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Then she gives in.

And, stars help me, I am lost.

The kiss turns fierce, desperate. My fangs skim her lower lip—a silent plea, a warning, a promise. She shudders, gripping the front of my shirt as if anchoring herself, as if afraid of the very thing unraveling between us. But I feel the shift in her, the way her body molds to mine, the way the tension in her frame transforms into something equally dangerous—desire.

The bond pulses between us, raw and undeniable. My wings trap our heat, turning the space between us into something molten. Every press of her body, every sharp inhale, every moment she lets me hold her splinters the barriers she’s spent years constructing.

And just as suddenly, she rips away.

“No,” she gasps, her voice shaking as she stumbles back, arms wrapping around herself as if she can physically restrain whatever this is between us. “I can’t...I can’t do this.”

The loss of her contact is a physical wound. My wings flex, aching to pull her back, to shield her from whatever war she’s fighting in her own mind. My lungs burn with the effort to hold still, to not chase, to not demand.

“Neon—” My voice is rough, unsteady with everything I don’t say.

“Don’t.” Her arms tighten around herself, her breathing uneven. She shakes her head, backing toward the door. “Just...don’t.”

Then she’s gone, vanishing into the shadows before I can stop her.

I let my forehead rest against the viewport, my wings drooping as the cold seeps back into my bones. My bond burns, a relentless ache that no amount of distance will ease.

Time is running out.

For both of us.

Chapter 7

Neon Valkyrie

ThephantomtasteofCirdox’s kiss is a ridiculous distraction, even as my implants diligently catalog the lingering spike in my hormones. The recycled air in the maintenance tunnels is stale, faintly acrid, a stark contrast to the lingering warmth of Cirdox’s touch that still ghosts my skin. My upgrades, ever the diligent analysts, register my elevated cortisol, the jump in norepinephrine—the biochemical echoes of intimacy tangled with stress. They quantify the physiological responses, neatly categorize them, but they can’t touch the knot of unease tightening in my gut.

Zara’s knowing smirk catches me off guard as I practically collide with her rounding the corner from Cirdox’s quarters. Her red fur bristles with amusement as she steadies me, those vulpexian eyes gleaming. “Need some space?” she asks, her tail swishing with barely contained mirth.

I feel heat flood my cheeks as I realize what I must look like: hair mussed, clothes rumpled, probably reeking of Cirdox’sdistinctive scent to her senses. The fact that I’m sneaking away from his quarters like some guilty teenager isn’t helping my dignity.

“I was just . . .” I gesture vaguely, my usual sharp wit deserting me. “Engineering stuff. Very important.”

“Mhmm.” Her ears twitch forward. “Engineering. Is that what we’re calling it now?”

I resist the urge to check if my clothes are properly fastened. “Don’t you have a ship to run?”

“Don’t you have a captain to . . .” She pauses deliberately, “engineer?”

I make a strategic retreat before she can comment further, her soft chuckle following me down the corridor. Next time I’m taking the maintenance tunnels; at least the coolant lines don’t make innuendos.

This hidden alcove, tucked away in the Obsidian Haven’s maintenance arteries, should be a sanctuary—shadowed, shielded from prying eyes and surveillance feeds. But the rhythmic hiss of coolant pipes feels less like white noise and more like a frantic countdown. Every line of code I sift through, every vulnerability I uncover in the Black Eclipse’s digital shadow, is a gamble—time bought, maybe, but at what cost?

I’m crouched in a shadowed alcove of the maintenance tunnels, using salvaged parts from a broken console to build a makeshift signal jammer. The gentle hum of quantum circuitry beneath my fingers is almost soothing, a counterpoint to the chaos in my mind. After what happened with Cirdox, I need this: the familiar rhythm of creation, of turning broken things into weapons.

My enhancements pulse steadily as I work, their blue glow reflecting off the scattered components. Each piece I connect adds another layer of protection, another barrier between us and the Black Eclipse’s hunting algorithms. But as I splice neuralinterfaces into crystalline matrices, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m missing something obvious, something dangerous.

The data I stole isn’t just evidence of corruption; it’s a blueprint for systematic control. The Black Eclipse has woven themselves into the very fabric of the STI, using luminore shortages like puppet strings to manipulate entire systems. Each transmission log I decrypt reveals another layer of rot, another thread in their web of influence.

My fingers pause over a particular connection, something in the pattern triggering a warning deep in my enhanced consciousness. There’s an elegance to this code that feels hauntingly familiar, like a signature I should recognize but can’t quite place. It reminds me of . . .

No. Focus on the task. Build the jammer. Protect the ship. Don’t think about the past, about lost partners and broken trust, about the way some wounds never quite heal, just get buried under layers of code and caution.

But as I reach for the next component, my neural interface flashes a pattern recognition alert. The code structure, the way it flows—it’s not just similar to what I used to use; it’s evolved from it. Like someone took my old encryption algorithms and twisted them into something darker, more lethal.