Chapter 9 #2
Light swept the interior of the bloom. It moved like water over stone, like a hush that turns to song.
She drifted back slowly, drawn by his hands, pulled by the steady rise and fall of his chest. He kissed her mouth and tasted of heat and sweetness.
She caught his lower lip between her teeth and he shuddered, the sound that left him quiet and raw.
“Again,” she whispered.
His laugh was breathless. “Affirmative.”
He covered her, body to body, the fit sheer perfection.
He entered her with an urgency that broke into possession, a deep, desperate slide that stole her breath and gave it back in pieces.
She clung to him, one hand at his shoulder and one at the back of his neck.
He moved with a restraint that never quite hid the fire under it.
Every stroke built on the last. Every kiss stole the words she might have said.
“Tell me if it is too much,” he said, barely a whisper.
“It’s perfect.”
His rhythm grew harder. Bolder. The Valenmark kept time like a drum beat.
The petals trembled and the glow climbed.
She lifted into him, taking him deeper, each breath a promise.
He framed her face with his hands and held her eyes while he moved inside her, while the bloom lit and dimmed as if the planet watched and approved.
“Emmeline,” he whispered, and the way he said it unraveled her.
The sound of her name in his mouth turned her soft and fierce at once.
He kissed her again, slow and complete, and when he lifted his head she saw everything in him.
Need and determination. Vow and hunger. A warrior who had been forged for distance choosing closeness as if it were a weapon and a gift.
The climb seemed endless. The summit became inevitable.
She knew the exact moment he lost the last of his control because his jaw went tight and his breath fell ragged and his hands tightened against her skin.
She touched his face. He pressed into her hand like a man taking a blessing.
He drove harder and she took him, opening, matching, giving back everything he asked for and everything he did not know to ask.
Release broke fast and clean. The bond between them blazed white, a fierce bright cord that pulled and held.
Her cry filled the bloom and the flower answered, closing tighter, holding them inside a hush so complete it became the center of their world.
He followed, his body tense and then shaking, his mouth finding hers as if she were air.
Silence followed, not emptiness but fullness. The petals slowly loosened. Light softened. The scent gentled to something like rain on warm leaves.
They lay tangled in the center of the bloom. Her head rested on his chest and his fingers traced slow, idle circles along her spine as if writing his name there. She listened to his heartbeat steady under her ear, that deep, dependable drum that had become the sound she trusted most.
When she could form words again, she spoke into the quiet. “You said soon. Is this soon enough?”
His mouth curved against her hair. “Affirmative. This is soon enough.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. The flower breathed around them. Lume stirred near the top of the bloom and offered a sleepy chirr of contentment. The world outside stayed very still, as if danger stood watch at the edge of the clearing and decided to pass.
Time stretched, soft and warm. They drifted in and out of it, dozing and waking, talking in low voices that kept returning to touch.
She learned the ways he liked to be held.
He learned the places that made her breath catch.
They moved again and again, lazy and curious, finding new ways to say yes without words.
The bloom hid them and rocked them. The planet listened and quieted.
At some point she realized the heat had changed.
Not gone, only mellowed. The scent shifted from honey to something faintly floral and cool.
She rolled to her side and watched Apex with her chin in her hand.
He had his eyes closed. He looked unguarded in a way she had never seen.
It smoothed the hard lines of his mouth.
It softened the set of his shoulders. It made him look unburdened, which seemed impossible for a man who carried centuries in his bones.
“Do you ever sleep in peace?” she asked softly.
His eyes opened. “I do now.”
“You didn’t before.”
“No.” He traced the edge of her wrist where the Valenmark, now a stunning gold and white, lay bright beneath the skin. “I did not.”
She laced their fingers. “Tell me something true.”
“I wanted this from the first moment you spoke to me without fear.”
She laughed quietly. “I was terrified.”
“You were brave anyway.”
They fell quiet again. Outside the bloom, the forest sent a faint ripple through the air, the kind of motion she had already learned to read as a greeting. Motes drifted past like tiny lanterns. One settled near the seam of the petals and blinked as if curious.
Emmy reached with her free hand and the mote hovered over her finger, close enough to tickle. Lume peered down from her perch and made a soft, possessive note that meant this one was theirs. The mote wobbled like laughter and drifted away.
“Does the planet always do this?” she asked.
“Not for all,” he said. “It listens. It chooses. We aligned with it when we aligned us.”
That truth settled into place. The hush. The quieted pulse. The way the flower folded around them like a shield. It was more than chemistry. It was a welcome.
“I think it approves,” she murmured.
“It does.”
She traced his chest, mapping the scars with her fingertips.
Some were thin and pale. One curved over his ribs like a crescent moon.
He told her in a low voice where that one came from.
She kissed it as if she could erase the memory.
His breath stalled. His hand dove into her hair and then gentled, threading through with a patience that made her eyes sting.
They touched again, unhurried. Heat rose in waves and fell to tide pools. They explored and learned. She guided and he listened, and then he guided and she followed, and the circle of it made her dizzy with a kind of joy she hadn’t expected to ever know.
