Chapter Seven
Maelic
Maelic was furious. The way that human male had looked at Delaney set his teeth on edge. He shifted his wings as she approached, jaw tight.
He didn’t know what they’d spoken about, but her expression was stormy now. The happy light in her eyes had dimmed.
No one should make her feel like that.
“Are you well?” The words blurted out before he could stop them. The need to comfort her was a physical ache.
She blinked, seeming dazed. “Ah, well… it’s fine. I just have more chores to do today. It’s fine. Listen, you go see about your ship thingy.”
“You don’t wish to accompany me?” Maelic’s hackles rose. “Is that male troubling you?”
It was against multiple laws to harm a safeguarded species, but he wouldn’t hesitate to hunt that male down.
He growled. Delaney gave a halfhearted laugh, shaking her head.
“No, no. It’s not really him. Rus isn’t a bad guy, I’m just not very happy with him. But it’s not his fault.” She rubbed her thumb between her brows.
Maelic felt jealousy flare hot in his chest. He swallowed, doing everything in his power to keep his lumin glands from releasing pheromones. The urge to strengthen the scent mark on her was intense.
“I see… if you’re sure,” he grumbled, but something felt very off.
He didn’t know this female. Not really. But his body did. His soul did.
He was at a loss. He’d never thought he would have a mate, that fate would see fit to give him anyone. He’d never even considered it. But did it really matter? He had to finish his mission. The nightmare of his parents’ death was a clear sign, a reminder that he must not stray from his objective.
He moved against every base instinct. “I’ll go see about getting an extraction set up.” The words tasted wrong. Like he was betraying something very sacred. “But I won’t leave without telling you. I’ll say goodbye.”
Even though he knew—standing there, watching her try to hold herself together—that goodbye might kill him.
Delaney seemed to notice him again. She gave him a hard look, eyes closing for a moment before she nodded.
“Okay. That’s fine. Well… I’ll get to it then.”
She turned on her heels.
He fought not to follow her, like a piece of his very being was walking away. It was madness. He barely knew her.
But luminance was said to be inevitable once it began.
He would prove otherwise.
Maelic stood in front of the husk of his escape pod and deactivated the cloaking.
He winced at the wreck. It would never be able to operate again.
This type of tech wasn’t designed to be used like a flier.
Once it served its emergency deployment, they usually turned to scraps.
Safe and hyper-fast, but horrible to repair.
The gravitors had prevented massive damage to himself or the land, but the blasters from Barvarti’s attack had mangled it.
He sighed and climbed into the hull.
His mind replayed it all as he worked on the ruined escape pod.
How many cycles had he spent hunting for Barvarti? The male was scum, slippery too. But it wasn’t just his ability to shake off Axioms.
Barvarti was a symptom of a much larger disease. Maelic suspected the slaver had connections—powerful ones, the kind that bought silence and looked the other way. The kind that made males like Barvarti untouchable.
But Maelic didn’t care about corporate shadows or galactic politics. He cared about one thing: Barvarti had killed his parents. And for that, the male would die.
If he could apprehend data from Barvarti’s ship log in the process, all the better. But revenge was personal.
It had been a long time coming. That male had ruined Maelic’s life. Set him down this path. All it cost was his parents’ lives.
He could still see it in his nightmares. Still heard his Papeer’s voice begging. Still smelled the blood.
Barvarti had smiled the entire time. Smiled while Maelic’s Papeer bled out. Smiled through every casual word, every mocking laugh. And he’d made sure Maelic watched every second of it.
Some males killed out of necessity.
Barvarti killed because he enjoyed it.
He would make him pay.
He shook his head and focused on the screens as the comms lit up.
His finger hovered over the connection.
One press. That’s all it would take. Contact Katan, arrange extraction, leave this planet and get back to the hunt. Back to the mission he’d dedicated his life to.
Back to being on his own.
Delaney’s face flashed through his mind. That stormy expression. The way she’d tried to smile through whatever that human male had said to her. The vulnerability she hid under her smart mouth.
His hand pulled back.
One more rotation. That’s all. He could stay that long. Just to make sure she was alright. That the human male wasn’t causing problems. That she had enough firewood, food, whatever fragile humans needed to survive.
Liar, a voice in his head whispered. You just want to see her again.
