Sons of Lyra: Fight For Love (6 page)

“
Better?” she
whispered close to his face, her soft breath fanning his
skin.

He nodded and then frowned
when she disappeared, walking back down to his knee. She picked up
the device and ran the red beam over his leg again. This time he
didn’t feel a thing.

He watched her for a
while, too dazed by the drug to think straight. When his head
cleared, leaving only his body numb to pain, he remembered why he
was here and what had happened.

“
Jericho?” he
said, unable to say anything more for fear of his emotions getting
the better of him.

She looked at him with
such worry that he could feel her anxiety reflected inside
him.

His heart clenched, fear
crushing it as a whispered voice in his head said that Jericho was
dead. He went to sit up, but she was too fast for him and her hands
were pressing him back down onto the padded table before he could
move an inch.

“
He’s stable,”
she said and relief bolted through him. It only lasted a moment
before his better sense said that stable didn’t mean safe. “They’re
having to do more work.”

“
How
much?”

She returned to his knee
and continued with her work.

She was quiet for a few
minutes and then looked at him. “Over fifty percent of his original
body has been lost. They’ve had to integrate him fully into a
cybernetic body. It’s not advanced. The muscles... the body... it’s
passable... but...”

He got the impression from
her pale face and wandering eyes that she didn’t want to say
anything more. How bad was it? It had been hard enough for him to
come to terms with his arm. How would Jericho cope with losing his
entire body? What had he done to Jericho? He should’ve let him die.
He’d been so blind to his friend’s feelings. What if Jericho hated
him for what he’d done?

“
But?” he said,
needing to hear the extent of the damage.

“
His head is a
different matter. It could be years before we have technology
advanced enough to recapture how he’d looked. They’ve resorted to
modifying one of the androids heads.”

He felt sick. The androids
were barely advanced. Their bodies were bulky like Heavy Armour and
their heads were almost robotic in appearance. They resembled the
helmets he’d worn into battle to shield his face.

“
Iskara...” he
whispered, unable to say anything more.

Emmanuelle’s fingers
played softly against his cheek and he looked up at her, not hiding
any of his feelings. She sighed and leaned over him, her body
covering his as she held him. It comforted him more than anything
could have at that moment. He raised heavy fuzzy arms to hold her
and closed his eyes. She was warm against him, soft and
soothing.

“
He won’t hate
you,” she whispered against his bare chest. “Jericho is strong.
He’ll be grateful that you did all you could to save him. It’s not
him I’m worried about.”

She drew back and looked
into his eyes.

“
It’s Ambra. I
don’t know how she’ll take it.”

Would Jericho forgive him
as easily as Emmanuelle thought he would? His friend had always
envied his arm, saying how much he wanted cybernetic parts so he
could be the best soldier there was. Would he say that still when
he awoke to find he was more than half cybernetic?

The look in Emmanuelle’s
eyes demanded he say something to allay her fears. She was worried
about Ambra almost as much as she worried about him.

With a lot of effort, he
managed to cup her cheek and smiled. The drug made it hard to move
and almost impossible to control the strength in his
arm.

“
Ambra will be
fine. She’ll always love Jericho, regardless of what he looks
like,” he said and she straightened. He caught her wrist to stop
her from going back to her work. “Has she seen him?”

She shook her
head.

“
I want to be
with her when she does.”

She nodded. “I’ll tell
them. She wanted to see you.”

She handed him a clear
blue bottle and he realised it was water. He pushed himself up a
little and gulped it down as she helped him hold it. The cold was
soothing and refreshing.

“
Is she still
outside?” he said when he was done and Emmanuelle took the empty
container.

She laughed and shook her
head. “You’ve been asleep for over three days. I think she’s with
some of the other female soldiers today, on the hydroponics deck.
The doctors suggested they talked.”

“
Therapy, huh?”
Remi said with a sigh, recalling how much he’d hated the months of
therapy, both physical and psychological, that he’d been put
through after losing his arm.

She nodded again. “It’s
good for them to talk. Ambra needs female companionship right now.
I can’t imagine... actually I can... I can imagine how hard it has
been for her.”

A tear streaked down her
cheek. He reached out to her, wanting her to come to him and hating
the fact that he couldn’t go to her. She kept her distance, staring
at the floor.

“
I was so
scared, Remi,” she said and looked across at him. It broke his
heart to see the tears in her eyes. “I thought I was going to lose
you... I couldn’t stop thinking about you, fearing that the next
call I received would tell me you’d died.”

He reached out again, less
patient this time, flexing his fingers as best he could to make her
come to him.

“
I said I’d
fight for you and I’d come back to you. I wasn’t planning on being
dead when that happened.”

His words only made her
cry harder. He cursed himself and pressed against the padded table,
forcing himself up into a sitting position. His knee protested and
ached, sending pain shooting up his leg.

“
Idiot!” she
snapped and tried to push him back down.

Ignoring her feeble
attempts to stop him from getting up, he lowered his legs over the
edge of the table and grabbed her, pulling her into his
arms.

“
Shh,” he
whispered into her hair as she sobbed against his chest, curled up
with her hands pressed to it. He stroked her hair and held her
close, making a silent promise to never let her go. “I said I’d
come back... although I’m a little broken.”

A giggle rose from the
depths of his embrace.

“
I was fixing
you,” she mumbled against his skin, warming it with her breath. She
tried to wrestle free of his arms but he held her, unwilling to
relinquish her now that he had her. It had taken a phenomenal
amount of effort and had given him a lot of pain to sit up. He
wasn’t about to waste it all by letting her go so
quickly.

