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T he next morning, the docking bay hummed with controlled chaos. Mechanics moved like clockwork around Dorane’s star cruiser, making final checks when his crew secured cargo and running diagnostics before departure. The scent of heated metal and fuel mixed with the crisp bite of Cryon II’s air circulation system. Above, steel beams stretched into the shadows of the towering bay, illuminated only by flood lights and the occasional spark from a welder’s torch.

Dorane stood near the base of the ramp, arms crossed, his sharp gaze following the organized flurry of activity. His attention, however, wasn’t on the preparations—it was on Asta.

She was pacing.

Her tail flicked in agitation, her golden eyes flashing as she turned back toward him, fists clenched at her sides. “I don’t like this, Dorane.”

He sighed. He knew this would be a fight. “I know.”

She stopped pacing and jabbed a finger toward his chest. “Then take me and Jammer with you.”

“No.”

Asta let out a sharp hiss of frustration. “You need us. We need to be there. Watching your back?—”

“I need you here,” Dorane interrupted, his voice firm but calm. “Someone has to keep an eye on things while I’m gone.”

Asta scoffed. “And who’s going to keep an eye on you?”

Dorane lifted an eyebrow. “I’ve got two Ancient Knights, a Master Turbinta assassin, a squadron of cutthroat crew members with enough experience to handle just about any attack, and myself. You really think I’m under-prepared?”

She scowled. “You and I both know that’s not the point.” Her voice dropped, rough with unspoken concern. “Zoak is out there. And you’re walking right into whatever trap he’s planning.”

That was exactly why he wanted her and Jammer to stay on Cryon II. Asta’s presence filled his world with a warmth he couldn’t bear to lose. Through thick and thin, Asta and Jammer had stood by him, their loyalty unwavering and their support steadfast.

They were the closest thing he had to family, something he would never admit to them because it would put them in even more danger. The potential of Zoak using them as leverage was too great a risk; he wasn’t about to allow it.

He exhaled, glancing at the ship before turning back to her. “I’ve got this, Asta. Believe it or not, I did think about things like assassins and danger. I need you and Jammer to keep an eye on Cryon II and any Legion movements. If Zoak has compromised anything here, we need to know before anyone gets hurt. No one knows every bolt and crevice in this place better than you two.”

Asta narrowed her eyes, her tail flicking again. “Do you think he has done something? Do you know something that I don’t?”

“I wouldn’t put it past him; and no, I haven’t heard anything. It’s just a gut feeling. I really need you to get a crew and go level by level, starting at the core and moving up. I need you to do what you do best: protect our people.”

He watched as indecision swept across her face before it became resignation. “Are you ready for me to let Crock know what’s going on?”

“Something tells me he is already in the loop, but yes, I’d like for you to tell him it is time. He’ll understand,” Dorane said without hesitation. “Coordinate with him. I want his freighters prepped for immediate response.”

Crock was more than just a freighter captain—he commanded a network of heavily modified ships that could function as either blockade runners or war vessels. If something happened to Cryon II in Dorane’s absence, Crock was one of the few who could respond fast enough.

Asta exhaled sharply, rolling her shoulders. “Fine. But if you end up in a med bay when you get back, I’m personally going to rub it in for the rest of your miserable life that you should have taken me and Jammer with you.”

Dorane chuckled. “I would be utterly heartbroken if you didn’t.”

She gave him a long look before finally stepping back. Her voice softened, just slightly. “Be careful.”

“I’m always careful.”

Asta snorted before she muttered a curse and turned. Seconds later, she was barking orders at a passing technician as she strode toward the control station.

Dorane watched her stride away, his expression unreadable.

Then—he felt it. A subtle shift in the air. A crooked smile curved his lips as he slowly rotated until his eyes locked on the source.

Mei.

Her name whispered through his mind. Since he had met her, she had been a constant shadow there, filling both his waking and sleeping moments. She walked towards him, and then pulled back her hood, her face fully revealed.

His stomach tightened in alarm. He swept his gaze around the docking bay, searching for threats. “Mei?—”

She smiled, tilting her head slightly. “He’s watching.”

Dorane tensed. “Who?”

Mei stopped beside him, turning her head slightly. “Zoak. Crane tower, halfway up. Near the support beam. When the crane moves, you’ll see a slight reflection from the view glass he is using.”

His eyes flicked toward the structure, scanning the dark scaffolding. He couldn’t see him—not yet—but that didn’t mean she was wrong.

