Whack.

Sister Superior’s switch made contact with my left cheek, again and again. I cried out, trying to shield my face, but it was fruitless. The good Sister had been beating people a long time. She was good at it.

I closed my eyes. This was the tenth time she’d beat me since I’d been dropped off by my parents after humiliating my family by having sex out of wedlock with a boy from Mars Station. This was to be my punishment for the next five years.

But I had to face facts; I was always going to be alone. Even when this was over, I’d have no family. The switch struck again, and this time I wept.

“Paloma,” a voice called me from my dream, which was really a memory, and I opened my eyes to find Clay eyeing me. He wiped tears off my face. By the universe, had I actually been crying? “Are you okay? What’s wrong?”

Clay was one my fiancés. He and his three brothers Tommy, Quinn, and Keith had proposed to me the day before. It still didn’t seem real. Clay’s sweet face, with his huge blue eyes and high cheekbones, stared down at me from where he stood over my chair. I guessed I had fallen asleep. I rubbed my eyes to try to clear my head.

We were in the kitchen on Tommy’s shuttle. When I’d conked out, apparently head down on the table, we’d all been going over maps to try to figure out the best way to get from where we were to Mars Station without actually engaging in war with their father Garrison Sandler’s fleet. Fighting might be inevitable, but Tommy wanted to exhaust all other possibilities first. The most important thing was making it to Mars Station. Giving Sandler Cartel a pounding could come later.

Or so Tommy kept saying.

I must have closed my eyes. I didn’t even remember doing so. Where were the others? How much time had passed?

“Sorry.” I sat up, straighter. “Completely rude of me to fall asleep like that.”

Clay knelt down. “I’m not worried about you sleeping. I actually don’t remember the last time you did.” The ship shook, and I gripped the table. We were in an asteroid belt, and gravity played hell on Tommy’s dampeners. Sometimes we shook violently, although they all kept assuring me that we were completely safe.

“We were having a meeting.”

He kissed my cheek. “A totally boring one. Tommy needs to face facts. We’re going to engage. I’m more concerned with the fact that you were crying. Are you okay?”

“Memory in the middle of a dream. A rather brutal beating I took at the Sisterhood. Don’t worry about it.”

Anger crossed his eyes before Clay pushed it away. He was the gentlest of the four brothers. I was never sure if that was because he was naturally slower to get mad or if he simply hid it better. I supposed if the universe granted us a lot of time together, I would eventually learn.

I rubbed my cheek. “I took a switch to the face. If not for the med machine, I’d have a brutal scar.” The scars of those days were no longer visible, at least not on the outside.

“Where?” He touched me where I’d rubbed. “There?”

I nodded, and he leaned over until he could kiss me there, over and over. I closed my eyes. This was heaven. This was what I’d thought I’d never have. Warmth infused my body like someone had turned on a heater, and I moaned against him. Clay caught his breath before he resumed his gentle caresses of my cheeks.

We hadn’t had sex yet. I hadn’t been with any of them, technically, yet. We’d had a lot of finger play. I’d certainly discovered the joys of orgasming, but given that I had once told them I wanted to wait until I was married to have sex again, actual consummation of the act hadn’t happened.

I opened my lids and wrapped my arms around Clay’s neck. “Thank you for waking me. It’s a terrible memory.”

I drew him down to me until he straddled my lap on the chair. His breathing was hard, and the bulge in his pants told me all I needed to know about how turned on he was. “Paloma…”

“Hey.” Quinn came around the corner calling out to us. “How can you two be getting it on with the ship shaking like we’re inside a popcorn maker?”

I didn’t really follow him. “What’s a popcorn maker?”

He shook his head. “So many things I’ve got to teach you. This is epic stuff, P.”

“Presumably popcorn is something you eat?”

Various parts of space did have regional food. I hadn’t eaten everything in the universe. Quinn grinned at me, but Clay groaned. “Move on, Quinn.”

“This is a public space. If you want to make out with her in private, go to your room or hers.”

Quinn was being obstinate. It told me a lot—like he’d probably not slept much the night before. Clay pressed his forehead to mine. “More. Later. Love you.”

He hopped off my lap and then adjusted his pants. “Why is the shuttle shaking so much?”

Quinn shrugged. “See? That’s what I’m saying.”

I rose from my chair. I should have been embarrassed being caught in such an intimate moment with Clay. Only, I wasn’t. This was how it was going to be. When we were married, we would all be together, all of the time. They didn’t seem to mind it, and as long as they weren’t going to get jealous of each other, I supposed our marriage would work.

