She hadn’t seen this form yet.
He’d transformed in Kaede’s war room—just for the assassin to evaluate, to critique, to declare himpassablewith the kind of dismissive efficiency that made Zyxel want to hiss.
But Selena hadn’t been there. Hadn’t seen her newest mate stripped of the serpentine form she’d accepted. Hadn’t witnessed him standing upright like a pale imitation of the demi-humans she already knew.
He wondered if she would be disappointed. She was used to Kaede’s demi-human silhouette—the Ezzaska hybrid who had claimed her first, who moved through the world like violence given form. But Kaede had grown into his skin. Had spent years honing this body into a lethal instrument.
Zyxel felt like a newborn learning to walk.
He would do this for her.
Kaede’s logic wasn’t flawed. If Zyxel was supposed to protect Selena on the CEG Space Station, he needed to blend in. His Ezzaska form—the naga silhouette that had become his identity—would draw attention, for there were no others within this galaxy. Questions. Fear. And on neutral territory crawling with representatives from species who had fled Verya conquest, the last thing their Beacon needed was a bodyguard who looked like somethingdifferent.
So he would learn to fight in this unfamiliar skin. He would learn to move, to strike, to defend without the weapons his body was born with—he was used to.
A weapon she can wield.
That was what he’d promised Kaede. That was what he intended to become.
Across the grassy field, Kaede waited.
Kaede stood with perfect stillness, a pair of practice stun daggers resting loose in his hands—not humming, not flashing, just waiting. Their matte surfaces caught the golden light without reflecting it, deliberately unremarkable. His visor was up, slitted neon-green eyes locked on Zyxel with cold precision. Measuring. Assessing. Cataloging every imbalance, every hesitation Zyxel hadn’t yet learned to conceal.
To the side, Ryzen stood with arms crossed, his spirit daggers orbiting in lazy patterns around his shoulders. Eight blades of emerald-edged light traced slow arcs through the air, their movement almost meditative. The Verya’s long golden hair caught the breeze, emerald streaks glinting like the runes mapped across his golden pale skin.
Ryzen’s grief hung heavy in the air around him—that constant ache of the severed twin bond that colored everything he did. Zyxel had known the brothers before. Had patched their wounds after countless battles, listened to their banter, watched the way they moved in perfect synchronization like two halves of one whole.
Similar to V’dim and Z’fir, and how close Xylo and Odelm were trying to become.
Now Xenak was a prisoner of the Verya, and Ryzen was here. Training. Fighting. Channeling his devastation into purpose because the alternative was drowning in it.
Neither looked impressed with Zyxel’s current state.
Zyxel tasted the air—an instinct that survived the transformation—and caught the mineral tang of approaching combat. The strong, sweet and salty scent of spiked adrenaline sweat. His venom glands responded automatically, pulsing warmth through his fangs as his body prepared itself to defend what was his.
Onlytheyweren’t his enemies. And yet, his new instincts didn’t know this.
“Ready?” Kaede’s voice carried no inflection. No mockery. Just a question that allowed only one answer.
Before Zyxel could respond, Kaede flicked his wrist and sent one of the stun daggers spinning through the air. Zyxel’s reflexes kicked in on instinct—his hand snapped up and closed around the hilt a heartbeat before it could hit the floor.
He adjusted his grip, settling into the closest approximation of a fighting stance his unfamiliar legs would allow. “Ready.”
Kaede moved.
No warning. No signal. One heartbeat he was standing still, and the next his stun dagger was singing toward Zyxel’s throat—a blur that his eyes barely tracked before impact.
Zyxel’s arms came up too slow. His weight shifted wrong. His legs tangled against each other like they belonged to someone else.
Grass slammed into his back as the sky wheeled overhead. The air rushed out of his lungs in a grunt that sounded nothing like the warning hiss his true form would have produced. His spine hit the ground hard enough to rattle his teeth.
Kaede stood over him, psydagger hovering at his throat, not even breathing hard. “Your weight is wrong.”
Not mockery. Correction.
Zyxel processed the observation as he would any clinical data, cataloging the failure for analysis. His center of gravity had been too high. His knees hadn’t bent far enough. He’d tried to move like a serpent instead of a biped—coiling where he should have stepped, swaying where he should have pivoted.
Decades of muscle memory working against him.
