Page 6 of Stolen By the Wraiths (Rift Wraiths #1)

I stepped across the threshold into her quarters, and the door hissed shut behind me, sealing us in.

The space was small, barely larger than my own, but it was saturated with her scent, not just the clean, sharp notes I could detect from the corridor, but a deeper, more complex aroma of human habitation, of weariness, and of a faint, lingering fear.

The scent of a sanctuary, a den.

And she had just invited me in. My training screamed at me to maintain distance, to establish a professional boundary. But the instincts she had awakened, the ones that had roared to life in the cantina, saw this differently.

This was a test. An offering of trust from a creature who trusted no one. My response would define everything that came next.

I settled on the opposite end of the narrow bunk, giving her as much space as the cramped room allowed.

"What did you want to tell me?" I asked, my voice lower than I intended.

I watched her face in the subdued lighting.

She studied me for a long moment, her gaze analytical, as if trying to solve a complex equation.

It was obvious she was taking in the geometry of my face, the way the traceries pulsed with a soft light, the predatory focus in my eyes that I could not completely suppress.

And I like it. Something deep within me almost purred at her attention.

"I lived with a family once. The Hendersons.

" The words came out, brittle and thin. "Before them, there were others.

Placements, they called them. Families paid by the Consortium to house kids from the Meridian program.

Most of them lasted a few months. One lasted a year.

" She picked at a loose thread on the blanket, her gaze fixed on her own hands.

"But the Hendersons... they were different.

When I was ten, I thought I'd finally found a permanent home. "

The pleasure in her company was overlaid quickly by a familiar heat that tightened the plates along my jawline, an involuntary response to a perceived threat. Not to me. Not this time.

But to her.

I saw the way her nostrils flared slightly, catching the change in my scent.

"Tell me about them," I said quietly.

"They were kind at first. Mrs. Henderson made cookies and helped with my homework.

Mr. Henderson taught me to fix engines in their garage.

They said I was part of the family." She gave a short, bitter laugh that held no humor.

"I believed them. For three whole years, I let myself believe I was wanted. "

The air in the small space crackled with tension. Her pain was a live thing in the room, and my body reacted to it as a direct threat.

"What happened?"

"Mrs. Henderson got pregnant during my third year.

Suddenly, there wasn't room for me." The old pain rose in her throat, but she pushed through it, her voice flat and devoid of emotion.

"They called a social worker. Said they weren't equipped to handle the responsibility of two kids.

That I had adjustment issues. That I was difficult to place. "

I watched her, my own hands clenching into fists at my sides. I saw the tension in her shoulders, the rigid control she held over her expression. She was recounting the deepest betrayal of her life as if it were a mission report.

"You were thirteen," I said, each word deadly quiet. For human children, that wasn’t fully grown. No where near capable of understanding such a betrayal.

"Fourteen by the time they processed the paperwork and found a new placement." She finally looked up, and her eyes were like chips of ice. "The social worker used all the right language. Said I had trust issues and behavioral problems that made me a challenging case."

"They threw you away for reacting normally to the trauma they caused," I said, the words a low growl. "That's not your failing—it's theirs."

Her breath stuttered. Something shifted in her eyes—shock, then a dawning understanding, as if she’d just been seen for the first time.

"You were a child," I continued, the rage building inside me a hot, clean fire. "You deserved to be protected. Not discarded."

She found herself drawn closer on the narrow bunk, pulled by something she couldn't name.

The atmosphere between us was charged with possibility.

This close, she could see the individual patterns in my traceries, pulsing in time with my heartbeat, the way my eyes widened when she leaned into my space.

She looked at my arms, at the silver lines shifting beneath my skin. "Do they hurt?" she asked, her voice a mere whisper.

"No. But they show everything." I held my breath as she reached out, a part of me bracing for rejection.

"Vain used them against you, didn't he?"

Her insight was a physical blow. "He taught me to be ashamed of them," I admitted, my voice rough. "To see them as a tool for manipulation, a weakness to be controlled. He marked me with that shame just as surely as the Hendersons marked you."

I met her gaze, and in that moment, I made a choice. I slowly pulled my shirt over my head, an act of radical vulnerability. The traceries flowed in intricate, mesmerizing designs across the hard planes of my chest and stomach. "He wanted to own this. To control it. He never could."

She stared, a quiet awe on her face. It wasn't a moment of lust, but of profound connection. She reached out, her fingers tracing the plates along my jawline.

They were warm, shockingly alive beneath her touch. The contact sent a current of information through me that my body understood long before my mind did.

"So what happens when you look at me?" she asked, her voice a challenge, a test. "Do you see another asset? Another tool?"

My control wavered visibly. For just a moment, a raw want pulsed through me, hungry and focused entirely on her. A tremor ran through my hands, a desperate urge to pull her close.

"Alix." Her name sounded different in my voice, a prayer or a warning or a promise.

"I'm tired of being afraid," she whispered, letting her fingers trace the elegant line of my throat. "Tired of always having an exit strategy, of keeping everyone at arm's length because connection might hurt later."

