Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
SELENE
Iburst through the hotel’s front entrance at a full sprint, my lungs already burning. The landing zone sprawls ahead—a massive expanse of reinforced concrete that suddenly feels like it stretches for miles.
In the distance, the shuttle’s boarding ramp is already beginning to retract.
No. No, no, no.
Somewhere on that shuttle is Khatak, and if I let him leave thinking I hate him, thinking he was nothing more than a mistake—
My feet pound against the ground, hair whipping loose from my ponytail. The shuttle’s engines begin their pre-flight whine. That distinctive pitch that means I’m already too late.
The landing zone is a maze of obstacles—cargo crates, abandoned luggage, a family of Nakar blocking the main walkway.
I dodge right, vaulting over a low crate.
My hands catch the edge, and for one terrifying second I think I’m going to face-plant.
But momentum carries me through, and I stumble forward, barely keeping my feet.
“Excuse me! Sorry! Coming through!”
The boarding ramp is halfway up now, moments from closing completely. Through the narrowing gap, I can see figures moving inside—passengers, crew members.
Is one of them Khatak?
I’m not going to make it.
But I don’t slow down. Can’t slow down.
This is it. Either I make this, or—
I launch myself forward in a desperate leap, arms outstretched.
My fingers close around the edge of the ramp.
The metal is cold and smooth under my palms, vibrating with the shuttle’s power. My body slams against the angled surface, and for one horrible moment my grip slips. My fingers scrabble for purchase, nails scraping against metal.
No. Not after coming this far.
Muscles in my arms and shoulders burn as I cling to the precarious surface. The ramp continues rising, carrying me with it. My legs dangle in the air, feet kicking uselessly at nothing.
This seemed a lot more heroic in my head. In reality, I’m pretty sure I look like a demented cat trying to climb a wall.
I’m not athletic at all. It’s a miracle I’m still holding on. In retrospect, this was a really stupid plan. If this mad dash and desperation could even count as a plan.
“Help!” The word tears out of my throat, raw and desperate. “Somebody—”
Hands close around my wrists.
The touch, both firm and careful, sends recognition singing through my nervous system before my brain fully processes what’s happening. I know these hands. Know the warmth of them, the careful way they hold me like I’m something precious and breakable at the same time.
Khatak.
His grip anchors me as he hauls me up and through the rapidly closing gap.
We tumble through the entrance in a graceless heap, landing on the shuttle’s deck in a tangle of limbs. The ramp seals shut behind us with a pneumatic hiss.
Arms wrap around me, pulling me upright and against a solid chest. The scent hits me first—warm and musky with that distinctive spice that I’ve come to associate with safety and home and Khatak. His skin is feverishly hot through his clothes, his heart pounding just as hard as mine.
I don’t need to look up to know it’s him. Would know him in the dark, would know him in a crowd of thousands. Everything about him is familiar now—the careful way he holds me, the slight tremor in his hands that says he’s just as shaken as I am, the way his tail wraps protectively around my leg.
A sob tears out of my throat before I can stop it. Then another. My hands fist in his shirt, clinging to him like he might disappear if I let go. He nearly did.
“Selene.” His voice breaks on my name, rough with emotion. “You’re hurt. Where—tell me where you’re hurt.”
His hands move over me, checking for injuries with increasing panic. Gentle touches, looking for broken bones or bleeding or any sign that my absolutely insane boarding maneuver has caused damage.
“I’m fine,” I manage between sobs. “I’m not hurt, I’m just—“
Another sob cuts me off. I can’t seem to stop shaking, my whole body trembling with the aftermath of adrenaline and fear and relief.
“You’re crying.” He sounds utterly lost, like finding the solution to this problem is beyond anything his military upbringing taught him. “Selene, please. Tell me what hurts.”
“Nothing hurts. Well, everything hurts, but that’s not—“ I hiccup, the sound embarrassingly loud in the shuttle’s interior. “I’m sorry.”
His hands still. “Sorry?”
“I’m so sorry, Khatak.” The words pour out in a rush, all the things I should have said hours ago tumbling over each other. “I was wrong. About everything. About you.”
