Page 63 of Eclipse Bound
Eclipse continued, knowing their time was precious. "On Zorveya, I was defined by function. Eclipse the Diplomat. The Mediator. Here, I am simply Eclipse. And with you, I am more than I ever thought possible."
Tears formed in Rowan's eyes. "Are you sure? This isn't just some quantum harmonic thing making you feel this way?"
Eclipse's twilight essence brightened. "The resonance between us is real, but my choice is made with full awareness. The Earth words are hardly adequate, but I love you, Rowan Clark. A concept my kind rarely expresses, but one I have come to understand through you."
"I love you, too," she whispered.
The extraction devices reached full power, creating a shimmering field in the center of the array. Harris stood within it, his form already beginning to blur.
Milano vehicles screeched to a halt at the edge of the clearing. Armed personnel poured out, Director Vega at their head.
"Secure the aliens," Vega ordered. "Don't let them escape!"
The extraction field intensified, the air within it seeming to fold in impossible directions.
Eclipse pulled Rowan and Poppy away from the array, his twilight essence expanding to shield them as the first energy pulses from Milano's weapons streaked toward them. He gathered his strength for one final effort. His twilight essence expanded outward in all directions, creating a dome of purple-blue energy around the three of them. The Milano weapons fired, their pulses glancing across his field but failing to penetrate.
Through their connection, Rowan felt his plan. "Eclipse, you're not strong enough yet!"
"Together, we are," he replied, drawing on their resonance to reinforce his fading strength.
In a flash of brilliant light, the extraction field collapsed in on itself. Harris vanished, leaving only a shimmering distortion that quickly faded.
Eclipse used the extraction field's collapse as a cover to get away.
"No," Vega shouted, running forward. "Secure the remaining entities!"
With a sound like thunder, Eclipse's field pulsed outward in a concussive wave. The Milano forces were thrown back, their weapons scattered. In the momentary chaos, Eclipse condensed his essence around Rowan and Poppy and surged away from the clearing, flowing like liquid twilight between the rocks.
They had perhaps minutes before pursuit would reorganize. Minutes to disappear into the vastness of the desert. Minutes to begin their new life together.
As they fled, Eclipse was acutely aware of both women's energy signatures. Rowan's familiar warmth resonated with his own essence. But Poppy's felt more like grief-tinged determination. He had made a promise to Lunar, one he intended to keep.
As they fled into the growing light of dawn, Eclipse felt something he had never truly experienced in all his cycles as a diplomat on Zorveya.
Freedom.
"I don't know what comes next," he admitted to Rowan as they sprinted across the desert floor.
She smiled, her hand intertwined with his twilight essence. "Neither do I. But we'll figure it out together."
Poppy, running alongside them, glanced back toward the clearing where Lunar had disappeared into the extraction field.
"All of us," Rowan said softly. "We'll figure it out together."
For a being who had existed in the perpetual in-between, in the balance point of opposing forces, that simple certainty was the most profound gift of all.
Chapter 17
Epilogue
Rowan woke to the sensation of gentle vibrations against her skin. Eclipse was watching her again, his twilight essence stretched out beside her on the bed, stars swimming in his eyes. In the months since they'd escaped Milano, she'd grown accustomed to waking this way, wrapped in the subtle hum of his energy, the morning light filtering through the curtains of their small rented cabin creating the perfect twilight conditions he thrived in.
"You're staring," she murmured, smiling without opening her eyes fully.
"Observing," he corrected, the familiar response now part of their morning ritual. "Your biorhythms align perfectly with the Earth's sunrise cycles."
Rowan laughed softly. Even in love, Eclipse couldn't help analyzing everything. It was endearing how he tried to understand human experiences through his scientific perspective.
