Page 48 of Zayrik

No haggling. No hesitation.

I logged it away. She wanted to leave yesterday. And something in my blood agreed. This place knew her too well.

I lingered near the edge of the stall, scanning the crowd. My body angled unconsciously toward her, like a compass finding north. Every shadow, every movement cataloged as a potential threat.

Too many people watching.

None of them obvious.

All of them dangerous.

A group of traders passed by. One of them looked up. Paused.

Kept walking.

But something in his stance changed. Interest.

Another figure across the market turned toward us, turned again, slow. Too slow.

I caught a flicker of recognition in his expression.

The kind that meant credits. Or blood.

Shit.

Nyla leaned against a support beam, arms folded tight. The position made her look casual, but I saw the calculation in it. The way she kept the exits in view, the subtle shift of her body ready to move.

I moved to her side, close enough that my arm brushed hers. The contact sent electricity through my veins, a reminder of how she’d felt pressed against me. Not now. “We’ve got a problem.”

She didn’t look at me, but I felt her tension spike. “Bigger than needing a new navigation array?”

Her voice was steady, but I caught the undertone. The one that said she’d been waiting for something to go wrong. Always waiting.

I nodded toward the crowd.

One of the traders was talking to someone else now. Fast, low. A third person peeled off from the group and disappeared into a side hallway. The kind of movements that preceded violence.

“One of them recognized you,” I said, voice low. Close to her ear, intimate despite the danger.

“Who?”

“Don’t know. Doesn’t matter. He’s telling the others.”

She tensed. Just a flicker. But I felt it where our arms touched, felt the way her breath caught.

“We need to move.”

Yeah. We did.

But something in me wanted to stand and fight. To eliminate every threat that made her look over her shoulder. To keep her safe in ways I hadn’t earned the right to want.

We walked.

Not rushed. Not panicked.

Just fast enough to draw attention from us and not to us.

I stayed close, my hand hovering near the small of her back. Not touching, but ready.

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