Chapter 7
Serna
My first kiss.
Vaktaire didn't kiss. Most species in the Alliance didn't. The Threnodi touched foreheads in greeting and affection.
The Kess'tar intertwined their secondary arms. The Vorath pressed their palms together, sharing body heat and pulse.
Some species liked licking—the Kwado came to mind, their long tongues tasting pheromones.
Others bit gently, marking and claiming.
But humans kissed. Pressed their mouths together in an act that many species found bewildering, even distasteful. The exchange of saliva, the vulnerability of it, the sheer intimacy of sharing breath.
I'd learned about it from Duke Ako and his human mate, Helene.
Watched them steal moments in corridors, saw the way Ako—a warrior who'd commanded fleets—would soften completely when Helene's lips touched his.
I'd seen my son Charick kiss his mate Willa, watched him learn the custom, adapt to it, crave it.
The way his hand would cup the back of her head, the way he'd smile against her mouth.
Many thought it nasty. Unhygienic. Strange.
But to me, it had always seemed... special. Intimate in a way that went beyond the physical. A choice to be vulnerable, to share something so personal, so soft.
And now I understood why.
Cullen's kiss had been everything I'd imagined and nothing I could have prepared for.
The warmth of his mouth, the taste of him, the way his hands had cradled my face like I was something precious.
The gentleness that gave way to hunger, the way our breaths had mingled, the small sound he'd made when he'd deepened the kiss.
My first kiss. And it had been perfect.
And now it was over, torn away by the sound of engines descending from the sky.
One moment, Cullen's lips were on mine, his hands warm against my face, the jungle around us fading into nothing but heat and want and the terrifying realization that I'd found something I couldn't afford to lose.
The next, a sound ripped through the air—massive, mechanical, the deep thunder of engines tearing through atmosphere.
My head snapped up. Cullen's arms tightened around me instinctively, both of us frozen as the sound grew louder, closer, until it felt like the very air was vibrating with it.
"Look," Cullen said, his voice tight.
I followed his gaze upward, through the gaps in the canopy, past the leaves and twisted branches.
The twin yellow suns hung high in the sky, their combined light casting sharp shadows across the canopy.
The glare was intense, making everything appear starkly defined in shades of pale yellow and deep green, and there—cutting through the clouds like a blade—was the unmistakable silhouette of a frigate.
My blood turned to ice.
"That's the ship," I breathed. "The one that attacked us."
The frigate hung there, massive and predatory, its running lights creating constellations of yellow and white. It wasn't moving, wasn't descending further. It was waiting. Watching.
And then I saw a smaller shape detaching from the frigate's belly. A shuttle, sleek and dark, beginning its descent toward the planet's surface.
"They're landing," Cullen said. "At the crash site."
My mind raced. They'd come back. Not to salvage. Not to investigate. They'd come back for us.
"We need to see who they are," I said, already pulling away from him, my body shifting into combat mode even as my heart still pounded from the kiss. "Higher ground. Now."
We moved through the jungle quick and silent, Cullen at my side, both of us scanning the terrain for elevation.
The foothills rose ahead of us, rocky outcroppings jutting through the dense vegetation.
I found a ridge that overlooked the valley where our ship had crashed, the wreckage still visible—a twisted scar of metal against the green.
Cullen pulled something from his pack—a pair of compact binoculars he'd salvaged from the shuttle. He handed them to me without a word.
I raised them to my eyes, adjusting the focus as the shuttle descended. It was moving slowly, deliberately, its landing lights reflected off the greenery below. The craft touched down with barely a whisper, settling onto the jungle floor near the wreckage.
The cargo ramp lowered.
And beings began to emerge—not Alliance, that was immediately clear.
The crew was mixed-species—Torven, Ardesian, Vorath, Romvesian, Kaelaks...
what looked like a Kerzak enforcer. They moved with the casual violence of mercenaries, weapons slung across their backs, scanning the perimeter with the kind of wariness that came from living on the wrong side of the law.
Mercenaries... or worse.
"What are we looking at?" Cullen asked quietly beside me.
"Trouble," I murmured, my grip tightening on the binoculars. "Mixed crew. Heavily armed. This isn't a rescue operation—it's a hunting party."
More figures emerged from the shuttle. A Romvesian female barking orders. Two hulking Kaelaks flanking the ramp like sentries. And then—
My heart stopped.
A figure stepped into the light. Tall, broad-shouldered, his pale gray skin catching the shuttle's landing lights in a way that made him look like he was carved from stone. He moved with arrogance, his head held high, his posture radiating authority.
I knew that walk. I knew that silhouette.
"No," I whispered, the word barely audible. "It can't be."
"Serna?" Cullen's hand found my shoulder. "What is it? Who is that?"
I couldn't speak. Couldn't breathe. Because the male standing there, alive and whole and very much not dead, was someone who was supposed to have died on a mining moon a century ago. Someone whose death had ended a war and allowed me to broker a fragile peace.
Riuondo Barkaze.
Romvesian general. Failed Prime candidate. The male I'd beaten in the trials, the male whose rage had sparked a skirmish that cost me my youngest son.
A male who was supposed to be dead.
"Serna." Cullen's voice was urgent now, his hand tightening on my shoulder. "Talk to me. Who is he?"
I lowered the binoculars, my hands shaking. The jungle around us felt suddenly too close, too hot, the air thick and suffocating. My mind raced through the implications—what it meant that Riuondo was alive, what it meant that he was here, on this planet, hunting us.
Nothing good. Nothing good at all.
"We need to go," I said, my voice flat, emotionless. The tone I used when I was Prime, when I couldn't afford to feel. "Now."
"Serna—"
"That's Riuondo Barkaze." I turned to face Cullen, and I knew he could see the fear in my eyes because I couldn't hide it anymore. "He's supposed to be dead. And if he's here, if he's alive, then everything I thought I knew is wrong."
I grabbed his hand, pulling him away from the ridge, back into the cover of the jungle.
"We need to get out of here," I said. "The mountains. We move fast, we move quiet, and we don't stop until we're as far from that shuttle as we can get."
Because if Riuondo Barkaze had come all this way, if he'd orchestrated this attack, this crash, this hunt—then he wasn't here to talk.
He was here to finish what he'd started a century ago.