Page 109 of Star Claimed Omega
Most mornings, they didn’t speak much. They didn’t need to. It was enough to exist beside him in peace.
Oddly, her wrists stopped hurting.
No burning pulses, no searing jolts to knock her breathless.
For the first time in what seemed like forever, the shadow of Vern’s control lifted.
She prayed it stayed that way.
Evenings were her favorite.
Sometimes he got home before she did.
When he did, he’d strip out of his uniform, shower, and change into a tee and loose pants.
She’d find him in the kitchen, humming, hair damp from a rinse as he whizzed up, everything from a garlic-flavored seafood stew to salmon with pan-seared greens.
Other times, he kept it simple, tossing fresh vegetables from the lake with spices and noodles.
Soleil found that Santi was a rare, neat cook.
He washed every plate and cutting board, even the pots, as he went.
He grumbled when she tried to help, pulling her to the counter instead, stealing kisses along her neck as the food simmered on the stove.
They bathed together in long, quiet soaks where he pulled her between his thighs, gliding a washcloth over each inch of her with slow, unhurried veneration.
Showers, on the other hand, were rushed and hungry, hands slipping against wet tile, mouths colliding, steam rising with their heat.
He always whispered to her in those moments.My flame, my sun.
As if trying to brand the words onto her skin.
At night, they collapsed into bed, limp and sated, her head on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear, his arms wrapped around her like a fortress.
Still in those days, those honey-soaked, star-drenched hours, she allowed herself to believe that maybe this was what forever could feel like.
She let herself want it, even though she was wiser and more jaded to the truth.
18
Chapter 18
SANTIAGO
The hangar bay rumbled with the pulse of engine power-ups and the buzz of final prep checks.
Onscreen, a rogue gunship loomed in the dark quadrant of space like a rusted blade drifting too close to the throat of the flotilla, in an unauthorized, unapologetic trajectory.
Santi stood near the aft-loading deck, suited in his combat armor made of black, ribbed, spectral-reactive fabric.
A shimmer of violet pulsed down his arms as his lycan core aligned with the suit’s energy nanite controls.
Around him, Zev double-checked his arm-mounted disruptors, and Boaz loaded his plasma signature rifle.
Kaal tapped through a holo-map of the enemy vessel’s layout, the blue glow of the screen shimmering in his eyes. ‘Santi, brother, this better be done and dusted in hours. I’ve got a scorching date with a smokin’ hot princess I’d like to keep tomorrow.’
‘A date? You?’ Boaz growled, leaning forward so the flickering light caught the deep scar over his brow. ‘Last time you had a ‘wild rendezvous,’ Kaal, she was Lyra Vex, the famous actress who turned out to be a delusional stalker. The one who invaded your personal space by growling began wearing cat ears and meowing. Didn’t she break into your quarters, and when you kicked her out, started breathing hard and crying, ‘this triggers me’. Spare us the hyperbolic fantasy, man.’
