Page 92 of The Commander

“I know enough. We’ve already discussed this. Your brain, body, and feelings need to catch up with what is true. I will give you time, but I have no intention of allowing you to wallow.” His voice dropped lower, gravel scraping against her frayed nerves.

“Because you’re not grieving her, Kitten. You’re grieving the idea of her, the version you wanted her to be. The version she never was.” His black eyes reflected her stricken face like a mirror.

The knot in Cara’s chest tightened, then loosened, the weight of his words sinking into her bones. She wanted to argue, to fight him on this, but the fight had already drained from her.

Her vision blurred as the tears she had fought so hard to hold back finally spilled over. She swiped at them with the back of her hand, angry at herself for crying, angry at the world for being so damn unfair.

Bastian said nothing, letting the silence between them settle again, less heavy, less suffocating.

After an eternity, Cara exhaled, the breath shaky but freeing. “I don’t know how to do this.”

Bastian’s hand, large and warm, settled on her knee, a grounding weight.

The truck rumbled beneath them, a steady hum in the distance as Earth and time rolled on without their consent. Cara didn’t know what to say to that. He had protected her. He’d killed for her. Beneath the cynical shell forged by survival, she knew Bastian wouldn’t fail her—not because of love, not because of some moral duty, but because it wasn’t in his nature to lose anyone or anything that he called his.

They drove. It would be a long journey to Old Kentucky, in many ways.

CHAPTER 31 - CARA

Bumping over holes and grooves in the road, they slowed, jolting Cara from the sleep she hadn’t realized she’d drifted into. She sat up, wincing with the reminder of pain in her arm.

Outside the line of the truck’s front light, there wasn’t anything to see, just road surrounded by the wild yellowed green of tall grass and the night. The moon and stars must be hidden behind the rotating cloud apron created by the Cyclops. It appeared randomly, every few weeks.

Dad had told her cities like Greater Louis once burned so bright, night transformed into the thick heavy gray of an old man’s dirty sweater. The collapse of the world’s energy plants came with benefits—when the clouds weren’t in the way. It was hard to consider the dark night a benefit.

She glanced at Bastian, but the cab of his alien-made truck had no light unless he waved a hand over the right panel.

She couldn’t see a thing, but she felt him—his mood — a weird energy in the air that hadn’t been there before. Something was different. Wrong?

“What’s going on?” She rubbed her eyes, peering into unnerving black.

“I saw road signs behind us. I’m going back to look. You’ll stay here,” he said, his voice a lovely low rumble. If nature had decided to do something interesting at the dawn of time and shoved a demon, a panther, and a tyrannosaurus rex together, it would sound like Commander Bastian.

The sound sparked an unexpected warmth within her. What was going on? Had she woken up horny? They were on the run. Her shoulder reminded her of its tenderness with a dull throb, warning her not to tense up too much, but she still found the energy to lust for the alien. Damn. Did it ever stop?

“Stay inside the truck, Kitten,” he commanded as he exited the vehicle and shut the door.

The truck hummed a low and almost comforting sound, a subtle counterpoint to the night-creature calls outside. Their alien transport was years ahead of the rusty junk heaps she and Dad used to bounce around in—motorcycles and cars, all running on corn fuel, all dying young.

Cara huddled in on herself, arms crossed, trying to ward off the chill that slithered in through the opened door. Her blanket, of course, was way in the back. Typical.

Minutes ticked by like hours, each one stretched out in a long elastic pause of nothing. She waited. Her stomach growled. Food—also in the back. Great. He’d told her to stay put, but seriously? Where was a flashlight when she needed one?

At least the cab warmed up fast. No blanket needed now, but the confusing tension remained, a tight knot in her chest. If she killed the engine, she could hear Bastian coming. The idea sounded good, but then she’d have to find the off switch in the black when she couldn’t even see her own hand in front of her face.

Darkness. A quiet night. Two things she hated—they felt like hunkering down waiting for raiders to pass, afraid to breathe. She’d spent years outrunning life’s desolation but managed to forget how heavy the empty night became. With Bastian around, his manic energy filled the space. Now? The night compressed her with suffocating force.

She was this close to saying screw it when his presence announced itself. Footsteps. Or a sound that her soul identified even if her ear missed it. Her mate, coming closer, returning to the truck from the back. Awareness bloomed inside her, an insistent connection whispering clues about his location, his mood, his desires. Clues shesure as hell hadn’t picked up from his eyebrow-less face or predatory grin.

She sat up straighter, trying for casual, but jumped like a startled rabbit when he yanked her door open.

“Mate.”

“What did you see? Where are we?” She covered her nervousness with questions. The same weirdness poured off him in waves, raising the hair on her arms, causing her belly to flip.

“Come here.” He reached in, a phantom stepping out of the night, hitting her with a wall of chilly air and exotic, wild scent. The layered shadows didn’t bother him. All the aliens must have better eyesight then, because the lights on the front of the vehicle didn’t do a thing for her. They beamed resolutely forward and nowhere else.

“What?” She leaned away from his big body, taken aback.

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