Chapter 22
Chloe
The shuttle broke through Calpa's atmosphere, and I pressed my face against the viewport, my breath catching as the alien world unfurled beneath us like something from a fever dream.
Crystal spires pierced through emerald forests so vibrant they seemed to pulse with life.
Rivers of liquid silver wound through valleys like veins of precious metal, catching the light and throwing it back in dazzling sprays of color.
Mountains floated on clouds of lavender mist, their peaks disappearing into wisps of purple.
It was beautiful in a way that made my chest physically ache—so different from the cold, sterile cage where I'd spent months as Declan's prisoner.
"It's incredible," I whispered, my voice thick with wonder.
Beside me, Nansar leaned closer, his warmth bleeding into my side—a comfort I'd grown to not just crave but need like oxygen. "Wait until you see the capital. The architecture is... well, you'll see." The promise in his voice sent a pleasant shiver down my spine.
The shuttle descended toward a landing platform carved from what looked like pearl-white marble, veined with threads of purest gold. As we touched down with barely a whisper of movement, my heart began to hammer against my ribs. Somewhere out there, beyond the hull of this ship, my father waited.
The ramp lowered with a hydraulic hiss, and warm, fragrant air rushed in to embrace us. It smelled of flowers I couldn't name and something spicy and exotic that made my head spin in the most delicious way.
And there he was.
Admiral Cullen Blackwood stood at the base of the ramp like a statue carved from determination itself, shoulders squared in an Alliance uniform that seemed almost foreign after a lifetime of Navy blues.
But beneath the unfamiliar insignia beat the same steadfast heart I'd known since childhood—still towering, still unshakeable, still the lighthouse in every storm I'd ever weathered.
Silver threaded liberally through his dark hair like frost on iron, and time had etched deeper lines around his eyes, but those eyes. .. those were still my father's eyes.
They found mine across the distance.
The universe held its breath. Then gravity released us both, and I was flying down the ramp, my feet barely touching metal. He surged forward too, military bearing forgotten as he swept me into his arms and lifted me clean off the ground.
"Daddy," I choked out against his chest, the word muffled by fabric and tears. His embrace crushed the air from my lungs, but I welcomed the suffocation—would have drowned happily in the safety of his arms.
"Chloe. My little soldier." The words fractured on his tongue, raw and broken in a way I'd heard perhaps twice in my entire life.
His palm cradled my head with the same gentle reverence he'd shown when I was small enough to perch on his shoulders.
"I thought—God help me, I thought you were gone forever. "
"I'm here. I'm safe." I pulled back just far enough to meet his gaze, my vision swimming with tears that wouldn't stop falling. "I'm here, Dad."
Moisture gleamed in his eyes—tears he wasn’t too proud or too overwhelmed to let fall—and his hands framed my face with infinite tenderness, his thumbs brushing my cheekbones as he mapped every feature.
Every freckle. Every scar. Every subtle transformation that captivity and survival had carved into me.
"You're really here. You're really alive. "
"Because of Nansar," I said, turning slightly to where my mate stood at the ramp's edge, holding back to give us this moment. "He protected me. He saved me."
My father's attention shifted to Nansar, and I watched emotions cascade across his face like weather patterns—gratitude blazing bright, calculation flickering cool, and beneath it all, the instinct of a father recognizing the man who'd claimed his daughter's heart.
The air stretched taut between them. Then my father dipped his chin in a single, deliberate nod, and the tension shattered into understanding.
I was home. Not the home of my birth, perhaps, but home nonetheless—because home had never been a place. It was my father's unwavering presence. It was Nansar's protective love. It was this, right here, right now.
I started to wave Nansar closer when peripheral movement froze me in place. Two figures materialized at the platform's edge, and beside me, Nansar went rigid, his blue-green eyes flaring wide as tension radiated from him in waves.
The male was unmistakably Nansar's father—an older version of my mate, as if someone had taken Nansar's striking features and carved them from granite instead of marble. His eyes were chips of glacial blue, piercing and ancient, fixed on his son with an intensity that could have melted steel.
Beside him moved a human woman who seemed to float rather than walk, slender and graceful as a willow branch.
