AllFreeNovel
Share Us
In the morning she stood at the window watching the rainbow-colored vista. It resembled a high-tech city skyline filled with hover-car traffic. She loved it. Assuming no one tried to murder her again, she could see herself living in the asteroid base.
She couldn’t believe the fleet had sent ships to destroy it all. The fueling station remained a husk of its former self, as if to remind her of her old, futile plans to leave. Several cargo ships arrived above the city that day—the fuel transport vessel resembling a massive flea with dozens of tiny, dangling legs to latch onto. The long appendages throbbed as smaller ships siphoned fuel from them like teats.
Her thoughts wandered to places she didn’t like. Whatever the warship was there for couldn’t be good, and she should pour her efforts into stopping it. Even if she had friends on that ship—they were soldiers. They’d toured this part of the galaxy long before her and they’d still signed up for a second round. They knew what they were in for.
She couldn’t sit back and watch them destroy this.
She loved this place.
She was scared witless of watching Caligher get on the Aerinus warship only to never leave it. She was afraid to watch him kill everyone, and the night before had made that seem, well,morepossible. But she was truly more afraid of losing him because no matter how strong he was, the Aerinus was a death trap.
She couldn’t stomach the thought of losing him. Every time it even occurred to her it made everything grind to a screeching halt.
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?”
Her heart leaped out of her chest and she whipped around to find him behind her. “Jesus Christ, Cal!” She hadn’t known he wasinthere with her—what the fuck?
When their eyes met, an electric current shot straight to her crashing heart. She couldn’t look at him without thinking of last night. How his mouth felt. How the rest of him had felt as he looked down at her with a possessive sort of victory.
Fuck…
The memory combined with his nearness made her skin feel tight.
“I was here when Morwong set this side up with a terraformer,” he said, dropping a towel she hadn’t realized he was holding. His skin had that iridescent sheen to it.
“How long ago was that?” she asked, ripping her eyes away from his sculpted body.
He grinned. “I was pretty young. My parents booted me out because I was obnoxious, so our spacefaring merchant adopted me for a while. He still thinks he’s my dad.” He rolled his eyes like every annoyed teenager in existence.
She was horrified by the implication of what he’d just said. “They kicked you out?”
His eyes widened with innocent confusion. “That’s normal.”
“Abandoning kids isnormal?”
“Children are resilient. They don’t belong on the ground. Our laws specify that any wayward traveler in need of help should receive it—children especially.”
Her mouth opened but she stopped herself from spouting useless, shocked protests against something she didn’t fully understand.
“Humans made that system dangerous, didn’t they?” she asked instead.
His eyes filled with shadows and dipped lower. He adjusted some control at a panel on the wall, returning the room to its default state.
“On Earth, people fall through the cracks all the time,” she said. “There are so many homeless people—or just people barely making it with what they have. You’re always clawing your way out. Abandoning children is a surefire way to sentence them to a bad life.”
It was common on Earth, but it was just…wrong.
“Well it worked for us,” he said a touch defensively. His shoulder raised, muscles tense. “Your planet sounds like hell.Whywere you trying to go back?”
“Because Earth is normal to me,” she admitted. He scrutinized her as if judging her.
Both of them frowned, falling silent. They seemed to run out of things to say for a few minutes.
Eventually, he turned back to her with a narrow stare. At least he was no longer cold and unreachable—but he wasn’t happy-go-lucky either. Something darker lurked in his gaze when it dropped to her mouth.
He crossed the room and pulled her against him so they faced the window, his arm around her shoulders. She couldn’t concentrate with him touching her, holding her, pressing his lips to her head. She couldn’t think straight.
“We’re about to be on that ship for months,” he said. If he was as wrecked by this contact as she was, his voice didn’t betray it. She swallowed. “Do you think you can handle being alone with me for that long?”
