Zoe did as she’d promised.
After seeing that Talan was alive with her own eyes, she went right to work. The relief that she’d felt upon laying eyes on him was short lived. He looked so pale and weak. Almost frail, which was so not like Talan.
Anri—the woman who’d earned her the visit—told her it would take the machines a while to heal him. By the time that happened, Zoe wanted every bit of her mother’s plans for the weapon out of her head.
She needed to be free to go back to Earth with Talan because she knew for a fact that there was no way the people here would allow them to be together. And there was no way she could live without him.
Days and nights passed in a blur. While she was amazed at how easily she picked up the complexities of Imonite tech, there always seemed to be more to learn. And for every piece of the weapon she managed to translate onto paper so others could understand it, there were two more facets of the plan that came to light.
Getting the weapon plans out of her head was going to take weeks. Building it was likely a months-long endeavor. And from what she’d heard, these people didn’t have that long.
The Raide were at their doorstep, battering their way closer every day. Once they reached the brains of the operation—game over.
Zoe couldn’t let that happen. Her mother and father both would have wanted her to save these people—ones who were swiftly starting to feel like her own.
Whenever she could steal away for a few minutes, she snuck in to see Talan. The medical staff had given up trying to stop her, and instead had opted for helping her make sure she didn’t track germs into their facility.
He was locked inside a metal tube with only a small window over his face. She couldn’t touch him, couldn’t kiss him. But they assured her that he could hear her, so she spent what little free time she had telling him about her progress and how he needed to get better so he could hold her again.
She was worn down with exhaustion, but he was still alive and she was going to find a way to stop this war so no one else had to die.
Especially him.
Even as tired as she was, she was powered by a frenetic kind of energy she’d never felt before. Her body was weary, but her mind burned bright and clean, giving her the ability to accomplish more than she ever had before in her life.
All she could think was that she wished she could share her excitement with Talan.
Days later, she went back to his room only to find the machine empty.
A stifling sense of panic stole over her, robbing her of breath.
She raced from the room to find Talan and ran right into him. The men steadying him held him on his feet against her impact.
She looked up at him, shocked mute to see him walking around when she knew just how bad his injuries had been.
Her hand settled over his heart, feeling it beat beneath his bare skin.
He was alive. Walking. Whole.
She threw her arms around his waist and held on tight.
“We need to get him back to his room,” one man said.
Talan growled and jerked his arms away from the men so he could hug her back. “I’ve got everything I need right here.”
He felt so damn good in her arms. And the feel of him holding her… pure heaven.
She now knew, without a doubt, that she couldn’t live without this man—not if she was to have any hope of retaining her sanity.
“You can’t ever do that to me again,” she told him.
He stroked her hair and back. “Everything is fine, Zoe. You don’t have to worry about a thing.”
One of the men said, “You need to lie down, Talan. It’s too soon to be exerting yourself.”
The last thing Zoe wanted was for him to have a setback, so she shoved herself under one of his shoulders and looked at the orderly—or whatever he was called. “Lead the way.”
Talan’s movements were slow and stiff. His usual strength was gone, but she was sure he would build it back up again.
Hell, just walking around on this planet, with its higher gravitational pull, was enough to give her a good workout. It had taken her days to get used to it, and even now, steps were still a bitch.
She looked at both of the men and straightened her spine. “Please leave.”
“We’re not done with his exercises.”
“I don’t care,” she said. “You can have him when I’m done with him.”
The older of the two men gave her a stern frown. “Do not… excite him. He’s not strong enough for that yet.”
As the meaning of his words hit her, she felt her cheeks burn with a blush. “Understood. Now get out.”
When she turned back to Talan, he was grinning. He grabbed her around the waist and pulled her onto the bed with him. “I like you a little bossy.”
Heavens, it felt good to be in his arms. If she had any questions about her love for him before, she would have known for sure she loved him now. She felt like she’d finally come home.
With Talan was where she belonged—wherever that was.
She lifted her head to look at him. “How in the world did you survive?”
“That pin you put on me—turns out that even though we didn’t know what it did, it knew.”
“What do you mean?”
“I touched it and it knew I was in bad shape. It sucked enough power from me to activate and put me into instant stasis. Kind of like being instantly frozen, but without the cell degradation.”
“I don’t even know how that concept works, much less how to turn it into a gadget.”
He tapped her head. “Guess it’s in your noggin somewhere. Good thing too.”
The whole night of the attack came back to her in a heartbeat, flooding her with fear and grief and pain. It had happened several times since she’d been here, but with Talan’s arms around her, the panic faded almost as fast as it came.
“Promise me you won’t go back,” she demanded.
He stiffened, and she knew she didn’t want to hear what he was about to say.
“I can’t do that. You know I have to go back.”
“To die?”
“I’ll be fine. Someone gave me a handy gadget to keep me alive.”
She sat up, refusing to relent. This was too important. “What if it doesn’t work next time? What if your injuries are too bad?”
He touched her face so gently, it made her eyes well with tears. “I have to go. People need me.”
“I need you.”
He closed his eyes, and she could see signs of weariness painted across his face.
“I’m sorry,” she told him. “We can talk about this later. When you’re better.”
“There’s nothing to talk about. Your job is here. Mine is there.”
“They can’t make me stay.”
“They can, and you know it.”
She lifted her chin. “Fine. They can make me stay, but they can’t make me work. If they want those plans so bad, they can make their own.”
“Zoe. That’s not you, and you know it. People are dying. You can save them. You’re not going to let some petty dispute destroy lives. I know you won’t.”
He was right, and she hated it. “If you go, you’ll die.”
“I’m tougher than that.”
Tears streamed down her face, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do to stop them. “You don’t know that. No one can. Everybody leaves me. Everybody dies.”
“Oh, honey.” He wiped her tears away with his thumb. “I would stay if I could. I love you.”
The world stopped spinning for a second as his words sank in. Even her tears stopped falling, like gravity ceased to exist. “What?”
He gave her a smile so sweet it melted her heart. “I said that I love you. And there’s not a force in the universe that can keep me away from you. Not even death.”
She didn’t know how she was going to let him go, but she knew it was the only option. Begging him to stay was just going to make leaving harder on him.
She loved him too much for that, even though she refused to utter the words. He deserved them, but she was terrified to give her feelings a voice.
If she said the words aloud, it would only make it hurt more when he left. And she couldn’t stand to hurt anymore. She wouldn’t survive it.
“I have to go,” she told him, without looking him in the eye. “I have work to do.”