11 Dax

CLOSE. I’m so vrecking close.

I’ve been close since the first moment I thrust into Zoey, since the moment I felt her wet heat tighten around me, squeezing every bit of my cock. She climaxed the moment I drove myself inside her soft, swollen flesh, clenching around me as if she wanted to pull me into the very depths of her. I could have come then and there, letting five years of pent-up desire rush out of me in a desperate, pleasurable flood.

But I forced myself to hold back.

I wanted to make her come first, and once I saw the look on her face as she fell apart around me, once I heard the sound of her moans and smelled the sweet scent of her arousal, all I wanted to do was make her come over and over again. The sight of her face as she found her release was the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I’m completely lost in her, overcome with desire, driven by it to the point where nothing else seems to exist.

Lifting her legs and draping them over my shoulders, I slide my hands under the curved globes of her backside, holding her up so that I can watch myself thrust into her. Her perfect body stretches around my thick length, spreading open with every stroke of my cock. I can feel myself losing control, all of my carefully honed discipline fraying apart as I give myself over to the pleasure.

I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as Zoey writhing on my cock, her eyes wide and glazed with pleasure, her soft body arching upward as she cries out.

I thrust into her hard, and then again, rolling my hips as I bottom out inside her. Holding her up with one hand, I slide the other one between her legs to play with the little node that seemed to bring her so much pleasure.

Ah. There it is.

Stroking it lightly, I experiment with the pattern and pressure of my fingertips as I watch her lovely face tense with pleasure.

“How are you so fucking good at that?” she whimpers. “I’m close again. Fuck, I can’t believe it.”

“Then let go for me,” I beg. “Let me feel you one more time.”

I work my fingers faster, and she clenches around me, fluttering and gripping the length of my aching cock as she comes hard. Her legs tighten on my shoulders as she moans and gasps, arching upward so that I slide deeply inside of her, all the way to the hilt. As she squeezes me, I lose control entirely, my entire body tightening with a kind of pleasure I’ve never felt before as my climax hits me.

“Vreck!” A ragged grunt pours from my lips, and I grip her hips tightly as I thrust into her again.

But it’s not enough. I need to be closer to her, need to consume her even as I pour myself into her. I lean forward, wrapping my arms around her waist and pulling her up onto my lap so that I can hold her against me. My lips find hers, and I kiss her wildly as I bury my hands in her hair and my cock inside her body.

Five years of pent up desire unleashes itself inside her as I come harder than I ever have in my life, filling her with my seed in a mad rush of pleasure.

We fall backward onto the bed together, Zoey clasped in my arms as I hold her, our legs tangled up and my half-hard cock still inside her. I never want to let her go, and we lie like that for a long moment. My lips trail over her temple and down to her mouth in small, soft kisses as I push her damp hair out of her face, wanting to feel her touch me endlessly.

I’ve gone so long without touch, without pleasure, without comfort, and now that I have it, all I want is to breathe her in, to never let her go. I never want to stop.

But I know that now, more than ever, I have to tell her the truth.

When we can both breathe again, we lie next to each other on the bed, still touching as I run my fingers over her face and hair, down her arm, over her waist to rest my hand on her hip.

“That was…” Zoey swallows, looking almost shy after everything that just happened between us. “It’s never been like that for me. Ever.”

“Not for me either,” I admit. “I didn’t know it could be like that.”

I trail off, afraid to say more. I can feel something growing inside me, a desire that goes beyond just the need for physical pleasure, but I can’t even entertain the thought of what that might be without her knowing the truth.

She called me good, but she’s wrong about that.

Just because I didn’t do what I was accused of doesn’t mean I’m innocent. I covered for the one who did. She might still be horrified at my actions. Horrified enough to regret what we’ve just done, even. The thought makes my chest ache, but I can’t regret what happened just now, even if this perfect, peaceful moment can’t last.

“When we still lived on Zivon, I had a brother. Syrus,” I begin slowly. Zoey goes very still in my arms, her dark eyes fixed on mine as she listens quietly. “We shared a house, and he left me a note with a message that night, telling me that we needed to meet outside the city. The only other thing the note said was ‘I hope you’ll understand,’ and the location.”

Zoey says nothing, but I can see the concern in her eyes. She reaches out, her fingers against my chest, touching me soothingly as I speak.

“I never went to meet him, because by the time I found the note, the attack was beginning. It was awful, beyond anything I can describe. It was a mad rush of fire and blood and death, and all I could think about was trying to defend our people while running for my own life, trying to get as many survivors to The Oasis as I could while trying to ensure that I’d be one of them. For a while, none of us thought so much about why it had happened as much as just attempting to save as many as we could.”

“But once we were on board and away from Zivon, the questions started.” I take a deep breath, trying to stay calm, to tell Zoey the story as completely as I can. “Syrus and I were the ones in charge of maintaining the defense system, the thing that should have alerted us to an attack before the Kruul could begin. But I was away that night. It was Syrus’s shift… and the alarms never went off. Ryven was able to determine that the systems had been disabled.”

“Oh,” Zoey whispers, her eyes wide. I can see her beginning to piece it together, but she doesn’t say anything else. Her palm flattens against my chest, and I’m certain she can feel my heart racing. I can hardly breathe, I’m so afraid to keep talking. I’ve never spoken of this to anyone.

“I didn’t want to believe that Syrus could have done it. But the evidence pointed to his being responsible, and Ryven was rightly furious. His next move would have been to go after Syrus, who remained on Zivon after the attack. But I couldn’t bear for it to be true. I couldn’t bear to see my brother’s honor destroyed, to see him hunted down and imprisoned or executed by our own people. So I did the only thing I could think of in the heat of the moment. I took responsibility for it, saying that I had disabled the defense systems and allowed the Kruul to attack.”

“Oh my god, Dax.” Zoey’s voice cracks as she looks up at me.

I blow out a breath. “They didn’t execute me, obviously. But I could see the horror and disgust that they felt for me, years of goodwill and love and friendship from my own people erased in an instant. They locked me up after that, a life sentence for something so horrific. And I’d been down there ever since, until the day I escaped.”

As the last words leave my mouth, I feel a weight lifting from my shoulders. Zoey’s face is a mask of sadness and sympathy, her dark eyes wide and glimmering with tears, and I’m glad that she believes me. I’m glad she’s not horrified that I let Syrus go, that I chose to take the blame rather than let my fellow Zivonians go after the one who almost certainly was to blame.

But more than that, I didn’t expect to feel so relieved just from telling my story, finally, to someone who believes me. Someone who clearly cares about me, although I’m not entirely sure why.

“It sounds like you’ve been blaming yourself for all of this,” Zoey whispers. She reaches up, tracing her fingers along my jawline. “Not just the supposed blame that you took from Syrus, but it seems as if you’re blaming yourself for his actions too.”

I press my lips together tightly, fighting the flood of emotion that threatens to rise up and choke me. “Maybe I deserve that blame. I could have stayed with him on his shift. We often did that, to keep each other company or just have an extra pair of hands and set of eyes. I could have been working that shift. There are so many ways that I could have been there, could have kept him from—”

“You’re not responsible for someone else’s actions, just your own.”

Zoey runs her hand through my hair, and I close my eyes briefly, losing myself in the comfort of her touch. It feels so good to have someone close to me after so long, to enjoy a simple caress.

“You shouldn’t have to carry that burden,” she continues. “If it wasn’t your night to work, it wasn’t your night. Just because you weren’t there… who says you could have stopped him, even if you were? You can’t blame yourself for going about your night the way you would have normally. You can’t think that you should have changed what wasn’t yours to prevent. You trusted your brother. That’s not a flaw, that’s a virtue.”

It’s hard to let myself believe her fully. I still don’t even know why Syrus did it, why he would have betrayed our people.

But Zoey’s words ease something inside me, and I realize as she nestles into my arms, kissing my neck gently, that she isn’t going to leave. She doesn’t hate me. She’s believed in me since the moment she found me in the brig, and it doesn’t seem to matter what I’ve admitted to.

The truth only seems to have made her care for me more.

I brush my fingers over her curly dark hair, tilting her head up so that I can kiss her. The initial rush of lust is satisfied, but I can still feel desire simmering inside me, curling through my veins as I taste the sweetness of her mouth all over again.

Now I can enjoy every small thing, savoring the fullness of her lower lip as I draw it between mine, the soft heat of her tongue, the way her hand runs down my chest to my muscled abdomen. My cock thickens again, hardening against my thigh as I kiss her deeply, and I moan as she pushes me onto my back and trails her tongue down the column of my throat.

I hiss out a breath, overcome by the sheer pleasure of it. For now, at least, no one will interrupt us, no one will catch us, no one will lock me up again. We’re out in the middle of space, on a new ship, far from where anyone can find us.

There’s only the two of us, and we have a whole night to explore each other.

“The first time I saw you, I thought you were the most handsome Zivonian I’d ever seen,” Zoey murmurs. “The most handsome man I’d ever seen. And I still think that.”

Her lips trail down to my chest, her hand running over the muscle of my bicep as she kisses a trail down to my stomach, licking along the ridges of muscle until she reaches the flat expanse of my abdomen. Her palms skim over my hips, then down my thighs as she moves lower still, and I groan aloud as I realize what she’s planning to do.

It’s been so long since a woman’s mouth has been on my cock. I’m fully hard in an instant, throbbing with anticipation, and Zoey kneels between my legs as she wraps her hand around me, slowly stroking downward as she looks at my thick, ridged shaft.

For the first time, it occurs to me that I might be strange to her. I don’t know how Terran males are made, and I was so lost in desire that I didn’t think about whether or not I might not be what she expected. But now, as she runs her fingers over my length, teasing me with her touch, I realize that might be the case.

“Wow. These are different,” she whispers, confirming my suspicions. But she doesn’t look disgusted or frightened. She looks—fascinated. “I thought I felt them before, when you were…”

She bites her lip, her voice turning raspy as it trails off. Then she leans forward, dropping her head a little. Her warm breath teases my skin as she drags her tongue over one of the sensitive ridges that band my shaft from root to tip, and I clutch at the blanket, groaning with pleasure. Her soft tongue against my throbbing flesh feels so vrecking good, and she doesn’t stop there. She trails her tongue over each one, all the way up to the tip of my cock, which is already dripping with my own arousal, and then back down my length.

“You taste good,” she murmurs, her voice hoarse with desire.

“I’m glad you—think so,” I choke out. My cock pulses in her grasp, warning me that I’m already too close to the edge.

“These are different too,” she murmurs, rubbing her thumb over the small nodes embedded in my skin all around the edge of my crown. “Are they meant to do anything special?”

She raises her eyebrows questioningly, and I open my mouth to respond just before she flicks her tongue over one of them.

“I… oh, vreck!” I curse aloud, my shaft twitching in her grasp as my hands clench into fists. I’m hovering on a knife’s edge, and her teasing examination isn’t making it any easier to hold off my release. I could so easily let go, spilling myself over her hand and mouth, and the thought of my seed on her full lips is almost enough to make me lose control completely.

“They… they’re more sensitive than the rest of me,” I gasp as she strokes me again, her lips hovering close to my tip.

“And these?” She runs her fingers over the ridges along my length.

Vreck. My cock throbs again, and I can feel every muscle in my body tensing.

“Yes,” I whisper. “Those are more sensitive too. Like the little node above your core that brings you pleasure.”

“My clit,” she whispers, and the part of my brain that can still think stores that information away. “So it must feel good when I do this?”

As she speaks, she wraps her lips around me, sliding them down so that she draws my length into her mouth. I can feel her straining a bit to accommodate my girth, and the feeling of her warm mouth enveloping me makes my stomach clench, my balls drawing up tight. Her tongue slides over the ridges on the underside of my shaft, and I curse aloud, reaching down to pull her off me.

If she doesn’t stop, I’m going to erupt in her mouth, and right now, I want more than that.

“Come here,” I rasp, pulling her up the length of my body and kissing her deeply before rolling her onto her back in one swift motion.

My hips settle between her thighs, and I bury my hands in the pillows and kiss her hard, thrusting into her at the same moment. Zoey cries out as I bottom out inside her, and we both move hungrily, desperately, finding a fast rhythm as I drive into her and she rises up to meet my strokes. Despite the fact that I just claimed her, it doesn’t take long before we both find our release. She shudders in my arms as she falls apart, and I follow her over the edge with a deep grunt.

When we’re both completely spent, I roll onto my side and pull her close, drawing the blanket up over us both as I cradle her close to me. She snuggles into my chest, her head pillowed on my shoulder as her eyes drift closed, and I feel a peace that I haven’t felt in years settle over me as I let her warmth sink into me.

Her curves fit against me perfectly, and I close my eyes, sleep dragging at me.

For the first time in five years, I know I’ll sleep well.

