Page 45 of Storm of Stars (Pride of Praxis #2)

CHAPTER

TWENTY-THREE

Thorne

The next three days were some of the hardest we’d ever lived through.

We had won but the silence that followed victory wasn’t what I’d call peaceful.

It was hollow and heavy. There was damage to assess, lives to mourn, entire systems to unravel and rebuild.

And time, as always, was working against us.

For three long, tense days, Nexum had no governing body.

No leader. And without leadership, especially with a population fueled by years of grief and injustice, chaos was waiting at the door.

It was Edgar Soonwater who finally stepped forward, calm and measured, and suggested that a temporary governing council be formed.

A body made up of former Challengers, those who had fought, survived, and earned the people's trust. People who had lived in the Collectives, not above them.

People who knew what it meant to hunger, to hurt, to hope.

The Wildguard hadn’t planned to be part of that.

None of us wanted power. After all we’d fought to tear down, the idea of standing on a pedestal felt wrong.

But there was a responsibility in victory, and we owed it to the people who had followed us, believed in us.

We agreed to serve, only until a new system could be voted on.

No one ever really talks about what comes after the rebellion.

The war stories always end with the villain’s fall.

But the truth is, the hardest part is what follows.

What do you do when the goal you spent your entire life chasing has finally been reached?

When there’s no more fight, only the fragile pieces of what’s left?

So we made decisions.

There will be an election. A fair one. For the first time, every Collective will have a voice in who leads them next.

My guess is it’ll be Edgar. He’s good. Not perfect, but he acknowledges those flaws.

He’s kind. He listens. And maybe he’ll call himself Archon.

Or President. Or something entirely new.

Praxis will be renamed too. The word alone makes people flinch, and we want a future unburdened by that fear. A new name. A clean beginning. One step at a time.

And as for us…we’ve taken up residence in the Archon’s old house for the time being. That grand white building with its sweeping pillars and polished marble halls. The one where I once stood, trembling in a borrowed suit, and looked up to see the person who would change my life forever.

So when I walked back into that place, into those echoing halls, once thick with the weight of Veritas’ rule, I didn’t feel fear. Or resentment. I smiled. Because I didn’t see tyranny. I didn’t see Praxis.

I saw Bex.

I stood on the balcony, arms resting against the railing, watching the city below exhale. The streets, once patrolled and silenced, now hummed with cautious movement. People were out, talking, rebuilding.

The sun was dipping low, casting the whole city in soft gold. It was beautiful in a way I wasn’t ready for. Beautiful and overwhelming. My breath caught, and I closed my eyes against the sting in them.

I heard the footsteps before I felt her, light, steady, familiar. I didn’t turn. I didn’t have to. I knew my sister’s presence anywhere.

“Ma would be really proud of you,” Briar said softly, slipping her arm through mine. Her head found its place on my shoulder..

Her words cracked something open in me. I nodded, jaw tight, the lump in my throat too thick to speak around.

“We finished what she started,” she murmured, her voice like a balm over a long-aching wound. “We were her legacy.”

A broken breath escaped me. “I wish she could have seen it,” I said, my voice fragile. “I wish she could have known it wasn’t all for nothing.”

Briar held me a little tighter. “I think she does,” she said simply, lifting her gaze to the sky.

I followed her eyes, looking up through the soft fading light. I used to stare at the stars and wonder if my mother could see the same ones, if maybe, somehow, through all the distance and time and absence, we were connected by the same pieces of sky.

Now, that same sky stretched wide and whole above us. And I didn’t have to wonder anymore. I knew.

“She’s there, you know,” Briar said. “She’s in every step we take forward. Every law we rewrite. Every kid who grows up not afraid of the dark. Every person who gets the resources they deserve without dying for the privilege.”

The lump in my throat swelled, but this time it was paired with a strange, quiet peace.

“She always said the stars could tell the future,” I whispered. “Maybe this was what she saw.”

Briar smiled gently. “Then she knew we’d win. Even when we didn’t believe it ourselves.”

The stars blinked into view one by one. I leaned into Briar and let the silence speak for us.

“There you two are,” Bex’s voice rang out across the balcony, warm and rich and so achingly familiar it still made my heart stutter.

Briar and I turned at the same time, instinctively parting just enough for her to slide between us.

She always fit there. Like that space had waited for her all along.

She nestled in, one arm around each of us. I pressed a kiss to her lips, soft and slow, while Briar leaned in to kiss her cheek. Bex laughed, a little breathless from the double affection, and I felt it vibrate through her chest into mine.

“Hey, love,” I whispered, still close enough that my lips brushed hers.

“Hi,” she murmured back, her voice smiling.

“Did you hear anything yet?” Briar asked, her voice low but tense as she stepped into the room.

Bex looked up from the screen in her hands, worry etched into the lines around her eyes. “Nothing,” she said softly. As soon as we could, we sent a message to Ava. Told her to bring Jax here. “Still no reply.”

“Bex,” Briar whispered. Pressing a kiss to her lips.

“I know,” Bex whispered, and the sound of her voice twisted something in my chest.

I wrapped my arms around her from behind.

“Don’t worry, love,” I murmured against her temple, brushing a kiss there.

