Page 19

Chapter19

ANYA DIDN’T SCREAM .

She could have. The moment the ship lit up, she could have thrown herself into a panic, let the fear take over, curled in on herself like she used to when the world cracked apart back on Earth.

But she wasn’t that girl anymore.

“Get the shields up!” she shouted instead, even though she had no idea how. Her voice cracked with urgency as the ship bucked beneath her, lights stuttering, the control panel spitting sparks like it might explode. Her hand hovered uselessly over the console until Tor’Vek’s voice cut through the chaos, calm and sharp.

“Secondary console. Teal override display. Lock surge manually.Now.”

She moved fast, fueled by adrenaline and blind trust. Not confidence—instinct. Terror. But it worked. The system flared under her touch. The shields surged, barely holding as the next blasthit.

Tor’Vek cursed in Vettian. One hand wrestled the yoke while the other adjusted their vector. “Evasive pattern.Now.”

Her fingers hovered, unsure, until Tor’Vek barked, “Divert auxiliary power to shields. Bottom left panel—green interface. Route charge buffer override.Now.”

She moved, hands shaking but fast, following his voice. The nav interface flared under her touch. “Likethis?”

“Yes. Stabilize. Lock in.Good.”

Another blast hit, harder this time. The whole cockpit rocked.

Anya held her ground. “Next time, give a girl a tutorial before we start dodging missiles.”

“Affirmative.”

“They knew we were coming,” she added, snapping herself back into her harness.

Tor’Vek’s eyes locked on the view ahead. “Or someone toldthem.”

“Selyr?”

“Affirmative,” he said again.

Her stomach flipped at that. Selyr’s base hadn’t just survived—it was fortified. Active. Hidden under a massive camouflage grid and defensive shielding that didn’t belong to scavengers or pirates. This was military-grade. Precision. Intelligence-backed.

She glanced at Tor’Vek, but he didn’t return it. He couldn’t afford to. Every muscle in his body was wound, focused. But the bond seethed. Beneath his rigid calm, he was seethingtoo.

The ship dove hard, avoiding another round of cannon fire by meters. Anya’s breath caught, but she stayed sharp. “We can’t land here. Not with that artillery.”

“We will not land,” he said. “We will breach.”

“Excuseme?”

He yanked the yoke hard to the right, and the ship rolled. Her harness bit into her ribs as the worldspun.

“They have a hangar beneath the dome. One of those blasts clipped an exterior intake shaft. It is weakened. We exploitit.”

Her eyes widened. “You want to fly into a ventilationduct?”

“At speed.”

“That is insane.”

His mouth didn’t move, but the smallest flicker in the bond said he didn’t disagree. Then, dry and low, he muttered, “It is, in fact, highly irrational. Quite unlikeme.”

Anya braced both hands against the console, trying to quiet the part of her brain screaming this was a bad idea. But they didn’t have options. Not anymore.

“Do it, anyway. But if you crash us into a wall, Iswear I’m haunting your smugass.”

The corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. Not even close. But the bond pulsed with something rougher than amusement. Like he wanted to laugh, if he hadn’t forgottenhow.

The ship dove, engines shrieking as gravity slammed them forward. Anya’s harness bit into her shoulders, the pressure flattening her against the seat. Her stomach dropped like a stone. The screech of metal was deafening, and for one breathless instant, she was certain the hull would tear apart aroundthem.

And suddenly, the dome was right there. Closer than it should have been, rising out of the soil like a black tooth. The intake shaft was a jagged line halfway up the structure—barely wide enough for their vessel.

“Now!” she shouted.

Tor’Vek didn’t respond. He just angled the nose and slammed the thrusters. Anya felt her spine crush into the seat as they shot forward, every surface of the ship groaning.

She couldn’t see. Could barely breathe. The shaft swallowed them like the constricting throat of a snake—dark, narrow, and ready to eat them alive.

And then they werein.

Smoke. Fire. The high whine of metal screaming.

Systems blinked offline one by one. Gravity faltered, tilting her weight sideways as the inertial dampeners failed. Asharp scent of ozone flooded the cabin, metallic and burnt, filling her lungs with each ragged breath.

