Chapter 22
SABLE
The floor still smells faintly like scorched polymer and adrenaline, cold against my back, gritty where debris didn’t quite get swept aside during the chaos. My calf is hooked over his thigh, my shoulder pressed into his chest. Everything hurts in that loose, honest way that means I’m still alive.
Voltar breathes beneath me—slow now. Heavy. Each inhale lifts his ribs, each exhale rumbles like distant thunder. His skin is warm where it presses against mine, almost too warm, the residual heat of someone who was just very recently made of violence.
I trace my fingers along his side without really thinking about it. It’s instinct. I do it the same way I check a client’s scalp for burns or irritation—slow, careful, reverent. My fingertips skim muscle, scar tissue, old damage mapped into him like a history lesson written in flesh.
I stop before I reach the injury.
I don’t say anything at first. I just… hover. Like if I don’t touch it, it won’t be real.
He notices anyway. Of course he does.
“Hey,” he murmurs.
I glance up. His eyes are half-lidded, golden and soft in a way that still knocks the wind out of me. No bravado. No grin. Just him.
“You’re hovering,” he adds, gently amused.
“I’m being cautious,” I say. My voice comes out quieter than I intend. “There’s a difference.”
“Mm.” His mouth quirks. “Is that what you call it?”
I finally let my fingers rest against his ribs again, deliberately skirting the bandage, the place where the med-gel hasn’t fully set. My touch is light, exploratory, like I’m reassuring myself he’s solid. That he didn’t vanish the second the danger stopped.
“I don’t want to lose this,” I say.
The words slip out before I can overthink them. No polish. No defensive humor. Just truth, raw and unfiltered.
The second they leave my mouth, I tense.
I wait for the joke. The deflection. The cocky line.
Instead, Voltar shifts just enough to turn toward me. He catches my hand before I can pull it back, his fingers curling around mine—huge, warm, steady. He brings my knuckles to his mouth and kisses them, slow and deliberate, like it’s a vow instead of a gesture.
“You won’t,” he says.
I huff a laugh that’s more breath than sound. “You say that like you can control the universe.”
His eyes flick up to mine, dead serious now. “I’ll burn galaxies first.”
That does it.
I laugh—really laugh—and it comes out cracked and uneven, the sound of someone whose nerves are still frayed around the edges. I press my forehead briefly into his shoulder, trying to get control of myself.
“You’re insane,” I say.
“Objectively,” he agrees. “Yes.”
I pull back enough to look at him again. “I believe you.”
And I do. Stars help me, I do. There’s not a single part of him that feels like a lie. He’s reckless and loud and terrifyingly capable, but when he says things like that, there’s no doubt in his voice. No hesitation.
But belief doesn’t cancel fear.
I can feel it flicker anyway—right there in my chest, tight and cold, like a warning light I can’t shut off. My smile falters, just a fraction. I don’t even realize I’m doing it.
Voltar does.
His gaze sharpens—not in a threatening way. In a seeing way.
“That wasn’t all of it,” he says.
I swallow. “I don’t know what you mean.”
He exhales through his nose, slow and controlled. “You believe me,” he says. “But you’re scared.”
I don’t answer.
Because yeah. I am.
Not of him. Never of him.
Of this.
Of the fact that this stopped being about survival somewhere along the way. That it crossed a line I didn’t see until it was already behind me. This isn’t adrenaline sex or trauma bonding or two people clinging to warmth in the dark.
This is real.
Real means stakes.
Real means loss is possible.
I shift, drawing my knees up slightly, curling inward without meaning to. The floor feels colder all of a sudden.
“I don’t do well with ‘real,’” I admit quietly. “Real has a habit of leaving.”
Voltar doesn’t interrupt. He doesn’t joke. He doesn’t dismiss it.
He just listens.
When he moves, it’s slow. Careful. He leans forward until his forehead rests against mine, the ridges of his brow cool where they touch my skin. His breath mingles with mine, warm and steady, anchoring.
“We survive this,” he says. “We build something better.”
I close my eyes.
It would be so easy to say nothing. To dodge it. To let the moment pass without pinning it down with words.
He doesn’t let me.
“Promise me,” he says.
My throat tightens.
I open my eyes again and meet his gaze. There’s no command there. No expectation. Just hope—raw and terrifying and offered without armor.
“I promise,” I say.
The words land heavy between us.
He lets out a breath I didn’t realize he was holding and presses a soft kiss to my forehead, then another to my temple. His thumb strokes once over my knuckles, grounding, gentle.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because I’m very bad at half-measures.”
I snort weakly. “Yeah. I noticed.”
