Page 6 of Third

She sucked in a breath, disoriented.

The rage hadn’t disappeared, but it had retreated. She felt his control returning.

Her heartbeat slowed just abit.

He exhaled. The warmth of it grazed her cheek, unifying and strange. His body remained rigid, jaw tight with residual tension, but the tremble had vanished from his hands. It wasn’t full control. He was still bracing against the storm. But something vital had shifted. Aman like him didn’t yield, not even to himself. But right now, he wasn’t breaking. He was bending. And for a warrior like Tor’Vek, that was far more telling.

“The closer I get to you,” he said quietly, “the easier it is to think.”

Her hands hovered between them, not touching but not pushing either. “This is insane.”

She didn’t mean the bond, though yes, that was insane too. She meant all of it. The way he clung to her like a lifeline. The way her touch had actually calmed him, like she was some kind of lightning rod for a raging storm.

Nothing about this made sense, and yet the evidence was undeniable. She should be trying to escape. She should be planning her next move, scanning for exits, calculating how far she could get before he caught her. But she wasn’t doing any ofthat.

Instead, she stood still, suspended in the weight of him—his hands, his heat, the thunder of his pulse beneath her cheek. Her instincts screamed for action, but something deeper held her in place. Something quieter. Something disturbingly close to trust. She should be fighting. But her body hadn’t moved, and neither had her hands. Because for the first time since this nightmare began, he wasn’t a threat. Not exactly.

And that might be worse.

“Yes,” he said, the word low and deliberate, like he was acknowledging something neither of them wanted to admit. “This bond. This reaction. It is illogical, intrusive, and completely destabilizing.” He paused, then added with a faint growl, “But it is real.”

“I don’t want to be bonded to a man who threatens to kill me.”

“Then you understand perfectly. Ido not want to be bonded at all.”

His arms didn’t loosen. But they didn’t tighten either. They held steady, tense and deliberate, like he was computing the exact pressure needed to keep her near without breaking her. Not gentleness. Not dominance. Something in between. Awarrior’s grip not on a weapon, but on the one thing cleaving him to sanity.

Her forehead rested against his chest without meaning to. He was warm. Solid. Real. Too real. And despite every cell in her body telling her to pull away, she didn’t. Because something about that warmth was steadying. Her cheek rested against his bare chest, and she could feel the thunder of his heartbeat. Not erratic now, not wild. Just strong. Commanding. Like him. It should’ve terrifiedher.

But in that moment, it didn’t.

They stayed like that for a short time, breaths uneven. The silence was heavy, but not hostile. Anya felt every rise and fall of his chest against her cheek, each breath dragging against her skin like a tether holding him in place. He wasn’t just letting her moor him, he was depending on it. And somewhere in the back of her mind, she suspected that if she stepped away now, he might not stop her. But he’d fracture. Not violently. Not immediately. But piece by piece. And somehow, she couldn’t bring herself to let that happen.

Notyet.

Then she shifted slightly, just enough to lift her head from his chest.

“You’re not going to fall apart if I move away, are you?” she asked, half-meaning it to be a joke, half-afraid of the answer.

Tor’Vek’s eyes narrowed slightly. “You may try.”

The words weren’t menacing, but they weren’t reassuring either. Just factual, like everything hesaid.

That was enough to make her take a full stepback.

His arms snapped forward and pulled her in again, fast but controlled. One moment of space and he’d closed it without hesitation, like the emptiness between them was physically intolerable. His hold wasn’t bruising, but there was urgency in it, like his body had stopped asking for permission and simply obeyed the need to stay tethered. The air between them tightened. Her breath hitched. He didn’t speak, but the pressure of his hands said everything: this was not optional. Not forhim.

She eased back slightly, just enough to put a breath of space between them. “I guess that didn’t work,” she muttered, more to herself thanhim.

“It did not,” he said simply. His arms stayed firm. Unyielding.

After a few more minutes of heavy silence, she mumbled, “We should probably pick this place up. If someone else walks in here and sees what you did, they’ll think we’ve already killed each other.”

His expression didn’t change, but he reluctantly released her, maintaining contact through a hand at her lower back, his fingers splayed possessively. Not restraint—just connection. Constant. Unbroken. Like his body had accepted a new law of physics: he must always be touching her, or he unraveled.

Together, they began collecting the debris—twisted metal, cracked furniture, amattress half-hanging off its frame. It wasn’t much, but it was order. Her fingers gathered the pieces of a scattered control pad and placed them upright again. She turned to reach for a piece of paneling.

His arm wrapped around her waist, yanking her back with smooth, uncompromising force. His hand flattened against her side, as if that contact alone held the thread of his control. He didn’t say a word. He didn’t need to. His body had already decided the rule. They didn’t separate. Not even for a second. Not even for something as harmless as picking up a piece of paneling. It wasn’t possessiveness. It was survival.His.

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