Page 48

A Brotherhood Of Wolves

SAVVINE

I nside the última X’s bridge, Savvine jerked awake with a gasp as the ship bucked beneath her.

She lay on a crash couch which swayed, even as the floor shuddered underfoot.

The cockpit console flickered with alerts, and the viewport blazed with a bright light overhead.

She scrambled up, chest heaving, and staggered to the nearest screen.

Her heart stalled as the firestorm rolled outward throughout space, gold and blue radiance spiraling like a newborn star, blooming then imploding into itself with terrifying grace.

‘ Nada ,’ she whispered, eyes burning as she spotted three bodies floating as if lifeless. ‘Xander.’

She zoomed the holo vision, her hand coming up to her face in horror.

Xander’s scorched frame was limp, his limbs hanging, his glyphs dimmed, sparks flickering across his skin like dying fireflies.

She sighed when his chest rose. Slow, strained, but alive.

‘I’m going to play fetch. You’ll be okay?’

She jerked, only realizing Kaal stood in the room behind her, eyes narrowed on the screen.

As soon as she nodded, he took off.

She was left alone.

She stumbled back to her chair and sat with a thud in it, her fingers gripping the seat rest so hard that her knuckles ached.

Her throat was dry, her pulse roaring in her ears.

She caught the sound of an airlock cycling as Kaal launched into the void.

Through the viewport, she sighted him streaking across space.

‘What is it with these vacuum-spectral wolves?’ she muttered.

The comms crackled, reverberating in the última X’s bridge.

‘Hold on, Miral. Hang tight, brother,’ Kaal’s tone was gentle, softer than she’d ever heard. ‘You don’t get to die tonight.’

Savvine’s eyes locked onto the screen, where Miral and Xander drifted.

Kaal intercepted Miral and wrapped her in his arms.

Xander appeared to gain consciousness.

He thrashed in open space, like a wounded animal refusing to surrender, limbs jerking, the right side of his body charred black.

His jumpsuit torn, his face just visible beneath the blood and ash.

‘Baby, please be OK.’ Savvine’s chest caved in, her knees buckling as she reached toward the display like she could claw him back through sheer will.

Santi launched from his Corvette, a silver arc across the stars, coming to Kaal’s aid.

He flanked Xander, catching him between them with the precision of longtime brothers in arms.

A flash of light announced Boaz’s arrival as he headed in the direction of his stricken twin.

He gathered Bone, still unconscious, in his arms and dragged him back to his ship, the Shadowcall.

Savvine leaned forward as Santi, Kaal, Xander, and Miral vanished into the última X’s docking bay.

Savvine stumbled to the stairs, catching the sound of an airlock seal engaging.

She met them at the inner chamber, heart jack-hammering.

Xander lay motionless on the deck, and her breath hitched.

His chest was rising, but she could tell he was struggling.

Miral was beside him, a tangle of twisted synth alloy and seeping noids.

Savvine rushed to kneel at her man’s side, her eyes pooling with tears as they took in his blackened, blistered skin, leaking blood, and light.

‘Kaal, is he -?’

‘He’s breathing,’ Kaal said, his voice calm but rough with emotion. ‘His lungs are charred, but he’s still got fight in him.’

She knelt by Xander’s body, fingers hovering over his hand but too afraid to touch him. ‘Tis is my fault.’

Kaal crouched next to her. ‘ Nada . This is all on Eugene, who’s now fokkin ’ history.’

‘He’s so burned.’

‘He’s also the most heavy-duty, undying mofo I’ve ever met,’ Kaal said. ‘Xander’s built like a walking reactor; he can pull energy from the aether. He’ll heal. He needs time.’

Santi pulled out two cryogenic pods that slid from the wall and hovered mid-air. ‘Soon as I load Miral in, I’ll patch his vitals into the med panel so we can get a good read on him. It’s not good, Savvine, but like Kaal said, we haven’t seen the last of our Commander.’

Savvine stepped back with an exhale as Kaal and Santi went to work.

First, they inserted Miral into the first chamber.

Next, they slid Xander’s limp form into the second stasis capsule.

Kaal activated both pods’ interface. ‘Xander’s metabolism lets him repair damage on a cellular level. Nuclear trauma, internal bleeding, metabolic collapse, he can bounce back in a few days.’

Savvine nodded, eyes brimming. ‘What about Miral?’

‘She’s self-generating. Her metanoids are already reconstructing the damaged segments. Her recovery will be way faster than Xander’s, and trust, she’ll be cursing the whole way.’

Savvine touched the outer casing of her lover’s pod, her fingers trembling.

Inside, his eyes flickered once. Then closed.

She whispered, ‘Come back to me, baby.’

For the first time in hours, she let her tears fall.

The transfer back to the Signet mother-ship was a blur.

