“I guess we found what we were looking for.” I moved closer to her, pulled her into my arms despite our armor. “Is it Hive tech?” I reached for her datapad and she handed it to me without protest. Confusion tugged at my mind as I looked at the results of her scans. “These things are ancient. They must have beenhere before we built The Colony.” I wasn’t sure if I was trying to reassure her or myself. “I don’t think they’re Hive. Just hold on. Vance will come back for us. We’ll get that data to base, and we’ll figure it out.”
I looked down into her beautiful face. Her gaze met mine. I saw the doubt there. Worry. “What if he can’t fly through that storm? What if?—”
“He’s the best pilot I’ve ever seen. He’ll make it.” Her fear cut through me, exposing every crack and fault line inside. I’d let her down already just by bringing her here, to this dangerous place. I should have told the governor to go fuck himself. Taken Rowan somewhere else. Maybe back to Prillon Prime. Perhaps to Earth? Anywhere but here. The storm’s rage was a living, breathing entity outside the cave, and we were hiding in its belly.
“What if he can’t?” she whispered, her breath warm against my skin. “The storm… it’s too strong. The energy is interfering with our communications. He might not even know where we are. What if we lose him?”
The thought clawed at my gut, but I pushed it away. “He will find us.” I’d felt his determination, his love for our mate. He would not stop until he foundher.
“He should go back to base and wait for the storm to blow over.”
“This storm will not stop, my love. It is growing.” I stepped back, pacing the small cave like a caged animal. The jagged walls seemed to press inward, the shadows shifting with every movement, closing in around us. I could feel her eyes on me, feel her concern. I didn’t deserve her worry, her affection, her trust. Didn’t deserveher.
Rowan must have sensed something through our collars because she stepped closer, her fingers curling around my forearm. Her touch was like fire despite the impenetrable material, searing into my skin and sending a shiver through methat had nothing to do with the temperature. “Marz.” My name on her lips was a balm to the storm’s violent clamoring outside. “You don’t have to lie to me. I know you’re worried, too.”
I let out a bitter laugh, turning away even as my pulse thrummed with the desire to accept the comfort she offered. The cave watched me, judged me, the darkness worse than a mirror, forcing me to face the truth. Memories pushed at the edges of my mind, my past clawing its way into the present. “There was… another mission,” I began, my voice low and rough. “A long time ago, during the war.”
She stayed silent, waiting. Her patience only made the words harder to force out, my chest tightening as the shame bubbled up.
“Perro.” His name had become a curse, heavy on my tongue. “He was my second. My closest friend. He trusted me, followed me into a situation that… was too dangerous. I made a bad call. We didn’t make it out.” I swallowed hard, the guilt as fresh as the day it happened, regret like ash on my tongue. “We were captured by the Hive. And it was my fault.”
Rowan’s hand tightened on my arm, her touch grounding me as the storm raged outside. She held tight, her acceptance and love soaking into the fragmented shards of my heart, pulling the broken pieces of me back together. She had no idea what happened to us. All of us. Vance and the others under my command as well. The torture, the years of loneliness and isolation on The Colony. The rejection by family and friends who could not accept our integrations. The feeling of being worthless, unable to fight, unwelcome at home, helpless to change any of it.
Rowan wrapped her arms around my waist and held tight. “You can’t blame yourself. I’m sure you did everything you could.”
“Did I?” I shook my head, the motion jerky, critical. “I’ve asked myself that every day since. When we came to The Colony,the Hive taunted him. He never got them out of his head. I didn’t notice, too caught up in my own pain. I failed him twice. Failed everyone on The Colony. He betrayed us all. But in the end, he fought like a fucking warrior. Regained control just long enough to?—”
“Stop,” she interrupted, pounded her fist against my chest, her eyes fierce and bright, filled with a compassion I didn’t deserve. “Don’t torture yourself with ‘what ifs.’ You can’t change the past. It wasn’t your fault.”
“He sacrificed himself. I couldn’t save him.”
“He was a warrior. He knew the risks. He made his own choices. He could have told you that he was struggling. Could have asked for help. He chose not to. It wasn’t your failure. It was his.”
Her words sank in, settling somewhere deep, where the pain and regret were intertwined. Even so, I couldn’t let go. “I don’t deserve…” Rowan cut me off again. “Don’t deserve what? Happiness? A mate? A life?” She shook her head. “Is this what you’ve been hiding from me? Is this the darkness I feel when we’re together?”
“Yes.”
She relaxed her fist and slid her hand up to rest against my chest, covered my heart where it hammered beneath the armor. I imagined that I could feel the warmth of her touch seeping through, spreading outward, a contrast to cold reality. “If Perro loved you as much as you loved him, he would want you to be happy, not carry around his memory like poison. Everyone makes mistakes. He didn’t talk to you. Didn’t trust you. That was his mistake, not yours. You can’t save people who don’t want to be saved.”
I stared at her, the weight of my grief and guilt warring with the warmth that was slowly spreading through my chest. I was a male who had lost too much, who had failed too often. I didn’tknow how to be anything else. “Rowan,” I whispered, her name like a prayer, an offering. I wanted so desperately to be the male she saw, to be worthy of the way she looked at me. “You don’t understand. I’m not… I’m not worthy. You should choose another.”
“Neither am I,” she said quietly, her gaze never wavering, the faintest tremor in her voice. “Do you know why I came here? Why I left Earth?” Her voice dropped to a bitter whisper. “Because I was a criminal. A whistleblower, actually. I knew what the company was doing, how they were poisoning the water supply, but I went along, too worried about my paycheck to say anything. When the guilt got to me, when people started getting cancer and dying, I finally exposed what the company was doing to the environment. They used their army of lawyers to frame me for embezzlement. They put me in prison. Made sure I had nowhere else to go. But I deserved their punishment. People died because I waited too long. I was afraid to speak up. I didn’t volunteer to be a bride because I wanted a mate. I just wanted to escape. I don’t deserve you or Vance. You shouldn’t feel the way you feel when you look at me.”
Her confession hit me like a punch to the gut, the air leaving my lungs in a rush. “Rowan…” I reached for her hand and clasped it tightly, as if I could anchor us both with the contact. Her emotions were as volatile as mine, but they reached through my shame and guilt, grounding me in this moment. She did not want a mate when she came here. Did not want to be matched. Did not wantme.“And now? Is escape still what you seek?”
She gave a small, gentle smile. “I didn’t come here looking for true love or some kind of fairy tale ending. I came here because I had nothing left to lose. But then I met you and Vance…” Her breath hitched, her eyes glistening in the dim light, her voice barely a whisper above the storm's echo. “Youchanged everything. I don’t deserve you, but I fell in love with you anyway.”
The world seemed to narrow until there was only her, standing there in the dim light of the cave, her eyes full of truth. Vulnerability. She cut through my defenses, stripped me bare. My heart pounded behind my ribs like it was trying to leap into her hands. “I?—”
She silenced me with three words.
“I love you.”
Fuck. I’d never loved anyone as much as I loved her in that moment. I stared into her eyes and I knew, with absolute certainty, that I was done running. I was done hiding from my feelings, from the possibility of happiness, from a future I never thought I could have. I loved her, completely and irrevocably, and I would do anything to keep her.
I tightened my grip on her, as if she might slip away if I didn’t hold on. The thought of losing her now was unbearable, like losing a part of my soul. The storm outside raged on, as fierce and violent as my feelings for her.
I didn’t know how long we stood there before the faint buzz of static broke through the comm-link. It was distorted at first, cutting in and out, but then Vance’s voice came through, rough and urgent.