12 Zoey

I WAKE up in Dax’s arms the next morning. It only takes me a moment to become aware of my surroundings, and for a second, I just relish the solid heat of him wrapped around me, the way his warm breath tickles my ear, and the earthy scent of his skin. I’ve never spent the night with a man before, never woken up snuggled against someone, and it’s such a safe, secure feeling that I stay very still, not wanting to wake him.

Physically, I’m more than a little sore after everything we did last night, but emotionally, I feel incredible.

The entire night was life-altering. Not just the sex, which was amazing in and of itself, but finally making the connection with him that I’ve always felt was possible. I understand who he is now, why he did the things he did, and what’s made him into the man that I met down in the brig on The Oasis.

It all makes sense in this light.

The entire story is heartbreakingly sad, and although I could tell from the way he told it that he was afraid I’d reject him, it only made me care for him more. I know he still blames himself for what happened, that he thinks he ought to have been able to change it somehow or stop Syrus, but in my eyes, none of that is his fault.

His brother did something terrible, something that I certainly can’t wrap my head around, but Dax isn’t his brother’s keeper. He stood up for the man he believed his brother to be deep down by taking the blame, and it might have been unwise, but it just speaks to the kind of man that Dax is.

Someone who wants to believe the best of those he loves.

In a way, we have that in common. I’ve tried to believe the best of him since we met, and even before I knew his full story, I cared for him. I’ve felt a pull toward him since the first time I stepped into the brig, and everything that’s happened since then has only intensified that.

I can’t even begin to imagine how he’s felt all these years, what he’s been living with down there, with so much time to think about it. No wonder he came up with the routine that he followed every day, trying to fill his hours with anything other than the questions that must’ve plagued him constantly.

Dax groans softly in his sleep, rolling onto his back, and I go with him, turning over onto my side to look at him.

He’s so handsome, by far the most gorgeous man I’ve ever seen. In his sleep, his skin has shifted to a soft pale green, and his sharp features have softened slightly. As my gaze trails over his face down to his broad, muscled chest, my mouth falls open on a gasp.

There’s a mark above his heart, in a deep brown so dark it’s almost black, curling in a vine-like pattern. I know it wasn’t there last night. Even as caught up in the moment as I was, I would have noticed it.

And I’ve lived among the Zivonians long enough to know what it is. It’s the soul mark.

Dax is my mate. He must be. There’s no other explanation for it.

Shock fills me, followed by a wild rush of joy so intense that it steals my breath away.

My mate. Of course he’s my mate.

Everything I’ve felt for him, all the ways I’ve been drawn to him, feel vindicated in this moment. I struggled to understand my feelings until now, but it’s clear—he was always meant to be mine, and I his. That’s why I ended up down in the brig where I had never wandered before, why I kept going back, and why I trusted him even when all evidence pointed to the fact that I shouldn’t. Why I couldn’t just let him leave.

It wasn’t just a gut feeling. It was my soul pulling me toward him.

Are you sure you’re ready for this? a quiet voice in my head whispers.

A tiny flicker of fear springs up as I look at the mark, trying to slow the racing of my pulse. This has all happened so fast, and I was always so careful with my heart back on Earth. I was so hesitant to date, to open myself up to the possibility of a relationship—but at the same time, that was because of the kinds of men I dated. They were wishy-washy and

noncommittal, wanting to play games and hop in and out of my bed instead of trying to form a real connection.

Dax might be many things, but he isn’t that.

As I think about everything I know about him, everything he’s done and told me and everything I’ve seen, that flicker of fear sputters and disappears.

The man lying beside me is stubborn, loyal, and determined. He’s nothing like the men I knew on Earth. He’s like no man I’ve ever met, human or alien. I’ve seen what he did to defend his brother even knowing that Syrus likely did something unforgivable, and I know without a doubt that he would do the same for me. I can see the dedication and loyalty in him, and I know that he’ll protect me in any way he can.

I feel safe with him in a way that I never have before. And I always have, even when all I knew about him was that he was a criminal, imprisoned for some mysterious wrongdoing.

Leaning over slowly, I brush my lips over the mark on his chest. I don’t want to resist this, and I know in my heart that I’m not going to. I’ve always believed there must have been a reason why I was abducted, why I wound up on The Oasis, why I’ve been living a life that’s so fantastically unbelievable.

This is it. Everything has led me here, to Dax, and I’m going to go forward with this in exactly the way that I have with everything else in my life—believing that it’s right, trusting my instincts.

Living my life to the fullest, no matter what.

Dax’s eyes flutter open, and as he stretches, it’s clear that he’s aroused just from the touch of my lips on his skin. His cock tents the blanket, and a hungry sound rumbles in his chest. An answering flare of desire rushes through me, and I lean over him, trailing my fingers through his dark hair as I kiss him softly. His lips feel so good beneath mine, fitting perfectly against my mouth, and I breathe him in like I’m trying to memorize his scent.

He smooths his hand over my hair, breaking the kiss for a moment, and his gaze flicks downward, drifting over my body. I can’t help but look at the soul mark again, and his attention follows mine. His body stiffens as he sees the vine-like pattern on his chest for the first time.

“Zoey…” He breathes my name, wonder in his voice. He looks up at me, heat in his gold-rimmed brown eyes, a dozen emotions written across

his features as he pulls me into his arms. “You know what this means?”

I can hear the faint tinge of worry in his voice, and I know why it’s there. He’s afraid that I might not know, that I’ll reject it once he tells me. But I have no intention of doing that.

“Yes.” I trace my fingers over his face, down the sharp line of his jaw. “It means we’re… right for each other. That in the entire universe, there’s no one who would be a better match for either of us. That’s it, isn’t it? What the mate bond means?”

“Yes.” His voice is husky with emotion. “It’s not a decree, not something that overrides free will. You can deny it, if you wish. I would never force you to—”

“I’m not denying anything.” I take his face between both of my hands, looking deeply into his eyes. “I always felt something for you, Dax, some connection that I didn’t understand. That’s why I kept coming back. Well, now I understand it. Now I know. Nothing has made me leave you so far, and it’s certainly not going to make me leave you now.”

My stomach drops a little as it occurs to me that maybe he doesn’t want a mate, that maybe this doesn’t fit into his plans. Maybe all he wanted last night was sex, not a lifelong commitment.

“What about you?” I bite my lip. “Is this what you want?”

He laughs, a sudden, startled sound. “Gods, yes. There’s nothing in the universe that I want more than you. I just—” He breaks off, his jaw tightening. “How can you want this? I’m an escaped criminal, a wanted fugitive, and I have no idea what will happen during this mission or after. I can’t promise you any future.”

“Dax.” I shake my head. “I almost died in that accident. Every moment after I walked out of the hospital has been a future that I very well might not have had, and I’ve tried to enjoy every second of it as much as I can. Because I know now how quickly it can be taken away. I don’t care about the future. I care about you, and us, and what this means. I care about our now, and making the most of it while we have each other. We’ll figure everything else out as it comes.”

“Vreck,” Dax says with feeling, something like awe passing over his face as he pulls me into his arms. “The universe could not have found me a more perfect woman.”

He rolls me onto my back, leaning over me as he caresses my hair away from my face, kissing my forehead and cheeks. He finally trails his mouth

over mine in soft, slow kisses that deepen by degrees until I feel like I could drown in him. His cock throbs insistently against me, and I’m expecting him to spread my legs open and slide into my core at any moment—but suddenly and without warning, Dax pulls away, sitting back on his heels as he looks down at me with a frown.

“What’s wrong?” I blink up at him, confused.

“I have to take you back to The Oasis,” he tells me, as if it’s just occurred to him. “My mission is too dangerous, Zoey. I can’t risk you. Not knowing that you’re…” He bares his teeth in a grimace. “Vreck. I should never have taken you off the ship in the first place. It was reckless and foolish. And now that I know you’re my mate, I have a responsibility to keep you safe. I have to get you back.”

There’s a tiny part of me that does want to be safe, and that knows that Dax might be better able to focus on his mission without worrying about me. But the larger part of me rebels against that idea of being parted from him, especially when there’s a chance that if we part, I might never see him again. I want every second that we can have together.

And if we go back…

“If we return to The Oasis, will the other Zivonians forgive you?” I ask quietly. “For any of it. For escaping, for taking me with you. If you try to tell them the truth, will they believe you?”

Dax is silent for a long moment, and I can see several emotions cross his face as he considers my question.

“I don’t think so,” he says finally, his voice heavy with regret. “I spent five years insisting to them that I was the one who betrayed them to the Kruul. I don’t think it will be that easy to make them believe it wasn’t me after all. And as for the rest?” He shakes his head, huffing out a breath. “I don’t think they’ll forgive any of it. But I still want to go back,” he adds. “I want you safe.”

I think of everything that I worried about in the moments before he woke up. Whether all of this is moving too fast, whether I’m giving away my heart too quickly. I reassured myself that Dax is loyal and determined, that he’s a good man, that this is right. And I see the evidence of it now in his insistence that he should risk himself and his mission, risk being thrown back into the brig and the actual truth of his story ignored, just to keep me safe.

But I can’t let him do it. He’s come this far. And selfishly, I want more time with him. If we return to The Oasis now, I’m terrified that he’ll be locked up again, and we’ll spend the rest of our lives with bars between us.

“No,” I tell him firmly, pushing myself up so that I’m sitting. “I don’t want to go back. I want to keep going with you, to Zivon.”

“It’s too dangerous.”

“We have to go,” I insist. “It’s not just about you clearing your name, Dax. I think you need closure for yourself too. You don’t know what happened to your brother after the attack, just that he didn’t make it off Zivon. You don’t even know if he’s alive or dead, and that’s always going to eat at you. You need to find those things out for yourself, not for anyone else. Just for your own peace. Maybe along the way, you can find some way to clear your name.” I pause, looking up into his dark, gold-ringed eyes. “Maybe it will help you forgive yourself for what you keep telling yourself are your failures, when they’re not. They never have been.”

Dax closes his eyes briefly, as if he’s struggling with something within himself. He’s silent for such a long time and I almost stop breathing as I wait in anticipation. Then, finally, he nods.

“All right,” he agrees. “We’ll keep going as planned.”

I smile at him, and he grins back, pushing me back into the pillows as his mouth comes down onto mine.

“I don’t deserve a mate as brave and kind as you,” he tells me quietly, moving between my legs again as I wrap my arms around his neck. “But I’m going to try. I’ll never stop trying.”

IT TAKES us several days of travel at hyper speed to reach Zivon. We spend a great deal of that time in bed, naked and hungry for each other, our need to touch and explore one another beyond the need for anything else.

It’s the most intense and incredible thing I’ve ever experienced. Dax is constantly turned on by me, even by the littlest things I do, and the second he kisses me, my body responds in the same way.

Thank goodness for AI controls, I think more than once after we spend several hours in bed, only emerging to stumble to the galley for some food before he lays me out on the table and claims me again.

Now that we’ve each admitted our feelings for the other, and now that we’ve seen confirmation of the bond in the soul mark on Dax’s chest, things have opened up between us. I’m getting to see a whole new side of Dax, a side of him that laughs easily, that can be tender and gentle and so sweet it takes my breath away.

The cold and caustic man from the cell is gone, replaced by a different man that I always knew—or at least, hoped—was in there. He’s more open with me now that he’s told me the truth, and now that we’ve both accepted that we’re mates, but I can tell that something is still holding him back. I’m glad he agreed to keep going on to Zivon and that I decided to go with him, because I think he really does need closure for himself, as well as to hopefully find some way to clear his name with the other Zivonians.

Without this, without finding out the truth, he’ll never really be able to leave the past behind.

On the fourth day after discovering the soul mark, we come out of hyper speed.

I’m in the cockpit with Dax when we move into the atmosphere of Zivon and it comes into view ahead of us. My breath catches as we draw closer and I can see the landscape—it truly does look like everything I’d heard, a burnt and destroyed planet with no vegetation in sight.

Just seeing it makes my heart ache for Dax and all the Zivonians. I can’t imagine going back to Earth and seeing it like this, everything that I’d ever known or seen destroyed and burnt to nothingness.

I rest a hand on Dax’s shoulder as we draw closer, my heart in my throat. I can’t imagine what we’re going to find here, but I can only hope that it will make things better, and not worse.

13 Dax

MY HEART HURTS as Zivon comes into view and I get my first glimpse in five years of my planet, my home, the place that I once loved so much. I haven’t seen it since the night the Kruul attacked under the cover of darkness—I’ve never seen what was left when the sun came up the next day. All the vast, lush greenery that I remember is gone, destroyed by the weapons they used, and all that’s left is poisoned soil and burnt rocks.

I land the ship behind a large cluster of tall boulders to try to shield it at least partially from view, and Zoey follows me as we walk out into the rubble. There’s still nothing growing here, everything poisoned from the strange fire that they used, which clung to everything and couldn’t be doused. The buildings are ash, a few pieces still standing here and there, but there’s nothing but black and gray as far as the eye can see. When a warm breeze blows up around us, dust and ash swirl in the air, and I can’t help but think that I’m breathing in the remnants of our people and our homes, the bones and wood that have been reduced to this.

