Chapter 15
She'd been crying for hours.
The corridor lights had dimmed because of the station’s night cycle. Raaevik sat on the cold deckplating outside her door like a draanthing hound that wouldn't leave the porch.
He'd drawn his knees up with his forearms braced across them. He'd sat like this on a dozen battlefields, waiting for dawn or the enemy to make their move. But this wasn't a battlefield, and the only enemy was the sound coming through the wall.
Crying, but not the controlled, muffled kind. No, this was the other kind, the kind that came from the soul. What had started as ragged sobs had settled into something quieter…a low weeping that broke his already shattered heart.
Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and breathed slowly.
The crying stopped. He lifted his head. The ragged breathing had smoothed into something steadier, and now there was quiet. It wasn’t a peaceful quiet, but the exhausted kind that came after a body had wrung itself dry.
He closed his eyes. Draanth… Silence was worse than crying. Crying meant she was still fighting.
He didn’t think. His palm hit the lock pad. The light cycled from amber to green and the door slid open.
Her quarters were dim. The lighting had defaulted to the lowest setting, barely enough to navigate by, and the viewport shutters were half-drawn. Starlight filtered through the gap, cold and blue-white, turning everything grey.
She was on the bed.
Not under the covers. Instead, she was curled on her side on top of them, still wearing the crimson gown; the silk was bunched and twisted around her legs.
Her dark curls had come loose from their pins, spilling across the pillow and over her face.
Her arms were wrapped around herself as if she were trying to hold her own pieces together.
His chest ached. She looked so small. She was small… five foot nothing of stubborn will swallowed by a bed designed for a Latharian warrior twice her size. The pillow under her cheek was damp.
She stirred and blinked up at him, eyes swollen and raw. For a second, she just looked at him, and relief washed over her face. Then she remembered herself, and her chin lifted as the shields slammed back into place.
"Raaevik?" Her voice cracked, her hands fisting in the silk of the gown as a tremor ran through her shoulders.
"I heard you," he said. His voice was raw, even to his own ears. "Through the wall."
Her jaw tightened, and for a moment the stubbornness flared… the part of her that would rather chew glass than let anyone see her break.
"Don't." A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracking silver into her hairline. "Don't be nice to me. I can't take it."
"I'm not being nice," he rasped. "I'm being selfish."
Shrugging off his jacket, he dropped it over the chair by the door. That was all. The weapons stayed. If anyone came through that door, he was a guard who'd responded to sounds of distress from his charge. Nothing more.
She watched him. She didn't tell him to leave. She didn't ask what he was doing. She just watched with those wide, wet eyes, waiting.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, the bed dipping under his weight, and reached for her.
She flinched, and he froze. His jaw clenched but he held still, letting his hand hang in the air between them. Their gazes locked, and she didn’t move away from him as he reached out again to brush a strand of hair from her face.
She broke with a small, soft sound that cracked something in his chest. Scrambling across the sheets, she threw herself against him, burying her face in the curve of his neck. He gathered her up before she could speak.
"I hate this," she sobbed against his throat. "I hate this place. I hate them."
"I know." He wrapped himself around her. One hand cupped the back of her head, pressing her closer. The other spanned her back, holding her against him. "I know."
"Make it stop." Her voice fractured. "Please, Raaevik. Make the noise stop."
He squeezed his eyes shut. He wished he could. He wished he could burn the station down around them and take her to the edge of the galaxy where no one knew her name and no one cared about bloodlines.
"I'm here," he said into her hair. He breathed her in, filling his lungs with the scent of her, and held it. This was all he would have. These stolen minutes in the dark, her warmth against him, the broken sound of his name on her lips. He would live on this for years. "I've got you."
Her head tucked under his chin and her body curved against his, small and warm and shaking. She fit so perfectly that his breath stuttered.
She cried for a long time. He held her through every tremor, taking it all. His fingers kept a slow circuit through her tangled curls, thumb brushing the curve of her ear. She was so light.
The crying tapered. Not all at once, but in stages… sobs became hiccups, hiccups became shudders, shudders became stillness as her breathing evened out. Her fingers uncurled against his chest, then tightened again as if she'd caught herself letting go and corrected.
