He didn’t envy it. He’d made peace with the architecture of her heart weeks ago—a structure that held many rooms, each one essential, each one differently shaped to accommodate a different kind of devotion. His room was newer. Quieter.
But it was his. And he would fill it well.
Zyxel watched the way Kaede held her—the absolute control in his arms, the barely perceptible adjustment of his grip to accommodate the weight of her belly, the way his chin dipped to press against her hair. Possessive. Protective. Reverent.
The same way Zyxel had held her the night the war began. Different body. Different anatomy. Same consuming need to keep her whole.
“She needs her nestbed.” Kaede’s voice had shifted—still controlled, but something beneath the ice had cracked open. He was speaking to himself as much as them. “And she needs her mates.”
He looked at Zyxel.
Not Ryzen.Him.
“Come with me.”
Not a request.
Zyxel followed.
Through the corridor that connected the observation lounge to theAbyss’s residential wing, past the crew quarters where Eshe’s Royal Guard ran their rotational watch, toward the nestbed chamber Kaede had configured for this journey. The ship’s lighting dimmed automatically as they moved deeper—recognizing the route, anticipating the need.
Kaede walked without hurry. Each step measured, deliberate—the stride of a male who fully understood that the female in his arms was the most valuable cargo this ship had ever carried and refused to jostle her for the sake of speed.
Through the crimson bond, Zyxel tracked Selena’s state. Still unconscious. Still drained.
Behind them, Zyxel felt Ryzen’s presence at the edge of his awareness—not following but watching. The Verya male stood at the threshold of the lounge, spirit daggers settled to low orbit, emerald runes dim against his forearms. His expression held something Zyxel couldn’t name.
Not jealousy. Not longing.
Purpose.
The male had been a just commander barely a few months ago. A Verya—one of the very people they’d all sworn to protect. And now he stood at the edge of their circle, held at arm’s length by circumstance and species and the complicated politics of a bond that existed but hadn’t been claimed, and he stayed anyway. Guarded anyway.
Zyxel understood that particular kind of devotion. The kind that lived in the gap between welcome and belonging.
The door to the nestbed chamber opened at Kaede’s approach—biometrics reading his signature, the lock disengaging without sound. Inside, the space held the particular warmth Selena demanded of any room she slept in—golden-toned lighting at ten percent, temperature calibrated to herpreference, the bed massive and layered with the silk sheets and pillows, and weighted blankets that grounded her.
Kaede laid her down gently. Her head found the pillow. Her body settled into the sheets. One of his hands lingered on her belly, palm flat, feeling the life beneath.
Zyxel stood in the doorway and understood what was being asked of him.
Not protection. Not strategy. Not the scholar’s analysis or the warrior’s readiness.
Presence.
Kaede looked up. The visor was off—rare enough that it registered as significant. His neon-green eyes held the particular exhaustion of a male who’d spent the past week holding the galaxy together through sheer refusal to let it collapse, and who was now, in the quiet of this room, admitting that he couldn’t do it alone.
“She’ll wake disoriented.” Kaede’s voice was low. Rough. “The bonds will be thinner and strained. She’ll reach for the others and find cold distance instead of warmth.”
A pause. Heavy with everything he didn’t say.
“Be here when she does.”
Zyxel crossed the threshold.
He lowered himself onto the edge of the bed—this strange, flat body folding into the space with a care that felt almost adequate—and settled his hand over Selena’s. Her fingers were cool beneath his. Through the crimson thread, he felt the faintest pulse of recognition. A flicker. A sigh.
“I’m here,”he sent. “We’re here.”
