Page 29 of Wrath
She shivered and hugged herself but didn’t comply. As soon as I began circling around her, she attempted to turn away. But I caught her upper arm and made her face me. Our eyes met, and the dam broke.
“I watched you die!” Kwan said in a choked voice.
“Oh, sweetheart,” I whispered, pulling her into my embrace.
She buried her face in my chest and wrapped her arms around me, clinging with the energy of despair and crying with heavy sobs. I held her tightly, whispering soothing words while caressing her hair. It broke my hearts to see her so distressed, and yet it was healthy for her to finally drop that strong façade and let her emotions flow freely. She felt so fragile, trembling in my arms.
I picked up my mate and carried her to the couch. I sat down settling her on my lap. Kwan curled into me, her face hidden in the crook of my neck as she continued to cry for a while longer. The heart-wrenching sobs slowly receded, giving way to occasional sniffling. I called the hover tray to me, picking up one of the napkins on it, wishing it had been a tissue instead. I gently coaxed Kwan to lift her head so that I could wipe her face. At first, she let me, then took it from me with a shaky smile before continuing on her own.
“Sorry for slobbering all over you,” she said in a trembling voice.
“I’m yours to slobber on whenever you like,” I said gently. “I offered, remember?”
She nodded with a sad chuckle. “I bet you didn’t expect me to take you quite so literally.”
“Actually, I had hoped you would, but feared you wouldn’t,” I said in all honesty.
Kwan lifted her head to look at me, her eyes red and a little puffy from having cried so much. She examined my features almost as if she was seeing me for the first time. She raised her hand and caressed my cheek. I leaned into her touch, fighting the urge to close my eyes and savor the moment. Her thumb caressed my lips, then her hand moved back up my face until her fingers sank through my hair.
“You’re so beautiful, inside and out,” she whispered wistfully. Kwan dropped her hand then snuggled against me, her head resting on my shoulder as her gaze lost focus. “Kevin was beautiful inside and out, too. Not as drop dead gorgeous as you guys, of course. Nobody can rival a Xian or a Dragon, but he was such a good man. In my field, it can be hard to find a good partner, especially when you’re a female in a position of authority, and the man you like is a subordinate—despite being in a different chain of command.”
I nodded, slightly tilting my head to the side to be able to look at her gorgeous face as she reminisced. I had prayed for the day she would open up to me about him, that she would open herself to her past and let go of the pain to embrace the good memories it held. Kwan reached for my hand resting on her lap and intertwined her fingers with mine. I gently caressed her thumb with mine, and she smiled in response.
“He hounded me for a long time,” Kwan said with a snort. “I thought he was cute, but my goal was to come to Khepri, so I had no time for him. But he was relentless. Finally, I agreed to one date, thinking it would be enough for both of us to be convinced it wouldn’t work out. And then…”
“And then he turned out to be amazing,” I continued for Kwan when her voice trailed off.
She swallowed hard, her eyes misting again before looking at me with uncertainty. I smiled tenderly and nodded in encouragement. Some of the tension that had creeped into her shoulders lessened. At last, my mate finally got to see that I genuinely meant it when I said she could openly talk to me about him. Her past didn’t threaten me, or us.
“It turned out to be the best date I’d ever had. I guess it wasn’t that hard considering most of the previous ones had been a complete disaster,” she added in self-derision. “Kevin was super funny, smart, well-learned, and above all very respectful. He wasn’t trying to score. He wanted to know me better and for me to know him as well. He had the most epic dry humor and could talk about everything and anything. You’d think he’d spent his days memorizing every single type of media he could get his hands on. And like me, he was an adrenaline junky, a nerd, and a nature-lover.”
“The perfect match,” I said in a soft voice.
She nodded again. “That first date turned into a second, and a third, and then we were officially a couple. I had just finished my last tour of duty and completed my final qualification training for the Vanguard when Kevin proposed. He knew if I joined the Vanguard, it would be over between us as he would never qualify. I’d always be gone on missions while he would be landbound, assuming he even found a gratifying job on Khepri.”
“We would have found him something fulfilling,” I said.
