The concert featured students from local schools. Kefan sang the first song and the last. After
the final curtain closed, he changed and ran outside to meet Lenea.
She stood staring up at the wall of vid screens next to the theater marquee. The screens flashed
static eventually resolving into a picture of the theater stage where Kefan and the band waited to
perform. A moment later the music blared, loud and garbled.
A crowd had gathered.
“This is the first outside test,” Kefan shouted over the din. “We—”
The sound system screeched, and everyone jumped, grabbing their ears. After a moment’s
silence punctuated by sighs of relief, the music came on clear, and Kefan’s beautiful voice soared over
the crowd.
Occasionally one of the screens became too blue or green as the technician made final
adjustments, but by the end of the first song, it was almost like sitting in the theater.
More people wandered to the array as they were treated to the morning’s performance for free.
Kefan’s cheeks warmed as people pointed to the screen, marveling at the size of the images.
He put his arm around Lenea’s waist. “I’ve never seen a picture of myself that big before. Do I
really look like that?”
Lenea still gawked at the display, a lunch basket in one hand, and her mouth and eyes opened
wide. “You did it, both the display and the singing.” She squeezed his hand.
His dream of a vid array had come true, and everyone was impressed, but time with Lenea was
precious. Soon, someone would want him to do something, so he led her backstage.
Lenea was so pretty. Her baggy, gray overalls made her look like a little farm girl, but her dark
blue eyes and the little speckles on her rich golden face made her the most beautiful woman in the
world.
She held the basket out. “I brought lunch.”
They hid in a practice room. The one tiny bench forced him to sit right beside her, so close his
fur tingled. She ate and chatted about how much she sold and what silly things her brother did.
He slipped his arm around her shoulders, leaned over, and kissed her cheek. The aroma of
summer rain greeted him. Her soft fur made his whole body quiver.
She turned her blue eyes toward him, and he kissed her lips.
The door opened. Kefan’s drink landed on the floor, splattering sapper juice everywhere. His
father glared, while the music director stared at the green stain spreading across the floor. Kefan’s
heart raced as he searched for an escape route. Lenea giggled, putting her hand on his knee.
Jafar folded his arms. “There you are. You should come back and rest, Kefan. Music comes
first.”
The music director looked up from the mess on the floor. “Kefan, you need to be in full voice
for the Midnight Song. You can’t do that if you’re tired. Please rest. I’ll get something to clean this
up.” He hurried down the hall.
“Let’s go.” Jafar reached for his arm.
Kefan opened his mouth to argue, but Lenea put her finger on his lips. “Rest. I want to be
proud of you. I’ll meet you after the Midnight Celebration.” She glanced at Kefan’s father. “If it’s all
right with you, Mr. Bennett.”
How could she be calm? Kefan’s jaw tightened as his eyes focused on his father’s face.
Jafar closed his hand on Kefan’s elbow. “Kefan will return to our cabin immediately after his
performance.”
Kefan faced his father, freeing his elbow. “After I sing tonight, I’m doing what I want. I’ve done
nothing but work since I got here.”

Marggit Wesjem paused outside the door of student study room 317. This meeting couldn’t
possibly be of any interest to her. Monloe Gemmel had nothing to do with military history, ancient

