Through the bond, I felt him. Not his thoughts—not yet, not clearly—but his presence, dense and searching. He was poking at the connection the way someone prods a bruise to test the damage. Careful. Confused. Mapping the boundaries of something neither of us had a manual for.
I pulled back gently. Gave him room.
He’d spent three centuries behind walls that didn’t exist anymore. The least I could do was let him figure out where the new ones were.
Kaede sat in the chair across the room. Same chair he’d been in when I fell asleep. Same chair he’d probably occupied all night, because Kaede didn’t sleep when he was processing, and I’d given him a lot to process.
Ryzen stood at the far wall, dressed now—pants, vest, the long dark hair tied back with something that looked improvised. He glanced at me when I shifted, and the bond pulsed. Recognition. Uncertainty. The particular awkwardness of a male who’d shared his soul with someone almost eighteen hours ago and wasn’t sure what the morning-after protocol looked like.
Fair enough. I wasn’t entirely sure either.
My stomach settled the question for all of us.
The growl that ripped through the quiet was loud enough to echo off the sparse walls. Not a polite rumble. A demand—deep, angry, the kind of sound that belonged in a docking bay, not a bedroom.
Both males looked at me.
Kaede’s eyebrow lifted a fraction. Ryzen’s expression shifted into something that might have been alarm—hard to tell with a Verya, but the bond carried a spike of genuine concern, as if he thought the noise had come from something more dangerous than an empty stomach.
“It’s hunger,” I said flatly. “Not a hull breach.”
I reached for the living suit disk on the bedside surface—Kaede had placed it there, because of course he had, because even furious and processing and sitting vigil in a chair all night, he’d still made sure my things were within reach. I pressed my thumb against the smooth center and felt the familiar hum as the biosuit activated, crawling up from the contact point in a wave of dark fabric that sealed around my body like a second skin.
I stretched. Rolled my shoulders. Tested the fit. My daughter shifted inside me—a flutter, faint but present—and I pressed a hand to my stomach.
Hungry. Both of us.
I turned to Ryzen. He was watching me with that careful, searching look he’d worn since the bond settled—like he was seeing a version of me he hadn’t had access to before and was still deciding how to catalogue it.
“We can figure out the details later.” I kept my voice steady. Warm, but not pushing. “Training. Instructions. How the spirit daggers work. All of it.” My stomach growled again—shorter this time, impatient. “For now, I need food.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite a smile—Ryzen didn’t smile easily—but the tension in his jaw loosened,and through the bond I felt a thread of relief so sharp it bordered on gratitude.
He’d been bracing for regret. For recrimination. For the morning-after conversation where the weight of what they’d done crashed down and someone started looking for an exit.
I wouldn’t give him that. What we’d built last night wasn’t a mistake. It was a choice—mine and his—and I’d carry it forward the way I carried every thread in my web.
“Thank you,” I said quietly. “For what you gave me.”
The emerald bond pulsed. Steady. Warm.
He inclined his head. Said nothing. But the bond said enough.
Kaede’s hand found the small of my back before I’d fully cleared the doorframe.
Not a request. Not a guide. A claim—firm, warm, deliberate—his fingers splayed wide against the base of my spine as he steered me into the corridor. Possessive in the quiet, practiced way that was so fundamentally Kaede I could have identified the touch blindfolded in a crowd of a thousand males.
I let him.
TheAbysshummed around us—engines, ventilation, the deep-space vibration that had become white noise over three days of travel. The corridor was empty at this hour, grey walls and recessed lighting stretching ahead toward the mess hall, and our footsteps fell into a rhythm that should have felt comfortable.
It didn’t.
Kaede’s silence had texture. Weight. I’d spent enough years with this male to read the difference between his thinking-quiet and his processing-quiet, and this was the latter—the kind of silence that meant gears were turning behind those golden eyes, churning through something he hadn’t decided how to articulate yet.
He wasn’t angry. I’d felt his anger through the bond before, and it burned clean and sharp, a psyblade with a clear edge. This was murkier. Complicated. The particular turmoil of a male who understood the strategic logic of what I’d done and hated that the logic was necessary.
I didn’t push.