Silence settles again, but it’s different now. Not empty. Not tense. Just… quiet.
I listen to the sound of his hearts beneath my ear, the distant hum of the city outside, the faint buzz of my security system resetting itself for the third time tonight. The air smells like ozone and clean bandage wrap and something warmer underneath—him.
“Hey, Sable,” he says after a moment.
“Mm?”
“You’re shaking.”
I realize he’s right only when I stop trying not to.
“Adrenaline crash,” I say. “It happens.”
He shifts carefully and pulls me closer, one arm coming around my shoulders, tucking me into the curve of his body like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
“Then let it,” he says. “I’ve got you.”
And for the first time since Glindora—since the alley, since the gunfire, since the cat with pink eyes—I let myself believe that might actually be true.
I limp.
Not in a dainty way. Not in a brave, cinematic way. In a very real, very annoyed, everything hurts and I’m too stubborn to admit it way.
The sun is just cresting the horizon when we stagger out of the fortress, turning the ash-choked sky a bruised gold. Morning on Novaria doesn’t ease in gently—it arrives like an afterthought, like the universe saying, Fine. You lived. Here’s daylight. Don’t get used to it.
The fortress behind us looks worse in the light.
Burn scars crawl up its outer walls. Sections of it still smoke, lazy tendrils drifting upward like the place is exhaling its last regrets.
The air reeks of scorched metal, ozone, and old violence.
It coats my tongue. Every breath tastes like the aftermath of bad decisions.
Voltar is at my side, massive even when he’s moving carefully. One arm is looped loosely around my waist—not holding me up exactly, just… there. Present. A silent agreement that if I stumble, I won’t hit the ground.
I’m covered in ash. It’s smeared across my cheekbones, tangled in my hair, ground into the knees of my pants. My hands are shaking again, but this time I don’t bother pretending they aren’t. I’ve pushed my body past polite limits and it’s filing formal complaints.
We make it ten steps past the blast perimeter before I hear the whine of engines.
Alliance transports settle into the open ground ahead of us, sleek and angular against the wreckage. Tactical lights flare. Boots hit dirt in crisp, efficient lines. Backup. Real backup. The kind that shows up after the worst part is already over.
Lazarus strides toward us, flanked by two armed officers and a data tech clutching a slate like it’s holy scripture. He looks… relieved. Which is unsettling. Lazarus doesn’t do relieved.
“Well,” he says, stopping a few feet away. His eyes flick over us—Voltar’s injuries, my limp, the state of our clothes. “You look terrible.”
“Good morning to you too,” I mutter.
Voltar huffs a weak laugh. “You should see the other guys.”
Lazarus snorts despite himself, then reins it in. “Medical teams are standing by. Both of you are going to—”
“In a minute,” I cut in. My voice comes out hoarse, but firm. “You said you had something.”
He studies me for a second, then nods. “We do.”
The data tech steps forward and hands him the slate. Lazarus taps it, brings the screen up, and turns it so we can see.
Files scroll past—transaction logs, encrypted messages, shell corporations peeling back layer by layer like rotten wallpaper. Names I recognize from the Nine’s rumor mill. Routes. Payoffs. Dead drops. Enough dirt to bury a syndicate so deep it won’t see starlight for decades.
My breath catches.
“You got all this?” I ask.
“Yes,” Lazarus says. “Delivered anonymously to Alliance intelligence six hours ago. Verified, authenticated, cross-referenced.”
Voltar stiffens slightly beside me. I feel it more than I see it.
“Anonymous,” I repeat. “Let me guess.”
Lazarus’s mouth twitches. “The delivery vector matches a Grolgath signature.”
I bark out a short, incredulous laugh. “Of course it does.”
Voltar glances down at me. “You called it.”
I shake my head slowly. “I can’t believe I almost died for a cat with a couture obsession.”
Lazarus arches a brow. “You know who it was.”
“Tugun,” I say. “Definitely Tugun.”
There’s a pause.
“Why would he do this?” Lazarus asks.
I think of immaculate lapels. Of a hitman who paused mid-assassination to discuss tailoring. Of pink eyes and a voice that said please don’t take it personally.
“Guess he really does want that fashion line,” I mutter.
Voltar lets out a low chuckle. “I respect a man with priorities.”
Lazarus sighs. “I don’t want to know.”
For a moment—just a moment—it feels like we’ve won. Like this is the part where everything exhales. The bad guys exposed. The witness alive. The city saved from a quiet rot.
Then Lazarus’s expression changes.
It’s subtle. A tightening around the eyes. A line appearing between his brows like it’s being etched there by something heavy.
