Chapter 5
EMMY’S FACE went hot and her body did something molten and treacherous. “You think highly of your orders.”
“I think highly of your response to me,” he said, and the softness in his tone wasn’t softness at all. It was a pressure. A promise.
He moved then, just enough to close the distance between them, his breath ghosting against her mouth before he brushed his lips over hers—barely a touch, a test more like a claim.
The kiss wasn’t deep, just a heartbeat’s whisper of contact, but it sent heat racing down her spine and left her trembling for more when he pulled back, his eyes fierce and knowing.
She swallowed and busied herself with the monitor. Numbers were better. She let the relief run through her once, quick and clean. Then she reached for the portable water pack, bit off the seal with her teeth, and pressed it to his mouth.
“Drink,” she said.
He did, obedient for once. A drop slid down the corner of his mouth. She caught it with her thumb and then, before she could stop herself, followed the path to his lower lip. His breath hitched. The mark at his wrist flared.
“Emmeline.” Her name in his voice became a line being drawn. His pupils blew wide. Amethyst ringed them in bright fire. “Do not test me.”
She should’ve moved back. She didn’t. The fireflies—if that’s what the shimmering motes were—had gathered at the ragged seam of hull beyond them.
They drifted in glimmering orbits, their light flickering in time to something that was not random.
A curious circle. A watching. She had the wild thought that the planet was holding its breath with them.
“Why shouldn’t I test you?” she asked.
“Because I will kiss you again,” he said, as if it were the simplest answer. “And then I will not stop with kissing. And you will beg me to finish what I start.”
Her breath left her in a shaky rush. The worst part was that he wasn’t bragging. He was stating a fact. The bones of her knees went weak. She’d been brave in a hundred ways since he’d taken her off that platform and into the black. Nothing had tested her the way not-kissing him did.
She didn’t move back. She leaned in.
He didn’t meet her. He held himself perfectly, exquisitely still. The restraint in him became a physical thing, the banked heat of it. He waited until his breath gusted against her mouth and then let his head fall, very gently, to the brace behind him.
“I will not kiss you again while I am bleeding,” he said. “I will take you apart when I do, and I will not have you remember this moment by the scent of blood and smoke.”
A strange, aching tenderness swamped her. She wanted to argue. She wanted to command him for once. She settled for pressing her forehead to his for a single beat. The mark at their wrists burned. The planet outside pulsed in a long, slow wave that rolled across the hull and slid under her skin.
“Fine,” she whispered. “Later.”
“Affirmative.” The word held power. Later wasn’t a vague promise. It was a coordinates lock.
Work gave her something to pour herself into that wasn’t him.
Following his instructions, she sealed the micro-leaks along the corridor, shoring the hull with quick-cure lattice where it threatened to sag.
She secured the first aid kit and the lantern and the emergency air canisters in case the ship shifted again and tried to throw their small shelter into the dark.
She trimmed away the torn insulation that drooped like dead skins from the ceiling.
She burned her palm twice and didn’t say a word about either.
Apex watched her do it, not hovering, not questioning, simply tracking her with that unwavering attention that most of the time was like a weapon and now seemed like a hand on her spine.
“Sit,” he said at one point, and it should have sounded like an order, and it was, but it also sounded like care.
She sat. He lifted his left hand and closed it around the back of her neck, thumb pressing slow circles into the tight muscles there until something inside her let go.
The gesture wasn’t sexual, not technically.
It still made heat collect low in her belly.
When he dropped his hand, her skin missed it so badly she felt a little empty.
Outside, the light shifted. Full dark fell, if the planet had such a thing.
The forest didn’t go black. It simply went quieter.
The colors softened to a deep river of blue and violet with sparks of green running through like fish beneath the surface.
The firefly motes thickened. They hovered just beyond the tear in the hull, drawn in rhythmic arcs that mirrored the rise and fall of breath.
“Do you think they’re alive?” she asked, voice low to match the hush.
“Affirmative,” Apex said. “Alive. Attentive. Curious.”
“They’re not random.”
“No.” He tipped his head, listening. “We are loud to them.”