He kissed her hair and
then her forehead, gradually working his way down to her mouth. She
looked up at him and then closed her eyes when he leaned in to kiss
her. Their lips barely touched, sending a warm shiver through him
and filling his heart with tranquillity and happiness. On the
planet, he’d feared that her feelings would have changed when he
came back to her. The thought of that had scared him more than the
Varkans.

“
If I were in
Jericho’s shoes,” he said, opening his eyes and meeting hers.
“Would you still... I mean... if you do, I don’t know if you do,
but if you do... would you still love me?”

Her pink cheeks darkened
and she dropped her gaze to his chest for a moment before meeting
his eyes again.

“
I would...
it’s the man you are that I fell in love with, not your
appearance... although...” Her blush deepened. “There’s nothing
wrong with your looks.”

He smiled at her, glad
that she would love him regardless and thrilled that she’d admitted
her feelings for him. She tried to make him lie down again. He
refused, catching her hands in his and holding them.

“
How long am I
going to be stuck with you?” he said to her hands.

“
About two
weeks and then you’ll be fine. You’ll be healed before you start at
the academy.”

He brushed his thumbs
across her knuckles. Her hands were so small and delicate but they
worked such wonders.

“
And how long
do you want to be stuck with me?” he said with a smile and raised
his eyes to meet hers. “Does forever sound alright?”

Her cheeks blazed again
but this time she didn’t avert her eyes. She held his gaze, sure
and steady.

“
Forever?”
Emmanuelle said with a mock frown, stringing him along and teasing
him. She pulled a thoughtful face. He frowned for real. The smile
rose to her lips, breaking free of its restraints. “Forever sounds
good... but...”

“
But?” His
frown didn’t shift. His dark eyes grew a little blacker.

“
You’re a
prince of Lyra. I don’t think your family would like you going out
with a nurse.”

He shrugged and parted his
legs. She rolled her eyes when he pulled her up against him,
accidentally knocking his knee in the process and causing a grimace
to compress his lips. He could pretend all he liked that he was
fine but she knew that sitting as he was caused his knee
pain.

“
I don’t care
what they think.” There was a beautiful honesty in his eyes. “No
one stopped Balt from marrying his slave girl, or Sebastian from
marrying the woman he ran away with, and no one will stop
me—”

Her eyes widened. He
wasn’t insinuating what she thought he was. A deep look into his
eyes revealed that he was.

“
We barely know
each other,” she said and placed her hands against his chest. It
seemed like a valid excuse to take things a little slower.
Unfortunately, from what she’d heard, none of his brothers had
taken things slow. Balt and Sebastian had married their wives
barely a week after meeting them. Slow just wasn’t their
style.

“
Oh, I think we
know each other pretty well,” he whispered, eyes full of meaning
that his sultry smile backed up.

She blushed again and
cursed him for making her react that way all the time. So they’d
had sex and she’d admitted that she had feelings for him, loved him
no less, but that didn’t mean they had to get married right this
minute.

“
I... need
time,” she blurted out and he frowned. “Your training starts in
barely a few weeks time. You need to focus on healing and your
studies.”

His frown
tightened.

“
I thought
you—” he started and she cut him off by clamping her hand down over
his mouth.

“
I do... I
really do... but I wasn’t expecting this.”

Hurt surfaced in his
eyes.

Her hearts ached. She had
to say something to make him feel better and make him see that she
did want to marry him, just not this second. They were still in the
middle of a war and he couldn’t throw his dream of becoming a pilot
away like she knew he would if he married her. She wanted him to
become one and follow in his brothers’ footsteps as he wanted
to.

“
I’ll marry
you,” she said and his eyes brightened. She felt him smile against
her palm. “I’ll marry you when you can fly me, yourself, to Dazkara
to tell my family.”

He pushed her hand away,
dragged her up against his chest, and kissed her
breathless.

She took that as a
yes.

***

Remi paced nervously along
the dock in front of the small fighter. He locked his hands behind
his back and stared at the floor, slowly losing his patience as the
anticipation and excitement ate away at him. She’d promised. She’d
said that she’d be here. Where was she?

He looked up when someone
entered and turned to pace back along the dock when he saw it was
two of his older brothers, Balt and Acer. Not Emmanuelle. Where was
she? Wasn’t she coming? She’d been at the graduation ceremony. He
was a pilot now and he had a promise to keep. So did she. It had
only taken him six months to qualify as a pilot, faster than anyone
in his class. He’d graduated with the previous class.

“
Relax,” Acer
said with a smirk and slapped his shoulder. “You look a little
desperate.”

Remi shot him a glare. His
nerves threatened to overwhelm him. He took deep breaths and let
them go slowly, trying to calm himself. She’d come, just as she’d
promised. He’d take her to Dazkara and then they’d return to Lyra
Prime to be married. He’d already arranged everything. She couldn’t
back out now. He hadn’t let her out of his sight for the past few
months for this reason. He had to marry her. She had to be
his.

He’d had her transferred
to the academy medical team just so he could stay near her and they
could share accommodation. He’d spent each night with her in his
arms, had awoken this morning to see her face. Now he needed to see
her more than ever.

The door at the end of the
dock opened again. He looked up, shoulders tensed, and then relaxed
again when he saw it was Jericho and Ambra. He was glad to see them
together again. Jericho had been a nightmare since the battle on
Varka Two and his integration into the cybernetic body. He’d turned
his back on Ambra, convinced that she couldn’t love him and that
she deserved better, and had ignored everyone when they’d told him
that Ambra still loved him. He’d even ignored Ambra. At least now
they’d worked things out.