Page 78 of Third

Selyr’s brows lifted, amused. He leaned closer to the feed as though studying her, tilting his head like she were some particularly interesting insect. “Ah, the fire. You always had it, even under sedation. Always fighting. Clawing. Useless, of course, but entertaining. You want to die with purpose? Fine. Die trying.”

Around them, the ship shuddered again. Apipe somewhere above them groaned under the strain, spraying a thin hiss of steam into the air. From outside came a new sound—something sharper, more frenzied. The pounding had escalated into a full assault, fists and claws hammering with rabid fury against the hull. Metal shrieked. Apanel near the aft corridor buckled inward with a deafening crunch.

Tor’Vek turned away from Selyr and dropped his voice to a whisper. “We need to take off. Now.”He swiveled back to face Selyr. “We will die with purpose. But your eyes will close long beforeours.”

Selyr’s laugh sliced through the static. “Priceless. Truly. You still think you’ve won, don’t you? All that effort, all that pain—and for what? Afew more minutes of breathing? Delightful. Ido so enjoy your suffering.”

Tor’Vek narrowed his eyes. He wasn’t listening to the words.

He was studying the shadows behind Selyr—the fractured blue lighting set into smooth concrete walls, the glint of silver piping, the curved architecture that mirrored the access corridor they’d just come through. The same recessed wall panels, the same flickering overhead strip-lights. Local. Underground. Nearby. The bastard hadn’t left the planet. He was close. Too close.

“You are not aboard your station,” he said coldly. He pressed a series of buttons for the onboard computer. “You are transmitting. And you are close.”

Selyr’s smile faltered.

Anya came up beside Tor’Vek. “Where are you hiding, you cowardly freak?”

“Clever,” Selyr said, smile returning with a twitch. He slowly stepped backward into the shadows, just enough to reveal more of the curving wall behind him—sleek, metallic, unmistakably from the same underground corridor Tor’Vek and Anya had just fled. The recessed lighting behind him pulsed dimly in the same flickering pattern they’d seen in the corridor beneath the access panel—the same pale-blue hue, the same humming power lines embedded along the seam of the floor. The wall material even bore the same scarring from water erosion. There was no doubt. He was inside the same or a similar underground complex. “But cleverness is irrelevant now. The clock ticks, and I have alreadywon.”

The feed snapped to static.

Tor’Vek stared at the empty space where Selyr’s image had been, his jaw tightening. That cut wasn’t timed for drama. It was panic. The bastard realized he’d exposed too much—lighting, architecture, proximity. He feared a trace. And well he should.

“Coward,” Tor’Vek muttered, echoing Anya’s opinion.

He accessed the ship’s scanners to sweep for residual signal bleed. Then hetapped his rij. His HUD flashed a coordinate spike, triangulated from the transmission’s bleed.

He swore. “The bastard is still on this planet. Subterranean base, eight kilometers southeast. Iwill fly us low.Fast.”

“We kill him,” Anyasaid.

He nodded once. “We killhim.”

The ship shuddered again, the outer hull screaming beneath the hominid assault. The pounding was no longer random—it was focused, concentrated, like a single, united force determined to breach. Aseam near the portside joint cracked with a metallic snap, and lights overhead flickered as something tore free outside. The noise swelled to a crescendo of claws and shrieks, and the ship’s frame groaned like it might finally giveway.

Tor’Vek dropped into the pilot seat, Anya in the chair adjacent.

There was no time left forfear.

Only the mission.

And theend.

The ship launched like a wounded animal, thrusters screaming as Tor’Vek yanked it up from the blood-soaked clearing. Fists and claws battered the undercarriage even as they lifted—furious hominids clinging, striking, trying to rip through before they escaped. The hull shrieked. Something scraped violently across the outer plating, carving a long, jagged line along the portside hull. One of the rear stabilizers stuttered before catching again, barely. Smoke curled up through a hairline fracture in the ceiling.

“Structural integrity down to sixty-eight percent,” Tor’Vek said. His hands gripped the controls with surgical precision, but even he could feel the trembling in the yoke. “We will hold. Fornow.”

Anya sat beside him, tense but focused, one hand gripping the edge of her seat, the other resting near the emergency manual override. Every tilt and lurch jolted through her bones, but her eyes never left the viewport. She was calculating, scanning, waiting for the moment everything might go wrong. The ship wasn’t flying—it was defying death with every shuddering breath. And the planet felt alive beneath them, furious they’d dared to escape.

The moment they cleared the ridge, the ship hit turbulence hard enough to rattle their teeth. Sharp, chaotic winds clawed at the hull, tilting them sideways in a sudden lurch. The inertial dampeners spat out a warning chime as the compensators lagged behind, struggling to keepup.

Anya gritted her teeth, her hand flying to brace herself. “Come on,” she hissed under her breath. “Hold together. Just a little longer.”

Tor’Vek caught the way her breath hitched, her posture clenching tighter as if something beneath her skin was clawing its way out. He did not need the bond to read it—though the bond screamed all the same. The surge was building in both of them, sharp and electric. It wasn’t fear. It was something hotter. The bond stirred like a live wire braided through his spine and hers, syncing their pulse, their fury, their hunger.

Anya’s hand flew to the dash as she was thrown sideways. Her bracelet flared, and she gasped. “Tor’Vek—”

“Ifeel it,” he bit out. The craving. Therage.

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