Chapter 62
A moment of silence.
Everyone had left some time ago, but Wyn and I remained on the observation deck.
He was sitting between my legs as we simply looked at the stars around us—the stars my parents now inhabited.
I curled my arms even tighter around Wyn, and he leaned his head to the side for me.
I rested my chin on his shoulder, pressing a quick kiss to his neck before returning to my observation.
We hadn’t spoken, which was a relief. In fact, no one had expected me to speak or respond to their kind words, also a relief.
I had no words. How was I supposed to sum up the tumultuous emotions raging through me?
They were too broad, too encapsulating, and too much to even form thoughts about them.
I was rage. I was sadness. I was grief. I was hurt.
I was disbelief. I was fear. I was numbness.
I was emptiness. I was all of these things and none of these things.
I was more than this and less than this.
I had no idea what I was or what I felt.
None of the serenity I’d used to be able to summon, at least to form a mask, was nowhere to be found.
My future… It wasn’t bleak or mysterious—it would go on much as I had hoped and planned—and yet it felt so empty without my parents beside me. So much that was yet to come they would never witness, and knowing that broke my soul.
Also, I couldn’t deny the simmering anger in my gut at my father.
He had known. He had known for years when his end was to come, and he’d never said a single word to me.
He’d let me leave his side when he’d known he wouldn’t be there when I returned.
And yet if he had told me, would Wyn and I be together now?
I clutched my mate closer and nuzzled his neck.
It wasn’t possible for me to say I would trade my parents’ last moments on this plane of existence for Wyn, but it was equally impossible to think of giving up Wyn to experience those moments.
The past couldn’t be changed or unwritten, as much as I might wish to think on it.
I hadn’t been there when they left; I couldn’t ever change that.
But I was here right now, with Wyn, and for that, I was grateful.
Wyn dragged his finger tips, claws scraping, over my arm as he stared at the stars around us.
It didn’t seem to be a deliberate move, more as if he was touching me without thought as we stared at the endless light from the distant stars.
I couldn’t stop the small smile that formed on my lips.
At the beginning of this journey, Wyn had fled from me basically whenever I looked at him, and now, he was so used to touching me and being with me he did it without thought.
The happiness I felt with my mate twisted in my gut like a hot coal.
How could I be happy when my parents had just died?
Any good emotion felt like a betrayal to their memory, and yet I couldn’t exist in a perpetual state of mourning.
It wasn’t possible. But not to mourn them, not to feel this all-consuming grief, made me feel as if I was forgetting them or putting them away in storage.
“Star,” Wyn said, his voice breaking the panic in my mind. “You need not hold me so tight. I won’t leave.”
In an instant, I realized I was basically strangling Wyn. “My apologies, Mate.”
He lifted my hand to his mouth and placed a gentle kiss to my palm. “None are needed.”
The soft touch sent tears to the backs of my eyes.
I wanted to scoff, but my throat was clogged with emotion.
Everything felt so much stronger than it had only days ago, as if I was hyper aware of every sensation.
My emotions swung on a pendulum, changing so fast I couldn’t say what I was exactly experiencing. I hated it.
“This may be unfair to ask,” he started, hesitation lacing his every word, “but are you well?”
The burn in the backs of my eyes turned into an inferno. I forced out, “No.”
“Is there any way I might be able to help?”
“Be with me.”
Wyn gave the smallest chuckle. “I will be nowhere else but beside you.”
When I didn’t—couldn’t— respond, he turned in my embrace, going on his knees, and faced me. His fingers played with the long strands of my hair, and I closed my eyes, leaning toward him until my forehead rested against his.
“Oh, my Monqilcolnen,” he whispered, his breath rushing over my lips.
“I wish to help, but I don’t know how. I have never experienced grief as you are now.
My life hasn’t been one to foster that kind of love, and while I cared deeply about your parents, my grief cannot measure up to yours.
So I don’t know what to do. I feel helpless right now. ”
“Wyn—”
“Not that you should be trying to comfort me,” he interrupted me. “That isn’t fair to you or something I expect. But if there is something that would make you feel better, please tell me. I want to do whatever I can to make you feel better.”
“Nothing can take this pain away.”
“I know.”
