Defiant. Ready. The expression of a woman who’d already made her decision and wasn’t interested in negotiating its reversal.
He knew that face. Had loved it and been gutted by it in equal measure for years.
Too late. She’d already done it. The weapon was inside her now, and they were out of time to discuss it. Out of time to argue about tactical communication, about the hundred conversations they should have had before she absorbed a spirit weapon into her body on the doorstep of hostile territory.
Through the bond, he felt her. Braced for his anger. Chin up. Spine straight. Willing to take whatever he threw at her because she’d decided this was necessary and Selena didn’t flinch from the consequences of her own choices.
She never had.
That was the thing about loving her. The same quality that made her magnificent made her impossible.
His jaw tightened. A hundred words pressed against the back of his teeth—every one of them true, every one of them useless right now.
The delegation awaited. The station was docked. The Royal Guard was in formation, and every second they spent in this room was a second wasted.
Timing. Always timing. She’d done it on purpose—absorbed the weapon at the last possible moment, when there was no margin left for the argument they both knew was coming. Smart. Infuriating. Tactically sound.
He’d trained her too well.
“We will talk about this.” Low. Quiet. The voice he used when the volume didn’t need to do the work because the intent carried all the weight.
Selena held his gaze. “I know.”
“Later.”
“Later,” she agreed.
The word hung between them—a promise and a threat and an admission that later was a luxury neither of them could guarantee.
Kaede crossed the distance between them in three strides. His hand found her arm—the arm she’d just absorbed an emerald spirit dagger into—and his fingers pressed against the living suit where the blade had vanished. Warm. Steady. No trace of the weapon except the faintest hum of spiritforce beneath the surface, like a pulse running parallel to her own.
She didn’t pull away.
He adjusted his grip. Tucked her arm through his. Drew her close enough that he could feel her heartbeat through the suit—fast, controlled, the rhythm of someone who was frightened and refusing to show it.
His star. His catastrophe.
Always.
“Stay close,” he said. Not to her. To all of them—Zyxel, who shifted to her other flank; Ryzen, who materialized from the corridor with spirit daggers hidden in his own skin; Eshe, who fell into position behind with the Royal Guard at her back.
Formation locked.
Kaede led them toward the airlock.
The Aldawi royal docking bay opened before them in a sweep of polished metal and recessed lighting—a wide corridor designed to impress, its architecture engineered to make arriving delegations feel simultaneously welcomed and watched. Security alcoves at regular intervals. Sensors embedded in the walls at heights calibrated to scan every species in the known galaxy.
Kaede cataloged all of it. Exits. Choke points. Lines of fire.
The bridge stretched ahead—a long, enclosed walkway connecting the docking berth to the royal quarters deeper inside the station. Transparent walls on either side offered a view of the station’s interior—other bays, other ships, the distant movement of personnel going about the business of interstellar neutrality.
Station officials lined the corridor. Uniformed, armed with ceremonial sidearms, standing at attention as the Aldawi delegation passed. They bowed as Selena walked by—deep, formal inclinations that acknowledged her status.
Kaede watched every one of them.
Hands. Eyes. Breathing patterns. The micro-tells that separated someone performing duty from someone performing deception. He’d spent a lifetime reading bodies the way other people read text, and right now every page was coming up clean.
Too clean.
