Xander

by Vivienne Savage

Uncertain, Kaiden glanced at his brother first for approval. When Gareth nodded, the older twin shook with him, barely applying pressure.

  “It’s good to finally see you awake, Kaiden. How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit, sir. I… Gareth told me I hurt a lot of people here.”

  “You hit like a Lexar dreadnought, but I’ll live. So will the others that you injured,” Ethan said cheerfully. “I assure you, it’s nothing I haven’t felt before, mate.”

  Kaiden didn’t appear convinced or comforted by their assurances. “I’m guessing you all didn’t come here to pat my hand and tell me it’s all going to be okay. You have questions and military protocols directing you to hand me over to United Command. I’m not dumb. I know what happens next.”

  Xander glanced at Ethan. He looked too at ease, his expression too cordial, if he planned anything of the sort.

  “The HMS Bulwark is en route with an ETA of about seven hours. I’m not going to lie to you, son. They have orders to take you back to Command for treatment,” Ethan said.

  “Ethan. You know as well as I do that they’ll subject him to weeks of questioning before he receives a bit of treatment,” Xander said. “If he receives any at all.”

  “I know, but they think he’s a risk,” Ethan replied.

  “He’s dangerous, yes, but that doesn’t excuse medical neglect. And turning him over without receiving help is exactly that—neglect.”

  “What if they lock him away again? Hide him?” Gareth’s worry carried over in his voice and pinched features.

  “Don’t talk about me as if I’m not here,” Kaiden spoke up. “I know what they plan to do, Gareth. It’s all right.”

  “Kaiden—” Gareth began, only for his brother to swiftly cut him off.

  “The doctor’s right. I’m a weapon now, and that’s all I’ll ever be.”

  Xander growled. “No. You’re more than a weapon. That isn’t at all what I meant.”

  Ethan nodded. “Trust me, son, whatever they intended for you to be, they failed. The very fact that you are sitting here, apologizing and worrying about what happened under their control, proves that.”

  Growing angrier by the second, Xander slammed one fist into his other palm. “Then we need to protect him. We owe it to one of our own to keep him safe when he needs us.”

  “Yeah, about that. As I was planning to say before your passionate interruption… I’ve sort of tossed the rulebook aside and taken some pre-emptive measures to guarantee Kaiden’s safety. Until we can ferret out this nonsense, I believe no one is to be trusted.”

  Xander bit back a sharp retort. “I’m guessing you have a plan. So are you going to clue us in or keep up the suspense?”

  “Nisrine submitted an official report to the Royal Archives on Astreya. You know how they like to have everything in triplicate and stored on their tidy shelves.” Ethan waved his hand. “The head archivist took it upon himself to personally message and send over a copy to Her Royal Majesty, the Queen. She has requested an audience.”

  “What?” Gareth’s eyes practically bugged out of his head.

  “Your brother is getting a royal reception home,” Ethan clarified. His wide grin reached smug proportions. “I’d like to see them sweep that away into forgotten obscurity.”

  “Does the Bulwark know that?” Xander asked, floored.

  “I imagine they will shortly.” Ethan’s amused laughter filled the room. “You’re not going to the Bulwark, Kaiden. The Jemison will deliver you to Albion by royal decree.”

  “I can’t believe it.” Gareth sank back into his seat again and stared at Ethan in wonder. “Thanks.”

  “No need to thank me. I’m only doing what’s right,” Ethan said.

  Kaiden’s voice dropped to a slight whisper. “Is it going to be… public?”

  Ethan’s expression softened. “To a point, yes, but I think the queen is a wise enough woman not to make a spectacle out of you. The important thing is that too many people in the upper echelons will be aware of your situation for you to be easily hidden away again. The queen is big on pomp and ceremony, so the media has been notified that a lost hero has been found.”

  “I’m not a hero,” Kaiden quickly spat out.

  “You are,” Xander gently said. “Thanks to your actions, over two dozen souls were spared from that laboratory. They’re alive because of you.”

