Chapter 43
TASK
SFS POLARIS
He stumbles through the darkened corridors of the Polaris, most of the ship asleep.
He’d woken from a nightmare, one where the mercenaries were successful, where they’d grabbed Kit and bled her dry on the floor of the hangar, leaving her lifeless body on the ground while he’d watched, pinned in place with the spear of a surge-saber.
His heart pounds against his chest as he climbs the steps three flights, knowing the way to her room by heart even if he hasn’t visited it before.
He’s barely thinking about what he’s doing, driven by the anxiety thrashing in his chest. He needs to get to her, to make sure she’s okay.
He shoves a lock of sweaty hair out of his eye, scanning the door numbers until he reaches hers.
He’s not even sure what time it is, only that it is the dead of night and that he aches for her in a way he’s never felt.
That he’s scared for her in a way that will be his demise.
He stops outside her door, trying to catch his breath.
He raps his knuckles against it, waiting for her to answer.
He counts the seconds — ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty — and his heart lurches into his throat.
Where is she? He pounds again, breathing coming in short gasps.
He waits another twenty seconds, his fear intensifying as she still doesn’t come to the door.
He’s considering how much force it will take to knock it down, when it finally, finally slides open.
She stands before him and he almost shouts with relief seeing her there, her hair a tangle from sleep, her eyes bleary as she tilts her head to look at him. She pushes the strap of her silk tank up her arm and he bites down on his lip. “Task?”
“Kit,” he gasps, surging forward and wrapping his arms around her, holding her to him tightly as he tries to breathe, tries to let the whirl of fear wind its way out of his body.
She looks up at him, her eyes softening as she takes him in. “Is everything alright?”
Task doesn’t know how to explain himself. He’s acting deranged, completely out of his mind. But he needed to make sure she was alive, that she was alright, that she’s still here. That she’s his. “You’re okay,” he breathes.
“Of course I’m okay,” she says, removing her arms from where they’re trapped between his body and hers and wrapping them around his back.
She rests her head against his chest, and he tries to slow his heartbeat, lest she hear it still galloping.
“Come in,” she murmurs, pulling him more fully into her room.
They stand like that a moment longer, wrapped in each other’s arms, before she pulls back. He doesn’t want to let her go, needs to feel her against him. “What’s wrong?”
He swallows thickly, trying to find words. “I thought you were dead,” he manages, suddenly hot with shame. It was a nightmare. Of course she’s alright. What is he doing, traipsing through the halls like a prize idiot at god knows what time of night? There is something very, very wrong with him.
She reaches up to cup his jaw, running a finger along his cheekbone, a sad smile on her lips. “A dream, perhaps?”
Task nods, feeling himself crumble at her touch. All of the walls he’d built. All of the time he’d spent trying to keep her out, to push her away, to stop himself from falling. None of it matters, because she is his lifeline, his relief in a sea of agony. “A nightmare.”
“I’m right here,” she says quietly, still swiping her thumb gently back and forth over his cheek. He closes his eyes, leans into her calming touch.
You won’t be for long. He shoves the thought away, wanting to enjoy this moment with her, take whatever he can get.
“I’m sorry,” he mutters. “This was stupid of me.”
“It wasn’t,” she whispers. “I understand.” A half-smile forms on her lips as she gazes at him in the dimly lit room, purples and blues streaking the night sky outside the Polaris. “Every day when you’re off training with your men, I worry you’ll be injured. That I’ll lose you.”
Task chuckles, softly. “It will take a lot more than an idiot that doesn’t know how to wield a surge-saber to keep me from you, love.”
She presses her lips to his then, softly, her arms wrapping around his neck.
A waterfall of emotion rushes through him as he kisses her back, his mouth moving against hers.
This kiss is different than their others — slow, exploratory, adoring.
He cups her jaw, running his fingers along it, memorizing the planes of her.
She makes a breathy noise, and he smiles against her, pulling back and resting his forehead against hers.
He’s known it for awhile now, what she is to him. But if he says it, if he makes it real, there’s no coming back from it. And what will he do with it, when he has to take her to Draven? There’s no winning in the unfathomable situation he’s found himself in.
