Page 54 of The Warlord's Secret Heir

“What was that?” he asks.

I fake a cough. “Said you got a good voice.”

His gaze lingers. Too long.

I don’t blink. Don’t dare.

After a moment, he nods once, just barely, like he’s filing something away. Storing it for later.

Then he leans in. And kisses me.

Not rough. Not needy. Not like the night before when we broke against each other like waves on jagged rocks.

This one’s... reverent. Careful.

Like I’m something sacred. Something breakable. Something he doesn’t trust himself to want this much.

I melt against him before I can stop it. His hand slides up my back, the pads of his fingers finding the bare skin under the jacket I stole. Our mouths move together like we never stopped. Like the time between Earth and here was just a bad dream we both woke up from.

When we part, I can still taste him—salt and ash and blood and fire.

My chest heaves.

He touches my cheek with the backs of his knuckles, eye searching mine for something I hope to hell he doesn’t find.

I drop my gaze.

Can’t hold it. Not now. Not when the lie’s choking me from the inside.

He watches me.

Says nothing.

But his jaw tightens. His fingers twitch like they’re resisting the urge to grab me, shake the truth out of my throat.

He knows something’s wrong.

I feel it in the air between us.

But he doesn’t press.

He pulls me closer until I can feel the heat radiating from his massive body. Kyldak’s shoulders are a landscape of golden scales, each one catching the light like a small, angry sun. Where the blast took parts of him, the replacement prosthetics are a different rhythm—matte alloy and jointed filaments that flex when he breathes. I can see the scar where his left eye used to be, the ridge of healed tissue and the faint web of silver that hints at the trauma beneath. His remaining red eye—so alien, so bright—studies me the way a hunter studies wind: looking for something it recognizes and calculating whether to move.

“You’re shaking,” he says softly, his voice a low rumble in his chest. It vibrates through me like a bassline.

“Not from the cold.” My answer is a whisper and the lie tastes metallic in my mouth.

He laughs—short, incredulous. “Always evasive with words. You learn that on Earth?” He smiles, so small and private I almost forget how enormous he is.

“I learned it on patients.” I try a teasing edge because I don’t want him to see the quaver under the surface. “You’d be surprised—humans hide everything with small talk.”

Kyldak’s gloved fingers—augmented pads that mimic skin—trail down my arm, then settle at the hem of my shirt where the jacket has slipped. He pauses like he’s checking the world, then his thumb brushes the soft curve of my hip. Electricity sparks behind my ribs.

“Tell me then,” he says, “what are you hiding, Jaela?”

The name on his tongue is like a benediction and a danger. It pins me. I swallow and let the muscle in my throat work. I step up on the balls of my feet so I’m no longer dwarfed by him, and I rest my forehead against the ridge of his jaw.

“I’m hiding that I want this,” I breathe. “Hiding that I want you.”