Nova and Valen barely escaped Isroth with their lives and now they’ve crash-landed on an empty planet—no people, no tools to fix their ship. Nova has spent her life building and creating mechanics, but this is the most advanced vessel in the galaxy, and she can’t figure out what’s wrong with it. But maybe the crash was a blessing in disguise. They’ve seen their entire lives together, but this is the first real time they’ve ever had with one another. This is their chance to see if their future is worth fighting for, and if there is anything between them besides attraction and fate. On this empty planet, there is no fighting, no war, no conflict. Their days and nights are filled with uncertain glances, soft touches, and life-altering vows. What was once never a question is now a serious consideration: do they even want to fix the ship, or is this the beginning of a brand new, perfect life?
View More“As far as I can tell, all the major connections to the core are intact,” I say, wiping sweat from my brow. I’ve been crawling around down in the belly of the ship for over an hour, tangled in the mechanical guts of this beast, double and triple checking that every critical connection between the ship and the core is still working. “There are some cracks to the interior of the hull, but so far, all the majorly important parts of this ship are still functioning.”
“So we can fix whatever is broken?” Valen asks. He’s crouched on the floor of the mechanical room above me at the opening of the hatch, looking down into the tunnels I’m occupying. My eyes rise to meet his. I shake my head and shrug. “That’s the problem. I have no idea what’s broken. I can’t fix it if I don’t know what to fix.” He extends a hand to me and pulls me up and out of the tunnel, back onto the floor of the room with him. “We will figure it out,” he says, his tone reassuring. “There’s a reason Cyrillius sent half the galaxy on a wild hunt for you. If he thinks you’re the best, you can do this.” I look over at him, glaring darkly. I’m annoyed that I can’t immediately tell what’s wrong with the ship. I’m annoyed that this slam ship is so slam complicated and that I wasn’t a good enough pilot to keep us from crashing here in the first place. I turn away, facing the door, but I don’t walk out just yet. “I’m sorry,” I say quietly. “For what?” he asks. I take a deep breath, my eyes searching for answers without really seeing anything. “For being reckless. I guess that’s something you should know about me. I don’t exactly always think before I act. I’m sorry I thought taking this ship was a good idea. I’m sorry I thought I could handle it when obviously I couldn’t. I’m sorry I’m not a good pilot. I’m sorry I got us lost and crashed us wherever the void we are.” Warm hands grab me from behind and I feel the heat of Valen warming the back of me. Gently, he turns me in place, making me look up at him. I feel heavy and worn down as I look up into his Neron-blue eyes. “Survivors have to act fast,” Valen says. “It’s an evolutionary fact. Sometimes we make the right decisions in those snap moments, and sometimes we don’t.” The look in his eyes deepens. He brings a hand up to my cheek, caressing it. “Your quick thinking got us out of the Compound, Nova,” he says. “Cyrillius has thousands of ships that could have taken us down in an ordinary ship. His soldiers are the best in the galaxy. If you hadn’t stolen this exact ship, and if we hadn’t somehow punched a hole through space, he would have won. We would be on Isroth right now, either locked in a cage, or being mentally twisted by his Kinduri.” My throat tightens with his words and it annoys me that my eyes well a little. I turn my face away from him, taking a hard breath, trying to regain control of myself. But firm and gentle, Valen makes me look back at him. “Stop being afraid of yourself, Nova,” he says softly. In his eyes I see acceptance. That I’m allowed to feel what I feel. He can’t be right, because he’s done so many terrible things in his life. How can someone who’s done so much bad be so right about my emotions? Even so, his words reach me. I feel them. I need them. So I let the tears come. And I wrap my arms behind his neck and I pull his face to mine. We just crash-landed. I have no idea what all of this means for the future. And it’s insanity, the fact that I’ve only kissed this man twice before. But I kiss Valen, with violence and desperation, even as I let the tears roll down my face and sobs escape my lips. I cry and I kiss Valen, and Valen kisses me back and holds me like I’m going to shatter and his arms are the only things that can prevent it from happening. He scoops me up into his arms, but he doesn’t break the kiss and I don’t release him. Like I weigh nothing at all, he walks across the mechanical room and maneuvers us through the doorway. I don’t know where he’s taking us, but