Page 9 of Rebel
“Rogue?” Vex stroked my cheek with his thumb. “We’ve been forced to fight for so long, wouldn’t it be nice to just be able to live?”
“Yes.” I laced my hands with his. “I want that. I’ll come with you.”
“And what about me?” Xavier said from behind us.
My muscles tensed, but Vex didn’t even bat an eyelid. He smiled at me reassuringly and slowly raised his head. “What about you, Xavier?”
“Has Rogue not told you how she feels about me?” There was sadness in his voice that tugged at my heartstrings.
Vex blinked slowly. “She doesn’t need to. It’s obvious in the way she is with you.”
Xavier looked from me to Vex. “I’m not averse to sharing, Rogue. I want to be with you too.” He said the words softly, tentatively, as if trying them out.
I turned to face him, my heart in my throat because this couldn’t be happening for real, could it? He wasn’t thinking straight. “I can’t give you what you want.”
“And what do you think I want?” he asked.
“Children. Athions want children.”
His lips twisted. “Not all Athions, Rogue. I love kids, but if I can’t have them, then it wouldn’t kill me. But losing you would. I’m in love with you, Rogue. I choose you.”
Vex smiled. “In that case, you’d be welcome on our ship.”
Our ship? I smiled up at them both, but a darkness crossed Xavier’s face. He ducked his head quickly to mask it, but unease bloomed in my stomach.
“Xavier?”
He smiled. “Let’s keep this between us for now. Tide and Lore are all about the order of things.”
Vex was watching Xavier with a narrow-eyed stare, and as the Athion and the Trad exchanged a look I couldn’t decipher, my stomach fluttered with nerves.
I had Xavier’s backing, and both he and Vex wanted to start a life with me. We had the whole galaxy to choose from, so why did I suddenly feel as if the bottom was about to drop out of my world?
* * *
Hope lulled me to sleep that night, but I slept alone. I’d left Xavier and Vex playing cards. Xavier was on night shift, monitoring the ship, and the Trad had offered to keep him company.
The sound of alarms dragged me from sleep. I threw back the covers, instantly alert, and then Xavier was in my cabin.
“Rogue, come on, we have to go. Now.”
The ship shuddered, and then the constant hum that had been a background noise for weeks cut off, leaving us floating in an unnaturally thick silence.
I looked up to the ceiling as if the answers would be written there. “What is that?”
“A malfunction. We’re losing fuel, and so we’ve dropped out of hyperdrive. There’s a satellite planet not far from here. We need to take the shuttle to it. We can send a signal from the station there.”
“Where are the others?”
Tide appeared in the doorway. “We need to move. Now. Before we lose essential systems and can’t detach from the main ship.”
His face was dark with anger, and his eyes were flints of ice. “Move.”
Tide led the way through the ship toward the shuttle bay.
I jogged to catch up to his long-legged stride. “Where’s Vex?”
“Lore went to get him,” Xavier replied for Tide. “They’ll be along shortly.”
