Page 17 of Savage Bond

Not yet.

"You're up early," I mutter, not turning to face him as I sweep the brush aside with a branch, eyes scanning the treeline for anything that doesn’t belong.

"Couldn't sleep," he replies, his voice low and rough—like gravel grinding under boot. Not a hint of fatigue in it. Bastard probably hasn't slept at all. Of course he hasn’t.

I glance over my shoulder, catching the faint glow of his eyes in the low light. "You always watch people while they sleep?"

"Only the ones who might stab me in the back."

I snort, the corner of my mouth twitching. "Trust issues. Shocking."

I roll my eyes and turn back to the perimeter, nudging aside a tangle of ferns with my boot. My gaze darts across the shadows—every rustling leaf, every creaking branch becomes a potential threat. This planet isn’t just alive. It’s hungry. The ground beneath me is uneven, slick with dew, and smells like rotting vegetation and something more primal.

A few paces in and I can feel him again—his footsteps silent, but his presence pressing in behind me like a shadow that refuses to be outrun. The air thickens. I grit my teeth, pretending I don’t feel his eyes on my back, crawling over my movements like he's dissecting my every breath.

I stop abruptly and turn, planting my hands on my hips. "Do you need something?"

He steps in closer, all muscle and menace, radiating heat like a forge. "Just making sure you don't get yourself killed."

The jab slices deep, and I grit my teeth harder to keep the bitterness from showing. That tone—arrogant, dismissive, toocasual to be harmless—it’s one I know all too well. I’ve heard it in briefing rooms, locker halls, even mess lines. Climbing the ranks in the IHC as a disgraced name meant enduring it. Letting it bounce off. Burying it deep where it couldn’t fester.

But his tone? From his lips? Somehow it stings more.

"I’m not the one who took down an entire ship and got stuck on a goddamn alien planet," I mutter.

He doesn’t flinch. Doesn't deny it either.

As I eye him up close, the firelight from our pit flickers across his form—what little of it the tattered vest and open tactical gear still cover. His skin’s mottled with gray and black streaks, the texture like carved obsidian. Blood—both his and the beast’s from last night—dries in streaks across his chest and shoulders, but he wears it like warpaint. Not a limp in his step. Not a single flinch.

Whatever damage the crash did to him, it didn’t slow him down. If anything, it made him look... stronger. Tougher. Like the kind of monster you pray never notices you, because once it does, it never forgets.

But I’m not prey. I won’t be.

Even if every instinct in my body tells me I’m standing too damn close to something that could break me without blinking.

"I can take care of myself."

The words snap out of me before I can stop them, edged with more heat than I mean to give away.

Kairon smirks, slow and deliberate, like he’s already won something. His crimson gaze drops, roaming over the bruises mottling my arms, the cut along my temple, the stiffness in my stance. "Sure you can," he says, voice soaked in condescension.

I stiffen, lifting my chin. I don’t back down. I’ve been stared down by brass twice his size with twice the ego. But Kairon? He’s different. He looks at me like I’m a puzzle already solved, and worse—dismissed.

The air between us thickens, charged and tense, vibrating like a wire stretched too tight. Our standoff crackles with friction, an invisible current running between my spine and the heat of his stare. My hands curl into fists at my sides, nails biting into my palms.

His eyes drop to my mouth—slow, unhurried. Lingering.

My pulse jumps. He sees it. Feels it, maybe.

I step back—instinctive. He follows.

In one fluid motion, he closes the space between us, grabs my wrist, and spins me around. My back slams against a tree, bark digging into my shoulders. He braces an arm beside my head, crowding into my space, his other hand still gripping my wrist like a vise.

"Prove it," he murmurs, voice low and close to my ear, every syllable laced with dark amusement. "Show me how you’d survive out here if I wasn’t babysitting your fragile little ass."

I struggle—twisting, kicking, trying to pull free—but his body doesn’t budge. Solid. Unyielding. A wall of muscle and heat.

"Get off me," I growl.

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