Page 5

Chapter5

THE MOMENT they touched her, the bond snappedtaut.

It wasn’t rejection—it was resistance. Aviolent protest against the forced separation, like an elastic thread stretched to its breaking point. Every nerve in Anya’s body lit up in warning, in fury, in grief. Her entire being shrieked no before her voice everdid.

She screamed.

Not frompain.

Fromloss.

Something inside her ripped open, raw and staggering, like her heart had been physically torn. She clutched at the bond—mentally, instinctively, desperately—as though sheer will alone could pull it back together.

It couldn’t.

“Do not touch her!” Tor’Vek’s voice exploded across the room, furious and thunderous. He moved in front of her in an instant, arms spread wide, body a shield of muscle andrage.

But she barely sawhim.

The pain in her chest eclipsed everything else. She felt him, felt the bond spike and flare, felt the instinctive protectiveness rising from him like a storm—but all of it was muffled under the weight of that unbearable separation. The guards were moving. Something sparked—violet light flashed across her vision.

Tor’Vek dropped.

She screamed again. “No!”

She surged toward him, reaching—but hands grabbed her. Rough. Tight. She twisted hard, kicking, shoving, fighting like a wild animal. All of it futile.

He wasdown.

He shouldn’t bedown.

The blast had been too strong. She felt it through the bond, how it hit him, how it knocked the breath from his lungs and cracked through his body like lightning. It wasn’t just a weapon. It was a warning. And it was meant for her,too.

She didn’tcare.

She fought harder.

But it didn’t matter.

They dragged heraway.

Away from him. From the bond. From the one thing in this nightmare that feltreal.

And as the chamber doors slammed shut, the echo of her scream twisted in the air like the bond itself.

Fraying.

But not broken.

Notyet.

She couldn’t breathe—couldn’t think—because her thoughts weren’t hers anymore. They were his. Tor’Vek’s.

And he was roaring .

Not aloud. Not physically. But she felt it—adeep, pulsing roar echoing inside her chest, shaking her bones from within. Through the raw, exposed edges of their bond came the weight of his fury. Rage. Terror. The unrelenting, animal instinct to destroy anything that dared come between them. The violent, merciless craving to reclaim what was his. Her entire body burned with it, like she was being swallowed in the storm he could no longer holdback.

It wasn’t just panic.

It was madness. Panic had boundaries. Panic could be corralled, controlled. This was something else—wild and consuming, like a dam bursting inside her mind. Her thoughts didn’t spiral. They fractured . Her identity tangled with his fury until she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began. And she didn’t care. All that mattered was getting back to him. Or burning everything that stood in theirway.

She cried out again, tears streaking her cheeks as her body shuddered under the weight of it. Her bracelet lit up, glowing bright gold against her wrist, runes flashing like a warning. One of the guards cursed and adjusted the setting, but the moment he did, the lights above them flickered and the device in his hand sparked violently, hissing as if the suppressant rejected the command. Another guard staggered backward, clutching his wrist as the neural interface flared red-hot. And she felt it—whatever suppressant they activated—tried to numb her, but the bond fought back, pushing the influence aside like a rising tide overwhelming a crumblingdam.

It didn’twork.

The bond didn’t fade. It flared. It flared so hard she thought her skin might burst open with the force ofit.

Not gently. Not gradually. It ignited inside her like a solar detonation, white-hot and unrelenting. Her body arched against invisible pressure, every nerve ending firing as if his need had slammed into her like a second heartbeat. Her skin flushed, her pulse spiked, and somewhere deep in her chest, the sensation of him surged again. Not just presence. Not just proximity. It was possession. Raw, scorching, inescapable. Like he was trying to reach her through force of will alone, burning a path through the void that separatedthem.

“Tor’Vek!” she gasped, reaching backward, even as they pulled her through the corridor. “I can still feel you—oh God, Ican feel everything —”

The corridor warped. The floor tilted. Somewhere behind her, she thought she heard something break—metal, stone, bone—she couldn’t tell. She just knew that he was coming. Somehow. Some way. If the bond had to drag him across the galaxy to get to her, it would.

