Page 27 of Claimed By the War Brute
He crouches beside me, one massive hand pressed to the burn on my arm. It’s not soothing. It’s real, clammy. I want reassurance, but all I feel is the hammering of my pulse.
“You could’ve died,” he says, voice lethal calm.
I hiss a laugh—pain and defiance tangled. “So could you.” Emphasis on could, not did. Then my voice softens: “But you didn’t. You watched my back.”
He meets my gaze. No words. Just shining amber eyes lit with something ancient and elemental. Not just desire. Not just loyalty. Something older. Deeper. Like a slicer’s blade forged in heat.
My breath trembles. The night air tastes sweet and bitter all at once.
“I…” I press my palm over the wounded shoulder. I’m still angry, still shaken—but something shifts. Love? No. Not infairy-tale terms. More like a vow, carved into bone. I lean toward him until our heads nearly touch.
He closes his eyes, murmuring, “Stay with me.”
I want to argue; want to be defiant. But the promise in his voice bleeds into me.
I smile—even though I’m half-dying from loss and cortisol. I hold out my gig-blade, black-tipped, carving the word “Together” into the wood next to us. Blue plasma burns through the fibers.
He grips my hand, amber fire in his gaze. No vows, no vows. Just understanding. Ferocity. Shared scars.
The night hums with distant traffic and ripped-up code. Metal rings beneath our knuckles. We stand, bodies bruised, armor dented, souls scarred but defiant.
“Our next target?” I rasp.
He glances toward the glowing belt of neon. “We hunt the next relay. Then the next.”
I nod, my jacket sleeve stained darker than oil. Garrus sweeps away a strand of hair, smudged with sweat.
“Let’s go bleed some more,” I say with grit.
He grins—wolfkind—carnal and tender. “Let’s.”
The neon haze whips around us, the station’s lies still dripping in the dusty wind. But we’ll bleed them out. Relay by relay. Bridge by fiery bridge.
Tonight, we burned void. Tomorrow, we’ll burn their network to ash.
Together.
CHAPTER 22
GARRUS
The workshop hum drifts into silence, and then the alarm flares. Mid-repair, my arm is half-under the nav panel, rerouting scorched circuit matrices, when the warning lights smear red across the corridor. I yank my arm free, wires snapping like angry vines.
Incoming vessel. No transponder. Cloaking traces spiking. The profile is burned into my memory—black-market intel from Horus IV. My claws tap the console rapidly. “Destroyer-class: Malmount’s private warship. Name: Providentia.” The letters on the holo-screen dance with lethal certainty.
I don’t hesitate. The gravity of this moment crashes through me like an asteroid strike. I slam the emergency cockpit seals into place, my fingers vibrating against the panel. “Syd!” I bellow.
From the rear, the floor shudders under a piercing explosion. The deck groans like wounded iron.
She charges in—blood-slick curls plastered to her forehead, eyes blazing with panic and purpose. “They found us,” she gasps. “He found us.”
The ship jolts again, metal groaning. The blast wasn’t a warning—it was a kill shot.
I catch her in my arms and buckle her into the crash harness. My armor digs into her ribs through leather and scale—this is not gentle proximity. It's protection.
A second blast rattles the hull. “Engines offline,” Our AI's voice is clinical. “Hull integrity compromised. Life support at seventy-four percent.”
The indicators flash like a heartbeat on its last beat: reactor instability, oxygen depletion. We're locked in a cage built of steel and betrayal, drifting in the crosshairs of Malmount's wrath.
