It was chaos. Jenny rushed down to help as people crowded close, desperate to get on the ship and off the surface of the planet that was no longer home for them. Those who had lived above were still fighting, still demanding first passage for the most part. That sickened her but did not surprise her. She called out, “We are taking the elderly and the youngest first!”

Talon called out, “Those of you with small children, come forward! Those of you who are family to the elderly and have your elderly with you, come forward.”

As Jenny watched a sharp-faced woman who wore the stained and torn robes that marked her station as having been from above snatched a small child from an obviously injured young woman wearing the faded and filthy tunic and trousers worn by those who came from Below. The sharp-faced woman rushed forward, the child held high in the air. She called out, “I have a child! I have a child!”

The young woman wearing the tunic and trousers tried to cry out, but she was lost in the crowd. Jenny darted forward and snatched the child from the woman, passing the child back to one of the crew members. Her hand came up, and she shoved the woman to the ground. That rage boiled up again, and she felt that light within her trying to come forth.

The woman, on the ground and on her bottom now, began to scrabble backward as she looked up and saw deadly intent written all across Jenny’s features.

Jenny said, “Why can’t you ever learn? Why can’t you ever learn that birth does not dictate what kind of person you are? Why can’t you learn that people are equal? Why can’t you, even now, see that just because you were born to wealth and privilege makes you no better than everyone else? Why can you not let someone else go first?”

The woman began to weep. Talon drew his weapon and approached. “Is there a problem here?”

The woman shrieked, “I’m afraid, and I want to leave!”

Talon said, “You will get your chance.”

Jenny pointed to the child’s mother, and Talon shouldered his way through the crowd, picked the young girl up, and slung her over his shoulders and carried her through the crowd. He took her up the ramp that led up to the bay. Her child stood screaming in the doorway, and the mother rushed to the child, dropping to her knees to hold the child close and cuddle it.

They began loading people on. Jenny helped with the elderly who could barely hobble, along and those with children to reach the ship. Her heart ached as she saw that some of the children were from Below, and obviously so, while others were from above. Many, far too many, were without parents.

Their parents were dead or missing, and they would probably never see each other again. It was incomprehensible, the effects of war. It was something she hoped she never had to see again, but she knew that she would. There was no way around it. War was everywhere, and war would only continue until the Federation and its poisonous grip on the universe could be broken forever.

Even as she helped load them onto the ship her heart hurt. She had told Marik that she hated him and she had lied. Part of her hated what he had done, but she did not hate him.

Despite everything, she still loved him. How that was possible she did not know. She should hate him. She truly should, and she had said those words hoping that they would bring up that emotion in her.

They hadn’t.

All they had done was make her aware of just how deeply he had betrayed her and how deeply she was hurt over that betrayal.

She thought it could get no worse, but it did. The other ships touched down and people loaded into them as well and the docks were crowded with would-be refugees.

As each ship was declared full, more people gathered. Screams and tears began as doors started to shut. Jenny stood on the observation deck, her hands against the chilled panes, watching with tears streaming down her own face as people tried to batter the way through the crowd, their hands and their faces upturned as they begged and pleaded not to be left behind.

Talon had promised to try to hire on more ships, or to return. That might not happen though. They could only do so much. They had done all they could for the moment.

Word had just reached them that war had broken out all along the universe and this trip might very well be the last one they could make for some time.

They would have to stop for supplies along the way and hope that many of the outlying planets that were not yet involved in war were still trading enough to give them what they needed to help take care of these thousands of people that they were transporting off the Earth’s surface and to Revant.

Jessica tapped her on the shoulder. Jenny turned around. Jessica said, “You should go to Marik now. He may not last the night.”

Terrified at the thought, Jenny turned away from the sight of her fellow humans down there, abandoned and hopeless now, and ran to the med-bay where Marik lay.

