16
She was gone.
Raaevik's eyes snapped open.The room was dim, and for a moment, he couldn't place where he was.Not the barracks.Not the guardroom.The sheets were too soft, too white, and they smelled like?—
Emily's quarters.
Memory caught up.He'd fallen asleep holding her… His hand moved across the empty bed.The sheets were cool.Perhaps she was in the shower?
He sat up, pushing his hair back from his face.
"Emily?"
His voice came out rough and sleep-thick.It fell into the silence of the suite and died… Worse, there was no answer.
The bathroom was dark, the archway to the living area showing nothing but stillness beyond it.
“No, no, no, draanthing hell!”
This couldn’t be happening.He was on his feet before the panic fully registered, standing in the middle of the room as he tried to make his brain work through the panic.
"Emily!"
Nothing.
He scanned the room.The crimson dress she'd worn last night was a pool of red silk near the dresser, a stain against the carpet.His gaze hit the nightstand, zeroed in on a single object there.Cream stationery.Folded once.
He stopped breathing.
His fingers closed on the note.They were shaking, and he couldn't make them stop.Eighty-seven years old, a veteran of more combat drops than he could count, with hands steady enough to strip and reassemble a weapon in pitch darkness, and he couldn't hold a piece of paper without trembling.
I'm sorry.
Two words.She'd written them in the careful, neat hand of a woman who'd had time to think about it, who'd lain in his arms and planned her exit while he slept.
The sound that came out of him wasn't a word.It was low and guttural and animal, and it built into a roar that rattled the dresser mirror.The quiet that had held him all night, peaceful for the first time in years while she'd slept in his arms, shattered.
Snatching the weapon's belt off the floor, he buckled it as he moved.Leaving his jacket, there was no time, he hit the corridor running.
The two guards posted at the junction startled.One opened his mouth.
"Sub-commander, is there..."
"Sound the alarm," he snarled, already past them.“The emperor’s match has been taken.”
He didn't wait for confirmation.Didn't care if they followed.He was sprinting at full speed, boots slamming against the deck, the station blurring into streaks of grey and white on either side as he followed her trail by instinct.
He didn't know where she'd gone.But her scent was fading through the corridor, faint, hours old, and pulling him left.He followed it.
The lift was too slow when he called it.Snarling, he turned and hit the stairwell, taking the steps four at a time.He dropped through the levels, the metal ringing under his weight.
Deck Nine.Deck Ten.Too slow…
The lighting changed as he descended into the dormant sectors.Brighter overheads gave way to emergency strips, then to bare service lighting that threw long shadows across abandoned corridors.
His blood howled in his ears, matching the pounding of his heart.
‘Safe in your hands.’Daaynal's words from the day of the assignment filled his mind.The Emperor had looked at him and said those words, and Raaevik had sworn an oath, and now?—