"If we... once we cross this line, there's no going back for either of us."

She smiled—a reckless, terrified smile. "Good. I want to see where this leads if I stop running."

I caught her hand in my larger one, my fingers warm and careful around hers. The simple contact ignited a warmth that flowed up my arm and settled in my chest, coaxing something tight and guarded to finally unfurl.

"Are you sure? Because once we... there's no undoing this."

She closed the space between us, her knee brushing mine. The careful distance I'd maintained evaporated.

"I've never been certain of anything in my life," she admitted. "But I'm tired of letting fear make my decisions. And you..." She traced another line along my throat, feeling my pulse jump under her fingertip. "You make me want to be brave enough to stay."

The last of my careful control cracked. I turned my hand to thread our fingers together, the simple contact sending warmth cascading through my entire body. When I spoke, my words were imbued with a resonance that seemed to tune her skin to a new frequency, making every nerve ending hum.

"Then we'll take this slowly. At your pace, when you're ready, without pressure or expectations."

"What if I'm ready now?"

My grip on her hand tightened, and my scent deepened with want and careful restraint. "Then we start with this."

I lifted our joined hands to press a soft kiss to her knuckles, the gesture so gentle it made her chest ache with unfamiliar emotion.

The warmth of my lips, the careful reverence in the touch—it was the first kiss she'd received that felt like a promise instead of a demand, like worship instead of conquest. I held the moment, just the sound of our breathing in the small, dark room.

When I pulled back, my gaze held hers, a golden intensity that burned away everything but the here and now. "You are worth cherishing, Alix. Worth every fight, every risk, every hope I have left."

She leaned forward until our foreheads touched, breathing in my scent and letting my warmth chase away the last echoes of childhood pain. "Show me what that looks like."

I smiled—the first real smile she'd seen from me, transforming my features from dangerous to devastating. "It would be my honor and my privilege."

My free hand came up to cup her cheek, my thumb tracing across her skin with a reverence that made her heart stutter. "We have time, Alix. All the time you need to learn that this is real."

"Promise me something," she whispered.

"Anything."

"Don't let me run."

My expression darkened with understanding and determination.

"Never. When you run, I'll follow. When you hide, I'll find you.

When you try to push me away to protect yourself, I'll hold on tighter.

" My thumb continued its gentle motion across her cheekbone.

"You're not alone anymore. But now you need to rest."

I left her then, the scent of her on my skin, the feel of her hand in mine a phantom warmth.

I resumed my post in the corridor, the ship's dim lighting casting long shadows down the empty hall.

I checked the chronometer on the wall, the glowing numbers nothing like the organic light of my own traceries.

My vigil had changed. It was no longer the duty of a soldier guarding an asset. It was the imperative of a male protecting what was his.

Hours passed. The ship was quiet. I watched the chronometer, tracking the slow march of the cycle, when a spike of terror in her chemical signature shattered the silence.

It was sharp, immediate, and devastating.

Not the gradual fluctuations of a normal dream, but an intense panic that cut through the ship's recycled air like a scream.

A nightmare. The memory of her pained muttering in the shelter flooded back, but this was a thousand times worse. This was raw, unfiltered trauma.

I should maintain my distance. But the man who had just listened to her story, who had just promised to never let her be alone again, could not stand by while she suffered.

The internal battle lasted exactly three seconds. The promise won.

I was at her door before conscious thought fully engaged, the biometric scanner reading my genetic signature with soft chimes. I was choosing her comfort over professional rules, her needs over my protocols, her peace over appropriate conduct.

I found her thrashing on the narrow bunk, caught in the grip of whatever hell her sleeping mind was reliving. Small, broken sounds of terror escaped her throat, making a protective fury coil hot and tight in my chest.

It had to be the memory she'd shared with me, the abandonment she'd suffered as a child, re-lived with a raw intensity that stole the air from my lungs.

"You're safe," I said quietly, my voice carrying the natural harmonic frequencies my species used to promote calm. "You're on the Raptor. Nothing can hurt you here."

I allowed my scent to shift toward calming patterns—a biological comfort offered without expectation or demand. The air began to fill with a protective musk, warm and reassuring.

"You're not alone," I continued, watching her thrashing begin to subside as my presence registered even through the nightmare's grip. "I'm here. I won't let anything hurt you. No one will abandon you."

Her breathing began to slow, her muscles relaxing as the nightmare loosened its hold. But just as she settled into what looked like peaceful sleep, her hand shot out with desperate strength.

Her fingers wrapped around my forearm with surprising force. "Don't leave," she whispered, her voice thick with sleep and lingering fear. "Please don't leave me alone."

Her plea landed with devastating force, shattering my composure. I made the conscious decision to allow her claim on me.

"I won't leave," I promised, settling more comfortably on the bunk's edge. "Sleep. I'll stay right here until you wake."

As she drifted deeper into peaceful rest, her grip relaxed but didn't release. Her fingers traced my forearm, following the traceries as if mapping constellations. Wherever she touched, warmth bloomed.

Something deep inside me—older than memory, older than fear—answered: Mine .