Chapter 26
SANTIAGO
Back onboard The Sombra, Santi scarcely registered the gentle, persistent pressure of Miral’s hands as she guided him to his cabin by the lake.
Once inside, she tucked him into bed with a thermal blanket over him.
She gave him a neural calming shot and stayed by his side until he fell into a dreamless sleep.
The next day bled into the following one, and the one after that, yet Santi never left his quarters.
Sometimes, a flicker of restlessness would take him, and he would shuffle to the cabin’s terrace, slouching deep in a deck chair.
Where he stared out at the black, endless expanse of stars, their light mirrored in the still, glassy lake water below.
Other times, he couldn’t muster the effort to move at all.
He just lay on his side, his breath shallow, his eyes dry and burning from too many hours of unblinking, agonizing thoughts.
Night would fall, and dawn would rise again, and still he rooted in the same spot, refusing to shift or acknowledge the rotation of the ship.
The food dispenser chimed obediently at scheduled intervals.
Yet, the nutrient plates it disgorged remained untouched, their gleaming surfaces a testament to his neglect, until they shimmered back into the processor.
He hadn’t spoken a single word since Miral helped him off the Bruto’s deck.
He told himself, with a bitter certainty, that he deserved the suffocating silence.
In the dark isolation of his mind, he recalled his last argument with Soleil.
Over and over, on an endless loop in his neural node, each remembrance carved guilt deeper into the pit of his chest.
He replayed the way she’d gazed at him, like he’d ripped the stars from her sky and crushed them in his fist.
He felt like the cruelest, most unforgivable bastard in the galaxy, accusing her, belittling her truth, and doubting her intentions.
Yet, in the end, she had still saved him; she had still thrown herself into the fire for him.
I will never love another again, he thought bitterly, grinding the heels of his palms into his eye sockets. I’m terrified because I break the people I care about.
His comm tab buzzed once, an old reminder, nothing urgent, but the sudden sound made him flinch.
He opened it, and his breath seized in his throat as his screensaver blinked to life with an image: Soleil laughing at the lake.
Her hair tousled from the wind, her eyes bright with unfiltered joy.
That smile, the one she only ever gave to him, played on the edges of her lush lips, tearing through his defenses.
He stared at her until his vision blurred with unshed tears.
With a muttered curse, he tried to delete the visual.
His thumb hovered over the trash icon for a full, torturous minute before his hand dropped away, defeated.
He couldn’t do it.
Fokk, he thought, the truth a raw knife twist in his gut, I still love her. I miss her, I ache for her.
But none of that desperate craving erased her final, haunting glance, hurt and defiance wrapped in heartbreak.
That single look pierced him, burning itself into his soul as a permanent mark of failure.
He buried his face in his hands, letting the memory crush him.
Fokkin’ hell, he missed the scent of her skin in the morning.
Also, her crooked smile at him while folding clothes, the dry humor that always got him chuckling.
He yearned for her familiar weight on his chest, her heated exhales against his nape during their lovemaking, and the gliding touch in his hair that always undid him.
She had been warmth, a sense of belonging, the overwhelming realization that she was his only home.
Now, his world was cold, empty, fokkin’ meaningless.
He curled into himself, grief a raw, gnawing animal in his gut, tearing at his sanity. Be strong, he commanded his aching spirit.
She’s gone. You have to be brave.
But his next breath hitched, and a whisper, piercing and broken, escaped his clenched jaw.
‘Holy fokk, it burns.’
MIRAL
A crescent moon hung above The Sombra’s lake, painting pale trails across the water.
Miral stood at the steps of Santi’s terrace, eyes on the agitated man before her.
She’d kept a close watch on him as he unraveled in silence for days.
Now, his grief was exploding outward.
Faced with his rage, a drunken, roaring spectacle on the beach, she took the liberty of summoning Kaal and Xander.
The pair emerged from the trees lining the lagoon.
The CO locked gazes with Miral, who shrugged.
He needs your pack power to knock some fokkin’ sense into him.
They approached their anguished mate as Santi paced the sandy fringe outside his cabin.
He was barefoot, half a flask of grappa clutched in one hand, the other clenched into a trembling fist.
His shirt hung open, his chest rising and falling in jagged, uneven ripples. His spectral markings flickered beneath his skin, wild, erratic, and unstable.
He was unmoored in grief.
‘I should’ve saved her,’ he muttered, voice cracking with venom. ‘I might’ve. But I blinked like a fool, fokk, I waited, wanting to face off with Varnok and for my vanity, she fokkin’ died.’
He hurled the bottle into the water. It skipped once before sinking with a hollow splash.
Xander moved closer. ‘Santi.’
