Colliding Worlds Trilogy 01 - Collision by Berinn Rae Page A

him.’ He was Bobby’s friend. And he brings a bit of humanity to this place.”
    “So it’s your late husband then? Does Jax remind you of what you had?”
    “No.” She shook her head. “I’ll never forget Bobby. But you’re not Bobby’s replacement. What we have is different. This — ” she motioned between them “ — is about you and me. No one else. Never anyone else.”
    Emotion radiated from him. Lightning shot through his black eyes, a sure sign that he was on a precipice.
    “Legian? Talk to me.”
    “What are you saying, Sienna?”
    “I’m not saying anything. I just needed to vent my thoughts. Things bottle up inside until I feel like I’m going to explode. Sometimes I wish things would slow down so my head would quit spinning.”
    “Your head hurts?”
    “No. Not like that. I’m saying things have moved so fast that I’m afraid of losing me in all of this.”
    Legian backed away. She couldn’t tell if he was pissed off, sad, or disappointed. His feelings that flowed into her were too turbulent to translate.
    “It’s you I want, Sienna. Not a shell of you. I have no desire of taking that spirit away from you. If it is time that you need, then time is what you’ll have. If you prefer a human for companionship over me, that too I will understand. I won’t like it, but I’ll understand. I will never force your love or expect you to change for me, my tahren . Never.”
    With that, he kissed her forehead, spun on his heel and walked out of their room.
    Her jaw dropped. “Legian?” she whimpered through the closed door, not really expecting a response. After a minute of standing there in a daze, her legs gave out, and she fell back on the couch in a heap of frustration.
    Suvaste . Men. They just didn’t get it.

Chapter Nine
    The mission began like all the rest, although it felt different. More excitement in the air. Like something big was going down. It was exactly what the Sephians needed. They had been growing progressively antsy over the past several weeks. Inactivity didn’t blend well with hardened military folks. It was common to see at least one argument in the Commons daily. The training room had become packed.
    Sienna couldn’t find peace even in the gardens. Normally serene, they were buzzing with activity. With everyone out and about across the base, she felt claustrophobic. A big mission couldn’t have come at a better time.
    Like usual, Apolo’s briefing was closed to everyone but his trinity, which meant she wasn’t allowed. She’d found herself in the mood to destroy something. And so it was back up to the training room to take out her frustrations at the shooting range. She’d picked on Jax for needing to let off some steam, but the truth was she had more than a little steam to let off herself. Kettle, meet Pot.
    As she hefted the laser gun in her hand, Sienna couldn’t help but appreciate Sephian technology. She could shoot the hell out of a target without ever having to reload. And that was exactly what she did. She didn’t know how long she fired. All she knew was that by the time she released pressure on the trigger the target was nothing but smoking black ash. A burnt-metal scent and haze filled the room. And her mood hadn’t improved. Not one stinking bit.
    On the bright side, now she could actually hit the target every time. Huge improvement. To her credit, shooting laser guns was completely different than regular guns. Give her a twenty-two and she could nail a beer bottle from twenty yards. You’d think Sephian guns would be easier to use, but they weren’t. They were much more sensitive and overly precise, even without the kick, making it nearly impossible to hit a target more than several feet away. Good for a sniper, bad for wild shooting, hail-of-bullets Sienna “Shotgun” Wolfe.
    Even practicing a full hour every day, she still didn’t have as good of aim with a Sephian gun as she had with a regular gun. Three months ago, Sienna’s first target