I couldn't help the small smile tugging at my lips. Even disheveled and grumpy, she was beautiful.
"What?" I barked at the intrusion.
"Good morning to you too," Cristox's voice filtered through the comm, rich with barely suppressed amusement. "I thought you might like to know that an approaching Alliance vessel has hailed us. They located the compound where your brother was held, buried deep underground on one of Neptune's moons. Xytol will arrive within the hour."
Relief crashed through me in a powerful wave, so overwhelming and all-consuming that for a moment I couldn't breathe, couldn't think, couldn't do anything but feel the weight of it washing over me. My chest constricted, my heart hammering against my ribs in a frantic rhythm. Xytol was alive. After all this time, after all the searching, the gnawing fear that I'd never see him again—my brother was alive and safe.
"Thank the stars," I whispered, my voice rough and raw with emotion, barely more than a rasp.
Harper threw herself into my arms with such force that we nearly toppled off the bed, her lips finding mine in an enthusiastic kiss that landed with a loud, joyful smack. "Oh, Xabat, that's wonderful! I'm so happy for you."
"Yes." I pulled her close, wrapping my arms around her and pressing a lingering kiss to her temple, breathing in her scent, grounding myself in her presence. "Yes, it is."
But even as joy flooded my chest, something darker coiled beneath it like a serpent waiting to strike. Guilt.
After he'd been abducted so many years ago, I'd mourned Xytol as though he was already dead. Searched for him with every resource at my disposal, followed every lead. I'd never forgotten my brother, not for a single moment.
But what would Xytol think when he learned the truth? That while he'd suffered imprisonment in some underground hell, enduring who knows what horrors, I'd claimed the only thing he'd asked of me—the female he'd begged me to find and care for. A female I'd fallen in love with myself.
He'd hate me. In his position, I would hate me too. But I could live with the hate, could bear the weight of his anger and resentment. What I couldn't live with was the idea of losing Harper.
"It will be okay, Xabat," Harper murmured against my chest, as though reading the dark spiral of my thoughts. She kissed me gently, lovingly, her lips warm and reassuring. "Xytol will understand."
"I hope you're right, my love," I said, though doubt gnawed at my insides like a living thing.
An hour later, we congregated on the dock while the Alliance ship completed its landing sequence. The massive vessel settled onto the reinforced platform with a deep, resonant thrum that vibrated through the deck plating beneath my boots. Adtovar and Maddie stood with us, ostensibly to welcome the Alliance crewmen, but I knew they were here to provide support for whatever came next.
Harper pressed close to my side, her fingers intertwined with mine. Her grip tightened suddenly, a wordless signal that prompted me to gaze down at her beautiful face, at the determination etched in every line of her expression.
"No matter what happens, I'm yours and you're mine," she whispered fiercely, rising on tiptoe to press a tender kiss to my cheek, her breath warm against my skin. "Nothing will change that."
"Nothing," I agreed, my voice rough with emotion as I dropped a soft kiss on her lips, savoring her sweetness.
The metallic groan of the ramp lowering drew my attention back to the ship, the hydraulics hissing as the heavy platform descended. The Alliance troop hauler was larger than a standard shuttle. A hulking beast of reinforced durasteel, built for combat and carrying soldiers who had no need for comfort or luxury.
The first male to disembark was a Vaktaire. His massive frame cast a long shadow across the dock as he strode down the ramp. He introduced himself as Chieftain Sawin of the Alliance forces, his voice a deep rumble that carried authority in every syllable. He briefed Captain Adtovar, describing how they'd been able to trace my brother's message—though with considerable difficulty—following digital breadcrumbs through layers of encryption to a compound buried deep on one of Neptune's moons. They'd liberated dozens of enslaved beings—some human, some not—with minimal violence since the compound was primarily a technical outpost, its sole purpose the monitoring and manipulating Earth's internet and technology. They'd taken most of the rescued to planet Calpa for deprogramming and safe relocation.
I was so engrossed in his story that I barely heard the fall of footsteps coming off the ramp.
"Xabat?"
The voice—familiar yet changed, roughened by time and hardship—stopped my heart.
I turned.
My brother stood before me, thinner than I remembered, though his build had always been much leaner than mine. But the familial coloring was unmistakable. The same green skin, perhaps a shade paler than it should be, the same distinctive ridge pattern along his brow, the same purple eyes that mirrored my own.
"Xytol." His name came out strangled, barely more than a rasp forced through a throat tight with emotion.
He moved forward, tentatively at first, as though testing whether I was real or some cruel hallucination. Then we collided, arms wrapping around each other in a fierce embrace that nearly knocked the breath from my lungs, holding on asthough we could make up for all the lost time through sheer force of will.
"Brother," Xytol said, his voice hoarse and cracking. "I didn't think…I wasn't sure you'd received my message."
"I got it." I pulled back just enough to look at him, searching his face for the sibling I'd lost, cataloging every change. "I'm sorry it took so long to find you."
"You found me. That's what matters." He managed a weak smile, but his eyes were already drifting past me, scanning the dock, searching the faces of those gathered.
Searching for her.
