by Presley Hall
With my heart pounding, I grab the communicator from where it’s tucked in Ren’s pack, praying that it’ll work in here. I flip it on, trying to get a signal.
“Droth?” I call out, my voice strained. “Are you there? Droth!”
There’s nothing. No sound fills the quiet tower except my own harsh breathing.
“Droth! Anyone!” I repeat, closing my eyes against the burn of fresh tears. Is the communicator broken? Has the group at the base of the mountain been attacked? “Come in, please!”
My free hand rests on Ren’s chest, and I know he doesn’t have long. He’s dying. If he doesn’t get medical attention soon, there will be no hope for him.
And he will have died without ever knowing how I feel.
A soft sob breaks past my lips, and I drop my head, curling over Ren’s body again.
Then I hear Droth’s voice crackle over the unit. “Ren? What’s your status?”
I nearly pass out with relief, my stomach turning to water as my head shoots up. “Droth!”
“Felicity?” A note of confusion colors his voice.
“Yes, it’s me,” I gasp. “Ren is down. We’re in the tower. We’ve disabled the surveillance, but we need the ship here now. He needs help. He’s… he’s badly hurt.”
“Akhi.” I can hear the change in the Voxeran prince’s voice, tension coloring his tone. He speaks quickly, his tone firm and determined. “We’re on our way. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”
And then the line goes dead.
The same determination I heard in Droth’s voice fills me, and I rise to my feet, ignoring the pain and exhaustion in my body.
I grab Ren under his arms, hauling him down the catwalk step by step until I can get him outside. I’m terrified that I might be doing more damage by moving him, but we have to make as quick an escape as possible—we can’t wait for someone to come in here and help us. It feels as if it takes forever to get Ren’s dead weight outside into the snow, but once I have him there, I wrap his cloak more tightly around him, watching for the ship as I shiver in the cold.
How long will it take them to reach us? It took us days to hike up the mountainside, but the ship Ren brought from Vox can move fast, and they won’t have to worry about being spotted by the surveillance system. They should be able to travel quickly.
But will it be quick enough?
I don’t know how many minutes tick by as I wait, but the moment the ship arrives, its metallic frame glinting in the sunlight, I nearly burst into tears.
Several of the Voxerans flood out the moment it touches down inside the fence’s perimeter. They lift Ren from the snow and carry him inside, barely acknowledging me in their rush to help him. I don’t care. I don’t care what they do as long as they fix him.
I follow closely behind them as they bring him toward the ship’s med bay, where a few other people are already waiting, including Axen, Kaide, and Elizabeth.
“It’s lucky we have one this well-equipped on a ship this size,” Axen says, catching my numb expression. “We’ll do our best for him.”
“We will,” Elizabeth adds, her face grave. I feel a flicker of relief that she’s here—not because I don’t trust the Voxerans to care for one of their own, but because I know none of the alien warriors are trained medical technicians. Elizabeth was a doctor back on Earth, and even if she’s working with different equipment and on a man who’s not human, her training has to count for something.
They get to work immediately, and although I want to stay right by Ren’s side, I stand back to give them space.
I can feel the ship taking off, but I barely register it. Elizabeth, Kaide, and a few others are busily hovering over Ren, moving him into a healing pod and hooking up machines and sensors to him, scanning him for the extent of his injuries.
“Now leaving Nuthora’s orbit. Please enter destination coordinates.”
Vaguely, I hear the ship’s comms system patching over information about our escape from Nuthora, and the small part of me that can process that information is relieved.
We’re leaving the planet.
Ren and I succeeded.
The surveillance on this part of Nuthora is down, so the solar council will have no idea that we’re gone. No one will follow us.
But it’s hard for me to care about that right now. All of my hopes and prayers are focused on Ren, on the Voxeran warriors following Elizabeth’s instructions as they help her monitor his vitals and she hooks up a line to give him some sort of infusion.
Please live, please live, please live.
The words play over and over again in my head, drowning out anything else.
I can’t believe I might lose him, just when we’ve come so close to having something good. The initial animosity between us has faded away, and I know now that my first impression of him was so wrong.
He has his jagged edges, sure, but so do I.
And instead of being put off by each other’s broken parts, we can see the beauty in them. We’ve both come so far and gone through so much to become the people we are now.
We make each other better. Stronger. I found things inside myself on this mission that I never knew I was capable of. I feel like a new person, ready to shrug off the baggage and hurt of my old life and start anew.
And I want Ren by my side for all of that.
But watching Elizabeth, her face set in a hard, tense mask of focus as the other warriors silently follow her instructions, I’m more afraid than I’ve ever been.
Worry for Ren fills my soul.
As I sink into a nearby chair, my hands clenched together, I’m afraid that after everything he’s done, after all those years of clinging to hope, trying to keep the rebellion alive in Droth’s absence…
He might never see Vox again.
23
Felicity
Even as hours pass and the ship speeds through space away from Nuthora, I don’t leave the med bay.
