Chapter 14
Haven
The entire ship was tense. Haven wasn’t entirely sure why or what had changed. Vytln wasn’t talking, and the others were busy working. Even if they weren’t, Vytln had plopped her right back into her nest and was absolutely refusing to let her out.
He was in his workroom too, moving around, hitting and breaking things.
It didn't look like he was trying to fix anything. Or, if he was, his anger meant he was failing spectacularly. Haven hung out at the entrance of her nest and watched him rage around, letting him work through things. She still wasn’t even sure what happened, what he saw, why they suddenly ran back to the ship.
All she did know was that, after returning, Vytln spoke to Tanin in an aside, out of earshot, then suddenly Tanin was messaging the others.
Things were moving very quickly after that.
Haven saw the guys moving around the ship while Goldie, Garnet, and Grace were hurried back into it.
Like they were being hidden away. Maybe not literally trapped like Haven, but there was definitely a sense that they were circling the wagons.
“Can I getting into out now?” She asked after some time had passed and it was clear that Vytln wasn’t slowing down.
“No,” he snapped, slamming his hammer down on a piece of steel. It was literally flat steel that he was leaving heavy dents in. She was pretty sure that was one of the interior panels, though he wasn’t doing anything but taking his anger out on it.
“Want to talking about it?”
“No,” he beat harder at the steel.
“Might being making you feeling better.”
He didn't respond, but just beat harder at the steel. Not even pretending that he was doing something besides beating it senselessly. Slam. Slam. Slam! SLAM! CRACK!
The metal body of the hammer snapped back, bent at a ninety degree angle, almost snapped off completely, from the force of his strikes.
Vytln roared as he turned, throwing the hammer against the wall.
It clanged and bounced down, landing amongst the broken and half finished projects he had filling one wall.
Vytln glared at it, teeth clenched, breathing hard like he had just been running.
The glow of his eyes and scars seemed even brighter than usual.
“Feeling better?” Haven asked, resting her head on her chin.
Apparently not, because he grabbed the beaten and warped panel and threw that too. Then his not-wrench. Then one of his projects. More tools. More projects. Anything that could come to hand he chucked like it had personally offended him.
“Woo!” Haven cheered, roaring along with him.
Getting him more hyped. She shook her fist in the air, banged it on the outside of the trap.
When he ran out of things to throw, he roared and just slammed his own fists down onto the worktable.
Haven roared along with him. The two of them shouted at nothing, his huge voice easily swallowing hers, but her higher pitch echoing around despite his volume.
Vytln’s voice cut as he ran out of air. Haven let her own voice fade as she stared at his heaving back, waiting to see what he did next.
The silence in the wake of their yells seemed that much louder. Vytln let out a long breath, his head dropping further. She couldn’t see his face, but she could read the distress on him clearly. She might not know what happened, but it clearly hurt him so much he couldn’t contain it.
“Do you want to coming in?” She asked, her voice soft in complete contrast to their raging.
Vytln didn’t move for another long moment before saying softly, “If I go in, I won’t be able to get out again.”
He wasn’t talking about the trap, she knew. He meant her. For this tenuous thing that kind of existed between them. The thing she was happy to accept, but that she knew he was hesitant about. Because of the woman in his past that she didn’t know and already didn’t like.
She was happy to welcome him though. Even now. Especially now, when it was clear that he needed the comfort so dearly.
“Coming in,” she told him. “I won’t forcing you. But if you are willing to trusting me, if you are willing to risk it, I am willing to holding you.”
Giving a smile to his back, Haven released her grip on the entrance and slid back into the nest. She landed with a soft ‘oomph’ on the cushions and moved away, giving him room to join her. If he wanted.
For a long time, nothing happened. The workroom was quiet except for the gentle rumble of the engine continuing to hum. It was comforting, like white noise, to her. But it also covered any soft movements Vytln might be making.
She didn’t want to pressure him. She was just offering respite if he was willing to take it. But if not, she would instead give him peace and space.
