15
She'd been crying for hours.
The corridor lights had dimmed because of the station’s night cycle.Raaevik sat on the cold deckplating outside her door like adraanthinghound that wouldn't leave the porch.
He'd drawn his knees up with his forearms braced across them.He'd sat like this on a dozen battlefields, waiting for dawn or the enemy to make their move.But this wasn't a battlefield, and the only enemy was the sound coming through the wall.
Crying, but not the controlled, muffled kind.No, this was the other kind, the kind that came from the soul.What had started as ragged sobs had settled into something quieter…a low weeping that broke his already shattered heart.
Leaning his head back, he closed his eyes and breathed slowly.
The crying stopped.He lifted his head.The ragged breathing had smoothed into something steadier, and now there was quiet.It wasn’t a peaceful quiet, but the exhausted kind that came after a body had wrung itself dry.
He closed his eyes.Draanth… Silence was worse than crying.Crying meant she was still fighting.
He didn’t think.His palm hit the lock pad.The light cycled from amber to green and the door slid open.
Her quarters were dim.The lighting had defaulted to the lowest setting, barely enough to navigate by, and the viewport shutters were half-drawn.Starlight filtered through the gap, cold and blue-white, turning everything grey.
She was on the bed.
Not under the covers.Instead, she was curled on her side on top of them, still wearing the crimson gown; the silk was bunched and twisted around her legs.Her dark curls had come loose from their pins, spilling across the pillow and over her face.Her arms were wrapped around herself as if she were trying to hold her own pieces together.
His chest ached.She looked so small.Shewassmall… five foot nothing of stubborn will swallowed by a bed designed for a Latharian warrior twice her size.The pillow under her cheek was damp.
She stirred and blinked up at him, eyes swollen and raw.For a second, she just looked at him, and relief washed over her face.Then she remembered herself, and her chin lifted as the shields slammed back into place.
"Raaevik?"Her voice cracked, her hands fisting in the silk of the gown as a tremor ran through her shoulders.
"I heard you," he said.His voice was raw, even to his own ears."Through the wall."
Her jaw tightened, and for a moment the stubbornness flared… the part of her that would rather chew glass than let anyone see her break.
"Don't."A tear leaked from the corner of her eye, tracking silver into her hairline."Don't be nice to me.I can't take it."
"I'm not being nice," he rasped."I'm being selfish."
Shrugging off his jacket, he dropped it over the chair by the door.That was all.The weapons stayed.If anyone came through that door, he was a guard who'd responded to sounds of distress from his charge.Nothing more.
She watched him.She didn't tell him to leave.She didn't ask what he was doing.She just watched with those wide, wet eyes, waiting.
He sat on the edge of the mattress, the bed dipping under his weight, and reached for her.
She flinched, and he froze.His jaw clenched but he held still, letting his hand hang in the air between them.Their gazes locked, and she didn’t move away from him as he reached out again to brush a strand of hair from her face.
She broke with a small, soft sound that cracked something in his chest.Scrambling across the sheets, she threw herself against him, burying her face in the curve of his neck.He gathered her up before she could speak.
"I hate this," she sobbed against his throat."I hate this place.I hate them."
"I know."He wrapped himself around her.One hand cupped the back of her head, pressing her closer.The other spanned her back, holding her against him."I know."
"Make it stop."Her voice fractured."Please, Raaevik.Make the noise stop."
He squeezed his eyes shut.He wished he could.He wished he could burn the station down around them and take her to the edge of the galaxy where no one knew her name and no one cared about bloodlines.
"I'm here," he said into her hair.He breathed her in, filling his lungs with the scent of her, and held it.This was all he would have.These stolen minutes in the dark, her warmth against him, the broken sound of his name on her lips.He would live on this for years."I've got you."
Her head tucked under his chin and her body curved against his, small and warm and shaking.She fit so perfectly that his breath stuttered.