‘Don’t,’ his XO snarled, head whipping around to him. ‘Don’t you dare say my name like you understand. None of you do. Not one of you lost her.’
‘Brother, we’re losing you,’ Kaal grunted. ‘You’re falling apart and that’s not healthy.’
‘That’s because I broke her,’ Santi growled, his timbre splintering. ‘I made her feel like a criminal. Now she’s gone, forever.’
A violet-gold flare erupted around him as he shifted into his spectral wolf form.
Huge. Radiant. Wrath incarnate. His claws gouged the sand.
His eyes were molten with torment.
‘Stay back!’ he roared, voice distorted by the shift.
Kaal shook his head. ‘I won’t. Face me, fight me like you would have Varnok, get that rage and bitterness to leak out of you, use me.’
Miral shook her head and countered. ‘Gentlemen, it doesn’t have to be this way.’
‘Since when were we fokkin; dignified?’ Kaal chuckled. ‘We’re lycans, Miral. We scrap and resolve our shit with claws and fists when conflict rises within or without us.’
Xander raised his hand to stay Miral, then nodded to sanction the face off.
Kaal growled as he stepped to Santi, goading him, taunting him, his talons extending as he gave a ‘come hither’ gesture to the soul-wounded man.
Santi roared and lunged.
Kaal met him first, shifting mid-stride, side-stepping a brutal swipe.
Miral braced for impact as Kaal pounced, larger, darker, his form erupting into a blinding wave of spectral energy.
Omega met Gamma.
Kaal tackled Santi mid-air, their snarls echoing across the lake like thunder.
They crashed into the sand, spurs flashing, incisors bared.
But Kaal didn’t fight to injure; he fought to subdue.
Within seconds, he pinned Santi beneath him, massive fangs digging into the side of his neck, just above the glyphic knot.
It was a dominating hold, designed to subdue.
Santi writhed under him, once, twice, then stilled.
With a groan, he broke into guttural and hoarse sobs as his frame shuddered.
Kaal eased off, still in his wolf form, and pulled Santi close, cradling his collapsed friend against his broad chest.
Santi buried his face into Kaal’s torso and let it all pour out, the grief, the guilt, the ache of loss too profound for words.
‘I didn’t get to say goodbye,’ he choked. ‘I didn’t get to hold her. I didn’t, fokk, I didn’t tell her I was willing to work shit out, to forgive her.’
‘We know,’ Kaal muttered, returning to his human frame, pulling Santi’s head to his shoulder. ‘We know, hermano.’
Xander approached and, together with Kaal, they lifted him, his body limp from the breakdown, and guided him back to his cabin and into his bed.
Kaal and Xander stood at the foot, arms crossed over their massive chests, as Miral bent over him and placed her fingers on Santi’s temple.
‘My nanites will clear the alcohol,’ she murmured to Santi. ‘They’ll also administer a neural agent so your heart and mind find rest.’
He didn’t resist.
A soft pulse passed from her fingertips and into him. The toxins filtered out, his trembling stilled, and at last, the darkness claimed him.
He blacked out with a single whisper on his lips.
‘Mi sol.’
Outside the cabin, the lake shimmered beneath the night’s artificial moon, the waves lapping in sighs against the sand.
Xander stood beside Miral and Kaal, his arms crossed, jaw locked tight as Santi’s grief, even in sleep, radiated through the walls behind them.
He turned to Miral. ‘I’ve made a decision. Given that Soleil attempted to save you three, I’ll be pardoning her. The question is, do we know for sure she’s gone?’
Miral took a deep breath. ‘I might have to go over the feeds and holo footage, see what I can confirm.’
‘Can you think of anything else we can do to ease his agony? If she’s dead, do we need to plan a funeral?’
Miral kept her eyes forward, toward the water where Santi had paced only moments ago, agonized and broken. ‘I’ll look into it.’
Xander exhaled, slow and heavy. ‘Promise me you’ll remain with him until this shit lifts. ‘However, it might never be over.’
‘Indeed,’ Kaal growled. ‘Grief like this is rooted in the soul. He lost his first love. And now, losing Soleil? The woman he let inside after so many years? It’ll scorch him.’
The CO swallowed. ‘Fokk, this might be what breaks him.’
Miral flinched even as her lips pursed together. ‘I won’t allow that to happen. I can’t. Regardless, I’ll stay and monitor him.’
In the hush of Santi’s home office, the console’s light washed Miral’s face as she worked.
She sat motionless, her Synth-frame engaged in an intense code search.
Even so, her ear remained attuned down the hall, as she monitored the rhythm of Santi’s sleep, the uneven cadence of a man mired in quiet grief.
Her neural manifolds thrummed beneath her skin, humming in synchrony with the console’s interface.