Aftermath (Sirantha Jax 5)

He opens it before I signal. “The bot told me you were here.”

Not a psychic connection, then. Just as well—I can only handle one of those. “May I come in?”

“Certainly.” He steps back so I can.

“It’s weird, isn’t it?”

“It does not feel altogether real,” he admits.

“Have you yielded to the temptation to peek at the data yet?”

“What do you think?”

“I’d bet a million credits that you’re already working on it, so you can see what you got.”

“Correct.”

“Anything interesting? Something that could help Carvati?” Maybe he doesn’t need assistance, though. For all I know, he’s figured out the La’heng cure and we’re ready to move.

“There is so much unfamiliar technology and scientific data that I am dizzy.” That’s a huge admission for him. “I may ask Carvati to examine it tomorrow.”

“I think you could trust him to a point. He certainly isn’t hurting for credits.”

“My thoughts precisely.”

There’s no reason to linger. I can’t ask to curl up beside him or to sleep on his floor. I want to, but what was normal while we were stranded isn’t anymore.

So I murmur, “I suppose I’d better clean up and get some rest.”

There’s a long silence, as if he’s considering his options. Maybe he feels the same way—and he’s gotten used to having me close by. But he only says, “Dream well, Sirantha.”

As I’m leaving, I think he’s going to ask me to stay. But he doesn’t.

In my room, I reflect that it’s good to take a proper san- shower; I’d almost forgotten the pleasure. For the first time in ages, I face myself in the mirror, but I don’t see any of the changes I noted in Dina. My face looks the same as it did after my trial. Turning away with a muttered curse, I find a comb. It’s been turns since I got the tangles out, and this could take the rest of the night.

Just as well. I probably won’t be able to relax. I’m lonely without Vel, and I’m not sure I can sleep without him. I miss the slow, deep exhalations that mean I’m safe. Except the toll on me has been considerable—I can’t help it. I abandon my hair and lie down just for a moment.

And when I wake, March is with me.

CHAPTER 35

“Jax,” he breathes.

March cups my face in his hands and kisses me as if he’s dying, and only my breath can save him. I draw him down onto the bed beside me. At first I’m not sure if I’m awake or dreaming, but he’s always welcome beside me.

Oh, my love, my love.

It seems as if we’ve never been together as Kai and I were, sharing normal occasions, daily joys. Instead, it feels as though we have only these stolen moments caught between the crises. He’s tougher to be with than Kai, more unwilling to follow my lead, and honestly, I don’t like letting others choose my course, no matter how much I love them. Those things don’t matter now, as his lips claim mine. Sweetness. Heat. Oh, Mary, how I ache. If this is a dream, I will die when I wake.

“Are you here?” I ask, long moments later. “Are you real?”

March spills into my mind in a hot rush, and the silence is filled at last. Nobody else makes me feel this way. I’ve missed him so, though I didn’t allow myself to feel the full force of it before, or I couldn’t have functioned. It was more of my self- defense mechanism—that compartmentalization—at work.

I’m here, Jax. I can’t believe you’re alive.

Then he shows me his absolute devastation; I see the long months on Marakeq, where he lived in squalor and spent his days in the swamp, painstakingly trying to track us. But the rains and the native mud made that all but impossible, even for an experienced merc like him. He spares nothing, not a single second of his grief, fear, and loss. Tears well in my eyes at his devotion; I am not worthy of his steadfast love, but I cherish it.

Once I draw back a little to study him, I see the marks of time in his face. Before, no more than ten turns separated us, but now it looks more like fifteen. A fine web of worry lines surrounds his eyes, and there’s a touch of gray in his dark hair. He wears it well; in my absence, March has become downright distinguished.

“Do you still love me?” he asks.

Mary, how can he? Can’t he feel the truth? That used to be my question . . . and my doubt, but it’s been so much longer for him. No wonder he isn’t sure whether our status has changed. I can’t believe he waited for me. I open myself to him and let him examine my memories, so much faster—and more intimate—than telling the story verbally.

But I answer him aloud so there can be no doubt. “Always. I will always love you.”

“I never gave up on you.” He turns onto his side and draws me into his arms. During my long exile, I tried to imagine what it would be like between us, whether it would be torrid or fierce, but he’s gentle in his desperation, my head resting on his heart.

I breathe him in, savoring his familiar scent. “I never stopped trying to get back to you. I just had no idea it would take so long. And it wasn’t, for me.”

“I want you to hear something,” he says then.

Rising, he motions me to silence and pops a data spike into the comm unit beside the bed. To my surprise, it’s his voice, telling me the story of how he left Nicu Tertius and wound up on Lachion. Until the end, I don’t understand the purpose, but then, in the final words, it becomes clear. He was talking to me on the vid when I was gone, as proof he expected me to come home.

