Colliding Worlds Trilogy 03 - Explosion (25 page)

Adrenaline saw her through her mission. When she went to stand, she fell back hard. Curling around her stomach wound, she sent through the all-clear to Roden to pass onto the troops.
Target ready for pickup
. She paused, and then entered the next line in case they didn’t get there in time.
Keep alive until pika can be deactivated
.

A reply quickly chimed back.
Are you injured?

Ignoring the message, she used the last of her strength to drag herself to Meyt. He had no visible injuries, of course. The
pika
was devious like that. It ended life in a blink of an eye, giving the look of peace even in death. If he hadn’t tackled Otas, Talla would have a blaster shot through her heart rather than her side right now.

“Damn it, Meyt. Why’d you have to be a hero?” she muttered, brushing his hair from his face and noticing how this was the first time she’d ever noticed his features softened.

She was tired of losing friends in this war. When would it end? She chuckled to herself, holding her wound.
Guess it ends now
.

Her wrist-com chimed. They were on their way to free the
Grax
.

With no strength left, she lay next to Meyt. Her world was getting darker, the tunnel closing in. She hadn’t much time left. Jax was safe. She smiled, knowing in her heart that his survival was all that mattered. It was good Jax wasn’t here to watch her die. She wanted his last memories of her to be from making love.

Then, she — an atheist — did something she’d never done before. She prayed.

Please, Jax’s god, please take care of Jax, ta eani.

“We’ve got news,” Laze said from the pilot’s seat. “Otas is restrained. Guess everyone’s
pika
programming is linked to his vitals. He would be selfish enough to do that.”

She succeeded.
Jax leaned back in his seat, letting out the first easy breath in hours. “And Talla?”

Laze grimaced, his words gritted through his teeth. “No word yet.”

Jax’s blood froze in his veins. He rested his head against the back of the seat. “What is Roden-code for
‘shit hit the fan’
?”

Right then, every hangar door opened on the
Grax
. A voice came through the common frequency.
You are cleared to land.

Jax turned to Laze. “You send the landing codes?”

Laze was frowning. “No. And no transporter has hailed the
Grax
.”

Pires came between them, a smile on his face. “They know we’re coming,”

“No fucking around,” Jax said. “Anyone looks at us funny, blow them out of the sky.”

“You don’t need to tell me twice,” Laze said. “That’s my sister out there.”

Ta eani.
The two words continued to haunt him. Talla had offered him everything, and he’d been an idiot, throwing her away so that he could hang onto his past.

Going off plan, Laze throttled forward, zigzagging around the transporters to enter their targeted hangar first. He was antsy to get to his sister, and Jax was right there with him. If he had the controls, he would’ve done the same thing. Laze slowed and the small aggressor settled smoothly onto the metallic surface, keeping the turret pointed at the control station. No one shot at them, even though there were plenty of Draeken standing in the hangar.

None of them were armed. All of them were cheering.

Jax eyed the other two men in the cockpit. “Unless they’re decoys, they seem awfully happy to see us.”

Pires, on the other hand, didn’t look the least bit happy.

“I don’t buy it,” Jax said. “How can one man enslave an entire core ship?”

Laze shrugged. “I have no idea.”

Behind them, the first transporters were landing. Jax pulled up Talla’s coordinates on his wrist-com. Thank God she had left her tracker turned on. “Looks like she’s on fourth floor, not too far from here.” He pinged her. No response. Adrenaline sent a shiver up his spine. “Let’s move.”

The three of them emerged from the jet, blasters raised, at the growing crowd. Chants of
‘We’re free!’
and
‘Thank you!’
echoed throughout the tens of thousands of feet of hangar. Keeping an eye on the crowd, they jogged forward, fingers next to the triggers. “This way,” Jax motioned to a hallway.

They ran down the hallway, the
Grax’s
residents cheering them on from the sides. Every wall screen showed the same. Jax slowed down, and then froze. “The Oppressor has been detained! We are free!” read across the screen, over an image of Otas hogtied on the floor. That wasn’t what caught his attention. It was the wingtip of a beautiful Draeken female lying a few feet away, on the edge of the screen, and she wasn’t moving. “Christ!” he yelled and sprinted toward the blinking dot on his wrist-com.

