Page 27 of Sixth
Bioluminescence dusted her knuckles and made her skin look kissed with starlight. The Valenmark on her wrist shone tender blue-white and pulsed slow and deep, and his own band warmed in reply. Safety. Want. The two braided in his chestwhile he watched her hand move, the world narrowing to breath, light, and the promise beating between their wrists.
He sat at the edge of the firelight, half in shadow, half in glow. Light cut planes across his chest. His hair took the fall of rain like liquid metal. He let duty hold his body still and let desire live where she could see it. He looked like a male who’d stand there until the universe ended and then cross what remained to put his hands on her atlast.
The planet kept a low music that threaded the clearing in a steady undernote. Light drifted in slow sheets and settled on metal and skin. Lume slept without a twitch, tiny breaths lifting her furred wings. Emmy’s breathing matched the rhythm, soft and sure. The Valenmark held true on her wrist and warmed against his, aquiet, steady pulse that moved through his chest until it became one rhythm learning another. He let stillness cover him and kept watch while want coiled low and patient, growing heavier with every measuredbeat.
He didn’t move.
He kept watch, torn cleanly between the law he had broken and the life he wanted, and let want win in his eyes if not yet in his hands.
THE PLANET’Smusic changed.
It had been a low, patient undernote all night, arhythm Apex could map against Emmy’s breath and the small rise andfall of Lume’s furred wings. Now the pitch slid thinner, like tension pulled through wire. Light still drifted, but the drift seemed watchful.
Lume woke first. The tiny body stiffened in Emmy’s lap. Her star-silk tail tightened around Emmy’s wrist, sparks threading along the silk and fading.
Apex had already turned toward the ship when Core whispered from the console, voice pared down to a thread.
“Return ping. Airborne. Vector east to west. Range thirty meters and closing.”
He stood without sound. “Signature.”
“Recon bead, light class. Spectrum shows foreign augmentation. Harmonic sweep in the human band. Secondary sweep keyed to Valenmark frequencies.”
Emmy’s head lifted. “Drone?”
“Affirmative.” He reached for her and she came up fast, Lume clinging to her shoulder. He put Emmy behind his left side and felt the exact point where her sternum met his spine. “Do not run.”
“Not running,” she breathed.
The drone slid over the clearing like a drop of ink through water, small and exact. It moved into the drift of light with no disturbance, then halted above the hull. Ared lattice unfolded from its belly, afine-meshed scanning grid that combed the ship in slow passes, patient as a predator with no heart.
The lattice reached his boots.
“Stay,” he said. He did not move. He set his pulse and let the planet take it. The lattice climbed his legs, his torso, cataloguing shape and heat. It reached Emmy and made a thin sound likeglass cooling. The red grid trembled. The mark warmed under her skin and under his. The drone slid closer.
“Dampeners engaged,”Core said.“They will not read the ship’s core from this altitude. Warning. The secondary sweep is adjusting. It seeks resonance.”
“Of what?” Emmy whispered.
“Of us,” Apex said. He turned his head enough to speak into the space where her mouth hovered near his neck. “Match my breath in two. Breathe.”
She set her palm to his chest. The Valenmark answered in a slow rise, heat steady rather than bright. He set his hand over hers and pressed until her heartbeat landed in the shape he wanted. One, then another, then both together.
“Follow the count,” he ordered in an undertone.
She nodded, breath soft and level. Lume’s tail twined tighter, the slow sparks dimming to nothing.
The lattice passed over them again. For one long breath they were nothing but a quiet in the light. The drone stuttered half a meter to the left and corrected.
“Hold,” he said. “Look at me.”
She did. Her eyes were golden-hazel and steady. The soft beat at her throat settled into the count he hadset.
The lattice shivered. Red points brightened and knit, as if the drone had made a decision.
“Secondary sweep has lock on a subharmonic,”Core said.“Probability favors the Valenmark signature. Adjusting.”
The grid tightened. Heat kissed his skin without burning, like a net pulledsnug.
