Chapter 28
SOLEIL
Miral’s silence frayed at the edges of Soleil’s anxiety as customers shuffled in and out of the cafe.
The sounds from the corridor outside, baying vendors, and the port’s intercom washed over her, adding to her angst.
At last, Miral sighed. ‘You know why I’m here.’
Soleil’s hand stilled on the table, her back stiffened, her spine taut.
She breathed in, slow and brittle. ‘How is he?’
Miral didn’t hesitate. ‘He’s suffering.’
‘Why should I care?’
‘Because you do,’ Miral countered. ‘You’re trying to hide it, but I see the distress on your face.’
Soleil turned her eyes away, her gaze clouded with weariness, her voice cold. ‘We were good for a moment in time. That is not our reality anymore. What I feel doesn’t matter. I don’t think I want to see him again.’
Miral’s brow furrowed. ‘Why?’
‘I can’t wipe the look of hate and disgust he gave me. It’s too painful,’ Soleil added, swallowing hard. ‘Too raw. I don’t know if I could face him without falling apart.’
Miral leaned closer, her expression resolute. ‘He thinks you’re dead, Soleil.’
A tremor ghosted through her shoulders, but her jaw clenched. ‘Maybe it’s better that way.’
‘Nada.’ Miral’s rebuttal was piercing and immediate. ‘It’s not for him, and you.’
Soleil shook her head. ‘You don’t get it.
My past is a goddamned clusterfokk, Miral.
My family’s bloodline is twisted, violent, and marked by betrayal and manipulation.
My father was a monster. My uncle was worse.
I am a creature born in darkness, steeped in it.
Worse, I betrayed Santi. He told me so. He said I broke him. That I shattered us!’
She ended her diatribe with a bitter laugh.
Miral gave her a slight shake of her head. ‘He said it out of anguish, not truth. He’s had time to think and is better informed now. He’s accepted you had no choice.’
‘I did, though,’ Soleil said, voice cracking. ‘I did have a choice. Like he intimated, I didn’t have the courage. I was too scared of my past, of losing him, of being exposed, of the fokkin’ pain. So I did as I got told and obeyed like a good Red Queen.’
Miral didn’t interrupt the hoarse rush of words; she only studied Soleil with her penetrating, all-seeing gaze.
‘How are you coping with existing without him?’
Soleil sagged into the chair across from her. ‘How am I dealing with it all?’
She gave a bitter smile. ‘I’m trying to outrun the pain, but anguish always catches up. The memories crowd me in the silence of the night; that’s the worst time.’
She exhaled, her gaze slicing away from Miral.
‘I go back and forth between wanting to cut all contact, clean, final, and wanting to fly to The Sombra and beg him to hear me out. Then I remember the shock of my betrayal reflected in his eyes and the pain I caused. Maybe it’s good I’m gone.
What I did was unforgivable. Yet his lack of faith in me was devastating. I don’t know how to move past it.’
‘Being here on Cybele gives me space,’ her voice softened. ‘It’s allowed me to step outside of the noise, and of him, but I still flinch at shadows. I still wake up with his name on my lips. However, I’m accepting I might never see him again.’
Soleil stared at her rough, calloused hands. ‘None of it has stopped how I feel for him. I miss his presence, his voice, the way his timbre dropped when he said, ‘mi sol’. I yearn for his touch, Miral, the rest of it.’
Miral’s fingers closed over Soleil’s. ‘Go on,’ she encouraged.
Soleil inhaled. ‘Hope’s hard to kill. I still mourn the life I thought we were building. I grieve it like a death, but I now know it was not for us.’
Miral tightened her grip on her friend. ‘Then give yourself more time. Your soul might heal, and you may change your mind.’
Soleil nodded, releasing one hand and brushing a tear from her cheek with the back of her wrist.
‘Nada, I can’t see it. Still, I want to be whole again. Not for him. For me. For whoever the universe might send my way next, or not. I’m open either way. I’ll let the stars sort that shit out.’
Her breath hitched. ‘But naam. I still miss him every day. I still carry the ache of what we had. And no matter how far I’ve come, it still fokkin’ sucks.’
Miral held her hand, lending her strength to a shattered woman trying her best to mend.
Miral’s voice cut through the charged silence like tempered glass. ‘He’s suffering. You’re hurting. You both need each other more than you know.’
Soleil’s eyes lowered to the table. ‘Will you tell him I’m here?’
Miral tilted her head, studying her. ‘Do you want me to? Because let me be clear, his finding out is inevitable. He’s a Star Wolf. If he catches even the subtlest scent that you’re alive, he will hunt you down. That’s a promise.’
‘So he thinks I’m dead?’
‘He does, but I can tell him you’re breathing, and perhaps you two can meet and work shit out.’