Zoey slips her hand into mine, lacing her fingers through my grip, and it helps. The warmth of her skin and the contact of her palm pressing against mine helps to ground me, keeping me from slipping too far back into the past and the horror of it. I can feel her empathy, the sorrow that she feels even though none of this was ever hers, and I draw strength from that too.

I’ve never been as grateful for the link that binds us as I am now. Her delicate hand in mine reminds me that I’m not alone anymore.

I memorized the coordinates of the meeting spot where Syrus wanted me to go the night of the attack, and Zoey and I slowly make our way

across the landscape toward it. It’s a long walk, but my mate keeps pace with me gamely, and it means more to me than I can say.

When we arrive in the designated place, I come to a stop, my stomach twisting.

Did I remember the coordinates wrong? Have I kept the wrong numbers in my head all these years?

There doesn’t seem to be anything here, nothing but the same gray soil and ashy air and burnt rocks. My gut clenches with disappointment, my heart aching. I don’t know what I expected—my brother certainly hasn’t been waiting here for me in this spot for five years—but I hoped to find something. I hoped for something that could lead me to the promise of answers, but in the end, I’m not sure why I thought there might be anything left.

“Dax!” Zoey’s voice cuts through my grim thoughts, and I turn toward where she’s standing. “Look!”

I walk toward her, peering at the dusty ground. There’s a strange, deep hole in the ground, large enough for even someone of my size to walk into. A part of me knows that it’s a bad idea to just go exploring underground. The opening could cave in, or it’s possible that some dangerous creature on Zivon might have survived the Kruul’s fire.

But even so, I can’t stifle my desire to know what might be down there. Surely there’s a reason why Syrus chose this spot, the exact same place where this odd cave happens to be.

“Come on,” Zoey says, her eyes bright and curious. “We have to go down there, right? Maybe there’s something your brother wanted you to find.”

Of course. My Zoey, always so quick to hope for the best, always the light even in the most grim of places, and always ready for an adventure. My heart squeezes in my chest. I’m desperately afraid of anything happening to her, but at the same time, I’m glad to have her by my side. I’m stronger for it.

“All right,” I say, peering down. “Let’s go.”

I’d brought a small light with me from the ship, just in case we had to go into any old structures or walk back after dark, and I turn it on as we start to descend into the opening with me leading the way. Zoey sticks close by, and as we go deeper the narrow tunnel opens up into a wider cave with a crude doorway at the end of it. There are char marks on the wall, making it

clear that the fire the Kruul unleashed made its way down the passage we’re in, but I can’t tell if it spread all the way down the tunnel. I hope not.

“Careful,” I warn her, shining the light around the various crevices as we walk through the cave.

The Kruul might have eradicated almost all the life on this planet, but there were plenty of things that lived in the dark below ground before, and some of those creatures might have survived. None of them, large or small, are things that I would want to meet in the dark armed only with a small light and a blaster. Zoey has a knife strapped to her hip since I didn’t have time to teach her to shoot a blaster, but I hope she won’t have to use it.

As we walk through the doorway and into the small room beyond it, my throat tightens, my skin prickling.

This is where Syrus wanted to meet, I realize. Not up above ground, but down here.

And just as I hoped, the fire didn’t make it all the way into the cave leading to this room, because although parts of the small space show the remnants of burn marks, some parts are relatively untouched. My pulse roars in my ears as I make my way toward the far wall, shining my light on a shelf that’s been carved into the rock. Stacks of paper rest upon it, some of them bound with leather to make rough notebooks. When I pick one up and open it, I recognize the handwriting immediately.

It belongs to Syrus.

Quickly, I flip through the pages, scanning the words that he’s written out. It takes me a few moments to piece together what I’m reading, but as I do, my jaw tightens, my mouth going dry.

So this is why he did what he did.

These journals are where Syrus kept meticulous notes of every day that passed since he was first approached by an envoy from the Kruul. They found him while he was hunting too near their territory one day and struck up a conversation. Then, slowly, over the course of many days, they told him lies that poisoned his mind.

“Zoey,” I whisper, motioning for her to come over to me.

“What?” She looks at me curiously, her face cast in shadow as she strides over to me from where she was examining an etching on the wall. “What did you find?”

“All of these are Syrus’s journals, and documents he gathered,” I say, showing her the book as I continue leafing through the pages. “The Kruul

won him over. They… they lied to him.” “He was tricked?”

“Yes. I think so.”

I can feel a small flicker of hope flaring inside me at the possibility that Syrus wasn’t a traitor—at least, not in the true sense of the word. He didn’t want to destroy our people. He thought that he was helping them.

“The Kruul convinced him that they weren’t out to hurt us, that they didn’t despise us for being ‘backward.’ They told him that they wanted to help us, to integrate their technology with our way of life in order to bring us greater prosperity, better means for hunting and raising crops, better medical care. They told him that it would be better if we joined together, that if we sacrificed a few of our traditions and let a little of our old reliance on nature go, they would make compromises as well. That if both groups did that, we could coexist, and it would be beneficial for everyone. He believed that we could integrate with one another, be one people again, like we were long ago before the Kruul split away.”

I take a deep breath, rubbing a hand across my mouth as I pick up another of the journals.

Reading through the handwritten passages confirms everything that I’ve begun to suspect. Syrus wasn’t trying to harm our people when he turned off the defense system. He did purposefully allow the Kruul to enter our territory, but he didn’t know they were going to attack. He thought that they wanted to unite our two disparate groups, to usher in an era when the Kruul and the Zivonians were joined once more.

“The Kruul convinced him that they were in the right,” I say quietly, setting the journal down at last. “That they wanted to make things better for both their people and ours—that there was something lacking for us, and they could help us if we would only let them.”

I fight back a wave of emotion, my throat tightening as I lay my hand on the small stack of books, the remnants of my brother’s confused and muddled thoughts. It breaks my heart to know that he was misled so badly. I wish he would have told me when the Kruul first approached him, so that I could have helped him see that they were only trying to use him.

“That’s awful,” Zoey murmurs, resting her hand on my arm. “I mean, it’s good that he wasn’t a willing party to the attack. But it’s so horrible that they used him as a pawn against his own people. That they turned his hope for the future against him. Against all of you.”

I nod, my heart aching.

I try to imagine Syrus willingly allowing the destruction that we just walked through above ground, and just as I couldn’t imagine it five years ago, I can’t now. My brother loved Zivon, just as I did. He loved our people. The proof of it is here. He never wanted to hurt anyone. He only thought that we were clinging too tightly to the old ways, that modernizing and accepting the Kruul’s advancements would make us better and more prosperous.

He didn’t realize that there’s more than one way to be wealthy, more than one way to live a full and rich life, that what we would have lost by allowing the Kruul’s machines and tech to sever our connection with the world around us wasn’t worth what we might have gained.

But he didn’t mean for all the death and destruction to happen. It doesn’t lessen his responsibility… but at least now I know why he did what he did.

“He was wrong, but he was still my brother,” I say softly. Then I curse, shaking my head. “Gods, Syrus, why couldn’t you have talked to me about this earlier? I could’ve helped you see past their lies.”

Turning the pages slowly, I read several more passages, confirming that my suspicions about what happened are true. It’s difficult to read what amount to my brother’s last words, especially knowing that whether he meant to or not, he was responsible for so much death. I think I’ll always have complicated feelings about him, but Zoey was right. I do feel better knowing the truth of what happened.

When I finally put the book down, Zoey and I start to poke around the room, looking for anything else that Syrus might have left behind. Some of what he left has been burned, or so blackened from the smoke that made its way down into the cave that it’s unreadable, but there are some documents left and what look like two small chests that were left unharmed.

I start to move toward the chests, curious what might be in them, but before I make it more than two strides, my ears prick as I hear a sound from the corridor.

Falling rocks. Footsteps.

Vreck.

I freeze in place, my heart lurching. There’s no one on this planet besides us—and the Kruul.

14 Zoey

DAX SUDDENLY GOES STIFF, freezing like a statue mid-stride. His nostrils flare as his skin suddenly shifts color, changing from the grassy green that it shifted to when he was reading his brother’s journals to a deep forest shade, so dark that it’s nearly black.

The light that he brought down here isn’t all that bright, and it’s almost as if he disappears entirely as his skin changes color, blending with the darkness of our surroundings. Fear makes goose bumps pop out all over my body, and I start to ask him what’s going on when I hear the same thing he must’ve just picked up.

There’s someone coming through the cave toward us.

Oh, shit. Oh, no.

I whirl toward the door, my hand going to the hilt of the small knife Dax insisted I wear. The big Zivonian draws his blade from where it’s sheathed at his hip as several shadowy figures stride into the room.

The Kruul.

My heart crashes against my ribs, my hand shaking with fear. I know it’s them. I remember what they look like from when they attacked The Oasis.

It’s so strange to me how similar they are to the Zivonians in so many ways. Their build is similar, and they have grooved markings on their faces as well, running over the bridges of their noses and cheeks instead of curving down the sides of their temples. Their irises are a single color instead of two-toned, and I’ve never seen them change their skin color, even in the heat of battle. I’m not even sure if they can.

But fundamentally, they’re much the same as the Zivonians. It’s not hard to believe that they were once part of the same people, and it makes it that much sadder that they’ve had so much conflict and death since then.

For a moment, we all freeze.

There are several of the Kruul—maybe six or seven of them, all armed

—and only two of us. They’re armed with blasters, and I don’t know how the hell we’ll stand a chance of fighting them all.

Dax must do the same mental calculation I do and come to the same conclusion, because instead of waiting for them to attack us, he throws himself at them, his blade moving like lightning as he barrels through their ranks. It only takes me a second to realize what he’s trying to do.

He’s trying to clear a path.

My feet start moving before I even finish the thought, my arms pumping as I race after the big Zivonian. The Kruul fall back a bit, injured and clearly taken off guard by his wild rush, and he takes advantage of that to push all the way through them, grabbing my hand and tugging me after him as we burst out of the small room.

Dax and I sprint through the cave, racing headlong for the entrance and the bright spot of ashy sunlight as we gasp for breath.

“Come on!” he shouts, putting on a burst of speed as we emerge from the tunnel. I pivot on the balls of my feet, ready to run flat-out all the way back to our ship if we have to—

But then Dax skids to a stop.

I almost crash into him, and when I look up, my heart stutters in my chest.

The Kruul who found us in the cave weren’t alone.

There are more of them, nearly a dozen gathered around the tunnel’s entrance, forming a semi-circle and blocking off almost all means of escape except for going back down. Except we can’t do that either, because the Kruul who were below are coming up now as well, filling the mouth of the entrance so that there’s no retreat.

Dammit. That’s why they didn’t try too hard to stop us, I realize with a sinking heart. They knew we were going to run straight into the rest of their party. We were fucking herded.

My heart is racing so hard that I feel like I might pass out, and an unpleasant coppery taste sits on the back of my tongue. Dax is glancing around wild-eyed, clearly gauging our situation and trying to find some way

out. He’s drawn his second weapon, and both of his wickedly sharp blades flash in the light. But there’s no way it will be enough.

The Kruul have blasters and larger guns that look as if they’re powered by some kind of electric charge that runs through a crystal mounted on the top—tech beyond what the Zivonians have. Dax’s blades and my knife aren’t going to win this fight, I’m almost certain of it, no matter how fierce of a warrior he is. The only thing I could see tilting the fight in our favor is the sheer rage in Dax’s body. I feel like he might explode and incinerate every single one of them with it if they tried to so much as touch him… or me.

“Lay down your weapons!” The Kruul warrior at the front calls out to Dax, hefting his blaster. He doesn’t aim it at us, not yet, but I can feel the tension crackling in the air. Someone is going to attack first, and then it’s going to be a firestorm.

The air feels as if it’s rippling, the tension stretched to the breaking point, and then…

It snaps.

Just like he did in the cave, Dax leaps into motion like a striking snake, rushing forward as he shouts, “Zoey, follow me!”

He lunges toward the Kruul who are directly in front of us, striking out with his blades as he reaches them. I know he’s hoping that he can plow through them again the way we did before, get free and make a dash for the ship, but there are too many of them this time. And they won’t fall for the same maneuver twice.

One of his weapons is knocked out of his hand, and he swings with his fist instead, knocking out a few Kruul and opening a deep gash on another one’s shoulder.

But there are still more of them, in front of and behind us, surrounding us. We’re too badly outnumbered.

For some reason, though, none of them have fired their blasters at us. They’re fending off Dax’s attacks, but they haven’t used their most deadly weapons yet. They don’t seem to want to kill us, and my stomach knots with terror because I know the likely explanation for that. They want to take us alive—and whatever they have planned next is probably worse than death. Especially if they want some kind of answers from us, answers that we can’t or won’t give.

