Page 20

Chapter20

SELYR STOOD in the center of his lab. Waiting. Smiling.

“Welcome,” he said, his tone light, almost amused. And yet, underneath Tor’Vek caught a hint of panic. “If survival is still a priority, Isuggest you leave now before my reinforcements arrive. Take my ship—consider it a parting gift.”

Tor’Vek took a step forward, eyes locked on Selyr. “You are mistaken if you believe we came here to survive.”

Selyr ignored him entirely, speaking over the warning with clinical detachment. His voice was cool, almost bored, as he gestured toward a darkened corridor behind him. “Once you are aboard, Iwill stop the countdown on the bracelets. After all, Ihave extracted everything I need from you.”

His attention pivoted—settling on Anya with unsettling precision. Curious. Fascinated. Vaguely condescending. Like she was a flawed data set he still intended to study. His grin widened, eyes gleaming. “Stay—and I promise you, the data I collect next will be... far more invasive.”

Anya lifted her blaster, leveled it at his chest. “We didn’t come for mercy or data collection. We came for you.”

Selyr’s smile faltered.

Tor’Vek’s voice dropped, deadly and calm. “You are not the scientist anymore, Selyr. You are the subject.”

Anya stepped forward, her voice steady but tight. “Do you have her?”

Selyr blinked, feigning confusion. “Have who?”

“My sister,” she said, louder now. “Maya.”

He tilted his head, too casual. “Ah. Yes. Of course. She is... secure. Untouched. For now.”

But he shifted his stance slightly. Not back. Not defensive. Angled. Like someone preparing tolie.

Anya’s gaze narrowed. “Where is she?”

Selyr’s mouth thinned. “Somewheresafe.”

“Why did you take her?” she persisted. “What’s different abouther?”

He paused a beat. Then, “She is—aredundant variable. Genetically similar, so the outcome will also be similar. Perhaps slightly less compliant, but—”

“That’s not why she’s special,” Anya snapped. “Nor does it prove you have her. Try again because if you had her, you’d know why she’s special.”

His eyes widened in alarm. “She... will be useful. In theory,” he said, floundering. “Your comparable genetics could offer parallel baselines for diagnostic trials—hypothetically.”

“You don’t know,” Anya breathed. “You don’t have her.”

“I do,” he said quickly, but his eyes darted, just once, toward the edge of theroom.

Too quickly.

Her blaster didn’t waver. “Then tell me what makes her different.”

Selyr paused.

Nothing.

Anya fired.

The shot struck center mass. His body snapped backward, slammed into the wall with a hiss of ruptured metal and scorched cloth. He slid to the floor and did not move again. No final words. No twitch. No breath. Selyr was dead—completely, absolutely, finally dead.

She didn’t look away. “He doesn’t know that Maya is my twin or it would have been the first thing he said.” She flung herself into Tor’Vek’s arms, trembling. “He doesn’t have her. Ican die knowing she’s safe.”

Tor’Vek caught her, his arms iron around her frame. For a breath, he did not letgo.

Anya buried her face against his chest, shaking. The bond surged between them—warm, urgent, real. Not pain. Not rage. Something deeper. Her fingers clutched the front of hissuit.

“Ilove you,” she whispered, voice cracking.

His voice was low, hoarse. “And I love you. Iwould rather die beside you than live withoutyou.”

She looked up. Their faces were too close. Her lips parted.

Need flickered through the bond, fierce and undeniable. Not the craving from before—something quieter, steadier. Still dangerous. Still potent enough to undo her completely if she let it. And she wanted to letit.

His hand slid up her spine. Her body melted intohim.

Behind them, the wall trembled—an automated warning system buzzing faintly beneath the roar of distant destruction.

“We need to move,” he said, but it came out rough. Reluctant.

For just one more heartbeat, she stayed in his arms. Then she nodded, breath catching as she stepped back. The moment between them still shimmered through the bond, warm and anchoring, even as she tightened her grip on the blaster. Then she turned, resolute.

