Page 34 of Stars in Umbra (The Sable Riders #8)
‘That was a hell of a thing to learn, Mo,’ Kainan said, his voice quiet but firm, jerking his chin, the gesture grounding. ‘The burden of a legacy like that might be precarious to say the least.’
He paused, letting the silence hang between them, a space for Mo to breathe.
‘But you’re not just this god, Sulfiqar’s son,’ Kainan continued, his gaze steady.
‘You’re Mo. You’re our brother. A Rider.
A man with a heart, whom we all dearly treasure.
That’s who you are, and that’s all that matters to us. ’
He gave Mo a final, firm nod. ‘Whatever comes next, we’ll face it together. But for now, you need to go home and put your feet up. The rest of this can wait until you’re ready.’
He clapped a hand over his chest one ultimate time, in a show of solidarity. ‘We’ll be here. Always.’
Mo bowed his head for a beat, then glanced up, meeting Kainan’s gaze. ‘ Sante khan , I can’t imagine how to thank you.’
‘You can do it by resting then, when you’re strong, going after the mofos that got you in this mess in the first place, with our blessing, of course.’
‘I appreciate that.’
‘ Karibu ,’ Kainan intoned.
Mo fell back onto his hover bed, eyes canted to the ceiling as the Riders wrapped up their discussion, nodding toward Rina, decisions made, protocols set.
Rina waved goodbye, and their holo images winked out one after the other.
Rina whispered with Mirage about the next steps.
‘Let him rest and heal first, then we can discuss next steps,’ Mirage urged.
‘I’ve got him, I’ll take care of him,’ Rina murmured.
It was a simple statement, yet it resonated in Mo’s chest.
Damn, this woman. Her concern and kindness were beyond measure.
Moments later, she turned to him. ‘Baby, you ready to leave?’
Her question was gentle, but her eyes held a fierce light, an intense focus that was just for him.
He nodded once. ‘ Naam .’
Yearning arced between them, a tangible current that hummed in the air.
She leaned forward and pressed a kiss to his forehead.
The touch was a jolt of warmth, a single point of radiance and hope in the fog of his exhaustion.
He swayed into the phantom pressure long after she pulled away.
The sight of her, so beautiful in the unforgiving chamber, was a balm to his soul.
He spent most of his adult life alone, fighting, in the darkness, and yet here she was, the last person he ever expected, choosing to stand in the light with him.
She had seen him at his peak of vulnerability, his body broken and his will pushed to its absolute limit, and she had not run.
She had not recoiled.
She had simply said, ‘I’ve got him,’ as if his life was hers to claim and to protect.
A raw, unfamiliar burning spread behind his eyes.
He fought it back, biting down on the inside of his cheek, a penetrating, physical pain to force the emotional torrent into submission.
Fokk , he was not going to cry, not here, not now.
Still, the sensation was overwhelming, underscoring that he genuinely felt for her.
This woman, the one who disarmed him in every way, was proving to be his sanctuary, his safe space.
She was not just a warrior, or a lover, or a confidante.
She was his forever woman.
He reached for her hand and locked his own with hers.
She and Mirage flanked and guided him, still unsteady on his feet, toward her flyer parked on the landing pad of the Thabot Barracks rooftop.
Rina waved farewell to the Rider’s AI, who headed off to her transport.
Once inside the flyer, his woman activated stealth mode, and they lifted into the hazy, blush-hued skies of New Rambasa.
He sat in silence, the hum of the engines the only sound in the cabin.
Mo sliced his eyes away from Rina and onto the view outside as his mind shifted to the revelation of who his father was.
He was a freakin’ god-scion.
The truth echoed in his mind as his hands clenched in his lap, his knuckles pale.
Now, he recalled his mother’s stories, the tales of a glittering palace made of stars, and the promises of a life owed to them.
Guilt overcame him for not believing her accounts to be true, for dismissing them as fantasy.
So all along, what she shared about his childhood was accurate.
He remembered her whispered murmurs in the night.
Where she cried about being the lover of one of the most influential and wealthy beings in the galaxy.
Regardless, she died with nothing, and he had been left behind.
More agonizing questions, those that persisted since his childhood and caused the deepest wounds, rose like bile in his throat.
Why had Sulfiqar abandoned them? Weren’t they worth claiming?
He’d spent years carrying his invisible scars.
During LeCythi’s Father’s Day street festivals, as every crowded household celebrated the gift of family and love, he flitted alone, a shadow forgotten and discarded.
He’d witnessed with envy his schoolmates and friends celebrate birthdays, wedding feasts, communal laughter around hearths with a father at the helm.
He’d eyed it all from the outside, unable to understand the texture of joy without it being tinged with abandonment issues.
Sometimes he’d even made up tales of an explorer father to explain the absence and to feel normal.
Most times, the resentment bubbled up, ugly and alive, always catching at the back of his throat, along with jealousy when he spotted other young men with their fathers.
Then shame would crash over him like cold water.
How dare he resent anyone for having what he didn’t?
Still, after his mother died, he started pulling away from old friends, skipping or turning up late to neighborhood gatherings and seeking solitude in back alleys, in minor offenses, in danger.
The streets never asked questions. The underworld required no joy, nor did it hold any expectations.
He’d found more lost souls like himself and made his home among killers and ghosts til his handlers recruited him.
Now here he was, the son of a Most High deity.
Not cloaked in glory or crowned in light, but guilty as fokk , carrying inside him a ruin of unloved years, and the heft of unimaginable crimes.
The flyer banked left, as Rina glanced at him, concern written all over her face.
‘How are you going?’ she murmured.
Mo didn’t have an answer, disoriented and shattered by the revelation.
It wasn’t just the bone-crushing reality of a divine legacy that was breaking him.
It was the agonizing realization, and the ache of that long-ago abandoned boy.
One who had waited a lifetime for a father who never came, only to find he’d been a pawn in a celestial game all along.