One woman, many men in marriage had been going on a long time. My sister, Amber, had been happily married to three men for years. But the McQueens were a special group—their real last name was Sandler—and they were in a huge fight against their father. They lived under a tremendous amount of stress.

I didn’t want to be another problem they had to solve.

“Let’s go ask Tommy why it’s shaking. Seems like a pretty good place to start.”

Quinn grinned. “Look at her being all logical instead of standing around complaining about the shaking.”

I rolled my eyes and walked toward the comm room. Tommy and Keith huddled together over the control units. A sense of dread filled me. Was the shuttle broken? I couldn’t think of a fate worse than our floating around in a broken shuttle on the edge of where the Sandler Cartel had lined up to attack Mars Station.

We’d be slaughtered.

“How bad?” I asked, and as Quinn came up behind me, he wrapped me up against him like I was a puzzle piece made to fit. He smelled like the soap from the shower. I breathed him in.

Tommy lifted his gaze and smiled at me. “What?”

“How bad is our situation?” I didn’t want them to sugarcoat things for me. If things were bad, they needed to say so.

Clay scooted around us and sat down in the communications chair. “The shuttle is shaking like it’s heard some music and wants to dance. What’s going on?”

The McQueens were full of similes. Popcorn—which I assumed was food—and dancing in relation to the shuttle. They were being downright poetic in their speeches.

“Keith is updating the ship. He’s going to make us less visible.”

I cleared my throat. “How are you doing that, Keith?”

He lifted his gaze. “Do you really want an explanation of the science?”

Keith was a theoretical physicist. “If you think I can understand it.”

“I’m moving us out of phase a little bit. I’m messing with the way our ship refracts light. We’re going to look blurry. It’s why we’re shaking.” He smiled. “I built something last night, and it seems to be working.”

Quinn sighed and dramatically sunk into his chair. “If only Dad had known that you would have been so much more useful to him than me. You could now be the crazy one.”

I rubbed Quinn’s arm. “You’re not crazy.”

“I am. But you love me, so you don’t notice as much as you should.”

Maybe it was just a question of someone’s, or in my case, many someones’ crazies matching my own. I didn’t know why we worked as well as we did.

Keith pointed at the screen. “See? That shadow? Every ship in the nearby vicinity is now looking to determine what that shadow is. But there’s nothing there. While they are looking—we move.”

On cue, Tommy hit the button and the ship jolted forward before he spoke. “The shaking is the light not hitting us appropriately. We can’t keep it up forever. Eventually, we’ll be seen. But hopefully by then, we’ll be at Mars Station.”

I stared at them while they explained. The science was over my head. Maybe it wouldn’t have been if I lived in a fairer world where I could have had more schooling. My missing friend Diana was a genius. She’d probably understand all of this just fine. But then again, she’d been pushed through a black hole and was who knew where at this moment. I sighed. I hoped she was okay.

The four brothers with me—my fiancés—were the smartest men I’d ever known. They were also gorgeous. Thomas, call me Tommy, was the oldest. Blond, blue-eyed, and strong, he’d been born and raised to be the perfect general to lead his father’s fleet in gaining control of the universe. He’d given it all up to save his brother Quinn from the pain their father had inflicted on him. Tommy kept us all safe. He could be rough, particularly verbally, and he always spoke his truth whether I liked it or not. He’d been the most resistant to having me around. Now, however, he made me feel like I was the greatest thing that had ever happened to him.

Long ago, before I had been sent away and his world altered beyond recognition when he’d to save his brothers from his father’s abuse, we’d been scheduled to meet and marry. It turned out to be a small universe after all. Who would have thought we’d wind up together?

Clay, the second oldest, was a lawyer. His hair was slightly browner than his brother’s but blond at the tips. His eyes were the same Sandler blue. He was an attorney who helped those who needed him. His clients didn’t know his identity since he had to stay hidden. I loved his big heart, his romanticism. I was alive because he’d come back to the Sisterhood to see if I was okay after the Sisters beat me in front of him. He was incredibly smart.

Keith and Quinn were twins. They looked an incredible amount alike, but they weren’t identical. I’d never mix them up. They had platinum blond hair and the same Sandler blue eyes as their brothers. Keith’s face was slightly longer and Quinn had a small birthmark next to his right eye. Quinn had to win—pathologically—and that need had meant that when his father created a “game” for him to win when he was young, a game that involved conquering the known universe, Quinn had done as he was asked. It had been many years before he’d realized it hadn’t been a game at all.

