Page 10

She felt fingers warm, firm, long, and lean on her nape, at the edge of her helmet.

It hissed, then popped free.

She gasped like she’d been drowning.

Cool, clean air hit her lungs, replacing the recycled, fear, and copper-tinted oxygen she’d been gulping.

She gasped and coughed, bile rising in her throat.

She clutched her stomach, rolled to the side of the divan, and heaved over the side.

Nothing left her mouth, yet she kept wheezing, blinded by the migraine blooming behind her eyes.

A glass of water appeared, and she grabbed it, drinking thirstily.

When done, a hand took the tumbler away.

She fell back on the cushions, her eyes closed, as she struggled for composure.

Silence fell.

Moments later, she dared to open her eyes, and there he stood.

She blinked, eyes hurting, but she persisted in taking a look.

She jolted, for he was a towering lycan in silhouette, with wolf-like features overlaid on the frame of a man.

He was sheathed in violet and gold energy bands, not-quite-flesh, not-quite-armor, spirit and matter entwined.

Flashes of lightning pulsed from him in rippling waves that resonated along the ship’s floor.

His head dipped low.

She should’ve recoiled, screamed, and questioned, but couldn’t move.

He brought his face near hers, eyes golden with amethyst flames, familiar yet at the same time foreign, fixed on hers.

‘Sleep,’ came the guttural growl.

The word wasn’t a command.

It was a force.

It surged through her chest, through her limbs.

A heated pulse flooded her veins. Her lids fluttered. Her body went limp.

She blacked out.

The last thing she heard was the hum of the air conditioning, and her breath slowing as the wolf-spirit stood guard.

She woke with a start.

Where the fokk was she?

She swung her boots toward the ground, and they clamped with a hiss, the magnetic soles synchronizing with the deck’s grid.

She doubled over for a second, bracing herself on her knees, her heart hammering against her ribs like it was trying to escape.

When her eyes finally adjusted, Savvine sat up with care and straightened.

Her head was still swimming from the impact, but she was steadier now.

This wasn’t her ship.

It was a Corvette, but nothing like the ones in the flotilla.

Nonplussed, she rose to her feet and studied her surroundings.

The lighting in the strange ship dimmed to a softer hue, rose gold against the obsidian walls, and she sensed the pulse of its core like a heartbeat through the floor.

She didn’t note any seams, no bolts, and everything appeared curved with deliberate fluidity.

It was a dream of a room, a cathedral of calm.

A single, massive armchair sat facing a window so transparent and translucent that it made the expanse beyond appear within reach.

It was a full observatory fashioned from high-tech synth-plex glass stretched from ceiling to floor, wall to wall, displaying an unbroken view of the cosmos beyond.

To the right: the glittering remnants of the debris field.

To the left: the stars, endless and cold.

She caught a stir in the air and turned, her eyes drawn to a pair of boots slung over a stool.

Her heart lurched.

A tall man lounged in the armchair, only the back of his head visible.

She blinked. Had he been there seconds ago? She hadn’t sensed anyone else in the room with her.

How had he ghosted in without her noting it?

She stared at the back of his head. His hair was a rich dark violet, wavy, full on top, shaven on the sides above a sleek flight jacket.

Curiosity took over, and she took tentative steps towards him.

She staggered forward, then steadied herself on the back of his chair.

He shifted as she rounded his seat with caution.

Bracing, muscles coiled, breath held, and then, with an inhale, stopped dead.

Their eyes locked. Her blood jolted. Her stomach flipped.

It was him .

The same vacuum-defying kinai who absorbed the energy of a freakin’ missile’s charge, turned and flung it at the enemy like a spear.

Thereby saving her life, before vanishing with a smirk and a two-finger salute.

He sat, nada , and lounged like a safari cat, sunning itself under a hot savannah sun.

With no freakin’ care in the world. Like he hadn’t caught a warhead with his bare hands when she last saw him.

He glanced at her, gaze raking and measured, sliding from her face to her boots and back again.

‘You?’ she managed, her utterance husky and hoarse.

‘Me,’ he replied, unfazed.

His vocalization was hella husky, raw, timbred, like a rumble of thunder that sent shards of ionic charge down her arms, spine, and all over her body.

It was also accented, with a Spanish- Kwavi burr, which made every word sound way more sensual than it needed to be.

Che palle. He electrified her.