Dorane’s pulse quickened as Mei—calm, composed, completely unshaken—lifted her chin and stared directly at the spot where Zoak was hiding. Then she smiled, a slow, knowing smile that sent something sharp curling in his gut—and she tilted her head in acknowledgment, in… challenge.

Dorane reacted instantly, gripping her arm and pulling her back toward him. “Vas’thelan kai’tor!” Damn it! he hissed in Aetherial. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”

Mei turned, meeting his gaze with unwavering confidence, and then, before he could say another word, her fingers slid up the side of his neck and she pulled his head down to meet her kiss.

Dorane felt an electric shock flare through him when their lips met. The world vanished around him, his entire body locked, his breath stalling for a fraction of a second, and he released a deep, guttural groan.

His lips moved seductively over the warmth of hers. The press of her body, the sharp inhale of breath that wasn’t his aroused him to new heights. A wave of crushing need, one that had been building since she’d pulled off her goggles and lowered her scarf in Deek’s bar, blanked everything else out, and instinct took over. His hands found her waist, dragging her against him, his mouth pressing hard against hers, devouring, claiming. The kiss was deep, intoxicating, pulling him under like a tide he had no interest in resisting.

Everything else—the docking bay, the crew, the damn assassin watching them—ceased to exist.

Then, slowly, she pulled back.

His breath was unsteady. He searched her face, still half-lost in whatever spell she had just cast over him.

She gazed up at him, her dark eyes unreadable, her lips parted slightly as she whispered, “I’m sealing Zoak’s fate.”

Dorane blinked, the meaning of her words cutting through the haze of desire. The words hit him harder than any blow Jammer could have struck. His mind caught up with what she was saying. What she was doing.

A slow, burning anger erupted inside him and he glared down at her.

The hood down. The direct stare. The kiss.

She was marking herself.

She was using herself as bait.

His blood ran cold.

“ Vas’thelan kai’tor! Are you crazy?” he snapped, his voice lower, rougher, as panic started to build inside him.

Mei simply tilted her head. Dorane released another low curse.

The moment Zoak saw her, truly saw her—her face, her connection to him—it was over. Zoak was already obsessed with his hunt. Now? He wouldn’t be able to resist. Mei had just made herself the ultimate prize.

The perfect challenge.

And suddenly, Dorane was filled with a desire to hunt Zoak that was beyond anything he had ever felt in his life. Not because Zoak hunting him…

Because he was hunting her.

Zoak crouched on the narrow beam, his body perfectly still as he watched the controlled chaos of the docking bay below. The cavernous expanse of Cryon II’s launch sector pulsed with activity, the sound of hydraulics hissing and boots echoing against steel platforms as final preparations for departure were made. His focus was not on the mass of workers beneath him. They were of no interest to him. He lifted his view-spotter, the enhanced lenses sharpening the figures below into razor-edged clarity.

Dorane LeGaugh.

The name sat on Zoak’s tongue like bitter ash. The man stood near the base of his star cruiser, arms crossed, speaking with his second-in-command—a feline-featured woman who was radiating anger through every fiber of her being. The way her tail lashed, the sharp tilt of her head, the way she jabbed her finger into Dorane’s chest—oh yes, she was pissed .

Zoak’s lips curled in satisfaction.

Let her be angry. Let her fight him. It won’t matter soon.

Dorane had no idea what was coming. None of them did. The carefully placed charges in the lower sections of Cryon II, near the artificial moon’s core, would detonate in seventy-two hours. The explosion would send a cascading collapse through the structural integrity of the entire base. It would crumple like a dried husk under its own weight. Thousands would die.

And he would be long gone.

Originally, he had planned to eliminate Dorane here, taking his time savoring the moment before the base was reduced to scrap floating in the vacuum of space. But this? This was better. So much better. Dorane was leaving. That meant Zoak could follow. He would hunt his prey in the vast reaches of space, far away from distractions. And when Zoak killed him, it would be against the backdrop of Dorane’s greatest failure—his home, his empire, his friends—obliterated in one perfect stroke.

Zoak’s fingers tightened around the view-spotter, his heart thrumming in anticipation.

Then—a shadow moved into his view.

His instincts flared before his mind caught up. Movement near Dorane. Someone was approaching.

He adjusted the focus, narrowing in on the figure striding toward his target. The dark gray, almost black, cloak. Zoak’s smug satisfaction twisted into irritation. He knew that cloak. It belonged to the person who had been trailing him.

The one who had dismantled his traps.

The one who had evaded him.

