35. Epilogue
Ki’REMI
I ssa led her Ki’Remi through a narrowing passage, each step downward drawing them deeper into the guts of Eden II.
The city drone had long faded behind them, swallowed by the pulse of the subterrane, geothermal gases, and mineral walls.
Above them, glow-shrooms pulsed on the high cavern roof in erratic clusters, their blue and violet light flickering like wayward stars.
They’d parked his flyer at one of the tunnel entrances and gone by foot the rest of the way.
Past a Pika camp, a series of subterranean speakeasies, and sunken gambling dens.
After a series of twists and turns, they reached a doorway nestled against a subterranean wall between ancient rock shelves and repurposed metal crates.
Outside was a silent line of Luna Pikani, the descended outliers of Eden II. They were pale-skinned, with mirrored eyes and soft whistling speech.
His eyes studied her with interest as she waved her wristband over the doorway, unlocking it.
She led him silently, and he arched his brow as he took it all in.
Inside, twas nothing more than a modest table fashioned from salvage, a hover exam bed, worn cabinets stacked with healing tinctures, scavenged tools, and a pair of surgical lamps powered by a solar battery.
A curtain of translucent mesh separated the treatment space from any curious eyes.
K’Remi stood silent, absorbing it all.
‘This is where I started again,’ Issa said, stepping past him, her fingers brushing the corner of a shelf as if anchoring herself. ‘When I landed on New Savartin, I started helping people. I treated whoever showed up. No questions asked. When I came here, I did the same.’
‘You built all this with your bare hands.’
His rasp was low, more observation than praise. ‘You didn’t wait for a solution. You became the solution.’
She glanced at him and shrugged with a soft smile. ‘Don’t make me out to be a bleeding hero. The Luna Pikani needed my healing, and I needed a way to release my Ssignakht .’
K’Remi exhaled, long and slow, stepping toward the room’s far corner.
He ran a palm over one of the supply drawers, noting how carefully the medical instruments had been laid out. ‘ Kidaya , please let me help formalize what you’ve done here. This sacrifice deserves more. You deserve more.’
Issa blinked. ‘What do you mean?’
‘This corner of the Pikani underworld has been one my aki and I have wanted to invest in for some time now. I’ll speak to the Sable Riders to see if we can establish a sanctioned clinic down here that is fully staffed and stocked. It can operate when you’re away on missions under our Group charter yet still carry your name.’
He met her gaze with a raised brow. ‘Perhaps ‘Issa’s Sanctum’. Or whatever you decide to call it.’
Emotion bloomed in her chest. ‘You’d do that?’
‘For you and them, naam ,’ he nodded toward the door where her patients waited.
She stepped closer, her hand wrapping around one of his sinewed ones. ‘ Sante, my love. I never imagined.’
‘You don’t have to imagine carrying this burden alone anymore.’
Lips brushed each other, and fingers linked as a tentative knock sounded.
They pulled apart when an older Pikani man shuffled in, clutching his abdomen.
Issa went to him first, lifting the man’s sleeve and checking for signs of systemic infection.
K’Remi moved in beside her, retrieving a diagnostic reader from the shelf without being asked.
They worked in tandem. Not speaking, not needing to.
Her movements were sure, practiced, his, precise, and methodical.
Together, they tended to each patient who appeared.
Cleansing wounds, checking vitals, and setting broken bones.
At the end of the long shift, when the last patient had left and the cave had grown still, Issa sat back on a wonky stool, sweat lining her collar.
K’Remi stood across from her, arms crossed, studying her.
‘Tis why I adore you, Issandra. You reach where no one else dares. You’ve taught me that healing comes in many forms and that breaking the rules to aid those most in despair, to see their real need, is true selflessness.’
She lifted her chin. ‘I was once shattered, sullied, and unseen, too.’
He crossed the room, pulled her to her feet, and pressed his lips to her forehead.
‘Not anymore, kidaya . Never again.’
The Rider’s terrace was a sanctuary from the never-resting city unfurling below.
