Chapter 25
VOLTAR
Ibreak Alliance speed regs the way some people break bad habits—repeatedly, unapologetically, and with a vague sense that I’ll deal with the consequences later.
The leave request goes through faster than most mortals survive a fight.
I don’t submit it politely. I don’t wait my turn.
I don’t ask permission like a good little commander who understands that war schedules are sacred and feelings are inconvenient.
I shove the request straight up the chain with a priority flag so bright it practically screams, read me or die mad about it.
The reply comes back while I’m still wiping someone else’s blood off my knuckles.
APPROVED. EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY.
I stare at the words until they feel real.
Then I laugh.
It tears out of me, loud and rough and completely unhinged, and the medic across the field station flinches like I’ve just gone feral.
“What?” he asks cautiously.
“I’m going home,” I say.
He blinks. “Sir?”
“I’m going home,” I repeat, louder. “Pack it up, boys. War’s gonna have to miss me for a bit.”
Someone down the line whoops. Someone else swears. A third person starts taking bets on how long my absence lasts.
I don’t answer.
Because I already know the answer.
As fast as physics will allow.
And then a little faster.
The shuttle ride to the cruiser is a blur of vibration and poorly concealed panic from the pilot when I tell him to push it. The cruiser’s nav officer starts protesting projected burnout rates. I glare at him until his voice dies in his throat.
“I’ll sign whatever waiver you want,” I tell him. “Or I’ll sign your medical leave when you faint. Your call.”
We hit superluminal with a scream of tortured metal and a few bones break along the way.
Not mine.
Someone in the aft compartment didn’t strap in properly. That’s not my problem. I send medical their way and keep my eyes locked on the trajectory display like if I stare hard enough, Novaria will hurry up.
We arrive ahead of schedule.
Way ahead.
I jump planetside in a scout because waiting for proper clearance feels like asking the universe for permission to breathe.
By the time I hit the city, I smell home.
It’s stupid, but it’s real. Novaria has a scent—rain on concrete, ionized air from transit lanes, a faint undercurrent of ozone and overworked power grids. It hits my lungs and something in my chest loosens that I didn’t realize had been clenched since the shuttle left.
I stop at a vendor on the way.
The flowers catch my eye immediately.
They’re illegal in at least six systems.
Bright crimson petals edged in gold, stems blackened like charred bone. They pulse faintly, heat shimmering around them, and every few seconds they ignite—a brief, spectacular bloom of flame—before collapsing back into themselves and reforming like nothing happened.
The vendor sees me staring and grins. “Incendiary blossoms,” he says. “Self-regenerating. Totally safe.”
One of them flares hotter than the others, singing the air.
I raise a brow ridge. “You and I have different definitions of safe.”
“Romantic, though,” he offers.
I think of Sable. Of her laugh. Of the way she looks at me like she’s bracing for impact and daring it to hurt her.
“Yeah,” I say. “Romantic.”
I buy the bouquet.
It burns my glove just enough to be interesting.
Her building comes into view faster than my heart can keep up with. Same cracked facade. Same balcony. I half expect to see her standing there again, arms crossed, watching the sky like it owes her something.
She’s not.
The hallway smells like cleaning solvent and someone’s overcooked dinner. My boots thud against the floor as I move, ignoring the stares. Someone whispers my name. Someone else scrambles out of my way.
I stop in front of her door.
For the first time since the redeployment order dropped, I hesitate.
Just for a second.
Then I knock.
There’s a pause.
Footsteps.
The door slides open.
Sable freezes.
She stares at me like I’ve hallucinated myself into existence—eyes wide, breath catching, mouth opening without sound.
I hold up the bouquet, flowers flaring softly in my grip.
“These seemed… romantic?” I offer.
For half a heartbeat, she doesn’t move.
Then she launches herself at me.
Hard.
