Page 33 of Third

Tor’Vek hesitated. Once, he might have convinced himself the logical answer was yes. Sever the bond. Reclaim autonomy. Protect them both from further weakness. But logic had no place here. He could no more leave her than he could sever his own heart from his body. It was no longer just about her—it was about them. The two ofthem.

He met her gaze, saw the raw vulnerability there—and the stubborn, recklesshope.

“It would be safer for you,” he said finally. “But no. You would be in constant danger if I left you on Earth.”

Anya’s mouth trembled. “Would you leave me if Selyr was dead?” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, but she did not lookaway.

Tor’Vek turned back toward the viewport, the stars blurring in his vision.

He knew the truth, as surely as he knew the laws of physics that guided the stars. If Selyr weren’t an issue, he might have convinced himself he could let her go. Might have buried the ache and carriedon.

But notnow.

“Ido not know,” he said, the admission scraping against everything he had ever been. “As I said... It would be safer for you to return to Earth.”

He heard her breathe out, asoft, wounded sound.

“Idon’t want safe,” she said fiercely. “Iwant real. Even if it’s messy. Even if it’shard.”

He closed his eyes, feeling the bracelet burn against his pulse.

Real. It was a hard word for him to accept.

Nothing in his life had ever been real. Only duty. Survival. Domination. The antiseptic cadence of existence without meaning. Until her. Until the fierce, impossible light of Anya, burning through every fortress he had built around himself. She was the anomaly he had never accounted for, the one variable that defied logic, and now that he had tasted what it meant to truly belong to someone—to something beyond duty—he knew he would never again be able to pretend otherwise.

Anya moved closer, her presence a warm pressure at hisside.

“Iknow you feel it too,” she said, voice thick with unshed tears. “Ican feel it through thebond.”

He said nothing.

She reached out, fingers stroking his hand, tentative but brave.

The bond flared between them, asurge of heat and longing so fierce it stole his breath.

“Tor’Vek,” she whispered.

He finally turned to her, and for one blistering, searing moment, all his walls crumbled. The crushing isolation he had lived with for centuries gave way to her unwavering hope. It was not just lust or biological compulsion that bound him to her now—it was something deeper, something elemental and fierce. Something beyond the bracelets. An acknowledgment that he had found a mate not merely by design, but by fate. She was his. Entirely, irrevocably. And for the first time in his existence, he did not want to run from what he could not control. He wanted to wrap himself in her—in them—and damn the consequences.

He wantedher.

Not because of the bracelet. Not because of engineered biology.

Because she wasAnya.

Before he could speak, the ship shuddered violently, throwing them both off balance. Gravity seemed to tilt and twist around them, the floor pitching like the deck of a storm-tossedship.

Tor’Vek instinctively reached for her, his body reacting before thought could intervene, but the chaos of the ship’s tremor sent them stumbling in opposite directions. The sudden violence of it ripped the fragile moment between them to shreds, replacing aching intimacy with the hard, metallic taste of imminent danger.

He turned sharply, just in time to see Anya stumble against the bulkhead, her bracelet striking the metallic surface with a hollow clang.

The air between them shifted instantly.

The pulse from his bracelet flared—hot, searing—and a corresponding surge answered fromhers.

Tor’Vek’s chest tightened painfully.

He rose swiftly, reaching her in two long strides. “Anya—”

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