Above, the night stretched in velvet inkiness, constellations winking in and out of the haze as if the cosmos bore silent witness to their coming together.
Ki’Remi’s metanoid barrier shimmered around his woman and him, an iridescent cocoon sealing them from time, noise, and distraction.
Where nothing else existed but the glide of their bodies over each other and the grunts and soft moans expressing their longing.
Issa lay sprawled beneath him, her golden curls splayed against the silk cushions of the expansive terrace divan, her skin luminous in the soft glow of the shielded moonlight.
Ki’Remi braced above her, sinking into her as he traced down the length of her throat.
Across the delicate line of her collarbone, with reverence, as if he were mapping her.
‘You’re so fokkin ’ exquisite,’ he murmured, timbre hoarse and thick with such deep passion her chest tightened.
She arched into his touch, a sigh slipping from her mouth, fingers entwining with his locs. ‘You say that like it’s new.’
He leaned down, brushing his mouth along the edge of her jaw, then lower, tracking the curve of her nape in slow, languid kisses. ‘Because it is,’ he rasped, his lips finding the place where her heartbeat hammered. ‘Every damn time.’
‘You, on the other hand, blow my mind, my very existence.’
‘I do now?’
She tilted her head and searched his face before reaching into her Sacran heart for the right words. ‘ Naam , Ki’Remi Sable, Healer of the Broken, Guardian of the Sacred Pulse, Son of the Ancients. Also, the Storm-Handed Surgeon, Keeper of the Forgotten Ways, The Blade, and the Balm. Last but not least, Witchlord of the Ameru, The One Who Walks Between Life and Death, and My Eternal Haven.’
He jolted. ‘Tis a Sedevan honor, I believe, for one’s lover to inscribe you.’
‘Only a wife, or one who acquiesces to be your spouse, can come up with an epithet and honorarium for the one she adores above all others.’
He canted his head. ‘Then I am honored.’
‘You’d better fokkin’ be and come up with one for me.’
He smirked, raking his eyes over her. ‘Here it is. Issa Elaris, The Starborn Flame, Keeper of Celestial Fire, Daughter of the First Light, She Who Walks with the Gods. The Sun-Souled Healer, My Guiding Dawn, The Astral Weaver, Eternal Ember of the Sedevan Line. Bringer of Sacred Reckoning, The One Who Burns Yet Never Fades, My Uncharted Heaven.’
Her ethereal eyes flamed, and she sighed, fingers tightening his hair, pulling him closer. ‘That was beautiful. Sante Sableman, utter poetry and mastery.’
‘In some moments like these, I almost believe I exist for nothing else,’ he groaned against her mouth. ‘I’d die for you, woman, and that’s some real shit.’
They’d burned together in a series of fiery, desperate, wild infernos, but their lovemaking this time was different.
This was slow, deep, unhurried. A lingering surrender. A communion.
His mouth found hers, and their lips moved in a languid, honeyed dance, tasting, teasing, and drinking the other in.
Her fingers traced the shifting patterns of his metanoid tattoos, watching as they responded to her touch, flaring gold and silver beneath her palms.
Time unraveled between them.
Every movement deliberate. Each caress savored, memorized.
They fit together as if they had been made for each other, sculpted by the same hands that shaped the stars and designed to collide, fuse, and burn.
When they finally shattered, it was in unison, a slow-breaking wave that curled around them, pulling them under, deeper, until all left was heat, breath, and the beating pulse of their souls entwined.
ISSA
They woke in his master hours later, with the pale light of dawn spilling over them, tangled in each other, limbs heavy, skin warm.
Ki’Remi grumbled something about needing to get up.
Issa hummed an intelligible reply, her body curling into his, stealing his warmth.
He chuckled into her hair, pressed a kiss to her forehead, patted her ass, and knifed out of bed, pulling her out with him.
Together, they stepped beneath the steaming cascade of water, washing away the remnants of sleep.
