Chapter 18
A week without running. A week without fighting. A week where the most significant decision I made was whether to take my coffee in the mess hall or bring it back to my quarters.
It felt wrong, like wearing clothes that didn't fit.
The newsfeeds kept reporting corporate collapses and liberation movements spreading through the outer systems. Voss had been stripped of his position and sent to an internment facility in a cold, forgotten place.
The galaxy was healing, and I had nothing to do but watch.
The knock on my door was almost a relief.
A young crew member stood at attention, holding an envelope as if it might bite him. He saluted. I nodded back. I'd given up trying to return military gestures after the third crew member had to stifle a laugh. He handed me the envelope and retreated before I could embarrass either of us further.
The envelope contained an invitation printed on formal parchment.
Actual paper, pressed with the Starbreaker's seal.
Not a comm ping. Not Vaelix's voice crackling through the ship's speakers with some irreverent invitation.
Torvyn's handwriting, precise and deliberate, requesting my presence in the Knights' den.
Requesting. Not commanding.
I turned the paper over in my hands as I walked, feeling the texture against my fingertips. When was the last time I was invited somewhere rather than being needed? The distinction mattered to me more than it should have.
The den's door was already open when I arrived, and warm light spilled into the corridor. But the light was strange. Softer than usual, red instead of the amber color it was the last time I was here. Someone had changed the settings deliberately. Torvyn, probably.
They were waiting. All four of them, arranged in loose formation around the low table at the center of the room. Not talking, not moving. Just present.
Torvyn rose first, his massive frame unfolding with surprising grace. "You came."
"You asked." I stepped inside, and the door slid shut behind me with a soft click.
"Are we having a party?" I asked.
Kaedren shifted on the cushions, two of his four arms crossed while the others rested on his knees. Firelight caught the scars that traced his jaw. "You could call it that. It's something we should have done before now."
On the table, a single bottle sat surrounded by five glasses.
Crystal, not the usual ship-standard metal.
The stems and bowls were decorated with hieroglyphs that glowed in the light.
I leaned forward and studied them. They were ancient Zorathi.
The kind I had only read about in books.
The liquid inside was deep violet, almost black, catching light in ways that seemed to shift when I wasn't looking directly at it.
I sat down on the blankets next to my Knights.
The warmth in the room wasn't just from the lighting.
It was from all of us. It pressed against my skin like a physical presence, settled into my lungs with each breath.
I could already feel something loosening in my chest, some tension I hadn't realized I was carrying.
"The wine," I said slowly, recognizing the sensation. "It looks different."
Torvyn's eyes met mine, steady and sure.
"Aethervine. A Zorathi tradition for moments that matter.
It opens pathways in the mind and body. Emotional, empathic, psychoactive.
It helps lower the barriers we build to survive.
" His voice dropped. "We chose it deliberately.
Not to take your defenses. To offer you ours.
But we will not serve you until you understand what you are consuming.
This will alter your perception of the world, and of yourself. "
"Yep, I'm in. I consent, all that, give me the mind-altering wine, please," I said, reaching for the largest pour.
Vaelix grinned from his position on the floor, though something serious moved behind his eyes. "To be completely clear, drinking this makes it impossible to lie about what you're feeling. It is considered the essence of romance in Zorathi social circles."
"Romantic isn't the word I'd use," I said, taking a long draft from my glass, then watching the way the liquid moved, smooth, almost luminous.
Lyrin hadn't moved. His glass sat untouched before him, and when I looked at him, I saw the tension in his shoulders, the careful control of his expression. He was afraid. Not of me. Of this. Of what lowering those walls might cost him.
I waited.
The silence stretched. Kaedren shifted impatiently. Vaelix opened his mouth to say something, but Lyrin reached for his glass before Vaelix could get the words out.
Lyrin's hand was steady, but I felt the cost of that steadiness through the Tether. The effort it took for him to choose vulnerability when he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. But he raised the glass, met my eyes, and toasted me.