“That’s what I told him, but he didn’t want a handout,” Kwan said with a snort. “He wanted us to look for a position within the Coalition where we could be together. Failing that, then we could poke Linette about the Vanguard. That’s when we realized he needed some additional training to qualify for any of the Coalition jobs. So, he did that while I signed up for another tour. We figured the war with the Kryptids would never end. I mean, it had already lasted for over 35 years. Surely, it wouldn’t end within the next three?”
I nodded with a sad smile. We, too, hadn’t expected the sudden turn of events, a year ago, that gave rise to the most unlikely alliance between the Vanguard and the Kryptid Workers during our mission on the Moon of Melibos. Without that, the Kryptid War would either still be ongoing or would have had a far bloodier ending than the one that took place.
“While Kevin was getting his training, I started the advanced Vanguard program to get a leg up on the other candidates when I applied,” Kwan continued. “At the same time, we started planning our wedding, which was supposed to take place one month after his graduation. Everything was perfectly falling into place. First, Kevin graduated with honors. Two weeks later, the Zvremeny Coalition outpost at the frontier of the Tegorian space confirmed they had two senior roles for us there. And we were to have our dream wedding fifteen days later, with a fabulous honeymoon. All of that crowned by finally getting to go to space and work alongside a plethora of aliens to protect the allied planets of the galaxy.”
A tear slid down her cheek. Kwan swallowed hard as another trickled down. I gently kissed her forehead while caressing her thumb with the pad of mine. My mate pressed herself against me, seeking a bit of comfort. I waited patiently for her to resume.
“We both loved nature. So, we planned a hiking trip and a weekend of camping in the woods, before the final pre-wedding stress,” Kwan said, her voice shaking slightly. “I never even saw what happened. We were driving on the interstate, and Kevin said he was hungry. I was reaching out for our snack bag on the back seat when he suddenly hit the brakes while cursing. When I turned around, I saw a bunch of cars in front of us getting rammed sideways. Somehow, a van coming from the other direction had lost control. And just our luck, instead of a ditch between the two sides, it was a flat terrain without dividers. Kevin was an excellent driver. He managed to avoid the pile-up. Just barely, but he did. He stopped our car maybe a meter or two behind the one in front of us. But then we got rear-ended… hard. The impact sent us crashing into the car in front of us at a pretty bad angle.”
Her voice broke and more tears slipped down her cheeks. She wept quietly, while I gently rubbed her back in a soothing motion. Kwan didn’t need meaningless words from me, only my supportive presence and an attentive ear. In truth, I was blown away by how much she was opening herself to me. Guilt gnawed at me as I realized the extent to which my death had affected her.
“Things became completely crazy,” Kwan said between two hitched breaths. “The front of the car on the passenger’s side got completely crushed, trapping my legs. They weren’t broken or anything. I just couldn’t move them. Kevin was able to get out of the car. He rushed to my side to help me, but the door was stuck. And the fucking cars just kept coming from all sides and slamming into each other. Ours got hit again. That impact dislocated my left knee, and I think it unjammed my door. I’m not sure. I must have lost consciousness.”
Kwan’s eyes lost focus, her eyes brimmed with tears as she relieved the terrible incident.
“I just remember opening my eyes and crying out in pain while Kevin was trying to pull me out of the car through the open door. The horn of a truck started blaring, and then I knew…. I knew something terrible was about to happen. I heard a loud crash and saw a bunch of cars in front of us start flying, some getting impaled by a bunch of metal rods. One of them came flying straight at us. And Kevin… Kev… Kevin just threw himself over me. He shielded me with his body, and said that he loved me.”
Kwan broke down in tears again, her body shaken by violent sobs. I untangled my fingers from hers to tighten my embrace around her. I gently rocked my mate while caressing her hair. I kissed her forehead then rested my cheek on top of her head. She eventually regained her composure.
“Apparently, it was rebar—the steel bars they use in construction to reinforce cement,” Kwan said in a haunted voice. “It smashed through our windshield, stabbed through Kevin, and then through me. They said he died instantly. I want to believe that’s true. That he didn’t suffer. I passed out. They had to cut the rebar in three places to separate us and get me out of the car. It destroyed my uterus but thankfully missed my spine. And while I was in a coma, they fixed me. When I woke up, the world had moved on without me. I didn’t get to say goodbye because they had already buried him. His last words to me were that he loved me, but I never got to say it back. And now he’s gone.”