Page 33 of Claimed By the War Brute
Aelphus raises a hand, and Yago clamps his mouth shut with a molt of obedient outrage. “And that, precisely, is why he intrigues me.”
He advances another pace until I can feel the heat of his presence. “Tell me... is the woman truly worth this?”
My chest rattles under the weight of his question. My fractured ribs ache in protest. My heart slams with the weight of my answer. “She’s worth more,” I say, symphony and surrender all wrapped in two simple words.
The hall holds its breath.
Aelphus allows himself a nod—respect, maybe even admiration. Then he glides back up the dais. “Remarkable,” he declares, voice booming through silent halls. “He mobilizes chaos—not for glory, but for her.”
A murmur of surprise runs through the watchers.
Aelphus lifts his voice, projecting to the arena, the galleries, the world beyond. “I will not kill him.” Each word drops like a hammer. A hush falls, pregnant and sharp. “Instead, I will release him. Not because he deserves to live, but because I’m curious to see what he will do next.” He glances at Yago. “Let him go. Let them both go. They have unleashed this tempest—may they learn to wield it.”
Yago sputters behind controlled lips—but bows stiffly.
The shackles click open. My wrists ache with the sudden relief, muscles twitching. Blood seeps into the metal cuffs, the shackles drop to the floor. I wince as sensation floods my arms again. I run my fingers over each scar, each striation of my own survival. I stand taller.
I meet Aelphus’s gaze once more. There’s something in his eyes—contempt, curiosity, respect. A warrior’s appraisal of another warrior. It doesn’t promise freedom. It promises a test. A battlefield unknown.
The hall doors open. Syd stands beyond them, her face bright with defiance. The thrum of the crowd dims, her image eclipses the ceremony’s weight. My heart hammers in my chest, replying with urgent communion. We lock eyes for a moment that stretches miles. She takes a slow step forward, determination weaving across color-fled skin, packed with equal parts relief and resolve.
I glance back at Aelphus. The Golden King is still studying me—not with impatience, but with the calculation of a tactician. Then I face Syd again.
Two guards move to release me completely, but I lift a hand—I want no pity, no half-measure. I step forward, feeling body and will knit back together. Each breath is a new declaration. Each flex of muscle is a reformed promise: I'll protect her. Even if it breaks the cosmos.
The doors close behind us. The murmurs swirl as Aelphus watches, silent and shining. The moment seals itself.
Outside the hall, the cloaking field hums on the rollout platform. Garrus and Syd walk out shoulder to shoulder, war-scarred and bound by more than destiny. She slips her fingers into mine. I don’t say anything. I just nod, letting two forged souls share the affirmation.
The crowd dissolves behind us. We move into the corridor.
Yago’s scream echoes faintly from the dais: “Prince, you were betrayed!”
But we’re already steps beyond betrayal’s edge. Oxygen fills my lungs for the first time in cycles. I breathe deeper.
I taste freedom and vise-grip love. My ribs still crush under every breath, my fists still tremble from bloodlust. I am battered. Broken by design. Yet I stand—like Rocky after the final bell—pounding fists still held high because one more round still matters.
Syd steadies me, her touch the catalyst for my endurance. We don’t speak. We hold hands like warriors forging a frontline.
The Vortaxian king’s test wasn’t mercy. It was a choice: will this weapon be unleashed—or contained? He chose unleashing. And by that choice, so did we. Now we walk into the storm we helped fuel.
A new war begins.
And this time, neither of us walks alone.
CHAPTER 27
SYD
They bring me to him under cover of artificial night. The corridor lights are dimmed to near darkness—just enough to navigate, but soft enough to mimic a moonlit ruin. The walls hum a low frequency, the metal seeming to whisper, quiet now. No guards clank rattling gear. No cameras blink hidden surveillance. Just two silent sentries flanking me, their boots heavy, reluctant, as if even they feel the gravity of this moment. This isn't official. It’s permission by omission, a quiet allowance rather than a decree. The hush is thick enough to swallow breath.
I’m still bruised—my ankle wrapped in recycled synthweave, ribs pulsing with every inhale, my shirt soaked in gritty blood and healing salve. Each step tastes like iron at the back of my throat, but I’m straight-backed, determined. My heartbeat drums through my ears. And then the doors hiss open and I see him.
Garrus.
He looks like he was carved from struggle and molten light: skin bruised in muted purples, ribs still ragged beneath deep gouges, chest bare except for the spray of dark red that clings to him. His golden eyes, lit with a dying sun’s promise, latch onme even before the doors finish opening. It’s not "relief," exactly—it’s something deeper, more urgent than relief. It’s gravity remembering its true center.
I step in, each pace closing both space and silence. When I reach him, something inside me collapses the distance. We don’t move fast. We don’t dash. We just converge, two shapes snapping back into a single puzzle. I don’t shove him, but the knees in his armor buckle—he straightens himself, not to push me away but because being that close is his anchor.
