Forbidden Alliance

The storage closet smelled like gun oil and pine-scented disinfectant, a combination that had no business existing outside a military installation, and I was wedged between a shelf of cleaning supplies and a Sangheili warrior who could crush my skull with one hand.

His name was Kess. Seven feet of muscle and mandible, his skin the color of slate after rain. He was holding a mop like it was a ceremonial staff, which would've been funny if he wasn't also blocking my only exit.

"You're standing on my foot," I said.

He looked down. Sangheili didn't have feet, not the way humans did. Their legs ended in hooves, split and dark, and one of those hooves was planted squarely on my boot.

"Apologies," he rumbled. The word came out like gravel rolling downhill. His English was good, better than most of the Elites I'd met since the ceasefire, but there was always a pause before he spoke, like he was translating from a language that had no room for small talk.

I tried to shift back. The shelf dug into my spine. A bottle of ammonia wobbled and I caught it before it fell, which put my hand about six inches from his thigh. I pulled it back fast.

"You could move," I said.

"I could."

He didn't.

That was Kess. He'd been my liaison for three months now, part of the joint task force command had cobbled together after the war, and in those three months I'd learned exactly two things about him. One, he was patient in a way that felt like a weapon. Two, he watched me. Not the way a soldier watches a threat. The other way. The way that made my neck hot and my thoughts stupid.

The door opened.

I didn't hear it. I felt it, the shift in air pressure, and then there was a second Sangheili filling the doorway, and the closet got very small very fast.

Vor. Kess's bond-brother, or whatever the Sangheili word was. He was broader than Kess, built like a wall that had decided to grow legs and walk around, and his armor was still streaked with dust from the training field. He looked at Kess. He looked at me. He looked at the six inches between us.

"Am I interrupting?" he asked.

"Yes," Kess said.

"No," I said, at the same time.

Vor's mandibles spread in what I'd learned was the Sangheili version of a grin. It was not a comforting expression. It was the expression of a predator who'd just found something interesting to play with.

"Human," he said, stepping inside. The door clicked shut behind him. "You are flushed."

"I'm hot."

"You are in a cleaning closet."

"It's a warm closet."

He moved past me, and I had to press back against the shelf to avoid contact, and there was contact anyway, his arm brushing my shoulder, the texture of his skin like warm leather. He stopped when he was behind me. I was now bracketed between two Sangheili warriors in a space the size of a coffin.

This was not how I'd planned my afternoon.

Three months ago, I would've had a knife in my hand. Three months ago, I'd killed four of their kind at the Battle of Meridian, and I'd watched them kill six of mine, and I'd spent two years after that learning to hate them in a way that felt clean. Righteous. The kind of hate that lets you sleep at night.

But then the war ended, and command decided we needed friends, and I got reassigned to a joint intelligence unit because I could break codes and they needed someone who could break Sangheili codes, and Kess was assigned as my partner because he could break human ones.

We'd spent six weeks in a room together, just the two of us, decrypting intercepted transmissions from a Covenant splinter faction. Six weeks of him watching me work. Six weeks of me learning the rhythm of his breathing, the way his mandibles clicked when he was thinking, the way he said my name like it was a word in his own language.

And then Vor started showing up.

Vor, who was Kess's bond-brother, which I understood to mean something between a brother and a soulmate, a connection so deep it was almost biological. Vor, who was supposed to be training new recruits but kept finding excuses to visit our workspace. Vor, who looked at me like I was a puzzle he wanted to solve with his hands.

"The human is uncomfortable," Vor said. His voice was lower than Kess's, rougher. It did something to my stomach that I didn't want to examine.

"The human is fine," I said.

"The human is lying."

Kess made a sound low in his throat. Not quite a growl. Something softer. "She does that."

"She does many things."

"Are you two going to talk about me like I'm not here?" I asked.

"Yes," Kess said.

"No," Vor said.

They looked at each other. Something passed between them, some silent conversation I couldn't read, and I felt the temperature in the closet shift. Not literally. The air was still warm and chemical and close. But something changed.

Vor's hand landed on my shoulder.

I should've flinched. I should've pulled away. I should've done any of the dozen things a sane person would do when a seven-foot alien warrior touched her in a supply closet. Instead I went very still. His palm was broad and warm, and his claws were retracted, careful, like he was holding something fragile.

"You are not afraid," he said. It wasn't a question.

"I'm deciding."

"Deciding what?"

"Whether to break your wrist or let you keep doing that."

His mandibles clicked. Amusement. "You could try."

"I could succeed."

"Perhaps."

Kess shifted behind me. I felt his breath on the back of my neck, warm and strange, and I realized I'd closed my eyes. When had I closed my eyes?

"This is a bad idea," I said.

"Yes," Kess agreed.

"Very bad," Vor added.

Neither of them moved.

I thought about my mother's locket against my chest, the only thing I had left of her, and how she'd told me once that the best things in life were the things you weren't supposed to want. I'd been sixteen when she died. I'd been twenty when the war started. I'd been twenty-four when I killed my first Elite, and I remembered his face, remembered the way he'd looked at me before he fell, and I'd told myself I'd never forget.

I hadn't forgotten.

But here I was, in a closet, with two of them, and my heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my teeth, and I wasn't afraid.

That was the worst part. I wasn't afraid.

"We should go back to work," I said.

"We should," Kess said.

The door opened.

We scattered like children caught stealing, Vor stepping back, Kess turning toward the shelf, me ducking under Vor's arm and out into the corridor. A human private was standing there, clipboard in hand, staring at the three of us with wide eyes.

"Sergeant?" he said.

"Private," I said. My voice came out steady. Good.

"I was just, uh, looking for the, uh..."

"Third door on the left."

He nodded, still staring, and walked away fast. I watched him go and knew, with the certainty of someone who'd spent her whole career reading patterns, that this was going to be a problem.

I turned back to the closet. Kess and Vor were standing side by side, both of them watching me, and I had the sudden, unwelcome thought that they looked like they belonged together. Like they'd always belonged together.

And that I wanted to belong there too.

"Tonight," Vor said. "The eastern hangar. After third shift."

It wasn't a question.

I should've said no. I should've reported them. I should've done any of the things a good soldier would do.

"Fine," I said.

Kess's mandibles spread. Vor's eyes went dark and bright at the same time.

I walked away before I could take it back, my boots loud on the metal floor, my locket warm against my chest, and I didn't look back.

I didn't need to. I could feel them watching.