by Keary Taylor
He looks down at his hand, hanging relaxed at his side, only two feet away from my own hand. It lifts just slightly.
“But I wouldn’t trade it for anything,” he says. “Not even if Cyrillius offered me an entire solar system of perfect planets. Of all the people I could have randomly woken up with in my head, I’m so thankful it was you, Nova.”
I’m frozen, rooted in place, my lips hanging open just a bit. I don’t know what to say. People aren’t this honest; they aren’t this open. They don’t just say the truth of the deepest part of their heart. We’re just trained that way, from birth, by all the social pressures and exposures we’re surrounded with.
But I believe every single word Valen just said.
“I don’t like people,” I say, deciding to be honest, myself. “I don’t like fake and I don’t like liars and I don’t like forcing things.” I shake my head. I’m so heavy, so filled with such complexity I don’t think I can take any more, so I have to let some of it out through my lips. “I have four people in this whole galaxy that I care about. My father. Zayne. Reena, even though she acts like she doesn’t like me. And you, Valen.”
My throat tightens around the last words. I take a second to gather myself, trying to collect my emotions, my thoughts.
“I don’t know that I ever would have listened to five words you would have said if I’d known who you were when we first slipped into each other’s minds,” I confess. “I still can’t quite find peace in my mind when it comes to anything to do with you, Valen. But I can’t lie.”
I’m scared, because every time we’ve touched, I’ve seen things. The past, or the future. But I can’t stop myself. I reach out and touch the back of my knuckles to his.
There’s this feeling in my chest. A pull. A weight. I feel like I’m falling forward and forward and there’s nowhere to land but here, with Valen.
“I want you there, in my head. And it feels like a slam miracle that you’re standing here with me right now.”
I’m so scared.
Because I remember this feeling in my chest. I’ve experienced it once before, when Zayne and I had danced around smiles and words at work. When we’d worked our way up to that first outing together. And for weeks after, walking home together, stolen glances and heated kisses in the crowded streets of the endless city.
I remember feeling like this once before.
But . . . hat I felt before held the brightness of the moon.
As my skin touches Valen’s and I look up into his Neron blue eyes . . . this holds the brightness of the sun.
And I know I’m going to get burned, and marked for life.
“Do you still love him?”
I want to erase all the words that just came out of his mouth. They sound dirty and tainted.
But he asks them, and the question deserves an honest answer.
“I feel like I should,” I say, and I let my hand drop back to my side. “I did, once. He’s kind and reliable and I know he still wants us to be together. But . . .”
I try to pull my thoughts together, to gather them from the air and make them make sense.
“But, what?” Valen prompts.
I blink three times before I answer. I lift my chin, looking out at my new home. Space. “I do still love him,” I say. And something lifts in my chest at the confession. “He is my family. I’m never going to be able to let him go, because in the end, he is my closest friend.”
Besides you, I think to myself, but I can’t say that out loud, because it doesn’t make any sense.
My best friend can’t be the second most notorious villain in the galaxy.
“But I don’t love him the way I used to,” I say. And I think I hear Valen breathe just a little easier. “I can’t ever love him the way he thinks he still wants me to. Those days are over, and the people we used to be, who loved each other, those people don’t exist anymore. He just hasn’t realized it yet.”
I feel good. I feel a little lighter, having found the truth and set it down, outside of me.
I need to be open and honest more often.
“I shouldn’t care,” Valen says, and I look at him once more. His eyes drop from mine, and that, alone, makes my chest tighten and my heart beat a little faster. “But, I’m so glad you don’t.”
My heart has taken to the speed of a Class 2 ship about to take off into slipstream. My ears are raging with the sound of my wild blood.
“Valen,” I say his name, but I’m not sure what else I’m going to or should say. I turn, slightly angling my body toward him.
“I knew you were special after having you in my head for a few weeks,” he says. He speaks faster, his words sounding a little urgent. “I knew you were different and I craved your company like I haven’t wanted anything else, Nova. But when I saw you for the first time . . .” He meets my eyes, and his are bright and wild and full of . . . I don’t know. “You stunned me.”
The breath is trapped somewhere in my chest. I can’t catch it. Can’t find it.
I felt the same way when he removed his mask and I saw his face for the first time.
“You’re fascinating and smart and clever and cunning,” Valen says. He shifts, standing just a little closer. “And you’re beautiful, Nova.”
I don’t like people. Letting Zayne in was a big deal for me. So, my experience with compliments and sincerity is limited.
Zayne always said I was pretty.
But no one has ever called me beautiful.
My mouth moves, but I still don’t have words.
Valen comes a step closer, and there’s only a little bit of air between us.
“What are you doing to me?” the words breathe over his perfect lips. He raises his right hand, and my entire body sparks with electricity when he cups his hand gently behind my neck.
“Who am I anymore?” I ask myself, but the words come out between my lips.
I feel like I’m on fire, but it’s the best slam feeling I’ve ever experienced. I feel like life and energy and my senses are so heightened and real.
