Chapter 36
Chapter thirty-six
The farther away they traveled from the warship, the more Iax expected Wynn’s relief, but she did not move. With her arms wrapped around her shins, she pressed her forehead against her knees, making herself into a ball.
He did not like this lifeless version of her.
Not lifeless. He experienced her emotions as they pulsed over him in waves. While separated, he had craved the sensation even more than the taste of another’s thoughts.
Her emotions rose and fell chaotically, a contrast to her stillness—a stillness that unnerved him.
He put more distance between them and the Guardian, and did not relax until he knew it would be impossible for any ship in their hangar to give chase and catch up. While on board, he had made sure of that, disabling most of the essential systems before he had recalled his essence into himself.
Without the help of a Calypson, it would take the crew many days, perhaps weeks, to repair the damage he had unleashed in their systems.
The farther they traveled, the more Iax’s mind emptied of others’ thoughts.
He understood now the heady nature of coalescing.
In the beginning, he had lost some minds, but none near the end.
He did not know what The Four would think of that.
Would they be displeased because of his errors, or would they task him with coalescing pilgrims in the future?
Though his tension eased, he could not say the same for Wynn. Her spine hunched over her legs, her shoulders shaking while her emotions continued to churn in eddies. He could not see her face because she tucked in tight to her knees.
During their separation, she had stayed at the forefront of his mind. He could not separate his thoughts from his needs, and that had only intensified when he landed on the warship. His need to find her, to free her, had taken precedence over everything, including his mission to The Four.
He could not stand the thought of her closing herself off to him now.
Iax reached out a hand, intent on touching her shoulder, to comfort her like she had sought when he had freed her from the lab, then paused.
The day he had arrived at her outpost, she had screamed at him not to touch her. Had they returned to that place? Unsure, he dropped his hand, but his eyes went to the red stains on her sleeve.
“You are injured.” His voice came out louder, harsher, than he intended.
Her head jerked upward. A watery gaze focused first on his face, then down on her arm. She covered the stains with her hand.
“May I see?” He swiveled in his seat, his hands shaking with his need to touch her.
After a small hesitation, she placed her arm in his hand. Tension eased in his chest at the contact, his fingers flexing.
Reaching with his other hand, he gently rolled up her sleeve to see what she had done to herself. Four crescent-shaped marks impaled her skin. A smear of dried blood discolored the surrounding area.
“You have four marks on your arm now.” She had three back at her outpost, the ones he had healed unintentionally.
Her eyes lifted to his. “There’s one for you now.”
That thing in his chest shifted again, so large now it clogged his throat too.
“May I heal you?”
Almost immediately, she shook her head. “I know they won’t scar like the others, but I need them for now, as a reminder.”
He remembered what she had said at her outpost, that they were a badge of honor. She wore her marks like the Tellusians wore tattoos. A symbol. A tribute. And from Knox, he understood more about how pain could focus a person.
That she had added a mark for him, perhaps thinking him dead, made the space in his chest grow.
“Thank you,” he murmured.
Her emotions changed again, swelling differently. She moved then, lifting herself from her chair and into his lap, the papery material of the medical garb rustling. Instinctively, his arms went around her to hold her close.
A sense of calm, of rightness, infused him as her body settled fully against his. He could hear her heart and feel her breath. Her head tucked under his chin perfectly, and he never wanted to let her go.
Her breath hitched; his grip around her waist flexed.
It took him a moment to realize he had spoken the desire aloud.
She stared up into his eyes, searching. “How did you know where to find me?”
While sinking into the deep brown of her irises, he debated the benefit of telling her the truth, that it might alienate her. But he had also vowed never to lie.
Iax lifted his hand and brushed her hair away from her cheek. “When I was in contact with you, trace amounts of my Calypson essence remained on your person.” Her eyes widened, but he continued. “It provided me with a direction, then the pull became stronger as I neared your position.”
She looked down at herself, a new tension straightening her away from him.
“It is not visible to the human eye,” he explained. “Unless someone changes visible spectrum filters, like during your blood test.”
Meeting his gaze again, her throat bobbed up and down in a swallow.
“It didn’t matter that Sawyer destroyed my outpost. The CORE found out about me, about what you said, from my memories.
” Moisture welled up in her eyes. “I don’t know how it worked, but they knew everything about me.
My entire past. Things I didn’t even remember. ”
A wave of emotion rose inside her and washed over him, deep with a shade of grief. One tear slipped free, and he caught it with his thumb.
“I was there in Sector Ten as a baby.” Her breath caught, and more tears slipped free. “Briar Galloway was there too when I was born, then she sent me away. I didn’t even know I was adopted.”
Another wave of that sadness crested over him just as a wealth of tears fell from her eyes. A sob rippled through her body. She tucked herself tighter into his arms, and he held her close, perhaps too tightly, but could not loosen his hold while she cried.
These truths hurt her. At the onset of his journey, The Four had given him information, knowledge, to aid in the success of his task: that she was an anomaly, that she was a Calypson, though she did not share any of the traits a Calypson usually exhibited, and that she had been sent away.
In the beginning, these were only facts to him.
