Page 8

Chapter8

THE QUIET after was almost worse than the storm before.

Tor’Vek sat on the edge of the sleeping platform, his breathing still uneven, his hands braced loosely against his knees. The heat of their joining still clung to his skin, but it was not enough to explain the churning pressure in his chest.

Anya lay curled on her side beneath a blanket, her bare shoulders rising and falling with every slow, shuddering breath. She looked impossibly small, fragile in a way that reached beneath his armor and struck somethingraw.

The air in the cabin was heavy with the scent of her—warm, sweet, uniquely hers—and it wrapped around him like a noose. The bond between them pulsed irregularly against his wrist, dragging the memory of her softness, her surrender, deeper into his consciousness.

He had not just claimed her body. She had let him touch something more precious, something unguarded and real, and now it pulsed between them, alive and undeniable. It was a gift he had no right to accept—and yet, he craved it more fiercely than he had ever craved survival itself.

The bracelets should have been calmer now. Satisfied.

Instead, they pulsed off-rhythm, almost—angrily.

Tor’Vek flexed his hand, studying the dark band encircling his wrist and forearm. It glowed faintly in the low light, the runes buried in the metal occasionally sparking with restless energy.

He should be burning.

Final Flight should have begun in earnest. It was the terminal phase of an Intergalactic Warrior’s life cycle—agenetically programmed, irreversible biological shutdown triggered at the end of their 400-year service, marked by escalating heat flashes, emotional instability, and ultimately, total cellular collapse.

After mating, after emotional destabilization, the chemical surge within his body should have triggered a cascade of irreversible biological events: heat flashes, loss of cognitive control, Final Flight overtaking what remained of his logic.

But there was only a faint, flickering unease deep insidehim.

An absence where there should have beenfire.

He rose silently, moving to the examination table. The smooth surface lit beneath him and began its assessment. Scrolling diagnostic data appeared across the diagnostic screen. It found minor damage which it quickly corrected. But nothing about his Final Flight, as though it had ceased to exist.

Yet the bracelet’s pulse against his skin felt... wrong.

He sat up and shut down the diagnostic screen with a curt swipe of hishand.

Behind him, Anya stirred, asoft, involuntary sound escaping her lips. She shifted, the blanket dipping, revealing the long curve of her back—pale, vulnerable, impossibly delicate. Her hair tumbled across the pillow in a silken wave of gold, and along the line of her shoulder, faint bruises and bite marks—his marks—stood stark against her skin. Evidence of how completely he had claimed her. Evidence of how completely she had lethim.

Tor’Vek clenched his jaw. He could feel her emotions fluttering through the bond—confusion, lingering fear, the sharp ache of longing. She was vulnerable. She did not know if she could trusthim.

He shared that uncertainty more than he dared admit.

Some part of him, buried deep beneath years of discipline and centuries of cold logic, wanted to cross the room and gather her against him. To feel her warmth seeping into his skin. To shield her from the consequences he could no longer control. To apologize for what he had taken—and what he could never giveback.

His hands flexed at his sides, aching with restraint. The need to bury himself in her softness, in her trust, coiled tighter and tighter, adangerous thread pulling taut inside his chest. Athread he did not dare follow, because once he started, he feared he would neverstop.

The yearning he felt was dangerous—avulnerability he could ill afford. Attachment was a liability, one that could be exploited, twisted, used against him. And in his world, liabilities were not just costly. They were fatal. The wiser course was distance. Detachment. Cold efficiency. And yet, standing there, watching her small, sleeping form, he felt the first cracks spider through the walls he had spent centuries erecting. Cracks he could neither explain nor repair.

Despite that... the urge remained, twisting tight and dangerous in his chest.

He crossed the room in three strides, pulling on his trousers and fastening the closures with sharp, proficient motions. As he tugged his vest over his shoulders, Anya shifted onto her back, blinking up at him with bleary, confusedeyes.

“Tor’Vek?” Her voice was soft, uncertain.

He turned, the words on his tongue stiff and unfamiliar. “You shouldrest.”

A faint line appeared between her brows. “Where are you going?”

“Monitoring the ship’s course.” It was not a completelie.