languages, or covert communications. But he was a professor at Varhaad University, so she did him
the courtesy of attending this meeting about Summer Festival. She had lost interest in that event long
ago.
Monloe welcomed her and Froley Liwans, an astronomer, into the room. He inserted a cassette
into a portable projector sitting in the middle of the study table and projected a vid of a meteor on
the screen.
Marggit’s pocket radio buzzed. It was the continental director’s assistant asking about her
quarterly reports. Although no longer on active duty, she did have some covert responsibilities for
which she was required to make quarterly reports even though nothing what so ever had happened to
require her attention. She turned her back, keeping her voice low.
Monloe said something about alien ships and spread several photographs across the table.
Marggit glanced at the vid, which showed a juvenile science fiction story of a fake spaceship
landing in a valley full of nondescript gray buildings. The vid zoomed in on two dark beings with bald
faces and fur around the back of their heads. Their long, thin faces and necks, furless arms, and wide
pinkish teeth looked real, too real. They were not hand-drawn characters, or puppets, or any of the
other techniques the vid companies used to create fiction stories. No amount of makeup could make
any Hocalie look like that. The view panned to show a massive vertical bulge in a sheer rock wall,
Kessler’s Column in the Kenned Valley. She had trained there in her youth.
Marggit dropped the radio. “They are real.” Her voice stuttered as the world spun around her.
Froley gasped. “It can’t be, all the theories of time and space gone to hell. Aliens came here.”
His voice went up in pitch. “Why tell us? You need to tell the police, or the government, or
someone.”
Marggit stood, and then sat again as her legs threatened to give out. She set her jaw, willing her
body to relax. It had been many years since her days as a spy forced her to keep control of her
emotions. She glanced at Froley and then at Monloe. They truly believed these were invading aliens.
Monloe opened his mouth, but Marggit put her hands on the table, pushing herself into a
standing position. The chair squeaked on the floor. “No!” She had to keep control of this
information.
Their eyes went to her.
Monloe looked up. “Um, I am concerned about—”
Marggit interrupted. “You must not tell the government—the politicians.” Her eyes drilled into
Monloe. “If this is fake . . .”
“No. Not fake.” Monloe’s voice trailed off.
Marggit’s stomach churned as she rummaged through the photographs. “This doesn’t appear to
be a military invasion, but they have considerable technology. We don’t want curiosity seekers
blundering in and making a mess of it.”
Froley’s voice shook. “We can’t discover an invasion of space aliens and keep it from the
government.” His eyes opened wide. “Or everyone else.”
Marggit closed her eyes for a moment leaning forward. “I’m not quite as retired as I pretend. I’ll
make the necessary notifications.”
“If I understand your position, telling you is telling the government, at least the part that might
know what to do,” Monloe said.
Marggit gave a slight nod. “I used to be a covert operative and cipher expert, which is a lot more
boring than it sounds. I wanted to change careers, but according to the military, I knew too many
secrets, so I had to stay on the payroll. They gave me the job no one wanted.” She took a deep
breath. “I evaluate unexplained phenomena, weird sightings, ghosts, strange lights in the sky, and,”
she grinned, “reports of invaders from space.”

He followed his family to the big amphitheater. They arrived late, and the only seats left were in

the far back. The people on the stage looked like toys. Lannes put his head near Lenea’s. “Psst, this is
boring.”
“Duh, it would be better if Kefan were singing.”
“Only for you,” Lannes rolled his eyes. “I gotta pee.” He worked his way to the furthest
restroom then sauntered back, keeping his eyes on the sky. Both moons hung in different parts of the
sky almost full, obliterating all but the brightest stars.
A blue-white streak appeared high in the northwest and sped downward. It slowed, changed to
fiery red, and dropped behind the hills. His heart pounded waiting for an explosion that never came.
He spun all around searching the sky and the people. The moons hadn’t moved, and all the people
faced the stage as if nothing had happened.

Lenea pushed her way through the people to the door backstage.
She peeked into the green room. Kefan, dressed in light blue and white, stood in front of two
men and two women in flowing purple robes. The director waved his baton, and the singers chanted
aah aah aah up a third each time and back down.
She wanted to wish him luck but didn’t dare interrupt. If she left, he’d never know she had
come. Caution gave way. She ran to Kefan, kissed him on the lips, and sprinted off.
Giggles followed her out the door.

Inside a room as large as the Festival theater, thick, black cables extended from the back of three
green, metal structures, each twice as tall as Kefan. The cable went through the wall, up the side of
the building, and across to the power distribution center. These machines needed a lot of power even
though they didn’t have any apparent purpose.
A control panel stood at one end of each machine. A square, green button filled the upper right
corner, a round, black button the upper left. Below the buttons, there was a row of four black
rectangles with a knob under each. They might display something when working.
Kefan twisted each knob both directions, leaving it in its original position. He pushed the black
button. So far, this machine remained as inert as every other machine in the place. He pushed the
green button.
A high whine, several ear-splitting thumps, and a sudden gust of wind ripped through the room.
By the time the machine settled into a steady rhythmic roar, everyone inside had run outside toward
the hills.
A thin plume of bluish smoke rose from the roof of the building, and a hum settled over the
valley.
The lights came on.
After a rush of excited conversation, everyone tiptoed back into the factory. They crept up to
the machine and walked around it. It made a frightening amount of noise, a slight breeze, and
vibrated. Kefan reached out and pushed the black button. The machine sputtered to a stop. The
lights went out.

