Page 79 of Claimed By the Vykan
“You chose to break the balance you claim to protect,” Kyrax said quietly. “The moment you attacked my domain, you forfeited the shield of those laws.”
Isshyr’s eyes widened as realization dawned.
“This is the bond,” he whispered. “It strengthened you.”
“You were warned,” Kyrax said. “You did not listen.”
Isshyr’s hands—one gloved, one ending in a ruined stump where his other had once been—scrabbled uselessly against Kyrax’s boot.
“You risk everything,” Isshyr spat. “If your bond fails—if the human dies?—”
“She will not,” Kyrax cut in. “You do not get to speak her fate.”
He raised his sword.
Isshyr’s face twisted in last-minute rage. “The others will?—”
“The others will adapt,” Kyrax said. “Or they will fall as you have.”
The blade came down in a clean, decisive arc.
When it was done, he stood alone in the bridge, crew unconscious, the older Vykan’s body still beneath his boot.
Isshyr had walked willingly into this end, driven by fear and resentment and greed. If Kyrax had spared him again, the cycle would only have repeated—more attacks, more risks to the Bastion, to Morgan, to the people he had sworn to protect.
He wiped the blood—deep, luminous blue—from his blade with practiced precision and slid it back into its sheath.
Across the link, theVorath’s Edgeawaited his signal. Beyond that, his fleet held position, keeping Isshyr’s still-functioning ships at bay. He sent the necessary orders—secure the vessel, stabilize the crew, lock down the ship’s systems for transfer.
Drath Var and its bastion would not be left without protection. He would take responsibility for them now. TheirSaelori would fall under his dominion until the council formalized a new arrangement.
At the edge of his consciousness, he felt Morgan again.
He had tried to shield her from the worst of it, but attunement was not a simple mechanism to be toggled on and off. Emotion leaked through—sharp, metallic echoes of violence, the cold finality of his decision.
She did not recoil.
Her presence wavered once, like a heart that stuttered in its rhythm, then steadied.
You’re all right,she thought, not as a question, but as an observation.
Yes,he answered.
She was silent for a moment.
It had to be done,she said at last.
He stood in the ruined bridge, surrounded by unconscious bodies and the weight of a dead Vykan’s legacy, and exhaled slowly.
“For now,” he murmured, voice low inside his helm, “the balance is altered.”
But he was stronger.
He would hold.
And with Morgan bound to him—calm, bright, defiant human that she was—he finally believed that he would not break.
CHAPTER 36
