Through the bond: relief. Determination. Absolute trust.
She guards my wounded side without being told. I cover her blind spots without thinking. We pivot together, synchronized in a way that goes beyond the bond—practice, partnership, choice.
This is what it means to fight beside my mate.
Not protecting her from danger.
Fighting alongside her.
And it’s so much better than anything I ever imagined.
“CLEAR!”
Henrok’s roar cuts through everything—the gunfire, the music, the pounding in my skull.
“Timer stopped at three seconds! Charges disarmed!”
Three seconds. We came within three seconds of losing everything.
The remaining Meridian forces fall back, melting into the smoke, their assault broken. The generators groan behind us—damaged, struggling, butrunning. Still powering the shields that keep us alive.
Victory.
My knees buckle.
Polly catches me before I hit the deck, her arms stronger than they have any right to be, her hands moving immediately to my wound. “Rynn. Rynn, look at me. How bad?”
“I’ll live.” I touch her face with blood-slicked fingers. Wonder, even now, how I got so lucky. “You came for me.”
Her voice breaks on the word: “Always.”
Through the bond, I feel her trying to be strong. Trying to be steady. Feel the terror she’s suppressing, the love she isn’t hiding, the way her hands shake despite her calm voice.
“That was reckless,” I whisper. “Charging in like that. You could have—”
“Could have what? Let them kill you?” Her jaw sets. “Not happening, starshine. Not ever.”
Starshine.The nickname makes something warm bloom in my chest.
Henrok limps over, checking his surviving warriors. Too few. Too many dead. The Zaterran warlord’s face is stone, but I see grief in the set of his shoulders.
“We cannot hold another assault like that.” His voice is flat. “If they send a second wave—”
He doesn’t finish. He doesn’t need to.
Comms crackle.
“Henrok?” Suki’s voice, strained but alive. “Anyone reading?”
Relief crashes through Polly so hard I feel it in my own chest. Her sister. Alive.
“We read you,” Polly responds, grabbing my wrist comm. “War Room status?”
“Holding. Barely. Upload just hit 63%, but we’re low on everything.” A pause. “Wait—sensors are picking up multiple signatures. Dropping out of hyperspace.”
My heart stops for an entirely different reason.
“I don’t think they’re Meridian.”