The two aliens, one dressed in green and the other in maroon, were further away now, ambling
along the road. He tiptoed across the road again, snuck down to the river, and ran closer to them,
wishing he had a vid recorder.
Lannes couldn’t stop his heart from pounding, nor could he stand still. He stepped back on the
road some distance behind the aliens and walked after them. They didn’t look back or change pace.

Lannes stopped. Maybe approaching these creatures alone wasn’t safe. He dismissed the fear, walking
faster until they turned to face him. This was too exciting to pass up.
He tried to keep the grin off his face. They stared at him. He glanced toward the river, then up,
way up, into their dark, shiny faces. They were too big to follow the game path under the thorny
brambles. He had an escape route.
“The man comes falling not,” the taller one said.
“What?” Lannes tried to stop the giddy laughter building inside his chest.
The other alien looked down at him. “Can you for road not.”
A rush of heat made his coat too warm. “What about the road?”
“What did it say?” the shorter one said in the alien language, and Lannes understood him.
The taller one faced to the shorter one. “Try again.”
Lannes guessed the meaning correctly and waited while the taller alien composed a sentence.
“Who the what are stars.”
He didn’t want to sound flippant, but what else could he say. “I don’t know. Who the what are
stars?” Lannes giggled. “Who the what are you?” Although they were big, they didn’t appear
threatening. Nor were they surprised to see him.
The shorter alien bent his head down, staring at Lannes. “The what who are.”
“Oh,” Lannes grinned. “This’s fun. My name’s Lannes. What’s your name?”
The shorter one squinted at him. “What the are?”
Lannes brought his thumb to his chest. “Lannes. My name’s Lannes. What’s your name?”
“What does Nanlas mean?” the shorter alien asked.
Lannes wanted to say, “My name’s pronounced Lannes,” but didn’t want the aliens to know he
understood them. He wished they would talk in their language. It was easier to understand than this
mangled version of Cadorie.
The shorter alien reached his hand toward Lannes’ chest. “Take him back to the ship.”
Lannes leaped down the embankment, sprinted under the bramble bushes, and didn’t stop until
he cleared the top of a distant hill.

“Why can’t you see they are two halves of the same thing? If Kefan succeeds with his vid
project, your translation problems will be solved,” Jeke said. “Surely you must understand why,
Kefan?”
Kefan shook his head. Sometimes, that man didn’t make sense.
Monloe’s shoulders slumped. “Funding will be expensive and hard to justify.”
Jeke spun around, glaring at each of them. He nearly dislodged a bunch of wires, and Kefan
jumped to the rescue.
“Don’t see how important this is?” Jeke extended his arm toward Kefan’s vid, now displaying
two boxes of static and a line of random letters across the bottom of the screen. “Just think of where
it will go.”
Monloe pursed his lips.
Jeke stepped in front of Kefan. “You want to move parts of vid images around. You want to tell
your machine to move some dots between specific coordinates, or from one vid to another, for a
specified duration of time. You do that now by changing dozens of switches and turning an equal
number of knobs. Hit and miss until you get it right. To do something sophisticated you’ll require
thousands of switches and knobs.”
Jeke did understand better than anyone else what he wanted to do.
“Right,” Jeke continued. “You want to control the machine with words, which are remembered,
corrected, and replicated.”
Kefan nodded with a smile. “The corrected words can be sent to a typewriter.”
Marggit faced him. “Machines can’t understand words.”

