Page 21 of Third

“You should not have taken her,” he growled.

Selyr’s voice crackled over the intercom, clinical and cool. “And yet you still stand. Impressive.”

Tor’Vek stopped. Turned toward the ceiling. “Return her to me.”

“Why would I do that?” Selyr mused. “You have already given me what I need. The craving spike. The bonding effects. The rage response. All confirmed. But the more interesting question now is: what should I giveyou?”

Tor’Vek said nothing. His silence was its own threat.

“There are... adjustments I can make,” Selyr continued. “This bond, this instability—it is a flaw in the design. An emotional flaw. But if you like, Ican offer you something better.”

The bracelet on his wrist flared again.

Selyr’s voice lowered to something almost conspiratorial. “I can suppress it for you. Your rage. Your... irrational attachment. You may choose between two settings. Shall we say... rage or reason? Violence or serenity? The purity of logic or the chaos of love?”

He made it sound clinical, simple—as if what Tor’Vek had experienced with her could be switched off like a malfunctioning variable. As if choosing serenity meant abandoning the only connection that had ever given him a foundation. But even Selyr, brilliant as he was, could not calculate the cost of that. He spoke as a scientist, not as a bonded male. He didn’t understand that the chaos he offered to erase... was the very thing keeping Tor’Vek alive.

His head tilted. “You misunderstand,” he said. “There is no choice.”

“Oh?” Selyr’s voice purred.

Tor’Vek stepped over the wreckage, crunching metal beneath him. “You believe I am a variable to be isolated. Aformula to be refined.”

Selyr didn’t answer.

“I am not.” He raised his arm, staring down at the bracelet. “You tampered with something ancient. Something you clearly do not understand.”

“And what is that, warrior?”

Tor’Vek’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “Instinct.”

Silence followed.

Then a click. Ahum. The bracelet on his wrist flared violently.

Pain lanced up his arm as the override activated. It struck fast and deep, awave of artificial numbness intended to dull his bond-driven fury. But the moment it hit, something inside him roared to life. Not just resistance. Rejection.

The bond flared in defiance. Violet and gold runes lit along the bracelet’s edge, burning through the suppressant with a surge of will he hadn’t summoned—but felt rising from the core of who hewas.

“Fascinating,” Selyr said, though his tone faltered. “It... should not be able to dothat.”

Tor’Vek smiled without warmth. “And yet itdoes.”

He moved then. Fast. Savage. The suppression field around his cell flickered once—then shattered as the bond pulsed like a war drum in his chest.

Two guards burst in. They didn’t lastlong.

Tor’Vek tore through them with terrifying precision, ripping one man’s weapon free and hurling the other into the wall hard enough to leave a dent. He took the second’s control badge before it hit the floor.

He didn’tslow.

Doors fell before him. Metal screamed. Sparks hissed along the edges of fractured thresholds as walls caved beneath his onslaught. Alarms blared in the distance, but they sounded hollow—meaningless. The scent of ozone and scorched wiring filled the air, thick as smoke. Screams followed, some near, some far, punctuated by the sharp snap of bones and the thud of bodies hitting steel. No one slowed him. No one survivedhim.

And then he reachedher.

Anya.

The door to her chamber burst open in a spray of sparks and smoke.

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