Minutes went on until I could hardly breathe from the pressure building inside of me. With a final jerk against my clit, I came. It was blissful. It was perfect. It was everything I could have hoped it would be.
We breathed against each other, gasping for air. Finally, Kellan picked up his head. “You’re going to have a burn on your back from the floor. I’m sorry. We could have found a softer place.”
I shook my head. “Whatever. It’ll heal, and I’ve never wanted anything as much as what just happened between us right here. This was how it was supposed to be between us.”
He kissed me gently. “Wasn’t too much?”
“No such thing.” I sat up, achy. Yes, it was going to be a night where I hurt. “Thanks for this.”
Snorting, he kissed all over my face. “Don’t thank me. And I’ll be in your bed tonight. There’s a rotation. I’m on it now.”
I smiled. That sounded perfect.
My body hurt. It was hard to sleep. Next to me, Kellan dozed easily, but every time I tried to move, my muscles reminded me that despite their newfound power, they weren’t used to the kind of straining of them that I’d been doing lately. The door opened and closed. This was routine. The person joining the bed would wait until the other one was out cold to come in. I wasn’t sure how Wade and Trenton exactly knew, but they seemed to manage it, too. Tonight, it was Anders.
I could see better in the dark these days, and it was clear to me Anders wasn’t moving well. I sat up, ignoring the pain. “You okay?”
He pointed to his head, climbing in next to me. “Headache.”
Anders confessed to me a while back that he got headaches, and it was his deepest shame. Super Soldiers didn’t get headaches, or Evander put them down. My guess now that I had some of their traits was that more of them than not were hiding ailments. They’d simply learned how to silently handle horrible things.
I wrapped my arms around him. “I’m sorry.”
“Hmm.” He closed his eyes. “I can leave if this bothers you.”
That made little sense. “Why would your headache bother me?”
Kellan rolled over, reaching across me to squeeze Anders’ arm. “You’re not alone. And you don’t have to be that way when you hurt. It doesn’t make you weak.”
Anders rolled to face us, lying on his side to face both of us. My aching muscles didn’t hurt so badly now. I closed my eyes and, with Kellan, held Anders the rest of the night.
I didn’t need to sleep, so this time I didn’t force myself to do so. Anders slept hard, and I hoped it meant that his headache would pass by morning. Kellan’s eyes were closed. He breathed evenly, barely audibly. I didn’t want to wake Anders, but the way his face scrunched up in pain made tears come to my eyes.
The poor man. I reached out and stroked my finger over his forehead. He sighed and pressed his head more thoroughly into my hand.
I held him like that, not moving, glad I could offer what little comfort I could to such a strong man.
Morning came slowly. I didn’t feel tired from staying up all night. In fact, I felt better for not forcing it. My muscles were looser, and I could breathe easier.
“You guys better get in here.” Blaze’s voice sounded in the room although he was across the ship. Kellan’s and Anders’s eyes flew open at the same time. Anders blinked rapidly but got up, throwing his legs over the bed fast. Kellan had his clothes on by the time I realized what was happening.
Blaze needed our attention. I jumped off the bed and ran toward my dresser. As fast as I could, I threw on my own clothing, stopping only to regard Anders. “You okay?”
“Better than last night.”
That didn’t mean he was fixed. But I wasn’t going to point that out when there wasn’t a thing to do about it right now. Fully dressed, we ran down the hall. I needed a shower and food, but comfort could wait if Blaze needed us. Funny, how we’d become an us. I could participate in this.
In the comm room, everyone waited for us. With the exception of Blaze, everyone was half put together. I looked at the clock on the side of Dev’s tablet that he held. It was early morning. If they hadn’t been sleeping, they hadn’t been ready for action either. There were no alarms going off. We were in the Hole. What could be going wrong here?
Blaze spun around in his chair. “I found something.”
Trenton scratched his head. “Really? Out here?”
“Yep,” he nodded. “The last thing I did before they put us in cryo to carry us across the galaxy was participate in a training exercise on a new ship they were designing.” He sighed. “It didn’t work. Almost blew us up. But that was a long time ago. Thanks to cryo, the truth is that I have no idea how much time that was. We don’t really know how long we were under and waiting to be activated before Waverly woke us up and changed things.” He sighed again. “Enough time to develop the ship.”
My body went cold. He was really worried about that ship. “Is it out there?”
“Not the exact ship. But clearly a new version.”
Trenton rushed over to the scanner. “What makes it special? Stronger? Harder? Breaks through the blockage on the Black Hole? What?”
“The device takes it apart on the seams. Boom. It broke apart fast after we got off, and we only got off because I ordered it. I think they might have been okay with us dying.” He smiled. I didn’t know why. There was nothing remotely happy about what he was saying. “It transports people faster than any ship can. It makes the ship we’re about to find sort of a stationary object. It doesn’t need to be a ship per se, except that it has to be able to get to where it’s going to begin with.”
I looked between them; I didn’t understand. “I’m missing this. Can you explain?”
“They can transport troops very fast.” Kellan ran a hand through his hair. “It eliminates the need to move ships to get people here. They can build up ships right there next to that one and just move their troops in. Cuts their time to get across the Hole considerably.”
Blaze stretched his feet out in front of him. “Cuts it by years. They can be here in days. But it works in both directions. If we can get on that ship and get on the device, we don’t have to travel this Hole. We can be there tomorrow.”
13 Trust Your Gut
“Then it’s even more important we impress upon the leadership that they not do this, not keep coming at us.” I walked to the window to look out at nothing. It was something to do. I had to move my body. “If they can get to us so much faster, then it’s even more pressing.”
Blaze nodded. “I agree. The trouble is that unless they’ve changed it, we can only move through one at a time. That means we’re in an incredible amount of danger until each of us gets through. I’m not worried about me. But now it seems the time to tell you what I hadn’t planned on saying until we get there, which is that I have no intention of putting you in danger, Sienna. We need you. I hate to put it like this, but you were absolutely here to bait them. You knew it too. Suggested it more than once. But I had no intention of letting you near danger, despite your strength. You are too important.”