She watched him for a long moment, her fingers tightening on the blanket as if she could draw it higher, shield herself from more than just the cool air. Fragile. Bared. Her gaze dipped, lashes lowering, and Tor’Vek caught the faint tremor in her arms, the shallow hitch of her breathing. The bond between them quivered, delicate and unsettled, feeding him a flicker of her uncertainty—and the lingering, painful hope she had not yet extinguished.

It stirred something dark and protective inside him, an impulse he crushed ruthlessly as he turnedaway.

It also stirred something dangerous inside him—aneed so potent it threatened to undo every shred of discipline he possessed. It whispered of claiming her again, more deeply, more irrevocably, binding her to him beyond the bracelets, beyond logic, beyond salvation. It whispered of surrendering to the bond that pulsed and flared between them, afirestorm waiting only for his consent to ignite.

His jaw tightened, and he moved heavily toward thehelm.

He sat, the seat creaking under his weight. His hands hovered over the controls, but for once he did not touch them. His gaze drifted toward the viewport, where stars streamed past in an endless, cold procession.

Anya’s quiet movements behind him kept skimming against the edges of his awareness. His need for her stretched so thin he could hardly bear it. His shirt rustled as she dressed and he realized she had nothing else to wear. He’d have to do something about that. Then the soft pad of her bare feet across thedeck.

She moved to the secondary console, pretending to check the ship’s system statuses. But he could feel the tension vibrating off her in uncertain waves.

Their bond pulsed—erratic. Disjointed. Hungering.

Tor’Vek closed his eyes briefly. He had intended to keep her safe, detached. But she had already slipped past his defenses in ways he could not explain, weaving herself into the hollow spaces he had long ago forgotten existed.

He thought he had armored himself against such intrusion, yet with a few whispered words and trembling touches, she had breached him more completely than any enemy ever had. It terrified him—not because he feared her, but because he feared himself. What he might become if he allowed himself to want her. What he might destroy if he failed to hold theline.

“We need to talk,” Anya said, her voice breaking the uneasy silence. She wrapped her arms around herself. “Before... before we get to Earth.”

Tor’Vek tensed, though he already suspected the direction this conversation would take. The bond pulsed too urgently, emotions too raw to be ignored. His mind, trained to calculate and dissect, had been tracing the inevitable lines since the moment their bodies had joined. They had crossed a threshold not easily undone.

“Talk about what?” he asked.

She stared at him, frustration flashing in her blue eyes. Her emotions battered the fragile link between them, stripped and unguarded. “About us. Aboutthis.”

She lifted her arm slightly, the bracelet glinting in the dim light, the symbol of their binding, their impossible entanglement. Her voice carried a sincerity he could not ignore, aplea tangled in defiance, challenging him to stop pretending he did not already know the truth—that this bond, this woman, was changing everything insidehim.

“It is a biological bond,” he said flatly. “Engineered to produce emotional and chemical dependencies.”

Anya flinched, as if he’d slapped her. “You think that’s all itis?”

He forced himself to remain still, submerging himself in the cold, familiar logic that had preserved his sanity for centuries. Detached. Irrefutable. Anecessary barrier between what he felt and what he allowed himself to acknowledge. But beneath that armor, something primal stirred, furious and resisting—an instinct that whispered this bond was not just biology. It was choice. It was danger. It was salvation. And it was already too late torun.

“What else could it be?” he asked.

Anya took a shaky breath. “It feels real to me. More real than anything I’ve ever known.”

Tor’Vek looked away, the muscles in his jaw clenching. “Feelings are unreliable indicators of reality.”

“Maybe,” she whispered. “But they still exist.”

The silence between them thickened, echoing against the vast space between her yearning and the steel cage he fought to rebuild around his own heart. The bond pulsed with their unspoken words, the tension so thick it became a tangible force, agravity drawing him toward her even as every instinct screamed to resist. He knew if he spoke, if he let himself slip even an inch, he would never find his way back to the cold distance he needed. And yet, standing there, with her heart laid bare before him, he found he did not wantto.

“This should not be happening,” he said, his voice rough, the words dragged from somewhere deep and unwilling. “And yet, itis.”

“When we get to Earth,” she asked, voice barely above a whisper, “are you going to leave me there?”