Soleil stared down at her trembling hands. Her voice was quiet but sure.
‘I’d like him to find out on his own. I want to see his face when he does, when he sees me again. I want to know what’s real in that moment, if there’s pain, or regret. Or if I was always just some tail he could throw away.’
Her throat tightened. ‘Even if he does look at me like I’m his world, it still might not be enough. My heart remembers what he said. I can’t unhear it. No matter how much I love him, I’m not sure I can forgive him for not believing me.’
Miral nodded, then offered a rare, relieved smile. ‘I can work with that because I care for you both.’
They didn’t talk about Santi again.
Instead, Miral shifted the conversation, flicking her eyes to Soleil’s uniform with a mock grimace. ‘I still don’t know how you do this, apron-bound, coffee-splattered, smelling like cinnamon and despair.’
Soleil let out a weak laugh. ‘It’s an upgrade. I used to reek of solvent and melancholy.’
They shared a warm, natural laugh.
Miral shared a few updates on The Sombra, and eventually, she stood, adjusting her hood so it covered her face.
‘Keep yourself safe, Soleil. Just be ready. The moment you’re avoiding is inevitable.’
‘I’m well aware. You’re going to tell him, aren’t you?’
In response, Miral tilted her head and smiled. ‘I’ll try to do what’s wise and best for you both.’
With that, Miral offered one final nod and swept out of the café, her presence and potent power rippling away.
Soleil sat frozen in her chair, hands clasped tight around her mug, heart rattling inside her ribs.
Her mind spiraled through what-ifs, through timelines that never came to pass, and the futures she feared to hope for.
Her chest trembled with every breath.
She scarcely heard yelling from behind her.
‘Are you deaf now?’ Krohn snapped, marching toward her from the kitchen.
His ruddy face twisted into a sneer. ‘Get off your ass and back to work. Your guest is gone and you’ve still got tables to wipe.’
Her patience with his bullshit fractured.
Soleil stood slowly. Her posture was calm, but her presence now radiated menace.
‘Krohn,’ she said, her voice like velvet over steel, ‘I’d watch your mouth if I were you. I’m getting fokkin’ tired of your bullshit’
The lights above the counter flickered as a red shimmer pulsed beneath her skin, scarcely visible, but unmistakable.
‘Because whatever you think my friend would have done to you,’ her smile dangerous, her aura serene and still as a sheathed blade, ‘it’ll be nothing compared to what I will do to fokk your shit up if your disrespect continues.’
She let just a flicker of her lycan essence leak, spectral static arcing from her with a hint of crimson charge.
Krohn paled. His mouth opened, then closed again.
He backed away like prey, hands up, face drained of every drop of color.
Soleil turned her back on him with the kind of grace reserved for queens and killers, and returned to the counter with a new stride in the step.
For the first time in weeks, her heart didn’t feel as broken.
It felt honed, expectant, ready, and waiting.
MIRAL
Days later, Miral didn’t say it aloud, but she mourned Santi’s personality, his rakish smile, and his fierce self-belief.
She didn’t breathe a word of it, knowing he would have mocked her sentiment.
Still, she craved his relentless teasing, his razor-sharp wit, and the silent command he wielded in any room.
Seeing him so ghost-like, empty, and wounded was fundamentally wrong.
This wasn’t the man she knew.
The Santi she was fond of was kinetic, flame-bright, a man who moved like a force of nature and spoke with intoxicating charm.
Now he was an echo of his former self.
Miral refused to let it stand.
It took a few holo calls, delicate maneuvering, a few well-placed nudges, and a handful of hard-won favors.
At last, Miral believed she found the hook to wrench Santi out of the bleak spiral that was consuming him.
She cooked up a plan of action and took it to Xander in his office for his consent.
He listened, head tilted.
‘Two birds,’ she announced as she outlined the sensitive strategy required to shift bureaucracies and shaky interstellar alliances.
‘We’d be doing Santi a favor, while at the same time stopping a diplomatic shit storm before it implodes.’
Xander gave her a grunt of approval, following it with a lazy two-fingered salute. ‘Have at it.’
Seconds later, Miral re-materialized on the terrace of Santi’s cabin.
He sat overlooking the lake, slouched on his divan.
He was a shadow of himself, stripped of all swagger and fight.
Slumped in a ratty vest and loose shorts, his bare feet cross-legged.
He was strumming an old-world guitar with metal strings, its varnish worn away by time.
The melody he played was haunting.
Miral winced.
His beard was feral, his once-glorious shoulder-length hair, amethyst-flecked and envied across the fleet, now hung matted in greasy locks over his temple.
Even his sapphire-amethyst irises were dull.
Miral grimaced, then steeled herself.
‘We’ve got a problem, my friend.’
He didn’t even afford her a glance.