The pleasure had released something—tension I’d been carrying for days, weeks, before Zirene left for the war. The constant vigilance. The endless worry. The weight of being everyone’s Beacon while my constellation scattered across the galaxy.
For this one moment, I was just Selena.
Tired. Satisfied. Loved.
“The nestbed,” Odelm said, reading my exhaustion with his empath’s precision. “We’ll carry you.”
I didn’t protest when Xylo lifted me into his arms. Didn’t argue when Odelm fell into step beside us, one hand resting protectively on my belly.
Below, the training session continued. Kaede’s voice drifted up—sharp commands, corrections, the relentless push toward perfection.
Through my bonds, I felt them all.
Zyxel’s determination and distraction, his mind split between combat and the memory of my pleasure.
Kaede’s focus, absolute and unwavering, driving his clanbrothers toward excellence.
Ryzen’s grief-forged purpose, his spirit daggers moving in patterns that honored the brother he’d lost.
Further away—V’dim and Z’fir, preparing for their deployment to the sol system. The echoing ache of coming separation.
And across the stars, Zirene. My Shadow. Fighting a war while I grew heavy with our daughter.
The thoughts softened as sleep claimed me.
I drifted under, wrapped in warmth and steady presence, guarded by my mates, held by a love that asked nothing of me in that moment.
15
Selena
Darkness.
Velvet-thick and endless, wrapping around me like a cocoon. The last thing I remembered was Odelm’s arms, Xylo’s steady presence, the bone-deep exhaustion finally winning its war against my stubborn will to stay awake.
Then nothing.
Until the darkness began to shift.
Color bled into the void—deep blues and purples at first, then bursts of vibrant color. The ground solidified beneath my feet. Warm air kissed my skin, carrying the salt-sweet scent of my lavender ocean. And above me, spreading across the sky like scattered diamonds, stars emerged one by one until the heavens blazed with light.
The familiar tropical paradise of my dreamscape surrounded me.
I stood on the porch of the villa that overlooked the island, leaning against the stone railing as I listened to the peaceful sounds of the lilac waves crashing onto the white sand shorebelow. The gentle cadence soothed something deep in my chest—that constant, gnawing ache I carried in the waking world. Colorful plant life glowed softly under the starlight, bioluminescent blooms painting the darkness with touches of gold and teal and pale green.
Peace.
True, absolute peace.
Here, in this private sanctuary that existed only between Zirene’s mind and mine, everything else fell away. The bonds to my other mates—those constant threads of awareness that hummed through my consciousness every waking moment—had gone silent. Not severed. Never that. But muted into nothing, as if they existed in another universe entirely.
No Kaede. No V’dim or Z’fir. No Xylo or Odelm or Zyxel or Ryzen.
No war. No politics. No weight of duty pressing down on my shoulders.
Just this. Just silence. Just the waves and the stars and the warm breeze stirring my silver hair.
I drew in a slow breath, letting the quiet sink into my bones. In the waking world, I’d forgotten what it felt like to exist without the constant awareness of six other souls connected to mine. The hum of the web had become so familiar I barely noticed it anymore—until it was gone, and the absence felt like finally setting down a weight I hadn’t realized I’d been carrying.
