Chapter 2
KRAJ
Ash sticks in the cracks of my palms.
I kneel in the crater where my unit used to be, digging through blackened armor plating and the slick, oily remains of men who followed me into hell and didn’t make it out.
My fingers scrape metal, bone, something soft that squishes under pressure—don’t think about it.
Just move it aside. Keep going. Keep doing something.
The mech's still burning. Two-legged behemoth. Alliance issue. Twin cannons still smoldering, bent like the arms of a dead god. My charge did that. I crawled under fire, planted the explosive with my own damn hands, felt the shockwave tear through my chest before it dropped like a dying beast.
And still… I’m the only one breathing.
Again.
The ash chokes the air. Smells like charred skin and polymer—hot and chemical and thick.
It clings to my scales like a second skin.
I taste blood, soot, and bile on my tongue.
My head rings, every pulse a hammer strike against my skull.
The left side of my face is slick—cut from shrapnel or bone or both.
Doesn’t matter.
They’re gone. All of them.
Again.
My breath rattles. I drop what’s left of Corporal Jennik’s dog tags into the scrap-heap of his ribcage and close what’s left of his helmet. His blood’s on my chest. My arm. My teeth.
"You deserved better,” I mutter, voice rasping low.
Nothing answers but the hiss of cooling metal and the crackle of a fractured sky. Storms brewing again. Arkanti electrical fronts love the dead.
I stagger to my feet. My legs protest. Something in my left thigh is definitely cracked. Doesn’t matter. I walk.
Through the torn battlefield, scattered with burnt-out husks and still-smoking wrecks. The whole place reeks of old blood and stale regrets. Drones still buzz overhead, tracking movement. Probably recording everything. Feeding it to someone safe and warm behind glass and screens.
My comm crackles in my ear—finally.
“Coalition Echo Two-One, stand by for evac.”
I don’t answer.
Not right away.
I try not to think of anything. Not Luna. Not her voice in the dark. Not the way she looked at me when she realized what I’d done.
Especially not that.
The drop-ship descends like a ghost. Silent. Sleek. Too quiet for a field pickup, which tells me something’s wrong before the bay door even opens.
And then I see him.
Targen.
That bastard's still alive.
He steps out like he owns the battlefield, gray-brown cloak flapping in the hot wind, goggles gleaming with a dozen HUD layers. His grin is wide and sharp, like he never stopped being the predator and we all just forgot.
“Still the last one standing,” he says as I limp up the ramp, blood slicking the grating beneath my boots.
“Targen.” I rasp his name like it’s a curse.
He holds out a flask.
“Drink?”
I swipe it from his hand before I think better of it. The liquid burns like solvent going down, and I hiss between my fangs.
“Godsdamn, you’re a bastard,” I growl.
He chuckles. “Says the guy who just killed a mech with nothing but a backpack bomb and a death wish.”
“Wasn’t a wish,” I grunt, leaning against the bulkhead as the ship lifts off. “Just a delay.”
“Sure, sure.” He glances me over, lips twitching with something like admiration. “Still, gotta admit. Hell of a move. Got some high command folk saying you might be worth more than cannon fodder after all.”
“Not interested.”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be like that.”
I meet his eyes. “You didn’t come here to give me a medal.”
“No,” he admits, nodding. “Came to offer you a job.”
I stare at him.
“No more trenches. No more firestorms,” he continues, pacing slowly across the narrow drop bay. “This one’s soft. Quiet. Surveillance mostly. No squad. No chain of command. Just you. Like the old days.”
“The old days got me here,” I snap.
Targen tilts his head. “That’s because you went rogue. Refused a kill order. Don’t get me wrong—I argued to keep your head on. But orders are orders.”
“You ordered me to kill a civilian,” I snarl.
“I ordered you to clean up your damn mess,” he fires back, his voice tightening.
The silence sizzles between us like a charge waiting to blow.
He exhales and looks away.
“She’s still alive, you know.”
That stops my breath. My spine locks.
He looks back at me, expression unreadable.
“Luna. The woman you couldn’t kill.”
I step forward, the floor rattling under my weight.
“What. Do you know?”
He raises a hand, calm. “She’s working for Helios Combine. Frontier colony. Off the main grid. Pretty place, if you like dirt and distance. Arkosh.”
My blood runs molten.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask, low and dangerous.
“Because the Coalition’s got eyes on that place,” he replies. “They think there’s intel being leaked through shipping routes. Civilian contractors being paid too much. Too curious. We need someone on the ground to monitor things. Quietly. Discreetly.”
“You want me to spy on her again?” I laugh, bitter and rough. “Not a damn chance.”
Targen leans closer.
“I want you to go where no one else wants to. Keep eyes on the settlement. Report anything strange. You won’t have backup. No reinforcements. If you’re caught, you’re disavowed. Same old story.”
