Page 32 of Third

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?”

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