“Val.”
“Not one I’d come back from.”
She closes her eyes. Her shoulders slump.
“Of course they’d send it now,” she says. “Right when we’re hanging by a thread, they’d reel you back in.”
I lean forward, forearms on my knees.
“I haven’t accepted. Haven’t responded.”
“Yet,” she adds.
I nod.
A beat of silence.
“Would you go?”
It’s not a trick question. Not a test. It’s worse. It’s genuine.
I exhale hard. “I don’t know.”
Another silence.
Then she moves—slides off the cot, crosses the space between us, and lowers herself into my lap like it’s the most natural thing in the galaxy. I freeze. She’s warm. Small. Soft in all the places I feel sharp. Her arms wrap around my neck, and her forehead presses to mine.
“If you leave,” she whispers, “do it knowing I won’t wait.”
That cuts.
Deeper than a blade. More final than any bullet.
I wrap my arms around her without thinking, bury my face in the curve of her neck. I breathe her in. Sandalwood. Sweat. Static from the bunker’s shitty air vents.
And I don’t say a damn thing.
Because I can’t promise her anything I don’t know how to give.
But gods help me—I want to try.
CHAPTER 8
RHEA
The hum of the borrowed cruiser isn’t smooth—it’s more like a nervous tic. It rattles low in the floor panels beneath my boots, vibrates through the handrail every time I brush against it. This isn’t a ship built for comfort. It’s a slab of welded lies and salvaged tech, masked as a freighter but armored like a forgotten war god. Valtron calls it “subtle.” I call it suspicious. The damn thing groans every time we change direction.
I’m not sure which will get us killed first—the Combine or the life support system failing mid-flight.
We’re cruising under the nameFrostbite Queen. I didn’t pick it. If I had, we’d be flyingBite Me, Bureaucratsor something equally subtle. Valtron rolled his eyes when I said that, but I saw the twitch at the corner of his mouth.
He hasn’t smiled in hours. Not really. He’s coiled. Wound tighter than I’ve ever seen him.
We haven’t talked about the black-code signal. Not directly. I saw it in his eyes. That haunted heat that’s always followed him like a storm cloud waiting to break. But he didn’t take the call. He didn’t leave. That has to mean something.
Right?
The cockpit smells like old metal, recycled air, and Valtron’s musk. It’s unfair how good he smells. Like crushed amber and something wild—something that doesn’t belong in confined spaces with a woman who’s trying to stay focused.
