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Two engineers had taken their usual table near the far window, so they slid into the booth closest to the galley.

‘Sit,’ Xander ordered Savvine. ‘I’ve got this.’

He strolled to the buffet and returned with an overflowing tray within minutes.

On it were plates of fresh fritters, scrambled eggs with spiced greens.

Fire-grilled plantains drizzled with honey, a stack of sweet cornarepas, and steaming mugs ofkahawa, thick and dark with a cardamom bite.

‘All this?’ Savvine gasped. ‘It’s a feast.’

‘With you, every moment is a celebration.’

‘Who knew a spectral wolf could spew such cheesy lines?’ she teased.

He winked and chuckled as they got into the food.

Xander studied Savvine as they ate, loving how relaxed and laid-back she seemed.

She smiled, in a lighter mood than the night before.

When she leaned in to listen to him, Xander’s gaze fell on the tiny, scattered constellations of freckles across her cheeks.

That, and the odd flecks of gold in her otherwise deep green eyes, and that little gap in her teeth when she smiled.

Then, on her eyebrows, one arched a tad higher than the other.

He wanted to kiss her wrist when she drank with delicate grace from her cup ofkahawa. Bite it, maybe.

Fokk.He couldn’t get her out of his mind, addicted to the pleasure he experienced with her.

It wasn’t her body, although it was a wonder, but the way she stirred emotion in him far deeper than lust.

It was this quiet captivation she didn’t even know she wielded.

The way she made loving her so easy.

They brushed shoulders as she reached for the salt.

Her thigh bumped his under the table. She apologized.

He didn’t answer, he just buried his nose in her nape and breathed her scent with one hand still warm on her lower back.

His hand slipped to her shoulder when she laughed.

Kaal interrupted them with an update on all overnight security movements around theEterna.

She leaned against Xander as they listened to his brusque, sarcastic reportage.

‘One of our Signet surveillance drones I was manning got a warning from fake Eugene when we drifted too close to the perimeter.’

‘What did you do?’

Kaal shrugged. ‘Mygive a shitjust got up and left.’

This got her laughing hard enough to throw her head back, and, enamored, Xander kissed the side of her temple without thinking.

Her eyes locked with him as Kaal sauntered away.