Page 42 of Semi-Reckless

“Truly. Please. Have a seat.”

He sat down gingerly, as if he was anticipating his ass burning through the chair before it landed on the concrete. When that didn’t happen, he let out a moan of such pure relief she couldn’t hold back a grin. “Been on your feet a while?” she asked.

He snorted. “Only since I entered this dimension.”

“When was that?”

“Two—no, three—hundred years ago.”

She gasped. “You haven’t been able to sit down for three hundred years?”

He rubbed the back of his neck wearily. “Everything here is just so flammable. It’s easily the most flammable dimension I’ve ever been to.”

So, so many questions. It was kind of hard to determine where to start. Eventually, she decided on, “How many dimensions have you visited?”

“At least a thousand.”

She glanced back at Roan with wide eyes. “Wow. That’s a lot. How many have you seen?”

“Probably only thirty or forty,” he said. “I’m not sure.”

The Kurgan asked him, “This one’s by far the best, am I right?”

“For sure,” Roan answered. “There are some real shit holes out there.”

“Like Nexxus,” he said with a grimace. “Those worm things they have there are disgusting.”

“I’m from Nexxus!”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I swear, the smell of brimstone never comes out of clothes. I had to burn everything I was wearing when I came here.”

The Kurgan gave him a rueful smile. “Not exactly a problem for me.”

Haven’s gaze bounced between them as they chatted like two college kids who found out they’d attended the same middle school. This was not how she imagined this would go at all.

She cleared her throat. “Hey, I hate to interrupt, but I don’t want to keep referring to you as ‘the Kurgan.’ What’s your name? I’m Haven, by the way. And this is my husband, Roan.”

The smile he gave her was so soft it looked completely out of place on his otherwise stern, scary face. “Haven and Roan. Those are nice names.” His smile dimmed when he admitted, “I don’t have a name. On Kurg, my kind are given designations. My designation is…well, I can’t think of an English equivalent.”

She frowned. “What do you mean ‘your kind’?”

“I’m a seeker. Much like … hmmm, let me think…hunting hounds in this dimension?”

“And you seek all alone?”

“Yes.”

Haven was so horrified at the thought of this poor man being sent out, nameless and alone, to a dimension where he couldn’t even sit down or rest without melting things, when dogs in her dimension were often treated like children, that she just sat there, dumbly, mouth agape. So, it was Roan who asked, “What are you searching for?”

He gestured to Haven. “Beacons. Like her.”

She sat up straighter. “A beacon? I’m a beacon?”

“Oh, yes,” he said on a gusty exhale. “You shine like a sun. That light is extremely rare. Typically, there’s only one beacon per dimension.”

Roan nudged her shoulder. “I think he means your aura. Didn’t you say he didn’t have one?”