A soft hand touched my arm. Iris. Her fingers were gentle but grounding, pulling me back to the present. I wasn’t on a battlefield. I was in ancient ruins with my mate, and we were alive.
I covered her hand with mine, steadying myself.
She tugged me deeper into the shadows, her voice barely a whisper against my ear. “I can see in the dark. My left eye. Trust me.”
I did. Completely. I laced my fingers through hers and followed her into the blackness.
She moved with confidence, navigating around debris I couldn’t see. I heard the scrape of stone under our feet as wedescended. A staircase. I counted steps to keep myself focused. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
At the bottom, she stopped. “Help me barricade this.”
I reached out blindly, my hands finding rough wood and chunks of stone debris. We worked together, pushing and stacking until we’d created a barrier across the doorway we’d come through. If anyone followed us down, they’d have to make noise clearing it.
“Keep going,” she whispered.
We continued through what felt like a narrow passage. The air smelled different here. Stale but dry. Protected.
“This should do.”
A small light came to life, then another. Iris had rolled up her sleeves to reveal the light coming from the underside of the fabric. A soft green light glowed from it, revealing her face, streaked with dust but determined.
“You’re amazing,” I breathed.
She flashed a quick grin. “Operatives are always prepared for the worst.”
I was about to tell her how much I wanted to change that. To give her a life of comfort and safety, but then I looked around and my breath caught. Any grand speeches would have to wait.
We were in a perfectly intact room. Circular, maybe six meters across, with a low ceiling carved from solid rock. The walls were smooth and covered in the same ancient Destran script I’d seen outside. But this room had been underground, completely protected from the storms that had devastated the city above.
It was unchanged from the time it had been abandoned over a thousand sun cycles ago.
Furniture sat exactly where it had been left. A low table, metal benches with rotted cushions, shelves built into thewalls. Everything covered in a thick layer of dust, but whole. Untouched.
Iris moved to the wall where I could see a panel of some kind. She studied it for a moment, then pressed something. Very dim auxiliary lights flickered to life, powered by some ancient system that still had reserve energy.
The room brightened enough to see properly. This had been someone’s home. A living space, judging by the arrangement. I could see what might have been a sleeping alcove in one corner, a workspace in another.
“We should stay here until morning,” Iris said, still examining the room with her tactical eye. “The city will be swarming with Brakken overnight. But their eyes don’t adjust well to bright sunlight. That’s when we can slip away to the Raycer.”
Smart. I nodded and swung my pack off my shoulders.
I pulled out a water pouch and protein rations, holding them out to her. “You need to eat.”
She accepted without argument, which told me how hungry she must be. She drank deeply from the water pouch, then tore into the rations with visible relief. I wished I’d had time to replicate more chocolate for her.
As I watched her, knowing that we were relatively safe for the moment, my body relaxed. She was magnificent. Even exhausted and covered in dust, even after being kidnapped and tied up, she radiated strength.
When she’d finished eating, we sat together on one of the old metal benches. The rotted cushions had long since disintegrated, but the frame was solid. Our shoulders touched. I could feel the warmth of her even through our clothes.
“Baleck, I—I kissed you back there. You probably want to know what that meant.” The statement came out of nowhere, direct and unflinching. Pure Iris.
I turned to look at her, kind of enjoying the rare glimpse of vulnerability in her features. “Sure,” I said, keeping my voice casual. “What did it mean?”
“I’m not good with words or feelings.” Her dark brows drew together. “We’ve kissed and it was nice. You’re enjoyable to spend time with and I like you.” Her dark eyes studied my face, searching for something. Truth, maybe. “I like you a lot. You’ve made it clear that you want to make something happen between us, but with your kind, it’s all or nothing, isn’t it?”
I nodded. “With Destrans, yes. We mate for life. I know that must sound scary for you.”
“It’s terrifying.” Her hands fluttered in a rare moment of her control deserting her. “My life is…kind of set. I can’t even wrap my head around how being with you would change things. Can you?” Those black eyes found mine and locked on, filled with questions and fears and uncertainty.
