Page 45 of Stars in Umbra (The Sable Riders #8)

A Tempest of Sensation

MOLAN

M o burst through the Corvette’s loading bay, Rina tight in his grasp.

The shimmer of their stealth suits flickered out just as the doors hissed shut behind them.

Mirage, already interfaced with the ship’s cannon systems, unleashed hell.

Twin plasma arrays rained fury over the estate grounds, deflecting the rounds from Caidan’s turret guns on the castle roof.

Below, skiffs erupted in blossoms of fire. Caidan’s guards scattered, scrambling for cover.

Mo didn’t flinch. He powered down his suit, mag locks disengaging with a hiss, stripping it off piece by piece as his pulse roared in his ears.

‘Get us the fokk out of here,’ he grunted, his voice a storm barely contained.

Rina peeled off her armor, her inhale jagged.

Beneath the remaining layers, she was trembling.

Mo crossed the short distance to her in two strides and wrapped her in his arms, pressing her to his bare chest, anchoring her against his heartbeat.

She clung to him, breath hitching. He didn’t speak at first, just held her, the scent of smoke and loch wind still clinging to their skin, the echoes of danger still reverberating through their bodies.

When her shudders began to slow, he tilted her chin up and gazed down at her with something raw burning in his eyes.

‘Woman,’ he rasped, ‘you are a flawless diamond, blinding my demons. You give life a new meaning, making me dream again.’ His jaw clenched, and he kissed her forehead.

‘I swear, if he laid one more hand on you, I would’ve razed that estate to ash.

I was ready to tear through his men with my bare hands. ’

She glanced up at him, eyes glinting with emotion. ‘I had it under control.’

His smile was soft but pained. ‘I know. That’s what scares me.’ He smoothed damp strands of hair from her temple. ‘You’re too brave, too fierce. Every time you put yourself in the line of fire, I feel like I’m losing air. But I’ll never let anything hurt you. Not while I still draw breath.’

She cupped his cheek, and he leaned into the touch, the warmth of her grounding him.

Then he bent and kissed her, long and deep, his lips moving over hers, trying to imprint everything he couldn’t say.

When they finally broke apart, they changed into sweats in silence, with a kind of the ambiance still tinged with the rawness of having survived a close call together.

Mo tossed his ruined gear aside, took her hand, and walked with her to the Corvette’s bridge.

Once at the controls, Mirage’s holographic form flickered to life.

‘The party’s over,’ she declared. ‘The estate is compromised. Most of the guests have fled. Caidan is on the run.’

At Mirage’s command, her viewscreen feed expanded to show a sleek black skiff lifting from a hidden helipad, streaking into the clouds like a dark arrow.

She tapped the interface. ‘I launched a drone with a long-range scanner that locked onto that craft.’

The screen split. Coordinates flickered into view as the runaway skiff’s altitude rose.

Their eyes tracked the trajectory.

‘It appears to be headed for a location in Dunia’s upper stratosphere, a floating fortress concealed above satellite view, unreachable without codes and clearance,’ Mo growled.

‘Stygian Corp HQ,’ Mirage confirmed with a grim tone. ‘It’s crawling with activity with gunships, multiple weapons, and life signs. Seems we’ve just poked the hornet’s nest.’

Mo’s jaw tightened, a shadow falling over his features.

‘Then it’s time to bring the fire, and burn them all down.’

Mo stood at the head of the Corvette’s bridge, his arms crossed, eyes locked on the data stream flickering and flowing over the central console.

Rina stood beside him, with the Sable Group’s AI.

Mirage had just sent the Kainan evidence of Stygian Corp’s operations, from the black-wet and kill contracts to ghost missions and proof of terror strikes that reshaped borders and destabilized governments across Pegasi.

‘Let’s make the call.’

The holo link went through encrypted channels, every packet triple-verified, and now terabytes of classified intelligence.

Kainan’s face soon appeared on holo view, framed by the giant windows of his meticulous office.

He cut to the chase. ‘For years now, I’ve kept an eye on Stygian; they never quite smelt right. I suspected those bastards were shit,’ the Commander growled with deadly calm.

Mo said nothing at first, observing his Khosi’s expression shift as he took in the full extent of what they uncovered.

Kainan growled with deadly calm. ‘Fantastic work, team. We now have proof that they’re behind most of the unrest in Pegasi, stirring shit, terrorizing, and selling illegal arms to the highest bidder.’

Onscreen, Kainan’s gaze narrowed on the trio. ‘On paper, we’ve authorized a strike for you three to hit Stygian’s HQ,’ he said. ‘We’re in motion. But I’m asking you to hold for a bit.’

Mo tilted his head. ‘Why, boss khan ?’