And just before the blackout hit, Tor’Vek muttered, almost inaudible:

“Impact in three. Two—”

Then darkness.

SHE WOKE to silence. Not dead. Not unconscious. Just—dazed. Like her body had been unplugged and rebooted, but her mind was still buffering. Her mouth tasted like copper and smoke. Her ears rang. The silence wasn’t peace—it was aftermath, sharp and hollow, and the faint crackle of something broken somewhere nearby. She blinked against the dark, her pulse hammering in the hollow of her throat, and tried to remember how tomove.

Her harness held. The dash was black and silent. Her bracelet thrummed. She glanced down instinctively, expecting chaos—expecting the countdown to have accelerated. But to her shock, it hadn’t. It was still ticking downward, slow and steady. Unchanged.

Not paused. Not reset.

Just waiting.

Like it knew the end was coming. Like it was sure ofit.

Tor’Vek .

She twisted in her seat, heart pounding as she fought to see through the haze. Tor’Vek was slumped in his harness, head bowed, one arm limp at his side. He was breathing—shallow, uneven—but alive. Adark gash split the skin above his brow, blood running down the side of his face in a sluggish trail. For a second, she couldn’t move. The sight of him like that—brilliant, infallible, terrifying Tor’Vek—so still, so broken—struck something deep and primal. She reached for him before she could stop herself.

“Tor’Vek,” she rasped. Nothing. “Tor’Vek!”

He stirred. Groaned. Then his eyes snapped open—wild, violet, and glowing with too much light.

And everything changed.

The bond didn’t just spike—it detonated. Like a thunderclap inside her chest, agravitational collapse that bent everything inward. His gaze locked onto hers, sharp as a blade, but it wasn’t Tor’Vek’s logic she saw in that moment—it was the beast beneath. The hunger. Theneed.

Desperate.

“Get out,” he said, voice low, hoarse, and dangerous. “Now.”

“You’re hurt—”

“Isaid getout. ”

It wasn’t rejection. It was warning. Aflare of desperate logic breaking through the chaos. He wanted her gone because he could feel himself slipping, feel the bond cracking open something volatile inside him. He was trying to save her—from whatever camenext.

She scrambled for the manual release. He was already unraveling. His breath hitched in uneven bursts, muscles locking and twitching under his skin like he was fighting something invisible and losing. The bond pulsed erratically, wild and unstable. This wasn’t pain alone. It was something deeper—raw, feral, chemical. As if the crash had cracked open whatever control he had left and let the monster underneath start to rise. The bracelet glowed, not red—but silver. Shifting. Changing.

“Anya.Move.”

He was losing control.

And something inside her snapped.

The fear, the logic, the chaos—it all fractured under the weight of something deeper. She couldn’t abandon him. Couldn’t run from this. From him. Every breath he took sounded like a war he was losing.

She unhooked herself, ignoring the tremor in her fingers, reached across the console—and touched hishand.

Heat.

Instant.

It surged through him—through them—like a violent chain reaction. Not gentle warmth. Not a flicker. It was a detonation. Every synapse fired at once, flooding his system with need and fury and the overwhelming force of the bond. His breath vanished. Thought dissolved. She had touched his hand—but it was everything. It was her presence, her defiance, her choice. The connection roared to life with savage precision, demanding surrender.

And for a second, he almostdid.

His chest seized. Eyes flared violet. Her body answered like it had been waiting for that moment all along.

Craving. Rage. Hunger. The bond didn’t recognize injury or logic—it only knew pressure. It thrust against them, relentless and blinding, like a tide of heat and instinct crashing through every boundary. It wanted release. It wanted surrender. It did not care what itcost.

And she held his hand tighter.

Not just to calm him. Not even just to calm herself. But because in that moment, everything inside her screamed that this was the only thing that mattered. That if she let go now—she might lose him. Might lose herself. Her skin burned where they touched, but she didn’t flinch. She felt the bond flare, push, recoil, and settle again. He was chaos and logic and violence barely contained—but under it all, he washers.

And she wasn’t lettinggo.

“I’m not leavingyou.”

The words came before she even realized she was speaking them—raw, instinctive, rooted in something so deep it bypassed logic. She didn’t care if he was seconds from fracturing. Didn’t care if the base exploded around them. The only truth she could feel, above the bond and the fear and the madness, was this: she belonged here. With him. Even if it killedher.

