Page 49 of Zayrik

But the pressure kept building.

Too many eyes.

Too many comm clicks.

The air getting thicker with threat.

Halfway to the docking bay, someone stepped into our path.

A human male. Tall. Thin. Face mostly shadowed under a hood.

“Nyla.”

Soft. Familiar. The kind of familiar that made my blood run hot.

She froze.

Every muscle in her body going rigid. I felt the change like it was my own tension, my own fear.

My instincts flared like fire across my nerves. Protective. Possessive. Dangerous.

I grabbed her arm, feeling her pulse race under my fingers. “Not now.”

But the man stepped closer, and something in his movement set off every warning I had. “Nyla, wait. I didn’t think it was really you—”

Her voice was like a blade. Sharp enough to draw blood. “You don’t know me.”

But I heard what she wasn’t saying. What she couldn’t say. This man was from before. From when she ran.

He blinked, stunned. “Nyla—”

I didn’t wait.

Didn’t think.

Just moved.

One strike to the gut, a twist, then his back slammed into the beam with a hollow crack. Clean. Efficient. But not lethal. Though every instinct screamed to make it so. To eliminate anyone who made her voice sound like that.

A few heads turned. One shouted.

The crowd shifted like a living thing, predatory interest turning to threat.

Then came the whine of a weapon powering up. The sound cut through the station noise like a warning bell.

I didn’t stop to check where it was coming from.

I grabbed her wrist, feeling her pulse hammer against my fingers.

“Run.”

She moved with me like we’d done this a thousand times. Like her body knew mine, trusted mine, despite everything telling her not to.

We hit the dock at full speed.

Shouts behind us. Someone fired. A bolt skimmed the edge of the ramp, close enough that I felt the heat of it.

Nyla jumped first, sliding onto the deck with a grace that shouldn’t have been distracting in a firefight. Her hands hit the hatch controls mid-roll, movements precise despite the chaos.

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