A silent prayer filled her mind. He had seemed to be okay, weak but okay, when she had left the med-bay, but she knew that looks could be deceiving. That natural healing gift that he had would not help him heal himself, not now. Touch healing someone who had been as close to death as she had been meant taking on everything that that person had been through and all of the weakness of their body. She had his strength, and all he had was her weakness.

Praying, hoping against hope, she raced into the med-bay to his side.

She placed a hand down on his body, and she whispered, “Heal for me.”

A slim band of golden light appeared on her finger, and she placed it on his lips. His eyes opened, and he said, “Don’t. We both might end up dead.”

He drifted off again. She stood there staring at his closed eyes, her fingertips still glowing. “I don’t want to live without you.”

The ship landed on Revant Two, and nothing had been resolved. Marik had healed but the hurtful and hateful words that she had said to him stood between them, and she had been unable to face him. She spent most of her time dealing with the injured and the sick, as did he. There were a great many of them. They lost three dozen of the passengers, those who were so gravely ill or just too elderly to make the trip.

That saddened her. She could not forget the crowd of faces staring up at the ship's windows, tears running down their faces and entreaties coming from their mouths. If they had known so many would die they could’ve packed more, and she was sure of it, despite everything that Marik or the others said to the contrary.

As they had traveled back toward home, they had heard nothing but more stories of war breaking out in more rebellions against the Federation. Things would be hard for all of them.

Talon had declared that the ships of the space-pirates who had agreed to haul the humans to the planet in exchange for a vast number of credits would have to be docked on the planet to unload the passengers but that they could only stay docked for a short time.

It was stupid to trust a pirate, he said, and Marik had said Talon should know, as should they all.

He also said, not even jokingly, that at least the war would occupy the space pirates and present a much bigger prize to them so they would not bother the planet much, if it all.

Jenny got off the ship. Others were waiting to welcome the refugees. The new arrivals were being greeted, and there were new huts that had been built, but more would be needed. As she stepped off the ship, she saw the fish hunters coming to shore, their catch towed along behind them. It looked like they had had good luck and she was glad. They had a lot of people to feed now.

She was too weary and heart sore to do much more. She trudged up the hill, waving but not speaking as she headed to her home.

She stepped inside to see that everything was just as she had left it. The shelves still held her little collection of things, and the glass jar that Marik had given her caught a stray beam of sunlight and refracted it back. Her breath caught.

Marik.

Did he care for her?

She did more than care for him. She loved him. She loved him so much, but that anger that had bloomed into being when the walls around the implant had broken stood between them. She had been so angry at him, and he had been so hurt even if he had understood why she has been angry at him.

That anger had kept her from going to him. She did not know what to say to him. She had no idea what to say, or how a simple and mere apology could suffice to heal that wound.

I can heal almost anything, but I can’t heal the breach between us, the breach I caused.

Tears fell down her face. She let them. The horror and the shock over what she had witnessed and lived through down there on the surface of Old Earth had not yet left her, and she crumpled to the bed, crying for the lives lost and for the ones who would still die down there.

Talon was right. They could no longer fight that battle. The best way to help that planet and its citizens was to fight the Federation directly. She and Marik might have to fight again. She might have to kill again, even though that thought horrified her to no end.

She was no warrior, but she would fight against those who would kill many more if they had a chance. She had to. She was a healer, and if she could, she would use that gift to save lives and to fight back against the horrors of war and death.

The sound of the door opening made her sit up. She blinked as Marik’s figure filled the doorway. Her hands went to her face, and she scrubbed at it. “What…”

He shifted from foot to foot. “I came to the door and knocked but you didn’t answer, and I heard…” He looked away. “I have better hearing than humans.”

She stood. Her hands clasped at her waist. Her mouth opened, and the words came from her mouth—and her heart. “I am so sorry. I never meant to say such terrible things to you and I…I wish I could take them back. I wish I could stop myself from saying them before I had. I wish I could turn back time and make it not happen but I can’t so all I can say is that I am sorry and that I wish I had not…had not done that.”