Several of our attackers form a tight knot and surge forward, grappling with Dax until they manage to restrain him a little. One of the Kruul lifts a rectangular metal device that I don’t recognize, thrusting it toward Dax’s face before depressing a button. A fine mist sprays out into the air, enveloping Dax in bursts as the warrior hits the button several more times, and I realize with horror that they’re drugging him. He grunts, his shoulders slumping as he staggers forward.

“Dax!”

I scream his name as hands grab me from behind. The tall Zivonian is still struggling, still trying to fight through the looming unconsciousness, but it’s a losing battle. The mist is sprayed into my face too, filling my nostrils with a sharp, bitter scent. My vision narrows as Dax’s movements slow, and the last thing I see is him toppling forward and hitting the ground with a heavy thud.

Then everything around me goes black.

15 Dax

I COME BACK to consciousness gradually at first, and then all at once as the memory of what happened comes rushing back in. I sit up, pushing myself upright as I blink rapidly, still groggy from the drugs that they sprayed into my face.

Someone shifts next to me, and I look over to see Zoey lying next to me, a little pale but still in one piece, and still unconscious. The room we’re in is mostly bare except for the bed that we’re laid out on and a small side table. It’s also windowless, giving me no real clue as to where we might be

—although I’m fairly certain we’re still on Zivon.

The door opens, and I stiffen immediately as several of the Kruul walk in. They’re all dressed the same, in standard-issue black pants and white tunic-style shirts with the sleeves rolled up, not far off from what we wear on The Oasis. But to my surprise, they aren’t armed, and they look remarkably calm.

“Good morning,” the taller one in front says, dipping his head in greeting.

He has short black hair and a squared jaw, the grooves running over his nose and cheeks giving his face odd proportions. His irises are a single color instead of two-toned like mine, a very pale blue, and from the way the others quietly stand behind him, I’m guessing he’s in charge in some way. He was the one who ordered me and Zoey to drop our weapons right before we tried to make a break for it.

“What do you want with us?” I growl, ignoring his pleasant words. “I’m Ralke, the leader of this division. What is your name?”

“Dax,” I bite out. I can’t see any reason not to tell him the truth.

Ralke nods. “I’m sorry for having to drug you and the woman, Dax. But we wanted to be able to bring you in without bloodshed on either side. We don’t wish to harm either of you.”

I narrow my eyes. I don’t believe any of that, and I’m not about to be drawn in by Kruul lies like my brother was.

Grunting, I cross my arms. “We’re enemies. And you want me to believe that you don’t have anything planned for either myself or—Zoey?”

I almost call her my mate but think better of it at the last moment. I don’t want to give them any more ammunition against us, any way to use us against each other.

“None of my men did any harm to either of you,” the man named Ralke points out. “Even though you attacked several of them and left some serious wounds on a few. If we wanted you hurt or dead, we certainly could have done it. You were well outnumbered.”

What he’s saying is true, and it makes me pause. It is strange that they didn’t make any attempt to hurt us. They didn’t even restrain us forcefully or take us prisoner all that roughly. We were just drugged. That fact in and of itself doesn’t mean all that much. The Kruul have liked to think that they’re better than us for a long time, using technology to wage war instead of cruder, older means. A drugging mist instead of fists is right in line with something they would do.

But neither of us has been harmed so far, and there must be a reason for that.

What is it, though?

“We were surprised to see any Zivonians back here at all,” Ralke says calmly. “We assumed that they were all gone or dead. Not even very many Kruul remain here. Most have left the planet and are scattered across the universe. Only a small number of us remain here, and none of us were involved in the attack on your people.” He grimaces. “The attack did more than just wipe out the Zivonians. The fire spread further than they meant for it to, and everything became less habitable. Not just the ground—plants won’t grow here at all anymore—but the ash from it all suffocated the flying creatures and poisoned the water supply.”

My hands curl into fists unconsciously, my jaw clenching as I hear him describe the destruction and ruin of this once beautiful and vibrant planet. Ralke doesn’t miss it, his gaze dropping to my tight fists before rising to

meet my eyes once more. He nods, something like sorrow passing over his features.

“We’re able to filter it well enough to drink, but no animals can drink from it, and nothing swims in it any longer. Once that water flowed down to our part of the planet, and the air currents brought the ash further, it started to do the same to the areas where we lived. Our crops and livestock outside of the city died, and our people started getting sick from the air.”

“Couldn’t you just have fashioned some kind of tech to make it livable?” I ask, gritting my teeth. “Some kind of suits you could wear, or something? I don’t know.”

“We’ve tried. But every solution we’ve attempted to implement has failed to make Zivon truly livable,” Ralke points out. “We tried to come up with all sorts of ideas for how to combat the poison in the ground, but in the end, leaving the planet was a preferable option for most of my brethren.”

“At least the Kruul were still alive to move elsewhere,” I spit out, my entire body tense.

“Some of your kind are still alive too, from what I hear,” Ralke says evenly. Then he holds up his hands in a gesture of peace. “As I said, my men had nothing to do with that attack, and we’ve wanted no part in hunting your people. Most of the Kruul have moved on, leaving Zivon behind to rot, but we don’t want to. This is our home, and we want to rehabilitate it. We want to fix Zivon and make it livable again. Not just livable, but a place where we can thrive. We don’t want to leave.”

Strangely, those last words resonate with me. I don’t want to trust this man—all I can think of is that by trusting him, I would be repeating Syrus’s mistakes—but what he’s saying surprises me. I expected Ralke to be seeking more revenge, maybe for the Kruul we killed in the last battle on The Oasis, or for him to have other plans for us, perhaps torturing us for information as to where the rest of the Zivonians are.

I never expected him to be interested in the restoration of the planet. “You can’t think that I’m going to trust you,” I say tightly. “The Kruul

have been continuously trying to hunt down what remains of my people ever since the attack. We only recently fended off yet another attack on our ship.”

“We’re not involved in that in any way,” Ralke insists. “We have nothing to do with any continuing hunts for the remaining Zivonians.”

“What about my brother?” I ask, narrowing my eyes. “There was a Zivonian named Syrus who helped your people bypass our defense measures and attack us. Is he still here? Is he helping you?”

The Kruul leader furrows his brows, thinking for a moment before answering. “I never knew him personally, but I know of him. Your brother has been gone for some time. He left the planet shortly after the attack, from what I’ve heard. The Kruul have had no contact with him for several years.”

I frown. “I still don’t have any reason to trust you,” I point out. “Your people have never given mine any reason to believe that you have our best interests at heart, despite the lies you convinced Syrus to believe.”

“As I’ve said, I had no part in any of that. But… you’re right.” Ralke nods, dropping his head slightly. “I regret that those among us with hate in our hearts gave you reason to distrust us, and I cannot deny that you have many reasons not to believe me now. So, if you’ll allow me, I’ll show you. Come with me, and I’ll show you what’s left of us here.”

He steps back, giving me plenty of space to get up, and I climb out of bed warily. They didn’t bind Zoey or me in any way, or restrict our movement at all. I’m not even certain whether the door was locked, and that makes me feel slightly less wary of the whole situation.

Zoey is awake now too, having sat up and propped her back against the wall, and she’s watching the entire exchange with wide eyes.

The sight of her gives me pause. There are a number of Kruul in the room, over ten of them by my quick count, and I know that even if we try to fight our way out, there’s a good chance we won’t win. Our weapons were taken, and if I try to get us out of here bare-handed, we might wind up drugged again… or worse. Ralke claims that there aren’t many Kruul here, but if he’s lying, we might rush out into an entire compound full of them.

And whatever might happen to me, the same could happen to Zoey. I won’t risk her if I don’t have to.

“All right. Show me,” I tell the Kruul leader flatly, not bothering to hide my reluctance. I’ll play along for now, to try to keep Zoey as safe as I can. But I’m not inclined to buy into whatever they’re trying to sell me on.

Ralke smiles, and although it seems genuine, I don’t trust it. Zoey climbs off the bed as well and walks next to me as we follow Ralke out into the corridor, the group of Kruul warriors bringing up the rear.

As we walk through the compound, it quickly becomes apparent that he was telling the truth about some things, at least. The compound itself is huge, as if it once housed a great many Kruul and their families, but it now feels barren and empty. It feels like a Kruul place, too. The walls are cold and stark, everything bare and run by various technology, without anything green or flowering. There are holograms and sensors and pieces of tech everywhere, but nothing natural. It makes me feel uncomfortable, as if my bones hurt just being inside this place.

Ralke takes us all the way down to the far end of the compound, where a greenhouse was erected at some point. It’s full of dead or dying plants, and rows of seeds that appear to have never even sprouted.

“We’ve been trying to grow starters in here,” Ralke explains, “both native plants to re-introduce into the wild, as well as new species, but none of it is working. We don’t have the same affinity with nature that you do, and we’ve never been good at growing or cultivating anything. The crops that we used to grow and the livestock we raised outside the city to supplement the food that we had shipped in were all genetically modified to be easy to cultivate.”

He pauses, turning toward me as he continues. “Every time we try to plant anything outside, or transplant anything that starts to grow in here, it won’t grow or dies. The soil is poisoned, and even if our artificial growth methods work in here, once we try to transfer it outdoors, it fails. We can’t figure out how to undo what’s been done to the soil.”

I say nothing as he speaks, trying to wrestle my emotions under control. It’s hard to feel any empathy for Ralke and the others when it was the Kruul who poisoned the planet in the first place and killed so many of my own people.

They destroyed it, and now this man is complaining that it can’t be fixed.

But if what Ralke is saying is true, then he and the warriors left with him didn’t take any part in that destruction. If what he’s saying is true, they’re here because they feel that this place is their home too, the place where they were raised and spent their lives, and they want it to flourish again. It’s hard to argue with that when for so many years, all I’ve wished for is that somehow what happened to Zivon could be undone. I can recall vividly what I felt when Zoey and I walked off the ship and I laid eyes on

the ruins of my home for the first time in five years. I would have done anything to fix it.

“We’re worried that we won’t be able to succeed at all,” Ralke says simply, a note of pain in his voice. “That we’ll never be able to rehabilitate the planet.”

The words hang in the air between us, and I don’t know what to say. There’s an unspoken question there, and I don’t have any idea what my answer should be.

But I do know one thing for certain—he’s going to have to ask it out loud.

16 Zoey

I STAY VERY quiet as Dax and Ralke discuss the state of the planet and Ralke shows him the failed plants in the greenhouse. The entire greenhouse compound feels like a failure, honestly, something out of place in this world. It’s clear that this place wasn’t meant for what the Kruul wanted to make out of it.

But as Dax listens to the man with ice-blue eyes, I can see the surprise in his face. I feel it in myself too, and it throws me off balance.

I don’t know that much about the Kruul, just what I learned from the Zivonians, but from what I do know, it seems strange that they’d be so committed to restoring the planet. Everything I’ve heard about them is that they’re bent on destruction, that they have no love or respect for nature, and that they want to wipe every trace of the Zivonians and what they loved from Zivon.

Ralke doesn’t seem to want that at all, though. He sounds as if he loves this planet, as if he wants to stay here and make it beautiful again, or at least livable. He keeps referring to it as his home, and it must mean something to him if he and the others stayed back when the rest of their people moved on to other places.

I think of how Dax took responsibility for what Syrus did, how he shouldered all the burden of his brother’s crime despite having no culpability, and it makes me wonder if these remaining Kruul have just been painted with the same broad brush as the other destructive ones, seen as monsters just for being the same species even though they had nothing to do with the attack.

Ralke leads us out of the greenhouse after a while, giving us a brief tour of the rest of the small city that the Kruul have tried to establish here. I can tell it used to be something nice for what it was, probably a fairly decent place to live, but now it’s empty and rundown. It reminds me of something from a dystopian movie or video game back home, with shops and places to eat that were probably once bustling now empty, with fracturing walls and cloudy windows. The walkways are cracked in places, and everything that was abandoned is covered in a thin, dusty film of ash.

“You must be hungry,” Ralke says as he brings us back into the inner part of the compound. “Can I offer you a meal? We don’t have a great deal. All we have are prepackaged rations at this point, but they’re nourishing, at least.”

“Fine,” Dax grunts.

We follow Ralke into a sterile-looking white-walled room with several gleaming dispensers along one wall with display screens for choosing your meal. There are white tables and black chairs lined up throughout the room, and the entire thing is so clinical and bland that it makes me miss The Oasis. Hell, it even makes me miss the tiny ship that Dax and I flew here on.

It’s strange, but in the weeks that I’ve been on The Oasis, I’ve come to think of it as home. And for the first time, I’m homesick for it.

