Epilogue
Vessa
Four Months Later
“There is no need to pretend,” Vessa said without looking over her shoulder. “It’s obvious you’ve been drawn in. No one escapes Between Dimensions unscathed.”
“No one,” Liv echoed ominously.
“I am not interested in this,” Kedar said, waving a hand at the projection.
This had been an ongoing battle for weeks now, but every once in a while, she’d catch him watching it when he passed by the couch.
“How about you come over here and give me a massage? You don’t have to watch it, but my body is sore and in dire need of your hands.
I miss you.” She really did. After they trained in the mornings, Kedar spent most of his time working on something he didn’t want her to know about.
He couldn’t resist her—she saw how her words affected him. Softened him. “We could train more instead,” he said, his jaw ticking.
“I don’t want to train again. I’ve already showered. Besides, I want to spend actual time with you.” She smiled sweetly. “Xer would have watched the show with me. Since you’re always off doing gods know what, I guess I could find him and ask him to—”
Kedar vaulted over the sofa. “You will do no such thing,” he growled. “If I ever meet this Xaal, I will challenge him. His death will be long and painful, over the course of weeks. First, I will take his—”
He detailed, not for the first time, exactly how he would make him suffer.
She may or may not have ever corrected the fact that there was no Xer.
Kedar knew that she hadn’t been with this other Xaal, but it truly kept him vigilant to think that there could be another Xaal out there that wanted her.
Besides, she enjoyed getting him riled up.
She supposed she would tell him one day. Honesty and all that. But for now, she would enjoy the possessive way he pulled her across his lap while placing a pillow on the other side for her head. The way his big hands kneaded her curves before landing a stinging smack on her backside.
She sucked in air through her teeth. “That’s hardly a massage.”
“Perhaps you should call Xer if you do not find my hands satisfactory,” he grumbled. Then he smacked her a little harder on her other cheek before rubbing the stinging pain away with his palm.
Heat pooled in her core, but she needed to focus. She finally had him right where she wanted him. “Don’t be sour,” she murmured. “You know I love your big, rough hands on me. I just can’t believe this is finally happening.”
“It is truly a miraculous day,” Liv monotoned. “Would you like me to add it to the growing list of firsts, such as the first time you fucked in a bed, the first time you fucked on each cushion of the couch, the first time you yelled at him for devouring two jars of jam?”
“This middle cushion, when was that?” Kedar asked as the show’s dramatic intro music started. He was squeezing Vessa’s thigh, his fingers entirely too close to the juncture for it to be considered a massage.
“That one was three days after your arrival. It was the fifth time you knotted on board the Jax, and Vessa chanted ‘harder’ approximately nine times, suggesting—”
“Oh, gods save me. Enough, Liv.”
“As you will, overseer.”
After three episodes, Vessa was thoroughly massaged. He’d systematically rubbed out each knot and tight spot. Her body felt like warm butter. “So?” she asked.
“I do not understand.”
Her hope dwindled. A frown pulled at the corner of her lips as she sat up beside him.
Kedar ran a hand through his hair, only to pat it down again. “The Erodian Emperor says he will destroy all the Vectran, but then he gives the one he has in his dungeon a golden fruit from her planet? He doesn’t know she’s the one who killed his brother, either, and there’s that—”
Vessa cheered, and Kedar looked even more confused by her reaction. “We got him!”
“Wooo,” Liv droned.
“Just wait until Braxon the Dark comes in. It only gets wilder from here. Welcome to Between Dimensions!” Vessa kissed his cheek affectionately multiple times until he smiled at her enthusiasm.
“I do need to know what happens next,” he rumbled, “but I have a surprise for you that can’t wait for another episode.”
She lifted a brow. The last time he had a surprise for her, he’d given her a plasma dirk. “Another weapon?”
Kedar stood up and didn’t look at her as he said, “You’ll find out in ten minutes.”
Suspicious. Pursing her lips, she followed him around the sofa. “Why are you putting your mask on?”
Kedar didn’t answer her question, instead telling her that she would need shoes, too, and disappearing the moment she turned around. Very suspicious.
While she waited, she tried to imagine what it could be. He’d certainly been working on something these last few months, but she’d kept her promise not to follow him or try to pry any information out of him about it. Perhaps all his work was finally finished.