“Selene—”
“No, please. Let me say this.” I pull back just enough to look up at him, and the expression on his face nearly breaks me all over again.
He looks stunned. Completely, utterly bewildered. Like I’ve started speaking in a language he doesn’t understand.
“I assumed the worst,” I continue, my voice still hitching with barely-contained sobs. “I assumed you were using me, that everything between us was fake. And I didn’t even give you a chance to explain. I just... I jumped to conclusions because I was scared.”
His dark eyes search my face, those amber flecks catching the shuttle’s interior lights. “Scared?”
“I was abducted.” The confession comes out barely above a whisper. “Months ago. Taken from Earth by aliens who didn’t care that I was a person, who treated me like cargo. I woke up on a ship with no memory of how I got there, no control over anything.”
His jaw tightens, and I can practically hear his molars grinding together. I don’t give him a chance to interrupt; however, if he does, I doubt I’ll be able to keep talking. I have to get this out. I have to share this with someone. With him.
“I’ve been terrified ever since,” I admit. “Terrified of losing control again. Of trusting someone who might have hidden motives. When I found out about your reason for being at the hotel, about Rist, it felt like proof that I was right not to trust. That everyone has an agenda.”
“Selene.” He says my name like a prayer, or maybe a plea.
“But I was wrong. Everything you showed me, everything you were with me—that was real. You didn’t hide who you were. You were honest about everything that mattered.” Another hiccup escapes me. “I’m the one who didn’t ask the right questions. I’m the one who assumed things instead of communicating.”
His hands come up to cup my face, thumbs gently wiping away tears. The gesture is so tender it makes my chest ache.
“I shouldn’t have kept my mission from you,” he says quietly. “You deserved to know why I was really there. I just... I thought if you knew I was only there for political reasons, you wouldn’t want anything to do with me.”
“Only there for political reasons?” I let out a watery laugh. “Khatak, you stayed with me instead of going to your meeting. You chose me over your mission.”
His skin darkens to that deep burgundy flush I love. “I did.”
“Why?”
“Because being with you mattered more. You matter more.” He says it simply, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world. “You make me feel like maybe I am enough exactly as I am. Not as a diplomat, not as a warrior, not as anything except... me.”
Fresh tears spill down my cheeks, but these ones don’t hurt. “You are enough. You’re more than enough.”
He stares at me like I’ve just told him the sky is green or gravity has reversed. Like the concept is so foreign he can’t quite process it.
“I love you,” I tell him, because the words are right there and I’m done being afraid. “I love you exactly as you are. I love the way you flush when you’re embarrassed, the way your tail gives away everything you’re feeling. All of it. I wouldn’t change anything at all about you.”
“How?” The word is barely audible. “How can you love me after—”
“After you showed me who you really are? After you trusted me with your vulnerabilities? You were so honest with me, even when it didn’t benefit you.
You were genuine and caring and perfect,” I say, my mind thinking back to those moments like when he screamed in the haunted house. “That’s exactly why I love you.”
He crushes me against his chest, his face buried in my hair. I can feel his whole body shaking.
“I love you so much,” Khatak groans into my neck, his words hot against my skin like they’ve been dragged from somewhere deep inside of him. His heart.
“I never want to leave you, to be apart from you,” he admits. “I’d do anything for you, Selene. I’d give anything to make you happy. Even if it meant being apart from you.”
I lean back enough to stare up at him, his determined face blurry through my haze of tears.
“I know,” I tell him, cupping his cheek. Because I realize that now. He was willing to give up on his own happiness for mine.
Reaching onto my tiptoes, my arms sliding around his neck and threading through his hair, I angle my mouth on top of his and kiss him. It’s not hard or fast or desperate. It’s soft and tender and all my emotion goes into it. My hopes and dreams.
And all the while, Khatak holds me like I am precious. Like everything I’m giving him is something worth treasuring.
We stand there, clinging to each other in the middle of the shuttle’s corridor, probably looking like absolute disasters.
My hair is everywhere, my face is tear-stained, and I’m pretty sure I have bruises forming on my shins.
Khatak’s shirt is wrinkled from where I grabbed it, his careful composure completely shattered.
We’re perfect.
“Excuse me.”