Tor’Vek crouched beside Selyr’s body and stripped an identification disc from his uniform, slipping it into a compartment on his belt. He said nothing, but Anya saw the tension in his jaw. They ran—together, fast, hearts pounding asone.

The path to Selyr’s ship was short and unguarded, acruel final trap that never had the chance to spring. Now, at the threshold, he retrieved Selyr’s ID disc and held it to the panel beside the hangar doors.

A hiss. Aflash of green.

The doors slid open without resistance. Anya couldn’t help but wonder what would have happened to them without that ID disc. Would they have been instantly disintegrated? Had that been Selyr’s ultimateplan?

Inside, the ship’s core systems were dim, running on standby. Tor’Vek pulled his rij from his wrist and pressed it against the control panel.

Lights flared. Sirens chirped, then died. Panels blinked on and off in a pulse. The ship shuddered, as if waking under protest.

The synthetic voice of his AI buzzed from the overhead speaker. “Foreign AI interface detected. Initiating override.”

Tor’Vek’s voice was low, certain. “Override authorized.”

The ship jolted tolife.

Behind them, explosions rolled through the base like thunder.

They strapped in quickly, the cushions pristine and contoured, lined with dark leather and embedded tech, the air sharp with the clean scent of sterile polish and high-grade alloys. Anya’s fingers trembled against the harness. Tor’Vek’s hands were steady on the controls.

The rij glowed where it interfaced with the ship. Tor’Vek scanned the display, parsing the systems. Weapons. Navigation. Engines. Life support. The layout was foreign, but the logic behind it was familiar enough.

He tapped through the interface with brutal efficiency, confirming reactor stability and defensive shielding. The engines flared to readiness.

He stabbed the launch sequence button.

The ship tore from the hangar in a burst of acceleration. Below them, Selyr’s compound collapsed inward—swallowed by fire, shrapnel, and the fury of its own unraveling systems.

Tor’Vek spun the ship and set his jaw, activating the weapons array. “No remnants.”

He did not speak. Not yet. This was the final step, the only one that mattered. No more data. No more echoes of Selyr’s madness hiding in the walls. Just silence—andfire.

In his peripheral vision, he saw Anya staring out the viewport, unmoving. Her expression reflected what he felt deep in his core: not triumph. Just finality.

Missiles fired from the underbelly of the ship, their trajectories clean and cold. The shockwave rocked them backward. The compound vanished in a blossom of flame.

Only then did he allow the silence to settle as he gained altitude and put them in orbit around the planet.

Still without a word, he unsnapped her harness and pulled her into hisarms.

She came willingly. No words passed between them. None were needed.

The ship’s lights dimmed around them as Tor’Vek carried her to the rear compartment—arichly appointed guest suite. Clearly not Selyr’s, thank the gods. The door sealed behind them with a quiethiss.

The bond throbbed—hot and urgent. But the bracelets still glowed, and the timers had not stopped. They pulsed, slightly out of synch: his, then hers, hers, thenhis.

He glanced at his wrist. One point two solar unitsleft.

He studied the glowing countdown, then looked at her—not with dread, but wonder. “If this is all the time we have,” he said softly, “Iwant to spend it with you. Not running. Not fighting. Just this. Just us. Do you agree?”

Anya followed his gaze to her own wrist and her eyes shimmered.Her answer was immediate. “Yes. There’s no better way to spend my final breath than with the only person I’ve ever truly loved.”

A beat passed.

“Then I will make every moment count.”

He set her down beside the bed, but didn’t let go. For a moment, they stood there in silence, breath mingling, foreheads touching. The moment felt suspended, as if time itself bowed in deference. Her fingers traced his jaw—slow, reverent—and his hands mapped her body, memorizing her heat, her softness, her steady presence against his burningneed.

When he kissed her, it was not hurried. It was worship. Each movement unfastened something old and buried, stripped away more than just clothing. They undressed one another with devotion and aching slowness, letting their hands linger on every newly exposed line and curve. Not from hesitation. From wonder. From the kind of restraint that had become its own kind of ache. Every breath they shared whispered promises neither dared believe in until this moment.

