Page 8 of Third

“I will destroy the room again. Iwill likely attempt to destroy anything in it. Including you.”

Her breath caught.

“But that will not happen,” he added quietly.

“Why not?”

“Because you will not leave.”

Her heart stuttered. “That sounds a lot like a threat.”

“No,” he said. “It is a fact.”

His gaze didn’t waver. And neither did the light in hiseyes.

She didn’t know what this bond was doing to them. She didn’t know what Selyr had planned, or why. But for now—for this moment—she knew one thing:

She wasn’t safe fromhim.

But she wasn’t sure she wanted tobe.

Because somewhere between the destruction and the touch, somewhere in the chaos, she’d felt her reaction to him change. There had been a moment—brief, nearly imperceptible—when the bracelet pulsed hot against her wrist, then cooled rapidly, like something finishing a sequence. She hadn’t thought much of it then, too focused on his fury, on surviving.

But now, within the violence and the stillness, there’d been a change. And she felt it again now, low and heavy in her chest, the echo of his heartbeat beneath her skin. Steady. Claiming. Familiar.

She didn’t want to feel drawn tohim.

But God help her, shewas.

And the worstpart?

The bracelet wasn’t pulsing anymore.

It was quiet.

As if whatever it had meant to do was alreadydone.

Chapter3

TOR’VEK WASnot unaccustomed to chaos. He had stood in the wreckage of burning starships, walked through the aftermath of orbital bombardments, and calculated the survival probabilities of entire planetary populations while ignoring the screams beneath hisfeet.

He had witnessed entropy in its purest form and remained untouched byit.

Untilnow.

Now, his balance was compromised by something as illogical as skin. By the undeniable impact of touch, of presence, of proximity.

Hers.

He stood with one hand on the wall panel, head bowed slightly, as if listening for some whisper beneath the circuits. But there was no data here—no logical pattern to extract. Only the pounding silence of a chamber torn apart by his own hands, and the low, steady rhythm of Anya’s breath behindhim.

He could still feel her. Even after stepping away, even without direct contact. The bond did not dissipate. It stretched, taut and vibrating, like a filament running through his spine.

He exhaled. Slowly. Deliberately. Then moved.

She was seated on the edge of the reassembled sleep platform, arms wrapped around her knees, watching him with that narrowed, skeptical gaze he was beginning to recognize as her default expression.

“I am going to attempt a test,” he announced.

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