Chapter 20
Close, Then So Far
Khar
“By the Cradle. It is always better to stay alert. If something can go wrong, it will.”
Khar had lived by that creed since he was young.
His mother had never been fond of it.
He knew he was not being entirely honest with Lily, and that knowledge weighed on him more with every passing chrono-cycle.
He had sworn to himself that he would be, soon.
It was not that he had lied to her. Never that.
But he had realized that they understood certain things very differently, and he did not want to frighten her before she was ready.
They needed time.
Time together.
Time to truly know each other. Time for Lily to overcome the uncertainty that seemed to thread itself through every serious decision she made.
Khar hated that she had been shaped by experiences that made it difficult for her to love freely, without fear, without restraint, and to give herself over to her own desires. To break a being like her was a sin.
But they were moving in the right direction. Lily was growing more confident by the cycle, and Khar took quiet, possessive joy in watching her heal.
Still, the truth pressed heavily against his chest.
Lily did not yet know what the imprinting truly meant for him. That she did not need to worry. That there would be no other female in his life. There could not be. He did not want there to be. Ever.
He feared that if he told her too soon, she would recoil from the finality of it. That she might think she could not give him the same in return. But Khar also knew that Lily was not capricious. And he knew himself.
He would always be one step ahead of her needs, already providing what she required before she even realized she wanted it. Perfect alignment.
So he left Lily alone for a single chrono-cycle while he prepared for the conversation they would have. There was much to take care of.
His favorite task had been acquiring the ring Lily had mentioned.
She did not wear jewelry, but Khar had noticed how her gaze lingered whenever she saw it on others, and how she had once remarked that married people wore rings.
So he commissioned one, forged from a particularly rare metal, with great care given to its design so it would not clash with Lily’s translator.
He thought that, over time, Lily had grown fond of the piece of metal on her left eyebrow and would not want to change it for a ring.
It had taken time to secure, but this chrono-cycle he would finally be able to collect it.
He also needed a higher-tier IMPERIUM statistical automaton to consolidate all of his assets into a single account. He intended to share everything with Lily. He did not want her to work out of necessity. If she wished, she could simply fly Helios from now on.
Khar had told her he did not work for money.
And it was true. The rewards from the Divani, his Legion pay, his discharge bonus, and the pleasure of stripping Vegrun down to the bone had added up to a significant fortune.
Fleecing Vegrun, however, once a hobby of sorts, had since been replaced by a far more meaningful mission: making Lily happy.
He had even decided to bring food, and surprisingly, this had taken the longest to figure out.
Choosing something Lily might enjoy, but also festive for the occasion, felt more complex than any negotiation.
In the end, he bought many different things.
That way, she could choose whatever she felt like.
Khar returned late, though Lily’s shift had not yet ended. She was covering it alone this chrono-cycle. He could barely wait to surprise her somewhere in Vitro’s quiet corridors, then steal her away to Helios, where he would finally tell her everything.
And if Lily forgave him, if she accepted his gifts, then he would receive his own.
Lily. Naked. In his lap.
The moment he reached the docks, something felt wrong.
Vitro was gone. In the place of the ship, the hangar felt eerily empty, and it dawned on him that he had never seen this sight before, as when Vitro departed, he was always on deck.
Even though the ship had burrowed herself deep into his twin hearts, the woman aboard was on an entirely different level, and her absence cut as deep as a laser blade.
Panic clenched his gut, sharp and sudden, though nothing was confirmed yet.
Vegrun had not announced a visit, but that meant little.
He felt himself on the precipice of something, similar to how he felt when he was observing the first strike against the Geons.
He knew that something was fundamentally wrong, clawing at his gut, yet he was unable to do anything to change that.
Khar immediately called Lily’s VoidBrace.
The call was rejected.
He forced himself to stay calm.
All right. Lily was unavailable.
Maybe nothing was wrong. She just needed to do some routine task. They had never done that before—but lately, he had learned to expect the unexpected.
Blasted Cradle…
If he couldn’t reach Lily, he would call Vegrun.
The brief moments while he reached that slimy Algor stretched endlessly, but he kept himself from starting the call with shouting. It was his superior, after all. He would show restraint.
Even as his mind conjured harsher possibilities—being abandoned right after being accepted by his true mate—he forced himself to remain the bigger Divani.
The call connected.
“Vegrun, this is Khar. Did you take Vitro out?” he bit out, and even that was a success considering his sour mood.
“Hello, Khar. Yes, I see your identifier. What is this concern? It is not like you. Why would I have taken off? I am on Idris.” Vegrun sounded distracted and slightly annoyed at the call.
Khar barely restrained the urge to crush something in his hand. The metal railing near the docking bay would live to see another cycle.
“Vitro is not in the dock, and Lily was on shift this chrono-cycle. She would have told me if there was a problem that required departure. Her own ship is still here. Was Horos involved?”
Vegrun’s silence on the other end was long, entirely too long for Khar’s liking.
“Oh. Well. Uh…”
“Say it, Vegrun.”
“Horos no longer works for me, Khar.”
A loud screeching noise broke the silence in the hangar as the metal railings gave way to Khar’s fist.
“What was that noise, Khar?” Vegrun babbled on, but quickly got back to his usual monologuing. “Anyway, I dismissed him two chrono-cycles ago. After I spoke with you, I began looking into things, and this was not the first incident. Have you tried accessing Vitromium remotely?”
Even as Vegrun spoke, Khar was already working his VoidBrace, attempting again and again to reconnect to Vitro. Each attempt failed, plunging him deeper into the quick-expanding abyss in his chest.
“No. I’m locked out.”
There was a brief pause on the line. When Vegrun spoke again, his tone had hardened.
“I am notifying the authorities. Lily would not take my ship.”
Khar agreed.
“Report everything,” he ordered.
“And why would I do that, Khar?” While Vegrun had sounded repentant a few chrono-seconds ago, now his haughty manner was back in full force.
Now that helped Khar a lot.
While he had to maintain a facade of polite professionalism, Vegrun’s attitude brought back a crucial part he had missed in the shock of losing Lily.
His Divani lineage, combined with his calculated upbringing and chrono-years of brutal service in the Legion, morphed him into the perfect being for this task, allowing the real Khar to resurface.
“Because,” he started calmly, eerily so, “if even a single, tiny scar remains on my Lily after this farce, caused by none other than you, Vegrun, there won’t be a surgeon in the IMPERIUM that can salvage a single strand of DNA from your remains to clone you back.”
Khar knew that Vegrun was powerful, feared even. You don’t become as rich as he is without being strong and vicious. That would make Vegrun resilient against petty threats. At the same time, it would allow Vegrun to know when he was really in trouble. Like in this moment.
“Fine.” Vegrun finally relented. “But not for you, you skfsnfsd.” The word did not translate, meaning Vegrun said something truly nasty, probably reverting to his old Algor dialect.
“Why? Don’t we work well together already?” Khar pushed, but it was a small joy to gloat when Vegrun cut the line and he was back in the dreadful station, standing alone, without Vitromium, without Lily.
He lowered his face and allowed himself just one heartbeat of pain, of guilt, before he jumped to action.
And he swore to himself that when he saw Lily again, he would never let her out of his sight.