He ignored it.
He climbed out of the hull, intending to head toward the front door of the dwelling. To knock like a civilized guest and explain that the repairs would take time.
Maelic was halfway back to the house when the wind shifted.
The scent hit him like a physical blow.
Salt. The acrid tang of adrenaline spiking high enough to make his nose burn. And underneath it all, a sharp, frantic distress that made his blood run cold.
Del.
He didn’t think. His body moved on pure instinct, abandoning the path and tearing toward where her scent was strongest.
The sound of machinery reached him first. A high-pitched whine cutting through the quiet forest. Then he saw her.
Delaney was hacking away at a sapling with an electric saw, surrounded by a carnage of felled trees. But these weren’t the large, developed specimens that towered deeper in the forest. These were pathetic—scrawny things barely taller than his waist, branches sparse and needles already browning.
She’d lined them up in rows like crops. Dozens of them. Maybe more.
But it was her that made him freeze.
She was breathing hard, chest heaving like she’d been running. Those ever-present dark circles under her eyes had deepened to bruises. Sweat plastered her hair to her forehead despite the cold, mixing with—
Goddess. Were those tears?
Her hands were raw, skin torn where she’d gripped the saw too hard for too long. Blood seeped through the bandage he’d wrapped around her cut yesterday.
She looked like a ghost. Eyes hollow, movements jerky and mechanical. Dirt smeared across her face, streaked with the tracks of tears she probably didn’t even realize she was crying.
This wasn’t work. This was warfare.
She was trying to fight her way out of something, and she was losing.
Maelic moved forward. He was right behind her when he spoke.
“What in the stars are you doing, little human?”
She jumped, nearly dropping the saw. The machine’s whine cut off abruptly.
“Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that!” She swiped an arm across her forehead, smearing more dirt. When she looked up at him, her eyes were too bright. Feverish. “I’m working. Did you get your extraction set up?”
“No.” He shifted his weight, deliberately fixing his eyes on a point past her shoulder to avoid her gaze. “I was unable to get it operational as of yet.”
It wasn’t exactly a lie. He couldn’t seem to do it—though the reason wasn’t lack of skill.
“That’s a bummer… want to help me out then?” Her voice pitched too high. Brittle and cracking at the edges.
“Why are you doing this?” He gestured to the pitiful trees scattered around her like casualties. “Is this for fire? These are much too young.”
“No, it’s for Christmas.”
“I don’t follow.”
Delaney set down the saw, hand going to her hip. She swayed slightly on her feet, catching herself against the nearest tree trunk. “We cut down these trees and put them in our homes. Decorate them with various things. Like ornaments and shit. It’s just part of the holiday.”
Her words were coming faster now, tumbling over each other.
“It’s supposed to be the first thing you do for the holiday,” she blurted. “I didn’t even do that this year.”
He studied the trees. Then her. The way her voice cracked when she said she hadn’t done it. Like it was one more failure in a long list she was drowning in.
Dragging one inside would be simple enough. Finding these… ornaments she mentioned. It seemed important to her species. To her.
He filed the information away.
“I just have to get them cut down and get them down the mountain,” she said, breath hitching. “I have to.”
Maelic frowned. “How many rotations until this Chresmas?”
“Uh… two, I think. If you mean days, anyway.” She laughed—a sharp, broken sound. “But it doesn’t matter. I just need to load up the trailer and set up a pre-cut lot. In a parking lot or something. People do that, right? Last-minute trees?”
Maelic did not know much of this holiday, or even her species at all, but something was very wrong with her plan. Very wrong with her.
“Do humans wait so close to the holiday for this?” he asked carefully.
Delaney blanched. “Uh… well, some probably do. I mean, I don’t have a tree up yet, so—”
“How will you get these down the mountain?”
She frowned, her eyes flicking back toward the main property. Unfocused. “I just have to get enough shaken and tied up, then I can load them and…” She paused, brows furrowing like she was trying to do math that wouldn’t add up. “The roads might be rough, but if I’m careful—”
“The roads are impassable,” Maelic said flatly. “I saw the conditions when that male arrived. His vehicle was designed for snow. Yours is not.”
“I’ll make it work!” The snap in her voice was startling. “I have to!”
