Page 16 of Claimed By the War Brute
And in that silence, thrust through dark-space, we taste promise—and possibility.
We fell into escape. Now, we’re building a world of our own.
CHAPTER 14
GARRUS
The stars ahead are too quiet. Hours after the jump, I remain in the pilot's chair, arms folded across my chest. My golden eyes trace the shimmering streaks of hyperspace beyond the viewport—liquid motion that feels like serenity until I lean into it and realize it’s the calm before the storm. I should feel triumphant. Hell, I should feel relief. Instead, the silence is thrumming tension, like a held breath in a room full of predators.
Behind me, Syd is asleep in the bunk—curled in sweat-damp sheets, chest rising and falling under a sheen of exhaustion and adrenaline. Even in sleep, her posture is defiant, body pressed up like a sentry ready to spring. I want to turn around, taste that defiance, press it into memory. But I don’t. I can’t.
Vakutans don’t do comfort. We don’t do attachments lightly. Bonds are sacred and dangerous—woven in blood and fire. What I shared with Syd wasn’t lust, or relief, or anything trivial. It was a claiming. A confession. I felt it in the way she grappled my armor when she kissed me—like she was anchoring herself to something real. I felt it in the low tremble of her voice when she whispered my name.
Her scent lingers—starlight, sweat, electric surge. It’s thrumming along my spine, distracting me. I grit my jaw. I shouldn’t want this. She’s chaos: a catalyst I didn’t see coming. The daughter of Malmount, the man responsible for weapons that carved out my family’s graves on Horus IV. I should hate her for that. Instead, I feel her—and that’s dangerous territory.
I tap the nav console, calling up black-zone routes—the hidden corridors of hyperspace leading to the Alliance border. We’ll need a rendezvous point soon. Fuel. Weapons. A place to regroup. But more than anything, we need time. Time to define what just happened between us—and what it means now that we’re fugitives.
A soft chime from the comms panel draws me out of the quiet. I tap it, eyes narrowing as General Dowron’s face appears—grim, cold, wire–thin. No static, but it carries enough tension to rattle hand-to-metal. “Garrus…” His voice is clipped, underscored with urgency. The screen shifts to intel text:
“Malmount’s refusing negotiations.”
“He won’t ransom his daughter.”
“He’s dispatching a private retrieval unit with clearance to neutralize and contain. That’s you, Garrus.”
My throat tightens. Of course. He refuses to pay. He’d rather force a clean line—dead daughter, plausible deniability. He figures I’m the punk who stole her from his orbit. Dowron doesn’t elaborate. Doesn’t need to.
I close the feed and rise from the chair. The ship hums quietly beneath my boots, obedient in its escape path. No jump now—just spatial drift through unclaimed zones, the kind of corridors where ghosts lurk.
Syd stirs as I enter the cabin. Her lashes flutter. Her voice, husky with sleep and something else, greets me: “Trouble?”
I stand over her. My shadow pools across the bed. “Always,” I reply. Then I soften: “Get dressed. We need to talk.” I takeher hand, guiding it down from the sheets so we share a fleeting touch—skin to scaled-clad fingers, necessary grounding. She doesn’t speak. She obeys.
She returns in a few moments—blaster at her hip, light-layer armor secured tight. I’m still in mission-ready mode: full plate, holsters loaded. We sit across from each other in the pilot’s chairs. The hum of systems is their own orchestra. I pull up the raw footage from Dowron’s feed.
“I won’t let him,” Syd states, tone hard as broken glass. Her eyes flash amber in console light. “Not now. Not after everything.”
I use my claw to scrub through the feed. “Your father is sending killers, not negotiators.” I meet her gaze. “They’ll come in stealth frames. Small teams. Lethal. Skilled. They won’t care if we die.” My voice is low but steady, controlling the tremor I feel in my gut.
She clenches her fists. “Then we don’t give them the chance.”
I swipe past logistics. “We’ll need refuel. We’ll need intel. But most importantly…” I hesitate. Words taste sharp on my tongue. These aren’t tactics. “…we’ll need each other.” I study her face—hard lines around her mouth, fire still in her posture. I see something like acceptance flicker there.
One hand eases to the console, wireless controls at her fingertips. “Alliance outpost, six hours ahead.” Her voice softens when she says “outpost.” She sounds hopeful, afraid, determined. I let it sink in.
We set the flight path with synchronized taps. Coordinates lock. Fuel gauge flickers green. I don’t touch her console. I don’t need to.
We’ve planted the seeds. Now they’ll grow—or burn.
The silence resumes, but it’s different now. Thicker. But not empty—it hums with shared purpose. I rise and stand behind her chair, leaning into her space. She doesn’t flinch; she leansback into me. I taste her hair again, the tang of spent adrenaline and sugar-coated Battlefield drinks lingering. I let my claws brush the nape of her neck. She shivers. I swallow back words.
“This is far from over,” I murmur, voice low. “But we’re still drawing our own line here.”
She breathes into me. “Together then?”
“Always.” I press a kiss just behind her ear—quick, possessive, quiet. The cockpit’s lights tint around us, starlight pooled beneath glass. I feel her nod against me, lean against my scale.
Outside, hyperspace streams coalesce, folding into data on the displays. The ship’s nose swings to vector, catapulting us through the cosmos toward safety. We drift—predators in a cage of darkness that we stole with our bare fists and minds.