“But I need you to stay safe beside me,” I said, pressing my lips against his for the barest moment. “I could not live through you being harmed. I wouldn’t want to, even if it was possible.”
“I will endeavor to not be injured, then,” he replied, and I chuckled lightly at his earnest tone. “You know that you can talk to me about what you’re feeling, though, right?”
“I know.” I just wasn’t sure how.
“You don’t have to, but I will be here.”
I nudged up his chin to slot our mouths together in a slow kiss. “It’s not that I don’t wish to speak to you, Wyn. It’s that I don’t know how. I am feeling so many things that trying to decide what to talk about is like trying to fasten the wind to the ground. It is impossible.”
“I won’t try to make you,” he said against my mouth, “but I want to help somehow.”
“You are.” I wouldn’t have survived this without Wyn. My soul froze. Was that why? Had Father not told me so I would survive with my mate? I shook my head, my forehead dragging over his and releasing the blooming scent of my mate. The reason mattered not. “I wouldn’t be here without you, Peace.”
He took a shuddering breath. “If you need something from me, please tell me. I wish to be as much assistance as I can be.”
A smile grew at his words. “And I shall.”
Cupping my cheeks, Wyn said, “Shall we return to our quarters?”
I adored them being ‘our’ quarters. “Yes.”
Wyn stood, then pulled me up before wrapping an arm about my waist. With our tails interlocked, we headed back to our quarters, not speaking.
My hands shook as I put on my uniform. Wyn fastened it, giving me a soft smile.
It had been a week since the spreading of my parents’ ashes among the stars, and it was time for me to return to my duties.
Talvax had been understanding about my grief as well as my need to have Wyn beside me, but the Admiral Ven was getting worse with every hour that passed.
Wyn and the other engineers had been able to slow the progression, but they hadn’t halted, let alone reversed, the damage.
As far as I could tell, Talvax hadn’t made amends with Urgg, which was causing her even more stress.
Wyn had told me Urgg was doing better and was leading morale improvement for the civilians on board.
That was desperately needed. All civilians had been relocated to the promenade, where they would stay for the remainder of the trip to the Drakcon station we were limping to.
The most soul-crushing aspect of NAID losing control was the slowly dying plants.
NAID regulated watering of every plant on board, but it couldn’t anymore.
The gardeners were trying to save as many as they could, especially because we needed the plants to produce oxygen and scrub carbon dioxide from the air.
“It will be fine,” Wyn said, smoothing a hand down my chest. He looked up at me with his crystal blue eyes, and my instincts fought against leaving him. Ever.
“I can’t do this,” I replied, drawing him close and rubbing my forehead on his to scent mark him. I needed to go back to work, but what if something happened to Wyn the moment he was out of my sight? I had to protect him. I had to.
“You can.” He went up on his toes, hands balanced on my shoulders, and pressed a kiss on my lips. He didn’t linger, nor allow me to capture him when I chased him. “I know you can, and you must.”
He was correct of course. “Wyn.”
“No, Star.” He rested his fingers over my lips. “It is time. Neither Jemtonkilsol or Dilvonsil would want you to stop living. This, going back, doesn’t mean you’re not mourning their loss or missing them.”
It wasn’t my parents’ deaths that was making me hesitate to leave this morning. It was fear.
“I will see you at the middle hour. We’ll have lunch together.”
“I would like that.”
Wyn looked at Cincin, who was sitting in front of her bowl, screaming. She had been fed, but not as much as she desired. I moved toward her, but Wyn stopped me with his tail blocking the way. “She doesn’t need more.”
“She’s hungry,” I protested.
Cincin yowled, kicking the metal dish with her white-tipped paw.
“She is not hungry,” Wyn said. “She’s just used to you feeding her whenever she wants.”
With her golden eyes on me, she let out a mournful meow, and my soul clenched. “Wyn,” I moaned, my eyes flicking to the dispenser.
“No.” He crossed his arms.
Her cries were growing more pathetic, and Cincin never looked away from me. Each one made my soul break.
Wyn frowned and picked Cincin up. She glared at him but didn’t protest. “I’m going to take her with me. This way you can’t be bullied into feeding her more.”
“Thank you.” I kissed his cheek, and he smiled.