Page 33 of Zayrik

He hissed softly. Sympathy, maybe. Or hunger. Honestly, could go either way.

Zayrik found me not long after. I heard his boots first. The kind of walk that didn’t need to rush because it already knew its power. When I turned, he was watching me with that unreadable expression again.

“We’ve got about eighteen hours of life support,” he said. Just like that. No preamble.

“Oh perfect,” I said. “Just when I was starting to feel emotionally stable.”

A corner of his mouth twitched. Not quite a smile. “We’ll need to make repairs. Shields, stabilizers, Navigation system, comms—take your pick. Everything’s broken.”

“Sounds like a dream job.” I pushed off the wall. “Point me toward something you don’t mind me screwing up.”

Nav piped in. “Might I suggest the rear stabilizers? The worst that could happen is a fiery death spiral. Nothing dramatic.”

Zayrik didn’t laugh, but I caught the subtle huff of amusement as he handed me a worn data pad. “You take stabilizers and navigation. I’ll work on the internal systems and comms. We’ll check in after four hours.”

I raised an eyebrow. “Check in? What, are we partners now?”

“No,” he said, walking away. “But I’d prefer you not electrocute yourself. I hate dragging corpses.”

Imayhave grinned as soon as he was out of sight.

The stabilizer access panel was under the aft crawlspace, which meant squeezing into a passage that smelled faintly of burnt circuits and bad decisions. I laid on my back, slid in, and immediately got Zep trying to follow me like he was helping.

“No, buddy, not this time,” I whispered, nudging him back. “Guard the tools.”

He hissed, deeply betrayed, and fluttered off in a sulk.

The crawlspace was narrow enough that I had to twist onto my side to reach the manual coupling valve. My arm was halfway inside the panel when I heard Zayrik’s voice behind me.

“You’re in the wrong compartment,” he said mildly. “That panel’s for heat regulation, not stabilization.”

“You wanna come in here and say that to my face?”

“I plan to.” A touch of humor colored his voice.

I froze as I felt the vibration of his boots against the floor panels. Then saw him appear at the opposite end of the tunnel, body filling the space like some kind of predatory ghost intactical gear. He started to crawl in, broad shoulders brushing both walls as he came forward.

“You’re huge,” I muttered, shifting to make room. Barely. “This is a ridiculous ship design.”

He didn’t answer, just kept moving until we were nose to nose in a space barely wide enough to exhale.

The air between us felt warmer than it should. Not hot, exactly—just charged. Like the heat was coming from him. Like the space itself had gone breathless.

“Move your leg,” he said quietly.

“There’s nowheretomove.”

“Then you’ll have to climb over me.”

The way he said it wasn’t suggestive. It wasn’t flirty. It was worse. It was calm.

Like he wasn’t thinking about the way my thigh was pressed against his hip. Like he hadn’t just braced one hand on the floor beside my waist and the heat from his palm wasn’t burning through the metal.

I tried to twist sideways. Failed. My chest brushed his. My breath hitched.

“Flutz,” I muttered. “This is... fine. This is normal.”

He tilted his head, eyes dark. “You’re the one who crawled into the wrong panel.”

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