Her arms slam around my torso, fingers digging into my armor like she’s afraid I’ll evaporate if she lets go. The impact knocks the breath out of me and I stumble back a step, barely catching myself against the doorframe.
“Stars—” I grunt. “Careful—”
She doesn’t listen.
She hugs me like she’s been holding herself together with duct tape and spite and it just gave out. Her face buries against my chestplate and I feel the hitch in her breathing, the way her shoulders shake.
I wrap my arms around her, bouquet flaring dangerously close to her back.
“Easy,” I murmur, shifting it out of the way. “I’ve got you.”
She squeezes tighter.
I hear a faint crack.
Something in my ribs protests.
Worth it.
“You’re late,” she whispers.
The words slice straight through me.
“I was early to war,” I say quietly. “On time for you.”
She pulls back just enough to look up at me, eyes bright and furious and wet all at once.
“You broke rules,” she accuses.
“Several.”
“You scared people.”
“Frequently.”
“You’re impossible.”
I grin. “Famously.”
She laughs then—half sob, half relief—and presses her forehead into my chest again.
“Come inside,” she says. “Before you set the hallway on fire.”
I step in, the door sliding shut behind us with a soft thrum that feels like sealing a vault.
The apartment looks the same.
Cleaner. Calmer. Lived-in.
Her scent hits me immediately and my second heart stutters like it’s forgotten how to behave.
She takes the bouquet from me carefully, eyeing the flames.
“They’re going to burn something,” she says.
“Probably.”
She snorts and sets them in a heat-resistant container on the counter just as one flares brightly enough to make the lights flicker.
“Of course you brought explosive flowers,” she mutters. “Normal men bring roses.”
“I am deeply normal,” I protest.
She gives me a look. “You are a walking exception clause.”
I reach for her again, gentler this time, hands sliding to her waist like they’ve always belonged there. “You okay?”
She nods. Then shakes her head. “Ask me again in five minutes.”
“Deal.”
She studies my face, fingers lifting to trace a scar along my jaw. “You look… alive.”
I lean into her touch. “I am.”
“And you’re really here.”
“I am.”
“And you’re not leaving tomorrow.”
I hesitate just enough to be honest. “Not tomorrow.”
She exhales slowly. “Good.”
We stand there, holding each other in the quiet, the incendiary flowers crackling softly behind us like a warning and a promise all at once.
I rest my forehead against hers. “I got your message.”
Her lips tremble. “Yeah?”
“I listened to it three times,” I admit. “Then I scared the enemy so badly they ran.”
She laughs, breathless. “Figures.”
I pull back just enough to look her in the eyes. “You did that.”
She swallows. “So you’re really staying.”
I nod. “Alliance law doesn’t mess around with paternity leave.”
Her hand drifts to her stomach, instinctive and reverent. “Guess we’re both learning new things.”
I smile, fierce and soft all at once. “Guess we are.”
Outside, the city hums.
Inside, the world finally, finally stops long enough for me to breathe.
I take her hand and we don’t talk about it.
We don’t say bed or now or are you sure. We don’t need to. There are no words left that our bodies don’t already know how to translate. She pulls me with her, fingers laced through mine, urgency in the set of her shoulders that has nothing to do with fear and everything to do with gravity.
The door to the bedroom slides shut behind us with a soft, final click.
The room is dim, lit only by the city glow leaking through the window. Neon reflections crawl across the walls like restless thoughts. The bed is unmade—sheets twisted, pillows shoved aside like they were abandoned in a hurry. It looks exactly right.
She turns to face me and for a second we just stand there, breathing the same air.
I can smell her—soap, heat, something sweeter underneath.
I can hear the city outside, distant traffic and the faint thrum of power lines, but it all feels far away, muffled, like the world politely averting its eyes.
“Hey,” she says, soft.
“Hey,” I answer.
That’s all it takes.
We fall into each other like we’ve been cut loose.