“Because of the mark?” She rubbed her thumb along her wrist. Heat rolled back at her in answer. “Or because of us?”
“Affirmative.” He looked past her to the light. “The AI was correct.” His voice went quiet. “This world hears us.”
The truth of it moved through her like the first time she’d heard her name from his mouth.
She felt seen. Not as a target or a body or a problem to solve.
Seen the way a living thing sees another living thing and says: Mine?
Friend? Danger? She didn’t know which the planet decided she was.
She only knew it listened. And when she put her hand on Apex, it listened harder.
She shifted closer to him, careful not to jar the splint.
He let her fit herself along his good side, thigh to thigh, shoulder to chest, the binder rough under her cheek.
He was so warm. He always ran hotter than she did.
Right now he was a furnace. The motes brightened when she settled.
The hum outside slipped into a lower tone that vibrated under her breastbone.
“Emmeline,” he said, not a question.
“I know,” she murmured. “I’m not moving. Bite me.”
His breath eased out, the kind of breath that sounded a little like a laugh without being one.
He turned his head and pressed his mouth to her hair.
He didn’t kiss. He simply placed his mouth there and breathed her in like that was allowed.
The tiny contact burned worse than anything.
She clenched her hands to keep from turning her face and taking more.
“Tomorrow,” he said into her hair. “My wounds will heal by then and we will move at first light. We will salvage what we can. We will find water. We will build signal. If Voss follows, we will end it.”
“You plan like we have a week.”
“I plan because we have a future,” he said. “I intend to take all of it.”
The simplicity of the sentence undid her. She pressed closer. The bond throbbed between them, not steady, not calm, but alive. Her heartbeat stuttered, caught, then found his and locked there.
“Emmeline,” he said softly, and she heard the warning in it again. She also heard everything else. The wanting he didn’t bother to hide from her because truth mattered to him more than comfort. “Do not move your thigh like that.”
She froze. Then she did it again, because she was not a saint and he’d threatened to be ungentle and the ache between her thighs had turned thick and insistent.
“Later,” he said, voice rough. “I will make you forget how to say your own name.”
“I already forgot,” she whispered, dizzy from nothing but being pressed against him and the planet looking. “Remind me.”
He let out a breath that might’ve been a curse. His hand closed around the back of her neck again, firmer this time, anchoring her there without pressure. He could hold her this way without hurting himself. She liked that more than she should.
The lantern flickered. The ship creaked. The motes drifted closer until they hovered just inside the torn hull, like cautious birds deciding whether to land.
“Hello,” Emmy whispered to them, feeling slightly mad and not caring. “We won’t hurt you.”
They pulsed once, faint as a heartbeat. Apex’s grip on her neck loosened a fraction, then tightened again as if he’d sensed something she hadn’t.
“What?” she murmured.
“Listen,” he said.
She listened. The hum in the air had braided around another sound, low, layered, almost like voices but not. Not words. A listening that had turned into an answer. Her skin prickled. She wasn’t scared. Or she was and didn’t care. The awe was bigger than the fear.
“Do you think they understand?” she asked.
“They will,” he said. “We will teach them. They will teach us.”
She smiled against his chest despite the smoke and the blood and the ruined ship. “That’s almost romantic.”
“It is tactical,” he said.
“Sure,” she said, and didn’t call him on the way his fingers were stroking the small triangle where skull met spine.
The planet stayed with them through the long stretch that should’ve been night.
When Emmy’s eyes finally fluttered, she woke fast, not because of a sound, but because the rhythm outside changed.
The light tilted toward green. The low hum sharpened and then softened again as if something vast had turned its head.
“Apex,” she said, and his body tensed under her cheek before she’d finished his name.
“Affirmative.”
“Your fever?”
“Controlled.”
She tipped back to look at him. The binder had held. His color was better. His eyes were clear and too awake for a man who’d bled on the floor of his own ship a few hours ago.
“Pain?” she asked.
“Significant.” He said it like weather. “Manageable.”
“Liar,” she said, but didn’t push meds. He knew his limits cruelly well. She’d have to watch him, not his words.
“Listen,” he said again.