I close my eyes, letting the tears stream down my face in an unceasing river. I cling tighter to Valen. I deepen our kiss. I relish in the feeling of being safe and supported. Dim light finds its way through the port window of the sleeping quarters. Gently, Valen climbs onto the bed, carefully lying me back where I’d woken just a few hours earlier. I lay back, looking up into Valen’s beautiful face, still keeping a firm grip on his tunic so he can’t leave me. My heart cracks a little when I interpret the expression on his face. Devotion. Protection. Acceptance. Only one other person has looked at me this way. My father. I never doubted him, that he would take care of me, no matter the cost. That’s what I see in Valen’s eyes. Which makes mine well even more. He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear, his touch so gentle. “When was the last time you ate?” I actually huff a laugh. It’s so bizarre, this legendary Nero, taking such gentle care of me, asking when I last ate. “I…I have no idea, honestly. Not since before you got back to Isroth, probably.” “Stay here,” he says. “Rest. I’m going to go find us something to eat.” My first instinct is to fight him, to tell him that I will help him, that he doesn’t have to take care of me. But I see it in his expression. He wants to do this. And I think I want to let him. “Okay,” I agree softly. He dips, pressing one soft kiss to my lips before he stands and heads to the door, to go see what there is to eat. I pull the blanket up to my chest, curling up on my side, burrowing down in the surprisingly comfortable bed. My eyes fix on a place on the wall, but I’m not seeing its dull gray surface. My mind is spinning, reeling, thinking of all the ramifications of the past twelve hours. Cyrillius knows I’m a Nero. He knows Nymiah is a Nero. Did she and Zayne and Edan get away? Are they somewhere safe? What do they all think happened to me? And…Dad…“So instead of letting us know you weren’t dead, you’ve been shacking up with that dirty little puppet?”Nymiah. “I’m sorry,” I say, not even annoyed at having to explain myself. “We crash-landed on this planet across the galaxy and all communications were down. I had no way to get in touch until now.”“Excuses,” Edan teases, but I know I’m not the only one overjoyed to hear the other’s voice. “But I think there’s someone else you’re going to be a little more interested to talk to than the rest of us.”My brows furrow.“Nova.”And every emotion in me explodes. “Dad?”There are two beats and they’re the longest in the world as he gathers his voice. “I knew you’d make it through.”“You’re…you’re…” But even now, when I’m hearing his voice, I still can’t make myself say the words.“You saved me, Nova,” Dad says, his voice full of emotion.“Apparently, it took a bit for your Neron trick to work,” Edan says, “but about twenty minutes after you and that ship suddenly disap
My throat tightens and my heart is pounding in my chest.We have to get this just right, be so careful about what we say. We will only get one shot at this.“Where would the two of you like to start?” Arden asks. “I have a feeling there is a lot of ground to cover.”Valen and I look at each other. We talked about this. We planned. We strategized.“I’ll begin by saying that in some things I had my own free will,” Valen starts, looking right at Arden. “I’ve never known what it was to do good, or that influence and power could be used for anything other than domination. But even someone like me can change under the right circumstances.”He goes into his history. He talks about his childhood on Starvis. He talks about the tribes and how they worked, how savage life there was. He talks about finding his tribe slaughtered, and how he and the other children nearly starved to death.And then comes Dominion and Cyrillius. He talks about being rescued by the company and the man and being given
Valen punches in the command. And white-hot fire floods from the Neron, through my entire body, exploding my awareness with power. The ship launches forward, but as I harness the power, as I concentrate on the Core, we don’t shake and quake like the first time we punched through space. We sing forward. Expecting the force, we’re able to stabilize ourselves. Faster and faster until I can hardly breathe, we fire through space. My heart is racing. I think the skin has burned off of my hands and they’re nothing but bone anymore as the Neron grows hotter. My entire body is glowing Neron blue and my hair floats up, suspended. “Nova!” Valen yells, his voice strained. “I’ve got this!” I call back, even as my heart threatens to explode. “I’ve got this!” Faster, faster, faster. I keep expecting the ship to rattle to pieces, to tear itself apart, or obliterate into dust. But it’s smooth and quiet. And then there’s a pop. We slide forward, losing speed until at last, we come to a halt.