"I do this for you, Kira. For everything you have done for me, for us," he said, sending love through the tether, then taking a large sip.
Something cracked open in my chest.
Torvyn lifted his glass. "To choosing what we fight for instead of fighting what we have to."
Kaedren followed. "To battles worth the blood. To standing instead of running."
Lyrin's voice was rough, reluctant, and honest. "To walls broken. To letting someone see what's behind them."
Vaelix raised his glass with something that almost passed for solemnity. "To staying. When staying costs more than leaving ever could."
They looked at me. Waiting.
I raised my glass. "To my Knights. The men who showed me what love and acceptance are. Thank you for filling a void in my life that I didn't know existed."
A lump formed in my throat, but I took a quick sip from my glass to push it back down.
The wine was sweeter than I expected, with a warmth that spread through me like fire.
Not intoxicating, not in the way human alcohol made me feel.
This was different. The Tether hummed brighter, and suddenly I could feel them.
Their presence. All of their emotions. Like the doors to their souls had been thrown open, and I was experiencing everything.
Torvyn's certainty. Kaedren's coiled tension.
Lyrin's fragile hope. Vaelix's hunger barely leashed beneath his easy smile.
And beneath all of it, desire. Theirs. Mine. Tangled together until I couldn't tell where one ended and another began.
We had won the war we had been forced into. Voss was in chains. The corporations were in ruins.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt optimistic.
I moved first.
Not because they expected it. Not because the wine demanded it. But because I wanted to, because I wanted to celebrate everything I had done, everything we had done. And I deserved it, damnit.
I crossed the space between us and stopped in front of Torvyn.
His eyes tracked me, patient, waiting. Always waiting.
He'd been waiting since they rescued me, a refugee with nothing but rage and embarrassment.
He'd been waiting through every battle, every argument, every moment I'd pushed him away. And still he waited.
"I want this," I said.
"I know." His voice was rough, strained with the effort of holding still. "Name it."
"I choose you. All of you."
I kissed him.
His hands framed my face, careful, reverent, like I was something precious that might shatter.
But I wasn't fragile, and I proved it by pressing closer, by tangling my fingers in his hair and pulling him down to meet me with a hunger I was done pretending I didn't feel.
He groaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating through me, and the feeling traveled through the Tether like lightning, making every nerve ending in my body sing.
I felt Kaedren move behind me before I heard him.
His hunger pressed through the bond like fire against my spine, urgent and barely contained.
Two of his hands settled on my hips, fingers digging in possessively, while the other two traced up my arms with deliberate slowness.
His mouth found the curve of my neck, teeth grazing, tongue soothing.
"Took you long enough," he murmured against my skin.
"Patience." I broke from Torvyn long enough to turn my head, catching Kaedren's mouth with mine.
Different. Sharper. More urgent. He kissed like he fought, all coiled power and barely restrained aggression, his tongue sweeping against mine like he was claiming territory.
When I bit his lower lip, he made a sound, low and desperate, that sent heat flooding between my thighs.
Vaelix appeared at my side, his grin wicked even as vulnerability bled through the bond. "Don't I get a turn?"
"You get what I give you." I pulled him closer by his collar and kissed the smile off his face.
He tasted like the wine and something sweeter.
Surprise, maybe, that I'd met his challenge.
His hands touched me immediately, restless and curious, tracing paths along my ribs, my waist, the curve of my hip.
Every touch sent shivers cascading across my skin.
Lyrin hung back. I could feel his want like an ache in my chest, sharp and terrified and so intense it nearly took my breath away.
I held out my hand.
For a long moment, he didn't move. The others stilled, waiting. Even Vaelix stopped his restless exploration. The room held its breath.
Then Lyrin crossed the distance and took my hand, and the relief that flooded through the Tether was so intense it made my eyes sting.
"Tell me what you want," he said, his voice barely above a whisper.
"I want you."