Page 83 of Third

They didn’t havelong.

She knew it. Felt it like a clock ticking in her chest. Every second stretched tight around them, thick with the weight of what came next. Her gaze flicked to the fractured dash, then back to him. He was steady now, but only because she was still touching him. If she let go, if they moved wrong—everything could fracture again.

Her hand didn’t tremble. But her thoughtsdid.

“You good enough to walk?” she asked, voice low, not breaking contact.

They had no time. But she needed to hear him say it. She needed to believe they weren’t walking into this already broken.

Whatever waited in that hangar—Selyr’s forces, his monsters, his mind games—they’d be ready for her and Tor’Vek.

But she and her mate would also be ready.

She didn’t even flinch at the word. Mate. It echoed in her mind, not foreign or forced, but true—undeniably, irrevocablytrue.

She remembered the first time she saw him, how calm his voice had been in the middle of a nightmare, how even then her world had tilted toward him. Like gravity had decided forher.

That was the moment, she realized now. That was when the bond began. Not with touch. Not with time. But with recognition. It came without hesitation, like her mind had already accepted what her heart had known for days. Maybe even longer.

She didn’t need a ceremony or a vow or permission from the stars. The bond had chosen. He had chosen. And so had she. Whatever this place was—whatever they were about to face—they’d face it as one. As bonded. As the only true joining in a world that had tried again and again to tear them apart—and failed.

They slipped from the ruined ship into chaos.

Alarms wailed from every direction, high-pitched and dissonant. Fire flickered from ruptured panels, casting red light across the wreckage-strewn floor. The air was thick with smoke and something metallic—blood or coolant, she couldn’t tell. Sirens clashed with the distant screech of grinding machinery and the low thump of boots. Somewhere deeper in the compound, aklaxon beat a steady pulse like a countdown.

Something moved in the shadows overhead—mechanical, fast, tracking. The hangar lights sputtered and flared, cutting in and out like a dying heartbeat.

It was hell. And they were already too deep to turnback.

The moment Anya’s boots hit the scorched floor, she looked back at the wreckage—and her heart sank as the truth hithard.

The ship was wrecked. Not damaged. Not salvageable.Wrecked.

One engine pod was gone entirely, sheared clean off. The aft wing had collapsed, sparking against the blackened hangar deck. The stabilizer they’d fought so hard to install was half-melted. Even if they killed Selyr, even if they survived—this ship would never fly again.

She turned toward Tor’Vek, dread knotting in her throat. “We’re not flying out of here.”

“No,” he said flatly. “We are not.”

Their eyes locked. No illusions. No backup plan. Only forward.

The bond flared—sharp, bright, hungry. It twisted through her chest, not as comfort, but as ignition. As warning.

“Then we kill him,” shesaid.

He nodded once. “We kill him.”

Blaster fire cracked in the distance—short bursts, sharp and erratic, not part of any controlled defense line. It suggested chaos, confusion. Maybe a mutiny, or an experiment gone wrong. Whatever it was, it wasn’t clean. It wasn’t organized. Something in Selyr’s fortress was unraveling—andfast.

Anya kept close to Tor’Vek as he led them down a narrow corridor, his body angled protectively in front of hers. The bond pulsed like a war drum, steady only because she never let go ofhim.

They moved fast, ducking through corridors littered with debris and dead ends. The walls were too clean, the layout too deliberate. This wasn’t a pirate lair. It was a lab. Atrap. And Selyr had designed everyinch.

Movement. Ahead.

Tor’Vek pushed her back into a recessed alcove just as two of Selyr’s augmented guards rounded the corner. They didn’t speak—just raised their weapons.

Anya dropped low. Tor’Vek surged forward.

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