It makes me wonder if Ralke feels that way about Zivon—if he’s homesick for the planet he used to know, and not the apocalyptic hellscape that his people turned it into. If he feels that way, no wonder he wants so badly to rehabilitate it. I try to think of what I would feel like if I went back to my hometown on Earth and saw it razed like this.

I’d be horrified, of course. If I could fix it, I would want to. And I think maybe Ralke feels the same way.

Still, just like Dax, I’m skeptical. I’ve heard too many terrible things about the Kruul to just take them at their word.

And Dax is still clearly suspicious of them in general. He chooses the same foods that they do, and I follow suit, both of us waiting until they’ve started eating to take bites of our own meals, just in case there’s any chance of them poisoning or drugging us again somehow. But nothing seems to be amiss.

Partway through the meal, Ralke stops eating, looking across the table at Dax.

“I think you probably knew this was coming,” he says slowly. “But I have a request for you, and I’d like you to think about it, before you answer. I’d like your help rehabilitating the planet.”

Dax says nothing, and Ralke pushes forward, speaking hurriedly. “I know that the Zivonians have always been better with plants and nature than any of us could ever hope to be. The attack on your people was a mistake, Dax, a tragedy that we had no part in. And it poisoned the planet. Without the good stewards of nature to keep Zivon thriving, our world has no chance of returning to what it once was. I need your help to make the planet live again.”

I can see the yearning in Dax’s eyes as Ralke speaks, even though I know he’s reluctant to believe anything coming out of the other man’s mouth. I’m certain that he wants to fix Zivon more than anything, to bring it back to life, to be among the nature that he loved so much again.

“I need to think about it,” Dax says gruffly, his voice tense. “I can’t give you an answer tonight.”

“That’s fine.” Ralke nods. “I expected you would need some time.”

The understanding and quick acceptance in his voice makes me wonder if he really is sincere. I know Dax is worried that he’ll be taken in like Syrus was, and I’m afraid of it too. But Ralke seems to mean what he says. And everything he does reinforces it, like not insisting that Dax answer him now, and the polite way he shows us to our room after the meal.

“Have a good night,” the Kruul leader says, inclining his head slightly before turning on one heel and striding back down the corridor, leaving us to walk inside.

The room is much nicer than the one we woke up in. This one is still a windowless interior room, but the bed is bigger and made up with thicker bedding, and there’s a rug on the floor woven of some natural fibers, and a dresser, side table, and lamp, as well as a woven tapestry on one wall.

Dax narrows his eyes, studying the furnishings. They’re all made of wood and natural fibers, and I can see the wheels turning in his head as he looks at them.

“This room has been made to feel comfortable for a Zivonian,” he says finally. “That rug and tapestry were probably fished out of what was left of someone’s home, or based on designs that my people used to use for weaving. He’s trying to remind me of what this place once was.”

“We’re not locked in here, at least,” I murmur, sitting on the edge of the bed. “That’s a relief. He doesn’t seem to want to keep us prisoner, or hurt us. It seems like he was telling the truth about that.”

“But is he telling the truth about the rest of it?” Dax frowns, sitting next to me and gripping the edge of the mattress as he stares ahead. “He claims he had no part in the attack, but I can’t know if that’s true. I hardly know every Kruul who was involved in the planning and execution of their attempted genocide.” His fists clench, digging into the blankets. “Being here brings it all back. The fire, the screams, the burning. They destroyed this planet, Zoey. They killed all but a hundred of my people. And now they want my help? They want to say this is their home too, and ask me to help heal it for them? What right—”

“They don’t have any right,” I say quietly. “But I think, from the way Ralke behaved today, that maybe he knows that. He shouldn’t ask you to help him fix something that his people destroyed and took from yours. That’s not fair. But maybe he doesn’t know where else to turn.”

“Even if he is telling the truth, he’s still Kruul,” Dax mutters.

“But maybe he’s not the same as the others,” I point out. “Remember how it felt to be treated as if you did something that you actually had no part in? To be punished for it? Maybe not all of them are the same. Maybe the others left because they truly didn’t care about this planet, they only wanted to destroy it and your people. Ralke and the others stayed because they disagreed, I think. They didn’t want any part of colonizing and taking over a new planet from some other people.”

“Maybe.” Dax frowns, his jaw working as he thinks. I can see him processing all of it, trying to decide. “I don’t know what to do,” he confesses. “I don’t know what the right thing is. I love this planet, and I want to heal it. I want Zivon to live again. But helping the Kruul…”

“I know.” I gently rub his back, trying to soothe him. “Whatever you choose, Dax, I’m with you. No matter what. I’ll support you whichever choice you make. And I know that whatever you decide, it will be the right thing.”

His face transforms when I say that, the tension draining out of him as he leans toward me. I lean into his arms without a thought as he pulls me close to him, and he captures my lips with his. His hand slides over the tight curls of my hair as his tongue tangles with mine, his entire body relaxing against me as he pulls me onto his lap.

“I’m so glad I found you,” he murmurs, his hands everywhere as his lips hover over mine. He strokes my hair, my face, and my arms, as if he can’t get enough of touching me. His fingers trace the lines of my scars as if he’s trying to memorize every one of them. “I’m so glad you’re here with me, that fate brought us together. I’m so vrecking lucky.”

He kisses me again, groaning as he lifts me up, laying me back against the pillows and stretching along the length of my body. The kiss feels deeper than it ever has before, more emotional, and I can feel the connection between us almost as if it’s a palpable thing.

Dax presses his forehead to mine, kissing me slowly as his hands slide down my body.

“You feel so good,” he whispers. The weight of his body on top of mine is sweet and delicious as I wrap my arms around his neck and kiss him back, arching into him.

“So do you,” I murmur against his lips.

And I mean it. Nothing has ever felt as good as Dax’s huge, muscular body atop mine, the sweep of his hands over my skin and his lips against my mouth, the thick ridge of his cock pressing into my thigh. I can feel the heat of it against my skin even through the layers of fabric between us, and suddenly, I feel like we’re both wearing too many clothes. All I want is to have us both naked, to feel his skin on mine with no barrier and nothing to stop us from being one.

I love him.

In this moment, I know it, even if neither of us have said the words yet. I know it’s fast, and that I’m falling harder and more quickly than I ever imagined I could, but everything that’s happened to me since I was abducted has been incredible and almost unbelievable. My life has become strange and wild and wonderful, and I don’t want to fight it. I know that Dax lives a dangerous life, that space itself is dangerous—even more so for the Zivonians, who are a hunted people.

But I would rather endure heartbreak later, if something were to ever happen to him, than not have him at all. And if there’s one thing I’m not worried about, it’s Dax being the one to break my heart.

Because I know without a doubt that this man would never hurt me. I trust myself with him, completely.

Every part of me, the whole parts and the scars.

I try to pour those feelings into the kiss as I wrap myself around him, letting him feel those emotions through the pressure of my lips.

“Gods, Zoey. I want to see every part of you,” Dax groans, pulling back and sinking onto his heels as he reaches for the tie of my shirt.

The fabric is wrapped around my body, dipping down to show my cleavage and leaving my stomach bare, and he runs his hand down the space between my breasts as he slowly pulls the tie free. His palm strokes over the soft skin of my belly as he begins to unwind the fabric deliberately, as if he’s unwrapping a gift that he both wants to savor and can’t wait to see.

“The curves of your body are the loveliest things I’ve ever seen,” he murmurs. “So soft. So perfect.”

No one has ever made me feel so beautiful. With him, I don’t even think about my scars. To Dax, they’re just a mark of battles fought and won, making me a warrior like him, just from a different kind of war. They’re beautiful to him, something to be proud of, and he’s told me as much. When he looks at me, when he kisses his way down my body, his lips tracing past the scars, I don’t feel self-conscious or shy.

I just feel beautiful.

“Vreck,” Dax groans as he pulls the shirt free and tosses it aside to the floor, leaving me bare from the waist up, my full breasts exposed to his gaze. “It’s like you were made for me, and me alone. You’re everything I desire.”

He bends his head, massaging one breast in his hand as he trails his tongue over my stiffening nipple, and I cry out, tangling my hands in his long black hair as I arch upward against him.

“Shit, that feels so good,” I whisper, writhing a little as he squeezes my other breast.

He sucks and bites lightly at my nipples as he goes from one to the other, chuckling deep in his throat at my reaction.

“I’m glad. I want to make you feel good.” Dax’s voice is a deep rumble as he leans up to kiss my throat. “That’s all I want in the entire universe. I want to make you come over and over again, with my name on your lips when you do.”

He leans back again, stripping off his own shirt quickly. My eyes lock on the expanse of his muscled chest, and I lick my lips without thinking as

my gaze drifts down his chest and carved abdomen, down to the lines of muscle that lead into his trousers and the thick bulge of his cock.

“You like what you see?” Dax grins, that cocky half-smile that I love so much. It sends a shiver of lust through me every time I see it.

“God, yes,” I tell him fervently, not even bothering to act coy. “You’re so handsome, Dax. Sometimes I can’t even believe you’re real.” I lick my lips, my voice dropping to a soft whisper. “I want to see more. Please.”

“You first.”

The smile spreads across his face as he reaches for the waist of my pants, pulling them down over my hips slowly as his eyes trail over my body, feasting on what he sees there. The bulge in his pants grows as his cock stiffens even more, and it sends another wave of arousal flooding through me. I can feel how flushed and swollen my core is already, pulsing with need.

“I love your scent. So wet for me already.” Dax breathes in deeply as he tosses the rest of my clothing aside, spreading my thighs so that he can look at me as he undoes the fly of his own pants.

Slowly, he undoes the buttons, teasing me with the torturous pace. I’m completely exposed, spread open and bare to his view, but I don’t feel shy or embarrassed at all, despite how wet I am and the knowledge that he’s breathing in the scent of my desire—something that’s obviously turning him on even more. Instead, I feel beautiful, powerful, like a goddess being worshiped as Dax undoes the last button on his pants. His cock springs free, thick and hard and long. He reaches down and wraps one hand around himself, squeezing the base a little.

“See how much I want you?” he rasps deep in his throat, slowly running his hand up and down the length of his shaft as his dark, gold-rimmed gaze fixes on mine.

“Then take me, Dax. I’m yours.” I moan as his other hand skims down my body again, settling between my thighs and slowly teasing me there.

He strokes my outer folds until I squirm under his touch, desperate for more, wanting him to drive in deeper. I want more than just his fingers, truthfully. I want his cock. I want to feel him fill me with all of that thick hardness.

But at the same time, the teasing feels so good, like the sweetest torture. The look on Dax’s face is dark and hungry, his gaze riveted to the place between my legs. His fingers dip inside me briefly, stroking me there as his

thumb presses against my clit, slowly urging me higher and higher. I’m trembling from head to toe, my legs spread open wide for him as my hips arch upward into his hand.

“Oh god, Dax,” I whisper. “Please. Please, I need—”

I can’t finish the sentence. I can barely breathe as exquisite pleasure ripples through my body. All I want is for him to make me come on his hand or for him to thrust inside me—or both.

He knows my body well by now, well enough to be able to tell when I’m on the verge of climax. Just as I’m nearly there, he reaches down and grips my calf, swinging my leg over his shoulder as he lifts my hips up. I gasp, my body flooding with an almost electric anticipation as Dax angles his cock between my legs.

His eyes lock with mine as he kisses my ankle, then my calf, sliding his lips downward and sending another ripple of pleasure through me as the tip of his cock nudges between my folds.

“You’re so tight,” he murmurs. “Look down, Zoey. I want you to watch. I want you to see my cock sliding into you, how vrecking hard you make me.”

Biting my lip, I do as he says, whimpering as I watch him slowly impale me. I never knew anything could be this erotic, but watching Dax’s cock impale me turns me on more than I’d ever thought possible. My body stretches around him as his massive length slides into me inch by exquisite inch, his face tightening with pleasure as he groans, telling me how good it feels. I’m hovering on the verge of a powerful orgasm, my entire body strung tight, shuddering, waiting for the final spark that will ignite the inferno.

And then Dax gives it to me.

He draws back until only the tip of him is still inside me, then reaches down, finding my clit with the pad of his thumb as he thrusts into me all the way. The sudden intrusion, combined with the friction against my clit, sends me over the edge. I’m hit by a climax that nearly makes me scream, and I only just barely manage to muffle the sound.

What comes out of my mouth instead is a shuddering groan as my body explodes around him, clenching down on his cock as my hips buck upward. I claw at the blankets, and Dax keeps rolling his thumb against my clit, holding himself inside me, letting me writhe on his cock as I come harder than ever.

“That’s it,” he growls in a low voice. “So beautiful. Let go for me.”

This time, I’m less successful in muffling my noises, but I barely care who might hear me. Nothing matters except how fucking good this feels, how perfect it feels to be connected to Dax like this.