I’m still sitting by Ren’s bedside long after Elizabeth and the others have left, reassuring me that he’s stable and they’ve done all that they can. But worry still grips me. I saw the look in Elizabeth’s eyes. She’s not sure if Ren is going to be okay, and I’m not either.
Even now, as I gaze down at him lying still and placid in the healing pod, covered by a white sheet with his eyes closed peacefully, I can’t stop seeing him lying on the catwalk in the surveillance facility, his body bent in unnatural ways, blood streaming from his nose and mouth, his form limp and heavy in my arms.
I’m not sure which is worse, actually. Then, he looked destroyed, broken. Now he just looks dead. I can hear the steady beeping of the machines and the display on the pod showing his vitals.
Those things reassure me that he’s alive, but they don’t help much. He’s too still, too peaceful.
I can’t leave.
Not until he wakes up.
Sometime after we’re well away from Nuthora and everyone can move around the ship, the door to the med bay opens. I look up, startled, and see a handful of the women coming in—Sadie, Ivy, Gemma, and a few others.
“Kzuri told me about Ren’s condition,” Gemma says softly, smiling as she crosses the room to place a gentle hand on my shoulder. The other women gather around too, all of them murmuring words of sympathy and hope.
I realize with a flush of emotion that they’ve all come to support me—to help me through this.
“We wanted to come and see if you needed anything,” Ivy says, sitting down in one of the other chairs in the room with her hands folded between her knees. “We know you don’t want to leave him, so we brought you some food from the galley.”
“You were our therapist for so long,” Sadie adds with a soft, sad chuckle. “You’ve listened and helped us all through so much. It’s time we do the same for you.”
My heart squeezes as I look around at them, gratitude and guilt filling my chest at the same time. Gratitude that they’re all here for me, and guilt because I know I was never my true
self with them. I never trusted them to see all of me, afraid they would judge me or dislike me if they knew the whole truth.
But I’m done with all of that now—done with hiding and being ashamed of who I used to be. I’ve proved to myself that the mistakes of my past don’t have to define me. That the old version of myself isn’t who I am anymore.
“I’m not really all that wise,” I admit quietly, shaking my head. “Or qualified to be anyone’s therapist, to be honest. I don’t have any real training in that field. I tried to listen and be there for people who needed it, it’s true, but I had so many problems of my own back on Earth.”
Sadie’s brows pull together, and Ivy cocks her head. I can tell they’re a bit surprised by my words, but they don’t say anything, allowing me to continue without pressuring me to speak.
“There were things I was afraid to tell any of you,” I murmur, “because I was worried about what you would think of me. I just wanted to start over. I saw an opportunity to be somewhere that no one knew who I used to be. But now I know that it wasn’t right to hide it. I have to embrace all of myself, the good and the bad.”
I explain it all to them, the words spilling out as if they’ve been trapped inside for way too long. I tell them about the gambling addiction and the money I lost, the cycle I was trapped in, the way it damaged my relationships. I admit all of it, the same way I admitted it to Ren.
“I self-sabotaged constantly. I’m not perfect at all,” I finish in a low voice, looking down at my fingers tangled tightly together in my lap. I’m not quite ready to look any of the gathered women in the eyes yet.
Sadie laughs, and the unexpected sound draws my gaze upward.
Not a single one of them is looking at me with judgement or reproof in her expression.
“Felicity,” Sadie says, reaching out to touch my hand. “Not being perfect doesn’t mean you’re not qualified to listen and give advice when others tell you about their problems. In fact, it makes you better suited to it, because you understand just how hard things can be. You recognize the mistakes people make. It makes you human.”
I feel something crack open inside me at their kindness, the empathy of all these women I’ve come to know.
For the first time, I realize that I don’t have to have so many defenses against the help and support of others. I can let these women be here for me, the way I’ve been there for them in the days and weeks since we all found ourselves stranded on a strange planet together.
I don’t have to do any of this alone anymore.
All the tears I’ve been holding back spill down my face. Sadie leans in to hug me first, and then Gemma joins her, then Ivy and Demi, until we’re wrapped in a circle of tangled limbs. It feels so good to let go, to trust them, and even though I wish I’d done it long ago, I’m glad I finally had the guts to do it now.
Honestly, I’m not sure I ever would’ve found the courage if it hadn’t been for Ren and everything we shared on our dangerous trek up the mountainside. He’s the person who judged me most harshly at first, but he’s also the person who showed me that people can surprise you when you take the risk of opening up to them.
That’s why I need him to pull through.
I need to thank him. I need to say so many things to him.
Our hug finally breaks apart, and the gathered women settle back in around me, sitting on the few other chairs in the room or leaning against the chairs’ backs.
They stay with me for a while longer, coaxing me to eat what they’ve brought and listening to my stories of our trek up the mountain and what happened in the surveillance tower. I tell them about the mate bond too, and they all seem pleased and not even a little surprised. I guess the way I’ve been glued to Ren’s side since the ship came for us at the top of the mountain has made it pretty obvious.
