Page 53 of Claimed By the War Brute
I grin wickedly. “You promised me an amusement park, remember?”
His deep laugh rumbles like distant thunder. He cups my face, wiping sand from my jaw. “I did. And I’ll beat up anyone ahead of us in line.”
I roll my eyes fondly. “Good to know. I didn’t think guards queued politely around Disney-class coasters anyway.”
He kisses me—slow, deliberate, tasting of dust and hope lately.
I close my eyes, let it carry me.
When we part, the stars seem warmer. The wind softens. Two fugitives, yes—but not alone. For all the war still left in the galaxy, tonight we stand as a team.
I coil my hand around his and we walk back to the ship—the storm’s howl keeps us company, our breath ragged in unison, ready for whatever comes next.
“I feel something,” I whisper. “Something better.”
He squeezes my hand. “So do I, Syd. So do I.”
We step inside the Vigil’s End and close the hatch.
The stars outside flicker, waiting. And we’re not running anymore. We’re building something—something new.
CHAPTER 38
GARRUS
Ifeel the tremor through the deck as the comm crackles to life—Dowron’s signature frequency, but sanitized, stripped of encryption headers. Short. Coded. Loaded.
“Target: General Morsk. Ex-Alliance. Armed with Malmount prototypes. Seeks a new empire. Outpost Yterra-6.”
I don’t flinch. Morsk. I taught cadets like him—warriors who thrived on order more than duty, whose souls froze the second the fighting stopped. Horus IV’s ashes still linger in my throat. I was almost him—until everything inside me fractures at the edge of that memory.
I shut the comm. The Vigil’s End hums behind me—steel and silence, vengeance and hope interwoven down its spine. I don’t need medals. I need purpose.
“Syd,” I say, tapping her shoulder. She’s calibrating the targeting matrix, brows furrowed like she’s solving one of her puzzles. God help me, she’s the only thing keeping me from going feral.
She looks up, voice calm: “Coordinates locked. You sure about this?” She’s already moving between screens—strike vectors, drone jamming, subspace disruptors.
I meet her gaze: “No. But it needs to be done.”
We drop out of cloak just beyond the range rings of Yterra-6. Desert planet—bleak, red dust, small green veins where colony domes cling. The outpost is an old Alliance beacon station, forgotten until Morsk rewired it with stolen military bots, black-market armaments, and mirages of authority.
Inside, she’s quiet, eyes molten under the cockpit lights. “I'm covering the uplink,” she says, voice low. “Nothing gets through. They’ll never know we were here.”
I nod, reaching for the arms locker. Inside, artillery-grade pulse rifles, plasma grenades, and the prototype disruptors we scavenged. Enough lead to bury a mountain. But we won’t bury them—we’re going to exhume the rot.
“Let’s go,” I tell her. No hesitation. We’ve both tasted blood and betrayal—this fight marries them all.
Her hand brushes mine—cool comfort in the steel heat. I remember the first time I touched her cheek, whispered that she was my safe place. Now, she’s my compass.
Corridor entrance.
I step in loud, boots slamming echo in the metal corridor.
“Attention! You are trespassing in restricted zone. Surrender or be neutralized.”
My rifle answers first—a burst of blue-hot bolts tearing through the speaker grid, lights flickering. I move like something half-remembered—fluid, wolf-quick, intent on destruction.
Behind me, Syd boots open the door to the central hall.
