Chapter 10
KRAJ
The cot beneath me is too narrow, the blanket too thin, the air too stale.
None of it matters, because I wouldn’t be sleeping anyway.
My eyes are on the ceiling—pitted prefab metal painted the color of despair—and all I see are hers.
Those eyes. Not Luna’s. Not mine. Smaller.
Brighter. A shade of gold I know too well.
The kid.
Solie.
I drag a hand over my face, claws scraping the stubble along my jaw. The recycled air tastes of dust and rusted copper. It should ground me. Instead, it just reminds me that I’m stuck in a hole, gnawing at questions that won’t let me rest.
She smiled at me. Like I mattered. Like I wasn’t just some bastard loitering outside her mother’s home.
And the way she looked—stars damn it, she looks like Luna.
The shape of her chin. The tilt of her nose.
Even the way she squints before she grins.
Too much of her mother, and just enough of something else.
Something I recognize every time I look in the mirror.
But that can’t be. No. Luna would have told me. She would have spat it in my face the first moment she saw me again, used it as a weapon. She wouldn’t keep something that big from me. Would she?
The memory of her arms wrapped around me last night crashes over me, warm and dangerous. The soft catch of her breath when I kissed her throat. The way she whispered my name like it belonged to her again. I want to drown in it. And I’m already sinking.
By dawn, I’ve given up pretending to rest. I drag myself upright, shoulders aching from tension I can’t shake, and strap on my boots.
The metal buckles clink in the silence. I tie back my hair, check the charge on my sidearm, and tell myself I’m heading out because of the mission.
Because of the courier. Because Targen’s orders don’t wait for sleeplessness.
Liar.
The sun beats down like a punishment by the time I’m in the streets of Wildwood again.
Dust clings to my boots, my scales, the back of my throat.
The settlement stinks of fried oil and old coolant, of sweat and desperation.
I spot the courier easily. He always moves too quick, like he’s got somewhere better to be.
Skinny frame, shabby Alliance-style jacket, eyes always darting.
He’s sloppy. Amateur. Not someone who should be operating this far out on Combine territory. Which is exactly why I don’t trust him.
I follow at a distance, slipping through the crowd. It’s not hard. Most folks around here are too busy trading scraps for bread or chasing their kids to notice one more predator in their midst. I keep my head low, my steps light, my mind focused.
Or I try to.
Every corner I turn, I expect to see Luna.
Every sound of laughter makes me think of the girl.
I shake it off, force my attention back to the courier.
He ducks into the comms tower again, same as yesterday.
Same as the day before. He doesn’t stay long, just enough to upload something, then he’s out, hands shoved in his pockets like he’s afraid of his own shadow.
I should be watching him. But I’m thinking about Solie’s laugh, the way it bubbled up like water over stones when she grabbed my claw and called me warm. Warm. No one’s ever called me that before. Not like that.
The comm in my ear crackles. “You’re circling Luna like a predator,” Targen’s voice growls, sharp and metallic over the tight-beam channel. “This isn’t a love story, Kraj. Don’t lose focus.”
My jaw clenches. My tail lashes once, then stills. “I’m watching the courier,” I say flatly.
“Don’t piss on my intelligence,” Targen snaps. “You think I don’t know where your eyes wander? I’ve been in this game too long. I can smell weakness from a sector away.”
I stop in the shade of a collapsed arch, eyes on the street but voice low. “Careful what you call weakness.”
“Careful what you let it cost you,” Targen fires back.
Then his tone shifts, colder, almost smug.
“You want her? Fine. Screw her. Hold her. Pretend you’re still a man and not the Coalition’s failed pet project.
But don’t you dare forget who you work for.
One misstep, and she becomes another liability.
Another loose end. You know how we handle those. ”
My claws bite into the wall. Sparks fly as stone chips crumble beneath my grip. “You lay a hand on her—”
“I don’t have to,” Targen interrupts. “Not if you remember why you’re there.”
The comm goes dead.
I stare at the street until the courier reemerges, heart hammering, blood hot in my veins.
Targen thinks he’s got me by the throat.
Maybe he does. But he doesn’t know how deep I’ve already fallen.
He doesn’t know that if he so much as whispers her name in the wrong tone, I’ll cut every tether tying me to the Coalition and burn his whole damn network to the ground.
I keep following the courier, but my head’s not on the mission anymore.
Not really. It’s on Luna. On Solie. On the terrifying thought that I might be more than just a shadow skulking in their orbit.
That maybe, just maybe, I was never meant to be a weapon.
Maybe I was meant to be something else. A protector. A mate. A father.
The word makes my chest ache.
Father.
Stars above, if it’s true—if she’s mine—I’ve already wasted three years I’ll never get back.
Three years I should’ve been there, watching her take her first steps, listening to her babble, holding her when she cried.
Instead, I was bleeding on battlefields for a cause that would spit on my grave without a second thought.
I don’t know if Luna will ever forgive me for that. I don’t know if I can forgive myself. But I do know one thing.
I want out. Out of the reports, out of the lies, out of the war that’s taken more from me than I can count. I want her. I want them. And if I have to fight the whole damn galaxy to keep them safe, I will.
But for now, I’m still tangled in the web. And the spider’s watching.