For the past two weeks, this ghost had stalked him through Cryon II’s underbelly, unraveling his carefully laid plans, forcing him to adapt, move, change course. The two times he had thought he finally had the assassin cornered— they had vanished . No one had ever done that before. No one. It had taken every ounce of his patience to not lash out in frustration. To not kill indiscriminately. He couldn’t, because a legend must have control, remembered for his choices , not his reactions.

His irritation soured into something sharper as he focused in. Arrogant. To walk so boldly in the open now—right up to Dorane, in front of all these witnesses—it was almost like?—

Zoak’s breath locked in his throat as his own personal predator slowly reached up and lowered the hood of his cloak. Shock coursed through Zoak as he sucked in a sharp breath. The view-spotter trembled ever so slightly in his grip.

A female! A female has been tracking me?

The realization struck him with the force of a laser blast to his stomach. And her features… they made no sense. No Turbinta assassin in the star systems had ever matched him, let alone toyed with him the way this one had. And yet, as her face was revealed, as her dark eyes lifted, a jolt of something strange slid through his body.

Uncertainty.

His fingers clenched around the metal railing, his sharp claws digging into the surface.

She was… no one.

He had never seen her before, not in any records, not in any Legion databases, not among the names of those he had deemed worthy enough to know. He was positive. She was an anomaly. A problem he hadn’t accounted for.

Who is she?

His mind scrambled to fill in the blanks. He was trying to discern what species she was, where she came from, when she turned. She tilted her head, a slight, knowing smile curved her lips.

Zoak stiffened, the hair on the back of his neck rising. He frowned when he realized that she wasn’t looking around the docking bay. She was looking at him.

Dead. Straight. At. Him.

The breath he had been holding expelled in a sharp hiss. A tingle of unease snaked down his spine, rolling through him like a phantom touch. It was as if she had reached into the shadows and yanked him into the light.

Impossible! She cannot possibly see me.

And yet, even as his eyes narrowed on her face, she stared, her lips curved ever so slightly, a tilt of the head—mocking him.

Just like the others. Only… different. Worse.

The realization caused him to stumble back from the railing and deeper into the shadows. His entire body tensed, his pulse hammering against his ribs in a way it never had before. His mind shouted warnings, but his limbs locked in place, unable to move. His pride—his very identity —howled in outrage.

How did she know?

How did she see?

Did she hold some kind of mythical power? Was it an Ancient Gallant trick? Did she possess some cursed ability he had no way of countering?

A sliver of fear slid into his consciousness as the questions raced through his mind. He feared nothing, no one! He was the hunter. Even his old Master had fallen to his blades. He was destined to be a legend.

Yet now—Zoak shivered as a multitude of unfamiliar feelings ran through him. There was a shift in the hunt. The moment when the predator realizes—too late—that it is being stalked.

His mouth dried and his chest heaved as his mind raced, trying to reassert control, to analyze, to strategize. Gripping the view-spotter between his hands, he forced his body to move closer to the railing.

She had turned back to Dorane and was kissing the man as if she hadn’t a care in the world. A visceral growl rumbled in his throat as fury slashed through his brief lapse of fear. He clenched his jaw and dropped one hand to the railing where his claws left gouges in the railing as his body shook.

It was a message.

A clear, undeniable message.

The woman—this Ancient Knight —wasn’t just looking down on him. She was challenging him. Openly. Publicly.

She had marked herself as the true master assassin.

She had taken his hunt away from him.

She wants to deny me my status!

The knowledge hit him like a gut punch, sending a nauseating wave of rage through his system. Sweat beaded on his brow at what she had accomplished with a mere look. His fingers flexed toward the rifle leaning against the steel beam before he pulled his hand back.

She had done something no one had ever done before. She had made him feel weak.

His breath came in ragged bursts, his limbs taut with the desire to lash out. To kill something. To prove that he was the dominant force in this game.

Zoak’s lips peeled back, exposing sharp, predatory teeth as his pupils shrank to slits. He had planned to draw this out. To let Dorane squirm. To savor his victory.

But this? This changes everything.

He would not kill this one from a distance. He would look her in the eyes. Anything less would be an insult to his skills.

He would find her.

He would break her.

And when she lay dying beneath his blade, her final moments would not be filled with courage or defiance.

No. Her last thought will be one of acknowledgement, that she is not the best.

His eyes narrowed as the imagines of her lying broken, bleeding, defenseless, and unable to protect the man she cared about sent a thrill through him. He would show her what happened to those who dared to mock him!

Yes, he would need to time it right. She needed to live long enough to watch Dorane die in front of her.

The hunt is mine, Ancient Knight. I will not fail.