Tor’Vek hesitated. Once, he might have convinced himself the logical answer was yes. Sever the bond. Reclaim autonomy. Protect them both from further weakness. But logic had no place here. He could no more leave her than he could sever his own heart from his body. It was no longer just about her—it was about them. The two ofthem.

He met her gaze, saw the raw vulnerability there—and the stubborn, recklesshope.

“It would be safer for you,” he said finally. “But no. You would be in constant danger if I left you on Earth.”

Anya’s mouth trembled. “Would you leave me if Selyr was dead?” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, but she did not lookaway.

Tor’Vek turned back toward the viewport, the stars blurring in his vision.

He knew the truth, as surely as he knew the laws of physics that guided the stars. If Selyr weren’t an issue, he might have convinced himself he could let her go. Might have buried the ache and carriedon.

But notnow.

“Ido not know,” he said, the admission scraping against everything he had ever been. “As I said... It would be safer for you to return to Earth.”

He heard her breathe out, asoft, wounded sound.

“Idon’t want safe,” she said fiercely. “Iwant real. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’shard.”

He closed his eyes, feeling the bracelet burn against his pulse.

Real. It was a hard word for him to accept.

Nothing in his life had ever been real. Only duty. Survival. Domination. The antiseptic cadence of existence without meaning. Until her. Until the fierce, impossible light of Anya, burning through every fortress he had built around himself. She was the anomaly he had never accounted for, the one variable that defied logic, and now that he had tasted what it meant to truly belong to someone—to something beyond duty—he knew he would never again be able to pretend otherwise.

Anya moved closer, her presence a warm pressure at hisside.

“Iknow you feel it too,” she said, voice thick with unshed tears. “Ican feel it through thebond.”

He said nothing.

She reached out, fingers stroking his hand, tentative but brave.

The bond flared between them, asurge of heat and longing so fierce it stole his breath.

“Tor’Vek,” she whispered.

He finally turned to her, and for one blistering, searing moment, all his walls crumbled. The crushing isolation he had lived with for centuries gave way to her unwavering hope. It was not just lust or biological compulsion that bound him to her now—it was something deeper, something elemental and fierce. Something beyond the bracelets. An acknowledgment that he had found a mate not merely by design, but by fate. She was his. Entirely, irrevocably. And for the first time in his existence, he did not want to run from what he could not control. He wanted to wrap himself in her—in them—and damn the consequences.

He wantedher.

Not because of the bracelet. Not because of engineered biology.

Because she wasAnya.

Before he could speak, the ship shuddered violently, throwing them both off balance. Gravity seemed to tilt and twist around them, the floor pitching like the deck of a storm-tossedship.

Tor’Vek instinctively reached for her, his body reacting before thought could intervene, but the chaos of the ship’s tremor sent them stumbling in opposite directions. The sudden violence of it ripped the fragile moment between them to shreds, replacing aching intimacy with the hard, metallic taste of imminent danger.

He turned sharply, just in time to see Anya stumble against the bulkhead, her bracelet striking the metallic surface with a hollow clang.

The air between them shifted instantly.

The pulse from his bracelet flared—hot, searing—and a corresponding surge answered fromhers.

Tor’Vek’s chest tightened painfully.

He rose swiftly, reaching her in two long strides. “Anya—”

His voice was raw, jagged with the surge of protectiveness and something deeper he could not name. He caught her shoulders in his hands, steadying her, feeling the way her entire body shuddered against him. The ship lurched again, throwing sparks from the nearby console, but for a moment, his entire focus narrowed to the woman in his grasp. She was more than his bondmate. More than duty. She was life—and he would not let anything tear her fromhim.

She gasped, her hands clutching at the wall as if it could steady her, her body swaying dangerously with the ship’s lurch. Panic flickered across her features, but beneath it Tor’Vek caught a flicker of something else—determination. She would not crumble, even when the universe itself seemed to buckled under her feet. Her courage, even in the face of terror, only tightened the band around his chest, fueling the savage need to protect what was his at anycost.

“I—Idon’t know what happened—” Her voice broke, thick with rising panic.

Tor’Vek extended one hand toward her—then stopped himself.

