What matters is the next pulse. The signal.
The tether.
I key into the biological array, overriding the standard protocols. It’s dangerous, untested—half-myth even among my kind—but I don’t care. Ayla is out there. And she called to me.
I press my bloodied palm to the panel and whisper the words in Ishani—the bond phrases, the ancient tongue. “Zhal’eh. Torth’a ven.”
The system hums.
Then it pings.
A single point of light flickers to life on the star map. Slow. Pulsing. Beckoning.
Bone resonance.
Scent trace.
She left a mark in me. Left her soul in my body, and now it draws me like a star’s own gravity.
I stare at the coordinates, the numbers resolving.
Sol system.
Earth.
Of course.
Of course they’d drag her back there. To the cradle of control. To the seat of every broken lie in the IHC’s throne.
Rage burns cold in my chest. Not fury. Not madness. Something deeper. Something righteous.
“I’m coming for you,” I growl, fangs bared.
The nav array flickers again. I don’t care if it dies in the next five minutes—I’ve got what I need.
I pull a hard yaw to starboard. The missing wing throws off my balance, makes the ship yawl sickeningly. In-atmosphere, I’d spiral and crash. But out here? In the clean, open silence of the void?
I’ve got room.
And fury.
And time.
The ship shudders again, metal groaning like an old warrior on his last march.
“We’ll make it,” I mutter, jaw clenched. “We always make it.”
The Earth glows ahead—blue and green, wrapped in cloud and tyranny.
She’s down there.
And hell’s coming with me.
CHAPTER 20
AYLA
Chelsea is my sun and my storm. She barrels through life with fierce, unpredictable energy—brighter than fire, sharper than stars. Her eyes shimmer violet when she’s excited, red when she’s angry, and no one else seems to notice except me.