  “I don’t know how I did it,” Kaiden said. “They routinely drugged me for ease of handling, but that day I was clear-headed for the first time in a long while.”

  “I think I know why,” Xander said. “We also sedated you, but suddenly, all at once, most of the drugs were cleared from your system. Their own tool became their undoing. Perhaps it isn’t fully functioning or wasn’t properly deactivated in the lab after one of their tests, but it saved you.”

  “Were you aware at all during your jaunt through the ship?” Ethan asked.

  Kaiden dropped his gaze to his lap again. “In a way. Imagine you’re in a hovercraft set to autopilot, but you’re unable to deactivate the program. It takes you wherever it chooses, and you’re merely there, along for the ride.”

  “Trapped in your own mind.” Gareth’s voice shook.

  “Yes,” Kaiden whispered. “I don’t know whether it’ll help your investigation or not. I remember everything, but what I know may be useless to you.”

  “Any detail helps,” Xander assured him. “No matter how minor it may seem to you.”

  “Okay. I’ll tell you whatever I can before we reach Albion.”

  “We have a few days, Kaiden.” Gareth sighed in relief.

  “Your brother’s right, mate, there’s no need to rush it all out now.”

  “Doctor Vargas,” Jem interrupted. “I thought you would like to be informed that Sergeant Kruger is exhibiting signs of premature awakening.”

  The coffee mug in his hands slipped and only quick fumbling saved it from shattering against the floor.

  “Go, Xander,” Ethan told him. “You should be there when she wakes up. Gareth, Kaiden, and I have this.”

  “Thanks, mate.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Thandie awakened to the voice of the man she loved most, his quiet murmurs the only sound in the room. Raising her eyelids seemed comparable to bench pressing an elephant, and when she did finally open them, a distorted view of the world greeted her, blurred beyond recognition.

  Unable to focus, she closed her eyes once more.

  “Thandie?”

  God, she wanted to see him. It felt like ages had passed since she’d last looked into Xander’s gray eyes. Fighting her heavy eyelids, Thandie tried again to bring the room into focus.

  “Hey now, don’t try to get up just yet.” His hand pressed to her left shoulder and nudged her back against the bed, though she didn’t even recall trying to sit up. Her desire to remain awake warred with her body’s need to continue resting.

  Xander’s concerned face swam into her view, derailing her desire for more sleep. A strange sense of déjà vu crashed over her, like they’d been in the same position before. “What happened?”

  “You almost died. You’ve been asleep for hours since the surgery. Are you in any pain? How do you feel?”

  Surgery. The word penetrated the fog and grounded her back in reality. She remembered unrivaled agony, the scent of burning skin and circuitry, and the deafening bang of a shotgun preceding the blinding light of an explosion. Panic and fear seized her when she recognized the loss of pain.

  “My arm. I can’t… I can’t move my arm.” The realization struck her at once, a sobering truth that shook off the final vestiges of the sedative and replaced it with panic. Her pulse quickened on account of the adrenaline fueling her new sense of coherence. It took her back to memories she had tried desperately to forget.

  “Thandie, breathe.” Xander’s cool fingers swept over her brow. Soothing. Familiar. “Your replacement will be ready and waiting for us at the hospital on Albion. I already placed the orde
r with your measurements.”

  “What did you do to me?”

  Xander drew in a deep breath. “We reinforced your ribs after we dug out the scattershot from the round Viljoen fired at your arm. Lil synthesized new tissue for the second and third-degree burns to your anterior torso while I reconstructed your shoulder so you’d be a fit for the new arm. Other minor repairs, mostly cosmetic.”

  Memories resurfaced of the military doctor on her old vessel, especially his avoidance of her eyes and the way he’d patronized her with a pat on the remaining arm, telling her a cybernetic limb would become her new replacement one day. Thandie spoke the misdirecting language of military doctors fluently, and when she read between the lines, it all became clear.

  She was hideous—a one-armed freak with a face covered in burns. The insidious little thought slid through her mind and brought tears to her eyes.

  “I want to see it.”

  “All right,” Xander agreed quietly.

