Page 47 of Claimed By the Vykan
And then—as quiet as mist—he was gone.
The door sealed behind him, leaving her alone with the pounding of her heart, the echo of his touch, and the terrifying realization that her allegiance had already begun to shift.
She wasn’t just adapting.
She was changing.
CHAPTER 21
She began to understand the shape of a day on this world.
The mornings arrived cool and quiet, soft mist hanging low over the garden like a veil. The air carried the faint sweetness of nocturnal blooms, a fragrance so subtle she always paused on the threshold just to breathe it in. By midday the heat settled over the bastion, thick and humid, the kind of warmth that clung to her skin even in the shaded corridors. Then twilight returned with its calming breath, the air cooling again, the sky shifting behind the haze in colours she could never name.
If she focused closely, she could almost track time by the rhythm of the mist—sometimes thinning enough that she imagined she could see beyond it, to a sky she had never truly glimpsed. Other times it gathered heavily, swallowing the horizon.
Raeska came and went during those days, always silent at first, always watchful. They spoke regularly now. Or rather, the translator stone spoke for them—its interpretations so seamless that Morgan sometimes forgot it existed, as if their conversations were natural, unmediated. The technology baffled her, even after she’d asked a dozen questions Raeska could onlypartially answer. It adjusted itself to her rhythms, her idioms, her tone. It learned her.
Silicon Valley would lose their minds over this,she thought more than once.My father would sell his soul for it.
She ate whatever Raeska brought: fragrant grains, spiced stews, tender meats, sweet-sour vegetables, those impossibly glowing fruits. Her strength grew in ways that startled her. Her senses sharpened. Her thoughts were clearer. Even her sleep had changed—deep, restorative, unbroken, as if her body had found a harmony it had never known.
And she felt him.
Not constantly, but enough to know when he moved within the bastion, enough to sense the faint tension in the air when he used his power, enough to feel the undercurrent of his presence like heat rolling along her skin. Whatever this bond had become, it grew stronger each day, unfolding inside her like a second pulse.
He came in the evenings.
Always in twilight, after whatever duties a Vykan held. He never told her what he did during those hours, but she sensed the weight of responsibility on him. When he arrived, the air changed—warmed, thickened, sharpened. Sometimes he shared a trace of his venom, letting her adjust in slow increments, always watching her closely, always ready to pull back if she needed it. Other times he refused to offer any at all, insisting she needed rest more than stimulation.
He touched her with his bare hand when she permitted it, only where she permitted it, and that restraint maddened her more than anything. She had expected force. She had expected domination. She had expected the kind of control her father wielded—rigid, smothering, cruel.
Kyrax was none of those things.
He was dangerous, yes. Terrifying, unquestionably. But he listened. He yielded where she asked him to. He taught her pieces of his language, amused when she mangled the sounds. He asked about Earth, about human customs, about why they built cities that scraped the sky. She asked about the Saelori, and he told her of their origins, their evolutionary line, their mist-shrouded planet, their predators, their hunters. He described battles fought in silence, fleets destroyed by a single breath from a Vykan’s lungs, their venom lethal across galaxies. She knew he had killed more enemies than she could imagine, entire boarding ships felled by a single exhale, yet the horror she expected never took hold.
He protects them. That’s all.
Now she stood in the garden alone, waiting for him in the violet light of approaching evening. It had become a ritual, though neither of them had named it. The waterfall sang over stone, trickling into the clear pool where luminous fish darted in flashes of lilac. The foliage rustled in the warm air, leaves glossy and wide, flowers unfurling in vivid colours.
Her body felt… different. Stronger. Sharper. Even her skin looked changed—brighter, smoother, as though the planet itself had woven its lush energy through her.
She wasn’t sure how she felt about that.
She had thought of Earth often during the first days, trying to recall details she once clung to. Her apartment. The skyline. The constant noise. Her siblings, who were more rivals than family. Her father, looming over every aspect of her life with his demands, his expectations, his cold logic.
But when she tried to summon homesickness, nothing answered.
She grieved that absence. It felt like losing a limb and discovering she could walk just fine without it.
Is this the venom? Is this the bond? Has he changed me?
No. Something deeper told her the truth. She had been unmoored long before any alien touched her. Earth had been a gilded cage. She had been waiting for something—anything—to disrupt her orbit.
And he had.
She wasn’t ready to admit she trusted him. Not fully. But she no longer feared him the way she feared her father. Kyrax had shown her patience, restraint, something disturbingly close to gentleness under all that lethal strength. She could almost forgive him for taking her.
Almost.
