Page 31 of Third

She wouldn’t let him spiral. Wouldn’t let the ragewin.

She pulled him back, every time he lost the rhythm, every time his breath turned too ragged. Her mouth found the sensitive place beneath his jaw, her teeth grazing skin in a silent warning. Her nails dragged across his shoulders, leaving faint welts in their wake, areminder that she was still there—guiding him, refusing to let him drown in the storm of his own craving.

Until the bond stopped pulsing red and the rage ebbed from his body like a fever finally breaking, its fire quenched by touch and will and her unwavering presence.

Until the craving gave way to something steadier—something that no longer tore at them, but wove them together. It pulsed low and warm, the fever breaking into a slow, fierce intimacy. No longer hunger, but connection. No longer chaos, but a bond reforged by choice.

At last, his strength gave out. His arms shook and his breath came in ragged bursts as he collapsed against her, panting, spent and silent, his body sinking into hers like it had nowhere else to go. They remained knotted together, his cock still locked deep inside her, the thick base holding them as one. It was a joining neither could break, alink that throbbed with each breath—aliving reminder of the bond that had just rewritten themboth.

And finally, finally Anya exhaled.

Chapter8

THE QUIETafter was almost worse than the storm before.

Tor’Vek sat on the edge of the sleeping platform, his breathing still uneven, his hands braced loosely against his knees. The heat of their joining still clung to his skin, but it was not enough to explain the churning pressure in his chest.

Anya lay curled on her side beneath a blanket, her bare shoulders rising and falling with every slow, shuddering breath. She looked impossibly small, fragile in a way that reached beneath his armor and struck somethingraw.

The air in the cabin was heavy with the scent of her—warm, sweet, uniquely hers—and it wrapped around him like a noose. The bond between them pulsed irregularly against his wrist, dragging the memory of her softness, her surrender, deeper into his consciousness.

He had not just claimed her body. She had let him touch something more precious, something unguarded and real, and now it pulsed between them, alive and undeniable. It was a gift he had no right to accept—and yet, he craved it more fiercely than he had ever craved survival itself.

The bracelets should have been calmer now. Satisfied.

Instead, they pulsed off-rhythm, almost—angrily.

Tor’Vek flexed his hand, studying the dark band encircling his wrist and forearm. It glowed faintly in the low light, the runes buried in the metal occasionally sparking with restless energy.

He should be burning.

Final Flight should have begun in earnest. It was the terminal phase of an Intergalactic Warrior’s life cycle—agenetically programmed, irreversible biological shutdown triggered at the end of their 400-year service, marked by escalating heat flashes, emotional instability, and ultimately, total cellular collapse.

After mating, after emotional destabilization, the chemical surge within his body should have triggered a cascade of irreversible biological events: heat flashes, loss of cognitive control, Final Flight overtaking what remained of his logic.

But there was only a faint, flickering unease deep insidehim.

An absence where there should have beenfire.

He rose silently, moving to the examination table. The smooth surface lit beneath him and began its assessment. Scrolling diagnostic data appeared across the diagnostic screen. It found minor damage which it quickly corrected. But nothing about his Final Flight, as though it had ceased to exist.

Yet the bracelet’s pulse against his skin felt... wrong.

He sat up and shut down the diagnostic screen with a curt swipe of hishand.

Behind him, Anya stirred, asoft, involuntary sound escaping her lips. She shifted, the blanket dipping, revealing the long curve of her back—pale, vulnerable, impossibly delicate. Her hair tumbled across the pillow in a silken wave of gold, and along the line of her shoulder, faint bruises and bite marks—his marks—stood stark against her skin. Evidence of how completely he had claimed her. Evidence of how completely she had lethim.

Tor’Vek clenched his jaw. He could feel her emotions fluttering through the bond—confusion, lingering fear, the sharp ache of longing. She was vulnerable. She did not know if she could trusthim.

He shared that uncertainty more than he dared admit.

Some part of him, buried deep beneath years of discipline and centuries of cold logic, wanted to cross the room and gather her against him. To feel her warmth seeping into his skin. To shield her from the consequences he could no longer control. To apologize for what he had taken—and what he could never giveback.

His hands flexed at his sides, aching with restraint. The need to bury himself in her softness, in her trust, coiled tighter and tighter, adangerous thread pulling taut inside his chest. Athread he did not dare follow, because once he started, he feared he would neverstop.

The yearning he felt was dangerous—avulnerability he could ill afford. Attachment was a liability, one that could be exploited, twisted, used against him. And in his world, liabilities were not just costly. They were fatal. The wiser course was distance. Detachment. Cold efficiency. And yet, standing there, watching her small, sleeping form, he felt the first cracks spider through the walls he had spent centuries erecting. Cracks he could neither explain nor repair.

Despite that... the urge remained, twisting tight and dangerous in his chest.

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