Chapter 21 #2
My throat tightened with emotion. I hadn't expected forgiveness. Didn't feel I deserved it, wouldn't have granted it to myself.
"I won't lie to you," Adtovar continued, his tone becoming more practical.
"I don't know what will happen when we reach Calpa.
The Alliance Prime will want answers. There's a chance she'll send you back to Palaydium to complete your sentence.
" He paused. "But aboard this ship, you're a free male.
You've earned that much. I can have a cabin prepared for you—"
"Nope," Chloe interrupted.
Both Adtovar and I turned to look at her. She stood at my side, her chin lifted in that defiant way I'd come to love.
"Nansar will be staying with me," she said, lacing our fingers together. Her eyes met mine, intense and certain. "He's my mate."
Adtovar's eyes widened, his mouth falling open slightly. For a moment, the composed Alliance commander looked completely off guard. His gaze darted between Chloe and me.
"Your... mate?" he repeated carefully.
"Yes," Chloe said, her grip on my hand tightening. "My mate."
I held my breath, waiting for his objection. Waiting for him to tell her she was making a mistake. That I wasn't worthy of her, that she deserved someone without my past, someone who hadn't done the things I'd done, someone honorable and good.
But Adtovar's shock gradually transformed into something else—understanding, perhaps. His expression softened as he looked at our joined hands, and something almost like approval flickered in his eyes.
"I see," he said finally, the words carrying acceptance. He was quiet for another moment, then nodded slowly. "Very well. If that's your choice, Chloe, I respect it." His gaze shifted to me, his voice taking on a warning edge. "But Nansar, if you hurt her—"
"I won't," I said immediately. "I'd die a thousand times before I'd cause her pain."
Adtovar studied me, weighing my sincerity. Then he gave a single, decisive nod. "I believe you would." He stepped back toward the door. "And Nansar—welcome aboard the Historia. Officially this time."
I'd traveled on this ship only once before, on the way to begin my sentence on Palaydium.
The door whispered shut behind him, and the silence that settled over us felt different somehow—charged with possibility, weighted with an acceptance I'd never dared to hope for.
George appeared not long after, his arms full of folded fabric and his ever-present medical scanner dangling from one hand.
"Final readings," he announced, though the knowing gleam in his eyes as they flicked between Chloe and me suggested he was well aware of what had transpired. "Then you're free to go."
I endured his examination with as much patience as I could muster while he passed the scanner over my chest in slow, methodical sweeps.
The wound had closed completely—no scar tissue, just a patch of skin several shades lighter than the rest of my torso.
A ghost of death, permanently etched into my flesh.
"Soreness for a few days, nothing more," George declared, pressing the bundle of clothes into my hands. Alliance gray—a simple tunic and pants. "And do me a favor? Don't get shot again. I'd prefer to maintain my high success rate."
"I'll make every effort," I said, the corner of my mouth twitching despite myself.
After George departed, I dressed with deliberate slowness, each movement pulling at muscles that still remembered trauma.
Chloe stayed close, her presence a quiet offer of help that she was careful not to impose.
When I finally pulled the tunic over my head, she reached for my hand again, and that simple contact felt like discovering something I'd been searching for my entire life.
"Come on," she murmured, her thumb brushing across my knuckles. "Let's find you somewhere more comfortable than a medical bay."
The Historia's corridors thrummed with life—crew members rushing between stations, the ship's systems humming their constant mechanical song beneath the organized chaos. We walked hand in hand through it all, and I felt every single stare that landed on us like a physical weight.
A Velorian engineer froze mid-step, recognition dawning across his features. Surprise gave way to something uglier—pure, undiluted hatred burning in his eyes.
An Ardesian female flattened herself against the bulkhead as we approached, terror bleaching her face pale. Her hand flew to the weapon holstered at her hip, fingers trembling against the grip.
Two Vaktaire guards locked eyes with each other, and one muttered something too low for me to catch. But I didn't need to hear the words to understand the venom dripping from his tone.
I couldn't blame any of them. Not a single one.
Every drop of their hatred, every tremor of their fear, every flash of their disgust—I'd earned it all.
