Chapter 28 Rhea
RHEA
We find it by accident.
A moon with a sky like melted emerald. The kind of place that doesn’t show up on nav charts with names or flags—just coordinates and a whisper.
There’s a single cluster of buildings, low and curved like they were shaped by the wind. No tourists. No tech beyond the basics. Just quiet.
We rent a place with creaking floors and windows that don’t seal all the way. The wind smells faintly metallic, like wet iron and wild herbs. Ripley calls it “fairy air.” I let her have that.
The house is small—kitchen, two rooms, an open-air deck—but it’s enough. We don’t need bunkers or blast doors. Just soft beds and the space to exhale.
The lake out back isn’t water, not really. It's a gravity-variable fluid that glows faint blue at night and resists every known classification. The locals call it “mirrorwash.” I call it a blessing.
I teach Ripley how to swim in it.
She’s awkward at first—too many limbs, too much laughing—but she gets the hang of it faster than I did. Her curls float like a halo, and her shrieks echo off the cliffs like music.
Valtron builds a bench near the shore. Real wood. No synth. Just his hands, calloused and steady, shaping something that won’t break under weight.
He builds a swing, too, hung from a crooked, bone-pale tree that sways like it’s always dancing. He doesn’t say why. But I know. He’s building the childhood she almost missed.
We eat simple food. Flatbread cooked over a real fire. Fruit that stains our fingers red. Soup that simmers for hours and tastes like patience. We wear linen and laugh when it wrinkles.
No plasma. No encryption keys. No threat assessments or locked doors. Just breath. And each other.
That night, the wind picks up, rattling the loose pane in our bedroom window.
It’s not a threatening sound anymore; it’s just the planet breathing.
Valtron stands by the foot of the bed, the moonlight turning his scales to dark silver.
He looks out at the lake, shoulders taut, not with tension, but with a kind of disbelief.
I walk up behind him and rest my cheek against his back. He’s warm. Solid. Here.
“You’re waiting for the other shoe to drop,” I whisper.
He turns, his golden eyes catching mine. The rest of the world stops pretending it exists.
“I’m waiting to wake up,” he admits, his voice rough and low. It scrapes over me like gravel and silk. “I spent so long running toward a fight, I don’t know how to stand still.”
I reach up, tracing the line of his jaw. “You aren’t standing still. You’re planting roots. There’s a difference.”
He stares down at me, and the intensity in his gaze steals the air from my lungs. “You did this. You saved us.”
“We saved each other.”
He shakes his head, then captures my hand, pressing a kiss to my palm that sends a jolt straight to my core. “I look at you,” he rasps, “and I don’t see the reporter or the fugitive. I see my life.”
That breaks something in me. The last wall I didn’t know I was holding up.
“Then stop talking,” I breathe, “and live it.”
He growls—a low, possessive sound that vibrates through my chest. He pulls me in, one arm wrapping around my waist, lifting me effortlessly until my feet leave the floorboards.
His mouth crashes against mine, and the quiet of the house vanishes.
I moan—sharp, guttural—because it’s not soft. It’s not just comfort. It’s a hunger we’ve starved for years. His tongue claims mine, hot and demanding, his claws tangling in my hair as he tilts me back.
“You’re mine,” he growls against my lips.
“I always was,” I pant. “Show me.”
He carries me to the bed, laying me down on the quilt we bought in the village. There’s no armor to strip away this time. No tactical gear. Just the soft linen shirt he wears, which I yank over his head in one impatient motion.
He grins, sharp and wicked, and follows me down.
His body covers mine, massive and burning. Under the moonlight, his red-gold scales shimmer. He kisses the curve of my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, moving lower until I’m writhing, whispering his name like a curse and a prayer.
“Valtron—”
He slips his hand between us, touching me with a reverence that makes my heart ache. “So wet for me,” he murmurs.
“Stop talking.”
He slides one thick finger into me, then two, stretching me slowly, his eyes locked on my face, watching every flicker of pleasure.
“Perfect,” he breathes.
When he finally replaces his hand with his body, pushing inside me slow and deep, I gasp, clawing at his shoulders. He fills every empty space, every cracked part of my soul.
We move together in the rhythm of the waves outside—steady, relentless, consuming. He fucks me like he’s trying to memorize me, and I take him like I’m anchoring him to this earth.
When we come, it’s not quiet. It’s a shattered cry into the dark, a release of everything we survived to get here.
After, he holds me, his heart thudding against my back, and for the first time in my life, I don’t fear the morning.
The idea comes two days later, born from the mind of a six-year-old with sticky fingers and too much energy.
Ripley is down by the shore, collecting "gems"—smooth, flat stones polished by the mirrorwash lake until they gleam like opal. She has a pile of them on the bench Valtron built.
Valtron is sitting beside her, letting her braid a piece of grass around his wrist.
“Valtron?” she asks, tying a knot.
“Yeah, storm?”
“Why don’t you and Mama have the promise bands?”
He blinks. “The what?”
“In the stories,” she says, exasperated, as if explaining physics to a toddler. “When the prince and the pilot stop fighting the bad guys, they get promise bands. It means they’re a team forever.”
Valtron looks up at me where I’m standing on the deck. I smile, leaning against the rail.
“We are a team,” Valtron says seriously.
“But you didn’t do the thing!” Ripley stands up, brushing sand off her knees. She picks up two of the smoothest, roundest stones she’s found. “We have to do the thing.”
She marches up to the deck, grabs my hand, and drags me down to the sand. She makes us stand in front of the swing.
“Okay,” she announces, her voice taking on a very official, imperious tone. “I am the... the Captain of the Lake.”
Valtron suppresses a grin. “Aye, Captain.”
“You have to hold hands,” she commands.
We do. Valtron’s hand engulfs mine, warm and rough.
“Now,” Ripley says, handing me one of the stones. It’s cool and heavy, swirled with violet and blue. She hands the other to Valtron. “These are the promise stones. Because we don’t have bands. And stones are stronger because you can’t break them.”
I look at the rock in my palm. She’s right.
“Daddy,” she says—and my breath catches. It’s the first time she’s used the word so casually, without testing the weight of it. “You have to promise to catch Mama if she falls.”
Valtron’s eyes go glassy. He squeezes my hand. “I promise.”
“And Mama,” she turns to me. “You have to promise to... to make him snacks when he’s grumpy.”
I laugh, a wet, choked sound. “I promise.”
“And you both promise to never, ever leave the team.”
We look at each other. The wind blows Valtron’s hair across his forehead. He looks younger here. Lighter.
“I promise,” we say in unison.
Ripley throws her hands up, tossing a handful of waxy leaves she stripped from the bushes earlier.
“You’re married now!” she shouts as the petals rain down on us.
I think it’s perfect.
That night, we don’t close the windows. We don’t dim the lights. We lie under stars we’ve never named, on a blanket that smells like salt and sun.
He touches me like I’m real. Like I’m not a memory or a wound. Like I’m here. Now.
I kiss him like the world ended and came back soft.
It’s not about heat. Not even about comfort.
It’s about choosing each other. Again. And again.
His name is a heartbeat in my mouth.
My name is peace on his lips.
When I fall asleep afterward, my hand still holds the stone Ripley gave me. My fingers wrapped around something ancient and true.