I’m still shaking with pleasure when he leans forward, pressing my thigh against my chest as he slides out. When he thrusts back in, it feels even deeper than before, deeper than he’s ever been, and I almost feel as if I can’t take it. It’s pleasure beyond anything I’ve experienced, and I can see on his face that it’s the same for him. His entire body shudders as he sinks into me again and again, and he groans.

“I’m going to come, my suvi. I can’t hold on.”

Just hearing his hoarse, desperate voice pushes me toward the peak again, and I squeeze my inner walls around him.

“Yes,” I moan, tangling my hands in his hair and kissing him hard, grinding against him as I gasp with pleasure. “Come for me, Dax. I want it. I want everything you can give me. Fill me up. Please!”

A half-groan, half-curse spills from his lips as he thrusts hard. He moans my name in the same instant that I cry out his, and my body clenches around him as he grinds down against my clit, sending me over the edge into a second climax.

His mouth is on mine, kissing me hard as he shudders and bucks against me, his muscles going taut as his cock throbs. I can feel the ridges along his shaft swelling as he starts to come, spilling his seed deeply into me in a hot rush.

“Oh gods, that’s so vrecking good,” Dax moans, thrusting two more times before he buries his face against my neck.

In this moment, it feels like every barrier between us has been stripped away. Even as his orgasm recedes, Dax doesn’t move, staying buried inside me as he nuzzles into the crook of my neck, breathing me in, and I wrap my arms and legs around him, making it clear I wouldn’t let him pull out right now even if he tried.

All I want is to stay like this, more connected than we’ve ever been before, bound together in a way that transcends anything I ever imagined love to be.

And no matter what tomorrow may bring, at least I know we’ll face it together.

17 Dax

I FINALLY PULL out of Zoey, drawing her tight into my arms as our breathing starts to even out and slow. With her small, soft body tucked against mine, I slip into a slumber deeper than I’ve had in days, wrung completely dry from the emotion of the day and what Zoey and I shared in bed.

And in my sleep, I dream more vividly than I have in a very long time, my brain recalling memories that I haven’t thought of in years.

I’m with Syrus, and we’re both younger. We’re outside on a starry night, sitting by the fire pit behind our small house, picking out the constellations and talking about women. Even though Syrus is two years younger than me, he’s already talking about a mate, wondering when it might happen for him. There’s a girl he has his eye on, but she’s told him she doesn’t want to get attached to anyone without the soul mark, not even just casually. She’s too afraid of getting her heart broken.

“Everyone says the mark is a good thing, that it shows you without a doubt who your match is, but I feel like I’d rather choose for myself,” he says with a sigh. “I don’t want to wait around for the universe to bring me my perfect match. I want to go find them.”

“You’re too intent on doing things your own way,” I tell him with a chuckle. “The universe is set up the way it is for a reason. You’ll find the perfect woman when it’s the right time, and then you’ll never wish it had been any other way.”

“Doesn’t that take away all my choice in the matter? If I’m just suddenly in love?”

“That’s not how it works. The bond just confirms the feelings. It doesn’t create them.”

“True. But what if I just want to have some fun?”

That friendly debate plays out in the dream just like it did in real life, Syrus teasingly telling me that I’m too much like our mother, who was set in the old ways, fiercely defensive of our traditions, and not enough like our father, who often questioned if we lived too much in the past as a people. It’s not a fight, though, more of a light-hearted argument, and after a while, the topic turns to other things.

But then the scenery around me fades out, wavering like a bad connection over a data pad.

Suddenly, I’m in a strange, empty cave like the one that Zoey and I found.

My brother is in the cave too, but he’s hazy, as if even my sleeping self knows that this isn’t a real memory. It’s only a guess at what might’ve happened, my unconscious mind’s best attempt to understand the decisions Syrus made, and how he reached that point.

With the wavering vision of Syrus standing by my side, I watch our father meet secretly with the Kruul, looking at their plans for how to technologically advance our society and slowly falling for their lies that their occupation of our territory would make our part of the planet a better place. I see him becoming a different man than the one I once knew and admired and respected.

Is this why he behaved so strangely in his last days? Why he didn’t attend our rituals and was uncharacteristically rude to our elders?

The setting wavers again, and now I see Syrus on the night of the attack. He slips into the command center during his shift and disables the alarm systems, whispering to himself that it’s the right thing, that he’s giving us the chance for a better life, a way to move into the modern world.

As he goes to flip the last switch, he looks over his shoulder—and even though deep down, I know this is a dream, that none of it is real, it feels like he’s looking right at me.

“Syrus, no! Stop!”

I shout at him, trying to warn him that it’s all a lie. To make him see that he shouldn’t trust them, that thousands of our people will die because of what he’s about to do. But even though I scream until my throat feels raw, my words never reach him.

I’m screaming into a void, and Syrus can’t hear my silent warning. Then the attack begins, and I know it’s too late.

I sit upright in bed, jerking awake with a sudden start. The remnants of the dream still float through my head, making my heart pound unevenly as I try to get my breathing under control. Although there are no windows in the room, my internal sense of time tells me that it’s likely very early in the morning. Zoey is still asleep next to me, her dark lashes brushing her cheeks, and I take a few more deep breaths, my mind racing as I try to process the dream.

I can’t trust the Kruul. Not even these.

That’s the thought that I keep coming back to, an instinctive, gut feeling that I can’t shake. Ralke and his men might claim that they want to heal the planet, but deep down, I can’t bring myself to trust in it.

No matter what else happens, I will not repeat my brother’s mistakes.

These people can’t be trusted. They’ve proven themselves capable of lying and manipulating before. Whatever they’re trying to do here, even if they are trying to revive Zivon, I want no part of it.

I had a strange, unsettled feeling in my chest the night that Syrus disabled the alarms, and I ignored it, brushing it off without thinking much of it. I had no way of knowing what was coming then, but now I can easily see how this could go wrong. Even if the Kruul are telling the truth, I can’t risk it. Ralke made it sound like he only wants what’s best for Zivon—but they’ve said that before.

Gently, I shake Zoey’s shoulder. “Wake up, my suvi.”

She opens her eyes blearily, a small smile curving her lips when she sees my face.

“Is it morning?” she mumbles, rolling onto her back and stretching lightly. “It’s still so dark in here, I can’t tell what time it is.”

“No. Or rather, yes, but very early morning. We need to leave,” I tell her in a low voice, sliding out of bed. “Quickly, before Ralke and the others wake up.”

Zoey’s eyes widen as she hears the urgency of my tone. “Okay.”

She sits up immediately, the sleepiness vanishing from her face as she reaches for her clothes. It sends a flush of warmth through me to see how completely she trusts me. She really meant it last night when she said she was on my side no matter what. It’s been so long since I’ve had that, and I

didn’t realize how much I missed it—how lonely it was to have no one who trusted me in this way.

After dressing as quickly and quietly as we can, we slip from the room, heading quickly out into the corridor. The compound is silent and still, and I’m reasonably sure that no one is awake. From what I’ve seen, they don’t seem to keep a night guard around the compound, probably because there’s no one else left on the planet to bother them.

We manage to get to the outer edge of the compound without being seen or heard, sneaking along the walls and moving as quietly as we can.

“Where are we going?” Zoey whispers, glancing over at me with worry in her deep brown eyes.

“Ralke made no mention of our ship when we were brought to the compound,” I tell her, “which I’m guessing means it’s still where we left it. We need to find a way to get back there. Fast.”

“Okay.” She nods. “Do you know where it is in relation to this compound? How far away is it?”

“I’m not sure. We’ll have to try to locate some speeders, though, because we’ll be too slow on foot.”

She nods again, picking up her pace a little as she pads down the corridor beside me.

My mind is running at double speed, trying to plot out a plan of escape even as we keep walking. But as we turn the corner toward the final doors that lead outside, Ralke steps into our path.

I stop, and Zoey pulls up short too, a tiny gasp falling from her lips.

The Kruul leader isn’t alone. Several of his men flank him, and my stomach sinks as I realize that even though the door to our room wasn’t locked, we were never as free as Ralke pretended we were.

Vreck.

The pale-eyed Kruul man looks at me, a confused expression crossing his face.

“It’s a bit early in the morning to be headed outside, isn’t it?” He pauses, glancing from me to Zoey and back again. “Have you had a chance to consider my offer yet?”

My shoulders are bunched with tension, my entire body taut and alert. I already know this is going to go badly. It’s just a matter of how badly, and how much control I can exert over it.

“No,” I say warily, angling myself a little so that I’m standing in front of Zoey. “I’m sorry, Ralke, but I can’t accept your offer. I understand your desire to fix Zivon, but this isn’t something I can be a part of. And we’re leaving now.”

Ralke’s demeanor shifts immediately, from confused and solicitous to hard and cold in the space of an instant.

“You must have misunderstood me,” he says, his tone sharp. “It wasn’t so much an offer as a command.”

A cold rush of fear mixed with fury washes through me. I was right not to trust them. I never should have even considered it. And now Zoey and I both are in danger.

“I’m not yours to command,” I growl, squaring my shoulders. “The Zivonians have never been yours to command.”

Ralke sighs, holding out his hands as he shakes his head. “I truly meant it when I said that I didn’t want to harm either of you, Dax. I want this to be easy for us all. Peaceful. I would prefer not to have more fighting.” He pauses, his blue eyes cold as they hold my gaze. “But if you wish to make this difficult, then so be it. I have no compunctions about using force if need be. Your brother, Syrus, fought back after he realized what we truly had planned for your people. And he was killed for it.” He cocks his head. “I don’t want to have to kill you, too, or that pretty woman of yours.”

My heart stops in my chest, rage pouring through my veins like scalding

oil.

“I thought you said Syrus left the planet,” I bite out, my teeth grinding

together. It takes everything in me not to attack Ralke here and now, but I know I have to be cautious for Zoey’s sake. If I’m killed, there will be no one left to protect her.

Ralke shrugs, his expression impassive.

“I lied,” he says simply. Then he jerks his head, gesturing for the other Kruul warriors to step forward.

The moment they surround Zoey and me, I spring into action. There’s no way I’m going down without a fight, even without weapons, and I know that Ralke needs my help more than he wants me dead. He’ll do all he can to keep me alive.

I take a swing at one of the guards, knocking him backward, and manage to kick the feet out from under another. But just like outside the

cave, there are too many of them. They grab me from all sides, wrestling me backward and pinning my arms behind my back.

In the scuffle, one of them snatches my shirt at the collar, ripping it. It tears down the center, flapping to one side, revealing the left side of my chest and the dark vine-like mark there.

Ralke makes a low noise in his throat, stepping forward as his guards restrain me.

“Ah. So the little Terran isn’t just your traveling companion. She’s your mate.” He smiles. “Now I know exactly how to gain your cooperation.”

Before I can react, two of the warriors grab Zoey, shoving her toward their leader. Ralke grabs her and spins her around, pulling her tightly against him as his muscular forearm presses into her throat, half-choking her.

“No!” I struggle in the guards’ grasp, but there are too many hands on me, too many bodies surrounding me. “Zoey!”

“Don’t worry,” Ralke says, tightening the pressure against her throat. “Nothing will happen to your mate, Dax. Not as long as you do what I’ve asked and help us.”

18 Zoey

FEAR AND PAIN contort Dax’s handsome features as he looks at me, and I know exactly how helpless he feels. He won’t let anything happen to me, I know that, no matter what he has to do—and that knowledge makes my heart squeeze in my chest. He’ll make sure I’m safe, no matter what.

Ralke’s arm tightens against my throat, and I scratch at his arm, trying to twist free. But it’s no good. He’s immensely strong, nearly as strong as Dax, and there’s no way I’m going to be able to break free. Even if I could, I wouldn’t get far with so many guards surrounding us.

Dax stops struggling, going very still in the midst of the Kruul guards who hold him back.

“Fine,” he says, his jaw tight as he nods. “I’ll do whatever you want.” The pressure of Ralke’s arm lets up, and I stumble sideways, coughing.

The Kruul leader grabs my elbow immediately, not letting me get very far, and a smile curves his lips.

“Good. You’ve made the wise choice.” His icy eyes gleam with satisfaction, and I can see that any thought I had about him being sincere last night couldn’t have been more wrong.

He’s not a good person. None of them are. Even if he was telling the truth about not being a part of the planned attack on the Zivonians five years ago, it’s clear that Ralke and his men are no different than the other Kruul, willing to lie and manipulate to get their way. And they’ll hurt whoever they have to in order to achieve their ends, just like their brethren did. Even if it’s not wide-scale genocide, it’s still evil. Dax was right to try to leave, right to not trust them.

“I’ll see what I can do to try to bring the planet back to life,” Dax says stiffly.

Ralke nods, his tone turning businesslike. “What will you need to get started with your work?”

“I’ll need to look at the soil closer to the old Zivonian territory. It will help to be closer to my old, familiar ground. And since that’s where the fire was unleashed, I’ll be able to get a better sense of the extent of the damage.”

