To protect both my own and my children’s lives.
I had no reason for jealousy. None at all.
Eshe wasn’t an assassin lurking in shadows—she was a soldier who had earned every stripe on her fur, a warrior forged and hardened by years of security work on Liskta. Now she stood as my Beacon’s Security Captain, burnt-orange tabby fur marked with white swirls, green eyes sharp with purpose rather than intrigue.
And Kaede wasmine.
Not in the fragile, possessive way fear demanded—but in the way certainty settled. He was my mate. The father of my cubs. The sire of the daughter growing beneath my ribs. Nothing Eshe did, nothing she was, threatened that truth. She had a mate of her own. Cubs waiting for her. A life already full.
If anything, I hoped this—whatever was beginning between us—could grow into something steady and lasting. Respect. Trust. Friendship.
We would need women like Eshe beside us in the days ahead. And I had no desire to stand alone when I could standwithher.
They were discussing protection protocols for the CEG visit. Security measures for presenting me to a galactic council filledwith species who viewed humans as curiosities at best, threats at worst. The Beacon of the Aldawi Empire, pregnant with the Shadow-Nova’s daughter, standing before beings who might want her dead.
Wonderful.
I watched Zyxel’s massive form uncoil from beside Xylo, his serpentine body gliding across the grass with predatory grace to join the security discussion. His scales caught the light as he moved. He offered something to the conversation that made Kaede’s head tilt—probably his knowledge of Verya tactics, the hard-won intelligence his species had gained during their escape from Verya territory.
Listening. Considering.
Three days ago, Kaede would have dismissed Zyxel without a second thought. The serpent was too new, too untested, too recent in our constellation to earn the assassin’s trust.
Now he was being integrated into security planning.
War made strange allies.
Movement drew my attention to the villa’s side path. Three Swynemi males approached—Tori’s mates, their iridescent wings folded against their backs like cloaks of captured sunlight. Celyze led them, his sapphire skin catching the light as silver speckles flickered across his features in restless patterns.
That the speckles shifted with his emotions was something I’d learned over these past weeks. Right now they danced like stars caught in a wind, speaking of restlessness he didn’t voice. Of the need to move, to fly, to escape the tension that pressed down on all of us.
“The sky calls to us.” His voice carried the musical quality all Swynemi possessed, pitched for Tori’s ears but reaching mine easily. “Might we stretch our wings?”
Tori’s hand found mine beneath the gazebo’s railing, squeezed once. A silent question. Will you be all right?
I squeezed back. Go.
“Of course.” Her voice came out steady, warm with the affection she held for her mates. “I’ll be fine with Selena and Oeta.”
The Swynemi males needed no further encouragement. They backed toward the open lawn, wings unfurling in synchronized grace—three sets of gossamer membranes that caught the light like stained glass. And then they were rising, their powerful forms lifting effortlessly toward Destima’s late morning sky.
I watched until they became distant specks against the clouds.
Flight. Such freedom. The ability to simply leave—to take to the sky and escape the weight of everything that pressed down from every direction.
I couldn’t remember the last time anything felt free. Perhaps at the Harvest Festival, when my mates were behaving.
The cubs’ laughter had faded to quieter play, V’dim guiding them through some swimming game that involved tentacle-made obstacles and dramatically exaggerated failures on his part. With the Swynemi gone, the air around the gazebo grew heavier. More intimate.
More honest.
“Your people.” I turned to Oeta, abandoning the pretense of casual conversation. “The Nyaviel. If the war spreads—if things get worse—would they help us?”
I couldn’t quite shape the full desperation of the question. Couldn’t admit out loud that I was grasping for any hope, any ally, any force that might tip the scales in our favor.
Oeta’s fuchsia aura dimmed, darkening toward something that looked almost like regret. Her telepathic presence brushed mine—not intruding, never that, just acknowledging. She had been a good friend to me, using her considerable mental gifts to help me understand my own developing abilities.
But friendship and politics were different creatures entirely.