Now they were pain to her. A different sort of emotion rose in him.
To hear her sobs, to feel her body shake—it broke pieces of him on the inside, ones he could not name, nor mend.
Those broken pieces turned into aching wounds, and he found his eyes welling with moisture as well.
He closed his eyes and held her tight, feeling her pain along with his own.
Eventually, her sobs subsided into sniffles. She lifted her head, her eyes rimmed with red. “I don’t know what those scientists would have done to me if you hadn’t come.”
“I will never abandon you,” he promised, knowing it was true with every cell inside him. And along with that came another realization. “And I will never make you do something you do not want to do. Or go where you do not want to go.”
With a thought, he slowed the ship, the constant hum altering in cadence. Their momentum wavered, then settled as the engines powered down.
Swiping at the tears on her face, Wynn straightened. “What are you doing?”
“I will not take you to Sector Ten if you do not wish it.”
No matter what his orders were at the beginning of this mission, he could not fulfill them if the outcome harmed her. She had been through enough and deserved peace.
Bracing her hands against the terminal, her gaze flicked from the stars in front of them to his face and back again. “But—” She licked her lips and shook her head. “Where else would I go?”
“I do not know. But you did not wish for me to collect you, so I will not.”
Her happiness, her contentment, had become too important to him. He would rather incur the wrath of The Four, to never return home if that was what she wished, than be another person who forced her to go somewhere against her will.
As she stared at the stars, her breaths expelled from her lips in rapid bursts. New, erratic emotions surged upward, ones very similar to what he had experienced at her outpost. With a shaky hand, she reached for the space of skin where her nails had gouged her body, covered them, and squeezed.
His chest tightened, and he reached without thinking, laying his hand on hers. It pained him to see her hurting. He’d thought to ease her stress by offering her a choice, but in doing so, it appeared he had added to it.
“Where else would I go?” she repeated as a shuddering breath expelled from her lips. “Tellusian space? Home?” She scoffed a wet sound. “The CORE will search for me everywhere. There will be bulletins with my picture, and people already know what I look like from the recent news coverage.”
She shook her head again. “I don’t understand how anyone could have known I was different.
Why would they have sent Sawyer after me?
I’ve lived my life according to CORE law, and I’ve never gone against the government.
I didn’t even know I was adopted.” She turned and met his gaze. “How did you know to come for me?”
He went over the series of events that had happened prior to receiving his assignment, all the communications he had viewed, and those he had heard secondhand.
They had chosen him for his youth and memories of a life barely lived, as well as his willingness to follow orders and his physical capabilities. He had no strong attachments before he left either, making him a prime candidate.
They had also thought his curiosity about Earth would be an asset. Not only had he studied the planet as a child, but even after coalescing with other Calypsons, his interest in Earth remained. He had read many volumes of data about the planets in this solar system and in Epsilon Eridani.
As for how they knew how to find her…
“The newsreels,” he said simply.
She swallowed. “What do you mean?”
“She recognized you.”
“She?”
“Briar Galloway.”
The color in Wynn’s cheeks waned, and her brow furrowed while displeasure rose between them.
“I think I have a lot to say to that woman.” Wynn gritted the words between clenched teeth.
A tentative hope bloomed at her angry words. “Does that mean you want to travel to Sector Ten?”
She lifted her gaze, and her eyes searched his again. “Why did you come for me, Iax? You could have left me to my fate and gone home.”
“I already told you—”
She interrupted. “And you also said you wouldn’t take me to Sector Ten against my will, so your mission can’t be the only reason.”
He held her gaze, but did not answer, his mind racing for ways to explain.
“Tell me, Iax. Why did you come for me?” She turned to face him fully, then gripped his arms. “Please tell me.” Her voice broke.
“I needed to protect you.” The words came out with such vehemence her head snapped back.
Her eyes jumped back and forth between his. “Why?”
“Because I… care about you. I care. So much.” His arms flexed around her to keep her close. “Emotions burn inside me. They grow when I am near you and when we are apart. I cannot stop them.” His fingers pressed into her skin. “I do not want them to stop.”
The color returned to her face, a bloom of red across her cheeks. He followed its path with his eyes, then lifted his hand to cradle her cheek. He paused a fraction away from her skin, his breath stalling in his throat.
She tipped her head, pressing her cheek into his palm. The same tingling explosion he had experienced the first time he had touched her consumed his flesh, traveling up his arm to his scalp. She inhaled a sharp breath.
The fracture in his chest mended, the one he had experienced since watching that tether cabin leave Earth with her inside. He needed her gaze on his like he needed to breathe.
Her pupils dilated, heat taking over her expression. She bit her lip, and a strangled breath emerged from her throat. A smoldering emotion rose between them, the same that had happened at her outpost, in the hallway against the wall. The one he could not explain or stop.
Lust. Tenderness. It washed over him and lit his body everywhere. His cock jerked to life and hardened, protesting the tight fit of the flight-suit. Everything became hot all at once.
A sound wanted to emerge from his throat, but he forced it down until she lifted her hands, grabbed both sides of his face, and kissed him.