Ralke’s lips thin, and he thinks it over for a moment before nodding.

“I accept,” he says finally. “But your mate will come with us, as well as several guards. I want you to remember what’s at stake here,” he adds, gripping my elbow so tightly that I hiss out a pained breath.

Dax looks furious, every muscle in his body tense with rage. He looks as if he’d like to kill Ralke on the spot if he could, and I can’t blame him. If I had the means and the strength, I would too.

“All right,” he snaps. “You’ve made your point. It’s clear that I have no choice.”

“Good. I’m glad you understand that.” Ralke smiles, appearing immensely pleased with himself. “Let’s go, then. I don’t want to waste any more time.”

More Kruul guards surround us as we troop through the compound. There are close to twenty of them, which seems like overkill, but Ralke is clearly taking no chances.

We’re led all the way to a hangar where rows of speeder bikes are stored, and my stomach clenches. Ordinarily, I might have thought riding one of these would be exciting. But I won’t be on it with Dax, I’ll be on it with one of the Kruul guards. I don’t trust them, and I don’t want to be that close to them, much less speeding across uneven terrain on the back of a speeder with one.

But it’s clear that, just like Dax, I have no choice.

The bikes are incredibly fast. Dax is allowed to have a bike of his own, since two warriors of Zivonian or Kruul size couldn’t ride one together. He’s boxed in by several Kruul on bikes, though, and they set a pace that ensures he won’t be able to veer off and escape. Which, again, is overkill. I’m on a bike with one of the guards, and Dax would never leave me behind.

But I’m not sure that Ralke understands devotion like that.

We ride all the way to the Zivonian territory near where Dax and I landed. I’ve just started to recognize a bit of the bleak scenery around us when the bikes come to a stop. Dax dismounts his speeder and strides over to a patch of soil, glancing back once at me as if to make sure that I’m all right. I give him a reassuring smile, despite how fast my heart is racing in my chest—both from the adrenaline of the bike ride and the fear of what might happen next.

He kneels in the soil, digging into it with his hands and lifting a handful of it up for inspection, and I can see from the look on his face how deeply it cuts him to be out here again. He looks conflicted, as if he’s torn between the joy of holding dirt in his hands again and the knowledge that it’s poisoned soil, dead and lifeless, the remnants of the planet he once loved.

I can also see, after a few moments, that he isn’t going to have good news for the Kruul. Even I can see how dry and ashen the soil looks. The difficulties the Kruul have been having probably aren’t just because they don’t have green thumbs. The ground is so starved of nutrients and damaged that it can’t support life anymore, and I can’t imagine what Dax will be able to do to change that. He has a connection with nature, but he’s not magic.

Still, it’s clear that he intends to do his best. He pokes through the soil as the Kruul and I watch, several of the warriors surrounding me with clear ill intent if Dax does anything like try to rescue me, or make a break for it.

It feels like forever as he takes samples and fills small containers with dirt, and my chest is so tight that I can barely breathe. It doesn’t help that the air is even worse out here.

When we finally return to the compound, we’re not given a comfortable room this time. Instead, Dax and I are shoved into separate, adjacent cells in some kind of holding area. They’re small and sparse, with only a bench made of some kind of smooth black material and what looks like a black, high-tech toilet.

“You can’t just lock us up in here!” I blurt as the Kruul slam the bars shut, my heart pounding in my chest.

But they ignore me, and I wrap my arms around myself, my skin chilling with the realization of exactly how screwed Dax and I are. Things have gone so far south I’m not sure how we’re ever going to get out of this. And my chest aches at the knowledge that Dax is locked up again, that we got back to Zivon only for him to end up in a cell once more.

The guards step back as Ralke strides into the room and comes to stand before our cells, his face grim.

“Well?” he asks, looking directly at Dax. “What’s your opinion of the situation? Will you be able to fix the soil?”

It’s clear from his expression what answer he expects, and I feel sick.

There’s no way that Dax is going to be able to do what he wants.

But to my surprise, Dax nods confidently.

“Yes, I believe I can make it work,” he says. “With a proper infusion of nutrients and a little time, the soil can be rehabilitated. I’ll be able to transplant some of the young growths from the greenhouse and sow some new seeds. It will take a few cycles before any real change is evident. But it’s possible.”

Ralke smiles, his entire demeanor changing, and I do my best to hide my confusion as I look over at Dax. How? I’m no botanist, but I could see that the soil was in terrible shape. I thought the situation was impossible.

“Good. You were wise to do as I asked,” Ralke says, cutting a glance sideways at me before turning back to Dax. “Wiser than your brother, certainly.”

I can see every muscle in my mate’s body tense angrily at that, but he says nothing until Ralke leaves. He waits a few moments after the guards trail after their leader, and I stay still and quiet too. The moment he’s certain we’re alone, Dax turns toward my cell, crossing to the bars and reaching for me through them.

“I lied,” he tells me in a voice that’s barely more than a whisper. “The soil is completely vrecked. There’s no way to restore it, certainly not with what the Kruul have at their disposal here. But I wanted to buy us some time.”

So I was right.

“What do you have planned?” I murmur, leaning toward him. My pulse feels lodged somewhere in the middle of my throat, but I trust Dax. If there’s any way out of this, I know he’ll find it.

“While we were out examining the soil, I managed to figure out where our ship is in relation to the route we took from here. That’s part of the reason I insisted on going out to my old territory,” he explains. “I wanted to try to map out where we were and how we could get back to our landing spot. Now we know where the ship is, and we know where speeder bikes

are that can take us to it. If I can get us both out of these cells and figure out a way to break free, we can grab a bike and make a run for it.”

“Do you really think we can escape?”

He links his fingers through mine, pulling me up against him with only the bars between us. “We’re going to escape, Zoey,” he promises. “I’ll get us out of here if it’s the last thing I do.”

For the first time since Ralke blocked our path this morning, hope blooms in my chest. I stretch up on my tiptoes, kissing Dax through the bars. Closing my eyes, I breathe him in, letting go of one of his hands and burying mine in his hair so that I can pull him even closer. I pour everything I have into the kiss, all the love and trust and hope that I feel in this moment, and I try to memorize everything about how his lips feel as they press against mine.

“I’ll keep you safe. I swear it,” he whispers, barely breaking our kiss to speak.

And even though every situation we’ve gotten into has been more dangerous than the last, even though he’s said it before, I know he means it.

I know if he can, he will. And that’s all I could ever ask.

19 Dax

OVER THE NEXT FEW DAYS, Zoey and I begin to work out a plan of escape. I had a vague idea at first, but we need to solidify it, and while there’s no way to plot out every move with so much uncertainty, we try to think of as many variables as we can and work through them.

I’m grateful for our strategizing sessions, because not only do they keep the faint hope alive that we might get out of this, but they keep us busy. The hours in the cells when Ralke doesn’t have me cultivating in the greenhouse are long, and without anything to occupy us, it would drive us both mad to sit here with a wall of bars separating us, barely able to touch.

They moved us to new cells, ones with a mattress each in addition to the bench and toilet, but we’re still kept separate but adjacent. I know exactly what Ralke’s thinking is—he’s keeping us apart but close enough that we’re tortured by the proximity. It’s a constant reminder of what I stand to lose if I don’t help the Kruul.

During the days, I work in the greenhouse, cultivating small seedlings to supposedly transplant when the soil is ready, buying time for us to lay out our plan thoroughly.

I know that they’ll never grow outside. The ground is beyond saving. But it still feels good to work with plants again, to feel dirt trailing through my fingers and working itself into the creases of my hands, to smell the scent of new green things and hold seeds in my palm. All the seeds in the greenhouse are precious. They’re the ones that the Kruul stole from my people before they attacked.

I hate that the Kruul have them. I hate that any part of my home is in their possession. It makes me seethe every time I think of it, and takes away from the peace I would otherwise feel working in the greenhouse after so long on The Oasis, locked up in a cell away from anything else living.

Adding to that frustration is the fact that Zoey isn’t allowed to come to the greenhouse with me. Instead, Ralke insists that she stay in her cell during the day, saying that it’s not necessary for her to be out here with me. It’s clear that allowing her to come out with us to examine the soil that first morning was a one-time thing, intended to assist in my cooperation. It worked—but now our separation adds a challenge to the planning of our escape.

If we’re going to get away from here, I need her out with me, not locked behind bars.

So every day, as I work with the plants and seeds, I keep an eye on the guards and try to evaluate them, figuring out who’s the strongest and who’s the weakest, who is the most devoted to their job and who tends to slack off.

Every night, I tell Zoey what I’ve seen during my shifts at the greenhouse, and we discuss how to solidify the plan.

It’s torture to wait. It would be easier if it were only me, but seeing Zoey locked up makes me chafe every moment that we’re in here, desperate to see her free again. I spent five years behind bars, and thinking of her spending even a day feeling the way I did makes me want to tear a swath through every Kruul in this godsforsaken place until I can get her out of here.

But I know that the only way to safely make our escape is to be patient.

So on the fifth day, when I finally feel confident in our plan, I go up to one of the guards—the one who seems to care the least about watching me carefully—halfway through my shift in the greenhouse.

“I need Zoey here with me today to finish the work,” I tell him blandly, as if it doesn’t matter to me a great deal either way. “There are very small, tender seedlings that need to be transplanted into their own pots. It will be better if someone with delicate fingers does the work. We’ll be able to preserve more of them.”

“I don’t know about that.” The guard looks at me doubtfully. “Ralke—” “Ralke wants as many plants ready to take out to the soil as possible,” I interject. “He’ll be angry if too many of the young seedlings are destroyed.

And when that happens, I’ll be sure to let him know that I asked for help, and you refused to let me be assisted by someone better suited to the task.”

The guard frowns. He glances from me to the bench where I was working, as if trying to assess whether I truly need the help I’ve asked for. He rubs a finger over the grooves that run along the bridge of his nose as some internal debate plays out in his mind.

Finally, he gives a grudging nod. “All right then,” he relents. “I’ll go and get her.”

“Thank you.” The tight knot in my chest loosens a little as I dip my chin. The first part of our plan is complete.

“Stay here. I’ll go and get her. You two!” He jerks his head at the other two guards. “The Zivonian needs assistance from the Terran female. You watch him. I’ll fetch her.”

The others have similarly doubtful expressions on their faces, but they don’t argue. Instead, they turn their attention to me as I go back to my work, my heart pounding in my chest as I try to act normally. I don’t want to give them the slightest hint that something might be awry. I need the element of surprise if I’m going to be able to pull this off.

Again, patience is difficult. I want to rush after the other guard, snatch Zoey up and get her out of here, not carefully execute the plan that we’ve put together.

But I draw on every bit of self-control I have and bide my time, waiting until I’m certain that the other guard should be on his way back or close to it. Then, when the timing is as close to perfect as I can get it, I snatch up one of the flat dishes with a soil sample in it, spin around, and fling it into the eyes of the nearest guard.

“Gah!” He reels back, scratching at his face in surprise. “What the—”

His reaction gives me a moment to launch my attack. With one of them disoriented, I have the advantage of just the smallest bit of surprise. I’ll need all the help I can get, since the guards are clearly trained fighters. It’s not a given that I’ll win this.

I spring toward them, taking on both at once as the temporarily blinded guard starts to regain his senses. Without my usual weapons, I grab at whatever I can get my hands on—a length of wood, a flat dish, a pot that I snatch up and break over the head of the one closest to me. When I’m out of things to use as makeshift weapons, I switch to my fists, moving through the fighting forms that I know by heart.

But the Kruul were once part of us, and they’re fierce warriors too, for all that they’ve come to rely too much on technology. I manage to disarm both guards, but they each get in multiple blows, leaving me reeling backward at one point from a particularly hard shot to the jaw.

Vreck. I can’t lose.

I have more than just myself to fight for. I have Zoey, and she needs me. That thought is enough to make me push past the throbbing pain in my head, enough to make me keep going, and I manage to take one guard

down, slamming his head hard enough against a table to knock him out.

The other grabs a piece of wood and breaks it over his knee, creating two jaggedly pointed halves, but I dodge out of the way fast enough that he trips over the other guard’s fallen body. He stumbles forward, and I grab him from behind, getting him into a headlock and keeping him there until he passes out from lack of air.

With both guards down, I’m able to pull them aside so that the bodies aren’t immediately evident to anyone walking into the greenhouse. Then I press myself against one wall, waiting for the first guard to return with Zoey.

I don’t have to wait long.

The sounds of footsteps reach my ears as the two of them enter the large, muggy space, and I leap to action. Pushing away from the wall, I pivot and lunge for him before he has a chance to draw his weapon.

