Page 3 of Third

“What is Final Flight?” Anya asked.

“It is the final stage of life for an Intergalactic Warrior” Selyr answered readily enough. “They experience horrific heat flashes until they eventually incinerate themselves and anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby. That won’t happen as long as he wears the bracelet.”

Tor’Vek’s jaw locked. “You toy with forces you do not understand,” he said, voice cold enough to crack titanium. “Your experiments will kill you long before they kill me.”

Selyr ignored the comment, his gaze flicking toward the bracelet. “Ah, but you still believe you are in control, don’t you?” He pressed a setting on the device heheld.

The bracelet burned.

Tor’Vek did not make a sound, but his jaw locked as an explosive pressure detonated in his chest and surged outward through every nerve. It was not pain. It wasfury.

Raw, red, all-consumingrage.

He staggered back a half-step, fists clenching at his sides as his breath came faster. Something inside him—something cold and ancient—snapped its restraints.

His eyes locked on the wall. He wanted to destroy it. Crush it. Tear it apart until nothing remained but dust and ruin. His pulse thundered in his ears, his muscles tensed, his vision edged withheat.

Anya’s breathing hitched. “What’s happening tohim?”

Selyr’s smile sharpened. “Ah. There it is. Rage, Intergalactic Warrior. Magnificent, is it not? The oldest instinct of your kind—aggression, barely buried beneath all that logic.”

Tor’Vek’s body trembled with his attempt to control it. His hands opened, closed, opened again. Every breath became a battle.

Selyr altered another setting. The fury intensified.

“Stop,” Anya whispered, voice raw. She stepped forward instinctively, reaching out before catching herself. “Whatever you’re doing to him,stop.”

“Fascinating, isn’t it?” Selyr mused, as detached as ever. “How quickly bonds form, even when only one side wears the chain.”

Tor’Vek dropped to one knee, bracing his hand against the floor, jaw clenched hard enough to crack bone. The bracelet seared like a brand, its pulse a war drum in his blood. Control. Control.Control.

Selyr finally, mercifully, deactivated the setting. The burning rage eased—but it didn’t vanish. It curled inside him like a sleeping beast.

Tor’Vek exhaled through his nose, sweat beading at his brow. He had not lashed out. He had not surrendered.

But he had come close.

Selyr stepped toward Anya. “Now, let’s complete the set,” he murmured. Before she could recoil, he seized her wrist and swept it against Tor’Vek’s bracelet. Instantly a matching bracelet appeared on her wrist, glowing in synchronization.

She let out a sharp cry, yanking her arm back. The moment their bracelets linked, the pulse between them intensified, alive current that threaded rage across a fragile bridge of connection.

Tor’Vek stiffened. The bond was active. He could feel her now—confusion, fear, resistance—and beneath it, aspark of something deeper: sympathy.

Anya gasped, her body rocking with the force of the emotional surge. For a moment, she looked as if she might collapse.

Selyr’s yellow eyes gleamed. “Ah… much better. Let us see how long you last, Tor’Vek. Or rather, how long your companion lasts.”

With a flick of his fingers, he reactivated the rage setting on Tor’Vek’s bracelet. The effect was instantaneous. Tor’Vek’s muscles tensed like coiled steel, the fury surging through him again like a molten current.

Anya jerked in place, flinching as though struck—not from pain, but from the intensity radiating off him. Her own bracelet pulsed, but she felt no rage herself. Only the echo of his. It poured into her senses like a violent tide, foreign and monstrous and terrifying in its magnitude.

She stared at him, breath caught in her throat, overwhelmed by the sheer force of what he was holding back. It was unbearable and she could sense how hard he fought not to give in to the overwhelmingfury.

Selyr’s boots echoed as he turned and walked away, the door hissing shut behindhim.

Silencefell.

Tor’Vek stood motionless, trembling from the effort it took not to destroy something. Anything.

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