Marik crossed the distance between them. His lips moved up in a ghost of a smile. “Oh, I know you didn’t mean it. I…I was wrong for doing what I had done, but I had to. There was only one way to make you understand what you are. I don’t know, even, how a human could be a natural healer. I have never known any who were. Healers, yes, but not one like you.”

She licked her dry lips. “What am I?”

“You’re beautiful.”

The words fell into the space between them. Her heart throbbed and threatened to race so hard that she was afraid she would faint for a moment. She whispered, “So are you.” Her face heated. “I mean…I mean…”

He came closer still. His hand came up and rested on her cheek. He said, “Jenny, I…I know you have a broken heart. That the betrayal your ex…that you love him greatly…but I…I…”

Was that why they had really avoided each other? Because she loved him and because she was afraid she had ruined everything by being angry? Was he avoiding her because he thought she was in love with Ben and he had not wanted to speak up?

Surely he was about to say that he loved her!

She realized that if he were going to, she would have to say something first. She would have to be the one to have all the courage she was always so afraid that she would not have. She had to be brave if she was going to win this being she was so in love with.

“I love you.” The words came around the salty lump in her chest and throat. She did not bother trying to stem the tears. “I love you, and I knew that before I saw Ben again. I think he was able to catch me off guard that day because I was so guilt-stricken, knowing that I loved you and not him.

“I should have known that he had changed, but I didn’t because the truth is I never really knew him in the first place.” Her shoulders slumped. “I…I was always so afraid back there, before, and this time too. I thought he was strong because I didn’t know what it really meant, being strong I mean.

“I know now because I know you.”

Marik’s face twisted. He came closer still and gathered her into his arms. His body held hers up and her head tilted back. His mouth captured hers and the same shattered and yet elated sensation sank in as his mouth stayed on hers. Her hand came up and rested along his shoulder, squeezing down slightly, and she shivered as a new sensation, a long sexual flush, rolled through her.

Everything that they had ever wanted to say was in that kiss. Their mouths met and held, and his tongue found hers, sending a fresh and new sensation streaking through her body. Her bare toes curled into the floor, and she shivered again, her body pressing against his in a desperate thrust that brought to her flesh the feel of his hard muscles and strong body.

He whispered, “I have loved you so very much for so long. I am so sorry that I gave you such a deadly gift. But…”

“But it was already mine in the first place, and one day I may have found it and not known how to use it.”

He nodded. His eyes, large and lustrous, looked into hers. He said, “War is never going to end. There will never be a time when it does not come.”

Her throat thickened, but she got words out past that clenched tightness. “Even here?”

“I do not know. I hope not. The Federation may not bother, we are so far on the outer rims and have nothing of much use other than water, which they can get on any of the water planets.”

She whispered, “If they come, I will be on the front lines fighting with you. Then I will be with you helping to heal our people. Is it possible, you think, to be both a warrior and a healer?”

His smile was soft and sad but real. “Yes, I have been both. I am both.”

“But you do not have the ability to make of yourself a weapon.”

He shook his head. “Not in the same way you do, but I am a weapon. I have killed often, Jenny, and my heart is sore from the deaths that I have caused.”

She leaned closer to him. The feel of their heartbeats matched and met and her eyes closed. “So does mine.”

He said, “Then we will have to heal each other.”

She looked up at him. His mouth came down on hers again, and happiness such as she had never known filled her. This being—he had watched over her even when she had not known that he was there. He had saved her life more than once. He was strong and proud and fierce, and he was compassionate and powerful.

He was everything, everything, and she knew that no matter what happened, if Revant Two managed to escape the terrible war that had just begun to rage across the universe, and even if they didn’t, if they died tomorrow or lived forever—they would do it together.

His hands fisted her hair, and he brought her face closer. Her mouth parted for his and he kissed her deeply. The tang of heartache that had lain over everything was gone now, and only that sweetness between them remained.

