"Sit up straight, Ayla."
"Don’t salt your food at the table, it makes you look common."
"Speak only when spoken to."
Their voices are ghosts now, drifting through the scent of seared alien meat and smoke in this wild place. Here, Reapers shout when they’re happy. They fight when they’re bored. They tear meat with their fangs and slam their mugs down to toast. And they laugh—loud and honest.
My family’s formal dinners were silent performances. This is a feast.
I’m still chewing a bite of something surprisingly spicy when a shadow looms beside me.
"You don’t belong here," a voice snarls.
I look up. It’s one of the ones who stared earlier—jagged bone ridges along his jaw, teeth filed into points, his red eyes narrow and mean. He leans in too close, nostrils flaring like he’s sniffing a challenge.
"Collar or not," he sneers, "you're no better than a ship whore, dressed up for the Captain’s whims."
Brom’s half out of his seat before I can blink, claws cracking.
But I don’t need him.
I stand, lift my tray—and in one clean motion, I smash it against the bastard’s face.
Ceramic shatters. So does his nose. Blood splatters the table, my arm, the floor. He howls, more in shock than pain, but he stumbles back.
Every conversation in the room dies.
Brom freezes. Everyone else just stares.
I don’t flinch. My heart’s slamming in my ribs, but I stare the Reaper down, teeth bared like an animal. "Say that again," I snap. "Go on."
He doesn’t.
The doors at the far end hiss open.
Kallus walks in.
Every Reaper in the room either straightens or backs the hell off. Power rolls off him in waves, thick as smoke, heavy as gravity.
He surveys the scene—blood, broken crockery, me standing with my chest heaving and my arm bleeding from a shallow cut. His crimson eyes glitter.
Brom starts to speak. “She?—”
But Kallus lifts one hand, silencing him.
Then he turns his gaze on me. A slow, sharp smile curls his lips.
“My mate,” he says, voice dark silk, “doesn’t need a guard.”
The Reapers laugh—quick, shocked, and a little awed.
Kallus crosses the room, slow and deliberate, eyes never leaving mine. When he reaches me, he doesn’t say a word. He lifts me with absurd ease—two hands on my hips—and sets me on the table like I weigh nothing.
My breath catches. His scent hits me—smoke, steel, blood, and something older, wilder.
He leans in, mouth near my ear.
“You are perfect,” he murmurs.