I feel real.
I feel alive.
Valen’s eyes are so electric and intense. And I feel him, inside of me. I let that door swing open between our minds. I shove it wide with a blast.
He wants me and I’ve never wanted anyone so bad.
Do it, I beg him inside my mind.
Because I am not brave enough to make the move myself, but he is a Nero and he’s seen the entirety of the galaxy.
If anyone can do this, it’s Valen.
Do it.
He closes the distance between us.
And his lips claim mine.
A breath escapes me and I don’t know if I’ll ever breathe the same again. I’m not going to function the same, ever again, when eventually Valen steps away and lets me go.
But for now, my hands rise up, gripping his strong arms, holding him tight to me.
My lips soften under his and they part just slightly. But his tongue doesn’t invade my mouth. His lips are parted just a bit, too, and he breathes.
That doorway between our minds is still open. I feel what he’s feeling.
A change. An evolution. A super nova of chaos and passion.
Finally, I draw a breath in. I take a step forward into him. It should have shoved him back, made him take a step back to brace himself, but he remains firm, unmoved. And our bodies are pressed into one another.
His other hand rises, mirroring the other’s position. His fingers splay into my hair and he tips my head back. My mouth opens, and it’s not enough, but fills me to the brim. I breathe him in.
He’s everywhere. In my chest, in my head, in my soul.
Greedily, I grip his tunic in my hands, pulling him harder to me, even though it’s not possible, because there’s no more room between our two bodies. We’re two beings occupying one small space in the galaxy.
He presses his lips to my lips and my mouth closes, mirroring his.
I love his lips. I love the way his
lips feel against my lips.
Slowly, he shifts, kissing the corner of my mouth, his hand cradled against my neck so gently. I tilt my head just slightly, my eyes in the back of my head.
A moment later, I feel his lips, gently, so softly, press against the side of my neck.
A lusty sigh escapes my chest.
My entire body is humming. My skin has become a Neron core, dancing and electric and dangerous. I am unstable. I could implode at any moment.
I’ve never felt so slam good in my life.
Hungry, I lift my head, sliding my fingers into Valen’s black hair, and pull his lips back to mine.
In my head, I hear a chorus of words, but it isn’t my voice saying them.
Mine. Nova. Mine. Forever. Forever. Forever.
I’m spiraling down into Valen’s head and it’s chaos and it’s dark and light and hope and terror and so much want and need.
I can’t even tell anymore where he begins and I end.
I can’t separate my thoughts from his.
Valen. Mine. Valen. Mine. Now. Tonight. Tomorrow.
Forever.
But there, in the back of my brain, fighting its way through the fog of desire, is logic.
What’s happening?
Where am I? I can’t find myself. I just see this new person. This blend of Nova and Valen and I see this yawning pit where we’re falling and if I don’t pull out now, we’re never, ever going to be able to untangle.
There’s something real down there in that pit. There’s something all consuming and dark. Dark but not bad, not in the way that Cyrillius is bad. Not in the way Dominion dominates entire planets.
Dark in the way that it blankets everything else and blends all color, never to be separated again.
I want to dive into it. Valen is standing there, on the edge, and I’m right there. I feel its pull. There are promises down there in the dark, ones that would make everything in life so much easier.
But everything is changing right now. I’m changing. Life is a big question mark.
I can’t go into that dark.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
Because I feel it. I can only ever look into that dark pit, only ever fall into it with one person in the whole galaxy.
Valen.
Valen Nero.
Nero.
The man I watched kill eleven people.
The man who does the bidding of the destroyer of planets.
I can’t.
I can’t.
But it would feel so good.
It calls to me.
It’s so right.
More right than anything in the universe.
His hand is on my neck and his lips are on mine, and my fingers are dug into his tunic like I’m going to die if I let go.
“Valen,” I gasp. And it takes everything inside of me to pull back from him. My lips are swollen, and I can smell him, all over me, in my lungs, in my brain.
Valen.
Valen.
Valen.
His grip on me is still desperate, his Neron blue eyes are clouded and begging me to jump into the dark with him.
“We can’t do this, Valen,” I pant, even though every single word is killing a part of me that just woke up. “I can’t…” I shake my head. My eyes are wild, I know it. They’re desperate. “Not unless you can walk away. Don’t go back to him, Valen. Stay here. Stay with me, go with me. Never go back.”
The expression in his eyes . . .I sense the thoughts in his head.
He really imagines it for a minute.
The freedom.
The release.
But I feel it, a series of flashes, of memories.
All bad. All terrible, terrible things. Things that had nothing to do with Dominion. Nothing to do with Neron.
We’re all just a galaxy of survivors.
There’s this lock around him. A tether. A bind.
I feel it, a clear as Neron answer: he’s bound to Cyrillius.
“Don’t go back, Valen,” the words whisper over my lips. I reach up, touching a hand to his face, caressing it, making him look at me. “Come with me. Leave, with me.”
