Why hadn’t Volcair gone to her?
“And you didn’t think to speak to me?” she asked quietly, turning her face away from him.
Cypher’s ears were folded back. His scales flicked and rolled in agitation, but he remained silent as his glowing eyes shifted between Kiara and Volcair.
“What could I have said?” he demanded. “You had made your choice.”
Kiara squeezed her eyes shut as though it could transport her somewhere else. Though her anger hadn’t yet dissipated, her growing despair—cold, thick, and painful—was overtaking it. “I waited years for you. Years. I didn’t hear a single word from you in all that time, and you never came back. Eventually I understood you never would come back. It’s true that I tried to move on. I was engaged to a man.” She opened her eyes and met Volcair’s gaze. “I slept with that man.”
Volcair’s skin paled, but his markings burned with a new intensity.
“And it felt like a betrayal—like I was betraying you.” She jabbed a finger at the necklace clutched in his hand. “That was the first and only time I took off that necklace since you gave it to me. Even though I hadn’t seen or heard from you for twelve years, I still felt like I’d betrayed you when I tried to make love to the man I was going to marry. So I didn’t marry him, because all I could think of was you. You, who never came back for me.” She lowered her arm. “I made the choice to try and live my life, but you chose not to seek me out. If you had chosen different, I would have, too.”
“While I was in Arthos with my father, we were prohibited from contacting species who hadn’t been integrated by the Consortium. And then I had to fulfill my duty to my people, Kiara. I was sent on covert missions that left me unable to contact anyway, and I scarce had time to dress my wounds between battles. Only once in my first ten years of service did I come anywhere near Earth, and I immediately took leave and went there when that happened.” He turned his hand and glanced at the balus stone. “I went to tell you that my service was nearly over. That I would then be free to do anything, to go anywhere…to go to you.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Because you had already chosen another.”
Tears filled her eyes. “And I didn’t love him as I loved you! If you had come to me, or just had my father call me, you would have known that!”
His eyes gleamed with his own gathering tears. “All I ever had was you, Kiara. If I had gone to see you anyway, if I had seen you with him and learned, without a doubt, that you were happy, that you were whole…what would I have had left?”
Kiara clenched her hands at her sides. “What do you have now?”
He swallowed, holding her gaze. “Nothing.”
“I waited, Volcair. I had no idea what you were doing, or what duties you were fulfilling, or whether you were alive or dead. I deserved to know. I deserved some word from you, something. Anything.” Tears spilled down her cheeks, and her throat tightened upon her next words. “You were a coward. That’s what you chose.”
Volcair flinched. With hurt and confusion contorting his face, he extended an arm toward her. “Kiara, I fought across the universe with no thoughts but of getting back to you.”
She jerked back out of his reach. “But you didn’t fight for me, did you? When it came to that battle, you just gave up and ran away.”
His expression hardened, and he curled his extended hand into a loose fist before dropping it. “I fought for you today. And I will forever after.”
Kiara shook her head. “No. You can’t stand there after calling me unfaithful and act like you’re all for me now. You saved my life and the lives of my crew today, and I’ll always be thankful for that, but…but you were just fulfilling your duty as commander. That’s all it was.”
“Kiara, I would not have—”
She pointed to the door. “I want you to leave.”
He kept his expression surprisingly composed, but the pain in his eyes nearly undid her. Cypher whined. Kiara refused to look at the inux; seeing his sadness would be enough to break her.
“If you require anything, any of my officers would be glad to assist,” Volcair said in a soft voice before he turned and exited the room.
As soon as the door closed, Kiara dropped to her knees and pressed her lips together, holding back an agonized cry until it was too strong to contain. She fell forward, burying her face in her folded arms as she lay on the floor. Her body shook with wrenching sobs. Emptiness spread through her, originating in her chest.
This felt like losing him all over again, like her heart had been ripped out of her chest, leaving a vast, painful hollow behind.
There was a thump on the floor, and a second later, Cypher nudged her elbow with his snout. Kiara lifted her arm, and he nestled beneath it. His nose brushed against her moistened cheek.
“He came back, Cypher,” she rasped. “H-He came back, and I never knew.”
Cypher warbled and whined again but remained by her side—just as he had for all these years.
If only she’d had Volcair at her side, too.
Eight
Volcair stepped into his quarters, closed the door, and stood in silence. The necklace dangling from his clenched fist felt impossibly heavy—as heavy as his unfulfilled promise.
I will find my way back.
He’d returned to Earth seven years ago, but he’d never gone back to Kiara. He’d failed her. And his thoughtless, harsh words a few minutes ago had only torn open the old wounds his absence had left on her heart.
Though his emotions were so volatile and tumultuous that they made him physically ill, he refused to sit. He stalked forward, spun on his heel when he neared the far wall, and walked back toward the door only to start the circuit again. His pacing did nothing to settle his mood, but it offered an outlet for the restless, anxious energy coursing through him.
Just one more time, he’d told himself, just one more glimpse of her, just to see that she is safe and happy. But he’d known he would never be satisfied; he’d never get enough of her. He would always yearn for more.