There’s nothing frantic about it, even though it’s urgent. Nothing careless, even though we’re hungry. It’s like every movement has weight now. Meaning. I cup her face with both hands and she leans into me, eyes closing, mouth parting against my palm like she trusts it there.
I kiss her and it’s slow.
Not tentative. Not shy.
Intentional.
Her hands slide up my arms, fingers catching on the seams of my armor, and she makes a frustrated sound in the back of her throat.
I chuckle against her mouth and step back just long enough to shed the rest of it, plates disengaging with soft hisses as they fall to the floor.
The weight leaves my body but not my bones—I still feel anchored, grounded, like I finally belong in my own skin.
She watches me the whole time.
Not like she’s assessing damage. Not like she’s bracing for loss.
Like she’s memorizing.
“Come here,” she whispers.
I do.
We reach the bed together and it’s clumsy for half a second—knees bumping, balance off—but then we’re down, sheets cool against my back, her weight warm and real on top of me. I slide a hand along her spine, feeling the rise and fall of her breath, the subtle tremor she’s not trying to hide.
“This is different,” she murmurs.
I nod. “Yeah.”
Different doesn’t mean fragile.
It means sacred.
I roll us gently, careful, until she’s on her back and I’m braced over her, my weight supported on my forearms so I don’t crowd her. She reaches up and touches my face, tracing the line of my jaw, the scars she already knows by heart.
“You’re looking at me like you’re scared,” she says.
“I am,” I admit.
She blinks. “Of me?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Of how much I want to be careful.”
Her mouth curves into a soft, surprised smile. “That’s new.”
“For me too.”
I lower my head and kiss her again, slower still, letting it linger. Letting it settle. When I pull back, her eyes are bright, breath shallow.
My gaze drops without thinking.
To her stomach.
The place where everything has changed.
I hesitate.
She notices immediately. “Voltar?”
“May I?” I ask, voice rough.
She swallows and nods.
I rest my hand there, barely any pressure, like I’m touching something holy. Her skin is warm under my palm, alive in a way that makes my chest ache. I don’t know what I expected to feel—movement, power, destiny—but what I feel instead is possibility.
She inhales sharply.
“Oh,” she whispers.
Tears spill from her eyes without warning, sliding into her hairline, and panic spikes in my chest.
“Hey—hey,” I murmur, lifting my hand. “Did I hurt you?”
“No,” she says quickly, shaking her head. “No, it’s just—stars, Voltar, I didn’t think it would feel like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like…” She laughs through tears. “Like everything all at once.”
Something breaks open in me.
I lean down and press my lips to that spot, a kiss so gentle it feels like a promise instead of a touch. I linger there, breathing her in, grounding myself in the reality of it.
“I’ll protect both of you,” I say quietly.
She lets out a shaky breath.
“Always,” I add. “Even from me.”
Her hands fist in the sheets.
She pulls me down by the shoulders, forehead to forehead, eyes fierce despite the tears. “Then don’t leave again.”
The words aren’t a demand.
They’re a plea.
I nod, throat tight. “I won’t.”
She kisses me like she needs it to be true, and I meet her there, pouring every ounce of certainty I have into the way I hold her. The way I stay. The way I don’t rush this, don’t take, don’t disappear into instinct.
We move together in a rhythm that feels ancient and new all at once, urgency braided with reverence. Every touch is deliberate. Every breath shared. Time stretches and blurs, not because we’re trying to escape it, but because we’re finally letting it exist around us.
At some point, the city outside quiets.
At some point, the lights fade.
At some point, dawn begins to think about happening.
We don’t sleep.
We lie together, skin warm, breaths syncing, my arm wrapped around her like a shield I don’t intend to lower. She curls into my chest, one hand resting over my heart like she’s counting the beats, making sure I’m real.
I press my chin to the top of her head and listen to the world breathe.
For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I’m waiting for the next order.
I feel like I’m exactly where I’m supposed to be.
And when the first light of morning slips through the window and touches us both, I’m still there—holding on, and not letting go.