But beneath the fear, something harder formed.
Purpose.
The Quaww wanted war. The Verya wanted his mate.
Both would learn what happened when they reached for what belonged to him.
Kaede turned toward theAbyss, already calculating angles, speed, timing. REI hummed in his mind as drones repositioned into escort formation.
He would burn anyone who tried to touch her.
Every. Single. One.
3
Zirene
Three border systems burning. Seventeen vessels confirmed destroyed. Casualty projections climbing by the hour.
Zirene stared at the numbers until they stopped being numbers and started being faces.
It still didn’t make sense. The Quaww had been a nuisance for years—sharp beaks at the edge of his territory, hissing but contained. Now they were punching through Aldawi space like they’d been waiting for permission.
TheShadowClaw’swar room stayed cold enough to bite. Tactical light washed everything in bruised blues and warning reds, holograms painting hard angles over metal and fur. His shadow rippled across the walls anyway—restless, offended, barely leashed. Quaww fleet positions blinked on the three-dimensional star map like a spreading infection—and every pulse felt personal.
These were his ships burning. His people dying. His failure.
Royak stood at the central display, voice tight but steady. “These weren’t opportunistic raids.” He dragged a clawthrough the hologram, and crimson lines flared—attack vectors, timing windows, hit sequences. “They struck supply lines, communication relays, and defensive installations within the same hour. Coordinated. Clean.”
Zirene’s claws curled against the railing, cold metal biting into the pads. The chill had seeped into his bones hours ago. He barely noticed.
Royak’s next words landed harder.
“Someone fed them our patrol schedules. Everything.”
“A traitor.” V’dim’s tentacles coiled tight against his torso, turquoise eyes fixed on the map. His usual diplomatic polish was gone. What remained was a prince who understood war. “Within our ranks.”
“Or someone with access.” Z’fir’s vines flexed around his waist, their usual graceful movements sharp with tension. “Clearance that high narrows the list.”
Short list. Close list.
Zirene felt the empire press against his shoulders—centuries of rule, laws written in blood, promises he’d made to his people and meant. Commanders’ faces filled the secondary screens along the curved walls. Battle-hardened males with ceremonial markings and exhausted eyes, awaiting orders.
They’d held the line during the Yarrkins’s War. They’d survived his sire’s madness. They’d buried too many and still shown up to serve.
Now they looked to him again.
One screen held Kaede: visor reflecting theAbyss’scontrol glow, the assassin shadowing theShadowClaw’s trajectory. Coiled violence sat in the line of his shoulders, barely restrained. The Fab Five flanked him on adjacent feeds, lethal even in stillness.
Zirene should’ve stayed on them. On the numbers. On the star map.
Instead, his gaze kept drifting to a smaller screen tucked into the corner, away from the tactical overlays.
Selena.
His Nova reclined on a cushioned chaise in the private lobby, the cubs curled against her like living warmth. Meti’s silver-streaked fur caught the ambient light as she pressed into Selena’s side. Nocrez and Neazzos had claimed the space near her feet, small bodies rising and falling with sleep-breath.
Selena’s short silver hair spilled over her pillow. Even through the screen’s imperfect transmission, Zirene saw the exhaustion shadowing her eyes.
