Chapter 20
Haid
We barely make it.
Haid seals his armor back on in under thirty seconds, magnetic plating snapping into place with mechanical precision while I struggle into my torn clothes, fingers fumbling over fabric that won't cooperate.
My hands shake, adrenaline and post-orgasmic vulnerability make everything harder than it should be.
The door buckles inward, metal screaming.
He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the emergency access panel hidden behind a tactical display. His armored fingers move with practiced efficiency across the biometric scanner, bypassing security protocols that should take minutes in mere seconds.
The panel slides open, revealing a maintenance shaft barely wide enough for his shoulders.
"Go," he commands, already lifting me toward the opening despite the weightlessness making leverage nearly impossible. His hands span my waist, solid and sure even as we drift. "Follow the yellow markers. They lead to docking bay seven."
I twist to look back at him, panic flaring hot in my chest. "What about you?"
"Right behind you." Through the neural link, I feel his determination, his absolute refusal to let anything happen to me.
Also his lie, because even through the bond's crystalline clarity, I can sense the edges of his deception, the way he's already calculating trajectories and outcomes that don't include both of us making it to that docking bay.
"Haid—" I start, his name catching in my throat like a prayer or a curse, but I don't get to finish the protest forming on my lips.
The door explodes inward in a shower of molten metal and sparks that light up the darkness like dying stars. Apex guards pour through, weapons raised, and Haid shoves me into the shaft with enough force to send me tumbling backward through the weightless tunnel.
"Go!" he roars, and this time there's nothing human in his voice, only the Warden of the Void unleashing himself on anyone foolish enough to stand between him and his mate.
So I go.
I scramble through the maintenance shaft, using handholds designed for zero-gravity repairs, pulling myself forward while behind me the sounds of combat echo through the metal walls.
Energy weapons discharge with sharp cracks.
Something heavy slams into bulkheads. A man screams, the sound cutting off abruptly.
Through the bond, I feel Haid's cold rage, his brutal efficiency, his absolute focus on clearing a path.
The yellow markers blur past as I move faster, trusting him to follow, trusting the connection between us that pulses stronger with every meter of distance I put between us. It shouldn't work like this. The neural link should weaken with separation.
Instead it grows more insistent, more demanding, a silver thread that winds tighter and brighter with each passing second, tying us together across space and violence and fear.
The neural link thrums in my mind like a living thing, pulsing with information I barely understand, his location, his intent, his absolute determination to follow.
It shouldn't be possible. Every text I've ever read about mate bonds says they attenuate over distance, that separation weakens the connection.
But this feels like the opposite, like stretching a cord until it vibrates with tension, until the resonance becomes impossible to ignore.
My hands find another grip, pull, propel me forward through the narrow tunnel. The yellow markers continue their steady progression, counting down the distance to docking bay seven.
I drop out of the shaft just as gravity stutters back online, the transition jarring and abrupt. One moment I'm weightless, the next I'm falling through suddenly heavy air, my stomach lurching with the change.
The sudden return of weight sends me crashing to the deck, knees hitting metal hard enough to bruise.
I bite back a cry and force myself upright, scanning the bay for threats.
Empty. The Cerberus waits thirty meters away, ramp already descending, Thanatos visible in the doorway with a plasma rifle raised.
"Move!" he shouts, laying down covering fire as Apex guards pour into the bay from the opposite entrance.
I run.
Energy bolts scream past close enough to feel the heat, close enough to smell ozone and burned air.
One catches my shoulder, glancing off but still searing through fabric into skin.
Pain lances white-hot down my arm and I stumble but don't fall, don't stop, just keep running toward the ship and safety and—
Haid erupts from another access shaft behind me, his armor scorched and dented but intact.
Relief floods through me so powerfully my knees almost buckle. Through the bond I feel his matching emotion, fierce and possessive and edged with violence that hasn't quite burned itself out.
We made it up the ramp together.
Thanatos seals it behind us, already shouting coordinates to the pilot, and the Cerberus lurches into motion before we've even reached the bridge.