Zoey throws herself into the fray as well, landing a solid elbow to the guard’s gut before ducking out of the way. He grunts, winded from her strike, and I wrap my arm around his neck, dragging him down to the ground. He struggles in my hold, but I tighten my grip, choking him out just like I did to the other guard. I can’t allow him to get even a half lungful of air, or he’ll raise the alarm.

Finally, his struggles slow and then cease. When he slumps in my arms, unconscious, I release my hold and stand up.

“Come on!” Zoey’s eyes are wide as she glances around the greenhouse. “Let’s go before someone finds us!”

I hesitate for just a moment, reaching for a leather satchel that I found in one of the drawers in the greenhouse. I throw as many bags of seeds as I can into it, setting trays of seedlings on top of them in a rush, not bothering to look at which plants I’m grabbing. I only know that I don’t want the

Kruul to have them, that I want to take as much of our planet back with me as I can.

Zoey grabs my hand as I throw the pack over my shoulder, and together, we take off down the corridor, running headlong toward the hangar where the bikes are kept. It’s farther away from the greenhouse than I would like, but at least I know how to reach it, thanks to the fact that I’ve been there before.

But when we finally dart inside, I mutter a breathless curse. Several of the speeders that we took the other day are gone. The only ones left in the hangar at the moment are single-rider bikes.

“Vreck.” I glance over at Zoey. “I had planned to have you ride with me, but none of these will support two riders.”

“Shit.” She swallows, then shakes her head. “It’s okay. I can do it. I’ve always been a fast learner, and we don’t have any other choice.”

“Do you have any idea how to ride one of these things?”

“Sort of. I paid attention to what the guard who drove the bike last time did, so I’ve got an idea of how they work. I’ll figure it out.”

Fear flashes in her deep brown eyes, but I can see adrenaline and wild determination there too.

“Gods, you really are incredible,” I murmur, awe of my mate rising up inside me. She has never let fear hold her back from a single thing, and I can’t believe how strong she is.

Zoey flashes me that bright, brilliant smile that I love so much and goes up on her tiptoes, kissing me once fiercely before letting go of my hand and running alongside me as we race toward the bikes.

She clambers onto one at the same time I do, and I cock my head as I hear faint, faraway shouts that tell me the guards’ bodies must have been found.

“We have to go! Now!” I start the speeder bike, throwing it into gear.

Zoey wasn’t lying when she said she had paid attention to what the guard did to operate the speeder, because she manages to start hers up too, giving me a nod as it powers on. Keeping part of my focus ahead of us, I watch her out of the corner of my eye as we hurtle out of the hangar, knowing that we need to go as fast as possible. I’m terrified that something will happen to her, but for someone who’s never driven one of these before, Zoey is handling the speeder remarkably well.

“Are you all right?” I call.

“Yeah. It’s a lot like a motorcycle!” Zoey yells back as we speed across the landscape, the wind blowing her tightly curled hair away from her face. It whips mine in all directions, and I claw the dark strands back with one hand, looking over at her as I steer my bike in the direction of our ship.

“A what?”

“Never mind!” Zoey just shakes her head, leaning forward into the wind as we race away from the compound.

The farther away we get, the more hopeful I become that our plan will work. When I glance over my shoulder, I can see the compound fading into the distance behind us, and I lean into the wind just like Zoey is, desperate to get back to the ship as quickly as possible. We’re so, so close.

So close to freedom I can almost taste it.

20 Zoey

MY HEART CRASHES inside my chest as we ride the speeders across the dusty landscape. We don’t speak, too focused on our goal to bother shouting over the rush of the wind.

I stay beside and a little behind Dax, following him in the direction that he memorized from the trek out to test the soil, and we both push the speeders as fast as they can go. We need to get away from Ralke’s compound as quickly as we can. I’m pretty sure the alarm has already been raised, so that means he’ll be sending people after us.

We need to get to the ship and lift off before they get close enough to stop us.

Urgency thrums in my veins, and even though I’m terrified of losing control of the speeder, I manage to keep pace with Dax.

I’ve ridden motorcycles a few times, although it was several years ago, before the car accident left me with a healthy suspicion of dangerous vehicles. If I think too much about how fast we’re going or what would happen if we crashed, I’ll likely have a panic attack for the first time in years. As it is, I’m hyper aware of the aches in my muscles and pain in my body. I haven’t been able to exercise properly in days, and my old injuries from the accident are flaring up. But this is what we have to do in order to escape, and I’m with Dax all the way.

I always will be, no matter what.

My hair is tangled in my face as the landscape whips by, my hands aching as they grip the handlebars of the speeder, but I force myself not to think about the possibility of capture, of wrecking, of anything other than

the fact that we’re getting closer to the ship with every passing second. Closer to our freedom. Closer to getting back to The Oasis.

As our ship finally comes into view up ahead, relief floods my body like cool water. My heart is still somewhere in my throat, my pulse roaring in my ears as Dax brakes hard and I do the same.

Oh god, oh god, oh god.

My speeder bike slides sideways as I hit the brakes, spinning out a little as the back end whips around. My heart crawls into my throat as I have visions of the whole thing toppling over, but then it comes to a shuddering stop, still upright. I clamber off as quickly as I can, trying to ignore the way my legs feel like wet noodles.

“Come on.” Dax grabs the leather satchel off his bike, jerking his head toward the ship. “Once we’re away from the planet, I can turn on the cloaking device and—”

“You’ll do no such thing, Zivonian.”

The deep voice cuts through Dax’s words, and my heart sinks as I recognize the speaker. Ralke. Several Kruul step out from behind the boulders our ship is stationed in front of, including the icy-eyed leader, whose face is twisted with fury.

Shit.

Frustration and helpless anger swell in my chest. They’ve been waiting for us. They must have guessed we were headed this way and taken another path, some shortcut that allowed them to reach the ship before we did. And now they’re standing between us and our only means of getting off this planet.

“You should’ve stuck to our bargain,” Ralke sneers, his gaze shifting from Dax to me as the Kruul behind him raise their blasters. “You could’ve lived in peace here. And your mate wouldn’t have had to die.”

As if his words are the command they’ve been waiting for, several of the Kruul guards fire toward me.

“Zoey! No!” Dax hurls himself at me, barely shoving me out of the line of fire in time to keep me from being struck, but not quickly enough to keep several of the bolts from grazing him. One catches his arm, and another glances off the side of his torso, burning holes in his clothing and leaving raw, red skin in their wake.

Clearly furious at him for trying to protect me, the Kruul turn their fire on Dax, forcing him to roll across the dusty ground to evade the shots. In

the same moment, another one of the guards darts in and grabs me around the waist.

“No!” I shriek. “Let go of me, you asshole!”

He hauls me backward toward the others as I kick and scream, trying desperately to elbow or kick him in any soft part I can reach.

“Zoey!” Dax roars again. He starts to rush forward, his gaze locked on me, but one of the Kruul by the ship fires off a blaster shot. Dax dodges, and the bolt misses him, plowing into one of the speeder bikes just behind Dax instead. The bike explodes in a roar of fire and smoke, and Dax is hurled off his feet, momentarily engulfed in the flames before his body slams down hard onto the dusty ground.

I swear I can feel the shock of his impact in my own body, as if it’s knocked the air out of me too.

He lies still, crumpled and unmoving.

No. No, no, no. Please, no!

Nothing but a hoarse croak falls from my lips, but inside my own head, I’m screaming. I can see the burn marks on Dax’s body, not just from blasters, but from the explosion, his skin raw and shredded in places. And he’s so still.

Too still.

Is he even breathing anymore?

As I stare in shocked horror at Dax’s body laid out on the dirt several yards away, the guard behind me lets out a noise that sounds like a chuckle. And something inside me snaps.

Rage fills me, something animalistic and protective. It floods my veins in a wild torrent as I stare down at Dax, mingling with my blood until I’m made only of white-hot fury.

He’s laughing. Dax might be dead, and he’s laughing.

Baring my teeth in a snarl, I lurch in my captor’s arms, fighting like I’ve never fought before. My sudden redoubled efforts catch him off guard, and I scratch at his arm and wriggle free of his grasp.

“Come back here, you little hirka,” he grunts, swiping out at me. But I slip under his arm, throwing myself toward the body of the fallen Kruul who lies close by and grabbing for his dropped blaster.

I’ve never used one of these things before, but just like with the speeder, I make my best guess. There’s no time to doubt, no time to question what the hell I’m doing. My finger finds a sort of trigger as my hand curls around

the grip, and I squeeze it as I whirl around, firing indiscriminately toward the Kruul.

I’m not aiming for anyone in particular—I’m aiming for all of them.

Fury is still battering against my ribs, filling me up with so much adrenaline that I’m shaking. I want to kill them all, every single one of them, for daring to take my mate away from me, for all the Zivonians they’ve killed, for the planet they destroyed out of their own greed and grudges.

I want them to stop hurting my mate, to stop hurting his people, to just

stop, and I can hear myself screaming as I fire.

The Kruul fall one after another, at first caught by surprise and then unable to escape the wild barrage of shots coming from the blaster. I don’t know if I’ve actually managed to take down all of them, but when the blaster clicks empty, I throw it away, spinning on my heel and making a mad rush for Dax’s body.

“You hirka! Look what you’ve done!”

Someone screams from behind me, and I vaguely recognize Ralke’s voice, but I don’t stop.

I have to get to Dax. I have to make sure he’s alive.

But before I can reach the fallen Zivonian, a body slams into mine from behind. Ralke grabs a fistful of my hair, throwing me sideways into the blackened dirt. The Kruul leader follows me down, his tanned skin streaked with dirt and a feral look contorting his features. He lands on top of me, pinning me with his weight, pressing me down into the rocky soil as he reaches for the knife at his hip.

I scrabble at the ground, trying to wriggle out from under him or buck him off, but I can’t. He’s too heavy, massive and muscular like Dax, and I know I’m not going to escape. The fact that I was able to snatch up the blaster was pure luck, and I only managed to take out the other Kruul because I took them by surprise. Because they never expected a small Terran woman to fight back so viciously.

But Ralke won’t be caught off guard a second time.

He’s going to kill me.

The knife flashes as it descends, and I stare at it as if it’s moving in slow motion, dull sunlight glinting off the blade.

Then a roar cuts through the air, and it’s as if the sound snaps time back into forward motion again. Dax surges to his feet, his charred shirt hanging

off him as he hurls himself at the Kruul leader.

I don’t know how he’s standing, much less fighting. His wounds look horrible, but he seems to barely even feel them as he tackles Ralke, throwing him off me. They both land hard in the dirt beside me, rolling around as they grapple for control of the weapon.

Ralke slashes toward Dax’s face, but Dax blocks the blow and grabs the other alien’s forearm in a tight grip, letting out another savage cry as he forces him to release the handle. He catches the knife as it falls from Ralke’s fingers, and in the same motion, he drives it into the Kruul leader’s throat. The blade goes all the way through to the other side, leaving Ralke pinned to the ground as he claws at his neck.

He gurgles his last dying breath as Dax collapses next to me. “Have to get… to the ship…”

Dax’s voice is ragged and low, and I reach for him, helping him up as best as I can. There’s hardly any skin on his torso left unaffected from the explosion, and he grunts with pain as I touch him, but somehow he manages to get to his feet, stumbling toward the ship with me. I can see the look of shock on his face as he takes in the fallen Kruul, but it only registers for a moment before I get the hatch open and we both get on board.

Dax goes straight to the controls, supporting himself against the walls as he makes it to the cockpit. I can see the resolve in his face as he manages to get the ship started up, putting in the coordinates to get back to The Oasis as he slumps forward in the chair, barely able to remain upright. His skin is an ashy color that reminds me far too much of the starved soil outside.

Somehow, he gets us off the ground, and I grip the sides of my own chair as I strap in, biting my lip so hard it bleeds as I watch him start to throttle the ship forward. I know we only have minutes before either reinforcements come or someone attacks from the stronghold as they see us lifting off, and sure enough, as the ship clears the rocks and becomes visible from the air, I hear a distant boom that tells me we’re being fired at.

“Dax! Now!” I lean forward, my stomach tumbling over and over itself. “We have to go!”

I don’t even know if he can hear me or how conscious he is, but he throws the throttle forward, and the ship lurches up toward the atmosphere.

“I told you… I’d keep you… safe,” he mumbles, his voice heavy with pain and lethargy.

Tears leak from the corners of my eyes, and I swallow against the wave of emotion that rises up in me. I can see that every movement costs him, but Dax manages to pilot the ship up through Zivon’s atmosphere and out into space, hurtling forward away from the planet until we’re free and clear.

He punches at the autopilot button, clumsily setting it as soon as we’re far enough away from Zivon’s airspace that there’s no chance we’re being followed, and I turn toward him, slowly prying my own hands loose from where I was clinging to my seat.

“Dax,” I whisper, and he looks at me. “Did… it…”

The words are so low I can barely hear them, and before he can say anything else, his eyes roll back in his head.