Page 13 of Hunted By the Wraiths
“No. They don’t.” Couldn’t argue that point. She was right. “But I’m not dead. And I care. So does the crew. So will everyone else who sees that data. You’re the key to exposing this. To making sure they can’t do it again. That matters.”
Silence. Longer this time. When I opened my eyes again, she was staring at me. Different expression. Searching. Trying to read something in my face I probably wasn’t expressing correctly.
“You always did this,” she said quietly. “Found the better angle. The mission objective. The thing that mattered beyond the guilt or fear or…” She stopped. “I forgot that about you. Forgot a lot of things.”
She’d spent years building an empire. Becoming a queen. Surviving alone.
I’d spent them in a cell. Becoming a weapon. Surviving on spite and the faint hope I’d see her again someday.
We’d both survived. Different methods. Same stubbornness.
“Tell me.” The words came out before I could stop them. Curiosity overriding tactical sense. “About the years. What youbuilt. How you did everything.” I gestured vaguely at her. At the competent, cold operator she’d become. “Did this.”
She blinked. Surprise flickering across her features. “You want to know about my smuggling empire?”
“Want to know about you.” Clarification seemed important. “What you did. Who you became. I’ve missed so much. Want to understand.”
The surprise deepened. She wasn’t expecting curiosity. Wasn’t expecting me to care about anything beyond the mission parameters. Fair. I hadn’t exactly been chatty since walking into her cantina. Hard to be chatty when every word took effort and breathing hurt.
She unwrapped her arms from around herself. Straightened slightly. Considering.
“I started small,” she said finally. “After Kestis Minor. After I thought you were dead. After I—” Her voice caught. She cleared her throat. Pushed through. “After. I took the first job I could find. Small cargo run, no questions asked. Used the credits to buy better equipment. Took another job. Then another. Built a reputation.”
I listened. Watched her face as she talked. She was beautiful when she worked. Always had been. That slight furrow between her brows when she concentrated. The way her hands moved, gesturing unconsciously as she described supply chains and shipping routes. The focus.
“Three years in, I took over a failing operation in the Outer Fringe. Bought it cheap, restructured the logistics, made it profitable. That became the foundation. Built out from there. Suppliers. Routes. Enforcers. Network.” She paused. “I was good at it. Really good. Turns out grief makes you ruthless. And ruthless works in the smuggling business.”
“From grief,” she corrected. “Built it from grief and spite. Some days the spite was the only thing keeping me upright.”
Spite. My favorite survival mechanism. “Spite is underrated.”
She studied my face. Long enough that I started feeling self-conscious about the scarring, the locked scales, the general disaster of my appearance. Then she stood. Crossed the space between us. Three steps. Close enough that the bond screamed.
Pain spiked. Sharp. Immediate. My breath hitched, trapped in my chest. My scales tried to shift... then locked halfway, trapped between transformation and prison gray.
She knelt beside the cot. Eye level now. Close enough to touch if I was stupid enough to try.
“Thank you.” Her voice was quiet. Rough. “For coming back. For—” She gestured at me, at my general broken state. “For enduring this. For not staying away even though proximity hurts. I don’t—” She stopped. “I don’t know if I’ve said that yet. Thank you.”
The gratitude was uncomfortable. Didn’t deserve thanks for wanting to see her again. For choosing pain over absence. That was just logic. Selfish logic. I needed to see her alive more than I needed to be comfortable.
“You’re worth it.” Repeated what I’d said before. Still true. Would always be true. “All of it. Worth it.”
Her hand moved. Reached toward my face. Stopped halfway. Hesitated. The conflict played across her features. Want versus knowledge of consequences.
“Touching makes it worse.” Her voice was flat, a clinical observation.
“Yes.” Honesty. “Contact makes it spike.”
“Then I shouldn’t?—”
“Don’t care.” The words came out fast. Too honest. Couldn’t take them back. “Do what you need. I’ll manage.”
Stupid. Tactically unsound. Offering to endure more pain just to feel her touch. The scientists would have loved this.Would have cataloged it as “bond-driven compulsive behavior.” Proof their experiments worked.
Didn’t care. Let them catalog it. I’d survived eight years of them documenting my suffering. Could survive a few more data points if it meant her hand on my face.
She completed the movement. Fingers touched my jaw. Light. Careful. Her skin was warm against my scales. The contact sent electricity through my nervous system. Good electricity for one perfect second. Then the bond pathways activated and pain crashed down like a collapsing ceiling.