Keith was equally as smart, but his brain turned toward physics. He missed teaching and theorizing. These days both men, when they weren’t hiding on a shuttle trying to get to Mars Station, gambled to help support Tommy’s shuttle building empire. Keith only did it because he needed to be there for Quinn. The twin thing.

I loved all of them.

“What’s that look on your face, Paloma?” Tommy didn’t look at me when he spoke. I wondered how he was seeing the look on my face until I saw myself reflected in a monitor across the room.

“What look?” I stood. I wasn’t going to be useful here. Later, at Mars Station I would. I could open doors previously closed to them. I could make the world see they weren’t their father’s sons. Or at least that wasn’t all they were.

In the meantime, my years as a Mars Station debutante followed by unwilling initiate of the Sisterhood meant I could cook, clean, garden, sew, and do all other manner of things that weren’t useful on this ship.

“Just out of curiosity”—I turned to look at the others—“it wouldn’t make sense to travel the other way, right? Avoid this battalion altogether and come to Mars Station from Earth or another direction?”

Tommy shook his head. “Normally? Yes, that would make sense. You’re right. But Ari says the station is under attack. They need us to get there fast.”

He was right. “Just checking.”

“Love you,” Tommy threw out to me before he turned back to his control panel.

I loved him, too. His mind had already moved back to the ship. He wouldn’t even hear me if I replied. I’d have to make sure to tell him later.

Cooking didn’t seem like such a great idea with the ship rocking, so I made my way back to my room. I hated being useless. I hadn’t realized how much I detested the feeling until right that second, but I really, truly did.

I slumped down on the bed. Maybe I would read and try to stay out of the way.

A knock sounded, and Quinn poked his head in. “Want to help me?”

“Yes.” The word was out of my mouth before I even knew what I was agreeing to. “What are we doing?”

He came over to the bed and sat down next to me. We adjusted until I was pressed against him with his tablet in front of both of us.

“Okay, my father is off book, so to speak. He’s following the plan I made for him and also not following it.”

I understood completely what Quinn meant. When I’d been living at the Sisterhood, Garrison Sandler had sent ships to destroy it, which deviated from the plan Quinn had once given him. The Sisterhood had been on Quinn’s original plan, but as a soft target. It shouldn’t have been attacked as early as it had been. Who knew why? Maybe Garrison had wanted a win since the rest of the universe wasn’t giving up as easily as he might have liked.

Quinn’s plan hadn’t taken into account how hard people would fight to keep their homes, how far they were willing to go to keep their families safe. Things went according to his plan—just not as smoothly as he’d envisioned it when he was ten years old. He hadn’t understood the people factor of the whole thing.

A picture of the known universe appeared in front of me on the tablet. Xs and Ys covered certain locations. I pointed at an X. “Is that where Sandler has already taken control?”

“Correct.” His gaze was on the tablet in front of him, and as I watched his pupils seemed to dance, moving back and forth as he studied what he already had to know as well as the back of his hand. “Those targets are gone.”

I only knew because an X covered where the Sisterhood should have been. “Some of them are gone. Some of them you can’t entirely take off the board.”

His eyes stopped moving, and he looked at me. “How do you figure? Sandler Cartel took those spots.”

He wasn’t wrong. “Did they kill everyone there, love?”

I hated to ask him. Quinn blamed himself for every death, and maybe he did hold some culpability. But, it was certainly hard to determine how much, considering he had been a child when he had done this. Sandler had abused him as much as all of his other victims.

“Not in all cases.” He took a deep breath. “They’re taken, colonized. They belong to him now.”

“What about the people who live there? They may decide to at least attempt to take it back. Uprisings and whatnot.” Recorded history on both sides of the black hole showed humanity more than capable of that. The people didn’t always win, but sometimes they tried.

He scrunched up his nose. “I’m not good at that part of it. I’d have to study the human populations of those areas and make assessments, statistical decisions.” He nodded several times, and I didn’t respond. Quinn was having a conversation in his own head that I couldn’t follow. He didn’t need my participation in it. “Thank you for pointing that out. I forgot. The human factor. People protect their homes.”

“There’s that, and they protect their loved ones. If you love someone, you’re willing to die for them.” I brushed his hair out of his eyes. Genetics had really made the four of them so beautiful. It was really unfair. Why couldn’t I have gotten a touch of those eyelashes? “Like you did for me when you came to the ship I was held captive on and killed the bounty hunter.”

Then we had crashed onto a planet, and he really had almost died. “It bothered me more, Quinn, when you almost died than when I did. That’s because I love you.”