Still, her chest was tense as she waited. Her toes curled and uncurled in her shoes. She licked her lips, then dried them, then licked them again. All the while, she watched the hole. And just when she was sure that Vytln was going to reject her offer, to choose to stay alone-
The panels around the hole slid apart, opening the hole once again. Haven tensed, but she didn’t move or call out. She continued waiting.
Another long moment later, Vytln appeared in the entrance.
His eyes seemed dimmer than before, but they smoldered as he lifted himself inside.
The trap didn’t close behind him, remaining open and free, as he slid down.
He didn’t land on his butt like her but instead landed on his knees with the easy familiarity of someone who had come into this small space a dozen times before.
Haven didn’t hesitate. She didn’t let him have a chance to regret or question his decision.
She threw herself at him. Her arms around his torso.
Her face smooshed into his chest. He was so much bigger than her, it was like hugging a tree.
But she loved the warmth, the hardness of his body, as he stiffened in surprise.
But it only lasted a moment. He groaned and collapsed, near folding his body over her. She grunted, immediately overwhelmed by his weight. She hated to tell him to move when he just gave in enough to join her, but her muscles immediately started shaking.
She didn’t need to choose between her physical safety and his emotional one, however.
He picked up on what was wrong and turned them slightly.
They fell on their sides instead. The way he adjusted meant that her head came down on his arm.
His other arm tightened around her as he partially covered her body.
It was a weight still, but it wasn’t suffocating.
Haven smiled and snuggled deeper into his arms. She did her best to hold him back, even knowing that her limbs weren’t big enough to cover him like he did her. She hoped that he still had enough comfort from the action.
For a while, they didn’t speak. Her eyes drifted closed as she listened to the heavy thumping of his heart.
It was unusual – one singular, loud thump in contrast to the twin thumps she was used to hearing.
It was accompanied by the rushing of air in and out of his huge lungs.
Combined with the thudding of his heart, it was like listening to a well-oiled and steady machine.
Comforting, easy, peaceful. She had invited him in here to offer him those things, but she was getting it instead.
He didn’t move away though. His arms were still tight. One of his legs even covered hers, trapping her legs between his. Hiding her under his bulk entirely. His grip was strong and sure.
“I saw my brother.”
Vytln’s voice, from this close, was like the rumble of a mountain – deep and powerful. Even as soft as he spoke, it seemed to vibrate into her bones.
But the words made her eyes open. “Your brother?”
“On the station. I saw my brother.”
“Oh… You meaning the brother who…”
“Yeah. That brother.” His jaw tightened. “I only have the one. More lucky for me. I doubt we’d have all survived if there were more.”
“Why is he being here?”
“He’s hunting me.”
Haven frowned. “Maybe he isn’t? Maybe not…”
“No. He is. I know he is. He commed us a couple days ago. Pretending to care for me. He knows I escaped, now he’s trying to hunt me down.”
“Oh…” Haven couldn’t really argue that he wasn’t, that it was okay, that it wasn’t that bad. She didn’t know enough about the situation to say for sure. “Why?”
Vytln didn’t answer immediately. It was hard for him, she realized.
Not the intimacy so much as the vulnerability.
The vulnerability of having her in his trap and being subject to the pain of near-mating again.
The vulnerability of having someone close enough to make him feel good and the threat of that being taken away.
The vulnerability of revealing his past, his pains, to someone in an open and honest way that also opened him to the possibility of more pain.
“On my planet, the two races don’t get to cross paths very often,” he finally said, starting in a place she hadn’t really expected, but she let it happen. Not wanting to interrupt or disrupt when he was finally talking.
“My home planet is tidally locked. One side is always facing the sun, one is always facing away. So, one side of the planet is burning hot, the other is freezing cold. The two races of lvtl can only flourish on their side. But we can interbreed, and the resulting offspring can handle neither the heat nor the cold. They have to stay in the thin habitable zone in the middle of the planet. They’re considered weaker.
