If I hadn’t listened to instinct...
The thought is unacceptable.
I cup her cheek with my other hand, letting the clawed edges of my thumb hover just shy of skin. She doesn’t pull away.
“They’re not just trying to scare me anymore,” I say, voice low. “They’re trying to end this. Fast. Dirty.”
She nods. Her breath fogs against my wrist. “I noticed.”
I let out a slow, bitter laugh.
She presses her palm to my chest, right over the place where my pulse thunders like war drums.
“You saved my life,” she says.
“I told you,” I murmur, “you stand close to a Reaper, and hewillclaim you.”
Her gaze flickers. “And what if I’m already halfway claimed?”
The words taste like a promise.
And a warning.
Either way, there’s no going back now.
Aria’s eyes taunt me as the infernal bloom of a star going supernova. Her gaze lingers, tossed over her shoulder like the carcass of a slain enemy. I’m so enthralled, I fail to register looming shape. One of the attackers survived.
I move fast, yet i know it will not be enough. My forearm blocks the brunt of the cudgel’s impact, but Aria crumples like an accordion.
I don’t even register killing the man. I’m beyond rage, in a place where he is nothing but a threat to be eliminated so i can deal with the real emergency--my mate, my woman, laying in a heap and needing help.
I scoop her up into my arms. It’s as if she weighs nothing. She’s breathing, but pale. Too pale.
“Hang on, please,” I sputter, clutching her to my chest. “There’s a safehouse not far from here. Just hang on.”
CHAPTER 9
ARIA DAWSON
The sheets are too crisp, the lights too soft, and the quiet hum of the monitoring drones far too loud. The infirmary has always unsettled me—something about its sterile mercy, the way everything smells like citrus and antiseptic, like a lie that tries too hard to be clean. But this morning, none of it registers. Not really.
Because the first thing I feel isn’t pain.
It’s warmth.
Not in the room. Not even in my skin. It’s a memory—of arms like iron wrapped around me, a heartbeat that felt more like a war drum, low and steady and impossibly soothing under that grotesque, lethal exterior.
Aebon.
Damn him.
I sit up too fast. The world spins. The datapad beside the bed blinks to life and shows stable vitals. I ignore it.
My mind’s a minefield.
I tell myself it was shock or gratitude. The aftermath of trauma can do strange things—people bond to their rescuers, cling to familiar touches. It's a textbook. It’s psychological noise.
But my pulse betrays me. It flutters like wings in a bottle.