Laze took to the air and broke ahead of Jax. Pires kept alongside Jax. The short minute felt like torturous hours to get the room. By the time he reached the closed door, Laze had already touched down and was busy firing at the perimeter of the door. Jax and Pires joined in. It took several long seconds to melt enough of the metal away, leaving a red-hot glow tracing the door. The largest of them, Laze kicked out one, twice, and the door fell inward.

Laze leaped into the room with Jax on his heels.

“Talla!” Jax cried out as he hurdled the fallen door. He followed Laze’s motions and headed to the right.

Laze collapsed to his knees, and Jax kicked a still-unconscious Otas out of the way. “Keep an eye on that bastard. And we need an emergency med-evac now!” he ordered Pires before turning to Talla.

Laze was already ripping open a field kit. Jax scanned Talla before touching her. She had a serious blaster wound to her abdomen. It looked like half of her athletic waist was charred. With Laze working on her wound, Jax got as close as he could without jarring her.

Lifting her neck, he nestled her head into his arm. He cupped her cheek with his other hand. Her soft skin was still warm, but so pale.

Her eyes fluttered open, unfocused.

“Stay with me, Talla,” Jax said, gently caressing her cheek with his thumb. He glanced up at Laze. “She’s in shock.”

She mumbled something, and then her eyes came somewhat into focus, her heavy-lidded gaze on him. She tried to lift a hand, but it dropped, and she closed her eyes. “You’ll be safe now,” she said, her words so slurred that he had to piece together her words.

“All thanks to you,” Jax said. He kissed her forehead, then her cheek, then her lips, and her eyes fluttered open again. “Close your eyes again,” he ordered. “And I’ll quit kissing you.”

She smiled and said something he couldn’t make out.

“Be still,
ta deitan
,” Laze said, opening a packet of gel. “This will sting at first, but it will stabilize you.”

She hissed when he swiped the gel across her stomach, and then sighed. “
Ah
.”

A ruckus of shuffling feet entered the room. Jax glanced up at the med-tecs and additional troops. “About fucking time,” he muttered. “Otas cannot be able to touch his wrist-com or speak into it under any circumstances, got it?” He didn’t wait for a response, before shouting out his next command. “And this woman needs to be repaired from a blaster injury
now
.”

It was then he finally noticed the third fallen Draeken in the room. He flinched at seeing the dead man getting loaded onto a stretcher.
Meyt.
Not that he knew the guy, but knowing that Talla had cared for him sent a pang of loss through him. She’d suffered enough already. For that reason alone, Jax wished the guy had survived, even if she would’ve chosen Meyt over him.

He softened his gaze the moment he turned it back on Talla.

She nudged her head closer to Jax, her eyes falling shut once more, her features smoothing out just like they did before someone passed out. “You came.” Her last words were soft, barely a whisper.

Jax kissed her. “Always,
ta eani
.”

Talla burst awake from the same nightmare again. The one where she found herself wading through a thousand bodies, the bodies of all the innocents she’d killed by not stopping Otas Olnek in time. And just like every time, the lifeless face on each body that stared up at her was Jax’s.

Sitting up, she tried to push aside the images. She rocked back and forth, rubbing her temples. “Not real. Not real.”

She’d seen only a glimpse of Jax since returning to the
Striga
. She’d still been in Med, recovering after the emergency repair to her stomach, and he’d walked through the door. His presence had taken up the entire room, his eyes focused completely on her.

He’d stalked toward her then, only to be grabbed by Roden and Sommers, who’d come in right behind him. They’d argued about something, and Jax had clearly lost. Because he glanced at her one more time before spinning on his heel and leaving with the two men. Then she’d been left alone once more.

But that single pleading glance …

Fire and passion of intensity were conveyed in that glance. Even now, remembering his dark gaze warmed her. It had been three days since she’d seen Jax, one day since she’d been released from Med and returned to the
Striga
. She was mostly healed, now at the stage of cramping and muscle spasms. But she was alive.
Never saw that one coming.