Their population is smaller. But what they can do is serve as a go between for the two halves of the planet.
My race and the north race can still trade and communicate because of them.
And they use that to maintain their own power.
They strictly control trade to the point that they maintain control over the entire economy. ”
A tidally locked planet? Haven got the mental image of a planet without ocean tides, but she quickly realized that’s not what he meant.
He meant that the planet didn’t spin around the sun like the Earth, so that it didn’t have traditional days and nights like she would expect.
It was fascinating, but she resisted the urge to ask more questions as he continued.
“There are always those who try to smuggle things around the strict trade controls. It’s illegal, of course, so the people who do it are criminals.
And when you’re labeled that way, you begin behaving that way, more and more.
Pushing the boundaries until what started as just smuggling supplies or necessities expands into more… dangerous territories.”
“Oh. Like prohibition gangs,” Haven said, understanding dawning.
Back when her country made alcohol illegal, it just prompted people to trade it illegally.
And the people who did that trading eventually morphed and grew into something dangerous and beyond control.
She could easily see how it would be repeated on his home planet.
“My family were smugglers,” he confirmed.
“My great grandfather started the smuggling, but it’s grown since then.
It’s become an empire. My family is powerful.
Untouchable. We’re feared. On my planet, it’s not unfair to say that we’re infamous to the point of being a household name.
But the kind that you whisper and use to threaten naughty children.
“My father is the one responsible for growing our family into what it is today. He was a merciless and cruel male. I really admired him. I wanted to be like him. I tried to be like him. He had trapped our mother, who was just as calculating and cold as him. She had two sons and she raised us like a competition. She would only give her support to the one of us that was doing better. It started first with primary school, then it was training, then it was working. And it was almost always me. I was better than my brother at what we did. The family business was one where you needed to be ruthless and cunning, but you also had to be smart and calculating. Kldyn was ruthless, sure, but he was emotional and prone to damaging outbursts. Whenever he’d get ahead of me, he’d have another outburst, and he’d fall behind again.
“Everyone knew I was going to take over. I controlled the majority of the trade routes, all but the three main ones that my father maintained control over. I was making us a lot of money. I was expanding our business. Kldyn and I shared the responsibility of taking care of our enemies. I was more efficient at it. He was more merciless. Our father liked both approaches. Our mother didn’t like either of us.
We were tools for her to continue to build the empire she’d created with my father. ”
Haven was starting to put together what he was describing. They were like a mob family. The father leading the business, the mother raising heartless children to continue the legacy, siblings that saw each other as threats, not support.
It was really sad. Haven’s heart hurt for him. But she didn’t speak as he took a moment to gather his thoughts and continue.
“I told you that Yl’ln was raised with us.
As much as I admired and emulated my father, she admired and emulated my mother.
She pit my brother and I against each other and offered her affection only to the one she saw doing the best. And unlike our father, she appreciated my brother’s cruelty more than my efficiency.
She reveled in it. I think that’s why she chose him.
And she did it by climbing into my trap and triggering one of his outbursts.
“Everything happened so fast. It was over in a day. He sent his supporters, cousins of ours, to kill my supporters. They were careful, but they weren’t ready for it, and they fell quickly.
I found Yl’ln in my trap, and while she had me distracted, Kldyn gained the upper hand.
I had nearly mated her when Kldyn came in.
He had his supporters. He had Yl’ln, though I didn’t know it.
They dragged me out of the trap. Beat me.
Subdued me. They made me watch while my brother claimed Yl’ln. ”
Haven stilled. The story had taken a hard, dark turn she hadn’t expected. And one she couldn’t imagine. What that must have been like. What Vytln must have felt.
She tilted her head back, getting her first look at his face. His eyes were closed, his jaw was tight, like he was lost back in those memories. Stretching her neck up, she pressed a kiss, gentle and soft, against his lips.
Vytln’s eyes snapped open, the glowing embers burning like a raging wildfire.