Chapter Twenty-Five

Graven

She makes no move to touch me, and her eyes are this unreadable kind of anxiety. I have no idea what she’s feeling, if now that we’ve left the sex retreat place, she even still wants me. Our three days are over. Just because she saved me doesn’t mean she’ll ever want to make love with me again.

She’s forbidden to, after all.

She stops to heal the rebels injured by Dargule’s shock guns, her power lighting up not just her but each person while she heals them. I wish I could feel her do that to me again, that sensation when she floods me with her power while she comes and I come inside her.

I close my eyes and grit my teeth.

That’s over now. I have to let her go.

“Freeze!” a voice shouts behind me, and I turn to find a whole troop of rebel soldiers pointing blasters at me.

I freeze and put up my hands as high as they’ll go. “I mean no harm, I swear to you,” I say as loudly and clearly as I can.

Their leader looks around behind me, at the carnage of two dead male bodies dressed in rebel uniforms and at the other six rebels stirring as Niva heals them.

Shit, this looks very bad.

It looks like I’m responsible for every hurt and dead person here. I guess I’ve sealed my fate.

“Back in your cell!” the leader shouts at me.

I back away slowly toward the cage door, though I have no desire to get back in there where the dead man lies. “I’ll cooperate with whatever you ask.”

“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t kill you where you stand.”

Well, mostly because it would take over a dozen blaster shots to maybe kill me, probably more. “Because that man lying in my cage was the former Captain Dargule in disguise, my father. And we killed him to stop his plan to destroy everyone here.” And for my own revenge satisfaction, but I don’t say that because I would’ve done it for them all the same.

I nod to the other dead man. “This is his assistant, Dr. Olly. They were planning to blow this entire camp. They planted explosives around every shelter. You should send a team right away to disarm them.”

Niva comes to stand beside me. She holds up the remote. “This is the activator for the bombs. We’re not sure how to deactivate it. Hopefully someone in your tech team knows how.”

“I’ll take it.” A rebel holds out her hand. She turns to their leader. “I’ll go destroy it now and send my team to search for the explosives.”

The leader nods. “Go,” The other leaves, and she turns back to us. “If what you say is true, you’ve saved us.” She tilts her head skeptically, but I’m glad to see she’s willing to listen. “But this one looks nothing like Dargule.”

We all knew what he looked like. He was the one and only commander who walked around his ship without his regulation helmet or voice scrambler.

I explain, “Dr. Olly gave him a new face and voice, he told me.”

“How can we be sure?”

“Check his DNA.” I have no idea if that will prove I’m right, given the Ten Systems’ bioengineering capabilities. Perhaps there isn’t a way.

“I can vouch for everything he says,” Niva adds. “I heard Dargule confess that Graven was his son.”

The leader nods as if this is valid proof for her. “We’ll check his DNA to be sure, but I believe you, Niva.” I guess her sex goddess fame precedes her.

She smiles with gratitude. “Thank you.”

The leader waves the others to lower their blasters. “I’m Commander Ullia. Why are my soldiers on the ground?” She nods to the ones now standing and regaining their strength thanks to Niva.

“Dargule and Olly shot them with their…” Niva looks at me. “I don’t know what kind of weapon it was.”

“A shock gun,” I say. “It was a weapon he designed specifically for me. He engineered me to be impervious to blasters, but he still needed a way to control me. It knocks the victim unconscious with extreme pain, instantly.”

“But I healed them,” Niva corrects. “So they likely won’t need medical care.”

Ullia’s brows wrinkle in confusion. “You can heal without sex?”

“Yes.” Niva glances at me with a wink. “Especially when I’m flooded with power from this guy, it seems.”

I startle and gaze at her. “From me?”

“Yes, you.” She smiles gently at me in that warm way that makes me feel all…all…how do I describe it? Hot and strong and powerful and something else in my chest. It’s this feeling like I’m on top of the world and nothing can ever go wrong if she looks at me that way.

“You are lovers, then?” Ullia asks.

“Yes,” she answers at the same time I correct, “Were.”

Niva frowns at me, her warm smile disappearing.

“Well,” Ullia interrupts our exchange. “Graven, it sounds as if you’d like to declare loyalty to the rebellion?”

“Yes, ma’am,” I respond as quickly as I can. “I’d be honored.”

“You’ll understand if we’d still like to subject you to rigorous questioning. We’ve had some traitors in our midst.”

“I’ll answer whatever you want to ask me as truthfully as I can.”

They escort me to one of the shelters that’s been cleared of the explosives.

I glance back at Niva before I go inside. Her expression is one of severe sadness, and her skin isn’t swirling with a distinct color. It’s faded to a stagnant light gray.

It’s a disturbing color. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

She shakes her head. “I have to go back.” She takes a stiff, deep breath. “This is goodbye then.” It’s not a question. It’s a statement.

My heart jerks in my chest, and a stabbing pain wrenches through my gut. I want to cry out to her and beg her, No, you can’t leave me. I need you!

But it doesn’t matter what I need. I have nothing to give her. I have no heart capable of loving her. I have no soul capable of committing to her. She’s healed me as much as I can be healed. I can’t even feel her hug me against my chest that has no sensation. And her being with me only puts her in danger.

As much as every part of me revolts against it, this is goodbye. It has to be.

My tongue is too frozen and tight to say it. I can only stare at her.

She nods as though this is no more than she expected and turns to go. Walking away from me. Forever.

“Wait,” I choke out, and she turns to me one last time. “Thank you, Niva. For everything.”

Her face contorts in a desperate kind of misery for a moment, and I almost leap to her, the instinct to comfort her so great. But her face changes abruptly, going blank and expressionless so quickly, as though the misery was never there.

“I’m glad you’re part of the rebellion now,” she says. “As you always should’ve been. You deserve to have people. A family. Friends.”

It means nothing without you, I want to say, but I don’t get to.

She leaves, disappearing into the jungle night.

A feeling erupts and protests in my chest. Seeing her leave…I can’t do it. I have to go after her. But I shouldn’t. My heart expands and beats with a strength I didn’t know it possessed. It’s such a strange, almost nauseating feeling. I don’t know what to call it.

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say it was—

“Graven,” Ullia calls me from the door to the shelter. “Are you ready?”

“Yes.” I look back where Niva disappeared one more time then follow Ullia inside.

I should be excited. I’m going to be a rebel. Finally. But all I can feel is despair.