Swift the Storm, Fierce the Flame


 Contents
 
 Title Page
 Copyright Notice
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Chapter 2
 Chapter 3
 Chapter 4
 Chapter 5
 Chapter 6
 Chapter 7
 Chapter 8
 Chapter 9
 Chapter 10
 Chapter 11
 Chapter 12
 Chapter 13
 Chapter 14
 Chapter 15
 Chapter 16
 Chapter 17
 Chapter 18
 Chapter 19
 Chapter 20
 Chapter 21
 Chapter 22
 Chapter 23
 Chapter 24
 Chapter 25
 Chapter 26
 Chapter 27
 Chapter 28
 Chapter 29
 Chapter 30
 Chapter 31
 Chapter 32
 Chapter 33
 Chapter 34
 Chapter 35
 Chapter 36
 Acknowledgments
 Also by Meg Long
 About the Author
 Newsletter Sign-up
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Guide
 
 Cover
 Title Page
 Dedication
 Chapter 1
 Acknowledgments
 Contents
 Copyright
 
 
 
 Pagebreaks of the print version
 
 Cover Page
 iii
 v
 1
 2
 3
 4
 5
 6
 7
 8
 9
 10
 11
 12
 13
 14
 15
 16
 17
 18
 19
 20
 21
 22
 23
 24
 25
 26
 27
 28
 29
 30
 31
 32
 33
 34
 35
 36
 37
 38
 39
 40
 41
 42
 43
 44
 45
 46
 47
 48
 49
 50
 51
 52
 53
 54
 55
 56
 57
 58
 59
 60
 61
 62
 63
 64
 65
 66
 67
 68
 69
 70
 71
 72
 73
 74
 75
 76
 77
 78
 79
 80
 81
 82
 83
 84
 85
 86
 87
 88
 89
 90
 91
 92
 93
 94
 95
 96
 97
 98
 99
 100
 101
 102
 103
 104
 105
 106
 107
 108
 109
 110
 111
 112
 113
 114
 115
 116
 117
 118
 119
 120
 121
 122
 123
 124
 125
 126
 127
 128
 129
 130
 131
 132
 133
 134
 135
 136
 137
 138
 139
 140
 141
 142
 143
 144
 145
 146
 147
 148
 149
 150
 151
 152
 153
 154
 155
 156
 157
 158
 159
 160
 161
 162
 163
 164
 165
 166
 167
 168
 169
 170
 171
 172
 173
 174
 175
 176
 177
 178
 179
 180
 181
 182
 183
 184
 185
 186
 187
 188
 189
 190
 191
 192
 193
 194
 195
 196
 197
 198
 199
 200
 201
 202
 203
 204
 205
 206
 207
 208
 209
 210
 211
 212
 213
 214
 215
 216
 217
 218
 219
 220
 221
 222
 223
 224
 225
 226
 227
 228
 229
 230
 231
 232
 233
 234
 235
 236
 237
 238
 239
 240
 241
 242
 243
 244
 245
 246
 247
 248
 249
 250
 251
 252
 253
 254
 255
 256
 257
 258
 259
 260
 261
 262
 263
 264
 265
 266
 267
 268
 269
 270
 271
 272
 273
 274
 275
 276
 277
 278
 279
 280
 281
 282
 283
 284
 285
 286
 287
 288
 289
 290
 291
 292
 293
 294
 295
 296
 297
 298
 299
 300
 301
 302
 303
 304
 305
 306
 307
 308
 309
 310
 311
 312
 313
 314
 315
 316
 317
 318
 319
 320
 321
 322
 323
 324
 325
 326
 327
 328
 329
 330
 331
 332
 333
 334
 335
 336
 337
 338
 339
 340
 341
 342
 343
 344
 345
 346
 347
 348
 349
 350
 351
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Begin Reading
 Table of Contents
 About the Author
 Copyright Page
 
 Thank you for buying this
 St. Martin’s Publishing Group ebook.
 
 To receive special offers, bonus content,
 and info on new releases and other great reads,
 sign up for our newsletters.
 
 
 Or visit us online at
 us.macmillan.com/newslettersignup
 
 For email updates on the author, click here.
 
 
 The author and publisher have provided this e-book to you for your personal use only. You may not make this e-book publicly available in any way. Copyright infringement is against the law. If you believe the copy of this e-book you are reading infringes on the author’s copyright, please notify the publisher at: us.macmillanusa.com/piracy.
 
 
 
 For Vanessa, whose friendship always saves me, no matter how thick the jungle or strong the storm.
 
 
 
 CHAPTER 1
 Swift is the storm that rages
 Yet
 Fierce is the flame that shatters the dark
 
 I’m not usually one to push every limit around me, I swear. Being engineered to follow orders, fighting back against authority doesn’t exactly come naturally to me. But when every onboard warning light is flashing and my flyer is heading straight for the eye of a giant storm, I will push against the very laws of physics if it keeps this ship from crashing into the planet’s surface below.
 It’s a simple fight to see who yields first—me or gravity.
 And I wasn’t engineered to lose.
 I shove the controls forward again, trying to get a grip on the flyer’s descent as we plummet toward the planet and the storm that covers an entire third of it. But the ship’s steering is not responding like it should. I growl in frustration because it’s technically not my fault we got shot at by both syndicate bounty hunters and the jump gate authority when we tried to leave the Tundar jump station.
 It’s partially Jens’s and Jori’s fault. My former genopath squadmates, who were posing on Tundar as low-level syndicate bosses, surprised me on the ice planet’s jump station and offered me the intel I’d been searching for, specifically the location of my ex-partner I’ve been chasing across worlds. But anything to do with the twins comes with a price. If my genetics are designed so I can blend in anywhere, these two are engineered to make a profit out of any situation and by any means possible. They’re not the most physically imposing of the genopaths from my former squad, but they are the most devious.
 And I was desperate. So, the twins gave me the intel I needed, intel that’s led me through two jump gates and across the charted systems. But the price I paid was steep; they reported me to Nova, the shadowy