  He reached up to grasp the holographic screen and redirected it toward her. It was meant for real time video conferencing from the sick bed, but since it wasn’t connected to another screen, it merely displayed Thandie’s own face back at her. A shiny dressing covered the skin on her right cheek and jaw, fitted perfectly to the shape of her face. Another protective dressing curved down her neck toward her shoulder, where the remnants of Xander’s surgical work revealed her bandage-wrapped stump. Due to the nature of her injuries, she wore no hospital gown, only a sheet for modesty and strategic application of gauze.

  It wasn’t as bad as she expected. The pounding behind her ribs eased, and a full breath filled her lungs. “And the rest?” Her voice cracked.

  Xander nodded. He peeled back the bedsheet tucked around her chest, and one by one he drew away the corner of the bandages. A dozen circular scars littered her torso from the waist to her right breast, joined by a crescent incision. “Lilibeth says it shouldn’t scar. We applied the aerosol graft in time. How do you feel? Are you in any pain?”

  She shook her head. “I barely feel anything. Did we save the ship?”

  He smiled and smoothed her hair back from her face. “You’re on it right now, sweetheart, and to tell you the truth, I’ve never been so angry with someone and proud of them at the same time in all my life.”

  She swallowed back the dry lump in her throat. “Everything was happening so fast but I just knew what I had to do.”

  “We’re all still here because of you, Thandie. Every single person on this ship has you to thank for their lives. And… nearly losing you made me realize there’s a lot unsaid between us.”

  Of all the places she’d expected to talk about their relationship, medical hadn’t made the list. She’d envisioned something romantic—candles and moonlight, or even another seaside dinner.

  “All I could think about down there was that you were on the ship and about to die. I couldn’t let that happen.”

  Xander sat on the edge of the bed and took her hand. Each sweep of his thumb across her knuckles set off butterflies in her stomach.

  “If you had died, I don’t know what I would have done. After I lost Ylona, I never expected to find anyone else. Never thought I could experience love again or that I would even want to. Then you showed up in my life and everything has been better.”

  Her pulse sped up again. Love?

  “I should have said so much to you in the hangar—shit, before the hangar, on Elora, and maybe even before that. I love you, and it has nothing to do with my genes or what I am. Only a fool couldn’t fall in love with you, Thandie.”

  Hot tears welled in her eyes. Her chest felt too small to contain her swelling heart.

  “Thandie, please say something.”

  “I love you, too.” The words burst out of her and once she started crying, she couldn’t stop. “I don’t know when it happened, but it did. You’re everything I’ve always wanted and the thought of losing you terrified me. I didn’t know if I’d survive through it, but I knew I had to make sure you lived so you could go on helping people like Kaiden.” And then the vague, nebulous sense of familiarity clarified at last and broke through the medical haze. “Like you helped me over two years ago. You were one of the doctors who saved my shoulder.”

  He squeezed her left hand. “Closer to three years now, I guess. You remember that, huh?”

  She nodded. “Your eyes. I always knew I’d seen them before, but it never clicked. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”

  “Because I knew that was a painful time for you. One you didn’t like to talk about.”

  “My doctor wanted to discharge me from the navy. He said my shoulder couldn’t be salvaged for a prosthetic.”

  “I thought otherwise.”

  “So this is twice now you’ve saved me.”

  “I guess the universe was determined to get us together, one way or another. Which means I won’t be letting you go anytime soon.”

  She reached up and caressed his cheek, staring into his silver eyes. How funny life was, leading her to Xander not once, but twice.

  “What’s going to happen to me?” Thandie finally managed to ask.

  “We’re going to keep you in medical until we reach Albion, where you’ll get your new arm. After that, I’m not exactly sure.” He turned his head to kiss her open palm. “I guess I’ll just have to use some leave time to stick around the naval hospital throughout your recovery. I have weeks of it.”

  “You’d use your leave time for me?”

  “There’s nowhere else I’d want to be. No one I want more. You’re my everything, Thandie, and I’d give you the stars if I could.”

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