She bent to grab another sapling, and he saw her hands trembling. Violent tremors that had nothing to do with cold.
“How many do you need to sell?” he asked quietly.
“Fifty.” She laughed again, that horrible broken sound. “No, wait. Fifty trees at thirty dollars each, that’s… that’s fifteen hundred. One month’s mortgage. I need—” Her voice cracked. “I need at least a hundred. Maybe more. A hundred and fifty to cover—”
She stopped. Stared at the pile of pathetic saplings surrounding her.
He counted them. Maybe twenty. Thirty at most.
“This won’t work, Del.”
“It has to!” She grabbed the saw again, hands shaking so badly she nearly dropped it. “I have to do something! I can’t just—I can’t—”
“If you started this when I left you, then you’ve been at this for hours.” He stepped closer, his shadow falling over her. “You’re exhausted. This is madness.”
“You don’t get it!” She whirled on him, eyes wild.
“I have to fix this! I have to save this place! My parents died for this land. My grandparents gave their whole lives to it. Grandma died trying to keep it going. Grandpa worked himself to death and I—” Her voice broke completely.
“I have to make it mean something. I have to prove it wasn’t all for nothing! ”
“Del—”
“NO!” She shoved at his chest. It was like a child pushing a wall. “You don’t understand! This is all I have left of them! If I lose this place, I lose THEM. I lose everything. I’m the last one. It’s all on me. I have to—I have to—”
Her legs gave out.
Maelic caught her before she hit the ground, and she sagged against him, all the fight draining out of her at once.
“I have to,” she whispered against his chest. “I have to fix this. I ruin everything. I couldn’t save Grandma. I couldn’t save Grandpa. I can’t even save their farm. I’m failing everyone. I’m failing—”
“Enough.” The word came out rougher than he intended. He grabbed her shoulders, forcing her to look at him. “Astara, you cannot do this. Not alone. Not like this.”
“I have to—”
“No. You don’t.” His grip gentled but didn’t release. “This war you are fighting? You have already lost it. I can see that. You can see that. Working yourself to death will not change the outcome.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks. She didn’t seem to notice them.
“Then what do I do?” Her voice was so small. Broken. “What do I do, Maelic? I don’t know what to do anymore.”
His chest hurt. This fierce, stubborn female who’d tied him up and then offered him cocoa the next day like it was nothing—reduced to this. Shattered.
He’d seen this before.
In himself, after his parents died. The desperate need to do something, to make the pain mean something, to work until the grief couldn’t catch up.
It never worked.
“You stop,” he said quietly. “Just for today. Just for tonight. Let yourself stop.”
“I can’t—”
He didn’t ask permission. He simply bent down and hoisted her up over his shoulder.
“Put me down!” She pounded her fists against his back, but the blows were weak. “Maelic, put me down! I have to finish!”
“No,” he said firmly, already heading toward the house. “You’ve done enough.”
“I haven’t! I haven’t done anything! It’s not enough, it’s never going to be enough!” She was sobbing now, words dissolving into broken gasps. “Let me go! I have to fix this! I have to—”
“You cannot fix this alone.” His voice cracked despite his best efforts. “Please. Let me help. Just… let me help.”
She went limp against him. Not surrender, exactly. More like her body had simply given up the fight her mind was still trying to wage.
He wrapped his wings around her as he walked, shielding her from the wind. From the sight of those pathetic trees. From everything.
She was still crying. Quiet, hopeless sobs that broke something fundamental in his chest.
“Grandpa would be so disappointed in me,” she whispered.
“No.” The word came out fierce. “No, Del. He would not.”
“You didn’t know him.”
“I know you.” He tightened his grip. “And anyone who looked at you and felt anything other than pride would be a fool.”
She didn’t answer. Just buried her face against his crest fur and cried.
By the time they reached the house, she’d gone silent. Not calm—empty. Like she’d burned through every emotion she had and there was nothing left.
He carried her inside, kicked the door shut behind him, and she finally spoke.
“I can’t do this anymore.” The words were barely audible. “I’m so tired, Maelic. I’m so tired of pretending I can save this place. Of pretending I’m not drowning. I’m so tired.”
“I know,” he said softly. “I know. But you don’t have to pretend anymore. Not with me.”