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The first drone dropped so suddenly that for a moment, I thought my eyes had failed me. One second it was hovering, sensors sweeping—the next, plummeting silently through the canopy, its systems dark.

The second followed an instant later, its descent controlled rather than catastrophic, guided down through the branches by…something. Something fast. Something that moved with such fluid precision that even my enhanced vision struggled to track it.

I remained motionless, my breathing shallow, controlled. Whatever had disabled the drones was more dangerous than the machines themselves. More skilled. More lethal.

A shadow detached itself from the upper canopy, descending in a controlled drop that spoke of muscle control beyond standard Rodinian capabilities. It landed without sound, a dark silhouette against the bioluminescent undergrowth.

For a heartbeat, I thought my eyes were playing tricks. The figure before me was Rodinian in form—the height, the build, the characteristic tail—but wrong. Different in ways that sent alarm racing through my blood.

His fur was charcoal gray where mine was golden, the black stripes more pronounced, more jagged. His frame was leaner, his muscles corded rather than bulky, designed for speed over raw power. But it was his eyes that truly marked him as other—iridescent rather than gold, with vertical pupils that seemed to glow in the darkness.

And the scent...

Beneath the musk of Rodinian male lay chemical traces that didn’t belong—synthetic compounds, gene stabilizers, markers of laboratory manipulation. And beneath that, impossibly, unmistakably...

Everly.

Her scent clung to him, not as if he had touched her, but as if it were part of his very composition. As if her genetic code had somehow been woven into his own.

The wrongness of it hit me like a physical blow, triggering an instinctive response I couldn’t control. My transformation ripped through me, bones cracking, muscles expanding as my battle form emerged. I grew two feet taller, my already substantial frame swelling with combat-enhanced muscle, claws extending to their full deadly length.

I roared—a challenge, a warning, a promise of violence.

His response wasn’t what I expected.

He didn’t transform. Didn’t posture. Didn’t return my challenge. Instead, he simply…moved.

One moment he stood examining the downed drone, the next he was nowhere to be seen. My enhanced senses tracked a blur of movement to my left, then behind me, then above—too fast, impossibly fast. I slashed at empty air, my claws finding nothing but jungle mist.

“I’m not here to fight you, Reaper.”

The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, resonant yet soft, carrying easily despite its low volume. I pivoted, seeking its source, finding only shadows.

“Show yourself,” I snarled, my voice deeper, rougher in my battle form. “Face me, interloper.”

A soft sound whispered through the foliage.

“If I wanted you dead, Zehn Varrek Tol’Vekkar, you would be.” The shadows shifted, and he was there, perched on a branch twenty feet above me, examining me with those unnervinglybright eyes. “Your mate would be alone. Unprotected. Is that what you want?”

I launched upward, covering the distance in a single powerful leap, claws extended to rip, to tear, to destroy this abomination that dared speak of Everly. But he was gone before I reached his position, leaving nothing but disturbed leaves in his wake.

I landed on the branch, wood cracking beneath my weight, my senses straining to locate him. “How do you know her name?” I demanded, fury making my voice shake. “How do you bear her scent?”

“The same way you knew mine,” came the reply, this time from ground level. “Though you haven’t spoken it yet.”

I froze, the implication of his words sinking in. He was right. I hadn’t asked his name, yet somewhere in the recesses of my mind, I knew it. As if it had been whispered to me in a dream.

Khaaz.

The name surfaced unbidden, as familiar as if I’d known it all my life.

“Impossible,” I growled, but even as I denied it, certainty settled in my bones. This was the presence I had felt in our unity dream. Somehow, impossibly, he had been there. Had witnessed what no outsider should ever see.

I dropped from the branch, landing heavily, my battle form still fully engaged. Khaaz stood before me now, making no attempt to flee, though his posture remained alert, ready to move at the slightest provocation.

“How?” I demanded, advancing on him. “Unity dreams are shared only between fate mates.”

“I didn’t choose to,” he said quietly, his eyes never leaving mine. “I was made to.”

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