Becausethis?

This was unbearable .

The guards shoved her into another chamber, sterile and bright, and sealed the door. She fell to her knees.

And screamed.

The sound tore out of her like an open wound.

The sterile brightness of the room only made it worse. Too clean. Too white. Too quiet. It didn’t feel real. None of it did. Her breath came in short, panicked bursts as she curled forward, arms around herself like she could hold in the pressure building inside her. But it wasn’t just fear. It wasn’t even justpain.

It was him .

His absence was aroar.

She felt it like a phantom limb, ahollow place where warmth had been. Tor’Vek’s presence—his mind, his touch, the bond that had laced through her blood—was gone. No, not gone. Ripped away.

And now that it was missing, she realized just how deeply it had embedded itself in her. Not just in her body, but in her sense of self. Of safety. Of control.

She gasped and gripped her bracelet, fingers tightening as if she could will it back to life. The gold glow had dimmed to a dull amber, flickering like a dying ember. The runes that had pulsed like breath now sputtered, fading in and out as though the bond itself were suffocating. Ahollow ache spread through her chest, sharp and gnawing, and for a terrifying moment, she wondered if this was what it felt like to be unchosen. Untethered. Alone. It felt almost as though her spark for life was drained withouthim.

“No,” she whispered. “No, no, no.”

She didn’t want to forget what he felt like. The heat of his skin against hers. The weight of his body. The way the bond had wrapped around her like armor and wildfire all at once. And the way it had changed when he’d been inside her—when they had moved together, breathed together, burned together. Something had happened in that moment, something irreversible. It wasn’t just sex. It wasn’t even just bonding. It was transformation.

Did Selyr even realize what he’d triggered? Could he possibly understand the depth of what they’d become—the way their bodies had sealed something ancient and irreversible between them? The bond wasn’t just physical. It wasn’t even just emotional. It was cellular . Primal. Beyond anything a sterile lab or a stream of data could hope to measure.

Because no machine could calibrate the magnitude of this. No data could measure how completely she had fused with Tor’Vek in those moments. What it meant to be seen, to be chosen, to be claimed —not as a possession, but as a partner. What it meant to matter that much to someone so unshakable, so controlled. Someone who had shattered forher.

Her body trembled, nerves fraying from a loss she never knew could shatterher.

And then it happened.

The air warped.

Not physically—but inside her. Aflicker of something swept across her consciousness. Faint. Familiar. Aphantom warmth curling low in her belly, as if the echo of his presence had slipped through whatever dampening field surrounded her. It wasn’t just a memory. It was alive. Residual. Like the bond had left a thread behind, whispering not gone . Whispering mine . And so very him .

“Tor’Vek?” she whispered, head snappingup.

Nothing answered.

But she wasn’t alone in the room anymore.

Not entirely.

It was like breathing in heat without fire, pressure without weight. Something hummed through her cells—not strong, but unmistakable. It wasn’t his voice. Not even his thoughts. Just the essence of him. Apresence threading itself through her mind like smoke swirling under a sealeddoor.

And she clung toit.

It was the only thing tethering her sanity.

“You feel that, don’t you?” she whispered to the room, to herself, to whatever fragment of him lingered.

It didn’t answer. But it didn’t fade either.

She wrapped her arms around herself and sat perfectly still, afraid that even shifting would cause that fragile sensation to break.

She would hold onto it for as long as it stayed chained to her—because losing it again might just shatter her completely.

TOR’VEK ROSE slowly from the floor, shoulders squared, eyes blank. Not calm. Not composed. Blank. Because the emotion brewing inside him had eclipsed all known parameters. He yanked on his trousers. His control—centuries of discipline—fractured.

