She Who Knows Tomorrow: a sci-fi novella (displaced shadows #1)

Excerpt from " Trust Is a Fickle Business "

A/N: This excerpt is from the "Authorized Cut" edition of the story. Both the "Authorized Cut" (with "bad words" trimmed) and "Author's Edition" (with salty language included) are found in the for-sale e-book, which can be found via https://books2read.com/DS002.

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TamLin outright preferred when others disliked or feared him, but as he stared at the flushed face of the petite woman lying on his guest room's bed, he felt disgusted at his own actions.

He pulled himself back from her, from the bed, and stood. "Sorry."

Third—no, he had to call her Second, now—propped herself up on her elbows and tilted her head and hid her hooded eyes with her lashes, but the tentative fingers she raised to feel her swollen lips said more than she likely realized. Intimacy was forbidden, to Nameless like her. Even a hug would've been foreign, and kissing went a bit beyond that.

He was a jerk.

"Why?" she asked.

Why had he kissed her, or why had he pulled back? Or was she asking why he liked her, when he didn't get along with the version of her from the same universe he was?

He shook his head and plucked her equipment belt off the floor, where he'd dropped it after testing how far she was willing to trust him. He tossed it toward her and adjusted his own clothes, ridding himself of whatever rumples he'd picked up and double-checking that everything was still fastened. He thought it was, but...

He hadn't been that much of a jerk, to his relief.

When he looked back at the young woman, Third/Second was still holding her belt.

Her sleeveless shirt had rucked up enough for a scar on her stomach to catch his eye. He was tracing it with a finger before he realized what he was doing.

Pulsar was the safest option that helped his cluster headaches, but the reduced inhibitions weren't good for someone like him. Secrets and lies belonged in the dark, and someone had to keep them there.

For Second's part, she drew a long, determined breath, then let it out in a huff—but she belted her equipment back on. Her fingers brushed against his.

He pulled his hand back, far more reluctantly than was wise.

Third—that was to say, Second, or whatever he had to call her so he wouldn't accidentally get her euthanized by her own family—lifted her chin. "Thank you."

For kissing her—right after telling her outright that he knew she was attracted to him because he reminded her of her native universe's version of him, who had died? Killed himself, from what First had told him.

TamLin didn't care that she loved his alternate. He didn't even care if she wanted to pretend he was that particular version of him. But he liked what little he'd seen of Second-who-used-to-be-Third, more than he'd ever liked Janni, and affection from him could get her killed.

Her clutch's previous Second had just been murdered in graphic example of that.

He asked outright, "You have what, a year?" Until she was old enough to count as a person and maybe they could figure out if they would get along as well as he suspected they would.

She sighed so quietly that most wouldn't have been able to hear her. She drew her legs up under her chin, wrapped her arms around them. "Bit more than that."

She was even younger than he'd thought. "I'm sorry."

She shrugged. "I wouldn't tell if you didn't."