In the healing tank, Danek opens his eyes. He turns his head slowly, and then he notices me sitting next to him.
Our eyes meet.
When he sees me, he goes very still.
And then he smiles. “Hi.”
35
Danek
A month later…
“I’m moving like an old man, and I don’t like it.”
“If you don’t want to sound like an old man, stop grumbling,” Kadir advises me with a grin. “Okay, where do you want the flowers?”
“Everywhere, obviously.”
Alice laughs at my response. “Fifth,” she says. “You’ve got balloons. You’ve got sandwiches. You’ve got flowers. If people find out about this, your reputation as a fierce, grumpy solider is going to be in tatters.”
It probably already is. I’ve spent more than a month in the healing center. I lost half my body weight. I’m regaining my strength, but it’s slow going.
I never wanted to be the Draekon Warlord. I never wanted people to flinch away from me in fear. I wanted something far simpler, and far more complicated.
And now I have it. I have Naomi.
While I lay in hospital, fighting for my life, the Rebellion interrogated Thruk, Lashi’vi’s son. What they discovered was bad. Very bad.
First has kidnapped two dozen scientists and he has them working on one problem. Eradicate the Draekon gene.
Experimental gene therapy, Sixth calls it. Raiht’vi, who has studied the Draekons her entire career, called it sheer hubris. “Does First think it hasn’t been tried?” she’d asked, her expression furious. “Does he think we are fools? That if we could roll back the Draekon gene, we wouldn’t have? It isn’t possible. Not anymore. We are all Draekon.”
According to Thruk, the first virus they created had a fatality rate of one hundred percent. Everyone that First infected with it died.
That should have stopped him, but of course, this is First we’re talking about. He’s a psychopath. As long as he gets what he wants, he doesn’t give a damn about how many people die in the process.
The current generation of the virus—the one that nearly got me—has a fatality rate of one in four.
Thruk should have never gotten hold of a sample, but he had. Just in case. Every single male Zorahn always wonders what would happen if they test positive. Some people join the Rebellion. Some others run to the Outer Reaches. Thruk stole the virus. “One in four people died,” he’d said. “It was the worst-case scenario. But if I tested positive, the risk was worth it.”
He’d been sick too, but nowhere as sick as me. One of the downsides of being one-hundred-percent Draekon. The virus attacked my body, trying to kill my Draekon genes, but for me, that’s all my genes.
Sixth is a fucking genius. I wouldn’t be alive without him. Raiht’vi too.
Then there’s Naomi. In my darkest hour, she was there. When I was drowning, she held on to me. When I needed her, she was there at my side. She kept the rathr at bay. She talked to me, and her love anchored me to reality.
She’s my mate. She’s the love of my life.
And this better be the best birthday party ever.
The other guests file in within a few minutes of each other. Ruhan and Lani are there, as are Mirak and Diana, who have both neglected their acts of piracy while I’ve recovered, refusing to leave the Rebellion headquarters until they could be sure I was completely on the mend. Sixth is there. Dor Pitts, the human pilot, shows up with her Draekon mates, as does Olivia with Zunix and Liorax. Cassie brings Taman.
Raiht’vi is there too, still surprised at being invited, but also happy to be asked. Tarish and Dariux wrangled an invite when they heard what I was up to. I would have told them to fuck off, but Dariux is now Naomi’s boss, so I held my tongue. Lisa and Mandy are chatting animatedly in a corner. Lisa is a pirate and Mandy is traveling with the smuggler Kelek ab Rahni; the two of them are probably comparing notes and making plans to take over the galaxy.
Everyone’s shown up for Naomi. She’s either going to love this, or she’s going to kill me.
I’m hoping for the former.
We eventually figured out why Lashi’vi had agreed to put the High Empire’s prison on Noturn. She was trying to save Thruk. It’s a long and complicated story, but the gist of it is that she was forced to give up her child, she’s spent years trying to find him, all while amassing power so that she’ll never be forced to make that choice again. She’d just about found Thruk when he tested positive. Her plan, formed out of desperation, was to accede to the High Empire’s request, program Thruk’s stasis pod to open, and smuggle him out three months later on the Cindifin miner shuttle. It wasn’t a great plan, but then again, she had been under an incredible amount of pressure.
She had ordered the battledroids to kill me—she couldn’t afford witnesses that might talk to the High Empire—but I can’t really hold that against her. She was trying to protect her lost child. I will not sit in judgment of her—I don’t know how I would react in that situation.
My comm chimes. It’s a message from Naomi. First day went well, she writes. Heading back home now.
“She’s on her way,” I announce to everyone. “I’m turning off the lights.”
The hum of conversation cuts off. The room plunges into darkness. I wait with bated breath for Naomi to arrive.
The front door slides open. “Honey, I’m home,” she calls out. “Danek? Why are the lights out?” She flicks the switch on and…
“Surprise!” Everyone in the room cries out.
She jumps in the air like a startled floof. For a second, she just stares at the room. At the pink flowers everywhere. At