He soaped her curls, his fingers massaging her scalp, then stroking the suds all over her lithe limbs.
She returned the favor, pulling on his locs and kneading his inked skin so that he growled and slid his cock into her for a quick, frantic burst of sensual bliss.
After this, she slumped onto him, water rushing over them, content in a way she never thought she might be.
Finally, dry, sated, and dressed in tees and shorts, they headed to his kitchen.
Eden II twin suns slanted through the expansive windows of Ki’Remi’s suite, spilling across the table in molten gold.
Breakfast was fruit, strong kahawa , and buttery croissants smothered with spiced honey.
Issa sat perched on the edge of the granite bench, legs curled beneath her, wearing one of his oversized shirts and sipping kahawa between kisses.
He pulled her onto his lap moments later, skimming his hand over her hip.
She loved how affectionate he was, how he reached for her without thought, and how his gaze lingered when she wasn’t looking.
Twas always a possessive claiming, even in the simplest gestures.
Soon, their plates were discarded, fruit untouched, toast growing cold as their lips, hands, and bodies glided over each other.
She leaned into him again, arms winding around his neck when his wrist comm flared with an urgent chime.
Ki’Remi tore his lips from hers and groaned, canting away to pick up the call. ‘Sable here.’
Admiral Rhye’s voice came through, crisp and terse. ‘Sable, Elaris. We need you both. Now.’
Ki’Remi used his neural node to switch the conversation to his in-house speakers, so Issa also listened.
‘A series of Rhesian Fringe colonies are experiencing a disease outbreak. We believe it might be a dangerous pathogen, a resistant Staphylococcus or bacteria linked to water and food sanitation.’
Ki’Remi interjected. ‘Multi-drug aversion or an evolved bacterium?’
‘Not sure yet, but the infections our people on the ground are seeing are freakin’ harder to treat, so get your butts on the move. There are multiple cases of heat and lung failures, plus vital organ shutdowns being reported. We’ll need your surgical prowess. We dust off in two hours.’
The Admiral rang off as Issa shook her head in disbelief. ‘The Fringe never stops giving.’
Ki’Remi nodded, his expression shifting. ‘Twas bound to happen. I’m leaning towards a new or mutated microorganism foreign to the colony residents fresh off a boat.’
Issa let out a sigh, pushing back her curls with a groan. ‘Can’t the galaxy give us one more day of bliss?’
He smirked and, with zero remorse, swatted her backside as he lifted her off him. ‘On your feet, soldier.’
‘Rude,’ she muttered, gathering her plate and cutlery to take to the sink.
‘You love it.’
‘Not when it interrupts my toast and morning kisses.’
‘Enough musing. Pack,’ he murmured. ‘We’re on a mission, woman.’
She exhaled, hella resistant but accepting he was right.
Their steps quickened as their practiced rhythm took over.
They packed their bags in synchronized silence, two warriors reverting to muscle memory.
Issa zipped her duffel with more force than necessary, still reluctant to leave their nest.
At the door, they paused, casting one last glance over their shared haven, the rumpled sheets, the still-warm kahawa pot, and the balcony that cradled their starlit passion and laughter.
‘We’ll be home again soon,’ Ki’Remi promised in a timbred burr.
Issa slung her bag over her shoulder, glancing at Ki’Remi as they exited his suite.
His eyes found hers, steady and unwavering, as he reached for her hand, linking their fingers and squeezing once.
‘Always with me, Sable?’ she asked, tilting her head, searching his silver molten eyes.
He smirked, his sensual mouth curling in that way that made her stomach flip.
‘On your six, kidaya ,’ he murmured, voice rough with promise. ‘Where else would I be?’
Issa didn’t answer.
She inhaled, quirked her lips, nodded, and stepped through the entryway.
The door slid shut.
Arms around each other, wrapped in an aura of love that neither height nor depth nor any power in all creation, not even war nor the gods could break, they set forth into the chaos of the universe once more.
THE END OF ONE STARLIT ROMANCE …