Tila didn't know how much longer the party next door lasted, but when she saw the storm clouds gathering and pulled back the folding doors that led onto her balcony, it was quiet.

If felt strange to have a new neighbor.

The previous one had done nothing but create unhappiness in the block, complaining and stirring up ill-feeling.

It was enough for Housing to finally move him to a new building, and everyone, but most of all Tila, had heaved a sigh of relief to see the back of him.

And now she had Sergeant Nick Bartega of the Protection Unit. She’d looked him up, found out his rank.

She settled into one of the two big, comfortable armchairs she had set outside. She lifted her feet onto the matching footstool, gripped her mug of jah in both hands, and watched the sky darken from purple to black and the clouds build up until they stretched unthinkably high.

The first zip of lightning set something fizzing inside her. She couldn't help smiling. She burrowed even deeper into her seat, feeling happy, safe, and alive.

She could watch a storm anywhere, she knew, but somehow, here in her apartment high up in Garma's Puzzle, it felt as if she was part of it.

She waited until things started to get really wild, when the wind was howling and the rain started to fall, and then got up and walked to the balcony's waist-high wall. She rested her elbows on it, leaning out to catch some of the raindrops on her face.

A small sound--how she heard it over the roar of the storm she didn't know--made her turn her head to the right.

Nick Bartega was leaning out just as she was, his gaze fixed on her.

She felt a jolt, like she'd been hit by one of the forks of lightning giving a blinding show above.

He nodded to her and she forced herself to nod back, and then he turned his attention back to the storm, and with relief, so did she.

She let herself become absorbed in it like she usually did, and when it moved off into the distance and faded away she sensed him draw back.

When she looked over, he was gone.

She walked into her apartment, closed the doors, and made her way up to the shower, wondering what complications Nick Bartega was going to cause her.

Because beside the fact that his hard, fierce face, and his hard, starkly defined body set her heart racing, he was with the Protection Unit.

She was automatically predisposed to like anyone who worked for the unit headed by the man who'd saved her life.

Not that the Protection Unit was comprised of saints.

She followed every report about them, and she knew they had their small percentage of poor decision-makers and rude employees, like anyone else.

It didn't matter.

The captain who'd saved her had moved from special forces to command the Var Protection Unit, and she respected it for that alone.

He'd acted when his own superiors were prevaricating, using the information the investigative journalist Darline Xan had risked her life to get when she'd managed to find a way onboard the Caliope, the smuggler ship Tila was being held on, to send back footage of the conditions onboard.

Drake had infiltrated the ship with his teams, taking it over in a fierce fight that left two of his officers dead. His actions had sparked a change in tactics when dealing with the smugglers from every special forces team on every planet in the Verdant String.

Within a week, every smuggler ship had been taken.

Captain Drake had rescued her personally, scooping her up from the tiny cell she'd been shut in, carrying her through the ship, his body bending over hers again and again to protect her from laz fire.

He'd been a hero to many, but it felt very personal to her. He'd liberated her, and by his actions, every Halatian on every smuggler ship in the Verdant String, ending one of the most shameful and disturbing episodes in Verdant String history.

The fallout, though . . . that was still being felt.

A recent incident where Halatians were taken hostage on the tiny moon of Cepi had brought home how Halatians still occupied a special place in Verdant String society. One wrapped tight in strings of guilt, shame and protectiveness.

As Tila dried herself off, rubbing at her hair, she recalled the way Nick Bartega had picked up the boxes she, Fari and Jo had literally had to push and shove into the lift as a team, all three of them out of breath by the time they were done.

Nick had lifted them up, one by one, as if they weighed nothing.

It had shocked her, and it had flicked a switch inside her. She'd felt a sudden, sharp stab of lust.

That had just been stoked even higher when it was clear he was desperate to put her at ease, to make it up to her for scaring her half to death.

She got into bed, picked her screen off her bedside table, and flicked it on.

More news about the blasts from this last week. Speculation on who could be behind it, interviews with authorities about the victims.

The media weren't allowed to give details about victims or their families, no matter what the circumstances, but she knew how those left behind were feeling.

She'd lost so many.

After a short introduction by an announcer, Drake, the man she always thought of as her commander, appeared on the screen, speaking about the Protection Unit's frustration at having every lead come to nothing and their determination to bring the perpetrators to justice.

He'd been fifteen years younger when he'd rescued her, and the years had been kind to him. He looked older, of course, but he still exuded the strength and purpose she remembered from one of the most conflicted days of her life.

She wished she could have spoken to him again . . . she shook her head, sharply. No use crying about it now. It was all too late, and he had likely long forgotten her.

A deep rumble from outside made her switch off the screen to hear better, and when a second rumble came, she put her extra pillows on the floor and snuggled under the covers, happy the storm had swung back around.

She went to sleep to the sound of the wind buffeting the windows of her bedroom, and wondered how Nick Bartega was enjoying his first night in Garma's Puzzle.