Page 84 of Claimed By the Vykan

“It will be different for you here,” he said. “The changes from attunement, our food, our air, the shielded atmosphere of the Bastion. My scientists project that you will live as long as I do.”

Her brows drew together slowly. “And that would be…?”

“Another three hundred, perhaps,” he said, entirely serious. “There is time enough for many things. Time for another Vykan to be born. Time for you to build your bridges.”

She stared at him for a heartbeat too long, genuinely unmoored. He filed away the image—Morgan Halden, who had stood before him and told him to “get out” while drowning in his venom, rendered speechless by a number.

“Are you upset?” he asked, unable to resist.

“N—no,” she stammered, and that, too, he savored. “It’s just… a lot to get my head around.”

“You will have centuries to practice,” he said. “You can do much good here. For my people. For yours. My power is yours to direct.”

She stepped closer, pressing herself lightly against his side, her shoulder fitting beneath his arm as if carved for it. “I don’t need all that power,” she said quietly. “But I will take it.”

“Yes,” he murmured, pleased. “You will.”

He curled his arm more firmly around her, hand resting at her hip. Desire stirred, deep and resonant, rippling instantly through the bond. She answered without thinking, body softening against him, pulse quickening, pupils widening with the faint flush of arousal. The venom in his lungs thickened, though he held it in check, letting only the barest trace leak outward, enough to warm without overwhelming.

Below them, the forest exhaled, mist shifting in languid spirals. Lights winked between the trees as Saelori moved along their elevated paths, unaware—or perhaps simply accepting—of the unmasked Vykan and his human standing above them, watching over their world.

This was what he had never found in centuries of existence—stability without stagnation, power balanced by something that was not fear, but connection.

The youngest of the Seven, born under thinning mist, no longer felt the old emptiness gnawing at the edges of his mind. When the shadows pressed close, when duty threatened to calcify into something harder, the bond answered—Morgan’s presence sliding into the hollow spaces, anchoring him. She had become the weight that kept him from drifting, the spark that kept him from turning cold.

Beside him, she watched the world that was now hers as much as his, eyes reflecting distant lights and a future she had chosen rather than one imposed upon her.

From captive to survivor to chosen,he thought, tracing the arc of her journey with quiet certainty.And this is only the beginning.

He lowered his head, brushing his mouth against her temple, lips warm against her skin. She leaned into the touch with a soft exhale, and the bond thrummed—steady, strong, unbroken.

Far beyond Vyranth’s mist, the universe shifted restlessly. Threats would come. Old enemies would adapt. New forces would rise at the edges of mapped space. Humans would look up at their night sky and feel the pull of something they could not yet name.

When they did, there would be a path.

There would be a Vykan and a human at the center of it, standing together on a balcony above a living forest, watching the mist roll and the lights burn, ready to meet whatever came next.

Kyrax tightened his arm around Morgan as the twilight deepened into true night.

The Bastion held.

The bond held.

And for the first time in all his long life, the future did not feel like a weight.

It felt like an opening.