Page 53 of Owned By the Hvrok

She nodded, her voice low.

“I’ll wait,” she said softly, knowing he wouldn’t understand the words.

“But whatever it is you need to do out there, you have to come back.”

Because despite everything—despite the terror, the fury, the helplessness—he was her only hope now.

Her last thread of connection to anything stable. Anythingalive.

He didn’t respond.

Didn’t speak.

Didn’t even nod.

He just turned.

Moved toward the door in that same impossibly smooth, quiet way, faster than any human had a right to move, despite all that armor.

And then… he disappeared through the wall.

Gone, like a shadow swallowed by silence.

She stared at the seamless surface he’d vanished through, her heart thudding in the quiet.

She was alone again.

Trapped.

But this time, it was different, because now, she wasn’t just holding onto fear.

She was holding ontocertainty.

That he’d come back, and that as long as he did, she would be safe.

“You’d better fucking come back, metalhead,” she whispered, both hating him and appreciating him.

And for the first time, she wondered—reallywondered—what he looked like underneath that sinister black mask.

CHAPTER 29

The wind over the mountains bit at his armor, thin and sharp, cutting through the seams like teeth. The air was colder here than he preferred—but he welcomed it. Cold sharpened the senses. Heightened focus. Made everything clean.

He stood at the edge of the jagged cliff, theLyxaiconcealed behind him, cloaked in rock and shadow. His helm adjusted the light spectrum in the thickening dark, translating the falling dusk into layers of color, heat, movement. Below, the valleys were already drowning in night. Mist clung to the stone like old skin.

With a thought, he deployed his wings.

They unfolded with a mechanical hiss, the armored panels separating and rising on thick hydraulic joints. Beneath the metal plating—tightly coiled and protected—lay the true structure: webbed, leathery, powerful. Built for maneuvering in vacuum, for slicing through the sky like a blade.

He launched.

The wind caught him instantly, a familiar rush. His legs tucked in, wings flaring outward, catching the current as he dove low, then tilted, rising again on an updraft. His body moved withpracticed ease, every calculation seamless. The wings hissed as they adjusted, sweeping in closer as he narrowed his descent.

Calm.

Steady.

Resolute.

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