Page 72 of Third

Then, quietly, he looked over his shoulder. “There is no cover. When it sees us, it will strike.”

She nodded, mouth dry. Her palm was slick around the grip of her weapon.

Tor’Vek adjusted his stance.

Then—

A noise.

A shape.

The thing emerged from the darkness like a nightmare made flesh.

Tall. Crooked. Its movements too fluid for something so massive. Its skin was plated in overlapping slabs of dark, slick tissue—like armor formed from rot and oil. The stench hit them next: acrid, organic, metallic. It punched up into Anya’s sinuses, made her eyes water, her throat close. Her stomach clenched, twisting up with nausea. She turned her face away on instinct, coughing once, hard. Death after too much time—stale, intimate, and thick enough to taste.

It had no eyes. No face. Just a long ridge of slitted grooves, like the fossilized gills of some extinct predator. The slits flared once, then pulsed. Breathing. Smelling. Knowing.

And its hands—too many fingers, jointed in all the wrong places—dragged claws as long as her forearm across the floor, the sound sharp and slow, like metal sighing its last breath.

It didn’trush.

Itsavored. Each step calculated.

Anya’s stomach flipped. Her fingers tightened on her weapon.

And through the haze of terror, the bond flared—just once. Adesperate, craving pulse like a last cry for contact. Her body remembered the heat of Tor’Vek’s mouth, the way his touch burned steady through chaos.

She didn’t look athim.

She didn’t haveto.

He was already stepping forward.

Not fast. Not reckless. Deliberate. Like he was calculating angles with everystep.

Anya adjusted her stance, holding the stabilizer tighter against her chest. The strap bit into her shoulder. She didn’t dare loosen it. She didn’t dare let it shift. The stabilizer was too important—fragile, volatile, irreplaceable. One jolt too hard and it might shatter, taking their mission with it. But God, it was cold. It radiated through her like an echo of the creature’s breath.

The thing kept coming.

Its claws whispered over the floor, drawing shallow lines into the alloy. With each step, its body distorted—shifting subtly, like its bones weren’t fixed. It had to duck to fit beneath the corridor’s low ceiling, and the way it folded its body was wrong. Limbs bending where there should be none. Definitely no eyes, but it tilted its head toward Tor’Vek first, then her—as if weighing its options.

The air grew tighter. Anya’s pulse beat against her ribs like it wanted out. Her mouth went dry. Her hands ached from gripping the weapon too hard. She couldn’t run. Not with the corridor sealed behind them. Not with the stabilizer strapped toher.

Tor’Vek stopped. Just meters ahead of itnow.

The thing stoppedtoo.

A pause. Then a breath—wet and thick—from deep inside itsbody.

Tor’Vek’s voice was low. “When it strikes, Ineed you behind me.”

Anya nodded.

But the bond flared again. She could feel it pulse along her spine like it knew the moment was close. Knew what they both were about torisk.

Tor’Vek lifted his blade, shifting his weight slightly.

And then the creature moved.

---