"And you lost the southern fleet," he shot back, stepping closer. "While you were busy playing politics."
A traitor's bomb had collapsed the east wing. The dust hadn't even settled. Sera was pinned under a beam, her leg bleeding. Kaelen, who should have run—who should have left her for the rubble she deserved—was the one who dug her out.
"I hate you," she whispered, her lips an inch from his.
When she woke, he was gone. But he'd left a single thing on her bedside table: his personal comm cipher. The one that meant private. Unfiltered. Dangerous. Www Xxux Com Video Sex
The galaxy needed them to be enemies. But in the dark, with the stars as their only witness, they chose to be something far more terrifying:
But tonight, the ceasefire shattered.
The war room stank of ozone and desperation. Maps of contested territories were scattered like fallen leaves. Kaelen stood on one side of the table, his jaw a granite cliff. Sera stood on the other, her silver eyes lit with the cold fire of a winter moon. "And you lost the southern fleet," he shot
They chose to be each other's ruin.
When they kissed, it tasted like broken treaties and unshed tears. Like the first wound of a war that would never end—because neither of them wanted it to.
"I know," he murmured back, his hand finding the small of her back. "I've built a career on it." Sera was pinned under a beam, her leg bleeding
They met the next night in the abandoned observation deck, the cold vacuum of space pressing against the glass.
The Sharp Edge of Want
"You should have let me die," she texted. "It would have been strategically sound."