Page 9 of Sixth
They ran the sequence three, then five, then ten times. He added steps. She absorbed them. He corrected posture with a glancing touch between her shoulders. She found a better line and held it until the mark pulsed steady and warm and the ship had learned the shape of her hands.
At last he said, “Enough,” and touched her wrist with two fingers, alight command to lift her hands from the arcs. The heat of the Valenmark reached for the contact and flared. She couldn’t stop the small sound that rose at the spike of sensation.
His breath checked. The sound that answered from him landed low and rough in her ears. He removed his hand first.
“Water,” he said. It sounded like an order and a rescue.
She rose on shaking knees, crossed to the galley drawer, and took the black mug. The metal was cool and heavy. She filled it and drank, aware of his presence as if he stood with a palm pressed to her spine.
“Eat,” he said. He had moved without her hearing it and held out the scored protein bar. “You will crash otherwise.”
“I’m not a child.” Still, she broke a square and let it soften on her tongue. Grease and salt spread across her palate, ugly and welcome at the same time. She took another square and held the remaining half out. “Share.”
“I do not require it.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
He studied her, took the half, and ate it without comment. The normal act steadied something inside her in a way no order couldhave.
She set the mug aside. “What do your people call this,” she asked, turning her wrist so the Valenmark caught the cabin light. “When it does this.”
“Heat.”
“That isn’t helpful.”
“Accurate,” he said.
She huffed and slid onto the edge of the sleeping shelf because her legs refused to trust the floor. “Is it always like this?”
“I do not believe so,” he said. His gaze cut over her, sharp and assessing again. “It is stronger at first. My hope is that it will find equilibrium.”
“When?”
“When we learn each other.” His tone stayed even, but something in his eyes darkened. “When we stop fighting it.”
She stared at him, not blinking. “I’m not ready to stop fighting it.”
He took a step closer, the space between them shrinking until the heat radiated from his body to hers. “Then fight,” he said, the words quiet but edged in something dangerous. “Fight as long as you must. Iwill hold the line until you choose.”
The mark pulsed between them, bright and alive, every beat pressing against the distance he was trying to maintain. Her breath hitched. “What if I never choose?”
His jaw tightened. He leaned in just enough that the faint brush of his breath stroked along her cheek. “Then I will still hold it,” he said, his words a low promise. “Even if it tears me apart to do so.”
The air changed with those words. It was not warmth. It was something quieter that carried the same gravity. She was suddenly exposed in a way that had nothing to do with skin. She spoke to deflectit.
“You said the mark unlocks access. What does it do for you?”
“It steadies my control,” he said. “Improves reaction time. Narrows the window between thought and act. It sharpens focus under pressure. It also degrades that restraint when we stand too close for too long.”
“So it can make you betterandmake you reckless.”
“Affirmative.” He watched her closely. “It is why I choose distance. Not because I do not want your nearness. Because I do.”
Her breath slid out in a shaky laugh. “That’s the first honest admission you’ve made that didn’t sound like a mission brief.”
He surprised her again by answering without deflection. “Then let me be more honest.” His gaze didn’t waver, though his voice dropped into something darker, intimate. “The Valenmark doesn’t only give you access to my ship, my instincts, and my reflexes. It opens paths both ways.” He hesitated a beat, then continued, each word deliberate. “I can perceive pieces of you—your adrenaline when you’re afraid, the rise of heat when you’re angry, or when you…” His mouth curved slightly, grim and restrained. “When you want.”
She stared at him, horrified. “You can read my mind?”
