The first hint of a glow embraced the distant horizon. The soft light of morning failed to banish the dusk, leaving the vast plains shrouded in long shadows that clung to shrubs, obscuring the beasts that stalked unwitting prey.

  Raine skimmed a message from Richtor, responding to stay put and grind Superiority until he arrived. Closing the interface, he eyed Mel and Celeste who huffed nearby, catching their breath and restoring their Discipline after sprinting down the most recent stretch of dry road.

  Both were level two already, impressive considering how little time had passed since they left town. After becoming proficient with the use of Discipline for travel, Raine taught them how to activate consumable items. Their speed was further boosted, contributing to the number of enemies they got the chance to fight.

  [Scroll of Travels: (Common Grey) Boosts unmounted traveling speed on roadways by 300% for 2 hours]

  The constant ambushes were a great learning experience. Another reason for their rapid progress in levels was the lack of players distracting them. Raine wore a pout as he scanned the landscape. The last time he spotted a member of Righteous was two hours ago. Before that, they had cleared the road to avoid further losses. Raine had been perfectly content to show them how hiding a few dozen meters away in the bushes was an insufficient strategy. Their discontinuation of donations was disheartening for multiple reasons.

  The free equipment was great, of course. The real issue was that whoever took charge after Froust wasn't nearly as incompetent. It took a sound mind to cut losses and throw away the chance to recover all the gear he’d liberated. Since the two hour window was now closed, they would only get a single random drop from killing him.

  In that same time, his red player status had faded. After the first roadblock, the fools attacked him without hesitation, even when he was the one ambushing them. Not that he would have let being the aggressor stop him from completing the first step of an important achievement series.

  [Achievement for murdering (intended or otherwise) 100 Travelers: Bandit Leader's Earring dropped]

  [Bandit Leader's Earring: (Common Grey - LVL 5) Further reduces generated sound while stealthed by 10%]

  The item was useless to him, but he equipped it anyway since the equipment slot was open. The real prizes would come at ten and a hundred thousand kills. Hopefully, Righteous wouldn't mind helping him with those, too.

  They aren't the kind of guild to let this slide. They’re definitely gathering an elite force to strike when I’m at a disadvantage. I doubt they can kill me, but…

  Mel and Celeste were both watching him intently, easily able to piece together his unvoiced thoughts. Mel opened and closed her mouth three times before gathering the courage to speak, “How long until we reach the next town? I… I don’t know how much more of this I can take.” She took a quaking breath, fear etched across her features, “I keep thinking about dying and having to start all over again.”

  Raine had no intention of letting them die and waste the time he’d already invested, but he sure wasn’t going to ruin their training by telling them that. He grunted, “You’ll either get used to this kind of pressure, or you’ll quit leveling and find a comfy job in a town or city. Our little jog this morning was nothing.” He stopped himself from mentioning how he used to have to travel for days to get to a decent leveling spot. Instead, he pivoted, “Vaateaire is far more massive than Earth. I’m just grateful the roads let us run several times faster than normal, or this trip would take days instead of hours.”

  Celeste was quick to question him, her brain perked to catch his thoughts, “How do you know that? You can’t have seen much of it in so little time, right?”

  A small pebble was launched by his thumb and Celeste threw herself into the dirt to dodge the painful projectile. Raine smiled, pleased with her reaction speed, “If you’re rested enough for questions, then you can run.”

  She growled deep in her throat, dutifully pushing to her feet and taking off down the road, “I hate you so much!”

  Raine appeared right next to her ear, shocking the breath from her lungs, “Good.” His foot was in front of hers before she realized what was happening. She tripped, summoning her staff and digging its tip into the ground. Her back foot pushed off the dirt, sending her body rotating around the weapon. A flying kick propelled her forward and she landed in a spin, already dashing away from him with all her might.

  The smirk she flashed over her shoulder made it obvious she was beyond pleased with herself. Mel tried to race by him in his moment of distraction. His foot flashed out again, marginally slower than before. Expecting it, Mel jumped over with both feet, landing too slowly to escape his follow-up push on her back. She lurched forward, but recovered by flexing her core into a forward roll. She came back to her feet running.

