“Your Majesty.” Her voice was steady. Certain. “Your Royal Guard will continue with the relocation as planned, departing for Destima in three days.” A brief pause, then, softer—but no less resolute. “As Captain, I’ll remain with you until then. My mate and family will travel ahead with the others, reuniting with me on Destima.”
I stepped forward, hands closing gently around the captain’s forearm. “Thank you,” I murmured, feeling my words. “I know what this costs you. I’ve only just learned of the Quaww declaration of war—your presence means more than I can say.”
The Aldawi inclined her head, accepting the thanks without ceremony. Duty settled around her like armor.
“Come,” Kaede said, already guiding Selena forward again. “The royal spaceport is this way. You can catch up with your captain once we’re clear and on our way home.”
Eshe fell into step at once, flanking me on Kaede’s opposite side with practiced ease.
Behind me, Zyxel struggled to keep pace. His tail swept through the crowd, but his eyes kept darting to me, then to Kaede, then to the warriors streaming past—trying to determine if we were indeed protected from any nearby threat.
I reached back through our new bond, sending what reassurance I could manage. “I’m okay. Just try to stay close.”
His response hit immediately: fierce and absolute, devotion so sharp it hurt. “Always, myenax.I’m not leaving your side.”
The royal landing pad came into view, and the sight stopped me cold.
Zirene stood at the center of a controlled hurricane. His massive frame dominated the space, dark blue-almost black mane whipping in the wind from arriving shuttles, obsidian armor gleaming beneath his royal cloak. His aura blazed visibleeven to those without the ability to sense it—pure, black power that radiated authority and barely leashed violence.
Around him, V’dim and Z’fir flanked like mirror images, their usual calm replaced by battle-readiness. V’dim’s tentacles and Z’fir’s vines were coiled tight against their bodies—defensive stance—while scanning the area for any potential threats.
But it was the figure near the edge of the landing pad that drew my attention.
Ryzen stood there, tall and unnervingly still, peering up at the sky. His emerald runes flickered erratically across his skin—bright, then dim, then bright again—like a dying star struggling to maintain coherence. Around him, his spirit daggers swirled in a loose, unstable orbit, drifting without pattern or restraint. At times, they floated close enough to his face that my breath caught. Then they would snap away, sudden and violent, the motion sharp enough to make me flinch.
The others gave him a wide berth. Even Tori, who usually stayed close to the other ambassadors, watched from a careful distance behind Celyze’s protective wings.
“Selena.” Zirene’s voice cut through the chaos. Warriors parted as he strode toward me.
His paw cupped my face, tilting it up to search my eyes. Whatever he found there made something in his expression crack—just for a moment—before the mask of the Sovereign slammed back into place.
“You’re well?”
“I’mfine.” I pressed my hand over his, drawing on his presence even without a bond to anchor us. He’d refused that connection—but that didn’t make him any less mine. “Tell meeverything.”
2
Kaede
Selena’s hand pressed against Z’s paw as she demanded answers, and Kaede tracked every micro-expression that crossed the Sovereign’s face. The slight flicker of hesitation. The smallest tightening in his jaw, as if the words tasted like ash. The flicker at the corners of his eyes that betrayed just how bad things truly were.
War on two fronts.
And both sides wanted his Star.
One wanted her dead. The other alive.
Kaede’s fingers curled around the hilt of his psydagger until the grip bit into his palm. REI hummed against his consciousness—feeds layered over feeds, drone eyes blinking open across the landing pad, the city, the sky-lanes, the evacuation routes. Primary. Secondary. Tertiary. Every angle mapped. Every shadow assigned a probability.
None of it felt like enough.
He kept his mental shields locked down—iron walls between Selena and the terror clawing at his chest. She’d felt enough ofhis fear already. She’d caught a taste of it when he materialized inside that tent and found her wrapped in Zyxel’s embrace. Bare skin against crimson-tinted obsidian scales. A fresh bond thrumming between them like a wound that hadn’t decided whether it was healing or festering.
Later.
He would process that later.
Right now, he had a pregnant mate standing in the open, and an empire tipping toward fracture.
