Page 211 of Star Bringer
I let out a shocked gasp, but then I forget where we are and just how terrified I am that this might be the last time I ever get to hold her. The last time I ever get to feel her inside me. My deep, dark, beautiful Beckett.
And instead I just drown in sensation.
Heat. Need. Pleasure. They rise up and overwhelm me as completely as Beckett overwhelms me. “Please,” I gasp out, my fingers tangling in her curls as my leg wraps around her waist. “Please, please, please.”
“I’ve got you,” she whispers, and then her thumb is on my clit, her fingers rubbing against the spot inside me that makes me feel like a shooting star whenever she touches it. “I’ve got you, my Rain. My sweet, sweet Rain.”
The sound of my name on her lips combined with the magic of her fingers on my sex is all I need to go over the edge. I come, gasping out her name, and she slams her mouth down on mine again to swallow the sounds.
“Please,” I whimper when she finally pulls her mouth away. Tears are pouring down my face, but I make no attempt to stop them. In my head, I’m begging her not to leave me. Begging her to give us a real chance. Begging her to stay for just a little while longer. But all I can say is, “Please, please, please.”
And so she kisses her way down my neck, rubs the fingers of her free hand against my peaked nipple, twists her fingers deep inside of me, and takes me over one more time.
One last time.
By the time she zips me back into my jumpsuit, I’ve recovered enough to keep the tears from falling. And when she steps away, I know that this is the end. And so I do the only thing I can do—press my lips gently to hers. And though everything inside of me yearns to tell her that I love her, that I’ll always love her, I swallow the words back down my impossibly tight throat.
And instead, I whisper, “It’s okay.”
“Rain—”
“It’s okay,” I tell her, once again cupping her cheeks in my hand.
“It’s okay,” I say, pressing one last kiss to her mouth.
“It’s okay,” I whisper as I turn away and walk back down the hall into a future without her.
Chapter 91
Kali
A shiver runs through me as we make landfall on the asteroid for the arranged rendezvous with Beckett’s mother. The leader of the Rebellion. It’s strange that I’m depending on her to keep my friends and me safe when I’ve spent so much of my life hating her and everything she stands for.
But that hate was based on a lie, I remind myself. And the future I’m trying to build is going to be based on truth, even the ugly bits of it. And the truth is, I misjudged Beckett, and I’ve misjudged her mother. I owe them both an apology.
Then again, as Crown Princess of the Senestris System, it seems like I owe a lot of people an apology. Maybe someday, I’ll get the chance to fix everything my mother has broken.
If we make it out of the Wilds alive.
If the sun doesn’t actually die.
If I find a way bring peace back to Senestris.
But that’s a worry for another day—I’ve got more than enough to freak out about today.
Starting with the fact that theStarlightwill be lowering the ramp soon and I’ll get my first real glimpse of an asteroid. Which is totally not a sentence I ever imagined thinking, let alone living, just a few weeks ago.
Beckett’s mom chose this place, apparently, because it’s on the edge of the Wilds, has an okay gravity, and is only an hour or so away from Delta V47, where the man Ian killed in Rodos told us theReformerwould have taken Milla. Unfortunately, it has no breathable atmosphere—not many of the asteroids do. Except Delta V47, which has apparently been terraformed and is actually bigger than Serati and Kridacus put together.
But Gage found some breathing masks on the ship. We tried them out, and they seem to work—despite being made by, and presumably for, the Ancients. They’re big and weird, but as long as they’re strapped on tightly, they’re functional.
“What are you doing down here?” Beckett asks as she comes up behind me, and I can’t help noticing how terrible she looks. I want to ask her what’s wrong, but the peace between us is still new and fairly fragile. Pushing at her seems like a good way to fracture it.
“I just wanted a look at the asteroid that doesn’t come through a screen.” I hold up my breathing mask to show her that I’m prepared.
But she doesn’t look impressed. “Yeah, well, you need to stay out of sight. Far out of sight. These are rebels we’re dealing with, and reformed princess or not, you aren’t exactly everyone’s favorite.”
I guess I never thought of it like that, but I should have. The last thing I want to do is jeopardize the deal Ian, Beckett, and Max worked so hard to strike.
