I’m coming to you, my love.”
    Morgan felt comforted that he was
coming to her, but she wasn’t about to back down from the asshole in front of
her. Before Rhen and Sabar could respond to Lorn, she blasted him with her own
wrath as she moved to stand out in the lobby
    “It’s not my fault you aren’t getting
the job. It’s yours. Why the hell did you want to be an ambassador when you
hate humans? Oh, and by the way, I can tell you hate the Helios, too.”
    Lorn bristled with his rage, and his
face turned red. “You know nothing! How dare you lie to your keeper just to
make yourself important! You will retract whatever you told Orion, and tell the
truth.”
    “I am telling the truth, and you
fucking know it!”
    Lorn started to lunge at her, but
before he could touch her, a loud bellow of rage sounded from above. Morgan
looked up in time to see Orion flying toward them. His shirt was hanging in
tatters around his torso, and she realized that his wings had burst through the
material.
    She scrambled back just in time to get
out of the way as Orion flew right at Lorn, shoving him into the wall so hard
that plaster crumbled down around them. Orion slammed his fist into Lorn’s
face, dropping him to the ground unconscious with one hard punch.
    Orion turned, and wrapped one arm
around her waist as he cupped her cheek with the other. “Are you well, keeper?
I can feel your shoulder aching. Did he hurt you anywhere else?”
    “I’m fine, my love,” Morgan said,
trying to soothe him. She pulled his head down to kiss him, then said, “You
sure know how to make an entrance.”
    “All is well here, then?” Rhen asked.
    She turned to smile at the two Helios
males. “Yes, thank you for coming to my aid.”
    Both Rhen and Sabar nodded to her,
before walking away with their Tarin female between them. It was then that
Morgan realized that the female with them was Laesa Fen, an artist that had
recently come to X21.
    Orion watched as the Helios left.
“Those are the two males you were with the day I met you.”
    “You saw me talking to them in the
docking bay?”
    “Yes, but I was too overwhelmed by your
beauty to pay much attention to them.”
    Blaiz and Daven rushed down the stairs
as Ivan and a couple of security officers hurried across the lobby to join them.
Blaiz looked down at Lorn laid out on the floor and grinned. “I bet that felt
good.”
    “It did,” Orion agreed.
    “What happened here?” Ivan asked.
    Orion stared him down as he said, “Lorn
put hands on my keeper.”
    Ivan sighed. “I knew he was upset when
Adric told us that we were not going to be chosen to replace you, but I never
thought he would do something like this.”
    One of the security officers glanced
over to Orion and Morgan. “What do you want us to do with this?”
    “Toss him out of the airlock,” Orion
ordered.
    Morgan chuckled. “As much as I would
like that,