He pauses, then adds, “But she’s there, Kraj. She’s alive. Works the shipping yard. Lives in a unit near the west outpost.”
Her scent hits me like a blade to the gut. Fresh fruit, warm skin, electric fear.
“And you think I’ll say yes because she’s there.”
Targen shrugs. “I think you never stopped thinking about her. Even with half a unit vaporized around you.”
He’s not wrong.
Stars help me, he’s not wrong.
I take another drag from the flask. The fire doesn’t burn as much this time.
“Fine,” I say. “But I’m not there for her.”
“Of course not,” Targen replies, smiling like a liar. “Just business.”
I’m soon on a transport to the frontier. To Luna. The stars are too quiet.
I sit strapped into the back of the long-range shuttle, boots braced against the steel floor, arms folded tight across my chest as if I could squeeze out the past through sheer pressure.
Outside the porthole, the void stretches—black and silver and full of secrets.
The kind of silence that doesn’t soothe. The kind that stares back.
I’ve spent years trying not to think about her.
Three, to be exact. Three years of mud, blood, and orders barked through static while my claws were slick with someone else's guts.
The front lines were hell—but hell is honest. This job?
This “assignment?” It stinks worse than the piles of burnt viscera I left on that battlefield.
A cushy job, Targen said.
Surveillance. Wildwood settlement. Minimal resistance. Watch a civilian fabrication hub and report anything odd.
Sure.
I wasn’t born yesterday. I know what this is.
They’re testing me. Again. Seeing if I’ve still got it, or if the war’s ground me down into nothing but callus and spite. I gave everything for the Coalition. Then they tried to erase me. Now they’re calling me back with promises like rotten meat wrapped in gold foil.
And her name.
Luna.
I say it in my mind and my throat goes dry. She was the first thing I ever wanted that wasn’t part of the mission. And the last thing I destroyed before they tossed me to the wolves.
My claws flex.
“She’s still there,” Targen had said like it was a lure. Like I’d leap at it with my tail wagging.
But he doesn’t understand.
This isn’t about curiosity.
It’s need.
I can smell her in my dreams. That mix of rain, warmth, and command-station ozone that used to drive me half mad.
She’d walk into the room and my bones would hum like tuned glass.
Not because she was soft—not Luna. She was sharp and precise, even when she whispered.
Especially when she whispered. And when she laughed, the whole damn station felt smaller.
Like maybe there was still something in the universe worth breathing for.
And I ruined it.
Used her. Lied to her. Left her.
I growl low in my throat and turn from the porthole, unable to stomach the endless expanse.
Inside the shuttle, the lights flicker slightly—cheap maintenance cycles trying to keep us alive. The pilot’s sealed off behind reinforced duraglass. We’re flying dark, no insignias. Off-book. Of course.
I glance at the datapad Targen shoved into my hands before departure.
ARKOSH – FILE 77C9.
Subject: Desmond, Luna.
Affiliation: Civilian contractor (Helios Combine).
Role: Fabrication outpost operator.
Location: Wildwood Settlement.
Status: Active.
There’s a photo attached.
She’s older in it. Just a bit. Lines around the eyes. Hair pulled back in a messy knot. Still beautiful. Still dangerous. There’s something hard in her stare now. Something carved from betrayal and survival.
Good.
She’ll need it.
Arkosh is a hellhole with a pretty face.
Sandstorms, black markets, corporate ghosts whispering through quiet towns.
If they’re sending me there, there’s more going on than “shipment monitoring.” Someone’s leaking something, and they want me to find out who, and if I can shut them up without getting anyone’s hands dirty.
I snort.
Too late for that.
But then… they used her name. Again.
Luna Desmond. Target. Contact. Possible asset.
My mate.
Not officially. Not in any ceremony or cultural register. But it’s real.
I felt it the second I saw her. Something old and aching, like a memory passed down through blood. My people call it thrayk’ta—the soul-knot. You meet them once, and they’re yours. Doesn’t matter how far you run, or how deep you bury it. You know.
And I knew.
I still do.
That’s why this assignment’s already a problem. I should’ve said no. Should’ve demanded deployment somewhere far—Juntak Prime, maybe, or the asteroid prisons of Alkar Nine.
But the moment I saw her face again, the breath left my lungs like a punch.
The ache came back.
And with it, the guilt.
I don’t know what she’ll do if she sees me. Probably punch me in the throat. I deserve that. Maybe worse. But I have to see her. Just once. No.
Not just once.
I want more.
I want to know if that laugh still lives in her. If she ever forgave me. If there’s a part of her, even a sliver, that remembers what we had before I shattered it.
Stars, I’m a fool.
The ship jolts as we hit local space. The pilot says something clipped through the internal comms. Landing codes. Final descent. I barely hear him.
I’m too busy staring back at the stars, and wondering if she ever looks up at them…
And think of me.