Quinn loved fiercely. I’d come to wonder if he really understood his own feelings or gave any thought to the why of it all. He tugged me closer to him. “When I woke up and found you almost dead, I thought that if I couldn’t fix you, that would be the end of all things. The universe could just stop spinning. I wouldn’t care. There was nothing if there wasn’t Paloma.”

I kissed his cheek. “That’s how these people feel. They don’t want their loved ones put in harm’s way. End of story.”

“Right.” He pointed at the screen again. “See the Ys?”

I did. “Sure.”

“That’s what he’s left to hit. He’s attacking Mars Station. So that is kind of an X and a Y. And Earth has to be his last target. There’s no way to take it before he has amassed enough power.”

Earth was a strong planet for sure, but I wasn’t certain I understood his reasoning. “Why?”

“When our ancestors nuked the planet and so many fled to find other places to live, both here and across the black hole, and then the virus made both sides of that black hole stop producing enough females for the general population, we should have been wiped out. We weren’t, and there are various theories as to why. I digress. Basically, those who stayed behind and never left Earth are really, really strong. Sure, some people have gone back to it. It’s the central hub for commerce and people have returned to the blue planet from elsewhere. The point is, the population there? They have more military strength than anyone. And their will to survive is beyond what anyone can imagine. Those are the descendants of people who stayed and fixed a broken planet. My father’s going to need to really have it all together to beat them.”

The ship jerked, and it took me out of my fascination of listening to every word Quinn said. “Ah, wow. I see. Um.”

Quinn kissed my temple. “We’re safe. Keith doesn’t usually blow things up.”

I digested what he said. “Usually? He’s blown up things before?”

“Maybe the less said on that the better.” He pointed at the Ys. “I can’t decide which one he’s going for next. Every time I think I do, I talk myself out of it. I’m not beating myself anymore; he’s too off plan. I know I’m beating him. Still, I can’t decide whom, what, or where. What do you think?”

“Quinn.” I took a deep breath. “I’ve never met your father. I saw him through a viewscreen on that bounty hunter’s ship. Other than that, I’ve seen news reports. I have no idea how he thinks.”

He shook his head. “You understand people. Can you try? I’d like to hear what you think.”

“All right.” I stared at the universe in front of me. There was the Earth Zone, which was the place where I’d been brought up: Mars Station, Mars itself, Venus Colony, hundreds of smaller space areas—all of them were dependent on Earth for trade and survival. If Garrison continued to follow Quinn’s plan at least that far, then he wasn’t touching Earth. Even the Sisterhood, which Garrison had blown up, was on the edge of Earth space. Then there were Sandler Cartel’s holdings. He wasn’t going to attack his own planets. He already had them. The Sandler Cartel had taken them so long ago I didn’t remember when it didn’t belong to them. Tommy leaving the fold was the first time the oldest male had …

The thought dawned on me hard. I sat up, and Quinn followed, staring at me so intensely I could feel his gaze on my cheek. “Did your father have brothers? Or sisters? Any siblings?”

“There were eight of them. All boys.” Quinn tugged gently on the ends of my hair. “Why?”

“You talk to your brothers. You all know each other.” They had sisters, too, but my impression was they’d never met them as they all had different mothers. “Where are his brothers?”

“Two of them are dead—Uncle Colby and Uncle Quinn. I’m named for that one. He was the one right behind Dad in age. They were close. When Quinn died, it changed Dad. I don’t know how Colby died. The other five are spread out all over the universe. Mostly in the dark planets. Dad banned them. I think one of them might be on a mining ship somewhere near Avalon Three. Another one is a pirate, that’s the rumor anyway.”

I grabbed his arm. “We need a new perspective on your father. You guys only know him as Dad. The man who abused you all in different ways.” Emotionally, spiritually, and physically. “We need to know him as Garrison. Who was he? What does he want and why does he want it? How long has he had this need to conquer? Then, maybe, we can make some guesses on what he’ll do.”

Quinn’s tablet beeped, and Clay’s voice came over. “Quinn, can you bring Paloma here, please? I need her to talk Tommy out of what he’s about to do.”

“Sure.” Quinn tapped his tablet to turn it off. “Paloma, you are so brilliant, my love. I never would have thought to even consider his siblings. You’re right. Tommy left the fold to save us. No one knows us better than our family.”

The tablet beeped. “Now, Quinn.” Clay did not sound happy.

“On our way.”

I was glad to be of help. But what in the universe did Tommy want to do?