by Alex Oliver
“We saved the galaxy,” he said, deciding to approach his current priorities in a slightly circuitous direction.
“I guess we did,” Aurora agreed, hoisting him out of the drop to the subterranean corridor, up to the level of the city. She nuzzled her nose into his collar-bone, that being about as high as she could reach. “We're indebted to a woman with a secret pirate crime empire and we're just about to reintroduce a presence to the planet that may not want us on it. But we saved the galaxy, and I got you back. That counts as a good day.”
Bryant was a hero. Bryant had saved the galaxy and won the girl. He had found himself his own planet and been befriended by a world. Married a queen? Well, that was still on the bucket list, but he was going to tick it off as soon as he could find her a ring.
He repeated the thoughts to himself one more time, not quite believing them. All this had started when he had gotten himself beaten up in an effort to escape Aurora's custody. He’d been a murderer resigned to a life of crime. And now he'd given up a kind of immortality so he could place himself straight back into Aurora's arms. He couldn't find it in him to regret it. Not one bit.
“You know, I'm very tired,” he said, drooping against her and relishing the way she almost picked him up.
“Oh yeah?” She had dried her eyes by now and was looking at him sideways, with a radiant expression that he thought spelled God, I missed your cheek.
“I was thinking bed,” he suggested, playful, so as not to put the pressure on. He knew by now what even her stupidest morals meant to her. He was designing the ring in his head even as he spoke – he wasn't going to push if she wasn't okay with it. “And then maybe celebratory sex afterward?”
Aurora gave a sharp bark of laughter, and her eyes sparkled. “I wondered if it was really you I had got back. I should have known, right?”
“What can I say?” he threw his heart in front of her feet. She'd touched it anyway, inside the AI, but sometimes you had to say the words anyway. “I love you so much even an alien planet can tell. I just want a chance to show you.”
She laughed again, as if taken by surprise and touched. Hair tousled, eyes happy, she struggled for a moment to find words with which to reply, and then shrugged. “Yeah,” she said, casually, as though she'd never been jilted in her life – as though it was easy for her to trust Bryant not to abandon her ever again. “Yeah. Why the hell not?”
Afterword
Thank you for reading! If you enjoyed this, please take the time to rate and review it - it makes a huge difference to whether other people will be able to find it or not. Life as an author can be very solitary, and a review is the best human contact we can hope for. Go on, make my day :)
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If you’re interested in what else I’ve written, please check out my website, but can I recommend the Atlantean Devices books? In my totally unbiased opinion they’re pretty awesome, and if you ever thought ‘you know, what I really need is Steampunk Dracula crossed with Lord of the Rings’ this may be right up your alley.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2018 by Alex Oliver
All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Cover Art by Alex Beecroft