Page 27 of Zayrik (The Protectorate Warriors Alien Fated Mates #6)

Zayrik

THE SILENCE BETWEEN us felt alive with possibility. With fear. With everything we weren’t saying but couldn’t ignore anymore. Her pulse hammered at her throat, visible even in the dim light.

She stood there, caught between instinct and want, between running and staying. And I watched her war with herself, with years of survival training that said attachment was dangerous. That said this...us, was a risk she couldn’t afford to take.

But something had changed.

In that small room, with its buzzing lights and cramped space and pretense of normal.

Something fundamental had shifted.

She was still afraid.

Not of me.

But of us.

Of how right it felt when everything in her life had taught her nothing good lasted.

And she didn’t run with her feet. She ran with her silence.

In the way she deflected.

The way she refused to meet my eyes.

With every small gesture that said she was preparing herself for loss.

For disappointment, and the moment everything fell apart.

I inhaled and exhaled slowly.

Another warrior might have let her go.

Might have respected the distance she was trying to create.

But I wasn’t letting her go.

Not this time.

Not when my marks itched with recognition.

Because everything in me knew she was worth fighting for.

Tomorrow, everything changed.

And after?

We weren’t going back to being strangers. To pretending this connection wasn’t real.

No more of the careful dance of almost-touching, almost-trusting, almost-falling we’d been performing since she first crashed into my life.

The mate bond sizzled between us as we stood in the small, temporary guest quarters. The air between us carried tension like static, like the moment before lightning strikes. Every movement, every breath, charged with possibility and fear and need.

She moved to the far side of the room.

Creating distance.

Not because she needed space, but because she didn’t know how to stay. Didn’t know how to let herself have this. Have us.

But her eyes kept finding mine, then darting away. Like she couldn’t help looking, even when it terrified her.

I let her have it. For now.

Let her process the way things were changing between us.

Of what had already changed.

Zep chirped from the shelf by the viewport, his tiny eyes flicking between us, wings puffed in what looked suspiciously like disapproval. Like he knew exactly what we were both fighting. What we both wanted.

“Your Laupin judges too much,” I muttered, shrugging off my jacket. The simple act felt intimate in a way it hadn’t been before.

Nyla’s lips twitched. “He’s not wrong most of the time.” Her voice carried an edge of vulnerability that made my mating marks burn hotter.

I sat on the edge of the narrow bed, watching as she checked and re-checked her weapons, adjusted straps that didn’t need adjusting, tapped her wrist console even though there were no alerts. Her hands trembled slightly, giving away what her face tried to hide.

Avoidance.

But not rejection.

Not anymore.

The activated etchings on my arms pulsed. Not painful, but insistent. A steady hum that spoke a truth I hadn’t asked for but could no longer deny. That responded to every subtle shift in her energy, every aborted movement toward me, every moment she fought against what we both felt.

She was my K’sha . My fated one.

And we might not survive tomorrow.

The thought made something primitive and protective rise in my chest.

“Nyla,” I said softly. Her name, a prayer and a plea.

Even though she didn’t turn to face me, I saw the way her shoulders tensed. The way her breath caught. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make this more complicated than it needs to be.”

I huffed a quiet laugh, the sound carrying more understanding than humor. “It’s already complicated.” It had been complicated since the moment she stepped onto my ship. Since the first time I felt my mating marks respond to her presence.

She didn’t answer.

But she didn’t move away either.

And that told me everything I needed to know.

I rose and slowly crossed the room. Giving her time to process, to choose.

I stopped just close enough to reach for her.

So close I could feel her body heat and the slight tremor in her breath.

Still giving her the space to walk away if she needed to.

She didn’t move.

“Look at me,” I murmured.

She turned, slowly. Like every movement cost her something.

And when her eyes met mine, they weren’t cold. They weren’t distant.

They were afraid.

But beneath the fear was something else.

Something that looked like hope.

Like want.

Like trust.

Progress.

I pushed up my sleeve.

My activated mating marks swirled bright blue, gold and red on my pale turquoise skin. They burned. Drawn to her, always to her. Like they’d known her before I did. Like they’d been waiting for her all along.

“This,” I said, voice low, each word chosen carefully, “isn’t something I chose. It’s not something you chose. But it’s real .” As real as the way my body oriented toward hers. As real as the way she couldn’t stop looking at me, even when it scared her.

She stared at them.

At the way they pulsed brighter in her presence.

Her voice barely a whisper, rough with emotion she couldn’t hide. “I don’t believe in fate.”

“Neither did I,” I said, watching the way she tracked every movement, every breath between us. “But I believe in this. In what I feel when I’m with you.” In the way everything makes sense when you’re near. In how protecting you feels as natural as breathing.

She looked back at me, searching. Like she was trying to find the lie, the angle, the reason to run. “And what’s that?”

“Alive.”

That stopped her.

Like she didn’t expect an answer she couldn’t fight.

Like she didn’t expect truth so raw it burned.

“Zayrik—” She faltered. Breath caught.

My name on her lips like something between a prayer and a surrender.

“I don’t know how to do this,” she said quietly. The admission cost her, I could see it in her eyes. In the way her fingers twitched at her sides.

“Do what?”

“Trust. Stay. Not run when things get...”

She gestured vaguely between us. “This.” Real. Important. Worth fighting for.

I reached up, slowly brushing a strand of hair from her face.

She didn’t pull away.

If anything, she leaned into the touch, like her body knew what her mind still fought against.

“Then we figure it out,” I said. “Together.” A promise. A future. A choice.

Her breath caught again.

Something in her eyes shifted, softened.

And I saw it; the moment she let go.

The moment she chose us over fear.