13
Kass
A guard escortedus to our quarters, but unlike the last time, when I was taken away by one, I wasn’t in restraints. No weapons were out and ready to stun me. No smart remarks or shoving occurred. And—very different—this time I held Mia’s hand, even raised it to my lips and kissed her knuckles a time or two.
She’d saved my ass. If not for her, no one would have caught Sponder’s lies and exposed him as a traitor. My mind reeled with the information that he’d been working with Delegate Rainhart this entire time, that he’d also been responsible for the attack on the Starfighter base. That he’d helped Queen Raya take Xenon prisoner, helped the Dark Fleet target Velerion with the IPBMs. Why would he do such a thing? He was Velerion himself. His family was wealthy. His uncle was a commissioner in the Hall of Records.
I squeezed Mia’s hand. “I can’t believe Sponder is a traitor. I knew he was an ass, but—I don’t understand what drove him to betray his own people.”
Mia’s turn. She lifted my hand to her lips and kissed me. “Sometimes people don’t make sense.”
Well, that was the truth. “They’ll execute him, if what you found was true.”
“It’s true.” She sounded completely confident, sure of herself, and very, very sexy.
Mia had given General Jennix and General Aryk more than enough proof to convict Sponder of everything we’d claimed and then some. It was over. Not the mission to save Xenon and to rid the universe of IPBMs, but our fight to be together, to prove ourselves worthy of our uniforms. We would not be torn apart. I’d told Mia that from the first time we met in her place of employment on Earth. She was mine.
Forever.
I never expected Sponder to be more than just a nuisance to me. And a horrible leader. But Mia had found not only the truth about me, but the depth of his evil. Of course Mia had found it. No one else had and that was why Sponder had gone unnoticed, free to work with Delegate Rainhart in an unlimited capacity. Time would reveal the extent of his traitorous actions, but someone else would dig for those details. Mia had given them the trail to follow. That was all they were going to get, because Mia would be busy with me. In the short term, she would be busy being pleasured. I would see her rewarded for her actions. I would also ensure she was whole. Alive. Safe.
My heart seized at the idea of her dying in a fiery explosion of Sponder’s making. It would have been as he’d said. Horrible. I would not have survived if she’d been killed. And with the other pilot trying to control the Phantom during the crash? I’d barely managed to save us, and I had more training in that ship than anyone on Velerion. I was a Starfighter for a reason. With Lieutenant Markus flying when that bomb went off, I would have lost her.
Being alive and in the brig would have been a fate worse than death. Even if the charges against me for cheating had been proven false, I would not have been whole. I never would have forgiven myself for not being on that ship next to her. For not being there when she needed me.
For allowing her to die alone.
When the door to our quarters slid closed behind us, I locked the door, closing us away from all interruptions, and pulled her into my arms. Held her in a fierce hug.
Felt her heartbeat. Her breath.
“Kass,” she whispered.
“I know,” I replied, kissing the top of her head.
“Now. It has to be now,” she murmured.
I couldn’t agree with her more, but we were still wearing our flight suits, dust and debris from the crash, the smell of burning metal and rock draping over us both like a cloud. Dropping to my knees, I yanked and pulled to remove her flight suit and boots. When she stood naked before me, I placed a kiss in the center of her abdomen and leaned my forehead into her body. I inhaled the scent of her feminine heat and reveled in the feeling of her fingers stroking my scalp, combing my hair. Holding me to her.
“I almost lost you.”
“We almost lost each other.”
I wrapped my arms around her waist and held on tightly, sinking into her, memorizing everything about her. Scent. Touch. Softness of her skin. Gentleness of her hands. She sighed. “It won’t be the last time, Kass. We are Starfighters. We aren’t going to be sitting behind a desk.” She grabbed a fistful of my hair and tilted my head up to meet her gaze. “And I don’t want to be. I want to be out there, making a difference. With you. And if we die, we die together.”
This woman was going to be the death of me one way or the other. At the moment I feared my heart was going to burst inside my chest, the explosion of emotion inside me crippling and painful. “I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
“Live together. Fight together. Die together.”
“Exactly.” She grinned. “Are you in or are you out?”
“Oh, I’m in. And so are you.” I stood in a flash and lifted her off her feet, throwing her over my shoulder as I marched us both to the bathing room. I set her on her feet in the stall, and she started the water as I stepped out of my flight suit and boots.
Hot water streaming, we washed one another in record time. The second I had her soft and wet and clean, had inspected every inch of her for injuries and found nothing but a few bruises, I dropped to my knees and used my hand on her stomach to hold her back pressed to the shower wall. She fought for balance, but I had no more self-control. I needed her. “Now. I need you now.”
“Kass,” she said again, this time on a moan. My intention was clear. Her fingers tangled in my hair, and I looked up at her.