“You keep meaning it.” He reached out, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “Most people would have fallen apart by now.”
“I don’t have that luxury.” Her gaze dropped to Robbie’s face, soft with a mother’s love. “He needs me to be strong. So I’m strong.”
“You’re extraordinary.”
“I’m tired.” The admission came out quiet, almost surprised, as if she hadn’t meant to say it aloud. “I’m tired, and I’m scared, and part of me still can’t believe this is actually happening.” She looked up at him, her dark eyes searching his face. “But I trust you. I trust that you’ll get us out of this.”
The weight of that trust settled on his shoulders—not like a burden, but like armor. Like purpose.
“We’re not safe yet,” he said honestly. “The patrol craft might circle back. Naran will figure out what happened eventually. We need to get off-world before he can mobilize a real search.”
“I know.”
“The journey will be difficult. We’ll be moving through dangerous territory, relying on people I haven’t seen in years, hoping that old debts are still honored.”
“I know.”
“Melissa—”
She cut him off with a kiss.
It was brief and fierce and tasted like hope. When she pulled back, her eyes were bright.
“Stop trying to warn me about all the ways this could go wrong,” she said. “I know it could go wrong. I’ve known since the moment you told me about the plan. But I’d rather die trying toescape than spend another day in that cell, waiting for them to turn me into a broodmare.”
He should have been horrified by her casual mention of death. Instead, he felt a surge of pride so intense it nearly stole his breath.
“When we’re free,” he said roughly, “when we’re safe, when this is finally over—I’m going to mate you properly. With ceremony and witnesses and everything you deserve.”
“Is that a proposal?”
“It’s a promise.”
Her smile was like sunrise.
The shuttle banked east, leaving the smoke and chaos of the facility behind.
He watched through the viewscreen as the landscape changed beneath them—the abandoned cities giving way to untamed wilderness, the amber sky deepening towards rust as the sun began its descent. Somewhere ahead, his contact was waiting. Somewhere beyond that, a ship that could carry them to freedom.
The first stage of the plan had worked. They were out of the facility, away from Naran’s immediate reach, surrounded by allies however few.
Now comes the hard part,he thought.Now we have to survive.
But for the first time in years—perhaps for the first time since the Red Death had taken everything he loved—he felt hopeful about the future.
His people were dying. His species faced extinction. The world he’d known was crumbling around him. But this small, fragile, impossible family he’d somehow gathered was still worth fighting for.
They were worth everything.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
The shuttle’s engines shifted from a roar to a low hum, and Melissa’s stomach lurched as they began their descent.
She’d been watching through a small porthole for the last hour, Robbie dozing against her shoulder, trying to make sense of the alien landscape passing beneath them. The wilderness had given way to something that might once have been farmland and then to scattered settlements, and finally to the sprawling mass of what had to be the capital city.
It was beautiful in a way that made her chest ache.
Spires of dark stone rose towards the amber sky, their surfaces carved with intricate patterns that caught the fading sunlight. Bridges of gleaming metal connected the taller structures, creating a web of pathways high above the streets. Flying vehicles—smaller versions of the shuttle she was riding in—wove between the buildings like insects around a hive.