  He caught up with them, handing each a new piece of gear, “Great job, both of you. You’re ready for the next phase.” They groaned in unison, a sound that filled Raine’s heart with bliss, “Ten acrobatics between each boost of Discipline. Since you’re both doing so well, don’t blame me for being impolite.”

  By this point, they were intimately familiar with the sensation of burning two Discipline per minute on the road. Raine often utilized that fraction of a second they had to focus to attack them. Now they would have to perform random acrobatics while he struck at them with his dirty tricks. Their peaceful jog through the early morning had just become a sweat-inducing nightmare.

  Mel’s fears were brought to life when she opened with a forward handspring into a front-flip. Raine kicked her out of the air, sending her crashing to the ground in a heap, “Flex your feet and don’t point your toes! This isn't a ballet studio. Flipping to land on a tree, rock, or wall to attack from a different angle is a great strategy, but if your feet aren’t in position ahead of time, you’ll just end up falling to your death!”

  Mel was wracked with a head-to-toe shiver as she rose to her feet. She bit her lip, staring at Raine’s broad back while he chased after Celeste. Mel could have recovered without wiping out completely, but where was the fun in that? It was a constant struggle to perform a little worse than she could have in the pursuit of hearing his deep, overbearing voice discipline her.

  Each time, her heart raced out of control and her toes curled with delight. Unfortunately, she had to balance her enjoyment against keeping up with Celeste; the girl really was too skilled for Mel’s own good. Not that she minded the extra challenge, as that made each little payoff all the more satisfying.

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  Mel knew it was a miracle Raine hadn’t figured her out yet, and a large part of her wanted him to, just to see how he would punish her. She threw the thought away lest it distract her to the point she failed to spot an ambushing beast. She expanded her vision to include both sides of the road, enjoying the uncomfortable way that splitting her vision tugged at her brain.

  The lurking and unseen predators reminded her of another conflict, this one she was actively trying to ignore. The lies were piling up, and each felt like a fresh corpse rotting on the side of a highway she was barreling down at full speed.

  She hadn’t been honest with him again when she made it sound like she was afraid of dying. The pain of death was nothing. The truth was, she was enjoying herself so much that she didn't want it to end. She was terrified he would really let her die and she wouldn’t be able to hear his chastising voice penetrating into her skull again.

  This, of course, was only the most recent lie, and a fairly harmless one. The big lie was a punch to the gut that never faded for long. Against her will, a memory from earlier that night invaded her thoughts.

  Raine had left her hotel room an hour before. The experience had been something she would never be able to forget, and couldn’t wait to repeat. All the times she’d invaded his mental privacy over the last week were repaid in double as she gleefully fulfilled every desire that popped into his mind.

  Tragically, the encounter came with the downside of guilt that her long shower had been unable to cleanse. Even bringing him joy had been a violation, and she was sinking ever deeper toward a need to repent. By the time Celeste arrived with the headsets, she was near to breaking down.

  When Mel opened the door, Raine’s beautiful, and very famous friend sauntered by with her head held high. Celeste scanned the corners of the large hotel suite, ducked into the bathroom and bedroom, then set down her bags on the couch. Her smooth voice filled the room, “It reeks in here. You two were busy,” Celeste waved off Mel’s embarrassment, “Don’t worry, love. I'm not after that. I only want what's in his head.”

  Mel was momentarily stunned. They hinted around the topic of hearing his thoughts at Romaxillions, but for the girl to so openly admit it was another thing entirely. Mel stammered, “I-I—”

  “Don’t say a word!” Celeste snapped, tapping her ear and looking around the room with raised brows. “Someone is always listening. The only thing I care about is that we don’t get in each other's way. I don’t know what you’re after, and I don’t care so long as I get what I want.”

  Quick as a bolt of lightning, anger rose in Mel’s chest and her upper lip curled back, “That's not right! He’s not some tool for you to use!”

  Celeste rolled her eyes, unbothered by Mel’s outburst, “Oh please, like you're any different. Can you honestly tell me you were never interested in him because of that?” Celeste watched Mel devolve into utter remorse with a smirk, “Didn't think so.”

  “It’s not like that now,” Mel tried to defend herself, but the attempt sounded pitiful even to her own ears.

