Finally, he jerked, the sound coming out of his mouth almost painful before it changed into a sigh. Was there ever anything as beautiful as Corbin finding pleasure in my body? I couldn’t think of a single thing.
I followed him happily into oblivion.
He kissed my shoulder. “Can we do it again?”
I giggled. “Yep.”
This was happiness.
We pushed Artemis back out of the black hole. She wasn’t holding up particularly well, and I was glad we were able to get her out at all, considering that I wasn’t sure how we’d get home if she didn’t bring us there. Would we have been stuck forever in the black hole? I pushed away that thought. Too many things could go wrong. It was better to simply focus on what did and not obsess about what didn’t.
That was harder for me than it should have been.
I walked up behind Wade and Blaze where they watched the screen. “Guys, I had a weird thing happen on Evander.”
Wade turned to me and smirked. “Just one?” I elbowed him, and he shook his head. “Sorry, go ahead.”
“When I got all angry and rageful, it was like I was channeling an emotion that wasn’t my own. It was like I could use someone else’s. That’s weird, right?”
Blaze turned to me, his brow furrowed. “You store the emotions you take. So it doesn’t surprise me that somewhere in that exceptional brain of yours is the excess.” He picked up my wrist and looked down at it before he laid a kiss right there. “Still at zero. Whatever you were doing, you’re still healthy. We can figure the rest of it out now. I think we’ll have a lifetime to do so.”
That as the first time any of them had said that. The idea that it was over, that there were things to do now. I smiled.
“Yes, I guess we have a lifetime.”
The question was what we would do with it. Truthfully, I had no idea.
Trenton turned around in his chair. “And we’re back.”
It was so bizarre. I’d never expected to see any of the galaxy, and now I’d been to the other side. How did a girl from the Dark Planets reconcile all of this? It was going to take a minute for me to figure that out.
16 Goodbyes
We stepped onto Mars Station, and I winced. I really hated this place. The fake air, the artificial gravity, it really wasn’t for me. I turned to Blaze. “Last time we came here, you said you were getting rid of me.”
He leaned over and kissed my temple. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay. I had sex with you for the very first time. I think you’re forgiven.”
His laugh never ceased to surprise me. Blaze was such a serious person. To make him laugh was like some kind of gift.
“I hate this place. I think I’d hate any space station.”
Devil shook his head. “Me too. I like planets. Which one do you want to move to?”
“You want me to just pick one? Like on a space map, go one two three and randomly stick my finger on one?” I squeezed Dev’s hand. “I’ve been exactly four places. Here. And this is a no. My home, which I need to let go, I think. The hot planet where we got taken and that was too rainy, too hot. And The Farm. Out of all of them, I like The Farm. Unless you’d like to go elsewhere.”
Anders shrugged. “I like The Farm. But can we live some place off base? Like Waverly did but really, really farther. Like practically the other side of the planet?”
I understood what he was saying. It was important we have a lot of space. The eight of us weren’t going to be normal, not ever, and we did better when left just to ourselves. Others could have crowds, we only needed each other.
Like we were our own group, made only to socialize among ourselves.
“Yes.”
Anders liked that. His smile grew. “Great. I’ll build us some place fantastic to live.”
Kellan came up behind me. “Melissa is on her way here. She has people with her. And she’s walking really, really fast.”
I turned to look, and Wade rushed out in front of us. “What the hell?”
What was I missing? “Wade?”
Trenton shook his head. “That is his brother and sister.”
The ones that were supposed to be in school?
Mars Station was crowded, but I watched as two people who shared Wade’s distinct eye color and general look rushed toward him. They gripped onto his body, hugging him like their world might end if they didn’t. He hugged them back, and my breath caught in my throat. What was happening here?
“They arrived yesterday, stowing on a ship. They heard Wade was here. Long ago rumor of some kind, and they wanted to see him. I was about to send them back to school, but here you are… so they can be your problem.” Melissa pulled me into a hug.
It was awkward. I was never going to be great about hugging strangers. There was always that instinct that they were going to take from me, want to give me emotions I didn’t want to own. But Melissa seemed to just want to hug, and so after I jerked against her, I let myself give the older woman a hug.
She’d traveled the galaxy so long ago and made a life for her family. I didn’t have the slightest idea how we were going to do the same, but she was an example of success.
“I’m glad they’re okay.”
She waved her hand. “Good luck with them. I don’t think those two are going to let themselves be sent off again. They really missed him. And teenagers are just toddlers with bigger vocabularies. So good luck handling that.”
I snorted and then stopped. Oh wow, she wasn’t kidding. No, I didn’t have the slightest idea what to do with teenagers.
Wade walked over to us, his brother and sister under each of his arms. “This is Sienna. She’s mine. Well, all of ours.”
I stared at their faces with their wounded eyes and lost souls. I was familiar with those kinds of people. Yes, they’d fit in perfectly well with us. “It’s so nice to have you two with us, finally. We have to figure out home. Can you help us with that?”
I let Dane and Wade run exactly two days’ worth of tests on me before I’d had enough, and no one argued. We had to make our way to The Farm to start whatever life we were going to have. It didn’t bother me that we didn’t have a plan. We had each other. That was enough of a plan. Sure, we’d have to make a living. Blaze was already talking to Nolan about opening some kind of academy where he would help train security they could put out over the galaxy to protect the autonomy of various planets.
I didn’t know if that would work, but I doubted I’d play a role in it. When Canyon had spoken to me from the future, he’d said something about our kids being friends. That idea suited me just fine. I’d never thought I could have a family. If that were a possibility, I’d be glad to get started on that.
Besides, it looked like I was going to be playing makeshift big sister-slash-mother to two teenagers who seemed to alternate between elation and anger pretty rapidly just in a matter of days.
As we pulled away from Mars Station, leaving Melissa Alexander and all that was hers where they ruled, I stood in the center of seven men who loved me. This was a ferry to The Farm. None of us had to fly this ship.