My hands were steady. My pulse was calm.
Something had shifted.
I walked faster, my boots echoing in the empty corridor. The fear that usually crept in after adrenaline faded—the second-guessing, the spiraling—didn't come.
Instead, clarity.
I'd been here before. Different ships, different men, same pattern. I'd blamed the timing, the circumstances, the men themselves. But it was never them.
It was me.
I'd never trusted myself enough to let anyone all the way in. Never believed I was accomplished enough, steady enough, worthy enough to be loved without conditions.
But today I'd beaten Voss. Reclaimed what he stole. Planned the infiltration, executed it, turned my own research into the weapon that saved us.
The Knights hadn't saved me.
I'd saved myself. And them.
I'd thought loving four men would be impossible—like being pulled in four directions at once.
But I'd had it backwards.
This wasn't four separate bonds. It was one gravity well, and I was the center. They orbited me. I orbited them. We held each other in place.
I stopped outside my quarters, one hand on the door panel.
For the first time, I saw what they'd been seeing all along.
Not a liability. Not someone who needed saving.
An equal.
I smiled—slow, surprised by the warmth spreading through my chest.
I wasn't running toward something out of fear or desperation.
I was choosing it. Them.
Acceptance. Belonging. Love.
The tether hummed beneath my skin, a low steady pull that had been there since the desert. Since the kiss in the corridor. Since Vaelix's mouth on mine in the lab.
It wasn't asking anymore.
It was waiting.
I exhaled, and something unknotted in my chest—tension I'd carried so long I'd stopped noticing it. The need to prove myself. The fear of failing. The certainty that I'd never be enough.
Gone.
Torvyn, whose iron control shattered the moment he kissed me.
Kaedren, who'd bled for me without hesitation.
Lyrin, who saw through every wall I built and refused to let me hide.
Vaelix, who matched my mind and made me feel like I was finally, finally understood.
