Chapter 12
KRAJ
For a few stolen hours, I let myself believe.
Her warmth pressed against me, her breath tickling my chest, the soft weight of her leg draped over mine—those things felt like a promise, like proof that the war and the lies and the years hadn’t taken everything.
I almost convinced myself I could stay in that quiet, breathing beside her until the suns burned out.
But peace doesn’t last. It never does.
The terminal blinks at me when I get back to my hideout, its pale green glow stuttering across the cramped metal walls. The encrypted channel hums to life the second I tap the pad. My scales prickle before I even open it. Targen.
The message is short, clinical, and cold, like all the worst ones are.
“High-level Combine executive en route. Assessment: Possible Alliance sympathizer. Prepare contingency.”
Contingency. That’s the word they always use when they mean kill. I bare my teeth at the screen, a low snarl vibrating in my throat. The air tastes like iron and ozone, sharp and sour.
So that’s it, then. They’re putting me back on the leash.
Setting me up like the old days—find the target, slit the throat, disappear into the shadows before the blood cools.
Only this time, it’s not a nameless bureaucrat or a general buried deep behind enemy lines.
It’s someone right here, on Arkosh. Someone Luna might’ve filed a supply order for last week. Someone Solie might pass in the plaza.
And if the Combine swings toward the Alliance because of my blade? The Coalition keeps its stranglehold on this sector. Arkosh becomes another pawn in their endless war.
I press both hands against the table, claws digging furrows into the cheap composite. My reflection in the screen glares back at me—golden eyes burning, scales shadowed like blood under low light.
I don’t want to be that man anymore.
The man who lied to Luna. The man who left her alone. The man who killed because someone higher up thought his claws were better used spilling blood than building a life.
No. I won’t.
I power down the terminal, the message burned into my skull whether it’s on screen or not. Then I start moving. Old habits kick in. Not the obedient soldier’s habits—the survivor’s.
I dig out the battered comms slate buried under a pile of smuggler junk.
Its surface is cracked, its interface glitchy, but it still hums to life after a few hard taps.
The old codes are there in my head, buried deep.
Smuggler channels, black-market frequencies, markers left for people like me—outcasts who survived by knowing where to knock.
I ping three. One in the asteroid belt. One dirtside, a trader who owes me favors he’d rather forget. One drifting out near the mining rigs, the kind of man who’ll deal in secrets faster than ore.
The responses don’t come quick. They never do.
But I can feel the net stretching, threads tugging, lines reconnecting after years of silence.
I don’t even know what I’ll ask for yet—safe passage, forged papers, weapons off the grid—but I know I’ll need them.
Because if Targen pushes this order through, Arkosh will bleed.
And I won’t let Luna or the kid get caught in it.
The kid.
I shove a hand through my hair, pacing the narrow length of the hideout. Every time I think of her, it cuts deeper. Her laugh still rings in my ears, high and bright. Her little hand still presses against mine, warm and trusting.
No matter who her father is.
My gut twists at the thought, but I force it down. Doesn’t matter. Human, Grolgath, Alliance, Coalition—none of that matters. She’s Luna’s. And that makes her mine, whether the universe agrees or not.
I mutter it under my breath, a vow I never thought I’d make. “They’re mine now.”
The console pings. One of the smuggler contacts bites. A coded response flashes across the screen:
“Old debts don’t die. Tell me what you need.”
A grim smile pulls at my lips. Good. The net is alive.
I start sketching a shadow plan, the way I used to back when missions always ended with me betrayed by my own handlers.
Fallback routes through Wildwood’s underbelly.
Hidden caches in the canyons outside town.
Disguise kits, safehouses, stolen access keys.
If Targen thinks I’ll just play along while he strings me like a puppet, he’s forgetting who I am.
I’m not his weapon anymore.
The comm hisses suddenly, the encrypted line sparking to life. Targen’s voice slithers through, rough with static but sharp enough to cut.
“You got the order?”
My claws drum the table. “I got it.”
“And?”
“And I’ll do what I always do. Assess. Report.”
“Don’t get clever,” he warns, gravel in his tone. “This isn’t a negotiation. If the executive leans Alliance, you cut him loose before he poisons the well. The Combine tips their weight, the Coalition loses Arkosh. You know what that means.”
“I know exactly what it means.” My voice comes out low, controlled, though every muscle in my body coils to strike. “But you remember something, Targen. I don’t miss.”
There’s a pause, then that dry chuckle I’ve hated since the first time I heard it. “Good. Don’t start now. And Kraj?”
“What.”
“Stay away from the woman. Assets complicate things. You were never good at walking away when you should.”
The comm clicks dead before I can answer.
