Cleon Moon (36 page)

“It’s hard to cuddle under the blankets while wearing a hundred pounds of armor,” he said, not responding to the second comment.

“Hard but not impossible? You know I like a challenge.”

“Alisa…” He sighed and lifted his arm.

Judging by the warning in his tone, she thought he might push her away or step away himself, but after a moment’s hesitation, he laid his arm around her shoulders and pulled her against him. She went happily, resting her hand on his chest.

“I appreciate your…
you
,” he said. “And it means a great deal that you care enough to want me to have what I thought I wished. But I’m afraid of what could happen if we…” He rested his chin against her head. “I wish I could have a future with you—and I want to choke Abelardus with his ridiculous braids every time he leers at you—but you should have someone who isn’t broken.”

“Everyone’s broken in some way or another. If they aren’t, they haven’t led very interesting lives.”

“I don’t want to hurt you again,” he whispered, and her heart ached at the emotion in his voice.

How could she fix his guilt? Guilt that she was responsible for because she’d made a foolish choice. Perhaps logic would do what feelings couldn’t.

“You still want to have children, don’t you?” she asked. “A family. That hasn’t changed, has it?”

He hesitated. “What I want and what would be best for a family may not be the same thing.”

Alisa leaned back so she could frown into his eyes. “You’re
not
giving up your dream, Leonidas. Not because I fell out of your bed. That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have lay down with you. That was my choice.”

“A child wouldn’t know the perils of making such choices. To hurt one would be even more unacceptable.”

“So, we find a neurologist who can help you with the nightmares. There must be such a thing. And even if there’s not, that doesn’t mean you can’t have a family. You just don’t let yourself fall asleep with children draped over you. And your wife can wear her combat armor if she wants to sleep at your side.” She wasn’t sure why she spoke in terms of some hypothetical wife when she meant
she
wanted to sleep at his side. She was falling in love with him, if she hadn’t already, and she loathed the idea of anyone else having that spot. She would find a way to make this work; she swore it to herself.

“What a bedroom life that would be,” Leonidas said. “I suppose there’s a reason cyborgs don’t have families.”

“Yeah, because your asshole government wanted killing machines instead of fathers.”

“I signed up for it willingly,” he said, lifting a hand to touch her cheek. Then he cleared his throat and stepped back, raising the netdisc again. “If everyone else is amenable, we’ll take the rest of the money and outfit the ship with weapons. Abelardus and the others did help with slaying the dinosaurs, so we’ll have to ask for their votes.”

Alisa frowned again, completely uninterested in talking about weapons right now.

“There’s something you need to know before we get back to business,” she said, pushing the netdisc down. “The Starseers who attacked you and stole the staff? One might be my father. The one who got away.”

Leonidas arched his eyebrows.

“Unless there’s some of his blood spattered on the deck somewhere, we can’t find out for sure,” she said, “but he has the name of the lover my mother had before I was born, and he looked about the right age. Abelardus says these people are part of some evil offshoot of Starseers who want to finish the mission their ancestors started centuries ago, taking over the system and ruling over humanity.”

Alisa gazed up at him, almost defiantly, wanting him to know that she was responsible, if in a circuitous way, for him being hurt. Someone in her family had attacked him and would likely do so again if Leonidas tried to retrieve the staff. She wasn’t sure it was a logical argument, taking the blame for her father’s actions, but a broken wrist seemed nothing compared to a coma.

“That should lead to interesting conversation topics at family dinners,” Leonidas said, lifting his eyebrows.

That wasn’t the response she had expected.

“Are you trying to be inappropriately funny?” she asked.

“Yes. Did I not succeed? You’ll have to coach me on my delivery and timing.”

She didn’t know whether to slap him or to hug him. The latter sounded much more appealing, so she slipped her arms around his waist and rested her forehead against his shoulder.

“My life is a mess and nothing is working out how it’s supposed to,” Alisa said. The raw honesty wasn’t as easy to share as it had been when he had been unconscious, but he had become someone she felt she could confess to, and she needed someone she could be straight with. It was hard always being the captain, keeping up a stoic facade even when she kept missing her mark, when Jelena kept slipping through her fingers. “I need someone to lean on. I need you. Don’t pull away before we even know…” She tightened her hug. “Just don’t pull away.”

“I’m here,” Leonidas said, returning the hug. “And I’m not going anywhere. We’ll get her.”

It wasn’t quite what she wanted from him—or not
all
that she wanted from him—but it had to be enough. For now.

THE END

Afterword

Thank you for continuing to follow along with the Fallen Empire series, and thank you, too, for the reviews and for telling friends to try the books. Since they’ve been doing well, I’m able to justify taking my time with the story arc. I currently expect to finish the series in eight books, and I hope you’ll stick around for the conclusion. Things will be coming to a head in 6, 7, and 8. (Ahem, that wasn’t dirty.) (Unless you want it to be.)

If you want to get in touch in the meantime, I’m often on
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