Page 19 of Salvaged By the Alien Pirate

“The guilt doesn’t fade,” Cirdox observes, his gaze sharp with understanding, “it just changes shape.”

“Yeah.” The admission catches in my throat. “I keep thinking if I’d noticed the patterns sooner, if I’d forced him to abort the hack . . . but that’s what really haunts me. I saw myself in his recklessness, his need to expose the truth no matter the cost,and now here I am, doing the exact same thing, putting everyone around me in danger.”

His wings shift, the subtle rustle of feathers a counterpoint to the hum of the station. His scent, that heady mix of metal and smoke and something fiercely alien, sharpens my senses, grounding me even as the past threatens to consume me. “What were you digging for?”

“The same thing we’re chasing now.” I gesture to the console, to the shimmering web of data I’ve been unraveling. “Proof, evidence, that the Black Eclipse wasn’t just a rumor, a boogeyman, that they were real and they were everywhere.” My voice drops, bitter. “We thought we could expose them, save lives—naïve, arrogant fools.”

“They were waiting for you.” Not a question, but a statement of grim certainty.

I nod, the weight of it settling heavier still. “Military-grade ice, defenses that shouldn’t have existed outside secure military networks. They tore through Kai like . . . like he was nothing.” My voice cracks. “I felt it through the link, felt them shred his mind, piece by piece.”

Cirdox’s wings shift again, not constricting, but enveloping, creating a warm, sheltering cocoon. For the first time in years, the instinct to flinch, to pull away, is muted by something . . . else, something that feels dangerously like trust.

“You couldn’t have saved him, Neon,” his voice, rough with empathy, resonates deep in my chest.

“Don’t tell me that.” The words are sharper than I intend, laced with years of guilt and self-recrimination.

“I’m not.” He catches my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. The crimson eyes are dark with understanding, with a pain that mirrors my own. “I’m telling you you’re not alone in carrying this weight.” A pause, a breath drawn deep. “Because I carry my own ghosts, little hacker.”

The confession hangs in the air, heavy, unexpected. I stare at him, really see him, beyond the pirate captain façade, beyond the alien mystique, and for the first time, I glimpse the raw vulnerability beneath.

“My brother,” he says, the words strained, as if dragged from some deep, hidden place. “During the Orion Wars, we were . . . close, commanding a squadron together, ambushed, a Black Eclipse trap.” His wings shift, a restless tremor betraying the depth of his pain. “Quantum disruptors tore through our shields . . . through him.” His voice drops to a whisper. “I heard him scream, Neon, through our comms, and I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t reach him in time.”

The air stills between us, thick with unspoken grief, with shared loss. Understanding dawns, sharp and painful, but also . . . strangely comforting.

“That’s why . . .” I begin, the question hanging unspoken between us.

He nods, a curt, almost painful movement. “Why I fight them, why I risk everything to smuggle luminore, why I can’t stand to see innocents suffer under their thumb.” He tightens his grip, his gaze intense, unwavering. “So yes, little hacker, I understand guilt, I understand the weight of survival, but we can’t let it break us, we can’t let their deaths be for nothing.”

Something shifts, cracks, deep within the icy fortress I’ve built around my heart. My enhanced vision blurs, threat assessment protocols overridden by a surge of . . . something else—empathy, connection, something terrifyingly close to hope.

“I see him too, sometimes,” I whisper, the confession raw, vulnerable, “in the data streams, flickers, echoes, like . . . like his consciousness fragmented instead of dying, lost pieces of code haunting the networks.” A hollow laugh escapes me. “My implants call it trauma-induced hallucination, neural misfire, but sometimes . . . sometimes I swear I can feel him, watching.”

Cirdox pulls me closer until I’m cradled against his chest, wings enveloping me in a cocoon of shadow and warmth. “Then we face them together,” he murmurs, his voice rough against my hair, “all of them, your ghosts, mine.”

I should pull away, run, protect myself, protect him, but for the first time in years, the instinct feels . . . muted, conflicted, as if a part of me, a buried, long-dormant part, is starting to crave something more than just survival.

“I can’t . . . I can’t watch someone else die because of me,” I whisper, the words thick with unshed tears, “especially not . . .” The name catches in my throat—you.

“Especially not your mate?” His voice drops, a low, resonant rumble that vibrates through me—possessive, tender, terrifyingly tempting.

“Not . . . not yet,” I stammer, surprised by the near-admission—not denial, not anymore. “Maybe . . . maybe someday,” a fragile hope, whispered into the darkness.

He presses a kiss to my temple, a feather-light touch that sends unexpected warmth through me. “Someday is enough for now, Neon.”

We stay like that, wrapped in the fragile peace of shared grief, shared vulnerability, while my enhanced senses catalog every detail—the steady rhythm of his heart, the faint tremor in his wings, the way his breath warms my skin—data points that are no longer just data, but anchors, tethers, connections.

The old fear still whispers, coiled tight, a cold serpent in my gut, but tonight, another voice answers back, faint, hesitant, but undeniably there, a whisper of . . . courage.

The fragile quiet shatters as a message blazes across my neural interface, searing itself into my enhanced vision, the text burning like ice:

YOU CAN’T PROTECT HIM, VALKYRIE. JUST LIKE YOU COULDN’T PROTECT ME.

The words burn across my neural interface, stark and merciless, but it’s the signature beneath them that makes my blood turn to ice:

IonSpecter.

My pulse pounds in my ears, my enhanced vision glitching as I stare at the signature, my upgrades struggle to process what feels impossible. IonSpecter was Kai’s hacker handle—his digital ghost, his presence in the networks before the Black Eclipse tore him apart, but this isn’t Kai, it can’t be, unless . . .

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