No Hyrakki female would take him into the ritual that bound mates and stabilised the warrior. They did not do it from cruelty. They did it from self-preservation. A Kha’Ruun apex, especially one whose internal regulation was fraying, was a lethal prospect even under law.
It had been made plain to him in silence, in averted eyes, in the way female scent-lines pulled away when he approached. He did not blame them. A prey animal did not owe a predator its throat.
He had adapted. He had told himself reproduction was irrelevant. The Kha’Ruun did not reproduce in the conventional sense. Their bloodlines were managed by the Sael whether they wished it or not. If a recessive convergence occurred again, the city would claim that infant too.
And yet?—
Bondingwas not reproduction. Bonding was regulation. A stabilising infrastructure built into the species.
Without it, the warrior became untethered.
The Sael had a word for it. A cold, administrative term that reduced madness to paperwork.
Zhoren used it without flinching.
Makrath did not.
He had felt the tether fray in his own nerves, in the way his armour responded too quickly, in the way his tail wanted to lash not for balance but to strike. He could control it in the field because violence gave him a release valve.
But the release was no longer enough.
The yearning grew again, a low, persistent drag beneath his ribs. It did not feel like desire the way civilians spoke of it, bright and optional. It felt like pressure in a sealed chamber. It felt like his body was building toward fracture.
His gaze shifted forward. Zhoren’s head was slightly inclined, as if listening to a voice no one else could hear.
Makrath could hear it too, if he allowed himself.
Not a voice. A reality.
They were going to a meeting point controlled by the Marak in neutral territory. A station whose existence was a political compromise and a quiet warning: the Marak could project power anywhere and chose to permit trade instead of conquest.
They were going to speak to Karian.
Makrath had seen the Marak only in recordings, always masked, always calm, always framed as a figure of control. He was the first among the galaxy’s powerbrokers to claim a human mate and live.
That fact had travelled through networks and gossip channels like a pheromone trail. Traders spoke of it with fascination. Warriors spoke of it with either contempt or uneasy curiosity. The Sael spoke of it the way they spoke of weapons platforms: as an asset with implications.
Makrath felt nothing about it.
No admiration. No animosity. No envy.
Karian was simply another apex entity in the ecosystem.
Strange species, the Marak. Built for dominance, but with different rules.
The craft’s engine note shifted. A faint change in pitch. The negotiator sat back. Zhoren rose with deliberate economy, robe settling around him as if gravity obeyed.
“We are approaching,” Zhoren said without looking at Makrath.
Makrath did not move. “I have eyes.”
Zhoren’s silence was a reprimand delivered without words. Then, softer, still not gentle: “Do nothing disrespectful. The Marak is not one of our district heads. He is not Sael. He will not tolerate the same allowances.”
Makrath’s armour rippled once along his forearm, a reflex that wanted to become a blade. He forced it flat again.
“You fear him,” Makrath said.
Zhoren’s gaze slid back, cool and assessing. “I respect him. There is a difference.”