The suns dip low by the time I make my way back to her building.
Arkosh’s twilight paints everything in bruised purples and burning orange, and the air tastes like grit and ozone.
I stand at the bottom of her stairwell for longer than I should, my boots heavy, my claws flexing restlessly at my sides.
Going back feels dangerous, like stepping into a firefight without armor. And yet my feet move anyway.
Luna opens the door before I even knock. She’s wearing a faded tunic, hair pulled back messily, cheeks flushed as though she’s been pacing. For a moment we just look at each other, the silence thick enough to drown in. Then she steps aside, voice low. “Come in.”
The smell hits me first. Real food. Not ration bricks or synth-protein sludge, but something warm and spiced—beans and herbs, maybe, with the faint tang of tomatoes. My stomach growls, traitorous, and she notices, one eyebrow twitching upward. “Don’t look so shocked. I can cook.”
I almost laugh. Instead, I follow her inside.
The apartment is small, cluttered with the evidence of a child’s world—stacked toys, crayon drawings tacked to the wall, a blanket fort half-collapsed near the corner.
And there she is. Solie. Sitting cross-legged at the little table, swinging her feet against the chair leg as she hums to herself.
She sees me and grins, wide and easy, like last night wasn’t the first time she’d ever laid eyes on me.
“Hi, mister!” she says brightly. “Mama said you’re having dinner with us!”
“Looks like I am,” I reply, lowering myself into the chair opposite her. The wood creaks under my weight, but holds. Barely.
She leans forward, eyes shining. “Do you have claws because you’re a superhero?”
I blink. “A superhero?”
“Uh-huh!” She wiggles her fingers dramatically. “Like in the vids! Mama says superheroes don’t exist, but I think maybe they do. Maybe you fight bad guys with your claws.”
Her mother coughs into her glass of water. “Solie—”
I hold up a hand, hiding a smile. “Sometimes I fight bad guys, yeah. But I’m no superhero.”
Solie gasps. “You ARE one! You have shiny eyes and claws and you’re really tall. You’re like a dragon man!”
Luna mutters under her breath, “More like a pain in the—”
I smirk at her.
Dinner is strange. Good, but strange. Solie chatters through half the meal, asking question after question, barely pausing to breathe between them.
She wants to know if my scales itch when it’s hot, if I can breathe fire, if my tail knocks things over on accident.
She’s curious, relentless, full of a fearless innocence that pierces straight through me.
I answer what I can, dodge what I shouldn’t.
The food is warm, but the conversation is warmer, wrapping me in a sensation I haven’t felt in so long I barely recognize it.
Family.
Then she asks it. The question that freezes me where I sit.
“Why are your eyes shiny like mine?”
The room goes silent. My fork stills mid-air. My pulse roars in my ears. Slowly, I turn to look at her. Solie blinks back at me, golden irises catching the flicker of the old lamp overhead. My chest tightens, claws twitching against the tabletop.
Luna laughs too loud. Too sharp. “Oh, Solie, everyone’s eyes are shiny under this light. Finish your beans.”
“But Mama—”
“Brush your teeth,” Luna interrupts, standing so quickly her chair scrapes against the floor. “Go on. Bedtime.”
Solie pouts but obeys, slipping down from her chair. She waves at me as she pads toward the washroom. “Goodnight, mister dragon man!”
“Goodnight, little firefly,” I murmur, voice rough.
The door clicks shut behind her, leaving the two of us in a silence heavier than any battlefield.
I lean back slowly, studying Luna. She won’t meet my eyes. Her hands fidget with the edge of the tablecloth, twisting the fabric. My mind is a cyclone. Coincidence. It has to be.
But my instincts, honed from years of hunting targets across war zones, tell me otherwise. My senses whisper truth in a language my heart’s too afraid to speak.
I reach out, brushing my hand against hers. Just a graze. Enough to still her restless movements. Her skin is soft, warm, trembling. “She’s… bright,” I say quietly. It’s the only word I can find that won’t break me.
Her throat works. She nods once, lips parting. “She’s everything,” she whispers. And her voice cracks right down the middle, betraying every wall she’s tried to keep between us.
The silence stretches. My claws curl against my palm, aching to reach for her, to demand answers, to tear down the lies I can taste hanging in the air. But I don’t. Not tonight. Not when I see the fear in her eyes. Not when Solie’s laughter still lingers in the walls.
So instead I stand, push my chair back gently, and head toward the door. I pause in the frame, glance back once. Luna sits there, shoulders hunched, face shadowed. She looks like a woman breaking under the weight of secrets. And I know the feeling too well.
Outside, the night air is sharp and cold. I inhale it deep, trying to clear the storm inside me. It doesn’t work.
Back in my hideout, I don’t send a report. Not this time. The courier, the tower, the Coalition—they can wait. I open my private log instead, claws tapping the keys with deliberate care.
One word.
Suspicion.
I stare at it for a long time, the letters burning into my vision. Then I lock the file and shut it down, the hum of the old terminal fading into silence.
I lie back on the cot, eyes wide in the dark, and admit what I’ve been too afraid to say out loud.
She might be mine.
And if she is… stars help anyone who tries to take her from me.