“Us. This bond.Everything.” She turned to look at me. Again, there were tears streaming down her face. “If you weren’t mated to me, you wouldn’t have jumped in front of that blast. You’d befine. You’d be able to protect yourselfproperly instead of being laid up with an injury that’s going to take weeks to heal and leave a scar.”
Something cold settled in my chest. “You think the mating bond was a mistake.”
“I think it’s made everything more complicated.” She wrapped her arms around herself. “I can feel your pain through it. Did you know that? Every time you move wrong, every time you breathe too deeply, Ifeelit. And I can’t do anything about it except watch you suffer because of me.”
“It’s not because of you—”
“It is. Dorek fired at me. The blast was meant for me. You took it because of this bond that neither of us asked for or wanted.” Her voice was rising, tinged with hysteria. “You didn’t evenlikeme before this happened. And now, because of some biological accident, you’re stuck with me for the rest of your life—and IknowI’m not easy to be with.” She aimed a narrow-eyed look at me that warned against argument, before barreling on. “I’ve been made aware of that for most of my life. So you’re trapped here,injured, we have no way forward, and I can’t fix any of it. I can’t solve this problem. I can’t protect you. I can’t do anything except make things worse.”
I pushed myself up to sitting, ignoring the spike of pain that shot through my back. “Rivers—”
“Don’t.” She held up a hand. “Just don’t. I know what you’re going to say. That it’s not my fault, that you made your choice, that the bond is worth it. But is it?Really?Is it worth dying for?”
The question hung in the air between us, sharp and painful as any weapon.
I thought about my answer carefully. About what the bond had cost us, what it had demanded. The way it had put her in danger, the way it had made me reckless, the way it complicated every decision we made.
“Yes,” I said finally. “It is.”
“How can you say that?” She was crying openly now. “How can you say it’s worth it when you’re lying there injured and I’m standing here useless and everything is falling apart?”
“Because before I met you, I was already broken.” The words came out raw, honest in a way I’d never been with anyone. “I’d lost my crew. Lost my faith in my ability to protect anyone. I was going through the motions, but I wasn’tliving. Then you showed up with your equipment and your theories and your terrible habit of forgetting about safety protocols.”
Despite everything, I saw her lips twitch slightly at that.
“You drove me crazy,” I continued. “You questioned everything, you overexplained everything, you brought too much equipment and talked too fast and got excited about atmospheric pressure differentials.” I paused. “And you utterly fascinated me. It was all I could do to keep a respectable distance from you. Before we departed the Destran city, I assigned you to my escape pod—not because I thought for a million cycles we’d ever actuallyuseit—but because if the ship sent out an automated drill alert, I’d be able to spend a little sanctioned time with you. I wanted to be with you before these marks appeared on my neck. You made me want to be better. Made me want to try again. Made mebelieve that maybe I wasn’t too closed off and hardened to care about someone.”
“Torven—”
“I’m not finished.” I struggled more upright, ignoring the protest from my injured back. “This bond didn’t make things complicated. It made thingsclear. For the first time in two cycles, I knew exactly what I was supposed to be doing. Keeping you safe. Supporting your work. Being your partner.”
“But you’re hurt—”
“And I’ll heal.” I reached for her hand, relief flooding through me when she let me take it. “Zara Rivers, I’ve been hurt before. I’ll be hurt again. That’s not what matters. What matters is that when that blast was coming toward you, I didn’t hesitate. I didn’t think. I just moved. And that’s what the bond does. It doesn’t make us weak. It makes us strong enough to do impossible things.”
She was quiet for a long moment, staring at our joined hands. “I feel like I’m drowning,” she whispered. “Like everything I thought I could do, everything I thought I was good at, it doesn’t matter. My equipment is destroyed. The systems are too complex. The species won’t cooperate. And I—I can’t fix it.”
“You’re not supposed to fix it alone.”
“But that’s what I do. I solve problems, andyes, I like having a team. But Maya and Cleo have their own specialties and we each tended to our own parts of whatever puzzle we were assigned to. I analyze data and find solutions and—”
“And now you have to do it differently.” I squeezed her hand. “Notalone. We’re not as smart as you, but weareyourteam and we need you to lead this part. Separately, we are weak, but working together, we can make this work.”
She sniffled, but the tears had stopped. “Awful philosophical for someone who’s been shot with an energy weapon.”
“The pain makes me deep.” I smiled slightly. “Also, I might be a little delirious from whatever the Kythrans gave me.”
She laughed, the sound wet with tears but genuine. “I don’t deserve you, Torven Korvath.”
“You’re right,” I said, wiping away tear streaks with my thumb. “You deserve better.”
She wiped at her eyes. “Don’t say that.”
“Why? It’s true.”
Before she could respond, one of the Kythrans approached. It was the eldest one, the one who’d spoken for the group earlier. He moved slowly, cautiously. He was either in pain from the fight, or was still expecting violence despite Vikkat’s promise of peace.
Zara switched to their language, the words flowing out in that complex tonal pattern I couldn’t follow. The Kythran responded, gesturing toward me, and I caught Zara’s look of surprise.
