The micro-scales beneath my skin—usually dormant, invisible armor woven into my DNA for survival on the harsh plains of Valoria Prime—have flared wide open. They catch the dim emergency lighting, shimmering with an iridescent, violent gold, grinding against the fine fabric of my shirt like sandpaper. Every breath I take scrapes the sensitive dermis against the Aethel-weave, a friction that should be painful but instead feels like a maddening itch I cannot scratch.
Control, I command myself. You are the Heir. You are civilization. You do not unravel because a smuggler touched your pilot.
My body laughs at me. It screams.
It wants blood. Specifically, it wants the blood of the mechanic who dared to put his hands on what the Aethel-bond has decided is mine.
I squeeze the edge of the table. The steel groans, high and shrill, and then buckles under my fingers like warm wax. I stare at the deformation in the metal—the imprint of my own hand crushed into the alloy. I pick up a heavy spanner I found onthe bench, needing something, anything, to ground the energy before I tear the ship apart.
It heats instantly in my grip. Cherry red. Then white hot. The handle warps, drooping like wet clay, unable to withstand the thermal output of a Valorian male in the throes of a mating rage.
I drop it. It clatters to the deck, hissing as it scorches the floorplate, leaving a black scar on the metal.
This is what I am. Not a Lord. Not a diplomat. A weapon wrapped in silk. A monster that my family dresses up in tailored suits and pretends is safe for polite society.
Dangerous. Unstable. Feral.
I pace to the far wall. Four steps. Turn. Four steps. Turn. The confined space is a cage, and I am the beast pacing the perimeter.
With every turn, the image flashes in my mind: Jax’s arm around her shoulders. His easy, arrogant grin. The way he smelled—like cheap engine oil and history. He has a past with her. He has memories of her laughing in a bunk that I don’t have. He knows the taste of her skin. He knows the sound of her breath when she sleeps.
And she let him touch her. She leaned into him. She called me cargo to protect him.
Cargo.
The word echoes in the silence, louder than the resonance. It is a precise, surgical strike to the one vulnerability I cannot shield.
A roar builds in my throat, choking me. I slam my fist against the bulkhead. The ship shudders, the vibration traveling through the hull plates, likely alerting Zip that his passenger has finally lost his mind.
The door hisses open.
I don’t turn around. I can’t. If I look at her right now, with my pupils blown black and my fangs aching to mark something, Iwill not be able to stop. I will destroy the fragile truce we have built. I will confirm every terrifying thing she suspects about me.
“So,” her voice cuts through the thrumming air, sharp and defiant, though I can hear the tremor underneath. “Zip says you’re bending the furniture. And my heat sensors are redlining in this sector.”
She steps inside. The door seals behind her.
And then her scent hits me.
It sucks the air out of the room then it washes over me—the metallic tang of the ship, the sharp spike of her adrenaline, the underlying sweetness of her skin that smells like strawberries and ozone. It is the most intoxicating thing I have ever smelled. But layered over it, suffocating it, is him.
Engine grease. Cheap spice-liquor. The musk of another male.
My vision floods with red. The growl rips out of me before I can stifle it. It vibrates the deck plates, a low, menacing rumble that no human throat could produce.
“Leave,” I rasp. My voice is wrecked—gravel and smoke.
“No.”
“Polly, get out. Now.” I turn slowly, forcing my movements to be rigid, mechanical, fighting the urge to cross the room in a blur of motion. “I am not... safe.”
She doesn’t run. Because she is insane. Because she is the most reckless, infuriating creature in the galaxy. She stands there, arms crossed over her chest, chin lifted in that stubborn angle that makes me want to bite the soft line of her throat and drink her courage.
She looks at me—really looks at me. She sees the flared scales shimmering on my neck, jagged and gold. She sees the black pits of my eyes where the amber has been swallowed by the void. She sees the heat waves rolling off my shoulders, blurring the air around me.
She glances at the melted spanner on the floor, seeing the scorched metal. Then back to me. Her throat works as she swallows.
“You scared Jax,” she says, her voice steady, though I can hear the rapid flutter of her heart. Thump-thump-thump. It beats like a frantic bird against her ribs, calling to the predator in me. “You scared me.”
