Chapter 5
Vessa
“You,” Vessa hissed.
Kedar pushed his hood back, revealing his mask. It was the same as it had always been. Dark. Impenetrable. The last time she saw him, the eyeshields of that very helmet had burned crimson as she left him on his back.
Now that bloody and brutal past stood before her.
“Vessa,” he said. Like they were two old friends who’d bumped into each other at a trade post. Like the last time she saw him she hadn’t held his life in her hands.
The wind blew directly into them, battering them with small chunks of hail. Kedar gripped Vessa’s arm, turning her away from the entrance.
“Don’t fucking touch me,” she growled, pulling herself free just as fast.
“Fine, stand in the cold, then.” He moved deeper into the tunnel with a certain swagger that was all him. Some rhythm and exactness that even if she were an artist, she still couldn’t capture. How hadn’t she noticed sooner?
Kedar reached into his cloak and cracked a flarelight, then another, tossing them into the darkness.
The passageway opened into a much larger area.
Gold light illuminated the cavern, glinted off the ice walls.
Patches of black, shiny stone were confined beneath the thick layers of frost, and several large slabs of it reached up through the ground.
Kedar powered down her plasma dirk, its last hums echoing through the cavernous space. Seemingly unconcerned with her, he studied the place with eyes that saw far more than hers.
Behind her, out in that winter raging storm, was certain death. Vessa had played in the god of death’s arena many times in her life. In every hunt, every battle, every mission. But here, in this icy cage, she was trapped.
It’d been seven fucking years. Seven years since she’d seen him, or even existed on the same planet as him.
An eternity could pass, though, and it still wouldn’t be long enough for her to forget what he’d done.
“No,” she muttered, shaking her head, “let me get these damn cuffs off.” Despite the deep freeze she felt in every part of her body, she untied the bag from herself and crouched down to go through it with numb fingers. Each device that didn’t release her only fueled her wrath more.
Just as she was about to try her twenty-seventh, her cuffs fell free.
She lifted her head slowly. Kedar held the matching device between his fingers.
Red filtered through her vision, her focus narrowed. “Are you telling me you’ve had it this whole time?” she growled.
He lifted a single shoulder in a shrug. “You’re much easier to wrangle this way. I didn’t want to deal with your attitude.”
“My attitude? My…” Vessa stood up, knuckles cracking as she curled her fingers into fists. “And who the fuck do you think you are?”
“Tonight? Looks like I’m the only reason you're alive.” His voice was level, calm, as he crossed his arms over his chest, his biceps bulging.
In a fluid motion made possible by countless speed drills, she grabbed and threw the bag of devices at his head.
Kedar grunted as he caught it right before impact. But she was already storming toward him. Her fist connected with his ribs, and the impact was satisfying even as pain sparked in her knuckles.
Kedar blocked her kick and moved out of her strike range.
“Fight me,” she snarled, stalking forward.
Again, he stepped out of her way. “No.”
“You don’t get to come here, act like you’re rescuing me, take my kills, and pull me into this ice cave like you’re some gods damn savior. You’re a coward,” she spat. “With your cloak and voice modulator. You knew I would’ve rather died in that fetid tent than deal with you.”
He made a sound with his tongue that she knew was an annoyed dismissal. Even before, it had angered her on a good day. “I am many things, but a coward isn’t one.” His voice was at once harsh and emotionless.
This time, when she came at him, he didn’t evade her. Finally. She landed hits to his ribs and stomach. Beneath her knuckles, he was all hard, sturdy muscle. She’d forgotten the sheer mass and strength that a Xaal could have. Especially him.
Kedar’s abs and arms flexed against her assault. Yet he still didn’t react. He was nothing but an immoveable mountain.
“Fight me!” she raged.
“I’m not going to fight you when the death gods are a breath away from you,” he snapped, and shoved her away.
Vessa was almost too far gone to care. Too out of it to give a damn about honor or creed or what state she was in. He’d trapped her with him like a caged beast.
All she knew was rage.
But she was dangerously not herself. The last few days sat like a weight on her chest, making it hard for her to breathe.
Her strength and mobility were shit. Her vision blurred randomly, and her head pounded in time with her rapid pulse.
Even she could recognize it was futile. “Fuck you,” she snarled before putting as much space as she could create between them.