Her brown hair cascaded over her shoulders in waves that caught the light, revealing threads of honey and amber woven through the strands.
Those bright green eyes—vivid as spring leaves—were already swimming with tears as she drank in the sight of her son like a woman who'd crossed a desert to find water.
Cradled against her chest was a tiny bundle wrapped in fabric that shimmered like moonlight on water, iridescent and impossibly soft.
"Nansar." His name fell from her lips like a benediction, breaking on the syllables.
"Mother." The word scraped out of him, raw and wounded. "Father."
The stern mask of his father's face fractured like ice under spring sun, and then they were moving—all of them—closing the distance.
Nansar met them halfway, and his father's embrace swallowed him whole, speaking in the language of touch what words could never convey: relief and love and forgiveness, pain and separation dissolving like salt in rain.
His mother wrapped her free arm around them both, the baby a precious pearl nestled in the center of their reunion.
The raw emotion etched across their faces was too intimate, too sacred—I had to look away, my own throat closing with tears.
My father's hand found my shoulder, a gentle anchor keeping me grounded as I gave Nansar's family their moment of grace.
When they finally pulled apart, Nansar's mother—Helene, I remembered—turned to me with eyes still glistening and a smile that could have lit the darkest corners of space. "You must be Chloe," she said, her voice warm. "Your father told us about you."
"I—yes, ma'am," I managed, suddenly feeling like a child under the weight of her kindness.
"None of that," she said, reaching out to clasp my hand with surprising strength. "You saved my son's life. That makes you family."
Duke Ako inclined his head, his stern features softening as he looked at me with something that might have been admiration. "We are in your debt, Chloe Blackwood."
"I couldn't have done it without him," I said, my gaze finding Nansar like a compass finding north. "He saved me first."
Helene's smile deepened, transforming her face into something luminous. She shifted the bundle in her arms. "Nansar, would you like to meet your sister?"
I watched the color drain from Nansar's face like water from a broken glass, then flood back in a rush. "Sister?" The word cracked down the middle.
"Her name is Nasa," Helene said softly, transferring the precious bundle into Nansar's arms with infinite care. "We named her after your Aljani grandmother."
Nansar cradled the infant as if she were made of starlight and wishes, his large warrior's hands impossibly gentle. The baby—Nasa—yawned, a tiny perfect sound, and blinked up at him with eyes already showing hints of that same blue-green sea glass color.
"She's so small," Nansar whispered, wonder threading through every syllable. "Hello, little one. I'm your brother."
Nasa cooed, a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze, and Nansar's entire face transformed.
The warrior vanished. The exile disappeared.
The man who had nearly died protecting me melted away.
In his place stood someone softer, gentler, completely and utterly besotted by the tiny miracle in his arms.
"Look at you," he murmured, letting Nasa wrap her impossibly small fingers around one of his. "You're perfect. I'm going to teach you everything—how to fly, how to navigate by the stars, how to—" His voice caught, snagged on emotion. "I'm going to be the best big brother, I promise."
The sight of him—this powerful warrior reduced to trembling tenderness—shattered something inside me.
My breath caught as heat bloomed through my chest and spiraled lower, settling deep in my belly like molten honey.
The way he swayed, instinctively rocking the tiny bundle, the absolute reverence in those blue-green eyes as he gazed at his sister—it awakened a hunger I'd never known existed.
An aching need that had nothing to do with survival and everything to do with creation.
I wanted this. God, I wanted this with a ferocity that terrified me. Wanted to see those same hands cradle our child. Wanted to watch his face transform with that same wonder when he held a baby we'd made together, born from the bond that thrummed between us like a living thing.
"Chloe?" My father's voice cut through the haze of longing, quiet and meant only for me. "Is there something you need to tell me?"
I dragged my gaze from Nansar—from the fantasy of futures I desperately wanted—to find my father watching me with that infuriatingly perceptive expression. The one that said he could read me like a book.
"Dad, I—" The words stuck in my throat. I swallowed hard, then decided there was no point in hiding it. "I love him."
"I gathered that much," Dad said, his tone desert-dry but his eyes warm. "And?"
"He's my mate." The declaration rang out strong and certain, no room for doubt. "I know it's fast. I know the circumstances are completely insane. But—"