Page 10 of Salvaged By the Alien Pirate

“Giving us a ghost protocol that’ll make us invisible to their tracking systems.” She doesn’t look up, but I catch the slight hitch in her breath when I move closer. The reaction sends a fresh surge of heat through my veins, but I crush it down with iron control. Her enhanced eyes stay fixed on the console, neural implants casting an ethereal blue glow that makes my blood burn hotter. The way she commands technology stirs something in me—here is a hunter as deadly in her domain as I am in mine. “It’s not permanent, but it should buy us enough time to get clear of their sensor range.”

“And raise every red flag in the Brotherhood’s security protocols,” I growl. Only ships aligned with the Black Eclipse use this level of stealth technology. “You’re painting a target on our backs.”

“One problem at a time, Captain.” The way she says my title sends electricity down my spine. “Would you rather deal with the Brotherhood’s suspicions or Planetary Police plasma cannons?”

The Void Reaver lurches violently under another blast, the hull groaning with the impact. The scent of overheating circuits floods the bridge, acrid and sharp, as warning lights flicker like dying stars across the console. Zara’s fingers fly over the controls, her tail bristling with tension. “Shields at sixty percent!”

“Do it,” I order, fighting against decades of hard-earned caution. The Brotherhood’s trust is like luminore—precious,volatile, and impossible to replace once lost. I’ve spent years building my reputation among them, proving that every risk I take serves a greater purpose than profit. One suspicious move could unravel everything.

But watching Neon’s fingers dance across the console, I know there’s no choice. I’ve always led with calculated risks, weighing each decision against the cost of failure. Right now, the math is simple: The Brotherhood’s suspicion I can handle. Losing my mate—losing the chance to even try to convince her to stay—that’s a cost too steep to bear. “But this better work.”

Her fingers dance across the holographic interface, each keystroke precise and deliberate. My enhanced vision tracks the cascading lines of code she weaves together—an intricate tapestry of quantum algorithms that would make most hackers weep. The neural implants beneath her skin pulse with an ethereal blue glow, casting shifting patterns across her face as she works.

“See this?” She gestures to a string of variables I barely recognize. “Your cloaking system operates on a basic phase-shift principle. Effective against standard scanners, but predictable.” Her fingers fly faster, adding layers of complexity I didn’t know our systems could handle. “I’m modifying it to sync with natural quantum fluctuations instead.”

The ship’s computer protests with a series of warning chirps. She silences them without breaking rhythm, a ghost of a smile playing at her lips. “The universe isn’t static—it breathes, ripples, folds in on itself millions of times per second. Most sensors are calibrated to filter out these natural distortions.”

Her implants flare brighter as she pushes deeper into the system. “But if we match our signature to those background ripples...” The tactical display flickers, then stabilizes. Where our ship’s icon once blazed like a beacon, there’s now only thesubtle shimmer of space-time itself. “We become part of that background noise. Invisible.”

She leans back, satisfaction evident in every line of her body. “Just don’t expect me to stick around for the aftermath. Creating holes in space-time tends to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

The words are like claws in my chest. She doesn’t understand—can’t understand—what she means to me. What losing her would do. The bond-sickness is already starting, a subtle ache in my bones that will grow until it consumes me. Without her, I’m dead. And if I die, everything I’ve built, everyone who depends on me, will fall to the Black Eclipse’s control.

But I can’t tell her that. Not yet. Her body language when discussing staying—the slight tension in her shoulders, the way her fingers twitch toward escape routes—speaks of someone running from more than just Orion security. My enhanced senses pick up subtle stress markers that my military training categorizes as deep-rooted survival responses. Whatever taught her to guard her secrets this fiercely has left scars my tactical assessment can’t fully decode.

“Done!” she announces as the ship’s lights dim momentarily. “We’re gone from their sensors. To them, we just... disappeared.”

The tactical display confirms it—the pursuit vessels are breaking off, their confusion evident in their erratic search patterns. Relief floods the bridge, but I can’t relax. Not when every moment brings me closer to losing her.

“Plot a course for the outer rim,” I tell Grig. “We’ll lay low until the heat dies down.” Until I can make her understand what she means to me, what we could be together.

Neon’s shoulders tense. “That wasn’t the deal.”

“I need to be honest with you,” I say, forcing myself to meet her gaze despite the burning in my blood. “The mate-bond isn’t just about attraction or destiny. For Kyvernians, it’s life or death.Without completing the bond, the sickness will kill me within weeks.”

I watch her freeze, her breath hitching just slightly—a tell most wouldn’t notice, but my instincts latch onto it like a predator scenting weakness. Not fear. Something sharper. Denial. The bond pulses between us, raw and undeniable, but she’s already raising her defenses, her mind scrambling for an escape route even as her body betrays her.

Her arms cross over her chest, a barrier—one I recognize all too well. A firewall slamming down against something she doesn’t want to process. I’ve seen battle-hardened soldiers use the same tactic, convincing themselves they don’t feel pain even as the wound bleeds out beneath their armor. She’s shielding herself, but from what? Me? Or the truth she doesn’t want to acknowledge?

Her scent shifts—still sharp, still electric with defiance, but underneath it is something new. Unease. Not fear. Not yet. But close enough to set my fangs on edge. Every instinct in me demands that I push forward, bridge the distance between us,make her understandbefore she twists this into something it’s not.

She lifts a brow, voice razor-sharp with suspicion. “That’s... convenient timing.”

I exhale slowly, wings flexing behind me, the tension in my muscles coiling tighter. “You think I fabricated this? That I would lie about something that could kill me?” My voice comes out rougher than intended, but stars help me, she needs to hear this. “Do you have any idea what it means for my kind to find a mate? What it costs us when we don’t?”

Neon’s chin tilts up just enough to be defiant, but I see the flicker of something else in her eyes.Doubt.

Good.

I take another step forward, close enough now that her scent—the sharp, electric hum of her neural implants mixed with something uniquely her—wraps around me like a noose. I should step back. Give her space. But it’s too late for that.The bond is already formed.Whether she accepts it or not, my body knows. My blood knows.

“You say convenient timing, but I call it cruel,” I rasp, voice just low enough that only she hears. “I spent my whole life believing I would never find my mate. That I would die before the bond could ever form. And now, when I finally find you, I can feel you running from it.”

She flinches. Almost imperceptible. But I see it.

That small crack in her defenses widens just enough for me to press forward. I don’t touch her—I can’t. If I do, I might not be able to let go. Instead, I let my voice carry the weight of what I can’t say aloud.

“I know you don’t trust me. I know you don’t want this. But I also know what I feel is real. And whether you stay or go, whether you fight this or not, the bond is already set. It doesn’t care what you want.” My voice dips lower, rough with a truth I wish wasn’t so damn urgent. “And if you run? It will kill me.”

---