The craving in her eyes hit him like a physical blow, knocking the breath from his lungs with its burning intensity. It was not a polite hunger, not a whispered plea—it was a feral, desperate need that burned through the bond with stunning force. His body reacted instinctively, every muscle rigid, every nerve ending alight. The ship could have torn itself apart around them and he would have still felt her need, as tangible as a hand fisting in his chest, demanding not just his touch—but him. All ofhim.

And an answering rage twisted inside him, sharp and vicious, demanding an outlet. It was a wildfire racing under his skin, fueled by the bond’s chaotic surge and the primal instinct to claim, to fight, to dominate whatever force threatened what was his. The taste of it filled his mouth like blood and iron, and he gritted his teeth against the urge to tear apart anything—anyone—that dared to come between him andAnya.

He pulled his hand back into a fist against his thigh, the tendons straining under the force of his restraint. Every instinct screamed at him to seize her, to bury himself in her warmth and steady himself against the chaos tearing through him. His muscles locked rigidly as he forced the primal urge down, planting himself in discipline and willpower, even as the bond between them throbbed with unbearable demand.

“The bracelets have—shifted,” he said roughly. “Emotion modulation compromised.”

Her wide blue eyes locked onto his, pleading and terrified, shimmering with unshed tears she refused to release. In their depths, he saw the raw, unguarded trust she placed in him—trust he did not deserve yet could not bring himself to reject. The bond flared painfully between them, binding them closer with every heartbeat, making a mockery of the barriers he had once thought unbreakable.

The ship jolted again, harder this time. Alarms blared to life across the consoles.

Navigation override engaged.

Autopilot locked.

Coordinates rerouted.

They were no longer on course for Earth.

Tor’Vek’s hands flew over the controls, fingers moving with mechanical precision, rerouting power, attempting manual overrides, but the bond flared erratically between them, clouding his focus.

Anya stumbled forward, grabbing his upper arm, her face pale, her breathing shallow—and through the bond, he felt the surge of her craving crash into him, unfiltered and urgent. The fierce need radiating from her was impossible to ignore, apotent force that tangled with his own rage, dampening it slightly, stabilizing him even as the ship pitched wildly. Her nearness was both a balm and a threat, and every instinct he had warred between protecting her and claiming her all over again.

“Can you stop it?” she gasped.

Tor’Vek gritted his teeth, fighting his ungovernable fury. “Attempting.”

The ship shuddered violently again, pitching sideways. Tor’Vek grabbed Anya, pulling her against him as systems flashed red across every screen. The bond pulsed wildly, the craving from Anya and the rage from Tor’Vek colliding between them like a living storm.

He released her reluctantly, forcing her into the copilot seat and fastening the crash restraints as he locked into his own. The distance between their separate chairs was a jarring, unwelcome reality. Every inch between them frayed the fragile stability he had clawed back, the bond pulsing frantically as if trying to span the physical gap. His hands tightened instinctively around the restraints, muscles trembling from the effort to stay connected when every instinct urged him to tear free and pull her back into hisarms.

The main screen shifted, displaying the incoming planet—harsh, mountainous, and unfamiliar, its surface broken by jagged cliffs and swirling clouds the color of bruises. Violent weather systems clashed across the landscape, and vast stretches of wilderness promised little safety and even less mercy. Awild world, teeming with danger, every inch of it an open threat to their survival.

“The atmospheric turbulence is extreme,” Tor’Vek said tightly. “If we breach at this speed...”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t haveto.

Anya’s fingers found his wrist, clutching desperately. Her touch steadied the bond for one precious heartbeat.

He managed a few quick reroutes, slowing their descent marginally—but not enough to shift the inevitable. Every calculation, every frantic adjustment only bought them seconds, not salvation. The ship’s systems fought him at every turn, sluggish and unresponsive under the foreign override. Athin sheen of sweat broke across his brow as he forced the engines into a reduced burn, trying to blunt the worst of the coming impact. It was not enough. It would never be enough.

Tor’Vek glanced at her, memorizing the fierce determination in her wide blue eyes—aresilience that burned as brightly as any warrior’s before a final stand. It cut through the haze of rage and desperation crowding his senses, erasing everything but the singular purpose that remained: protect her. Protect what washis.

“Hold on,” he growled.

They broke through the atmosphere in a scream of fire and metal.