He sat in shadow, a towering silhouette forged in power and storm light, unmoving, those zephyr-lit eyes fixed on her.

Her hand lifted, almost without thought, and touched his forearm.

It was solid, warm, sinewed and veined, with a scattering of hair.

She flinched and pulled back, expecting it to feel spectral, ethereal, but there was nothing illusory about him.

Get a hold of yourself, woman.

With an inhale, she stood straight before him, maintaining their eye lock.

She almost lost herself in their wildfire violet depths, flickering like twin storms.

‘ Sante ,’ she murmured. ‘For getting me out of that debris field.’

His lips twitched and he gave hr a slight chin raise.

The silence between them grew dense. Charged. Electric.

An unfamiliar heat coiled around her like an invisible flame.

Her breath caught. Her chest rose, her nipples freakin’ hardened, even as her thoughts skittered.

She had never come this close to a mostro , to one of the forbidden.

It was nothing like she’d imagined. What surprised her was that she found herself intrigued instead of reacting in horror.

She was drawn to him, as if his energy called to her.

Then she stepped closer, too close. Or maybe not close enough.

The pull was pure instinct, not choice.

She swayed into it, into him, and he surged to his feet to meet her, gripping her waist, steadying her.

‘I’m still a little woozy from the explosion,’ she whispered, eyes canted to his much taller presence, darting to his mouth, then back to his molten gaze.

‘Or is it me?’ he rasped, voice rough velvet, threaded with sardonic heat.

It was him.

Fokk , it was him.

But she wasn’t going to admit it, not out loud.

‘Are you scared of me?’

She jolted at his husky rasp and locked eyes with him.

What surprised her was the vulnerability she saw in his amethyst depths, which shook her to the core.

Without thinking, she reached a hand to touch his forearm.

‘ Nada . If you meant me harm, you’d have done it already. What you are is fascinating, but not anything I’m scared of.’

His lips pursed, emotion pulsed deep in his eyes, and she again jolted, unable to look away.

‘You’re very beautiful,’ he murmured.

Flustered, she parted her lips to fire back a deflective retort, but her gaze dropped to the glint of battle scoring on his armor, the scorch marks, the singe near his collar.

Her breath grew shallow, and she blinked. ‘Who the hell are you?’

He smirked, taking his time. ‘The man who just saved your ass again. This time from a minefield.’

He moved from her, sitting back in his chair, arms crossed over his massive chest, gazing into her eyes.

She almost moaned at the loss of his heat and strength.

‘I understand that, but who -?’

She faltered when his jaw clenched.

Her voice dropped. ‘Who placed the mines in the debris field?’

The air snapped tight again.

He went still, like a predator scenting danger.

‘Who else? Twas a little fokk -off gift from the Lombardis.’

He leaned forward, hands resting on his thick, muscled thighs, his essence shifting gear into a darker realm.

He seemed to bristle with an energy that appeared to dance in and out of sight around him in violet flashes.

Fascinating.

‘You, of all operators, should know, they don’t play fair. They’d never allow remnants of their ships or stealth tech weapons to get into your hands. Let alone leave debris clear for you to sift through. They meant to blow up whoever came looking for answers.’

She said nothing, she just flushed, subdued by his well-aimed chastening.

Her heart was still pounding, but her voice came out raised, clipped. ‘Where are you from? Are you stalking me?’

The man didn’t flinch. He didn’t rise. He turned his head, slow and deliberate, and locked eyes with her.

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth.

Still, his eyes, midnight dark, ringed with an unnatural glowing gold hue, did the damage.

They didn’t just look at her. They assessed her. Read her.

He measured the heft of her defiance as if he were trying to decide whether she was a weapon, a threat, or worse, a temptation.

Her breath hitched, and her anger surged to compensate.

Then she saw it.

The ring on his fifth digit.

It was a heavy matte obsidian band inlaid with a stylized S, coiled around a wolfish spectral head of glowing wolf and a skull woven together, a line of gilded fire threading through the middle.

The mark of an unmistakable company. A distinctive, undeniable sigil.

Her eyes widened.

‘You’re Signet,’ she breathed. ‘Are you a capo , one of the under bosses?’

He didn’t confirm, nor did he deny her husky demand.

His lips twitched as if her revelation did not deserve his acknowledgment.

Her pulse roared.

‘Well. Sante for saving my ass, twice. But I won’t require your services again, now that I know who you work for.’