“You need to see this,” he says.
The words land wrong.
He switches screens.
The classified alert fills the slate, stark and unforgiving. Alliance header. Red priority markers. Operational seal.
My eyes skim automatically—years of reading contracts and salon leases have trained me to find the important parts fast.
REDEPLOYMENT ORDER.
SUBJECT: VOLTAR, VAKUTAN COMMANDER.
EFFECTIVE: IMMEDIATELY.
ASSIGNMENT: FRONTLINE WAR ZONE.
The world tilts.
I blink once. Twice.
“No,” I say. It comes out flat. Disbelieving. “That’s not—no. That can’t be right.”
Voltar doesn’t move.
He stares at the slate, jaw locked, golden eyes unreadable.
“I didn’t ask for this,” he says quietly.
The words don’t have any anger in them. That’s what scares me. They’re stripped bare. Statement of fact. A man looking at gravity and acknowledging it exists.
I swallow hard. My heart is in my throat, pounding so loud it drowns out the distant hum of transports and med crews.
“But you’re going anyway,” I say.
He looks at me then.
Really looks.
“I don’t want to,” he says.
The honesty in his voice is devastating.
“I know,” I whisper.
Lazarus clears his throat. “The order comes from High Command. Supreme Admiral authorization. Post-war tensions on the frontier escalated overnight. They’re calling in heavy assets.”
“Heavy assets,” I repeat. “You mean him.”
Voltar’s mouth quirks, but there’s no humor in it. “I do hit hard.”
I turn on Lazarus. “You said he was assigned to me.”
“He was,” Lazarus says evenly. “Until the threat level changed.”
“I am the threat level,” I snap. “The Nine—”
“Are neutralized,” Lazarus finishes. “Thanks to you.”
That should feel good.
It doesn’t.
“So that’s it?” I ask. “We survive hell, expose a syndicate, and the reward is you tear him away?”
Voltar’s hand tightens briefly at my waist. Not a warning. A grounding touch.
“Sable,” he murmurs.
I shake my head. “No. He doesn’t get to ‘Sable’ me right now.”
Lazarus meets my glare without flinching. “The Alliance doesn’t pause wars for love stories.”
“That’s funny,” I say, voice trembling now. “Because you didn’t pause it for morality either.”
A beat of silence stretches between us.
Voltar exhales slowly. “Enough.”
I look up at him, anger and fear tangling in my chest until I can’t tell which is which.
“This isn’t fair,” I say.
“No,” he agrees. “It isn’t.”
He turns to Lazarus. “How long?”
“Transport leaves within the hour,” Lazarus says. “You’ll be briefed en route.”
Voltar nods once.
Once.
Just like that.
The finality of it knocks the air out of me.
I step closer, pressing my forehead into his chest because suddenly the world feels too big and too loud and I need something solid.
“You just promised me,” I whisper.
He cups the back of my head, careful, protective. “I promised we’d build something,” he says softly. “I didn’t say it would be easy.”
I pull back, searching his face. “You could refuse.”
A corner of his mouth lifts sadly. “You know I can’t.”
“I hate that,” I say.
“I know.”
We stand there, ash-streaked and broken and very much not ready to say goodbye, while the sun climbs higher and the Alliance machinery grinds back into motion around us.
Medical teams hover awkwardly nearby, pretending not to listen. Lazarus steps back, giving us space he absolutely did not have to give.
“I’ll make sure she’s protected,” he says quietly to Voltar.
Voltar doesn’t look away from me. “See that you do.”
Lazarus inclines his head. “I owe you both.”
“That’s not how debts work,” I mutter.
Voltar leans down, pressing his forehead to mine again, just like he did on the floor hours ago when everything still felt possible.
“This doesn’t end us,” he says.
I close my eyes, breathing him in—smoke, metal, something uniquely him beneath it all.
“It better not,” I whisper.
He kisses my hair. Gentle. Unhurried. Like he’s memorizing the moment.
Then he straightens, shoulders squaring, war sliding back over him like armor snapping into place.
“I’ll come back,” he says.
I nod, even though my chest aches. “You better.”
He grins faintly. “You’ll keep my spot warm?”
I snort, wiping at my eyes with the heel of my hand. “You snore like a freight engine. I’ll never get the smell out of the couch.”
“That’s love,” he says solemnly.
I watch him turn toward the waiting transport, each step steady despite the weight of the order he didn’t ask for.
The sun crests fully over the horizon.
Ash drifts in the light like falling snow.
And for the first time since all of this started, I understand something with terrifying clarity:
Surviving the fight was the easy part.