I had that last glimpse. And now I know I’m the one who smashed whatever happiness she might’ve had—not just for today, but for all the years that have separated us.
It had been neither the reunion he’d imagined nor the reunion he’d hoped for. He wanted Kiara more than he wanted anything else in the universe, but the thought of her compromising who she was—who he knew her to be despite their years apart—had crushed him inside. She’d never been one to conform to tradition, not even the traditions of her own people, but she’d always been honest, kind, and faithful.
He would never have asked her to betray her mate for him. The thought that she’d done so had hit Volcair so hard, so fast, that he’d exploded. Nearly two decades of frustration, bitterness, and loneliness had roiled inside him, and he’d directed it all at her.
He’d hurt her, despite the long ago vow he’d made to himself to never do her harm.
I eventually break all my promises.
What he’d done had been a worse betrayal than he’d accused her of committing.
“She was right,” he whispered. “I am a coward.”
He’d faced armed foes, supposedly impenetrable fortifications, impossibly large hostile fleets, but he had been unable to face her when it mattered most. He had been unable to face the chance of being hurt, unable to face potential rejection.
So he’d fled. He’d fled Earth, and he’d fled her, too afraid to know whether she would choose him when given the choice.
When it mattered most, he had failed to fight for her. Today could not make up for that. He could spend his entire life trying to atone, and it would never be enough. She’d waited, and he’d given up. He could not blame her for moving on after so long without word from him. Years of battle and constant redeployment across the farthest reaches of Dominion space were no excuse. He could have found a way to contact her, to tell her he would come as soon as he could.
To tell her to keep hoping.<
br />
To keep waiting.
Volcair halted and lifted his hand, staring down at the balus stone as it fell against the inside of his wrist.
But she kept this. She broke off her engagement and kept this.
He tightened his grip on the chain.
She was still waiting for me.
That was so much more than he’d had any right to expect. They were only teenagers when he’d left Earth; what had either of them truly known about relationships? They’d been apart now for more than half their lives. She’d had no obligation to wait; the burden he’d placed upon Kiara by asking her to had been unfair.
He was the one who’d been obligated by his promises, and he’d been the one who failed to act upon them. He hadn’t even tried to fight for her.
And I didn’t love him as I loved you!
Had he pushed past his own fear, he would’ve learned that seven years ago. He would never have committed to a five-year extension to his military service and could instead have spent the last five years with her, devoted to her.
Loving her.
It wasn’t too late; it couldn’t be. After all this time, their paths had crossed, and a situation had arisen that entwined their lives once again. He wasn’t sure if that meant anything—if it was part of fate’s machinations—but it could. It could mean something if he worked to give it meaning.
After nineteen years of separation, the female he’d recognized as his mate was nearby—only a few doors down the hall. A few meters separated them now, rather than countless light years, but somehow the distance felt just as vast.
He dropped his hand, opening his fingers to catch the balus stone in his palm before closing his fist.
The distance should never have stopped him before, and he would not let it stop him now. All he had to do was convince Kiara to talk with him—while dealing with the aftermath of the hijacking and keeping a city-sized space station operating normally.
Oddly, it was the first task that seemed the most daunting—but which also promised the greatest reward.
Once he’d composed himself, he placed the necklace in his pocket and returned to duty, spending the rest of his day—and part of his night, which he’d always found difficult to gauge due to the lack of day-night cycles on space stations—in his office, dealing with reports, inspections, and the logistics of launching a search for the pirates who’d attacked the Starlight. All the pirates on Kiara’s ship had fought to the death, but Volcair knew they’d just been a small piece of the group that had carried out the hijacking.
Officers and soldiers came and went throughout that time, delivering information and receiving orders. Due to the immensity of the search area, they were unlikely to locate Vrykhan—even knowing he’d eventually be going to Caldorius—but Volcair wouldn’t let that stop the search. The tretin and his pirate fleet had been a scourge on the Dominion’s fringes for years.
While Volcair was otherwise occupied, Lieutenant Beltheri stepped up to assist with Janus Six’s normal operations, performing with competence and efficiency despite being clearly flustered on several occasions. Volcair was grateful for her performance and professionalism.
Volcair spent every spare moment thinking about Kiara. When he watched the recorded interviews his senior officers had conducted with her crew, he took the longest on hers, often rewinding to earlier points on the recording because he’d lapsed into thought while staring into her eyes and had missed her reply to the interviewer. She looked…sorrowful.
And that was Volcair’s fault.
Despite his exhaustion by the time he finally went to bed, Volcair lay awake for a long while. Kiara and her crew had returned to their temporary quarters for rest, and most of his first shift officers were sleeping after working extended hours. There had been a few smugglers caught in the station during his short tenure as commander, and his ships had engaged with pirate vessels out in space more than once, but there’d been nothing quite like the events surrounding the Starlight.
It should have been military and administrative matters keeping him awake. Central command would demand regular reports, and Volcair would have to draft a formal request for additional soldiers and ships in the area. He’d also have to navigate the clerical issues around having military personnel perform repairs on a civilian vessel and organize his teams to conduct as thorough and efficient a search as possible. But none of it crossed his mind.