I wish that door didn’t exist right now. Because I feel the dark gathering. A different kind. The kind that formed in Valen when he saw his parents killed. The kind that formed when that first commanding officer hit him. The kind that formed when Cyrillius dumped him back on Starvis. The kind that embedded itself deep in his heart when he spent a solar of his life, as a fourteen-year-old boy, running for his life as his own people tried to kill him.
“Life isn’t that simple for everyone, Nova.” His voice is dark and flat. He lets go of me, but doesn’t take a step back. “Not everyone can get a few credits and a ship and just disappear into the skies. Not everyone can just start over.”
He steps back now, and turns, walking five steps away from me.
“And why not, Valen?” I demand. I feel heat flash into my chest, filling me. “You’re the most powerful being in the galaxy! You could destroy Cyrillius with one flick of your hand. You could end Dominion. You can do anything, Valen.”
He stands there with his back to me. His shoulders rise and fall in a shallow way. I wish he would look at me, so he could read me, feel my conviction. But I don’t want to see that darkness in his mind.
“I’m not asking you to do either of those things,” I say, my voice calming. “I’m not asking you to kill Cyrillius. I’m not asking you to revolutionize Dominion.” I feel it, the fight seeping out of me. “What I’m asking you to do is simple.”
Valen stands very still. Frozen. He listens to my every word with absolute attention.
“Don’t go back,” I say softly. “Stay here, with me.” Emotions well in my eyes. My core shakes. I want him to say yes. I want it so badly. More badly than I’ve ever wanted anything in my life. “Please.”
He doesn’t breathe for five whole seconds. And then he says the words that break my heart.
“I can’t,” he says quietly, and his voice breaks just a tiny bit.
He won’t explain, and I realize, maybe he can’t explain. Valen has fractured, broken, little bit and by big parts over the solars. Maybe he doesn’t know why he’s mentally held prisoner by Cyrillius.
But I can still feel his mind, his emotions.
He won’t.
I can’t argue him into it.
I stand there, frozen, looking at his still shoulders for a solid minute.
“Then where does that leave us?” I ask, and a part of my soul escapes out into the universe with the words.
I stare at him, hoping and praying to the stars that he will turn around and find some strength of will.
But he doesn’t turn around.
He doesn’t say anything.
I feel his despair. His loss of hope.
I feel him hollowing out.
And it’s breaking my heart.
“We’re connected, Valen,” I say. My words do not come out smooth. They come out really rough, really broken. But I want him to hear that. I need him to feel it.
I’m breaking.
After what we just shared, going back is going to hurt.
“I hope you can feel it, too,” I say, taking half a step closer, but no more. “This link between us, it’s never going to end, it’s never going to close. I am always going to feel you, and you’re always going to feel me. We need each other, Valen. I . . .” I pause, trying to find words to express how I feel.
I can’t find them. But they’re overflowing in me.
So I find that door inside of my mind, and once more, I swing it wide open, and I let it flood out of me and into him.
All of the emotions I just felt. All the completeness I felt whenever we talked through the bond. All the hope and the excitement I’ve felt since he came into my life.
I let him see my vision and hope for the future.
I know I’m the one going against the future. I know what I saw in my vision. That would be our fut
ure if I walked away right now, if I went with him.
But I can’t. I can’t let that version of the future come to pass.
So I flood him with my hopes. With my version, where he walks away from Dominion and he stays. With me.
Valen lets out a breath, big and powerful, and his shoulders slump forward a little, like I just ripped something very large and powerful out of him.
“That,” I say, emphasizing everything I just showed him. “That is not impossible, Valen. You just have to do the simplest thing in the galaxy. You just have to stay.”
He stands there frozen, for another five seconds, and they’re the longest of my life.
Finally, he turns his head to the side a little. “I can’t,” he says. “I can’t give you what you want.”
I shake my head as I die.
But I feel it.
He’s not lying to me.
So I take a breath. I stand a little straighter. I lift my chin.
“At least we understand each other,” I say, my voice turning flat. “Thank you for coming here. Things are much clearer now.”
There’s still a tiny shred of hope. That he’ll turn around. That he’ll look into my eyes and everything will become clear. That he’ll realize he can have his freedom.
But he doesn’t turn around.
So I take a step back toward the door.
He doesn’t turn around.
So I turn. I walk toward the door.
But still, just before I walk out, I turn back.
And Valen turns, meeting my eyes.
In his, I see grief. I see an I’m sorry. I see mourning.
But not a change of heart.
So I turn, and I walk out. Feeling broken and defeated, I cross back into my ship, and tell the Frank to detach.
We all walk up the ramp, back into the ship. Once we’re all safely inside, the Frank enters commands, closing the hatch. We pack away our supplies.
We’re fueled and ready for another lunar before we’ll have to stop on another planet.
We’re making a mess. Snow sticks to everyone’s boots, leaving tracks as we walk around the ship, and as it lifts off the ground and rises off the winter-cursed planet, the snow melts, making the floor wet and slippery.