‘Because this can’t just be a hit,’ Kainan replied.

‘It has to be the end of Stygian. We need to shut down all their operators and all their locations, which requires coordination. I’ll speak with Kage, Zane, Xion, and the Pegasi Military leadership.

One wave. One purge. We can’t give them time to react or worse, disappear. ’

Mo exhaled, the burden of his secrets tightening across his shoulders. He nodded once. ‘How long?’

‘24 to 48 hours,’ Kainan said. ‘Get some rest. Kick back until I give you green light.’

‘ Fokk yeah,’ Mo growled, signing off the call. ‘I’m all about downtime.’

His gaze drifted toward Rina, standing in the corner of the bridge, arms folded, hips cocked, eyes on him with a slight upturn of her lush lips.

Mo’s eyes darkened, heat blooming in his chest, for her, the woman who now walked beside him.

He didn’t have to say a word.

The gleam in his eyes made his intentions exquisitely clear.

He had plans for her.

Ones that did not involve weapons, intel, or schematics.

Only soft gasps and the fall of clothing, taking her to places she had experienced, starting with the depths of his desire and ending in the sanctuary of his arms.

He had no wish to be a gentleman.

He wanted to pull her into a tempest of sensation.

Until she forgot her own name, and clung to him as if he were the only solid thing in a world gone mad.

He would not stop until her body bore his brand, a silent testament to a passion so fierce it threatened to consume them both.

They never made it to the gunship’s quarters.

The divan of the corvette became their crucible.

The universe beyond the hull ceased to matter, eclipsed by the press of skin to skin, the rush of heated breath, the rasp of whispered names.

His hands charted her with reverence and hunger.

Lingering over the swell of her hips, the delicate hollow of her collarbone, the quickened beat of her pulse.

She gasped when his lips found the line of her throat, her head tipping back, a soft sigh escaping that only drew his mouth lower.

She answered with her own worship, her fingers tracing the hard lines of muscle across his chest.

Down his abdomen, skimming the taut edges of his body till he shuddered beneath her touch.

‘ Fokk , mi kaya ,’ he breathed against her skin, the words half a groan, part vow as his cock scorched her, stroking and thrusting until her thighs shook.

Every kiss was a descent, each one dragging them deeper into a fire that roared hotter than dying stars.

Their whispers tangled, his timbre rough with need, hers trembling with equal parts desire and wonder. ‘You’re mine,’ he murmured into her mouth, his kiss sealing her gasp as her pussy clutched him tighter.

He was a storm of sensation, a bulwark of strength and yearning made flesh.

She anchored herself in him, her cries muffled by his skin as his arms locked her closer, as though the act itself could fuse them into one.

‘Make me feel,’ she whispered.

He stroked inside her, bottoming out. ‘Deep enough for you?’ he taunted her as she muffled a scream.

The world fell away, dissolved into sighs, into the cadence of moans rising and breaking like surf, into the slick heat of passion that blurred all boundaries of self.

Their bodies moved in sync, a dance as old as time, primal and consuming.

‘Say it,’ he groaned, his forehead pressed to hers.

‘I adore you,’ she gasped, the words spilling raw and unguarded, answered by his broken whisper, ‘now and forever, honey.’

‘ Fokk , you are everything, woman.’

In that cradle of passion, they ceased to be two separate beings.

They were a single, pulsing entity, light and darkness braided, fire and ice entwined, breathing as one, burning as one, lost in incandescent passion.

Afterward, as the ship descended toward the shimmering surface of Dunia, they lay silent, wrapped in a comfortable cocoon of shared intimacy.

They had a mission to fulfill, a war to win, but for this brief moment, the world and its demands were a distant reality.

Her eyes flicked to the view outside the gunship. The landscape of her home planet unfolded below, a tapestry of green and gold.

Her parents’ farm, a speck in the vast expanse, was their destination.

There, they would wait for Kainan’s command, for the next phase of their plan to unfold.

She turned to face her man, studying Mo’s face, illuminated by the glow of the ship’s control panel, still in awe that he was her lover.

He was a sculpted, chiseled demi-god, yet a man of contrasts.

A soldier of the void who found his solace in her arms, a ruthless warrior who kept giving her a new lease on quiet peace.

Her truth lingered at the tip of her tongue, but still she hesitated.

She didn’t want to compromise the mission by throwing a late-stage whammy into it.

So she refrained from speaking and nestled in, taking strength in their bond and in his silent, comforting clasp, confident they would endure past this storm.

RINA

That evening at the farmhouse, Mo was stirring a pot of herbed stew beside Hanna when she reached for him and pulled him into a soft, impromptu hug.