The bond burned, asearing pressure across his chest and spine, like magma threading through every vein. His hands twitched. His jaw locked. The heat was unbearable. It wasn’t pain, not exactly. It was purpose made physical. It was fury looking for a target. His muscles ached to destroy.

But there was something else threading beneath the rage. Ashift he hadn’t anticipated. The bond wasn’t just feeding his fury—it was rewriting his instinct. Every action, every breath was being rerouted through something more primal, more urgent, more alive . He didn’t just feel rage. He felt a purpose that didn’t belong to science or discipline or even vengeance. It belonged to her .

And it was breaking him open from the insideout.

The first thing he shattered was the wall panel. One blow. Metal split open, sparks erupting like fireworks. But it wasn’t enough. He needed more. The fury inside him had no outlet butruin.

He slammed his fist through the control column, sparks arcing along his knuckles. The sound of crumpling metal only fed the blaze roaring through him. The next blow took down a ceiling brace, crashing debris around him like falling thunder. He welcomed the chaos. Needed it. He grabbed a support strut and twisted until it snapped loose, then hurled it across the room with enough force to leave a deep gouge in the farwall.

He tore into the bulkhead next, ripping free wiring, conduits, apanel of circuits that exploded under pressure. The console didn’t stand a chance. Nothingdid.

And still it wasn’t enough.

He paced like a caged predator, hands clenched, breath ragged. His bracelet pulsed violently—warning, calling, reacting. The pulse wasn’t steady anymore; it surged in irregular bursts, like it was trying to sync with something already missing. His chest tightened at the rhythm. It felt almost... panicked.

As if the thing were sentient . As if it grieved her loss, too. As if it knew, on some fundamental level, that something vital had been torn away—and the bond wasn’t designed to survive that kind of rupture.

Neither washe.

“You should not have taken her,” he growled.

Selyr’s voice crackled over the intercom, clinical and cool. “And yet you still stand. Impressive.”

Tor’Vek stopped. Turned toward the ceiling. “Return her to me.”

“Why would I do that?” Selyr mused. “You have already given me what I need. The craving spike. The bonding effects. The rage response. All confirmed. But the more interesting question now is: what should I give you ?”

Tor’Vek said nothing. His silence was its own threat.

“There are... adjustments I can make,” Selyr continued. “This bond, this instability—it is a flaw in the design. An emotional flaw. But if you like, Ican offer you something better.”

The bracelet on his wrist flared again.

Selyr’s voice lowered to something almost conspiratorial. “I can suppress it for you. Your rage. Your... irrational attachment. You may choose between two settings. Shall we say... rage or reason? Violence or serenity? The purity of logic or the chaos of love?”

He made it sound clinical, simple—as if what Tor’Vek had experienced with her could be switched off like a malfunctioning variable. As if choosing serenity meant abandoning the only connection that had ever given him a foundation. But even Selyr, brilliant as he was, could not calculate the cost of that. He spoke as a scientist, not as a bonded male. He didn’t understand that the chaos he offered to erase... was the very thing keeping Tor’Vek alive.

His head tilted. “You misunderstand,” he said. “There is no choice.”

“Oh?” Selyr’s voice purred.

Tor’Vek stepped over the wreckage, crunching metal beneath him. “You believe I am a variable to be isolated. Aformula to be refined.”

Selyr didn’t answer.

“I am not.” He raised his arm, staring down at the bracelet. “You tampered with something ancient. Something you clearly do not understand.”

“And what is that, warrior?”

Tor’Vek’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “Instinct.”

Silence followed.

Then a click. Ahum. The bracelet on his wrist flared violently.

Pain lanced up his arm as the override activated. It struck fast and deep, awave of artificial numbness intended to dull his bond-driven fury. But the moment it hit, something inside him roared to life. Not just resistance. Rejection.

The bond flared in defiance. Violet and gold runes lit along the bracelet’s edge, burning through the suppressant with a surge of will he hadn’t summoned—but felt rising from the core of who hewas.

“Fascinating,” Selyr said, though his tone faltered. “It... should not be able to dothat.”

