Page 32 of Sixth
They lay tangled in the center of the bloom. Her head rested on his chest and his fingers traced slow, idle circles along her spine as if writing his name there. She listened to his heartbeat steady under her ear, that deep, dependable drum that had become the sound she trustedmost.
When she could form words again, she spoke into the quiet. “You said soon. Is this soon enough?”
His mouth curved against her hair. “Affirmative. This is soon enough.”
She smiled and closed her eyes. The flower breathed around them. Lume stirred near the top of the bloom and offered a sleepy chirr of contentment. The world outside stayed very still, as if danger stood watch at the edge of the clearing and decided topass.
Time stretched, soft and warm. They drifted in and out of it, dozing and waking, talking in low voices that kept returning to touch. She learned the ways he liked to be held. He learned the places that made her breath catch. They moved again and again, lazy and curious, finding new ways to say yes without words. The bloom hid them and rocked them. The planet listened and quieted.
At some point she realized the heat had changed. Not gone, only mellowed. The scent shifted from honey to something faintly floral and cool. She rolled to her side and watched Apex with her chin in her hand. He had his eyes closed. He looked unguarded in a way she had never seen. It smoothed the hard lines of his mouth. It softened the set of his shoulders. It made him look unburdened, which seemed impossible for a man who carried centuries in his bones.
“Do you ever sleep in peace?” she asked softly.
His eyes opened. “I do now.”
“You didn’t before.”
“No.” He traced the edge of her wrist where the Valenmark, now a stunning gold and white, lay bright beneath the skin. “I did not.”
She laced their fingers. “Tell me something true.”
“I wanted this from the first moment you spoke to me without fear.”
She laughed quietly. “I was terrified.”
“You were brave anyway.”
They fell quiet again. Outside the bloom, the forest sent a faint ripple through the air, the kind of motion she had already learned to read as a greeting. Motes drifted past like tiny lanterns. One settled near the seam of the petals and blinked as if curious.
Emmy reached with her free hand and the mote hovered over her finger, close enough to tickle. Lume peered down from her perch and made a soft, possessive note that meant this one was theirs. The mote wobbled like laughter and driftedaway.
“Does the planet always do this?” she asked.
“Not for all,” he said. “It listens. It chooses. We aligned with it when we aligned us.”
That truth settled into place. The hush. The quieted pulse. The way the flower folded around them like a shield. It was more than chemistry. It was a welcome.
“I think it approves,” she murmured.
“It does.”
She traced his chest, mapping the scars with her fingertips. Some were thin and pale. One curved over his ribs like a crescent moon. He told her in a low voice where that one came from. She kissed it as if she could erase the memory. His breath stalled. His hand dove into her hair and then gentled, threading through with a patience that made her eyes sting.
They touched again, unhurried. Heat rose in waves and fell to tide pools. They explored and learned. She guided and helistened, and then he guided and she followed, and the circle of it made her dizzy with a kind of joy she hadn’t expected to everknow.
When pleasure crested again it did so like tides, rolling and generous, carrying them both without violence. She loved the way he watched her. She loved the way he refused to look away when everything inside her broke and remade itself.
Later, they lay on their backs with hands linked, looking up through a narrow vee where two petals didn’t quite meet. She could see a sliver of the canopy and the faint suggestion of stars. The bloom flushed low, as if tired in a satisfiedway.
“What happens next?” she asked.
“We finish repairing the ship,” he said. “We leave before the drones return. We use our alignment to hide until we can fly.”
“And if they find us?”
“They will not.” His certainty soothed and startled her. Then his mouth tightened. “If they do, Iwill remove them.”
Her fingers squeezed his. “Both of them?”
