Page 59 of Sy

“We have always been aware, First One. Through every generation since your creation changed the path of your species.” The legion’s voice held no accusation, which somehow made it worse. “We watched. We waited.”

Anger surged through Kraath, hot and sharp. All those years of careful research in his first incarnation, all those precise calculations, and still he’d missed this. Had been blind to thetrue nature of what he’d unleashed. “You should have made yourselves known.”

“Would you have listened, First One? You who sought to use our methods against your enemy?” A sound emerged from Tor’s throat, something between a laugh and a snort. “We served our purpose. We serve still. But now…” Tor’s body shifted, the movement liquid smooth. “Now the weapon must be brought online. Danger approaches.”

“What danger?” Kraath took a step forward. “If you know what’s coming, be clear.”

The legion’s presence seemed to expand, filling the cavern with invisible pressure. “The southern fortress was only the beginning—a ripple in a vast ocean. What comes now…” Tor’s head tilted again, his eyes reflecting the pulsing light. “What comes now will devour everything if we do not stand ready.”

“That’s not an answer.” Kraath’s hands clenched into fists. Part of him wanted to grab Tor, to shake the truth out of him, but he knew better than to touch a feral Izaean.

“It is the only answer we can give, First One.” Tor’s body took a step forward. “Your work opened a door that cannot be closed. Now you will help us fight the darkness that comes.”

The words hung between them, heavy with prophecy and threat.

“And if I refuse?”

Tor’s lips curved in a smile that had nothing of the Izaean warrior in it. “You will not refuse, First One. You cannot. You have always known this day would come.”

The legion’s certainty scraped against Kraath’s nerves like a blade. Deep down, he’d known. He’d always known that his work with legion technology was just the beginning of something that could turn out vast and terrible.

The panels pulsed brighter, their light casting Tor’s shadow in multiple directions. “The weapon must be brought online,” itrepeated. “Time grows short, First One. The evolution of your species was only the beginning. The question is not if but when. And how many will be left standing when it does.”

Kraath stared into Tor’s altered eyes, seeing in them the price of his first incarnation’s ambition. The cost of experimenting with forces he’d only partially understood. And now, centuries later, those forces had come to collect their due.

The cavern trembled around them, a reminder of its instability. But Kraath barely noticed. His attention was fixed on the entity wearing Tor’s flesh and the terrible certainty that his past had finally caught up with him.

The legion waited for his answer, patient as only an immortal thing could be. It knew, as he did, that he could only make one choice.

What his first incarnation had started, he would have to finish.

Whether that meant salvation or destruction remained to be seen.

She didn’t wantto wake up. She was too comfortable.

Awareness crept back slowly, each breath drawing Ashley further from sleep. Heat radiated against her back, solid and masculine, while a heavy arm draped possessively around her waist. The scent of ozone and spice—Sy’s distinct signature—wrapped around her, mingled now with muskier undertones that brought heat to her cheeks as fragments of the previous night flickered through her mind.

The silken sheets whispered against bare skin as she floated in that hazy space between dreams and reality. Her body ached in ways that made her pulse quicken, each small movement a reminder of passionate hours spent in her alien warrior’s arms.

Reality crystallized with brutal clarity: Sy’s quarters, his bed, his arms.

His arms.

The peaceful fog evaporated as another memory surfaced—the last time she’d woken in his embrace, deep in those cursed caves. The legion symbiont had been in control then, turning her fierce, honorable warrior into something else entirely. Those blood-red eyes, cold and predatory, still haunted her darker moments.

She forced air into her lungs, one measured breath after another. The arm around her waist remained relaxed, heavy with genuine sleep. No tension thrummed through the powerful body pressed against her back, no sense of that other presence that had possessed him before. But there hadn’t been any warning before.

With careful movements, she twisted within his embrace until she could study his features. The sight stole her breath. His dirty blond hair spilled across the dark pillows, and sleep had stripped away his usual stern command presence, revealing something younger, almost innocent. The sharp angles of his face had softened, full lips curved in the barest suggestion of contentment.

Heat bloomed across her skin as memories cascaded through her mind—those same lips blazing trails of fire down her throat, her fingers tangled in his hair while he murmured soft promises against her skin. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the images only grew more vivid, more intense.

When she opened them again, she couldn’t help but trace his features with her gaze. Even unconscious, power radiated fromhim like heat from a fusion core. The corded muscles of his shoulders, the sharp line of his jaw—everything about him spoke of lethal capability barely contained. She’d witnessed exactly how dangerous he could be and had seen enough to understand the raw power he kept carefully leashed.

Yet here he was, holding her like she was made of spun glass.

The realization hit her with the force of a plasma cannon…

Holy shit, she was falling in love with an alien.

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