By the time the last layers fell, the restraint had transformed—no longer the barrier between them, but the sacred prelude to surrender. Their bodies trembled with the weight of everything unspoken, everything promised. Hunger surged, yes—but it was braided with something richer, something vast and unrelenting.

It was love, but threaded through with veneration —that they had found each other in the ruin of stars, that they still had breath, and each other, and this. Even if it was only for a final moment.

Tor’Vek reached for her, and Anya met him halfway, their mouths finding each other not in desperation, but in aching surrender and need. Every inch of skin bared was an invitation. Every touch, adeclaration. They had burned through resistance. What remained now was truth—naked, raw, and utterly consuming.

His palms swept up her sides, fingers dragging slowly over the curve of her waist to the swell of her breasts, tracing every rise and dip with molten focus, savoring every inch. Anya’s head fell back as he dipped to kiss the hollow beneath her collarbone, his mouth trailing down to the soft swell of her breasts. She sighed his name like a prayer, her fingers knotting in hishair.

But when his fingers reached for what should have already been gone, his breath caught. She was still wearing one last scrap of lace—forgotten in their merging, or perhaps left on purpose, as one final choice. Her breath hitched as he grazed the elastic band at herhip.

He paused, giving her the moment.

That last threshold was not about modesty. It was about surrender.

“Anya.” His voice was rough silk. “Do you want this?”

She reached up, took his face between her hands, and kissed him like it was the only thing that could save her. “Yes.”

He swept away her underpants.

Her body was lush and golden in the soft glow of the chamber. The hunger that rose in him was primal—but she was not prey. She was his. The one thing he had never meant to choose and could never survive without.

She stepped back, drawing him with her to the bed. The sheets were smooth, the room warm, the air thick with everything unspoken. Tor’Vek settled her down and followed, bracing above her, one hand sliding from her throat to her hip. Her legs opened for him without aword.

He kissed her slowly. Thoroughly. His mouth found her breasts, his tongue circling each peak until she trembled beneath him. Her thighs squeezed around his hips as she arched, breath catching on every pass of his fingers down her ribs, over her stomach, lower.

He found her center slick and ready, and when he touched her—really touched her—she moaned into his mouth and whispered hisname.

“Tor’Vek.”

Her voice wreckedhim.

He dipped his head, kissed her navel, then lower, until she gasped and twisted her hands into the sheets. He learned her with lips and tongue and worship, and when her thighs shook around his head, he didn’t stop—he slowed. Let her fall in pieces. Then soothed her through the shuddering aftermath.

When he moved up her body, her arms locked around him. “Now,” she breathed.

He slid inside her in one long, deep thrust.

They both broke.

The bond lit up in his mind, wrapping around every nerve, every instinct. Her body gripped his, her breath caught against his throat. Their rhythm was unsteady at first, frantic. But it deepened. Stabilized. Matched. He buried his face in her neck as her hands clutched his back, her nails dragging lines into hisskin.

“I love you,” she whispered.

He froze, then lifted his head. Looked down ather.

“I love you,” she said again.

He kissed her lips. Her cheek. Her temple. “And I love you. Ihave loved you from the moment I chose you.”

The tension snapped, but not like a break—more like a release, an exhale through every muscle, every nerve. Tor’Vek’s hips surged forward, sinking into her again with a groan pulled straight from his core. Their bodies collided with a force that had nothing to do with aggression and everything to do with need—hot, full-bodied, soul-deepneed.

Anya met him with equal fervor, her legs locking around his waist, her fingers sinking into his shoulders. There was no space left between them. Only heat. Motion. Sound.

He moved within her slowly at first, savoring the drag, the friction of his mounds against her inner core, the way her breath caught each time he bottomed out and his knot teased at her opening. She arched and rolled her hips in response, and that was all the invitation he needed to lose the last of his restraint.

They moved in a rhythm older than logic, older than war. Skin against skin. Mouths parting only to gasp for breath. Her voice—his name—rose again and again, breaking over the sound of his body driving into hers, deep and relentless.

And still it was not enough.

He wanted to feel her fall apart. Wanted to memorize every twitch of her thighs, every ripple of pleasure through her abdomen, every desperate cry as she shattered beneathhim.