My tears fall then, and he kisses them away, one by one. I want him so much; it’s been forever since he touched me. He kisses me again, this time with the passion he’s suppressed beneath layers of fear and doubt.

I can’t blame him.

A normal man would’ve found someone else by now, but he isn’t that guy. He’s a hero, all the way down to the bone, and he’s mine, still. I don’t know how I got so lucky.

We twine together, hands stroking. Silent sparks, desire beyond all bearing, flood me. His touch comes like sunrise on all worlds but Gehenna and Marakeq, sweetly inevitable but also delicious for those who have waited patiently for the darkness to end. That same golden glow spills through me at the brush of his hands over my skin. My clothes have gone, and his, too, a pool of fabric on the floor.

March runs his lips down my throat; I caress the curve of his ear. Despite the long separation, we are easy in our coming together for fear the other will vanish in a smoky illusion, no more than a vision. He kisses me again and again, his mouth hot on my skin. I run my fingers down his back, digging in as I recall he likes a little edge, and it spurs him on. Lowering his head to my breast, he nips and nuzzles, reminding me how good it can be. I come to life beneath his touch, writhing and moaning.

“Now,” I whisper.

He covers me smoothly, his body hard as ever. The turns have not changed him that much. In a single thrust, he takes me and holds with such delicious intensity. I feel his heartbeat inside me. Unable to resist, I move beneath him, little curls of my hips that make his ugly-beautiful face tighten with bliss. Oh, how I’ve missed that broken nose and his shot-amber eyes. Right now, they’re molten with desire, long lashes sweeping down to shield his expression, as if I can’t feel what he does.

It’s all heat, all perfect promise, and I can’t get enough of him. I kiss his throat, his shoulders, his chest, my movements grown jerky with relentless need. Normally, he would flip now to give me femme dominant and let me ride him to completion. This time, he doesn’t. March studies my face as if memorizing my features as he moves, and each shift, each lift of my hips, spurs a half smile from him.

He pins my wrists over my head as if my submission can expiate those long, lonely turns, and so I yield, this one time. By his faint smile, he knows it will not become a habit.

Mary, it’s good. His thought? Mine? It’s all the same right now. I have his leashed desire in my head, so I thrum with heat inside and out; his arousal drives my own. He tastes the sweetness of his hard length rocking inside me, just as I know the delicious feel of my slick heat. I’ve never been able to finish this way, so I struggle as the sensations become overwhelming.

March lets himself down on his arms, shifting his angle inside me, and claims my mouth in a scorching kiss. It’s too much after such a long drought, and I arch beneath him, quaking through a relentless orgasm. He comes with me a few beats later, his body tightening in long, inexorable strokes.

Afterward, he rolls to the side and wraps me in his arms, face nuzzling my coarse curls. “I’m so glad you’re back. Now you can come home.”

Home. What does that even mean for someone like me? I have wanderlust in equal measure to grimspace cations in my veins.

“You mean Nicuan?”

“The flat is more than big enough for all of us,” he says, assuming I will go where he leads, even now.

In times of war, I would. No question. He is a great general, willing to sacrifice his own pleasure for the good of the Armada. I remember that very clearly. And I agreed with that decision. I don’t regret it, however painful it was then. Any other course would’ve been selfish. Our continued cohabitation would’ve had a deleterious effect on morale, no doubt. Because how could the rank and file trust a commander who was shacking up with his second in command? His decisions would be questioned, particularly in regard to his orders to me.

But this isn’t wartime, and I’m not a follower. He has to know that deep down. March is the other half of my heart, but I don’t know if I can do this, even for him. I have promises to keep. Torment twists my face, and he sees it. Doubtless he feels it, too.

“March . . . I have business to finish here.”

He seals a finger against my mouth, stilling my instinctive protest. “Don’t make up your mind now.”

“Did you bring your nephew?” I ask.

He nods. “He’s with Dina and Hit tonight. You can meet him tomorrow.”

I’m not sure about that, either. Mary, he’s been raising this kid for the last five turns, while I was fighting monsters and slogging through ruins. It’s mind-boggling. For the first time, I fear we’ve taken such divergent paths that they may not meet up again. But this isn’t a night to think such thoughts. For now, he’s here, and I’m in his arms. If there’s a good-bye looming, I won’t face it now, coward that I am.

.UNCLASSIFIED-TRANSMISSION.

.AFTER LONG SILENCE.

.FROM-SUNI_TARN.

.TO-EDUN_LEVITER.

My dear Edun, it has been such a long time. I have thought of you often over the turns, wondered if you were well. We live in such interesting times, do we not? I am seeing claims that the Maker homeworld has been located and in some other ’verse as well through a gate on Marakeq. I will need to send a delegation to explain to them their rights, as they shall soon be overrun with scientists and research teams. Somehow, I was not surprised at all to discover Ms. Jax at the heart of the whirlwind. She carries chaos like an overcoat.