I slam my fist into the table hard enough to rattle the whole shack. Dust falls from the ceiling, the terminal flickers, my knuckles throb. I don’t care.
Because Targen’s wrong.
I’m not walking away this time.
I’ll walk into fire if I have to. But I won’t walk away.
I don’t tell her about the orders. Not tonight. Not when the air smells of warm soil and spice, not when the suns are dropping low over Wildwood’s ridge and throwing fire across the sky. Not when Solie’s laughter rises above the hum of insects like music I didn’t know I needed.
Instead, I sit on the edge of her yard with Luna pressed against my side, her head tucked into that space between my shoulder and my neck like she’s always belonged there.
My arm wraps around her without thinking, claws grazing lightly against the fabric of her tunic.
Her scent—soap, sweat, and the faint sweetness of the fruit I brought her last night—fills my chest and makes it ache.
Solie’s chasing a synthbutterfly across the scrubby grass, the little machine flickering blue as it dodges her grasp. She shrieks with delight, her small legs pumping, her arms outstretched. The sound of her laughter twists something sharp and soft inside me all at once.
“This is nice,” Luna murmurs, her voice muffled against my chest.
I huff out something between a laugh and a sigh. “Yeah. Almost doesn’t feel real.”
“Arkosh never does,” she says. “Everything here feels temporary. Fragile.”
My gaze lingers on Solie, her hair catching the last strands of sunlight, her face flushed from running. “Some things aren’t.”
Luna looks up at me then, and stars help me, I almost tell her everything right there.
The orders. The suspicion eating me alive.
The truth clawing to get out. But I swallow it down, force my lips into a smile, and kiss her forehead instead.
She lets herself sink against me again, and I let the lie stand.
The butterfly darts close, and Solie finally manages to catch it. She holds it cupped in her tiny hands, grinning proudly as she trots back toward us. “Look, Mama! Look, mister dragon man!”
She opens her hands, and the thing flutters weakly, its wings glowing faintly. Then it buzzes away, leaving her giggling as she claps her hands. She doesn’t sit next to us. She climbs straight into my lap like she belongs there.
I freeze. Every muscle locks, every thought scatters. Luna tenses beside me, but she doesn’t stop her.
Solie curls against me, her small body warm, her breath puffing soft against my chest as she sighs. She doesn’t hesitate, doesn’t flinch at my scales, doesn’t seem to notice the sharp edges of me at all. She just trusts. Instantly. Absolutely.
And something inside me breaks.
I stare down at her, at the tiny fist curling into my tunic, at the way her golden eyes—my eyes—blink up at me with sleepy contentment. My heart stumbles, trips, crashes.
The laugh that escapes her when I tickle her side is Luna’s laugh, higher and brighter, but the cadence—the rhythm of her voice—it’s mine.
The tilt of her nose is Luna’s, but the line of her jaw, the angle of her smile…
I know them. I know them because I’ve seen them every time I looked in a mirror.
It’s not suspicion anymore.
It’s certainty.
Certainty—and disbelief so sharp it almost knocks the breath from me.
“Careful,” Luna says softly, brushing hair out of Solie’s face. She’s trying to sound casual, but her voice cracks like thin glass.
I can’t speak. If I open my mouth, the truth will come tearing out, and I’m not ready. Not yet. I don’t want to see her flinch. Don’t want to watch her eyes close against me. Not after this.
So I just sit there, letting Solie tuck herself deeper into me, letting her weight anchor me in a way I didn’t know I needed.
The sky darkens, stars pricking holes in the twilight. Luna gets up eventually to light the balcony lamp, its solar cell buzzing faintly, its glow softening the shadows. I stay where I am, holding Solie, feeling her breaths even out as sleep pulls her under.
Luna watches us from the doorway, her face unreadable in the half-light. I want to ask her. I want to demand answers, shout, rage, beg. But all I manage is a rasped whisper. “She’s… bright.”
“She’s everything,” Luna answers, her voice so raw it cuts.
I press my cheek against the crown of Solie’s head, the strands of her hair tickling my jaw, and I know I’m done for. Done pretending, done doubting, done running from the truth that’s staring me in the face.
I carry her inside when she’s fully asleep, lay her gently in her bed. Luna tucks the blanket around her, kisses her forehead, lingers a moment too long before stepping back. I brush Luna’s hand as we move past each other in the narrow hall. She doesn’t pull away.
Later, when I’m back in my hideout, the terminal hums at me, waiting for another report. My claws hover over the keys. I could type about the courier. About the Combine executive. About anything.
Instead, I open my private log.
And I change the word.
Not “Suspicion.”
Not anymore.
Just one word, hammered out with a certainty that shakes me to my core.
Mine.