When I wake up the next morning, I roll over to see Valen staring up at the ceiling. There’s a deep furrow between his brows. His hands are tucked behind his head. He’d deep in thought.“What are you thinking about?” I ask, resting a hand on his bare chest.He doesn’t answer me right away, and I can almost feel his tangled thoughts like they’re a tangible thing in the air. He breathes slow, hard. His vivid blue eyes don’t break their accusation of the ceiling.“The only way this ends is if we kill Cyrillius,” Valen eventually says. “But it’s nearly impossible to get to him with his armies, and then there are the Kinduri.”It’s the Kinduri that really worry me. I could have killed Cyrillius lunars ago if it hadn’t been for them getting in my mind. “The numbers aren’t in our favor, Nova,” he says. He places one of his hands over mine, holding it firmly to his chest. “A group of Nero tried to take Dominion out solars ago, and they failed. If just you and I go in there, I don’t know if w
I’m looking at the insides of the ship once more, trying to figure out how the void we jumped through space so quickly. Yes, this ship is the most advanced in the galaxy. Yes, it’s complicated and I don’t fully understand how it works yet.But Cyrillius once told me that it could travel from the N Sector to the A Sector in eight days. Which is wicked fast. But we traveled from the N Sector to the V Sector in a matter of minutes.My eyes scan the insides of the ship.“How was that possible?” I breathe out.Maybe I haven’t fully adjusted to life here on this empty planet, because it takes me a few minutes before my brain tells me that I shouldn’t be hearing another female voice.My heart jumps into my throat and I dart out of the mechanical room, looking both ways down the hall.The voice is quiet, coming from the Command Deck.I summon Neron, letting it flow freely around my hands as I creep down the hall, my knees slightly bent as I walk.“Just as it seems we’re free of the one and on
Wires and electrical currents. Connections to internal satellites. Amplifying relays and long-range signals.The communications system is the most complicated part about this ship. I think the surge of Neron when we punched through space nearly melted everything through. I feel like I’m rebuilding everything from scratch. Having to reform every connection and wire.Valen doesn’t say a word to me as I work throughout the day. He walks by once an hour or so, pacing. I feel the uncertainty, the questioning in him.He doesn’t know how he feels about this, either.All throughout the day, I’ve felt this rising sense of…more, building inside of me. This isn’t all you were meant for, a little voice in my head whispers, and it sounds a little like Evander Nero.I shove the voice out and concentrate on what I do know. I know I can fix this communications transmitter. It’s just going to take me some time.Around mid-day, Valen brings me a plate of food and I offer a small little smile as thank
It isn’t comforting that the ship’s power will only turn on for a few minutes at a time, here and there. Unless we’re fully going to build a shelter outside the ship with a fireplace and a chimney, we can’t build a fire inside this ship. We run the possibility that we’ll freeze to death inside here.Every morning when we wake up, there is frost coating the windows in the sleeping quarters. My nose is frozen, and it’s torture having to get out from beneath the covers and each other’s warm bodies.So I go back into the mechanical room. I slip into the mind of a mechanic and engineer. The electrical board is complicated, the most advanced I’ve ever seen. I have to go through it, one wire at a time, tracing where it goes, what it does. One by one, I check them, fixing the damage I find; replacing what was fried in our punch through space.I find core connections that were melted in our jump. And if I were anyone else in the galaxy, we would be in trouble. There aren’t spares on the ship
I roll out of the bed, being careful not to jostle it. I don’t want to wake Valen. I don’t want him to see me like this. As I walk across the room to the washroom, I try to reason with myself.It isn’t logical that Valen and I will be in each other’s physical presence every minute of every day. It probably means nothing, the fact that I didn’t see him there with me. We still have to lead our lives, we’re still individual people.I pull my uniform on and brush through my hair, telling myself to forget about it.Valen still sleeps when I walk back out so I decide to leave him to rest, and head into the Command Deck.The sky is still dark outside and when I look out, I only see the peak of the mountain beginning to have a silhouette as the sun makes its way around the globe. I can’t hear anything through the thickness of the ship, but I can see the vague form of a bird as it soars through the air. I see a beast dart through the clearing, heading back into the trees.Alone in the Command
And I smile when I see that he’s pushed three of the beds together, making one huge bed. He’s piled all the blankets and pillows on it. He wears only his under things and opens the blanket for me to climb in with him.I drop my towel on the floor just to the side of the bed and climb into the nest with him.His skin is warm and I don’t know why, but I blush slightly as I think about my bare legs against his bare legs, and my bare arms brushing his bare arms.“You’re like ice,” Valen says, his brows furrowing as he rubs his hand up and down my arm, trying to warm me up.“Think you could stitch all those pelts together and make me a coat?” I say with a little shivering laugh.“Of course,” he says, and his tone makes me think he’s wondering why he hadn’t thought of it before.I laugh but I turn my face and bury it into the base of his neck. I breathe his natural scent in, and I’m washed in comfort.“I’m not the kind who likes being taken care of,” I say softly, my words scratchy and tire
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