Brom stands behind me, arms crossed, unreadable. He knows what I won’t say aloud.
Ayla.
She’s the reason the IHC is sniffing so close to our borders. I feel it in my bones, in the ache that’s only quiet when she sleeps in my arms. Her family’s influence runs deep. Her scent is no longer just hers—it’s twined withmine, but the galaxy doesn’t care. They want her back.
I willneverlet them take her.
“We are Reapers,” growls Rhess, a younger chieftain, still eager to prove his bloodlust. “We should strike now. Send a message.”
“To who?” Sahrak barks. “The entire human armada? The Trident Alliance?” He spits. “You want to duel the Vakutan? Their warriors come in swarms and don’t sleep for weeks. You want to test our blades against that?”
The room quiets again. Even Rhess grits his teeth and says nothing.
“The IHC has always tolerated our raids,” Oshen says, voice low now. “We strike their transports, take their goods, disappear into shadow. They chalk it up to cost of doing business. But now? Something’s changed.”
They’re circling it. The truth. The why. I see it in their eyes. Suspicion.
I say nothing. I let them speak.
“Maybe we have something they want,” Yul’sha says, tapping clawed fingers on her seat. “Maybe one of us has… taken something important.”
Her gaze cuts to me. She doesn’t say Ayla’s name. Not yet. But it’s close.
I stare her down. Calm. Flat. “Let them come. We’re ready.”
But that’s a lie. We’renotready. The clans are many, but fractured. Our tech is primitive beside IHC’s. Our numbers? Pathetic compared to the endless surge of Earth-born conscripts. And the Trident Alliance is a beast that fights without mercy. If they come, we bleed.
“Then we agree,” Oshen grunts. “Double patrols. Keep scouts in the outer systems. If they breach again, we strikeonlyif provoked.”
The resolution passes. Tense. Uneasy. No unity—just the thinnest veil of cooperation. The holo-feed fades one by one, and I remain alone in the silence.
Brom doesn’t speak until the last image flickers out.
“You should’ve told them.”
“No.”
“Theyknow, Kallus. Maybe not the full truth, but they suspect.”
“Theyguess,” I growl. “And guessing is not enough to risk clan war. If they knew she was IHC elite? They’d demand her as sacrifice. Or proof of loyalty. Or?—”
“Or tear you down and claim her for themselves.”
I rise from the seat, muscles coiled with a fury I don’t release. Not yet.
“I willscour the starsbefore I let her go.”
Brom bows his head. “Then we prepare. Because when the truth comes out…”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. He doesn’t have to.
I return to my quarters with the taste of ozone still on my tongue and blood-song humming low in my chest. The Relentless breathes around me—metal bones cooling, engines settling—but inside this room, the air has changed.
She’s quiet.
Ayla sits curled on the edge of the sleeping platform, bare feet tucked beneath her, fingers laced together in her lap. The fire I left burning in her hasn’t gone out—but it’s banked now, glowing deep, contemplative. Her hair spills loose down her back, pale against the dark pelts. She looks small like this.
Dangerously small.
