“I want you to train withus.” Kaede met his gaze directly, the psydagger’s hum underscoring his words. “Ryzen, you, and me. Three individuals who need to function as a single unit when we reach that station. Eshe is a fine warrior—skilled, disciplined, loyal—but her abilities are limited to shadow combat. Defensive positioning. Extraction protocols. She can’t do what we can.”
He gestured at the display, where tactical projections showed the three of them moving through simulated combat scenarios. Triangular formations. Overlapping fields of fire. The kind of coordinated violence that came from knowing your allies as well as yourself.
“Ryzen’s spirit daggers give him ranged precision and mental coordination. My psydagger and REI’s support systems provide close-quarters dominance and tactical awareness.” His gaze sharpened on Zyxel. “And you have genetic adaptation capabilities I’ve only seen in one other being. Selena.”
His voice hardened, edges clear as crystal.
“If you can learn to use that demi-human form effectively, you become an unknown variable. Something our enemies can’t predict or plan for.”
“A weapon they won’t see coming,”Zyxel murmured, understanding settling into his features.
“Exactly.”
Zyxel relaxed, just slightly. The tension in the room shifted from confrontation to something approaching collaboration—two predators recognizing a shared hunt.
“When do we begin?”
“Now.” Kaede deactivated the tactical display with a sharp gesture. “Show me your demi-human form. I need to assess what we’re working with before I can design training protocols.”
The reptilian medic hesitated, his tail curling inward.
“It’s been years since I shifted into that form. The process is... disorienting. Painful, sometimes. My body has to remember what it’s forgotten.”
“Then you’d better get used to disorientation fast.” Kaede’s tone brooked no argument. “We don’t have time for hesitation. Forty-seven hours, Zyxel. Every minute you spend uncertain is a minute we lose preparing.”
Something flickered in those chartreuse eyes. Old pain, maybe. The memory of a species hunted and scattered, forced to hide their true nature behind borrowed shapes. The loneliness of being the one of the last of his kind in this galaxy, always watching, always adapting, never trulybeing.
But beneath that pain, determination.
“Very well.”
Zyxel stood in the center of the war room like a weapon that didn’t need to be drawn to do damage.
Obsidian plates layered over a lean, predatory frame. Scutes caught the holographic spill and threw it back in hard edges along his shoulders and ribs. His head angled a fraction—tooprecise—tongue tasting the air as if it carried more information than sound ever could.
Kaede didn’t move.
He’d killed men for less than the way Zyxel watched him.
Kaede kept his face neutral. His body stayed ready.
Every assassin instinct measured distance, angles, exits. The strike window if Zyxel lunged. The dead space behind the tactical table. The reach on that tail if it snapped.
The male might be tied to his Star, but Kaede had seen bonds bend under stress. He’d watched base instinct chew through logic until nothing was left but need and violence. He’d watched Z slip in the early days—watched him fracture when Selena was taken, watched the shadow take inches and threaten to take everything.
So no, Kaede didn’t assume a bond was a guarantee.
What he’d asked—no,demanded—of Zyxel wasn’t small. It wasn’t polite. It wasn’t even fair.
It was pressure. A vise closing around their newest clanbrother and telling himbe less.
Hide what you are. Hide what you feel. Wear a shape that makes other people comfortable. Move through this war in a skin that isn’t yours because the mission needs it. Because Selena’s safety needs it. Because the cubs need a world that won’t stare long enough to plan.
Until the war was over.
Until Selena, the cubs, and the clan were safe.
Only then could Zyxel exhale. Only then could he be himself without turning their survival into a spectacle that drew hungry eyes.
