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The Falasian man’s face crumpled as he stared at the white sky. ‘Doing their bidding has been such torment.’

‘Like someone said a long time ago, go and sin no more.’

As Riv spoke, the distinct roar of his gunship racing towards him drowned out his voice. Soon, it came to a throbbing stop, lowering with care until it hovered just above their heads.

At Riv’s command, Mirage sent a stretcher to the waiting pair. Élisa and Riv bundled Noab onto the gurney, whisking it back up.

‘Sante,’ the man whispered as he vanished into the dark confines of the ship.

Mirage, take good care of the kinai and lock him down until we decide what to do with him.

Noted.

ÉLISA

Élisa’s eyes tracked Noab Hakim as he disappeared into the Galician vessel.Or was it an Edenite ship above?

Its engine exhaust trail whipped up the sand around her as the vessel lifted away.

Then it was gone, and silence filled the air.

Her gaze clouded. She didn’t dare look athim.

If she did, she’d crumble. She closed her eyes as tears threatened, and her shoulders shook with the effort to keep from caving in on herself.

Of course Ribau was Riv.She’d just refused to believe it.

The signs had been plenty, thinking on it now. His stride was the same predatory, lithe prowl of her former lover.

His lips quirked with the familiar maverick energy Riv had always possessed. So, too, his exuberant poetry reading, dry humor, quick wit, and high logic.

Emotion hit her like a cataclysm, and she let out a sob, her limbs threatening to collapse to the ground.

Until strapping arms banded around her and picked her up like she was light, asfeathers, she thought through her tears.

He was strong, powerful, and muscled—much more than Ribau.

She turned her tear-soaked face into his rippled chest as he strode along, clutching at him like she’d never let him go.

She breathed in his familiar essence, musk, and scent that had never left her olfactory senses. She’d smelt him day and night in the wind, the desert flowers, the sweet hay she fed her animals. Pure, clean, evocative.

Riv.

It was him.

He was here.

It was bittersweet.

It was heaven, tinged with hell.

It was an ache that hurt to the bone.

She pulled him closer to her, and his arms tightened around her.

He bounded, in giant steps, towards her rock house.

His mag boots activated without effort, and he sailed over her fence.