I crash into a bulkhead as the ship banks hard, artificial gravity struggling to compensate.
Haid catches me against his armored chest, one arm banding around my waist to hold me steady.
"Status," he barks into the ship's comm, still holding me close.
"Apex defenses are crippled," comes the response, crackling with static. "Fleet Admiral Nyx reports seventy percent of their gun platforms offline. The Tartarus fleet is breaking off, regrouping at rally point sigma."
Through the viewscreen, I watch the golden hulls of Apex cruisers listing in space, venting atmosphere and debris. Smaller Tartarus ships dart between them like sharks, sleek and dark and devastating.
We did this.
The thought should horrify me. I was raised to value peace, to see violence as failure, to believe in negotiation and diplomacy and the fundamental good of the Apex Collective.
But all I feel is savage satisfaction that my mother's forces are bleeding.
Haid's hand tightens on my waist, and through the bond I feel his approval of my bloodthirsty thoughts, his dark pleasure in my acceptance of necessary violence.
"Take us home," he orders, his voice rougher than usual, and I feel the word catch in his throat through the bond not just sound, but emotion, raw and unexpected.
Home.
Not Tartarus Station. Not the fleet rally point. Not coordinates or tactical positions.
Home.
The simple word resonates through me, through us both, carrying weight I didn't expect. When did his fortress of shadows and stone become something more than a prison? When did the dark corridors and obsidian walls transform from cage to sanctuary?
The Cerberus shudders as the hyperdrive engages, reality folding around us.
Through the viewport, the golden Apex cruisers—broken and bleeding, their perfect hulls scarred by our assault—stretch into impossible lines of light.
Then they're gone, swallowed by the violet wash of hyperspace, vanishing behind us like a bad dream finally ending.
I watch the purple-black void replace the battlefield, and something in my chest unclenches.
We're going home.
Three days later, I stand on the bridge of the Obsidian Spire and watch the purple nebula swirl outside the viewport like paint in water.
The dress they brought me is beautiful.
Black as void, cut from some fabric that catches light without reflecting it, fitted to my curves in a way that's both elegant and subtly dangerous.
But embroidered across the bodice and down the skirt are vines, delicate and twining, rendered in thread that shifts between deep emerald and lighter spring green depending on the angle.
A deliberate blending of our colors, our essences woven together in silk and thread.
Black for the void he commands, for the darkness that is his domain, for the shadows that answer to his will. Green for the growing things I nurture, for the life that springs forth at my touch, for the verdant worlds I can coax from barren stone.
Death and life, intertwined in a pattern as old as the universe itself, as inevitable as the changing of seasons.
My hair is loose around my shoulders, still damp from the sonic shower, and for the first time in weeks I'm wearing actual cosmetics. Not much. Just enough to make my eyes look less hollow, my lips less pale.
I look like a queen.
The thought makes something twist in my chest, uncomfortable and exciting in equal measure.
Behind me, the bridge crew works with quiet efficiency, monitoring feeds from across the Tartarus Belt.
Every screen shows the same thing: celebrations.
The lower levels are packed with people dancing, drinking, singing songs I don't know the words to yet.
They're burning Apex propaganda posters, painting independence slogans across bulkheads, releasing bioluminescent spores I grew last week that float through the recycled air like living stars.
They declared independence eight hours ago.
A unanimous vote by the Tartarus Council, which Haid could have overruled but didn't. He stood silent in his armor and watched the vote count climb, and when the final tally came in he simply inclined his head in acceptance.
Then he'd looked at me across the Council chamber and I'd felt the question pulse through our bond.
Will you stay?
The question had resonated through our bond, not spoken aloud but felt in every fiber of my being, carrying with it layers of meaning I was only beginning to understand.
Not just stay in the Council chamber, but stay in the Tartarus Belt, stay by my side, stay as what we're becoming to each other.
The weight of it should have terrified me, would have terrified me weeks ago when I first arrived here as his hostage, his leverage, his prisoner.