Chapter 11 Too Good To Be True #2
He gazed at her, his silver-gold eyes searching hers. ‘I’d never stop you from pursuing your dreams. But you leave, I’ll freakin’ be unmoored.’
Sheba stood frozen for a moment, overwhelmed by the confession, by his raw passion.
With a soft sigh, she stepped into his space and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close.
‘Well, well,’ she teased, her voice muffled against his chest. ‘Now it’s my turn to talk you off a ledge. Idan, the truth is, I’m experiencing everything you are. You’re the most amazing man I’ve ever met, and you’ve got me completely shook.’
She pulled back just enough to look at him. ‘But I don’t want to rush into mistakes we’ll regret. Let’s take it day by day. Let’s explore this connection and see where it goes. If that means leaving together, we do it. If we stay, we stay. But we’ll decide it as one.’
Relief washed over him, and he exhaled, his shoulders relaxing.
He stood holding her close for a few more moments before he found more words.
‘Sante for being the voice of reason. I’m losing my mind because I’m wild for you, woman,’ he murmured. ‘Fokk, inna son su. That’s my native language for I adore you.’
That’s when she reached for him, sinking her hands into his hair and pulling him down into a searing, desperate kiss.
Her sudden, untamed hunger shattered his remaining restraint.
The kiss ignited, shifting from an innocent gesture of comfort to a savage collision of flesh and tongue.
Idan molded her to his frame, mapping her curves through the heavy wool of her gear, his palms memorizing the flow of her body.
She pressed into the hard, rising heat of his desire, grinding her hips against his until the friction threatened to consume them both in the snow.
Sense returned like a splash of glacial water.
Sheba tore herself away, her breath coming in desperate gasps. ‘Sorry. I mauled you. Fokk, I shouldn’t have -.’
‘At what point did I signal refusal?’ Idan interrupted, in a hoarse, gravelly rasp.
His eyes gleamed in the twilight as he swiped a thumb over her swollen, crimson lips.
She took an inhale as he claimed her mouth again.
This time with a slow, worshipful intensity that made her knees buckle.
He pulled her flush against the heat of his sinewed chest and whispered into the shell of her ear.
His timbre reverberated through her, sparking a visible shiver he tracked with his fingertips.
‘Woman, all we need is a little more time to explore what we have, naam?’
She gave a slow nod. ‘Sawa, let’s take the time until my transport gets here. And I mean really lean into it.’
He chuckled, pressing a kiss to her forehead while they remained fused as the moon and stars ignited above them.
There were so many paths to navigate, and multiple ways for their trajectory to splinter, Idan thought.
It seemed every star in the galaxy needed to synchronize for their tomorrows to become a shared reality. Yet as he held her, Idan prayed for that alignment, regardless of what came.
40 KLICKS FROM LATTAYA
The mountain winds shrieked against the fortress’s stone walls, a desolate sound that only emphasized Ty Si’Rhix’s total isolation from the world below.
Inside his private suite, however, insulated and warm, Ty snorted an ivory powder from a table, sniffed, and wiped his nose.
He sat back with a contented sigh, floating in a koko dream, lost in a fantasy where he was the ultimate king of his castle.
He’d every reason to be gloating. Business was exploding.
His mines in Upper Lattaya and Aqqari were producing xentium by the ton, crushing their usual quotas ten times over.
In the orbit above Galicia, his privateer fleets had just hauled in a massive merchant score. The interception of a cache of diamonds meant to be delivered to the jewelers’ districts of Enia was a mighty fine payday.
He sank into a plush, velvet-lined chair, sampling Sartixian caviar on warm, buttery blinis with thick cream.
He washed them down with a glass of ‘Crown of Tansinia’, a vintage champagne so rare that a single bottle cost more than a provincial skiff.
To cap it all off, a transport ship packed with elite guests was already on a flight path towards his castle hideaway for a weekend of debauched partying.
The only blot on his worldview was a being named Idan, a wild-haired glitch in the system with powers that defied logic.
However, Ty dealt only in solutions.
He tapped a button on his gold-plated comms unit, reaching out to the most feared liquidator for hire in the sector.
The signal bridged the expanse to the Shattered Moons of Veridian, to a derelict orbital station called The Gallowglass.
The holo screen resolved, revealing an Allorian man.
His face, augmented with implants, was cruel, lined, and spotted.
His hair was a shock of bleached, wire-thin strands plastered to his skull, and a cybernetic visor glowed crimson over his left eye.
He who wore all red and sat surrounded by the haze of black-market cigar smoke and the gleam of illegal tech.
Korsen ‘The Reaper’ Vane was a notorious hatchet man, a maniacal ghost as told by eyewitnesses, the few who still breathed to share his infamy.
He dabbled in ‘Finality Contracts.’
Once Vane was on the clock, targets weren’t just found; they got deleted; no negotiations, no prisoners, and zero survivors.
‘Got my deposit?’ Ty growled.
Vane jerked his chin and grinned, revealing teeth stained crimson from his addiction to betel nuts. ‘Tis generous, sire.’
‘I want the freak dead,’ Ty barked into the receiver. ‘Idan, whateverthefokk he calls himself, is a walking corpse. Find him here on Tansinia, gut him, and I’ll double your final fee.’
Without warning, the air in the room whipped as if a mini storm was incoming.
The line cut to static, and Vane’s vermilion facade disappeared.
‘The fokk?’
Ty twisted around as the space in the center of the room began to ripple as if under a heat mirage, and an older man shimmered into existence.
The bent figure wore a threadbare cloak, sported long, wild hair the color of ash, and his eyes pinned Ty down, bright as stars.
The magnate flinched, his heart thudding against his ribs.
‘What or who the hell are you?’ he gasped, hand darting for the holster concealed beneath his jacket.
The intruder stood still, draped in shadows, observing the mining baron with unnerving focus.
‘Need help with your ‘Idan’ problem, Lord Si’Rhix?’
Ty froze, his fingers brushing the cold metal of his weapon. ‘Who’s asking?’
‘Someone who knows exactly who Idan is and what he’s capable of,’ the man replied, his utterance not unlike grinding stones.
‘However, I want him alive; I must have him for my cause. It’s a win-win, Ty.
So here’s the deal, we bait him, perhaps even use your contact Vane, then I bag him, and he’s out of your hair forever. ’
Ty’s panic shifted back into his customary arrogance. ‘I don’t require your help, old man. Get out before I put your head on a spike.’
‘Oh, but you do need me,’ the visitor whispered, closing the gap between them.
‘Is that right?’ Ty’s sneer widened.
He whipped out his flare-pistol and fired point-blank.
The phosphorus blast hissed through the air, but the projectile passed cleanly through the older man’s chest and buried itself in the far wall.
The mining lord paled, the blood draining from his face. ‘What in Devansi hell?’
The man stepped forward and pressed a single finger to Ty’s forehead.
The world tilted, and Ty’s knees gave out.
‘You’re welcome,’ the stranger whispered, his breath smelling of ancient dust and ozone.
Before Ty could make a sound, a whirlwind of dark gold energy erupted from within the stranger’s form, launching into Ty’s body.
In a flash of light and a roar of static, the room went silent, leaving only the pop and fizz of Ty’s overpriced champagne still bubbling in its glass.