Page 13 of Claimed By the War Brute
Syd. Alive. Awake. The tug of her presence settles in my chest: she crouches at the open cell door, a shard of vent conduit clutched in one hand, layered mag-cuffs clipped to her belt, fire roaring in her gaze. She doesn’t hesitate. No panic. No question. That wild grin lights her features, caught in the glow of emergency lighting.
In that suspended heartbeat I see everything: defiance, brilliance, raw force wrapped in flesh. The centuries-old warrior inside me recognizes the pattern: jalshagar. It’s myth turned flesh. We don’t say it aloud, but we feel it. Gravel-thick cords of fate coil between us.
She doesn’t wait for me to clear protocol. She tosses me the keycard she stole, fingertips skimming mine in mid-air. I catch it. No words. Her eyes don’t blink until I slip it into my chest rig.
I nod. She nods. Enough understood. We’re breaking out—not running.
I pivot, bracing my shoulder against the cell door’s bulkhead as golden eyes flick to corridor. I latch the corridor on my HUD, then back to Syd.
“Ready?” I ask, voice low—less a question, more a declaration.
Her grin widens. “Always.” She grips the conduit tool. She’s home in the chaos of wires and broken protocols.
I swing the door open. We storm out like twin comets ripping through void. My bulk clears guards with calibrated force—one transferred to ground, another sent crashing back. Sound echoes: flesh meets floor, armor meets steel. She’s behind me—her moves natural, precise—low crouches, swift lunges, disabling a second guard with a wrist-snap that echoes a performer’s grace. The corridor fills with the clash of bodies, gunfire muted.
Guards recover and try to train weapons on us. I rip a rifle from one, spin, and blast the panel with a short burst—spectacle across weapon racks—before hurling it back. I pivot, scanning open hatchways.
Syd's side on fire, eyes ablaze. She catches my glance. “Gate’s open,” she says. Understatement, commandeered as a battlefield note.
We race through the corridor like hunting predators—heavily armored grace giving us momentum. I reach the secondary bulkhead to the shuttle deck. She's already digging the keycard into the reader, gold-lit plasma flush spreading across the interface. I slam in the card; latched. The gate shudders, slides open.
We push through.
The shuttle bay's floor is littered with half-armed cargo loaders, sparks in the dim. I scan for a shuttle, narrow choices to one dark hull with stealth panels. She branches off, firing guard weapons into locks to delay pursuit. The bay alarms flare red, klaxons cutting through our shared thrum.
I sprint toward the shuttle. kyrop lights cast distorted reflections across my blood-smeared armor. I yank open the maintenance hatch, slip inside, and jump into the pilot seat. The cockpit hums with chilled lights.
She slides in beside me, expression fierce determined.
“Coordinates locked,” I announce, fingers hammering controls. Engines thrum beneath. Systems run through warm-up. The bay doors begin to shut.
“Hold them off—but don’t waste shots on me,” I say. She backs up, stepping out again, blade in hand, releasing energy pulses that shut a pursuing guard's rifle with rusted precision.
Bay doors close. She slams her fist into grenade release panel. A flash. The shuttle trembles as grenades roll across the cargo hold behind her before the hatch seals.
I throttle forward.
The shuttle breaks thrust thrusting through the widening slit of bay doors. Hull rattles. Ventilation roars. My eyes catch Syd's face—as the walls recede. She hangs on, wind-tossed hair and grit-lined jaw. That flash in her eyes—the transformation from prisoner to ally—makes something unsteady in me.
The shuttle slips free. Hull thrumming becomes atmospheric hum.
I cut power. The engines go silent. No shields, no masks, no ceremony. Just us, floating in dark space. She drops into the co-pilot seat. We both breathe fast, tangled in light and shadows.
Time suspends. I’m still in armor, she’s still stained with conduit dust and blood. No romantic gestures—just two souls flooded with connection.
“Nice trick with the conduit,” I say, voice gravel and quiet.
Her grin smolders. “And your drone meltdown was art.”
A beat.
Then I say the word I didn’t plan to: “Jalshagar.”
Her eyes widen. Then she smiles wider. “Yeah,” she breathes. “Yeah we are.”
The shuttle shifts course out of patrol corridors. Outside viewport, stars flip past. Between us? A quiet promise carved deeper than words.
I place my hand over hers on the control panel. Scales press against warmth. In this perfect void, wordless connection hums louder than alarms. I don’t need to say “I’ll protect you.” It’s etched in the alignment—our shared rhythm in the silence.
