A raw sound crawled up my throat, but I didn’t let it out. I wasn’t even sure what it was. Relief? Rage? Hope? Hurt? Everything was all jumbled up, and I couldn’t see straight, even in my head.
I struggled to find some sort of equilibrium, both emotional and physical, while Jax got my helmet off. Then we both tore at my suit. He pushed it down, and I shimmied out of the confining gear until I could step away from it in nothing but the tight, short undersuit. Blood wet my side. My bare calf was bitter red from cold.
Jax stared at me, horrified.
“It could have been worse.” I was trying to reassure him, but I just sounded like I was still terrified instead.
It was Jax who made a weird, strangled sound in the end. He pulled me in close, wrapping me in a fierce hug that was still gentle enough not to hurt. His arms were so big and warm, and I was shivering, inside and out.
His embrace was exactly what I needed. I let him gather me up, and I held him back, my arms around his waist. Jax sank down as though out of strength, his face twisting into something nearly unrecognizable as I curled up in his lap.
I felt like a child, and maybe he was getting exactly what he needed from me right then, too. Someone to comfort and protect. He rubbed my back, and I sucked down breaths that hiccupped in my throat. His voice low and deep, Jax crooned soft words he might have offered to the family he missed so much—to the wife, children, and sister ripped from him, their lives so brutally snuffed out.
He cradled me, and I turned my face into his broad chest, squeezing my eyes shut. My shoulders shook as I tried to hold back.
I couldn’t, and I lost it. I started crying in great, heaving sobs, blurting out, “I’m heartbroken, Jax.”
He stroked my hair, my back, holding me against his chest. “I know you are.”
“Why? Why did this happen?” He didn’t have answers, but I still asked.
“The galaxy is full of bad people. You deserve better. I’m so sorry you got hurt.”
“You were right.” I gripped his shirt, holding on to him like a lifeline and keeping my head buried under his chin. “I should have listened to you.”
“No, I wasn’t right.”
“Well, you sure weren’t wrong,” I said, sobbing again.
I felt his smile against my hair, knew it was wry from his small huff of breath. “Is it wrong to try? Maybe what’s wrong is never putting yourself out there for fear of losing things you don’t even have.”
I looked up through lashes spiked with moisture. Did Jax mean…?
Sniffling, I wiped the tears from my face, my hand shaking. “Did you ever think…? Maybe you and Fi…?”
He swallowed. His mouth flattened into a line as he cupped my head and slowly pulled me back down against his chest again. His big fingers moved in soothing circles over the base of my skull.
I leaned in to him. He didn’t answer. And I didn’t press.
Chapter 24
Mareeka hugged me on the landing dock and then scowled and snapped, “Sick bay. Now!”
“How’s Coltin?” I asked without preamble.
“Alive…I think.”
I froze. That was terrifying—and could only mean he was teetering on the edge.
Her blue eyes softened at my obvious distress. So did her voice. “He’s stronger than he used to be. We told him you were coming, but I’m not sure he heard.”
Tears stung my eyes. “His breathing…”
“Will always be a problem,” Mareeka said. She frowned. “What happened to you?”
I was a mess. I’d shown up on Starway 8 in a bloody spacewalk undersuit, barefoot, and looking like I hadn’t slept in a week. No wonder her face was pinched with worry.
“Nothing incurable,” I said, glancing down at my side. My broken heart was another matter. “I brought those injections I told you about.”
A statuesque woman with warm bronze skin and glossy black hair rushed toward us from the side, and my heart swelled at the sight of her. Surral was from the New India Conglomerate. The water-and-mineral-rich Sector 15 system had been one of the first settled after most of the population of a whole huge country had up and left Earth, leaving it to fail without them. That was ancient history now, but the group of planets still nearly rivaled Sector 12’s privileged rocks in terms of wealth and resources. Most New Indians stayed