Chapter 9
Cleo
Two sun-cycles. Two long, exhausting sun-cycles spent between the underground tech chamber and the grow facility, repairing tubing, switching out fried connectors, and, of course, undoing the sabotage. The last part was easy. I still hadn’t fixed all the lightning damage.
My eyes burned. My back ached from hunching over control panels. My hands were scraped raw from working with old tech that had edges sharper than they had any right to be. And I was pretty sure I’d forgotten what actual sunlight looked like.
“Try it now,” I called to Venith, who stood at the main power distribution hub with her hand hovering over the activation sequence.
She plugged the power supply into its port, and for about five glorious seconds, the system turned on. Then it flickered, stuttered, and went dark.
“Damn it.” I sat back on my heels, fighting the urge to throw something at the nearest wall. “That should have worked.”
“Perhaps the damage is more extensive than we thought,” Venith suggested gently. She’d been here both nights with me, patient and sharp and absolutely invaluable. If I ever got out of this valley, I was stealing her for my engineering team. If I could pry her out of this valley.
I scrubbed my hands over my face. My skin felt gritty with dust and exhaustion. “Yeah. There’s probably one stupid connector we’re missing.”
Footsteps echoed from the chamber entrance. I didn’t need to look up to know who it was. My entire body went on alert every time Rezor came within ten feet of me.
“Any progress?” His voice was rough. He’d been dealing with growing unrest the last two sun-cycles as people realized someone among them was actively trying to destroy their home.
“Some.” I turned to face him, and my breath caught despite my best efforts. He looked as tired as I felt. His long hair had come loose from its tie, falling around his face in a way that made him look younger. More vulnerable. Just looking at him made my stomach flip every damn time.
“We’ve identified most of the damaged points,” I continued, forcing myself to focus on the technical problem instead of the way his eyes tracked over me with concern. “But fixing them without triggering more failures is like trying to defuse a bomb while someone keeps adding wires.”
Venith gathered her tools. “I should return to my family. My bondmate will worry if I’m gone too long.” She glanced between Rezor and me with an expression that suggested she knew exactly what kind of tension filled the space between us. “I’ll return at first light, Cleo.”
“Thanks, Venith. You’ve been amazing.” I managed a tired smile as she left, her footsteps fading up the stone stairs.
Which left me alone with Rezor in a chamber lit only by the soft glow of ancient devices and the soft bioluminescence of the lights.
He moved closer, and I forced myself to stay focused on the power distribution panel instead of watching the way his muscles shifted beneath his tunic.
Professional. I needed to stay professional.
Even if we were alone in an underground chamber and I hadn’t slept properly in a couple days and his gaze tracked my every movement with a hunger that I felt low in my belly.
He was more attractive every fucking time I saw him.
“You should rest,” he said. “You’ve been down here for three nights straight.”
“Nah, We’re almost there.” I gestured at the complex array of crystalline relays and tubes that pulsed with faint light. “Besides, sleep is overrated.”
“Cleo.” He stepped into my line of sight, forcing me to look at him. His eyes were that deep fuchsia color that made rational thought difficult, and his expression was concerned. “You’re exhausted. You won’t solve anything if you collapse.”
“I’ve worked longer shifts than this.” It came out more defensive than I’d intended. “Back on Earth, I once stayed awake for fifty-two hours straight troubleshooting a critical infrastructure failure on Luna Station. This is nothing.”
“Why do you do that?” The question caught me off guard.
“Do what?”
“Push yourself to the breaking point.” He moved closer, close enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his skin. “You don’t have to prove anything, Cleo. Everyone can see how skilled you are.”
I laughed, but it came out bitter. “Yeah, well. Skill isn’t always enough.”
“It is, here.”
Ah, how I wished I could believe that. “How, with Vax actively trying to take me and my friends down?” The question came out raw, stripped of all the defenses I usually kept in place.
“How do I know you won’t decide I’m more trouble than I’m worth?
That keeping me here isn’t worth the risk to your people? ”
“Because I can’t,” he said simply. “I’ve tried, Cleo. I’ve tried to see you as just another problem to solve. A variable to manage. But every time I’m near you, my marks burn. Every time I imagine you in danger, all I can think about is keeping you safe.”
His hand came up, hovering near my face but not quite touching. Giving me space to pull away.
I didn’t pull away.
“I’m terrified of being wrong about you,” he continued. “Of making a choice that puts my people at risk. But I’m more terrified of pushing you away because of that fear.” His eyes held mine, intense and unwavering.
“You think I’m not terrified?” My voice shook. “You could end me with one word.”
His hand finally made contact, his fingers brushing along my jaw. I shivered despite the heat radiating from his touch. “If you thought I’d actually do that, you would not be standing here with me, letting me touch you.”