He pressed his lips to the top of her head. Tasted salt and the faint sweetness of whatever product she used in her hair. Underneath it, the scent that was just her… warm skin and something floral he couldn't name, the one that had been driving him slowly insane since he’d met her.
"Stay," she said. Barely a word. More of an exhale shaped around a word.
"I'm not going anywhere."
She relaxed against him. The tension drained from her body slowly, muscle by muscle. Shifting his weight, he eased them both down until he was on his back. She settled against his bare skin, and her palm came to rest over his heart. He covered it with his own.
She was safe. She was his.
He didn't fight himself on it. Not tonight.
* * *
She woke to the sound of Raaevik's heartbeat.
It was slow and steady. The deep, even thud of a man who trusted the dark enough to sleep in it. His arm was heavy across her waist, pinning her against the solid wall of his chest, and the warmth of him seeped through the thin fabric of her dress.
For a moment, she let herself have it.
She lay perfectly still, breathing him in.
Leather and the scent of clean, warm man, along with that note that was uniquely him.
The one that she’d started to associate with safety.
His chin rested on the top of her head, his breath stirring her hair.
Every so often, his arm tightened fractionally, an unconscious reflex, pulling her closer even in sleep.
Like he was afraid she’d disappear.
Pressing her lips together, she looked across the room. The status lights on the wall panels glowed faintly amber. It was still early morning, and everything was quiet.
She tilted her head back, careful not to shift too much, and looked at his face.
Oh, god.
Asleep, Raaevik looked... Younger and the effect was devastating. The lines between his brows had smoothed. His lips were slightly parted, his lashes dark against his cheeks. The long blond hair had come loose from its braids during the night and fell across his face in pale tangles.
He looked peaceful.
Her throat ached. This. This was what she was saving.
Not herself, not her freedom, but him. This man who had walked through her door because he couldn’t stand the sound of her crying. Who had held her all night without asking for anything. Who would die, actually, literally die, if anyone found out what he’d done.
What they’d done.
They would kill him. And Raaevik would let them, because that’s who he was. He’d kneel and accept the blade and call it justice.
Over her cold, dead body.
She had two choices. Stay in his arms and wait for them both to burn, or cut herself free and give him a chance to survive.
It wasn’t even a choice.
But if she vanished, Raaevik became a failure, not a traitor. He would be the guard who lost his charge. Shamed, maybe demoted, but alive. Alive to hate her for running.
She started to move. Slowly. Centimeter by centimeter, she eased sideways, sliding her hip out from under the weight of his arm. His hand twitched, and she froze, her heart slamming against her ribs.
He murmured something. Low and rough. Not words. Just sound. His arm shifted, fingers spreading across the sheets where she’d been.
She held her breath so long her vision started to spot.
His hand stilled, and his breathing deepened again.
Sliding off the edge of the bed, she stood there trembling as she watched his face for any sign of consciousness.
Nothing. He slept on.
She moved to the dresser on silent feet.
The crimson gown would be useless for running, but there were practical clothes folded in the bottom drawer…
dark trousers, a fitted top, a soft jacket.
Every second counted, so she didn’t bother with underwear.
She changed fast, her fingers clumsy with adrenaline.
Her boots went on last. She zipped them with her teeth clenched against the sound.
Shit, she needed to leave a note.
Grabbing the cream stationery from the desk and the stylus beside it, she forced herself to focus, but her hand shook so badly the first line came out as a jagged scrawl. She concentrated harder.
I’m sorry.
He’d want to know she wasn’t taken. He’d know it was her choice.
And maybe, maybe, one day he’d forgive her for making it.
She folded the note once and set it on the nightstand where he would see it. Then she pulled the burner comm from her pocket and tapped the screen. A message glowed green against the black.
Cargo Bay 4. Pilot waiting. 0500. Don’t be late.
She looked at him one last time. The rise and fall of his chest. The loose hair across his face. Her mother would have called this weakness. Standing in a dark room, memorizing a man who was never supposed to be hers.
Her jaw tightened, and she walked out without a backward glance. She didn’t dare to.