His mouth opened and hers did as well. The kiss lengthened and deepened, and his hands moved to her body. His fingers cupped her breasts through the thin dress that she wore, and she shivered as her nipples stuck up in sharp points below that thin and pretty fabric.

His fingers flicked across her nipples, stiffening them even further. Her breath caught as his mouth left hers and his hands went to work on her dress, lifting it over her head before discarding it on the floor.

Her fingers slid over the front of his trousers to find the chubby and plump outline of his cock below the material. He shivered slightly and his dick pulsed, thickening under her searching hand. Her fingers moved to the buttons as his mouth found a nipple and sucked it into his mouth, his teeth grazing the pebble-hard flesh slightly and lifting it higher still.

His staff filled her palm, hot and hard and throbbing. The heavy veins wrapped around the shaft pulsed as she traced them with her fingers, her thumb rubbing the silky skin at the top of his cock, making fluid gather there, and she used that fluid to lubricate his head a little as she went to her knees.

His masculine and slightly starchy scent filled her nose. She opened her mouth and drew him down her throat, her tongue moving against his flesh as she sucked his staff.

Her hand came up, forming a loose fist around the base, and she tightened her grip as she lifted her head and then lowered it again, using her hand to help pleasure him. She put her free hand on the heavy sac of his testes and let her fingers stroke that soft and smooth skin gently as she continued to blow him.

His hands tangled into her hair. His hips arched and bucked and he moved with real force, the pleasure driving him onward.

She groaned when he tugged her hair hard enough to stop her. He helped her to her feet then picked her up, carrying her to the bed where he lay her down gently. The mattress sagged below the pressure of his weight as he joined her on the bed. His fingers took a slow route along her body, tracing every curve and angle. Her hips lifted and her legs spread as his fingers ran through the curls that covered her mound and then dipped lower, his thumb pressed firmly against her clit.

Her breath shuddered once more as he swung his leg over her and then entered her, his heavy member spreading open her inner walls while his thumb kept manipulating her clit and bringing pleasure to her in strong waves that broke and crested with every slow circle his thumb made around her clit.

He withdrew, then entered her again. Her heels banged against his back as she wrapped her legs around him, her fingers raking across his back as pleasure became sheer and undeniable passion that made her cry out and then arch toward him, her body thrusting against his as he drove forward with his hips, his cock filling her to the hilt again and again.

Her body quivered as his thumb pressed down hard on the erect and taut bud of her clit. Her eyes fluttered closed then open again as his mouth captured hers in a hard and demanding kiss that left her breathless and not caring about that at all. His scent filled her nostrils, the feel of his skin met her flesh, and the power of his lovemaking swept away all thought but the thought of pleasure and love and the moment at hand.

His teeth grazed her neck, and his fingers of his free hand wound into hers. She clutched at his hand, at his shoulders and back as his teeth and lips moved lower to tease her nipples again while his hips picked up a faster pace.

Heat and friction mingled, driving her half out of her mind. Her body rocked below his. The orgasm was there, just out of reach but so close now. The sweet and nearly unbearable tension grew with each thrust and each kiss, each nibble at her neck and nipples.

She came, her walls opening and closing as her throat opened a lusty cry escaped her mouth. His ass jerked and shuddered, and she writhed below him, her body flushing with heat and need and completion.

Oils slid from her center, her core releasing more and more of them with each flutter and contraction of her walls. Those fluids splattered and spilled onto his throbbing flesh and she felt that rod pulse, and then he was coming, thick blasts of his seed spurting from his head and splattering into her tight inner walls. Her whimpers met his moans, forming a counterpoint to them.

He collapsed on top of her and held her as the aftershocks came, rippling through her body and taking her right over the edge and back into pleasure all over again. She cried out softly, and he smiled down at her face, his hands stroking her hair, tangled and sweaty now, away from her cheeks.

He whispered, “I’m here, and you’re mine, and I’m yours.”

Yes. They belonged to each other, and they would be together.

Forever.