The atrocities I'd committed, the orders I'd executed without question, the countless lives I'd destroyed.
My reputation stalked ahead of me like a shadow made of blood and ash, and no amount of remorse could scrub it clean.
Chloe's fingers tightened around mine, as though she could read the spiral of my thoughts. She lifted her chin higher, meeting each hostile stare with quiet, unwavering defiance. Her courage in the face of their judgment left me breathless.
Those eyes—curious and hateful in equal measure—tracked us all the way to her quarters.
The door sealed behind us with a soft hiss, cutting us off from the weight of their stares and the poison of their whispers.
Chloe's quarters were small and spare—a narrow bunk, a desk buried under datapads, a viewport framing the hypnotic swirl of hyperspace.
But after the cold sterility of the medical bay, it felt like a sanctuary.
She released my hand and turned to face me, her arms crossing over her chest. The defiance she'd worn in the corridor melted away, replaced by something far more dangerous—vulnerability, raw and honest and utterly disarming.
"Why didn't you tell me?" Her voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it—hurt bleeding through confusion like ink through water. "That I was your mate?"
"Because you deserve better than me," I said simply.
Her eyes flashed with something fierce. "That's not an answer, Nansar. That's an excuse."
"It's the truth." I gestured toward the door, toward the corridor beyond and all the judgment it held.
"You saw how they looked at me. You heard what they said.
That's who I am to them. A monster. Someone who doesn't deserve to breathe the same air as decent beings.
Someone who should be locked away or worse. "
"I don't care what they think."
"You should." The words came out harsh, edged with desperation.
"Chloe, I've done things—terrible things.
I let hate rule me for so long that I became it.
I've destroyed lives, families, entire communities.
" I took a step back, putting distance between us, as if space alone could protect her from the poison of my past. "You deserve someone good.
Someone honorable. Someone worthy of the gift you are. "
She stared at me for a long moment, emotions flickering across her face like lightning—too quick, too complex to name.
Then she closed the distance I'd created in two determined steps, moving until she stood directly in front of me, close enough that I could smell the sweet scent of her skin, feel the warmth radiating from her body.
"Are you done?" she asked, her voice deceptively calm, like the stillness before a storm.
I blinked, thrown completely off balance. "What?"
"Are you done telling me what I deserve? What I should care about? What I should feel?" Her hand came up to rest against my chest, right over my heart, and I wondered if she could feel how it thundered beneath her palm. "Because I have some things to say, and I need you to listen."
I nodded, my voice stolen by the intensity in her eyes.
"I don't care about your past, Nansar. I care about who you are now.
The male who protected me when he didn't have to.
Who was gentle with me when he could have been cruel.
Who risked everything—threw himself in front of a blaster—to protect me.
" Her eyes searched mine, seeing past every wall I'd ever built.
"You're not the same person who did those awful things. You've changed."
"That doesn't erase what I've done."
"No, it doesn't. Just like what Declan did to me can never be erased." Her other hand came up to cup my face, her touch achingly tender. "But you don't get to use your guilt as a shield. You don't get to make this decision for me. You don't get to decide that I can't love you."
My breath caught in my throat. "Chloe—"
"I love you," she said, her voice steady and sure, each word a declaration of war against my self-loathing.
"I love the male you are now. The one who looks at me like I'm precious.
The one who touches me with such gentleness, like I might break.
The one who threw himself in front of a blaster to save me without a second thought.
" Her thumb traced my cheekbone. "That's the male I see. That's the male I choose."
Something cracked inside my chest—something that had been frozen and dead for so long I'd forgotten it existed. Hope. Love. The possibility of redemption and a future worth living.
"I don't deserve you," I whispered, the confession torn from somewhere deep.
"Maybe not." She smiled, soft and sad and beautiful enough to shatter what remained of my defenses. "But you have me anyway." Her eyes held mine, unflinching. "So what are you going to do about it?"
I stared down at her, at this extraordinary female who somehow saw past the ruins of what I'd been to glimpse what I might still become. Who offered me treasures I'd long ago accepted I would never hold.
Hope. Love. A future that didn't taste of ash.