His body convulsed once. Then stilled. Then— a breath.

The bond settled, not into peace, but into pressure wound tight, like a storm held behind glass. Not quiet. But contained. Fornow.

“You are stabilizing me,” he said, disbelief coloring the words. “Evennow.”

She nodded once, chest heaving. “Lookslike.”

They didn’t havelong.

She knew it. Felt it like a clock ticking in her chest. Every second stretched tight around them, thick with the weight of what came next. Her gaze flicked to the fractured dash, then back to him. He was steady now, but only because she was still touching him. If she let go, if they moved wrong—everything could fracture again.

Her hand didn’t tremble. But her thoughtsdid.

“You good enough to walk?” she asked, voice low, not breaking contact.

They had no time. But she needed to hear him say it. She needed to believe they weren’t walking into this already broken.

Whatever waited in that hangar—Selyr’s forces, his monsters, his mind games—they’d be ready for her and Tor’Vek.

But she and her mate would also be ready.

She didn’t even flinch at the word. Mate. It echoed in her mind, not foreign or forced, but true—undeniably, irrevocablytrue.

She remembered the first time she saw him, how calm his voice had been in the middle of a nightmare, how even then her world had tilted toward him. Like gravity had decided forher.

That was the moment, she realized now. That was when the bond began. Not with touch. Not with time. But with recognition. It came without hesitation, like her mind had already accepted what her heart had known for days. Maybe even longer.

She didn’t need a ceremony or a vow or permission from the stars. The bond had chosen. He had chosen. And so had she. Whatever this place was—whatever they were about to face—they’d face it as one. As bonded. As the only true joining in a world that had tried again and again to tear them apart—and failed.

They slipped from the ruined ship into chaos. Alarms wailed from every direction, high-pitched and dissonant. Fire flickered from ruptured panels, casting red light across the wreckage-strewn floor. The air was thick with smoke and something metallic—blood or coolant, she couldn’t tell. Sirens clashed with the distant screech of grinding machinery and the low thump of boots. Somewhere deeper in the compound, aklaxon beat a steady pulse like a countdown.

Something moved in the shadows overhead—mechanical, fast, tracking. The hangar lights sputtered and flared, cutting in and out like a dying heartbeat.

It was hell. And they were already too deep to turnback.

The moment Anya’s boots hit the scorched floor, she looked back at the wreckage—and her heart sank as the truth hithard.

The ship was wrecked. Not damaged. Not salvageable. Wrecked .

One engine pod was gone entirely, sheared clean off. The aft wing had collapsed, sparking against the blackened hangar deck. The stabilizer they’d fought so hard to install was half-melted. Even if they killed Selyr, even if they survived—this ship would never fly again.

She turned toward Tor’Vek, dread knotting in her throat. “We’re not flying out of here.”

“No,” he said flatly. “We are not.”

Their eyes locked. No illusions. No backup plan. Only forward.

The bond flared—sharp, bright, hungry. It twisted through her chest, not as comfort, but as ignition. As warning.

“Then we kill him,” shesaid.

He nodded once. “We kill him.”

Blaster fire cracked in the distance—short bursts, sharp and erratic, not part of any controlled defense line. It suggested chaos, confusion. Maybe a mutiny, or an experiment gone wrong. Whatever it was, it wasn’t clean. It wasn’t organized. Something in Selyr’s fortress was unraveling—andfast.

Anya kept close to Tor’Vek as he led them down a narrow corridor, his body angled protectively in front of hers. The bond pulsed like a war drum, steady only because she never let go ofhim.

They moved fast, ducking through corridors littered with debris and dead ends. The walls were too clean, the layout too deliberate. This wasn’t a pirate lair. It was a lab. Atrap. And Selyr had designed everyinch.

Movement. Ahead.

Tor’Vek pushed her back into a recessed alcove just as two of Selyr’s augmented guards rounded the corner. They didn’t speak—just raised their weapons.

Anya dropped low. Tor’Vek surged forward.

