Page 13 of Fourth

She hesitated. “Am I the final directive?”

“Affirmative.”

She went still. “This final cycle... You’re not going to die, are you?”

He didn’t answer. And that, more than anything, terrifiedher.

“Riven.” Her voice cracked. “Look at me. Are you dying?”

“Yes.”

The air rushed out of her lungs. “You can’t be serious.”

“I am always serious.”

Something sharp twisted in her gut. She stared at him, chained down, helpless, and hated how much thatmatteredin this moment. She didn’t want to care. But watching him come apart, seeing him, this perfectly meticulous, untouchable figure, fracture in front of her, sent something sharp and unexpected through her chest. Not pity. Not even fear. Something else. Athread of protectiveness she didn’t want to name. Seeing the control crack, the breath stagger, the agony behind his eyes, made it impossible notto.

Her voice came quieter this time. “Is there anything I can do?”

He regarded her with curiosity. Like the question confusedhim.

“I’m serious,” she added. “I don’t want to be trapped in here with a corpse, so if you need something—stabilization, water, whatever—say so.”

He stared at her for a beat too long, something unreadable flickering behind his eyes. When he spoke, his voice was low, rough-edged. “You stopped it.”

Maya blinked. Her heart stuttered, then slammed into a harder rhythm.What the hell does that mean?She opened her mouth, then closed it, throat tight with too many questions. The silence between them appeared thinner now, more fragile, like it might shatter with the next breath.

Chapter 3

MAYA STAREDat him like she might speak. Like she might scream. Like she might disappear entirely if she blinked toohard.

Riv’En did not move. His pulse dragged slow and uneven beneath his skin, each beat an echo of heat not fully extinguished. The atmosphere around him became laced with the faint static charge of what had nearly consumed him. His body should have shut down, should have collapsed inward like cooling metal. Instead, he stood there, alive when logic said he should notbe.

He should be dead.

His shoulders pulled taut, aripple of resistance tightening through his arms before he forced it still. He did not look at her chest. He would not. But the memory of that shimmer, so faint and sudden, flickered behind his eyes like an echo from another life. Blue. Soft. Radiating outward beneath herskin.

He turned away.

Not far. The scent of her lingered in the air—subtle, sharp, unmistakable. Something about it caught at him harder now than it had before. Maybe it was just the aftermath of her bite, maybe it was the shimmer still burned into his mind’s eye, but it wound around him like a coiled thread. He watched the rise and fall of her chest, the flush of color high on her cheekbones, the rapid flicker of her pulse in her throat.

She wasn’t just reacting anymore. The air between them stretched taut like something just waiting to snap. He did not need to touch her to know it. Her scent, her heat, the smallest flex of her fingers against the restraint—it all worked against him, under his skin, pulling focus he could not afford.

Riv’En ignored it. Forced himself to. But ignoring did not make it lessreal.

The ship’s systems whispered low in the background, steady and subdued. But his focus stayed on the uneven pulse of her breathing, sharper and more intrusive than the quiet tech surroundingthem.

“What did you mean?” Her voice was harsh. Low. Still rough from her earlier cries. “When you said I stopped it.”

He said nothing. Not because he was considering his response, but because no response existed for this. Logic offered nothing useful here. Only consequence remained—cold, sharp-edged, and dangerously quiet insidehim.

“What did I stop?” she persisted.

He glanced back. Her eyes, wide, wild, too human, tracked him with a force that scraped against his facility more than weapons ever had. She was still restrained. Still contained. And yet it was as though she were the one holdinghim.

There was something in her gaze now that had not been there before. Aflicker of heat, sharp and unguarded. It was not fear. It was not challenge. It was something quieter. Deeper. As if some part of her already recognized what was building between them, even if she refused to name it. And his body answered in kind, muscles drawn taut beneath skin, every breath heavier. The scent of her clung to the air, impossible to ignore. It was maddening. And it was only getting worse.

“Final Flight,” he said.

---