“Kefan made the machine read vids of alien script, why can’t it read words?” Jeke asked.
“It doesn’t read the script. It finds patterns in strings of characters.” Kefan’s smile faded.
Jeke stared at each person for a moment before speaking. “What do you think written language
is, if not patterns in strings of characters?” He paused and scanned the room, stopping at Kefan.
“Don’t you want to type your commands and see those commands on the screen, so you can correct
mistakes before you tell the typewriter to do something?”
“I don’t know how to do that.”
“Of course you don’t, you’re not a mathematician or a cipher expert. You can’t write or break a
code.”
Jeke stared right into Monloe’s eyes, “Now, do you understand why he must have a separate lab,
and a few handpicked assistants?”
“It’s a lot of expense for a code-breaking machine,” Marggit said.
“Do you understand, Kefan?”
This was an extension of Lenea’s idea of correcting text before printing it. Kefan swallowed. “It
could do math.” An icy chill ran through his bones.
“And?” Jeke scowled at Kefan.
“It could control other machines, not just typewriters.”
“Do you think those aliens plot courses through interstellar space with paper and pencil, or
control their ships with thousands of switches and knobs?” Jeke turned and walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?” Monloe asked.
“To manipulate enough thrust to send something into space. Something big.” He slammed the
door behind him.
Kefan closed his eyes. “I don’t think he means to say hello.”

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Excerpt from Bare Devotion

Sonja bit into the almond croissant with the hunger that had plagued her everyday of the past
few weeks. Like clockwork, her appetite returned late morning after the morning nausea passed.
She knew the exact night she’d conceived the baby. Her body had felt ‘different’ after the
lovemaking session with Henry that had lasted the better part of a late winter night after they’d
won a particularly challenging case. At first she hadn’t been able to pinpoint it and blamed her
exhaustion on prenuptial jitters. The week before the wedding her breasts swelled, her nipples
became sensitive to the shower spray, and she’d felt as though her period was about to start at
any moment. But of course it hadn’t. She’d known two days before the wedding for sure. Thank
God she’d only shared it with Poppy. If Henry had known she didn’t think she’d have been able
to walk away from marrying him as she had.
The memory of leaving her soulmate at the altar made the pastry feel heavy in her stomach and
she paused, closing her eyes and breathing in and out slowly to ward off a wave of nausea.
Anytime she remembered their wedding day she felt sick all over again.
“Is it that good?” Her eyes flew open at the sexy baritone that only a few weeks ago had coaxed
an orgasm out of her as he spoke dirty words into her ear while he moved over her, inside her,
again and again.
“It’s delicious.” She put the croissant down on a napkin, next to her stack of files. Henry’s gaze
dared her to look away and she never backed down from anyone, so she stared back. A quick
flash of disgust shadowed his face before Henry looked away and sat in the seat opposite her,
reaching over for his files. Usually they sat together, ready to work until whenever it took to get
the day’s items checked off. It wasn’t going to get easy, ever, to know he thought so little of her.
Knowing she deserved it for something he didn’t even know about yet—the baby—made it
worse.
“I imagine you need time to go over these.” A deft verbal pitch to see how she’d react. Would
she go high, admit she should have been back in the office last week, or go low and blame him
for her staying away, or ignore it? “Alesia sent me the files last week. I’ve read through them
all.”
He had to be playing her—Alesia told Henry everything. He’d know she’d had copies to analyze.
Their roundtrip tickets to Bali had gone unused, so it wasn’t as if she’d been out of the country
and unable to do any work.
“Any concerns?” He kept his face low, focused on the paperwork, but she saw the blood vessel
just above his collar, pulsing in rhythm to his heartbeat. Whenever Henry was agitated that was
his tell. She used to like to lick it right before he came. Heat erupted between her legs and made
her squirm. Apparently her guilt over not telling him about the baby wasn’t the only reaction she
couldn’t shake. She clasped her legs together under the heavy mahogany table, grateful Henry
didn’t have x-ray vision.
“No, nothing to speak of.” Her voice was low and throaty and she wished she’d tendered her
resignation. It would be so much easier, especially now when every damned hormone in her
body was setting off emotions she didn’t even know she was capable of. But a deft noncompete
clause she’d signed when his father had hired her prevented her from going out on her own just
yet.
Brilliant blue eyes watched her with usual alertness. “You sure about that, Sonja? You’re acting
like something’s not sitting right with you.”
“It’s just this.” She motioned very slighting between them, using her finger. “Awkward with a
capital ‘A,’ am I right? We didn’t talk about it as much as we probably should have this morning.”
Of course dearest Deidre’s appearance had shut down any chance of the conversation they
needed to have in private. The curiosity in his eyes turned to frosted crystal.

