Page 146 of Star Claimed Omega
He didn’t speak.
He just raked his spectral eyes over her torn clothes, then up to her face, jolting in reaction.
Fokk, she was beautiful even though dirt smudged across her cheek and a cut emblazoned itself on her temple.
He hadn’t seen her in days, and still, she made his entire soul lurch with need for her.
‘You’re here,’ she whispered. ‘You found me.’
He jerked his chin, battling his emotions while keeping his expression cold. ‘I had to.’
Her hand moved toward his chest, then stopped, fingers curling, hesitant.
He stepped back, and her face flushed at his rejection.
‘Where were you running to?’ he growled, his face cold as ice.
‘Getting thefokkout of here,’ she muttered. ‘It’s the best chance I have. Both Vern and Varnok are knocked out, drunk, but if they wake, they’ll find me,’ she said. ‘They can still track every step I take.’
‘How was that going to work out when you escaped?’
‘I have schills to pay a body mod clinic to take the nanites out.’
‘Risky.’
‘Isn’t life so?’
They both knew they weren’t talking about perilous procedures in backwater med centers.
‘You’re not going anywhere until we hash this out,’ he growled.
He raised a hand, and nanites streamed from his wrist comm in a burst of spectral energy, forming a privacy shield around them both.
‘Now they can’t get a signal through to you. Which means we can talk.’
The maintenance room was dim, humming with the quiet pulse of backup systems and coolant vents.
Shelves lined the walls, stacked with spare valve joints and fractured plasma cores. But all he saw, all he sensed, was her.
Pressed against the far wall, breath shallow, face pale and streaked with grime and guilt.
‘You played me,’ Santi snarled. ‘You took everything I gave you, my protection, my faith, and set fire to it.’
She flinched, but didn’t look away. ‘I didn’t have a choice.’
‘Bullshit.’
He advanced, as pain twisted in his chest like barbed wire.
‘I opened my home to you. My heart too. I trusted you, Soleil. Ifokkin’ adored you,’ he bit out, each word searing his throat.‘What did you give me in return? Betrayal, a bomb, and death. Forget the millions of schills for repairs, two of my people are gone because of you.’
Her knees almost buckled, and she pressed her palms to her face, eyes tearing up. ‘Please, don’t do this.’
‘Nada,’ he growled. ‘You don’t get to cry now. You don’t get to weep like you didn’t have a way out. You were with me. You had a thousand ways to stop that shit show. You could’ve written a note. Sent a message through the droids. Whispered to in bed.’
Her utterance was raw and pleading. ‘He listens all the time. He monitors me. He turns up my pain receptors if I disobey.’
‘You might’ve tried harder.’ His rasp broke then, hoarse with disbelief.