Savvine hardly remembered stepping through the airlock or the hiss of pressurized seals re-engaging.

Her legs moved instinctively, but her mind was only anchored to one thing, one person: Xander.

He lay suspended in the stasis capsule, silent and still, his body blackened and raw from the blast.

His charred chest rose and fell with a rattle, each breath a miracle.

The right side of his face was still scorched, his lips cracked, and his eye swollen shut. Even broken, he still appeared potent, unbreakable, spectral-forged.

They wheeled him into the medbay, the harsh light pooling over him as the medics and techs worked on him, inputting recovery commands, calibrating the regeneration matrix.

The chamber was cold and white, and the antiseptic scent of ionized steel and bio-gel clung to everything, as she sat in a chair close by, eyes on him, unable to speak.

If she did, her composure would’ve shattered, and she didn’t trust herself not to fragment completely.

Still, she didn’t leave.

Not when they linked his neural node to the rejuvenation grid.

Not when they inserted the nucleic stimulators into the arteries along his arm and neck. Not when the medics whispered about whether he’d wake up whole.

Not even when they told her in gentle murmurs, several times, to go rest.

She stayed.

Curled in a chair beside the pod, knees to her chest as hours passed.

Maybe a day. She didn’t count.

She memorized the rhythm of the lights as they flickered over his body. The way his wounds began to pulse with a gold glow.

She studied his dermis and noticed that, little by little, it started to reweave itself, muscle knitting, nerve threads reconnecting, and skin reforming in layers like waves smoothing over torn earth.

Yet it wasn’t fast enough.

‘Come back to me,’ she whispered one night, her breath fogging the glass of his pod, her soul splintering.

Her fingers curled against the cold casing.

‘Please, Xander, heal. Don’t let that be our last kiss be final. No one but you, baby, makes me feel so loved and cherished. I promise to make it up to you. Don’t let our loving end, it has to last.’

She had no idea whether he heard her, but she sensed his temperature rise. Holding onto hope, she waited, his guardian angel as his wounds closed.

Over time, his chest rose and fell in more even breaths as healing spread through him.

Somewhere in the corner of the room, one of the med-techs murmured, ‘He’s responding. The regeneration’s holding.’

Savvine didn’t need them to tell her. She sensed it, but she never left his side, not once, not until he opened his eyes.

Xander stirred with a grunt, the light from the stasis pod flickering against his skin’s raw, healed seams.

His lashes fluttered open, the movement sluggish, groggy, unsure.

His waking triggered the pod’s plex cover to slide open as Savvine’s breath caught in her throat.

‘Honey,’ she whispered, her voice cracking on his name as she leaned in. ‘Hey, you’re awake.’

His eyes finally found her. Clouded, unfocused, but then, warmth.

He blinked and attempted to knife up, groaning as his body protested.

‘Easy,’ she said, catching his shoulders and easing him back into the pillows. ‘You’re okay. You’re safe.’

His mouth was dry, lips parched and flaking, but he managed a broken rasp. ‘ Mi reina .’

She nodded, smiling as her eyes welled. ‘I’ve been here. The whole time.’

He tried to lift his hand to caress her, failed, and growled in frustration.

She pressed it to her cheek, guiding his fingers over her skin. His thumb hardly moved, but it was enough to make her eyes close.

‘Miral, Bone?’ he muttered, ever the pack alpha.

She smoothed his hair. ‘They’re safe and regenerating.’

‘ Fokkin ’ synth-Eugene?’

‘His atoms are scattered throughout the Wildlight.’

His shoulders appeared to relax at the news, and he fell asleep.

Later, the medics transferred him to a hover bed, where she helped him sit up.

She propped pillows behind his head and back and attempted to coax his appetite with a small bowl of broth.

He took a few sips till he slumped back, exhausted.

Her touch was constant, fingertips brushing hair from his temple, her lips ghosting across his brow.

It wasn’t until she peeled back the blanket to tend to the rest of his healing wounds that they discovered the bruising, all along his inner thigh, lower abdomen, and groin.

His muscles twitched as she worked, her fingers gentle and precise.

She wrapped bandages with care and murmured apologies under her breath when he winced.

She reached for a salve. As her palm slid over the line of his hip, he let out a groan.

‘ Fooookkkk ,’ he rasped, head thudding against the pillow.

She froze, a rush of heat coloring her cheeks. His gaze caught hers, hazy, hungry, conflicted.

‘I swear I didn’t do that on purpose,’ she whispered, fighting a smile.

He gave the ghost of a smirk before closing his eyes. ‘I’m half scorched and still want you. Specters of the Wildlight, save me.’

She laughed under her breath, covered him, and tucked the blanket over his hips with a soft murmur. ‘Go back to sleep, tough guy.’

So he did.