Page 39 of Hunted By the Wraiths
She’d saved me. Somehow gotten us through whatever chase had happened while I was unconscious, found this place, paid for the autodoc, and then sat guard while I healed.
Still protecting what was hers, even when what was hers was broken.
I studied her while she slept. The soft edges I remembered were gone, replaced by sharp angles and scars. The woman who’d laughed at my bad jokes was now someone who slept holding a weapon. My disappearance hadn’t just hurt her. It had transformed her.
Into someone magnificent.
The Smuggler Queen of the Outer Fringe. She’d built an empire from nothing while I was being turned into a failed experiment. She’d survived. Thrived. Become terrifying. And when I’d stumbled back into her life, bleeding and broken, she’d protected me anyway.
The bond hummed between us, steady and sure. I could feel her exhaustion through it, the bone-deep weariness she washiding even from herself. Could feel her determination too. The same stubborn refusal to quit that had kept her alive.
She stirred, fingers tightening on the blaster before her eyes opened. Gray eyes found mine immediately, assessing. Checking for pain, for fever, for whatever might need fixing.
“You’re awake.” Her voice came out rough from sleep.
“Mm.”
“How’s the pain?”
I considered lying. Telling her it was fine, I was fine, everything was fine. But she’d know. She always knew.
“Four,” I said.
Her eyebrows went up slightly. Yesterday, just existing had been an eight. The day before, a ten.
“The bond pain?”
“Gone.”
Something shifted in her expression. Relief, maybe. Or exhaustion finally winning. She set the blaster on the side table and rubbed her face.
“Good. That’s... good.”
She stood, stretching. I heard her spine pop in three places. How long had she been in that chair?
“Hungry?” she asked.
My stomach answered before I could, growling loud enough to echo in the small room. When was the last time I’d eaten? The ration bar she’d given me before the assault on The Fortress? That was... yesterday? Two days ago? Time had gotten slippery.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
She moved to a small cooler in the corner, pulling out two containers. Actual food, not ration bars. The smell hit me as she opened them. Some kind of stew, with real meat and vegetables. My stomach cramped with want.
She handed me mine and sat on the edge of the bed. Not the chair. The bed. Close enough that her hip pressed against my thigh.
We ate in silence for a while. The stew was barely warm and overseasoned, typical station food, but it was the best thing I’d ever tasted. My body needed calories to heal, and it knew it.
“Where are we?” I asked between bites.
“The Haven.” She scraped the last of her stew from the container. “No questions asked if you pay enough. I paid enough.”
“The ship?”
“Docked. Barely. She’ll need repairs before we go anywhere.”
“How bad?”
She made a sound that might have been a laugh. “Three hull breaches, half the systems fried, viewport held together by spite and sealant. But she got us here.”