“I’m sure they’re okay. Things are… strange right now.

Even with the railway open, there’s barely any infrastructure.

No real schedules. No idea who’s actually running things.

And who knows how far they had run to stay safe during the Reclamation. It’s not exactly an easy trek.”

She leaned into me, just enough that I could feel some of the tension ease from her shoulders. “They’re probably already on their way,” I added gently. “Probably stuck at some broken checkpoint or waiting on a repurposed cargo train that hasn’t run on time in twenty years.”

I believed it. I really did. But I still couldn’t stop checking the door every time I passed it. Just in case.

“Thanks,” she said after a long moment. She turned in my arms and kissed me softly, slow and grateful. “For always knowing what to say.”

“I don’t always,” I admitted against her lips. “But I mean it. They’ll be here. He’ll be here.”

Her eyes closed. Just for a moment. And I held her tighter, because we both needed to believe it.

“I came to tell you both that dinner’s ready,” she added, glancing at Briar.

I raised an eyebrow. “Did Edgar cook again?” I asked, already grimacing. “No offense, but the man’s better with battle strategy than he is with garlic.”

Briar laughed, and Bex smacked my shoulder with a huff of fake outrage.

“He tries,” she said, but her tone betrayed her agreement.

“Tries to assassinate us with flavorless stew,” I teased, and Briar snorted.

“I don’t care if it’s charcoal soup,” Briar said, pushing off from the railing. “I’m starving.”

She turned toward the door, leaving me and Bex in the glow of the fading sunlight. Bex made to follow, but I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her back against me.

“Me too,” I whispered into her ear, letting the words drip with a different kind of hunger.

She shivered in my arms, and I felt her breath catch in that way that never stopped thrilling me. Her hands came up to rest over mine, lacing our fingers together across her stomach.

“You’re insatiable,” she said, leaning back into me with a grin I could feel in the curve of her spine.

I kissed the spot just beneath her ear. “Only for you.”

“You go on ahead, Bry,” I called after my sister, without pulling my eyes from the gorgeous creature before me. “I’m gonna have an appetizer.”

“Didn’t need to know that!” Briar called over her shoulder with a chuckle, while she slipped out of the room.

The instant the door clicked shut behind her, I didn’t hesitate.

My hands found Bex’s waist, pulling her close until there was no space left between us.

I pressed her back against the wall, my whole body leaning into hers, and my mouth crashed onto hers with a hunger that had been building for far too long.

This kiss was desperate, urgent, a need that refused to be tamed. We’d shared plenty of kisses over the past few days, but none like this. None where I could finally touch her fully, where every nerve ending sparked with the electricity of what I’d been holding back.

Her scent wrapped around me, heady and warm, pulling me deeper into the moment.

I drank in her kiss like it was the only thing keeping me tethered, matching her every breath, every trembling moan that escaped between us.

The world around us blurred until all that existed was the heat of her skin against mine, the wild rhythm of our hearts, and the fierce, aching desire to never let go.

“Thorne,” she whispered breathily as I sank to my knees before her. Her hands latched onto my shoulders as I stripped her bare, exposing her glorious, glistening core to me. I licked my lips as I leaned forward.

The first swipe of my tongue had her arching against the wall.

The next drew a curse from between her perfect lips.

The third sent her hands tangling into my hair.

By the time I slid one of my fingers into her wet heat, she was nearly there already.

I sucked her clit into my mouth, rolling the bud along my tongue, relishing the way it made her body shake beneath my hold.

“Yes, Thorne,” she cried. “I’m so close,” she added. My perfect woman was going to come all over my tongue, then my dick, and she was going to scream the whole time. I was giddy just thinking about it.

Another thrust of my fingers into her had her orgasm ripping through her.

Her walls clenched around my fingers and I tasted her release on my tongue as she drenched my face.

She pushed at my head, desperate to get me away from her sensitive throbbing pussy.

But I wasn’t nearly finished. I never would be.

I stood and freed my hardened cock from my pants, and I was entering her before she’d even come down from the high of her first orgasm. She screamed out, and I grunted against the feel of her body still pulsing with pleasure around my cock.

“Thorne, oh fuck,” she moaned and I caught the sound with my mouth.

I kissed her, saying every word I never could with each brush of my tongue against hers, and each thrust of my cock within her.

This was the vow I’d made to her, not with rings or ceremonies, yet, at least. But with every breath, every touch, every time I chose her again and again.

This was the love that had carried us through fire and ash.I would never want for anything else.

Never need for more than what she already gave me just by being here, by being mine.

“Tell me you love me,” I demanded.

The world outside could crumble, could still shake beneath the aftershocks of Praxis’s fall. Rebuilding might take lifetimes. Systems might falter. People might stumble. But in my arms was the only truth I needed, her.

Her steady heartbeat. Her lips pressed to mine. Her warm body around mine like a promise I would never take for granted.

As long as I had her, her laugh, her fire, her fierce and tender love, I could survive anything. Even the end of the world.

I felt my release crest and as I slammed into her one last time, I knew that this was what victory meant to me. This was the future I’d fought for.

The future I’d do anything to protect.

“I love you,” she replied, giving me everything I ever needed.