All he could think of was Kiara. He held the necklace between forefinger and thumb as he stared at the dark ceiling, brushing the pad of his thumb along the intricately patterned metal holding the glowing blue stone in place.
Had anything gone differently—had the ship not been registered under Kiara’s name, or the borian pirate acted a little more naturally—the Starlight would’ve been released, and its crew would have been sold as slaves on Caldorius. From there, they’d have been sent to any number of worlds where slaves, especially exotic ones like the terrans, were legal.
Even Arthos, the Infinite City—the pinnacle of technology and civilization in the known universe—had an issue with slaves. Slavery wasn’t legal there, but it was often overlooked by the authorities due to the difficulty of fighting a problem that originated on countless worlds beyond the Consortium’s jurisdiction.
The thought of Kiara suffering such a fate made Volcair’s heart ache and his stomach sink even as it sparked an angry fire in his chest—a fire that, ultimately, would have accounted for nothing. He was one person; all his passion and rage would never have been enough to find her, had she been taken. He would have spent the rest of his life searching.
No, that wasn’t correct. If she had been taken, he would never have known. That only made the what-ifs worse; if the ship hadn’t been flagged, if he hadn’t seen her name on the manifest, he would never have gone to the docking bay. He would never have fought his way into the cargo hold to rescue her from the pirates. He would never have known her ship had passed through his station.
He would never have known she was in any danger.
A soft scratch at the door pulled Volcair from his thoughts. Furrowing his brow, he lifted his head off his pillow and looked toward the door, which was reduced to a rectangular patch of darkness amidst the shadows.
The scratching came again, this time a little more insistent.
Volcair closed his fingers around the necklace, tossed aside the covers, slipped out of bed, and padded to the dresser to pull on a pair of underpants. It wasn’t unusual for his subordinates to wake him because some pressing situation had arisen, but they usually contacted him through the station’s comm systems. He walked to the door and pressed the button to open it.
The doorway was empty—or at least appeared so until he lowered his gaze. Cypher sat on the floor just beyond the threshold, staring up at Volcair with four glowing, impossibly sad eyes. The inux’s lips parted, revealing his sharp teeth as he whined.
Frowning, Volcair sank into a crouch. He put out his empty hand, and Cypher stepped forward, brushing his cheek against Volcair’s palm.
“I really botched this,” Volcair said.
Cypher nodded and moved closer still, rubbing his side along Volcair’s leg.
The light scrape of those metal scales against Volcair’s calf brought back old, happy memories. Memories of the best years of his life, which had come and gone so long ago—Cypher bouncing over Volcair’s bed, clicking excitedly to wake the boy up in the morning; Volcair and Cypher racing through the halls of various embassies on so many different worlds, often to Father’s disapproval; Cypher snuggling against Volcair in the night, fighting back the loneliness and despair that had so often assailed the boy in the dark, replacing it with warmth and companionship.
But his fondest memories of Cypher included Kiara. She’d instilled a new energy in the inux, and the three of them had often laughed and played during Volcair’s years on Earth. Little had excited Cypher more than their visits with Kiara.
“I missed you, old friend, more than I can
ever express.” Volcair ran his hand along Cypher’s spine, from the inux’s head to his flank. “But I am glad you stayed with her. Glad you did what I could not.”
Cypher whined again, catching Volcair’s wrist carefully between his metal jaws and giving him a slight tug. The points of the inux’s teeth pressed into Volcair’s skin but didn’t puncture it.
Volcair shook his head. “She does not want to see me now.”
Flattening his ears and narrowing his eyes, Cypher tugged harder, making Volcair sway forward. The inux released his hold after a few moments. He sat down, glared up at Volcair, and growled.
Volcair turned his other hand palm up and opened his fingers to stare down at the necklace. He laughed to himself, the sound utterly devoid of humor. “I’m doing it again. Was I always such a fool?”
Cypher’s responding clicks were undoubtedly a yes, but the inux softened his honesty by nuzzling Volcair’s knee.
“I leave you with her for a little while, and now you’re taking her side?” Volcair asked, a soft smile touching his lips. “No more shielding myself behind duty. Let’s go, Cyph.”
Lips drawn back in what could only be a smile, Cypher leapt to his feet and bounded down the corridor toward Kiara’s room.
Unmindful of his state of dress, Volcair rose and followed Cypher. His heart thumped, and all his fears, insecurities, and inadequacies seemed to bubble to the surface at once, threatening to paralyze him. But he would not stop now. He would see this through to the end, however long it took, however hard he had to fight.
Kiara would be his.
Kiara was his.
The door to her room was closed. Volcair stopped in front of it and glanced down at Cypher, who lifted his front paws and scratched at the metal.
Sounds of movement came from the other side of the door, and it slid open a moment later, revealing a tired-eyed Kiara. Her mass of curls was held up by a colorful, patterned scarf, and she wore little more than a scrap of black underwear and a white tank top through which her dark nipples were visible.
Entwined Fates (The Infinite City Book 1) Page 10
