Page 60 of Sixth
He reached up and brushed a streak of soot from her cheek. “You smell of smoke.”
“You smell like a thunderstorm,” shesaid.
His mouth curved faintly. “Then we match.”
Their eyes held. The ship rocked through turbulence, and he caught her again, steadying her. The contact burned through both ofthem.
“Apex,” she whispered.
He did not move. “Affirmative.”
She wanted to kiss him more than she wanted to breathe, but she knew the look in his eyes. He was not ready. Notyet.
Lume fluttered between them, her tone amused. “Air here is hot. Will melt metal. You need to cool down so ship not melt.”
Emmy groaned and laughed at once. “Thank you, Lume.”
Apex’s expression softened just enough for the tension to ease. “She is correct.”
Emmy folded her arms, smirking. “You’re smug for someone who nearly got himself blown apart.”
“I am alive,” he said simply. “That will suffice.”
She shook her head, unable to stop smiling. “You really are impossible.”
He turned back to the viewport. “And yet you stay.”
The words struck deep, but not in a way that silenced her. They filled her with the certainty that nothing could drive her away, not after what they had survived. The hum of the engines rose between them, steady and alive. Outside, lightning forked across the clouds, fading into the black of space.
She stepped to his side again, shoulder brushing his. “I’ll always stay,” shesaid.
He looked down at her, something unguarded in his eyes. “I will hold you to that.”
The stars unfolded ahead of them, the wreckage of Varnoss IX spinning away in the distance. The ship leveled out, the storm finally behind them. Emmy exhaled slowly, her fingers brushing his as they stood together.
For the first time since landing on that cursed world, she knewhope.
Apex remained by the viewport long after the planet shrank into a glimmer. The silence stretched between them, thick with everything left unsaid. The pulse of adrenaline pounded in Emmy’s blood, the taste of ozone clinging to her tongue. She watched him in the reflected starlight—broad shoulders, the curve of his neck, restrained strength of his stance that betrayed how much he was capable of enduring.Apex’s hand lifted as if to touch her, then hesitated, fingers curling instead into a fist at hisside.
Her own hand moved before she could stop it. She took his hand and flattened it against her chest. “Feel that? You’re not the only one who fights.”
The Valenmark flared, asoft, radiant gold. It cast a glow that wrapped them both, their breaths syncing in the dim light.
He whispered, “You risk too much.”
She smiled faintly. “So do you.”
They stayed that way until Core interrupted softly.“Course plotted. Estimated arrival with remaining Alpha unit at therendezvous point in three cycles. Council planet Valos Orbit confirmed.”
Apex nodded once, not looking away from her. “Good. Maintain stealth.”
“Acknowledged.”
Emmy drew back first, though it was like breaking something fragile. She turned toward the med bay door. “Try to sleep. Just once, do something human.”
He almost smiled, the expression fleeting but enough to steal her breath. The faint curve of his mouth broke through the constant discipline that usually defined him, showing a glimpse of the man beneath the armor. For a heartbeat, she could see how rare this softness was, how dangerous to be the one to draw it out ofhim.
“If you remain close, perhaps I will remember how.”
