Page 28 of Eclipse Bound (Galaxy Alien Mail Order Brides #7)

“If one of us doesn’t control the energy, the ship will be lost,” Lunar was saying to Poppy. “Solar, Dani, all those aboard, will die.”

“Can’t Harris…?” Poppy tried to argue.

“Someone needs to return with Solar. My people will not trust him if he’s alone,” Lunar said.

Poppy shook her head, as if she could push away what he was telling her.

"Galaxy Brides cannot be trusted to deliver critical intelligence," Lunar said, his voice hardening. "The council will dismiss any such message without verification from an authorized entity."

Poppy moved closer to him. "You're saying you have to go."

"Yes." The single word carried the weight of resignation and duty.

The helicopter sounds grew dangerously close now.

"Pudding!" Harris shrieked, diving toward the center of the array.

"Eclipse," Lunar said, turning to him, "you must remain. Your twilight energy is too weak for the extraction. And Milano has already studied your energy patterns. They can't learn more from you that will harm our people. But if they were to find Solar or I…"

Eclipse nodded, not needing him to finish the thought. "If you go back, the council may not permit your return."

"You have beaten Milano once," Lunar said, ignoring the warning. "You are best equipped to evade them."

Eclipse understood the unspoken truth. Lunar was making his own sacrifice, choosing duty over his personal desires, so that Eclipse didn't have to.

"The threat must be communicated properly," Eclipse said. "The weapons they have developed, their knowledge of our physiology, and their intentions toward interstellar expansion. These represent a potential danger to Zorveya in the not so distant future."

Lunar moved closer to Eclipse, his shadow essence condensing to its most focused form. "Promise me you will protect Poppy," he said, his voice low enough that only Eclipse could hear. "Until I return."

Eclipse's twilight essence pulsed with solemn agreement. "I promise. For as long as it takes."

"And tell her..." Lunar hesitated. "Tell her everything I could not."

Eclipse nodded.

Lunar pulled Poppy aside. Eclipse gave them space as he turned to Rowan.

"Pudding," Harris said in a panic.

The Milano helicopter crested the ridge, its spotlight sweeping across the clearing.

Lunar's shadow essence was now fully focused and controlled. He turned to Eclipse, rippling with unusual emotion. "It has been educational serving with you, Diplomat Eclipse."

"And with you, Intelligence Specialist Lunar. Tell the council what happened here. Tell them Earth has potential beyond their imagining. And tell them I have found my true function at last," Eclipse said.

Lunar's form shifted, becoming almost invisible as he merged with the pre-dawn shadows.

"Protect her," he said to Eclipse, gesturing toward Poppy before he vanished into the darkness.

Poppy reached out as Lunar faded from view, her hand passing through the last wisps of his shadow essence. Eclipse felt her grief resonating across the clearing, a pain so sharp it momentarily disrupted his own energy patterns.

"He will return," Eclipse told her, though he could not be certain it was true.

Rowan moved to Poppy's side, putting an arm around her shoulders.

"Come with us," she said firmly. "You're not staying here for Milano to find."

Poppy nodded numbly, her eyes still fixed on the spot where Lunar had vanished.

The extraction devices began to hum, emitting a soft blue glow as they activated. Harris bustled between them.

Rowan furrowed her brow in annoyance.

Eclipse took Rowan's hands in his, his twilight form stabilizing at the points of contact. Their energies resonated together, creating that perfect harmonic convergence he had never experienced before her.

"I choose Earth," he said simply. "I choose you. I'm staying."

Rowan's eyes widened. "But your mission?—"

"Lunar will deliver the report. The council will receive the necessary information about Milano's threat."

"But your home?—"

He thought about how he tried to leave his post as an ambassador, and his people sent him here. It was hard not to think of that as a punishment. "There, I am always in between. It is not where I belong. Not anymore. Here, with you, I have found something I did not know was possible."

A helicopter's spotlight found them in the clearing. Voices shouted commands as Milano forces spotted the extraction array.

Harris yelled frantic nonsense.

Eclipse continued, knowing their time was precious. "On Zorveya, I was defined by function. Eclipse the Diplomat. The Mediator. Here, I am simply Eclipse. And with you, I am more than I ever thought possible."

Tears formed in Rowan's eyes. "Are you sure? This isn't just some quantum harmonic thing making you feel this way?"

Eclipse's twilight essence brightened. "The resonance between us is real, but my choice is made with full awareness. The Earth words are hardly adequate, but I love you, Rowan Clark. A concept my kind rarely expresses, but one I have come to understand through you."

"I love you, too," she whispered.

The extraction devices reached full power, creating a shimmering field in the center of the array. Harris stood within it, his form already beginning to blur.

Milano vehicles screeched to a halt at the edge of the clearing. Armed personnel poured out, Director Vega at their head.

"Secure the aliens," Vega ordered. "Don't let them escape!"

The extraction field intensified, the air within it seeming to fold in impossible directions.

Eclipse pulled Rowan and Poppy away from the array, his twilight essence expanding to shield them as the first energy pulses from Milano's weapons streaked toward them.

He gathered his strength for one final effort.

His twilight essence expanded outward in all directions, creating a dome of purple-blue energy around the three of them.

The Milano weapons fired, their pulses glancing across his field but failing to penetrate.

Through their connection, Rowan felt his plan. "Eclipse, you're not strong enough yet!"

"Together, we are," he replied, drawing on their resonance to reinforce his fading strength.

In a flash of brilliant light, the extraction field collapsed in on itself. Harris vanished, leaving only a shimmering distortion that quickly faded.

Eclipse used the extraction field's collapse as a cover to get away.

"No," Vega shouted, running forward. "Secure the remaining entities!"

With a sound like thunder, Eclipse's field pulsed outward in a concussive wave.

The Milano forces were thrown back, their weapons scattered.

In the momentary chaos, Eclipse condensed his essence around Rowan and Poppy and surged away from the clearing, flowing like liquid twilight between the rocks.

They had perhaps minutes before pursuit would reorganize. Minutes to disappear into the vastness of the desert. Minutes to begin their new life together.

As they fled, Eclipse was acutely aware of both women's energy signatures. Rowan's familiar warmth resonated with his own essence. But Poppy's felt more like grief-tinged determination. He had made a promise to Lunar, one he intended to keep.

As they fled into the growing light of dawn, Eclipse felt something he had never truly experienced in all his cycles as a diplomat on Zorveya.

Freedom.

"I don't know what comes next," he admitted to Rowan as they sprinted across the desert floor.

She smiled, her hand intertwined with his twilight essence. "Neither do I. But we'll figure it out together."

Poppy, running alongside them, glanced back toward the clearing where Lunar had disappeared into the extraction field.

"All of us," Rowan said softly. "We'll figure it out together."

For a being who had existed in the perpetual in-between, in the balance point of opposing forces, that simple certainty was the most profound gift of all.