“Let’s get it out on the table, then.” He splayed both hands on the dark polished surface, and
she wondered if he’d forgotten about the time they’d both arrived to work early, too early. They’d
ended up here, naked, in under five minutes. Did he see her naked body as she’d knelt on all
fours, waiting for him to take her?
“There is nothing here. Whatever we shared was wiped out when you decided to ignore my
attempt to explain my actions to you.”
“Wait a min—”
“No, hold up.” He shot down her attempt to interrupt him with a flick of his hand. “You made
your choice. And you’ve decided to continue on at this firm. We both need to raise the funds to
get the house rehabbed well enough to sell. Fine, I get it. But don’t think for one minute that
there is anything other than our working relationship at stake. We’ve always enjoyed that,
correct? And I’m willing to work with you, until the day you decide to leave the firm. Because,
let’s face it, I’m not going anywhere. This is my family firm. You, you’ll go out on your own or
take a better offer elsewhere. That’s okay. Until then I expect the best you have to offer, and for
you to kindly refrain from referring to what we shared. It’s over.”
Sonja stared at the man who’d hung the moon for her and only saw the stamp of Boudreaux on
his expression. The same look his father had when she’d told him to take the money and
referral he’d offered her to quit when she and Henry announced their engagement and shove
them up his tight white racist ass. He’d never fire her, not as a black woman in his otherwise
very white, very male firm. And regardless of his racist views, Sonja brought in a lot of business
for their firm that they’d otherwise never catch. She’d expected Henry’s father to give her a hard
time, but not so much Henry. She’d been a fool.
“Our professional relationship never had anything to do with our personal life. Why should it
now?”
Henry didn’t respond but instead glared at her. He may as well have thrown a machete at her
for how his silent gesture pained her.
The door clicked open and Alesia entered with trays of lunch food, followed by two clients and
Rick, the firm’s other NOLA attorney. As she and Henry stood to greet them she eyed her
almost-husband. Her ex-fiancé. The man who’d broken her heart.
Henry was tall and professional looking, whether dressed in a classic suit as he was now or in
cargo shorts and a t-shirt like yesterday. He’d been born to inherit his father’s firm, a lawyer’s
mind part of his gene pool. And until their wedding weekend, she hadn’t seen that he’d also
inherited the insatiable need to make everything appear perfect. Hence the pristine wedding
they’d almost gone through with.
Henry wasn’t a people pleaser though, especially not to his parents. He’d bucked their
sensibilities and desires by choosing to marry her, a black woman from a bayou family. Henry
had never seen her as anything other than the woman he’d decided to marry. She believed that.
What Henry had refused to see, however, was that his father was never going to leave the firm
to Henry as long as Sonja was his wife. The firm was going to be dissolved and all of his father’s
money given to charity, eschewing being generous to either of his sons. Henry’s younger sister,
a social worker, was in the naval reserves and somewhere overseas, so she wasn’t even on the
family radar. She hadn’t gone to law school; neither had Henry’s younger brother Brandon. It
wasn’t about the money, which was significant, but about family legacy. Henry was the man to
change it, to turn the law firm into a contemporary, relevant part of the community, serving
diverse clients and causes. He saw that corporate law didn’t have to mean serving the same
good ol’ boys his father had.
But Henry would never have the chance to improve upon his family legacy if she were around.
The younger siblings had gotten the hell away from the family dynasty. But not Henry. Henry

needed to be part of his father’s legacy in a way the other two didn’t. Because Sonja saw this,
saw the need in the man she loved so desperately, she’d had no choice but to back out of their
marriage. She’d do anything for Henry’s happiness, and Henry would never be happy without
knowing he’d made a difference in what his father had began. He’d never forgive her for leaving
him the way she did and that was all right. Sonja didn’t want Henry’s forgiveness. She’d wanted
his love, understanding and trust, but her expectations had been too much.
Henry didn’t have it to give.
And as she watched him, the one man she’d ever pinned all her hopes on, she had to face the
cold hard truth. She was as unworthy of trust as Henry.

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