And she did. Again. And again.

When her third climax hit, she clung to him like she could fuse their bodies together. And he let go, hips driving deep, burying himself one last time as his own climax surged, crashing through him in waves.

They collapsed into each other, limbs tangled, hearts pounding in tandem.

The bond pulsed like a second heartbeat.

Not breaking.

Becoming.

Identical.

The bracelets pulsed, marching in synch.

One point zero. Then point eight. Then pointfive.

He wrapped her in his arms as though he could protect her from the inevitability of itall.

Their bond shattered.

Or maybe it unlocked.

Their bracelets flared. Ahigh-pitched tone rang through the chamber. Then—aclick.

The metalfell.

He caught both before they hit the sheets. Pointtwo.

“Stay,” he told her. His voice was raw. “Stay here.”

He raced across the room naked, fierce and determined, and shoved the bracelets into the ship’s ejection chute.

Launch.

The chamber sealed. The bracelets ejected and almost immediately exploded in space.

The ship rocked, shields flaring—but holding.

He turnedback.

Anya lay there—spent, radiant, alive .

She blinked up at him, wide-eyed, disbelieving. Her chest rose with uneven breaths, and tears spilled sideways into her hair. “We lived,” she choked out, voice breaking. “We were supposed to die. Tor’Vek, we chose it. We said goodbye.”

Her hands reached for him like she needed proof he was still real. He grabbed them, kissed them, pressed them to his chest.

“Iknow,” he said roughly. “Ifelt it. Every second. And then the bracelets fell off—like shackles breaking, like time itself surrendering tohope.”

Anya let out a sob that turned into a laugh, wild and broken and giddy. “Idon’t understand. Idon’t care. Ijust—how is thisreal?”

He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers. “Ido not know. But we are alive and I suspect it is because we fully joined, physically, mentally, and spiritually. Our souls aligned and that alignment meant we no longer needed the bracelets.” He gazed at her with glowing amethyst eyes. “I swear this to you… I will spend every breath proving it toyou.”

She pulled him down into the bed with trembling hands. “Then start now becauseI thought it was over,” she whispered. “Ithought that was how we would die—together, but still dying.”

He swept her into his arms, sweeping her hair from her cheek. “So did I. Right until our last few heartbeats.”

She gave a shaky laugh, one hand rising to touch his face. “Ido not understand how we’re still here. Ishould feel terrified. Or disoriented. But I don’t. Ijust feel... like everything we endured finally brought us to this moment.”

“Then let us make it ours,” he murmured, voice low. “Not a miracle. Abeginning.”

For the first time since the bond began, there was no timer. No pulse of pain. No threat of madness.

Justher.

And peace.

Andlove.

THEY CURLED together in the captain’s chair, bare skin wrapped in one of the ship’s soft black blankets. The stars stretched endlessly beyond the viewport, silent witnesses to what they’d survived. Her head rested on his chest, the steady beat of his heart still supporting her more than gravity ever could.

Anya let herself breathe.

Every inhale was a miracle. Every exhale was gratitude.

Her fingers curled loosely over his ribs, rising and falling with each breath they shared. Not synced by a bracelet, but by choice. By love. By something infinite.

Tor’Vek’s hand threaded through her hair, slowly, gently. He didn’t speak for a longtime.

When he finally did, his voice was a quiet rumble against her ear. “Where shall we go?”

Anya smiled, lips brushing his skin. Her chest swelled with so much emotion it hurt—joy, disbelief, alove so big it barely fit inside herbody.

“Earth,” she whispered. “I want to find my sister. Even if it’s just to say goodbye.”She shifted, lifting her head enough to meet his eyes. “And we need apples. Seeds. Insurance, in case your Final Flight ever tries to come back.”

His lips twitched—almost a smile. He traced a thumb down her cheek, reverent. “Then we go to Earth.”

Anya settled against him again, holding him tightly as the stars blurred aroundthem.

They were alive.

They werefree.

And for the first time in what felt like forever—she had everything she needed.

Love.Hope.

Him .