If she wakes now and regrets any of it, I’ll die. Not by her hand. Not by the fungus. But from the simple reality that I would never forgive myself for believing I deserved it.
But that’s fear talking. The old voice. The coward’s whisper.
The truth?
I feel rewired.
Every part of me is still Odex. Still massive and battle-worn and dangerous. But something in my blood has shifted. My instincts still scream to protect her, to stay between her and every blade in the galaxy—but now there’s somethingelseunderneath.
A need to beknown.
She did that. With her eyes. Her touch. Her voice when she said, “Don’t stop.” With the way she didn’t look away after the first kiss, or the second, or the hundredth.
She made me feel like more than just what I’ve survived.
She made me feelwanted.
I reach up slowly, careful not to wake her, and brush a strand of hair from her cheek. Her skin is still warm from our closeness, flushed faintly pink under the fire’s fading light. I could look at her for hours.
No one’s ever touched me the way she did. Not just the way her body moved against mine—but the way she looked at mewhileshe touched me. Like every scar told a story worth hearing. Like I wasn’t ruined, just waiting to be read.
I shift slightly, adjusting the blankets to keep her covered. The movement draws a soft sigh from her, and her fingers twitch in my hair, but she doesn’t wake. She just nestles in deeper.
Mine.
The word doesn’t come from my mind. It hums from somewhere deeper. The bond that snapped between us when she said my name like a vow. It’s not a chain. It’s not even a tether.
It’s gravity.
And I know—if she asked me to leave this planet, to board a ship and face a thousand armed soldiers, to march into hell itself—I would.
Not because I’m brave.
Because I can’t be apart from her now.
Jillian is the truth I didn’t know I needed.
The storm has passed. The world is quiet. But inside me, there’s a hum—a new current, electric and endless.
She begins to stir, finally. A soft, sleepy hum at first, then a shift of her shoulders, a stretch of her legs. Her hand tightens once more in my hair before sliding down to rest over my chest.
I don’t breathe. Just wait.
Her eyes blink open, slow and drowsy. They find mine, and she smiles.
Gods help me, shesmiles.
“Hey,” she whispers.
“Hey.”
She traces lazy circles over my chest. “Didn’t mean to pass out on you.”
“I didn’t mind.”
She looks up at me fully then, eyes clear, no regret in them. Just warmth. Something glows in my chest.
“You stayed,” she says, voice barely audible.