We break apart to find a crew member standing a few feet away, looking distinctly uncomfortable with having to interrupt this moment.
For a moment I start, thinking that I am looking at another human.
But then I notice his wings behind him, large feathered appendages folded against his back and trailing down to graze the floor.
An angel. All he’s missing is the freaking halo.
Maybe I’ve died and gone to heaven. Hearing Khatak admit his love for me… maybe I have.
The angel’s expression is apologetic.
“I’m very sorry,” he says, “but we can’t delay takeoff. We have a departure window to maintain.” His gaze shifts to me. “Ma’am, I don’t have you registered on the passenger manifest.”
Right. Because I just jumped onto a departing shuttle without a ticket, without luggage, without any plan whatsoever.
I’m an idiot.
“Oh, right. I’ll…” Panic starts to rise in my chest. After everything—after chasing him down, after finally getting him back—I’m going to have to leave anyway.
But maybe Khatak will agree to stay with me? Just maybe he cares enough for me to put his entire life on hold and just… stay?
I really didn’t think this through. Not the immediate future. But I believe we can still make this work. I can handle a long-distance relationship, even if he’s on the other side of the galaxy.
“The boarding ramp has closed… you can’t actually leave on the shuttle.” The angel continues to explain.
I blink at him. “I can’t leave?”
“I’ll take care of it,” Khatak says firmly. His arm tightens around my waist. “I’ll pay for her passage, arrange for accommodations, whatever she needs.”
“Khatak, you can’t just—“
“I can.” He looks down at me, and the determination in his expression takes my breath away. “I will. Whatever it takes, Selene. I’ll figure it out.”
“We’ll figure it out,” I correct. “Together.”
“We’ll get you home soon enough,” he tells me.
“I’m already home. If I’m with you, that is.” I reply.
“But the hotel. Your friends.”
“Are all going to be there when we get back.” I take a shaky breath, forcing myself to say the words even though they terrify me. “I’m scared, Khatak. I might always be a little scared of losing control, of not knowing what’s going to happen. But I want to face that fear. With you.”
“With me?”
“You’re going home to save your family, right?
Let me help. Let me be there for you the way you’ve been there for me.
” I manage something close to a smile. “Besides, I figure this counts as the ultimate trust exercise. Leaving everything behind, stepping into the complete unknown, surrounded by aliens I don’t know. ..”
“Selene—”
“I trust you to guide me through it.” The words come out with absolute certainty. “I trust you to help me understand what I need to know, to keep me safe, to be honest with me. I’m choosing this. Choosing you. Choosing us.”
He stares at me for a long moment, and I can see the war playing out in his expression. The part of him that wants to protect me from anything scary or difficult, fighting against the part that’s hearing what I’m actually saying.
I’m not asking him to make this easy. I’m asking him to let me choose it anyway.
“Together?” he asks finally, his voice rough.
“Together,” I confirm. “As a team. As... whatever we are to each other.”
“Mates,” he says immediately. “If you’ll have me. If you’ll accept—“
I kiss him.
It’s not graceful or elegant. We’re both still shaking from everything that just happened, and my face is probably a mess of tears and determination. But it’s real. It’s a choice.
It’s us.
When we finally break apart, the crew member has tactfully retreated down the corridor, though I can see him talking quietly into a comm device. Probably arranging my accommodations while giving us a moment.
“Well,” I say, slightly breathless. “I guess we’re doing this.”
Khatak’s laugh is watery but genuine. His tail curls around my calf, the tip twitching with what I now recognize as happiness. “I guess we are.”
The shuttle’s engines pitch higher as we begin to take off. Through the small windows, I can see the hotel growing smaller in the distance. My home for these past months, the place where I built a new life after everything fell apart.
I’m leaving it behind.
The thought should terrify me. Maybe it does, a little. But mostly I feel... free.
Because I’m not running away this time. I’m not being taken against my will. I’m not losing control.
I’m choosing.
Choosing Khatak. Choosing growth. Choosing to face my fears instead of letting them define me.
And for the first time since waking up on that ship months ago, surrounded by aliens and terror and the loss of everything I knew—
I’m not afraid.
Well. Not completely afraid, anyway.
Because I’m not facing it alone.