Chapter 12
NAULL
Ihadn’t meant for it to happen like that.
I’d thought about it—of course I had. Hell, I’d dreamed it more nights than I’d care to admit. The curve of her jaw in low light. The way her eyes burned when she argued. The sound of her voice when she dropped the sarcasm and just... spoke.
But I hadn’t planned on that moment.
Not in the containment vault. Not with the fire behind us and the oxygen tank redlining. Not while we were floating in zero-G, stripped bare by pressure and panic and something older than both.
Yet when she said my name—like it was something sacred—I forgot how to think.
And when she kissed me?
I forgot how to breathe.
I’ve been in warzones. Faced monsters that make your bones hum with fear. But nothing—nothing—has ever broken me the way she did in that flickering, smoke-filled room.
Not because it was wild.
But because it was real.
She didn’t flinch.
She didn’t hold back.
And when we sank down together, skin to skin, tangled in heat and hunger, she looked at me like I wasn’t just a weapon in someone else's war. Like I was a man. Like I was hers.
And that?
That undid me.
I don’t remember walking back to my quarters after the emergency lift. I don’t remember nodding to the techs, pretending my pulse wasn’t still racing, pretending my mouth didn’t still taste like her.
I just remember locking the door behind me and sinking into the dark, the silence pressing in heavy around me.
I didn’t expect her to come.
But she did.
No knock. No announcement.
Just the soft hiss of the door, the shift of air as she stepped inside, and the quiet click of it sealing again behind her.
I turned.
She stood there, still in her base layers, eyes shadowed, jaw set—but not tense. Not angry. Just... determined.
“Aria.”
She didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
Because the way she walked to me—slow, steady, sure—said everything.
No games. No protocol.
Just need.
She touched my chest. Not hard. Just a hand pressed flat, fingers splayed over my heart like she could feel it pounding through bone.
I covered her hand with mine.
And for a long second, we just stood there.
Breathing.
Learning the new shape of things.
The lights stayed dim. The air thick. The world outside could’ve fallen to pieces for all I cared.
When I pulled her into the bed, she didn’t resist.
She curled into me like she’d done it a thousand times before.
And maybe she had—in dreams we never spoke of.
She was quiet. No quips. No fire.
Just her.
Warm. Soft. Unarmored.
She tucked herself under my chin, her fingers finding mine in the dark. And when I laced them together, she squeezed.
Not hard. Just enough to say, I’m here.
This time, we didn’t rush.
We didn’t claw and crash like the world was ending.
We breathed.
Took our time.
Mapped each other with reverence.
She kissed the scar beneath my jaw like she’d known it was there all along. I traced the curve of her spine like it might disappear if I didn’t memorize it. Her skin tasted like salt and heat and everything I never let myself want.
We whispered things. Nothing dramatic. Nothing poetic.
Just names. Breathless laughter. Quiet curses that turned into moans.
And when we moved together, it wasn’t just about the fire.
It was about finding home in someone else’s skin.
She broke against me with a shudder that stole every word from my mouth. I held her through it, kissed her temple, murmured something in Vakutan I didn’t know I still remembered.
She didn’t ask what it meant.
Didn’t need to.
Her body curved into mine like it already understood.
After, she rested with her head on my chest, fingers still locked with mine. The silence between us wasn’t empty this time.
It was full.
Of everything we’d finally stopped running from.
I don’t sleep easy. Haven’t in years.
But that night?
With her heartbeat thudding softly against my ribs?
I slept like I remembered what peace felt like.
And maybe it won’t last.
Maybe morning will bring distance and doubt and consequences neither of us are ready for.
But I know this—
Tonight, she came to me.
Not as a soldier.
Not as a pilot.
Not even as the stubborn, impossible woman who’s been in my blood since the first time she snapped at me over a calibration error.
She came to me as herself.
Aria.
And I will never—never—forget what it felt like to be hers.
Even if it’s just for now.
She stays.
That’s the part that gets me.
Not the fire. Not the containment breach. Not the way our bodies fit like old scars finding soft places.
It’s this.
Her—warm and quiet and here—curled into the shape of my side like she was made for it.
No armor. No edge. No walls thrown up between us.
Just her breath brushing against my arm, slow and steady. Her spine pressed to my chest, the curve of her body anchoring mine in a way I’ve never felt before—not even in the cockpits or during a Meld surge. Not even when death was close enough to taste.
This?
This is closer.
I wrap my arm around her waist, slowly, careful not to wake her. My fingers rest just above the hem of her base shirt, the skin beneath warm and impossibly soft. Like silk over muscle. Like something real in a world made of ash and alloy.
She shifts slightly, exhales a soft sound, and sighs when my thumb brushes the small of her back. The kind of sigh that seeps into your bloodstream, tells every nerve in your body this is right.
I memorize it.
The rhythm of her breathing.
The weight of her hip beneath my palm.
The way her knuckles rest by her mouth, curled loose like she’s finally safe enough to dream.
And then, just when I think she’s asleep—deep enough not to stir even if I moved—she whispers my name.
“Naull…”
Soft.
Barely a sound.
Like it slipped from her lips without permission. Like it meant something more than a name ever should.
And it tears through me.
I don’t move. Don’t respond. Just lie there in the quiet, letting her voice echo through every broken part of me I thought I’d long buried.
She doesn’t say anything else.
Just drifts back down into whatever sleep carries someone like her—someone too fierce to fall unless she chooses to.
I don’t sleep.
Can’t.
My body’s still. My breathing matched to hers. But inside?
I’m wrecked.
I’ve fought in a hundred battles. Piloted through storms that made lesser men piss themselves in terror. I’ve been dropped into firestorms and pulled out comrades with nothing but a half-charged rifle and a prayer to gods I don’t even believe in.
But this?
This is the scariest thing I’ve ever felt.
Because it’s hope.
And hope? Hope is dangerous.
Hope makes you reach for things you’re not sure you deserve. Makes you think maybe, just maybe, you’re not just a war dog or a weapon. Maybe you’re a man.
And maybe that man gets to have something like this.
Someone like her.
But I know better.
Don’t I?
Because morning always comes.
It creeps in soft through the vents, light slanting across the floor in pale gold slices. The alarm doesn’t go off. The station hums in that low, early hour murmur, like it’s holding its breath before the day starts screaming again.
And she’s gone.
Not dramatically.
No rustle. No slam.
Just… gone.
The sheets are still warm where she lay. Her scent lingers—some mix of ozone, mech grease, and something hers—like heat and sharp edges softened at the core.
I sit up slowly, rub the back of my neck, and stare at the empty space beside me.
And for the first time in years, I feel cold.
Not from the air. The climate control is fine.
But from the absence.
The ache.
She didn’t leave a note. Of course she didn’t. That’s not her style.
And I won’t chase her down the corridor demanding answers. I won’t stand outside the command room like some desperate cadet hoping for a smile.
I won’t say a word.
Because this is what I am, right?
A warfighter. A pilot. A weapon.
Not a partner.
Not a future.
Just… firepower.
But as I sit there, bare feet on the cold metal floor, hands curled into fists and lungs tight from something that’s not oxygen depletion, I know one thing for certain.
I’d chase that warmth to the ends of the stars.
If she let me.