Minutes later, dressed and armed, they wound their way to the open hatch of her ship. “Go ahead,” Kedar said as he moved to the side so she could pass him. She shook her head at his demeanor. He was acting bizarre.
At this time of the day, the twin suns were high in the sky, and as she stepped out, she had to shade her eyes to see what it was Kedar had brought.
But it wasn't what. It was who.
Their backs were to her as they looked at something in the treeline, but she knew the woman’s long, dark silver hair, knew the exact broadness of the man’s shoulders.
“Mama? Papa?” she breathed.
They turned at the sound of her voice. Vessa thought perhaps she was imagining it all.
Like she’d stepped from her ship and into a different reality altogether.
The suns shone on her mother’s face as if it was made for that purpose alone.
She’d always drawn the light toward her like this—some power Vessa had not inherited.
But then it all rushed back to her. She was banished from the faction. Her family would have been forced to cut ties with her or be deemed traitors themselves. Never again should their gazes land upon her face. It was forbidden.
She rushed forward, fell to her knees, and placed her raze sword at their feet. Bowing before them, she stretched her arms out and hid her face. “I have dishonored your name, you should not look upon this linnra.”
Her heart raced. Her mouth was dry. Sweat trailed from her brow into her hairline as the silence settled on her back with a heavy weight. Her father should kill her. To save them the dishonor of seeing her.
Fabric rustled. And then the scent of her mother was there. Sunlight and the rich, life-sustaining soil of their home. “Rise,” her mother commanded gently.
Vessa hesitated. “But the law—”
“You would disobey me so soon?”
She lifted her head slowly to find her mother kneeling before her. The years had barely touched her. She was the striking image of the woman Vessa had left behind. Her bright hazel eyes were full of unshed tears.
“I see no linnra here. Only our daughter.”
Vessa looked from her mother to her father—a hard man of few words, but his usual stoic and stern demeanor was gone. “Our daughter,” he said, and offered her his hand.
Her father pulled her up into a bone-crushing hug. Shame overtook her that she ever thought her parents would disown her. If she had known, kept hope, she could have found them sooner.
“Don’t break her ribs, Dennan,” her mother said with mild concern. “We just got her back.”
It was so ordinary. So them. Something that was a mix between a sob and a laugh escaped her. “How?” she asked when he finally released her. “How did you find me? What about the faction? If they find out, you’ll be deemed traitors.”
Her mother flicked her hand out in a gesture Vessa had witnessed dozens of times before.
“To the Pits with the faction. We’ve been looking for you all this time beneath their noses.
We’d have left long ago, but we kept hope you may find a way back somehow.
I can’t believe they banished you, sent you away without—” She cut herself off, cleared her throat. “As for how…” She inclined her head.
Vessa turned to find Kedar standing in the hatchway. She looked between them—her parents who’d defied the law of faction to find her and Kedar who had hunted her down. Her two worlds. “You communicated?” she blurted. “And without murdering him?” This question was directed solely at her father.
He smoothed down his rich green tunic, picked a piece of invisible lint off it. The dark features of his face were unreadable. “He was very determined, even with my blade two inches deep in his chest.”
“Papa,” she groaned.
“I knew the risk,” Kedar said, stepping up beside her and pressing his hand against the small of her back.
Something gleamed in her mother’s eyes as she took them in, while her father looked on the verge of testing Kedar’s reaction time.
“Yes, well,” her mother said, a little too loudly, “I would’ve listened to just about anyone if they told me they knew where you were.
It just so happened to be a familiar mask to do it. ”
“Is this really happening?” Vessa whispered. “You’re both really here on Lovo?”
Her mother beamed at her and squeezed her arm. “We’re here, and it's lovely. A good place for faction. For home. I can smell it in the soil.”
Her father nodded in agreement. “Good soil.”
“You’re staying?” Her heart was close to bursting.
“Of course we are,” her mother said. “We already have accommodations thanks to this Xaal of yours. Speaking of, we must get back, Dennan. I need to prepare dinner”—she looked Vessa and Kedar over—“which you both will be attending tonight. Don’t be late.
” This last part she directed to Kedar in some secret understanding they shared.
“We will not be late,” Kedar assured her.
Accommodations? Dinner? Vessa’s mouth worked silently as her parents turned and walked westward. To their home?