The hiss is too soft for the AI to register. It doesn’t trigger the alarm. Doesn’t ping the security grid. But my body knows.
That hiss—pressurized seals breaking open.
Balcony door.
Fifty floors up.
Nobody should be out there.
My hand closes around the stun baton before my brain catches up. I don’t breathe. I just roll off the couch, silent, soft as shadow, and crouch low behind the kitchen island. The baton hums faintly in my grip, charged and ready.
Another sound now—just a whisper of footfall, but it thuds like a war drum in my chest. Not boots. Not shoes. Something heavier. Denser. Clawed.
My skin prickles.
I lean just far enough to glimpse the figure easing through the open balcony door.
And my brain short-circuits.
Red scales. Broad shoulders. Armor-black ops gear molded over an impossibly massive frame. The man—no, thecreature—moves like a trained predator. Steady. Purposeful. Silent as death.
I suck in a breath, just a small one.
He stops.
His head tilts slightly. Gold eyes scan the room, glowing faintly in the low light.
I freeze.
And then he says it. His voice isn’t loud—it’s gravel and heat and something else I feel in my spine.
“I’m here to keep you alive.”
My body reacts before I can think. I rise fast, baton raised.
“Back off or I fry you where you stand!”
His eyes lock onto me. There’s no surprise in them. No fear. Just... recognition.
“Rhea.”
My name, from his mouth, hits like a bullet dipped in memories.
No. It can’t be.
My grip tightens. “Who the hell are you?”
He steps forward slowly, palms up.
“You already know.”
He’s taller than the doorway, broader than any human I’ve ever seen. His black ops gear looks Alliance-issued, but modified—too advanced, too tailored. Tactical panels, dampening mesh, low-profile stealth tech. And his skin—or scales—is the color of deep, wet rubies. Under the collar, I see the faint pulse of bioarmor fused with organic flesh.
Vakutan.
Not just any.
Only one ever called me by name like that, with thattone.