He walks himself towards the edge of the cliff, looking over it, seeing nothing but darkness below. His chest heaves as his blue-gray eyes search her green ones, his stomach twisting itself into knots. “Kit, I…”
“Shhh,” she says, pressing her lips to his again. “It’s alright.”
“No,” he says, stepping back again, cradling her face in his palms. “It’s not alright.
Nothing is alright. And I don’t know how to make it alright.
I don’t know how to…how to fix this. Kit, you’re everything to me.
” He wishes she could understand, that she could read his mind and puzzle this out for them, find a solution.
And then the words are rushing out of his mouth before he can think better of it, before he can jam the stopper back in. “I love you.”
It isn’t a beautiful, poetic declaration. Not like what he'd read in the old novels he’d collected from shops around Nexarium. But it’s the truth. An incomprehensible, deep, needy truth.
Kit inhales sharply, her wide green eyes meeting his. “Task,” she whispers, placing one of her hands over his, their fingers brushing.
He’s shaking, adrenaline pulsing through him as he stares at her, this woman who has cracked him wide open, has made him say words he’s never said. He can see her pulse leaping under her collarbone, and he worries he’s made a grave error.
He has made a grave error. Whether she feels the same or not, it doesn’t matter. He’s complicated things in a way he’ll never be able to undo. He sucks his bottom lip into his mouth, dropping his hands from her face and averting his eyes, looking at the floor.
“Hey,” she says, reaching for his hand, threading her fingers through his. “Come sit.”
He doesn’t feel he has a choice. He would follow her anywhere, into the depths of hell itself, if it meant he’d get to keep her.
He comes to the edge of her bed, leaning back on his hands and leaving several inches of space between them as he reels from his admission, an odd mix of shame and fear coursing through him.
She won’t let him retreat, though. “Stay with me,” she says, climbing into his lap, knees on either side of him as she cradles his jaw again. He feels a lick of desire flame through him at the feel of her over him, her touch both soothing and igniting something deep within him.
She runs her fingers across his cheek, over his brow, through his hair, as if she can’t get enough of him, and he lets himself hope that maybe she feels the same way.
Boxes up the complicating part of all of this and simply basks in her gaze, in her adoration.
She leans forward, her lips so close to his they almost brush, only a whisper between them. “I love you, too. More than anything.”
Her words echo through him, filling him up, the emptiness in his chest slowly diminishing.
How long he’s waited to hear someone say those words, to look at him like she does, to see him.
He feels as though he might cry, as though his entire world is simultaneously imploding and exploding and he needs her.
He closes the inch of space between them, capturing her lips with his, and she lets out a little sound of satisfaction, her hands threading into his hair, holding him there under her as she slides her tongue into his mouth and he greedily kisses her, unsure that he’s really deserving of this, but unable to stop himself.
He can’t keep track of where he’s putting his hands, running them all over her body, her arms, her stomach, trying to take her in.
The way she feels in his hands, under him, it’s like it lights a fuse in him.
She’s just as frenzied, teeth biting his lip, hand on his jaw, tugging at the hair at the nape of his neck, until she slows, kissing a path from his jaw down his neck, lighting little fires every time her mouth touches him.
“Lie back,” she whispers, her breath hot against his earlobe as she pulls it into her mouth, bites on it gently. It makes him shiver, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up. She kisses down lower, laves her tongue across the tattoo below his ear.
He does as she asks, lowering himself down onto her mattress until she’s hovering over him, her hair falling around him in a curtain as he drags her on top of him, presses his lips to hers again.
She pulls back, kissing along his jaw, down his neck, his stomach, her tongue running along the waistband of his pants.
He jerks upwards, unable to stop himself. He needs it, needs her.
She looks up at him, a satisfied smirk on her face as she pushes his trousers down, revealing his cock inch by inch.
She leans down, presses her lips to the head of it and he sucks in a breath, already thinking about what it will feel like for her lips to encircle him.
She licks down one side of his shaft, cupping his balls and he bucks up into her again, squeezing his eyes shut.
The sensations are too much, almost overwhelming.