“Yes. But not as your mates. As your shield. Strictly professional. No romantic entanglements, no attempts to win you back. Just a combat unit that works together. People do it all the time. Not every shield end up together romantically, so I know it can happen.”
“Are you insane? I left for a reason, Draco. I needed to get away from you, from all of you.”
He took a step closer. “The bond is killing us, Jupiter. You feel it too, I know you do. The distance is agony. And last night proved that we’re stronger together. We need each other.”
“I don’t need you,” I spat, but the words rang hollow. The bond had been pulling at me constantly since I’d arrived, a constant ache that I’d been trying to ignore.
“As a combat unit, we’re stronger with you than without you. And you’re stronger with us. Our job is to fight the bane, and we can’t do that at half power or distracted. We’re not just putting ourselves in danger, but everyone else around us.”
I turned away, staring at the closed dome above us. “What’s the point of me leaving if you’re just going to follow me? What was the point of any of it?”
Draco was silent for a long moment. I wondered if he even had an answer. What was the point of it all? I ran as far away as I physically could and still, they were like ghosts that haunted my every moment of every day. And he was right. The distance was painful. I woke up every morning feeling like half of me was ripped off at the seam.
“Maybe there isn’t a point. Maybe this is just our life now. Maybe we’re meant to be together, even if it’s not in the way we originally thought.”
I closed my eyes, fighting the tears that threatened to spill over. I was so damn sick of crying over these men. “I can’t go back to how things were, Draco. I won’t.”
“I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to consider a new arrangement. One where we respect your boundaries, where we work together professionally, and where we all stop suffering because of the distance.”
I turned to face him again. “And if I say no?”
“Then we’ll accept that. We’ll stay here, and we’ll continue to suffer. But I think you know as well as I do that this separation isn’t sustainable. Not for any of us. This bond has settled in deep, and there’s no force in the world that’s going to dissolve it shy of death.”
He was right, and I hated him for it. And after last night, after feeling Draco’s life slipping away through our connection, I couldn’t deny that we were connected in ways that went beyond a simple choice.
“I’ll think about it,” I said finally. “But I’m not making any promises.”
Draco nodded, a flicker of hope in his eyes. “That’s all I’m asking.” I turned to leave, but his voice stopped me at the door. “Jupiter?”
I looked back at him, silhouetted against the candlelight. “What?”
“I never stopped loving you. None of us did. And I know that doesn’t change anything, but I needed you to know that one, singular truth because it’s all I have left.”
“Goodbye, Draco.”
I left him standing there in the darkness, my mind racing. As I made my way back to the guest suite, I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right. If maybe the only way forward was to find a way to work together, even if it meant setting aside the pain of the past.
But as I pushed open the door to the suite and saw Lucas and Rowan waiting for me, concern etched on their faces, I knew that whatever decision I made would affect more than just me and Nightfall. It would affect Stardust too, and the fragile new connections I was building with them.
And that made everything infinitely more fucking complicated.
21
Jupiter
A week had passedsince our return to Imperium. Seven days of trying to regain some normalcy while my mind constantly replayed the events at Dominion. Seven days of feeling the Nightfall Shield through our bond, their presence a constant ache that I couldn’t quite ignore no matter how hard I tried.
I’d thrown myself into classes and training, spending most evenings with Theo or Jamie or Lucas, trying to distract myself from the decision looming over me. Draco’s offer to transfer Nightfall to Imperium as a professional combat unit kept circling in my thoughts. Part of me wanted to reject it outright, the idea of seeing them every day, working with them without beingwiththem, felt like a special kind of torture. But another part of me couldn’t deny the truth in what Draco had said. The bond was killing us all slowly, and maybe finding a way to coexist was the only solution.
I sighed, pushing those thoughts away as I made my way through the winding stone paths of Imperium’s grounds toward the greenhouse. This had become my daily ritual, an hour or twoin the afternoon spent with Phoenix among the exotic plants that had been salvaged from the home worlds. There was something about his calm, steady presence that soothed me.
The massive glass structure came into view, sunlight glinting off its crystalline panels. Unlike the rest of Imperium’s heavy stone architecture, the greenhouse was a masterpiece of curved glass and delicate ironwork.
Phoenix was already inside when I arrived. He looked up at the sound of the door closing, his copper eyes warming when they landed on me. “Right on time,” he said, straightening from where he’d been tending to a cluster of luminous blue flowers.
“Am I ever late?” I teased, setting down my bag on a nearby bench.
He smiled. “Only that one time last week when Jamie convinced you to try dreamwalking during one of your marathon naps and you both got stuck in Noodle’s head for three hours.”