  Celeste frowned, stalking toward Mel who retreated until her back hit the wall. Strong arms whooshed past her ears, smacking into the plaster on either side of her head. Celeste leaned in, growling, “You better not have any thoughts about coming clean for love, or some utter shit like that.”

  Finding her backbone, Mel locked eyes with the slightly taller woman, “What if I am?”

  Falling back to her smirk, Celeste practically purred in her ear, “Billions of credits were exchanged at that auction tonight and we both know that was only the beginning. The two of us are a liability to him. If he knew… do you honestly believe he would let us live? Why wonder? Ask him yourself. Ask him what he’d do if any one person knew all his secrets, and there was even a chance of them being exposed.”

  Seeing the memory again was the last straw. Mel dashed forward, burning Discipline as quickly as she could to catch up with Raine, “Wait!” He responded to her call right away, looking back then slowing to let her catch up. Clenching her fists tight, Mel blurted out the question, “What would you do if somebody knew all your secrets and they were in danger of being exposed?”

  Raine’s brows lifted and he glanced to the sides for threats as he mulled over the question, “Is this about Vaateaire being bigger than Earth? I told you before, there are things I know that I won’t talk about. Some of those things are dangerous, and others are advantages I would kill to keep to myself.” Mel blanched, the most important word in what he said causing her to nearly come to tears.

  Knowing they needed to have this conversation anyways, and hoping it would soothe her nerves, Raine said what was on his mind, “Whatever you've got going on in that pretty head of yours, I hope you can keep it under control. This thing between us, I like where it's going. But there’s a thick line between our private lives and ZL. Don’t expect me to be nice, charming, or affectionate here. This world is more real to me than the one out there and I take it with complete seriousness.”

  Celeste slowed to listen. Raine didn’t mind. Parts of what he had to say were important for her too. He continued a little louder, “Wealth, influence, fame, power, it's all here, in ZionLine, awaiting those willing to take it. I’m one of those people. I’ll take every advantage and use them to crush anyone who gets in my way. I’ll never give up no matter how bleak the situation looks, and I’ll never stop pushing forward. It’s inevitable that I’m going to piss off some very powerful people. They will find me in the real world if they can, and they will kill me.”

  “That said, neither of you have to be like me to stay by my side. So long as you’re faithful and trustworthy, I’ll accept you for whoever you decide to be.”

  Celeste looked back, shooting Mel a smirk loaded with meaning that Raine couldn’t parse. He ignored it. So long as they kept playing nice with each other, he had no intention of interfering in the social politicking that women thrived on. Sensing they needed a break to reconcile his words, he slowed to a walk.

  Mel was biting her lip so hard Raine was surprised it wasn’t bleeding. The unspoken pause in their training stretched on for several long minutes as she stared into the distance, battling her inner demons.

  Suddenly, her head snapped forward and she looked hard at Raine with a clenched jaw. He met her gaze calmly. With a firm nod, she accessed her interface and started madly typing away at something. Not a minute later, she shot him an updated, and already signed version of their previous contract.

  He scanned the changed contents and his pumping legs naturally slowed to a stop. He couldn’t have torn himself away from the contract if a monster chose that moment to pounce on his head. He shook himself, shocked to his core that she signed such a vile thing, “Do you have any idea what this means for your future? Why would you want something like this?”

  She nodded meekly, her voice a whisper he strained to hear, “Of course I don’t understand it like you do. But I know you made… a lot at the auction last night. I know I could do that too, that I could become strong like you, and so many more things that I can’t fathom right now. Even so, you trusting me is more important than any of that. Besides, I’d only have to give those things up if I break this contract, break your trust, which I never will.”

  Raine opened his mouth to respond but her finger landed on his lips. She pressed on, gaining more confidence with each word, “There are things about you I have to accept without knowing, right? Well, this is something you have to accept about me. This is what I want, and if you don’t sign my contract, then we won’t work.”

  She was a little too smug while throwing his words back in his face and Raine couldn’t bring himself to care. He read over the contract one last time, his heart torn by the hellish future he had lived through, “Mel, how am I supposed to accept you becoming my slave?”