Tor’Vek smiled without warmth. “And yet itdoes.”

He moved then. Fast. Savage. The suppression field around his cell flickered once—then shattered as the bond pulsed like a war drum in his chest.

Two guards burst in. They didn’t lastlong.

Tor’Vek tore through them with terrifying precision, ripping one man’s weapon free and hurling the other into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He took the second’s control badge before it hit the floor.

He didn’tslow.

Doors fell before him. Metal screamed. Sparks hissed along the edges of fractured thresholds as walls caved beneath his onslaught. Alarms blared in the distance, but they sounded hollow—meaningless. The scent of ozone and scorched wiring filled the air, thick as smoke. Screams followed, some near, some far, punctuated by the sharp snap of bones and the thud of bodies hitting steel. No one slowed him. No one survivedhim.

And then he reachedher.

Anya .

The door to her chamber burst open in a spray of sparks and smoke.

She turned just as he stepped through, his chest heaving, eyes wild with fury—and relief.

He reachedher.

Her eyes locked with his, wide and wet and stunned, and for a second, she didn’t breathe. Then she launched into his arms with a force that knocked the breath from his lungs. Her legs wrapped around his waist. Her arms locked around his neck. Her fingers dug into his shoulders like she never planned to letgo.

And he held her likethat.

One arm crushed her to his chest, the other supporting her thighs, holding her to him. Her breath came in trembling gasps against his neck, and his came slower, deeper, as if pulling her back into his arms allowed him to breathe for the firsttime.

Neither of them spoke. They didn’t needto.

The bond thrummed between them like an aftershock, not steady, not calm—but alive. Alow, rhythmic pulse that wrapped around them both—his rage, her relief, their desire—tangled into one breathless current. It wasn’t soothing. It was raw, unfinished, still sparking from everything they’d survived. Her heartbeat faltered against his, and his grip tightened as if he felt it too. The bond didn’t simply reconnect. It reignited.

And in the rush of that heat, she felt it—an overwhelming certainty, crashing through her like the aftershock of his kiss. He had come for her. Not because the bond demanded it. Not because it was written in his blood. But because he chose her.

He pulled her back just enough to look at her face. Her cheeks were flushed, her lips parted, her eyes wide with something that looked like relief and disbelief all at once. And then he kissed her—hard, fierce, claiming. It wasn’t gentle. It wasn’t sweet. It was the crash of restraint breaking, the echo of everything they’d survived, the firebrand seal of something already written in both their blood.

It was avow.

She didn’t hesitate.

Their arms locked around each other in silence. The corridor, the blood, the destruction—all of it fell away. His breath was still ragged, her pulse still fluttering wildly under his fingers, but for that one suspended moment, the world narrowed to just this: skin, bond, relief. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else existed. Only her in his arms. Only him beneath her hands. Only the unspoken vow now blazing between them, fierce as fire and twice as unbreakable.

But there was one more place he had togo.

They moved fast. Together. Through the halls. Back to the lab where it all began. Where Selyr’s voice had first reachedthem.

Tor’Vek kicked in the finaldoor.

But the room was empty.

Tor’Vek froze, instincts flaring. The scent was wrong. The air too still. No warmth, no residual breath, no trace of life. He felt it a second before he sawit.

A shimmer in the center flickered, the light bending unnaturally—then resolved into Selyr’s hologram.

Tor’Vek stepped towardit.

“Coward,” he growled.

“Cautious,” the hologram replied.

“Where areyou?”

“Far enough. Fornow.”

Tor’Vek’s bracelet lit again.

And for the first time, Selyr’s voice wavered.

“That wasn’t supposed to happen.” There was a pause, then a crackle of static, as if Selyr couldn’t decide whether to end the transmission or press further. “What is it evolving into?” he murmured. “What are you becoming?”

The warrior’s eyes narrowed.

“Prepare yourself,” Tor’Vek said coldly. “Because this is only the beginning.”