Page 36 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

“Because you are pregnant with our child,” he said, and the words changed the air in the room. “And I will not risk either of you.”

She went very still. The space between one breath and the next opened wide. He caught the moment she realized this was the thing he had seen on the med-strip. Shock traveled through her like a ripple from a dropped stone, moving outward into every place her body held quietfear.

“Pregnant,” she whispered.

“Affirmative.” His palm stayed gentle on her abdomen, heat and vow together. “The readings are clear. Iverified three times. Isent the results to Apex.”

“What did he say?”

“That he will route resources and set a retrieval vector for Emmy. That he will act quickly.” He let his mouth touch her temple. “He also said that I am to be still for once in my life.”

Hannah made a sound he hadn’t heard from her before—half laugh, half sob.

“That sounds like him,” she said, and the way she said it made him imagine a time when the three of them would sit in the ship’s galley and argue about tactics over mugs of something strong and human and hot.

The image landed in him like a stake driven andtied.

Her hand covered where his rested on her belly. He felt the pulse there and knew it was hers, not yet the smaller one hidden deep within, still too new to be found. He didn’t care. He heldboth.

“I didn’t plan this,” she said. “Any of it.”

“Neither did I,” he said. “I planned a clean line and a hard exit and a war that didn’t touch you.” He shook his head once. “Plans break.”

She tipped her face up. “You’re not angry?”

“No.” His answer came with no space for doubt. “I am…” He searched for a word that wouldn’t sound foolish in his mouth. “I am changed.”

Her eyes filled and didn’t spill. She pressed her lips to the center of his chest, just left of the scar that marked a time he had been foolish in a different way. “Me too,” she whispered. “I’m terrified. But I’m… I’m staying with you.”

For a moment the power of her words struck through his chest, fierce and unexpected—that she was choosing to remain with him. He let the intensity of it settle, the realization that he was no longer alone. Then he added, steady and certain, “I will guard you both through the rest of our lives.”

She breathed, long and deep, and something eased in her that no med-unit could’ve fixed. When she spoke again her voice carried a new axis. “Tell me what happens next,” she said. “All of it. Not the short version.”

“Apex will dispatch a pair of ghost-ships to lift the last of the headman’s men out of the rubble and strip the camp for evidence before local authorities muddle it,” Locus said.

“He has already traced three accounts from the ledger, and one of those accounts will lead to a slaver storage node where people are kept in cold and sold as if they were harvested parts. Itold him—not gently—that Emmy must be the first rescued. He sent back a single glyph in reply: Already moving. ”

He continued, voice certain. “Emmy was not sent to a market. She was sold to one man. Apex is already tracing that line. It may take time, but he will find her. While we wait, my ship will stay hidden in orbit, silent. When Apex locates her, asignal will come—an alert on the bridge or a light in the med-suite. If we are away from those places, the ship itself will carry the message so we cannot miss it.”

“And if Sixth doesn’t find her there?” she asked.

“Then he will widen the net,” he said. “You will not go to ground. You will not run with me into a gun.” He looked at her until she looked back. “I will not bargain on two lives.”

She stared at him for a long breath, then another. “Okay,” she said finally, reluctance streaming through the word. “Okay. Ihate it. But okay.” She pressed her forehead to his again. “You know this won’t make me quiet.”

“I do not want you quiet.”

“Good.”

She exhaled and settled fully against him.

Silence rose around them like warm water.

The ship shifted almost imperceptibly as the nav-sphere corrected to a more efficient orbit.

He sensed the change throughout his body, afamiliar hum that had always steadied him and never once felt like home untilnow.

He could’ve let her sleep. He should have.

The med-suite had pushed in a reserve of nutrients along with the repair protocols and her levels were climbing toward baseline.

But her hand slid over his hip and came to rest at the back of his thigh and he knew the night hadn’t finished drawing them back into each other’s arms, into the wordless way two people could find peace together.

He kissed her again and didn’t fight the way the gravity between them turned into heat.

It wasn’t the storm this time. It was the after-tide that reaches higher on the beach than anyone expects because the moon is new and the ocean remembers.

He moved with her through that quiet surge, deeper, named by nothing but breath.

They lingered for a long time, touching and exploring, rediscovering what it meant to be alive and together.

Every kiss was slower, every caress more deliberate, areminder that survival had given them this gift.

She whispered his name like it was both security and invitation.

He answered with vows made in the dark, promises stitched into skin with touch and breath.

Together, they found release again, softer this time, bound not by urgency but by the certainty that they had more than fear now—they had each other.

When she slept at last, she sprawled, one arm across his stomach, one knee hooked over his thigh, mouth parted. He watched her for a long time in the faint amethyst light and learned the shape of peace on her face. He didn’t know how long it would last, but he knew it wasreal.

The bridge chimed once, soft as a throat cleared behind a doorframe. He slid out from under her without waking her and crossed barefoot to the wall console. Apex didn’t bother with preamble. The packet was small.

Apex: No trace yet. The line is faint. Iwill keep searching. Standby.

He shut the console and went back to the bed. Hannah shifted when the mattress took his weight. Her eyes opened, heavy-lidded and clear.

“Is she—”

“Soon, we hope,” he said. “Apex is in motion.”

She scrubbed her hands over her face and then found his again. “I’m going to cry,” she warned, voice wobbling, laughter under it. “It’s not the hormones. It’s… Okay, it’s probably the hormones.”

“It is all right,” he said. “Cry.” He pulled her into his chest and she did, quiet and fierce. Tears struck his skin and vanished and he knew there would be more of them in the days ahead and that he would be there for each one, steady as a bulkhead, warm as a hand on a baby’s back.

When she calmed he tipped her chin and kissed the salt from her eyelids. “I will tell you when further messages come.”

“You promise.”

“Affirmative.”

She let out a breath that sounded like she had been holding it for years. “We’re really doing this,” she whispered. “All of it. Not just surviving.”

“We are,” he said. “You will not do it alone.”

She smiled into his skin and the expression moved through him like a sunrise does through a cold house—quiet, steady, reaching every room. He tightened his arms around her and looked past her shoulder at their current home. The ship hummed. The day was coming. He didn’t feel hunted. He feltheld.

He thought of the preserve burning down to steel and ash, of the ledger chits scattered in mud, of the way the headman’s voice had thinned when he realized the stage was gone from under him.

He thought of Hannah standing on that tilted platform with a pistol in one hand and a knife in the other, eyes bright and unafraid in a way that had nothing to do with recklessness and everything to do with a future she had already decided totake.

He lowered his mouth to her hair. “Rest,” he said. “I will watch the door.”

“You’ll sleep,” she said into his chest.

“I will not,” he said, and for once it was simple.

He would stand here forever if standing was what kept them safe.

He would learn to sit if sitting did. He would learn to be soft in a world that had taught him only hard things.

He would learn, because she would be here to teach him and because he had something to learn fornow.

Minutes slid. Then, quietly, as if afraid to startle the future into bolting, “Locus?”

“Affirmative.”

“I love you.”

He stopped. The soft lights of the bedchamber washed them in a soft halo. He looked down at her as if the sentence had mass and he needed it to settle into his hands. He had said a thousand difficult things in his life. He had said very few easy trueones.

“I love you,” she said again, clearer now, eyes unblinking.

“I hear you,” he said. He bent and kissed her with a care like strength instead of fear. “I love you.”

Somewhere very close, anew day was arriving.

And together, they would meetit.

The Intergalactic Warriors continues with a steamy collision between Sixth and the human mate he purchases in the Intergalactic Warriors Series: Sixth