“That would be one way to warm up,” Kedar said.
She almost bit back, almost let the animalistic need to tear him limb from limb win.
Instead, logic prevailed. “How did you find me? How did you know I was here?” It didn’t make sense.
Unless he’d been tracking her since she’d touched down on Nevida for a supply fill?
No, she hadn’t spent millions of credits making her ship untraceable from even the gods themselves for him to track her so easily. She was missing something.
He lifted her plasma dirk. “All of my weapons are linked to my armor’s system.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“When I made your plasma dirk”—she could feel his gaze run down her body, stopping on its sheath—“I made part of it from the ixom of my battle armor.”
Why hadn’t she known of this? If she hadn’t already felt the full weight of betrayal from him, such a violation of her privacy would have done it. “You wanted to be able to track me? As if I didn’t give you all my time anyway, you needed to know where I was at every second?”
Was that a slight shift of his weight? “Making a weapon from one’s armor is…” He trailed off and shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I didn’t want to track you. Not then.”
She snorted. “I see. Just after you took everything from me. Then why did it take you seven years to find me? Lose your touch?”
“The signal should be trackable anytime and anywhere in the known galaxy. Yet, the first and only time it pinged was six settings ago.”
When she’d taken the cursed blade off her ship for the first time.
“Was it not clear when last we parted that I never wanted to see you again? Or did you fly across the universe to reclaim a gift once given?”
Kedar took a heavy breath, his broad chest expanding. He was larger than she remembered. Or maybe it had just been long enough to forget how much space and oxygen his presence took up. It was suffocating.
“It is good to see it again,” he said, “but much too small for my grip.” Vessa’s gaze caught on his huge hands briefly. “And while I’ve always enjoyed your venom, l’m not here for that, either.”
“Then what? What do you want from me?” she snapped. By the gods, she was exhausted and freezing and hungry, and if at least one of those weren't fixed in the next few minutes, she was likely to kill them both.
“What I want is for you to warm up, tend your wounds, and eat.”
It felt like she’d just been punched in the face.
Her lips parted, so caught off guard that no response came to her for long enough that the bastard was probably smiling beneath his mask.
Crossing her arms over herself as she cocked a brow, she finally said, “And how do you suggest I go about that?”
Kedar unclasped his cloak and shrugged it off.
It revealed a strip of deep blue flesh at his throat—and how the seven years had done him a service.
In his black fight suit, against a wall of ice, he looked almost ethereal.
His thick muscles shifted beneath the light armor, leaving nothing about his form to the imagination.
He’d always been large and powerful, but he was even more menacing now.
Vessa had never expected to see him again.
One of the many reasons she never stayed on a planet for too long was to ensure just that.
The universe was expansive, and even that wasn’t enough to make her feel at ease.
But when she imagined what he must look like now, it wasn’t like this.
Guilt should have torn him to shreds, wasted him until he was nothing but bone.
Yet he stood before her exactly like the god of war, Kraton, returning to his three brides after his millennia-long battle—somehow stronger, more resolved, unweathered by time.
He crouched down and opened a sleek bag that had been hidden beneath his cloak. She sniffed derisively. “You’re awfully prepared.”
“Here.” He held a bundle of goods out to her.
As her numb fingers wrapped around it, she realized what it was. “How did you get these?”
“From your ship.”
“Impossible. It can’t be boarded without my authorization. Liv would never let you on.”
Kedar had the audacity to rumble out a laugh. “Liv wanted me to tell you not to be late for your mission. She gave an exact date, but I wasn’t paying attention.”
Traitor.
Though, that was the least of her problems. He’d been on her ship. In her space. Touching her things. “Have a good time sniffing all my undergarments, then?”
“I took my favorites to go,” he said dryly.
“Is it secure from anyone else? Or do I need to be concerned about Orcru rummaging through my underthings, too?” she asked, trying to keep her tone neutral as she sat the towel and warming blanket down.
When she unfolded the other thermal suit he’d brought, the tiniest set of underwear fell out.
She’d bought it for a job that required her to go to one of the seedier pleasure planets in the galaxy and blend in.
The set definitely hadn’t been on top. Images of his gloveless fingers picking up the silky pieces flitted through her mind.
“Your garments are secure,” he said.