Page 24 of Zayrik (The Protectorate Warriors Alien Fated Mates #6)

Nyla

I ADJUSTED OUR COURSE , fingers steady on the controls.

Like if I kept my hands busy, my brain wouldn’t have time to catch up.

Wouldn’t have time to think about everything that had just happened.

Like if I focused hard enough on the approach vectors, I could ignore how my body still hummed with awareness of him.

The truth about Vask.

The fact that Zayrik hadn’t left.

And worse, the fact that I’d let him pin me against a storage locker and fuck the common sense out of me. Let him see parts of me I’d kept hidden for years. Let him in.

I rolled my shoulders. Shoved that memory out of my head and locked it in a box labeled later.

Because that wasn’t the problem I needed to focus on.

Even though my skin still tingled where he’d touched me.

It didn’t matter how something inside me reached for him without my permission.

We had bigger issues.

Like the fact that someone was tracking us.

Like the crystal burning a hole in my jacket.

And the fact that I was about to walk back into my past to fix my future.

Back to where it all started. Where I learned to survive.

I exhaled slowly.

No more distractions .

No matter how tempting they were.

“Approaching Cindrel Station,” Nav announced, dragging me back. “Estimated arrival in twelve minutes.”

Zep chirped from his perch by the viewport, wings fluttering as he caught sight of the station in the distance. His anxiety matched mine. He remembered this place too.

“Yeah, I see it too,” I murmured. “Been a while, hasn’t it?”

The station came into view, a chaotic patchwork of scavenged hulls and rusting struts, like someone had glued a dozen failing outposts together and called it functional.

Emergency lights flickered in patterns that spelled danger to anyone who knew how to read them.

Unmarked ships dotted the docking bays, each one a potential threat.

Not the worst place I’d been.

Not the safest, either.

But it had been home once. Sort of.

Zayrik sat silent beside me, but I could feel the heat of him, his tension radiating like a physical force. The way his body angled slightly toward mine, protective without being obvious about it. This wasn’t his kind of place, too chaotic, too lawless, too raw.

It was carved from my past.

And that’s what worried me.

I remembered the first time I docked here, young, starving, flying a stolen shuttle and on the run from people who wanted me dead. The same fear in my gut, but different reasons now. Back then, I’d been desperate. Alone. Ready to do anything to survive.

Cal found me trying to trade ripped nav chips in the lower markets. I’d been ready to fight, to run, to disappear into the station’s shadowy depths.

Instead of turning me in, he’d offered me food. Shelter. A crash course in survival.

He never asked what I was running from.

Never needed to.

He recognized the look in my eyes. The one that said I’d rather die than go back.

I didn’t expect that kindness twice.

Didn’t deserve it, maybe.

But I was counting on him still hating Vask.

Still remembering what Vask’s people did to his crew.

His family.

I keyed in a docking request, trying to ignore how Zayrik’s presence made everything feel different. How having him here changed the whole dynamic of returning.

No response.

Typical.

Some things never changed.

I switched to the backup frequency, punching in the old override code. The one Cal had given me the night I finally told him why I was running. When he’d promised me a way out if I ever needed it.

A second passed. Then—

“This better be good,” came the gravelly voice I remembered. Rougher now, but still carrying that edge of danger beneath the warmth.

I smirked.

Still alive, then.

“Relax, old man,” I muttered. “It’s just me.”

A pause.

Then, a surprised chuckle. “Well, Gods damn. This is a surprise.”

The docking lights flicked to green.

We were in.

For better or worse.

“Friend of yours?” Zayrik asked, watching me with that expression he wore when he was trying not to look like he cared. But I caught the undertone in his voice. The way he said ‘friend’ like he was testing the word. Like he was already calculating threats.

“Cal,” I replied, keeping my voice neutral. “He’s station security. Sort of. Former merc. Current loose cannon with a badge.”

The kind of man who shoot you as soon as help you, depending on his mood. The kind who’d taught me that same instinct.

“Sort of?”

“He enforces the rules he agrees with,” I said with a shrug. “Most of the time, that works in my favor.”

Zayrik nodded, taking that in. But I saw the flicker of doubt in his eyes. The way his jaw tightened, the subtle shift of his body that said he was already planning for trouble.

I didn’t blame him.

This wasn’t his world.

But it had been mine.

“You trust him?” he asked. The question held importance. More now than it would have before what happened between us. Before whatever this thing was that made me feel his concern like it was my own.

I hesitated, then guided us into the final docking pattern. Muscle memory taking over while my mind raced through possibilities, through all the ways this could go wrong.

“Cal’s out for himself,” I said finally, choosing honesty. “But he hates Vask more than he likes money. And he owes me.” For things I’d rather forget. For debts written in blood and favors and the kind of promises that never quite wash clean.

Zayrik’s brow lifted. “Comforting.”

The word was dry, but underneath it I heard what he wasn’t saying. That he didn’t like this. Didn’t like me walking into a situation where trust was conditional. Where loyalty had a price tag.

I didn’t answer.

Because trust had a shelf life.

And Cindrel Station wasn’t the kind of place that let you forget it.

It wasn’t the kind of place that forgave weakness.

Or attachment.

Or whatever this thing was growing between Zayrik and me that made everything more complicated.

More dangerous.

More worth fighting for.

The docking clamps engaged with a metallic groan, and I felt it in my bones. That moment of no return. Of stepping back into a past I’d thought I’d left behind.

He doesn’t belong here. Not in this place. Not in this memory. But he came anyway.

This time I wasn’t alone.

And somehow, that made it both better... and infinitely more terrifying.