When pleasure crested again it did so like tides, rolling and generous, carrying them both without violence. She loved the way he watched her. She loved the way he refused to look away when everything inside her broke and remade itself.
Later, they lay on their backs with hands linked, looking up through a narrow vee where two petals didn’t quite meet. She could see a sliver of the canopy and the faint suggestion of stars. The bloom flushed low, as if tired in a satisfied way.
“What happens next?” she asked.
“We finish repairing the ship,” he said. “We leave before the drones return. We use our alignment to hide until we can fly.”
“And if they find us?”
“They will not.” His certainty soothed and startled her. Then his mouth tightened. “If they do, I will remove them.”
Her fingers squeezed his. “Both of them?”
“All who come.”
She turned on her side again and studied him. His eyes had gone hard in a way that meant he had already made plans. It would’ve frightened her at one point. It didn’t now. The flower’s heat had sunk into her. The world’s hush had settled in her bones.
“You don’t have to carry it alone,” she said.
“I know.” He lifted their joined hands and pressed his mouth to her knuckles. “I do not anymore.”
“Good.” She tucked herself back against him, head under his chin, leg over his thigh. The fit felt right. The world felt right. She could have stayed there forever in the fold of honey and color and quiet.
Sleep took her without warning. She woke to dimmer light and a pocket of cooler air where the petals had parted a little.
Apex had shifted to brace the opening with his shoulder.
Lume perched above him, her wings slightly spread, watching.
The mote that had flirted with her earlier came back and bobbed near his ear. He didn’t swat it away. He never would.
“Are they gone?” she asked.
“Nothing hunts at the edge now.” He looked down with a soft focus, like being chosen again. “How do you feel?”
She grinned. “Like I fell into starlight and got carried to heaven.”
“Affirmative.” He sounded pleased. “That is how you look.”
She laughed and the bloom gave a bright answering flicker as if it enjoyed the sound.
She pushed up on her elbow and kissed him.
He kissed back with the same reverence he had used all along, as if every touch were an oath spoken in a language only they knew.
Heat curled low and sweet. The world shifted toward it again. They didn’t fight it.
By the time they stilled, the petals had opened another handspan.
Another pale thread of cool air slipped in.
The scent changed again, less honey now, more green.
Lume stretched and shook herself like a cat.
The mote settled on the edge of the petal and blinked three times.
She had learned that pattern. It meant morning somewhere else.
Here, light came in pulses that had nothing to do with time.
“We have to talk about the Valenmark,” she said finally.
“Very well.” He gathered her close. “What is your question?”
“It keeps getting stronger,” she said, glancing at the gleaming mark on her wrist. “The Valenmark keeps changing, pulsing harder every time we touch. We keep getting stronger. Is there a point where it starts to control us?”
“No.” He didn’t hesitate. “We control it. Together. If we do not agree, it weakens. When we agree, it amplifies.”
“Then we need to agree on everything.”
“We need to keep touching.”
Her laugh came out a little breathless. “I can do that.”
“Affirmative,” he said, very serious now. “You can.”
They dressed slowly, helping each other.
Every brush of his fingers made a small thrill run through her.
Every time she lifted his collar or smoothed a seam he watched her with that focused attention.
It felt like a hand closing around her spine, the same fierce recognition she had sensed the first moment he looked at her and decided to keep her alive.
When they were ready, the petals drew back farther, giving them a view of the clearing.
Motes turned lazy circles. The air held that very particular quiet that meant the forest listened and chose stillness.
The wreck lay in shadow, half hidden by coils of vine that had grown since they ran.
The ship looked less broken from here. It looked sealed.
“We go now,” he said.
She nodded. “We go now.”
They stepped to the edge of the bloom and paused. Emmy looked back once. The interior smoldered faintly as if it memorized them. She lifted her hand and the light brightened. Lume chirred approval and skimmed past her cheek like a blessing.
“Thank you,” Emmy whispered to the flower and the world beyond it. The petals shivered like an answer.
They climbed down together, the ground steady. The hush that had wrapped them loosened enough to let the sounds of the forest creep in. A distant drip. The whisper of leaves rubbing. The soft brush of Lume’s wings as she circled and then settled on Emmy’s shoulder.
“Soon,” Emmy said, mostly to herself. “We fix the ship. We leave. We live.”
“Affirmative,” he said. “We live.”
She slipped her fingers into his. He closed his around hers with that sure, quiet energy that had become home. The Valenmark beat once hard enough to make the air spark. The planet answered with a murmur and then went still again, like a great animal lowering its head to sleep.
The Core cut through the hush like a blade. ”Inbound craft. Two ships: Aram Voss and the Head Counselor of the House of Sovereigns.”
Lume’s glow dimmed, and the petals shivered in response. The sky above the clearing flared red, a warning streak tearing across the horizon.
Apex looked up. The red point brightened and held. He didn’t blink. His arm locked around Emmy, pulling her protectively to his chest as the air began to vibrate with the distant thunder of descent.
He didn’t let her go.