Chapter 32
Kael’s arms were tightly wrapped around Wraith. He kissed her hair before he realized he wasn’t dreaming.
He didn’t know where they were.
Nor how they got there.
But Wraith was real. Solid, breathing, and warm against him.
More real than he was.
More real than anything.
She was draped heavily over him; the still, deep sleep of the drugged or the terminally exhausted.
He hoped to the Void they hadn’t drugged her again.
They?
Had he been awake before?
Fragments stirred at the edge of memory, just out of reach.
He cast his mind back to the last firm thing he could find: his hand on Wraith’s shoulder in the Banshee. Hers held briefly over his.
She’d told him to listen to her voice. To feel the Void.
Static flooded through him, saturating every nerve. A comms signal out of frequency.
The Void.
It was there. It knew him now.
His breathing became shallow, and his arms jerked reflexively tighter around Wraith. He might have been her Tether, but right now, she was sure as fuck his anchor.
She shifted a little, mumbled something he couldn’t hear.
He let himself loosen his grip, just slightly, and she relaxed against him. He took a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her hair and letting it ground him.
Where the fuck were they?
He stared up at the ceiling then carefully turned his head to look around the room without disturbing Wraith.
It was dark, but not so much that he couldn’t make out high beds and unfamiliar equipment—definitely a MedBay, but not like any he’d seen before.
Something scratched at the edges of his memory, begging to be let in. To be remembered.
But before he could grab it, a door he hadn’t seen slid open, letting warm light and a huge man into the room.
Their gazes met and the man stopped in his tracks and raised his hands, signaling he had no ill intent.
“I wasn’t expecting you to be awake,” he whispered. “That’s twice I’ve made that mistake. It’s becoming a bad habit.”
Kael knew him.
From pictures. From his file. From… somewhere else.
“Phantom. I guess she found you after all.”
Phantom lowered his hands, but made no move to come closer. “So you’re not planning to attack me again?”
Kael’s brows drew together. “Should I be?”
The big man sighed. Glanced down at Wraith in Kael’s arms.
She’d been his.
The realization hit like an ice storm on Iveros. Sudden and inescapable.
And he’d been hers.
Something deep in him, something feral and fierce he didn’t understand, bared its teeth. Ready to fight for something he couldn’t even name.
He pushed it down, jaw clenched painfully.
Not his call to make.
“Maybe we should talk,” he suggested to Phantom, and shifted to let go of Wraith.
“Uh, why don’t you stay there for the moment, Major,” Phantom said quickly. “I’ll bring a chair.”
“When you said bring a chair, I really wasn’t expecting one to just pop out of the floor.”
Kael kept his voice low, even though Wraith showed no signs of waking.
Phantom was watching him the way Brenkoff had watched Wraith on their first return to the Eventide—ready to shoot if he even breathed wrong.
Not saying anything.
What in the Void was going on?
“Do you know where you are?”
“Not a Void-damned clue.”
The echo of a smile passed over Phantom’s lips.
“Okay, what do you remember?”
Kael looked out towards the wall, towards the Void.
Tensed.
“Okay, maybe we’ll leave that one for later,” the big man told him carefully.
He was definitely nervous about Kael, but why?
“You’re not dead, then.”
Not the best opener in the history of the galaxy. But it was a start.
Phantom looked down at himself as if surprised.
“You know, I think you’re right. How did that happen?”
Kael rolled his eyes, “Is sarcasm a side effect of being a Ghost? Or was it an entrance requirement?”
Phantom chuckled. It was quiet and suited the man about as well as Shade’s booming laugh suited him.
Not at all.
“Definitely a requirement. Just not a listed one,” he paused, “that I’m aware of.”
Phantom glanced down at Wraith again. He’d been doing it every thirty seconds or so. It seemed compulsive. Like he was assuring himself she was still there.
Kael considered it.
The Ghosts loved each other.
They were closer than any unit he’d ever encountered, whether because of what they were or something else he was only beginning to understand.
He’d seen it with Spook. Again with Shade. And now, with Phantom. But this was different. More.
This was a man watching someone else hold his soulmate like a lifeline.
And Kael was holding onto someone that could never be his.
“You still love her.”
Phantom smiled, “Always.”
“She still loves you.”
It hurt to say it.
Tomorrow, he’d pretend it didn’t.
“I know.”
Kael nodded his head without meeting Phantom’s dark eyes and shifted out from under Wraith, pushed himself carefully off the bed.
Phantom’s hand grabbed his arm before he’d fully let go of her. The man was fucking fast.
“That’s really not a good idea,” he hissed.
Kael felt a spike of emotion. Concern, anger, fear, regret. But it wasn’t his.
Then Phantom let go of him and the sense faded like a dream.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that right now, she’s about the only thing that’s stopping you from mentally tearing this ship apart.”
Wraith felt Kael and Elijah.
Heard them whispering.
She opened her eyes and blinked in the dim light. They were standing on either side of the MedBed, staring at each other. Kael’s hand was still resting on her leg.
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” she cursed as she sat up. She looked at one, then the other.
“You know what? I don’t care. I’m tired. Go kill each other, but do it somewhere else and let me get some fucking sleep.”
Elijah’s lips twitched. Helios pressed his together.
She felt their concern and, Void help them, their amusement.
It would take time and effort to kill them herself. But then Seori would probably be sad, and Wraith would be dead.
So, she did the next best thing.
Flashed her arms up, grabbed each man by the back of their heads and smashed them into each other with a satisfying crack. It wouldn’t have worked if either were remotely expecting it.
“Figure yourselves out,” she told them and jumped off the bed.
She paused just long enough to make sure that Kael’s mental voice remained quiet, then she marched out of the room and down the corridor.
Seori’s couches had been comfortable. And as long as the idiots remained in MedBay, maybe she’d let Wraith crash there.