When all of my tears are dried and I have some food in me, they finally leave, hugging me again and promising to be back later to check on me, telling me firmly that they’ll be there if I need anything at all.
As I settle back in my chair, gazing down at Ren as he sleeps in the healing pod, my heart still hurts. I still feel full of worry for him.
But part of me feels lighter than before.
I’m not hiding anything any longer, and I feel more free than I ever have been.
I think of what I told the other women, how scared I was to reveal my flaws, my imperfections, all the things I’ve done so wrong in the past. But they accepted me anyway. None of them judged me or rejected me. In the end, sharing all of that didn’t push them away from me—it brought us all closer together.
And the same thing happened with Ren. I was worried that I wasn’t good enough for him, that he would judge me, think of me as a worthless, undisciplined person who fucked up her life. That he’d think that surely I would squander any chance I was given in the future. But he didn’t think that at all, either. There are parts of him that are broken too that he shared with me, and his broken parts complement mine.
We fit together, understand each other better because of the hardships we’ve endured and the parts of ourselves that we’ve had to struggle with.
Neither of us are perfect people. But as I gaze down at his beautiful, scarred features that have become so beloved to me, I know one thing for certain.
We’re perfect for each other.
24
Ren
I feel like I’ve been floating in darkness for a long time.
Slowly, very slowly, unconsciousness starts to fade away. I become aware of a light glimmering above me, and at first, I’m worried that it’s whatever comes after death. I don’t want to die, not yet, but I tell myself that maybe this was the price of saving Felicity and the others. I’ve come to terms with that, and it relaxes me a little, enables me to blink and open my eyes, to embrace whatever the light above me is.
But as my surroundings flicker into view, I see a face in that light.
A face, hovering over mine.
Rhael.
The word echoes in my mind before I can even think, before I even fully, consciously register that it’s Felicity leaning over me. Her face comes into clear view as the top of the pod that I’m in slides back and I feel cool, sterile air on my face.
“Rhael.” I say it aloud, the word spilling from my lips, which feel numb and thick—but nothing could stop me from speaking it, the most honest and truthful thing I could possibly say in this moment.
Mine.
It’s the truth, and I can’t deny it for even a heartbeat longer. I won’t waste another moment without letting Felicity know how I feel, no matter what comes after. Whether she chooses me in the end or not, she has to know.
“You are my mate,” I murmur, looking up at Felicity. Her dark eyes go wide and misty as she stares down at me. “I realized it… on the mountain… by that boulder in the snow.” The words are a little slow, a little difficult, but I push them out anyway, ignoring the lingering effects of the drugs and technology that healed me. “Mine, now and always. My Felicity.”
“I know.” She lets out a sob, leaning forward to touch my face. Her hand feels warm against my skin, and I lean into it, not caring about my scars any longer. I know she doesn’t see them as a flaw. “You’re my mate too, Ren. I think part of me knew it all along, even way back when we were arguing with each other and getting under each other’s skin. I wish I’d told you sooner.”
Tears are streaming down her face now, her cheeks flushed and pink with emotion, and she bends to take my face in both of her hands, kissing me gently as she carefully avoids all the tubes and wires in the healing pod.
“I’m so glad you’re okay,” she whispers against my lips. “I didn’t know what I’d do if I lost you. You were so brave, and foolish, but mostly brave—and I love you, Ren. I love you so much. You’re my other half, my soulmate.”
“Yes.” Soulmate. I like the sound of that. It fits what I know we are to each other, the missing half of each other’s souls, fated to be together. “I love
you, my kira. My fierce, stubborn woman.”
The door opens with a soft hiss, and Elizabeth walks in, along with Axen, Kaide, and a few others who have been learning about healing from the Terran woman.
I catch sight of them in the corner of my vision as I’m still kissing Felicity, and when we break apart, I see their wry smiles, happy and a bit amused. Axen and Elizabeth exchange a glance, and Kaide is smirking—they all know exactly what this feels like, and they know the relief of finding their other half at last.
I’ve felt alone for so long. Now, not only do I have Felicity, but others too. My fellow warriors and their mates will be coming home. They’ll rejoin the rebellion on Vox, sparking new life into the dwindling movement. Together, we will defeat the usurping traitor, Drokar.
“Sorry to interrupt,” Elizabeth says, still smiling. “But I need to check your vitals and make sure that all is well before I unhook you from the pod. Kaide, can you help?”
Kaide is at her elbow immediately, following instructions as Elizabeth goes over the readout of my vital signs and checks my healed injuries. “The technology you have is amazing.” She glances over at Axen. “On Earth, we could never have healed anything like this. And he’s made a full recovery. It’s incredible.” She shakes her head, excitement gleaming in her gray eyes. “I can’t wait to get to Vox and see more of the medical advances that you have.”
She looks over at Axen as she speaks, and I catch a glimpse of the tall warrior beaming at his mate, pride shining on his face. It’s an emotion I recognize, because it’s exactly how I feel about Felicity.
Proud and adoring, and lucky to have such a woman as my other half.
