Page 8

Eight

T he chamber was silent, as it always was, but Karian could feel the ship breathing around him.

The Velthra was alive in its own way. Grown, not built. It pulsed with energy drawn from the depths of Luxar's oceans—luminescent lines in the coralsteel walls tracing the ship’s pulse, the flow of neural data, the beat of motion and thought. And in this most sacred room, Karian’s private sanctum , the Velthra responded only to him. No Yerak entered here. Not even Temian.

This was the chamber of observation. The chamber of control.

Karian stood unmoving before a curved holowall—his tall frame cloaked in layers of sea-thread and shadow, his arms clasped behind his back. His mask glinted in the dim light, smooth and impassive, carved from Luxar obsidian and traced with sigils of his line. His tentacles lay still beneath him, coiled in perfect symmetry.

To others, this stillness would seem lifeless. But to those who understood the Marak, it was anything but.

It was discipline.

It was dominance contained.

The image before him flickered softly—a translucent pane suspended in midair, drawn from the ship’s sensory matrix. It was not surveillance, not quite. It was communion. Observation on a level beyond cameras or screens. He could feel the temperature in her room. Could taste the rhythm of sound. Could follow the curvature of her breath.

And she was there.

Leonie.

The human.

She moved slowly through the quarters he had prepared for her—barefoot, cautious, still cloaked in the robe his attendants had dressed her in. She looked small among the arching walls and fluid curves of Majarin architecture, a flicker of softness among sweeping metal and bio-light.

She ran her fingers along a shelf—tentatively, then with more confidence. Touched the edges of alien furniture as if to test their reality. She looked around constantly, eyes wide and wary.

He watched her for a long time.

Longer than he intended.

There was something mesmerizing about the way she moved. Clumsy by Yerak standards—her limbs shorter, her gait uneven. But there was elegance there too, in the way she tilted her head, in the subtle grace of her hands, the occasional flutter of her hair when she turned too quickly.

Hair that fell like black silk around her face—wild, unbound, shimmering like oceanweed caught in current.

Her skin was... sun-kissed . That was the word he had learned from Earth’s linguistic data. The light had touched her flesh. A warm, golden hue that felt— alive. Like the surface of her planet: bright, burning, blooming. She was of a wild, living place. One that was blessed with a sun that reached into every corner of its being.

Not like Luxar.

His people had been shaped by darkness. By pressure. The lack of light in the deep had stripped them of pigment, of warmth. Their bodies had grown pale, luminous in places, adapted for survival. But Leonie’s skin told a different story. Not one of survival—but of living.

She was alien in every way.

And yet…

His eyes lingered.

Not just on her face, though he studied it—those wide, expressive eyes, too white, too soft. Her irises were a warm brown, and when she stared into the reflective surface of the room’s paneling, he imagined she was trying to see herself. Trying to make sense of what she was now.

A prisoner. A possession. A novelty, perhaps.

Or something more.

He watched her sit. Stretch. Shift the robe around her like it could protect her. She muttered to herself in her Earth-tongue—soft syllables, strange cadences. He did not know the meaning. But he understood the emotion.

Tension. Frustration. Confusion.

Fear.

She looked up once—at nothing—and sighed. It passed through him. A quiet, aching sound.

And then she lay back on the bed. Her gaze remained fixed on the ceiling, but her expression changed. Her mouth slackened. Her eyes drifted.

Sleep, at last.

Karian didn’t move.

He could remain like this for hours. Days. The Marak were capable of perfect stillness—like statues carved from power itself. But this wasn’t discipline anymore.

It was fascination.

And beneath it, something else.

His body reacted first. Subtle warmth spread through his core. A thrum in his limbs. His tentacles shifted faintly, betraying arousal he hadn’t felt in many cycles. The last time had been… long ago. Longer than he cared to remember.

Majarin biology did not stir easily.

The Marak even less so.

But something about her—her softness, her innocence, her vulnerability —lit a fire beneath his self-control. She was so fragile. He could crush her. With one arm. With one thought. She was unguarded, unaware.

And yet she had looked at him in the auction hall.

She had watched him. Not with reverence, but with challenge. With life .

He shifted slightly, the holowall flickering in response to his movement. His fingers brushed the edge of the display, tracing the curve of her form. Not touching. Not yet. But close.

She is mine.

The thought came unbidden.

He had acquired her legally. He had done nothing forbidden. And yet—there was a feeling rising in him that made ancient instinct stir beneath the centuries of control.

Not lust alone.

Possession.

Possibility.

His.

She slept now. She would rest.

And when she woke, he would go to her.

Not to threaten. Not to take.

But to learn .

To play.

A word that did not exist in the Marak tongue. But one that he would find a use for.

His human. After so many cycles. After centuries of silence and sameness, she was something new.

And he would explore her.

In time.