Page 90 of Ravaged By the Reaper

He stops. Just outside the bridge threshold. The doors hiss open on a world of command—rows of consoles, red-lit dashboards, Panaka’s laughter echoing somewhere past the tactical rail.

Haktron turns to face me.

His eyes burn—not with heat, but with clarity.

“I knew you’d take this path,” he says.

I arch a brow. “You did?”

He nods, slow. “From the moment you refused to break. From the moment you challenged me instead of pleading.”

I lean close. Close enough to feel the electricity dance across my collar. “I didn’t want to be saved.”

“I never wanted to save you,” he growls, low and reverent. “I wanted tostand besideyou.”

The words brand themselves across my chest, hotter than plasma.

And I know—this isn’t love the way soft stories tell it. This is deeper. Older. Brutal and burning and sacred. This is war and devotion and forever etched into blood.

I step into the bridge with him at my side.

Panaka glances over from the command chair, raising his drink in mock salute. “Well, look at that. The pirate queen ascends.”

I flash him a smirk, calm and razor-sharp. “Let’s get to work.”

Because there are planets to raze, lives to spare, deals to strike. And now I don’t have to choose between who I was and who I am.

I get to be all of it.

CHAPTER 25

HAKTRON

The Widowmaker’s halls are bathed in their usual blood-red glow, but it doesn’t feel the same anymore. The ship breathes differently now, slower, deeper—like a beast freshly fed but still hungry.

I stalk the corridors with silent steps, my boots whispering across the alloy decking. Reaper recruits clatter past in tight formation, their armor still too clean, their swagger too forced. They nod when they pass me. A few salute. Most glance sideways, pretending not to look too long.

They all smell like tension. Like gun oil, sweat, and nerves.

And underneath it isherscent. Faint, yes. But it lingers. On the airlocks. In the mess. In the very wiring. A soft perfume of ozone and wildness, threading through a ship made for slaughter.

She’s marked this place. Like I have.

And the crew knows it.

They whisper, of course. Always do. Old comrades crouch near engines and act like I can’t hear them. New blood fumbles codewords and stares too long. Some call her a distraction. Others—more clever, more dangerous—call her athreat.

“A Companion turned pirate?” I hear one say near the lift bulkhead. “Pretty. Poisonous. Like a thorned rose.”

“Or a trap,” another hisses, quieter. “Reapers don’t fall for pink-skinned bait.”

I turn the corner, and the conversation dies faster than a scream in vacuum.

I say nothing.

Not a word.

They know better than to expect one.