Even though she’d kept herself busy dealing with Otas’s aftermath, she’d been lonely. Jax wasn’t on the core ship. The entire Triad, with all its delegates and consultants, had to leave immediately to travel to the U.N. to renegotiate peace and a more permanent arrangement for the Draeken and Sephians. Scientists on board the
Striga
were nearly finished with a
pika
neutralizer so that it would be ready for distribution as soon as the U.N. could agree to peaceable terms.

She could only hope things were going as smoothly at the U.N. as it had for Otas’s execution. It hadn’t taken com-tecs more than a few minutes to disengage his wrist-com from sending out a
pika
signal. They didn’t even try to repair him. He was summarily and very publicly executed by the Grand Lord Nalea Puftan for treason against Draeka and crimes against humanity. People from all three races cheered. For the first time, the three races had truly come together on something. Hope had finally arrived.

But there was still so much work left to be done.

The door to her room chimed. Talla glanced down at her wrist-com.
Four
A.M.
Frowning, she looked at the display to see a disheveled Jax. Her breath hitched, and she jumped to her feet. The sheet tangled on a wing, nearly tripping her, and she heaved it to the floor. She hit the unlock button on the wall. “Come in.”

The door opened, and Jax looked inside before taking a tentative step in. Talla stepped closer. If there was one thing Jax
wasn’t
, it was tentative. “Jax?”

“Sorry for waking you.” He glanced at the floor before looking back up. There were dark circles under his eyes, but the heat in that gaze was enough to curl Talla’s toes. “I had to see you.”

She noticed he still carried a backpack. “Did you just get back?”

As if realizing he still carried it, he shrugged out of the bag, letting it drop to the floor with a
thud.

“Listen,” he said. “I need to talk to you about what I said earlier.”

Her heart plummeted. She thought she’d dreamed it. She knew she hadn’t now, since he’d come to apologize. He’d called her
ta eani. My heart.

She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anymore. It happens. We all say things we don’t mean,” she said quickly. She waved a hand in the air. “Water under the bridge, isn’t that how the saying goes?”

He frowned, and then cocked his head. “It matters to me. I need you to understand — ”

“Believe me, I understand just fine,” she interrupted curtly. “I get it. You made it clear the first time. What we did was a mistake and won’t happen again. I really don’t need to hear it again. Now if you don’t mind, I want to go back to bed.”

His frown deepened. “You thought what we did was a mistake?”

“Don’t you?”

“No,” he replied gruffly.

“Then why are you here?”

He closed the distance between them. “I came to apologize for being an idiot. I threw away the best thing that ever happened to me.”

Hope began to stir, but Talla was cautious. Taking a deep breath, she watched him. “What are you getting at, Jax? And get right to the point because I’m in no mood for games right now.”

“No games.” He wrapped his hands around her arms. “I pushed you away because I was a chicken shit. I was afraid of getting hurt again. You got into my heart so fast and deep, I freaked. I’m a complete ass for how I treated you — I don’t have to tell you that. And I don’t deserve your forgiveness, but … ” he trailed off, pulling away, clenching and unclenching his fists.

“But what, Jax?” Her question was soft, quiet.

He turned his hard gaze on her, and she found tears in those brown eyes. “You’re better than me. You saw the magic of ‘us’ long before it made sense in my fucked-up head. I’d allowed too much shit from the past to roadblock my future. It took me long enough, but I finally saw what you’d seen all along. What we could have, it’s fucking beautiful, Talla. Please forgive me for being an idiot.” He grabbed her again. “
Please.
Give me a chance. I won’t fail you this time.”

Her lips curled upward, feeling almost in shock. “You’re right. You were an idiot.”

His grip loosened, and he fell down on a knee. “Please, Talla. Whatever you demand, I’ll do it. I have so much to make up for. I love you. I’m not promising it’ll be easy. Nothing worth having ever is. But I promise I’ll give you my best each and every day from this moment on.”

“You love me?” she asked, the words coming out almost like a squeak.

“More than anything,” he replied, his words coming out hard and fast.

She worked at keeping her expression flat even though her heart was pounding, and her pulse was racing. It was really happening. It felt surreal,
magical
. “Well, then, you can start by making love to me.”