Tor’Vek moved like a storm—precise and merciless, drawing the guards’ focus with a fury that tore through the first one instantly. As he struck, Anya circled wide, flanking the second. One blow caved in the first guard’s helmet, the crunch of bone unmistakable. The second soldier lunged for a blade, but never made it. Anya was faster, instincts razor-sharp. She snatched the first guard’s discarded blaster from the floor and drove its stock upward into the soft joint beneath the second guard’s helmet. The impact cracked like a snapped branch. He dropped without a sound.

The silence after was worse.

Not peace. Not relief. Just the echo of brutality.

The guards lay sprawled where they’d fallen, their gear still clattering faintly as it settled. The air was thick with the scent of singed circuitry and scorched metal. Overhead, the corridor’s lights flickered and buzzed, casting fractured shadows across the walls. Anya’s pulse hammered in her ears, louder than the silence, louder than the bond itself. They had survived the ambush—but barely. And what waited beyond would be worse.

Their breathing turned ragged. The bond pulsed hard—untempered, primal. Every time she got close enough to see the tightness in Tor’Vek’s jaw, the set of his shoulders, her body responded without permission. Heat coiled low, tangled up in adrenaline and craving.

He felt it too. She knew hedid.

But neither of them gavein.

“Efficient,” he said, voice low, unreadable.

“Necessary,” she muttered, adjusting her grip on the blaster. “I’ll take the next two.”

“You will take what I allow,” hesaid.

She gave him a look. “Then allow me to save your ass again.”

His mouth twitched—close to a snarl or a smile. Maybeboth.

Another hallway. Another door. Each step closer. Each breath heavier.

Then came the flood.

Anya’s breath caught. For a second, she froze—struck by the sheer number of soldiers pouring toward them. It was too many. Too fast. Her fingers clenched tighter around the blaster as the first shout echoed down the corridor.

Guards poured in—more augmented soldiers, all armored and fast, their movements sharp and synchronized. They surged from side corridors and hidden doors, cut off the retreat, turned every meter forward into a battleground.

Tor’Vek went lethal. Blades sliced, fists crushed, every movement precise and brutal. Anya stayed at his back, covering him with the stolen blaster until the charge flickered red. Then she switched to hand-to-hand, yanking a shock baton from one attacker and driving it into another’s spine.

Blood sprayed. Sparks flew. The air filled with the raw, electric stench of burning flesh and scorched tech. She didn’t have time to think. Only to move—to duck, strike, grab a dropped weapon, fire, twist. The bond between them surged with adrenaline and fury, keeping them linked, balanced, alive.

She lost count of how many they killed. They just kept coming.

A burst of fire singed her shoulder. Tor’Vek ripped the shooter in half. Another guard almost got close enough to grab her—until she drove her knee into his throat and finished him with his own blade.

They backed into an archway, breath ragged, backs pressed together. For one terrible second, it felt like the tide might finally overwhelmthem.

Then the last soldierfell.

Silence returned—shaky, stained, brutal.

Anya staggered back against the archway, panting, and yanked up her arm. The bracelet glowed faintly, its surface still crawling with slow-moving runes.

“It’s barely moved,” she gasped. “After all ofthat?”

Tor’Vek glanced at his own, fury flashing in his eyes. “It should have accelerated.”

“It should have burned itself out,” she muttered, almost in disbelief.

The implication hit both of them atonce.

The bracelets weren’t measuring violence.

Anya let out a shaken breath. “Then what the hell are they measuring?” They weren’t responding to survival. They were tracking something else entirely—something neither of them fully understood yet. And whatever it was, they had barely begun to give it what it craved.

The path ended at a sealed archway. Unlike the others, this one glowed faintly with embedded circuitry—older tech. Vettian.

Tor’Vek raised a hand, examining the surface. Recognition flickered in his expression, equal parts horror andrage.

“This is his heart,” he said. “Everything he built—everything he twisted—it originates here.”

Anya’s stomach turned. Her finger tightened on the trigger.

From behind the door, asound echoed.

Not footsteps.

Laughter.

Then a voice, cold and threaded with delight:

“You came all this way just to try to destroy what you never truly understood. Predictable.”

Tor’Vek’s face went still. Like a blade before it strikes.

He looked atAnya.

She noddedonce.

Then he slammed his palm into the access panel.

The door explodedopen.