Total pages in book: 82
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 80431 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 402(@200wpm)___ 322(@250wpm)___ 268(@300wpm)
He was looking at him—just looking—with something raw and full of heat.
“I have a feeling this might be when we first met.” Valor pointed at the date and time stamp at the top of the photo. “It’s the day before the failed mission.”
Zorion leaned in and murmured against Valor’s earlobe. “I’m looking at you like I want to eat you.”
Valor chuckled. “And I look terrified.”
After a much-needed laugh, they flipped through the rest in silence.
They set the pictures down and Zorion pulled out the tablet. The only digital piece of their lives caught by a drone from their last mission.
He inserted the disk and let it load.
The screen flashed to life with a high-pitched crackle of recorded airspace. Then it dropped into the feed.
Two military vessels slicing through choppy waves—the Chariot and the Neptune—maneuvering in unison.
Missiles launched and gunfire erupting from all sides lit up the dank river like fireworks.
The Neptune was struck first.
Valor felt Zorion’s heart pounding against his back.
An explosion rose high in the sky as the blast somersaulted bodies into the water.
Valor watched as his past self dove in without hesitation, swimming hard, racing for Zorion as bullets continued to pierce the surface and flames roared around them.
Valor went still. “Your burns,” he whispered.
The drone trembled as if trying to stabilize.
There were about ten seconds of footage of him dragging Zorion’s charred body away before the drone appeared to take a direct hit and the feed cut to static.
Then darkness.
Valor set the tablet down and waited, but still, no memories returned.
Maybe he’d have flashes here and there over time, but Oakley and Sawyer were gone, dead in that river with their comrades, and Zorion and Valor were reborn in the fire.
He realized after a moment that he felt no sorrow or regret for where he was right then.
In the arms of his cherished.
“You saved me,” Zorion said with awe in his voice.
Chief Styles Sawyer
Zorion
The world faded into night as he lay naked with Valor’s heavy body resting sated on top of him.
They rejoiced in the now. The universe had determined they were always to end up together.
Beside them was a single photograph. The rest they’d burned in the fire that was now ashes.
Valor shifted and touched the photograph of Zorion staring at him in that bar.
“I didn’t know you when I looked at you like that,” he said softly. “But I already knew who you were to me. The man of bravery and most worthy. My cherished protector.”
Valor met his gaze and Zorion ran his thumb along his jaw as he stared into brilliant hazel eyes that reflected the beauty of the moon’s light.
“You are the one I was meant to obey, honor, and trust to guide me through this life…forever. To fight beside until the day I fall.”
The Ravens had stripped them of their names, erased their history, and rewired their DNA. But they couldn’t kill what was never artificial.
What was saved in the fire and would forever burn.
They were fiercer, freer, survivors, unbreakable lovers.
They didn’t have a boat crew to fight with, but they sure as fuck had a lethal ungovernable army that didn’t miss.
The world had new guardians who stalked in the darkest corners.
Ex, Meridian, Grace, Mirage, Valor, and Zorion—an unholy, fury-forged brotherhood ready to take the world by storm.
The End…for now.