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Liquid light shimmered and danced over them, reflecting off her shield and making her soft features glow. Her eyes roamed over him as he brightened.
One of her hands splayed across his heart. “It’s like there’s real starlight inside you,” she said breathlessly. “You’re beautiful… and this is so perfect, Cal. I never thought I would be here—doing this.” Her words slowly knocked his air out and left his heart twisted.
It took him a moment to realize he’d lost his breath—all his stored-up oxygen. He rarely made that mistake, and soon he was going to start choking. They couldn’t linger forever, no matter how desperate he was to hold onto this moment.
Tightening his arms around her waist, he propped his feet on the curved ledge. The way her knees curled against him made him feel both warm and cold at once.
Angling his knees and tail, he hopped across.
CHAPTER22
LUCCA
I’ve changed my mind about space, Mom and Dad.
You’ve got to see this.
Lucca’s eyes were saucers, staring down into the pit beneath their feet. They walked over a path of glittering pebble-stone stars, traversing the night sky together.
It was incredibly silent. She heard only her choppy breath inside her helmet, and the reverberations of Caligher, feeding through where he held her tight. They might as well have been the only things in creation. The universe felt quietly, ravenously alive. It was some great organism, and they were so small. Two little flickers of light carrying intricate inner worlds—narrowed down to their bodies and their connection.
A great sense of timelessness encapsulated her.
It ended as quickly as it started. The shadow of the other airlock welcomed them and Caligher closed the outer hatch, shutting them in darkness.
Oxygen filled the chamber.
They moved on.
Once they hit the corridors, she paused to take it in. “Hooooly shit…”
His spaceship was everything she’d ever dreamed of. It was dark. It was twisted. Every wild detail was covered in infinitely more intricate details, cascading into something as mechanical as it was organic.
“I love your spaceship,” she blurted, drawing his attention. “This is…”
“Not what you expected?” His mouth quirked up at the corner, barely containing an ‘I told you so’ grin. He’d wanted to get her on his ship for ages, and he couldn’t look any smugger if he tried.
“Honestly? The way you were always ripping things out, I expected it to look like a bunch of scrap metal melted into a garbage disposal. I’m sorry, Caligher, I was way off…”
She stared at a wall covered in rows of tubes, spitting air out like a pipe organ. The whole ship was breathing.
“Now I see why people wanted your ship,” she conceded. “I change my mind about everything.” She turned back to him. “You’re welcome to do things to my ship.”
His eyes widened. “I think you’ve killed me today.”
As he spoke, she noticed his hand pressing into his chest repeatedly, compulsively pawing at it. It was starting to concern her. She furrowed her brows and loomed closer.
“Are you alright?” she asked.
“I lost my breath out there.”
“Wait… that can happen?”
“It’s rare.” He shook his hand off and twisted at the waist, tail taking up the width of the hall. “We should get to the prisoner hold.”
Was he ignoring her question? She stopped him from swimming away by tugging his tail. “You’re okay, right?”
“Yes. Just catching my breath.” He kissed the side of her face shield and nudged her down the hallway, pointing out where things were located. Bedroom above, cockpit ahead, galley to the right, and the fabled prisoner hold below.