He wasn’t wrong. I leaned into his touch before I could stop myself.
I was just running out of excuses to keep fighting this.
Of pretending I didn’t feel the pull between us, didn’t notice the way his marks blazed every time we were close, didn’t lie awake at night thinking about what it would feel like to stop resisting and just let myself fall.
“I don’t know how to do this,” I whispered. “I don’t know how to trust someone who has so much power over me.”
“Then don’t trust me all at once.” His thumb brushed across my cheekbone, and I felt the answering heat low in my belly.
“Trust me in small moments. Trust that I’ll keep working to earn it.
Trust that when I say you’re brave and brilliant and stronger than you give yourself credit for, I mean every word. ”
“Rezor…” I didn’t know what to say. Didn’t know if I was going to argue or agree or just stand here drowning in the way he looked at me, like I was something precious instead of a mistake he’d likely regret.
“I can’t afford to be wrong about you,” he said, echoing words I’d heard him say before. “Too many people depend on me. But I can’t afford to be wrong about this either. About us.”
“What if there is no ‘us’?” I asked. “What if your marks are just reacting to something strange and unfamiliar? What if I’m just a curiosity?”
“Do you feel like a curiosity?” His other hand came up to cup my other cheek, tilting my face up toward his. “Because when I touch you, it doesn’t feel strange. It feels like coming home.”
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think past the way his hands felt against my skin, the heat that seemed to pour through me wherever we touched. “This is insane. We’re different species. We come from completely different worlds.”
“I know.” He was so close now I could feel his breath against my lips. “But I don’t care. Do you?”
Did I? Standing here in this quiet chamber, exhausted and raw and more honest than I’d been in years, did I care that he was D’tran and I was human?
That his eyes shifted colors and mine didn’t, that his culture was alien and my past was complicated?
Destrans and humans had no problem making relationships work.
“No,” I whispered. “I don’t care.”
“Then stop fighting this.” His voice was barely audible. “Trust me enough to let me kiss you. We can figure out everything else later.”
I didn’t make a conscious decision. My body just moved, closing the last breath of distance between us, and then his lips were on mine.
The world exploded.
Heat. Overwhelming, consuming heat that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with the connection that snapped into place between us.
Rezor’s hands slid from my face into my hair, angling my head as he deepened the kiss.
I grabbed onto his shoulders for balance as my knees went weak, and felt the solid strength of him beneath my palms. One of his arms wrapped around my waist, pulling me flush against him, and I made a sound that was half gasp, half surrender.
This wasn’t a tentative first kiss. This was desperate and hungry and full of all the tension that had been building between us since the moment he’d pulled me from that crashed pod.
His tongue traced the seam of my lips and I opened for him, tasting him, feeling the way his whole body shuddered in response.
My hands moved from his shoulders to his chest, feeling the heat of his skin and the rapid beat of his heart. I felt an answering warmth in my own skin, like something in me was reaching toward something in him, trying to bridge the gap between human and D’tran, between stranger and mate.
We broke apart just long enough to breathe, foreheads pressed together, both of us panting.
“Your marks,” I managed. “They’re glowing again.”
“For you.” His voice was rough, almost awed. “Only you.”
I pulled back just enough to look more closely at his chest, where amber light blazed through his shirt in intricate patterns that seemed to move and shift with each heartbeat. Without thinking, I reached up and pulled the fabric aside to see them properly.
My breath caught.
The marks were beautiful. Geometric patterns that looked like circuitry and organic growth all at once, spreading across his chest in lines of pure light. They pulsed with warmth, with life, with something that felt bigger than both of us.
“Deep compatibility,” I whispered, remembering what Mierva had told me. “Is that what this is?”
“I don’t know.” Rezor’s hand covered mine where it rested against his marks. “But I know I’ve never felt anything like this. Never wanted anyone the way I want you.”
“I’m scared,” I admitted. “I’m scared of how much I want this.”
“Good.” He kissed me again, softer this time but no less intense. “Be scared with me. We can figure it out together.”
Together. The word should have terrified me. Instead, it felt like a promise.
I kissed him back, pouring everything I couldn’t say into the connection between us. All my fear and hope and desperate need to believe that maybe this time, trusting someone wouldn’t end in betrayal. His arms tightened around me, and I felt safe in a way I hadn’t in years.
The tech chamber hummed around us, systems pulsing with light, and somewhere in the back of my mind I knew I should get back to work, or return to my quarters and get some sleep. There were a thousand practical reasons to stop this.
But for just a moment, I let myself have this. Let myself trust that the marks blazing between us meant something real. Let myself believe that maybe brave and brilliant and impossible me could have something good.