Then he called me property and walked away.
Humiliation and rage burn through me, and beneath both of them, traitor that my body is, the echo of heat when his tongue slid against mine. I should hate him. I do hate him. I also can't stop thinking about how he tasted.
My fingers find the scar on my forearm, tracing that ridge of healed tissue that grounds me. The motion has become reflexover the years, a touchstone I reach for. The shrapnel that tore through muscle and tendon on Kepler IV left more than physical damage. It left a reminder that survival costs, and walking out of hell means carrying pieces of it with you forever.
The knock at my door sends my pulse spiking. I recognize the particular weight of his presence, the compression in the air that signals him on the other side of that threshold. My body responds before my mind, and the flush crawling up my neck is its own betrayal.
Professional. Cold. Distant. I repeat the words like a mantra as I cross the room. The door opens, and every intention I constructed overnight evaporates between one heartbeat and the next.
He looks like he slept as poorly as I did. His charcoal skin holds a pallor that speaks to a night no easier than mine. Good. He should suffer. He deserves to suffer. The satisfaction sits hollow in my throat.
“The investigation requires supplies from the Crimson Bazaar.” His voice emerges flat, professional, stripped of everything that passed between us. “Xenobiology samples for the compound analysis. I'm taking you myself.”
Not asking. Not explaining. Telling me what will happen as though there’s any choice in the matter. There isn’t. The contract makes that clear.
“Give me five minutes.” Steady. Revealing nothing of the chaos churning beneath my ribs.
He nods once and steps back, and I close the door between us before he notices the tremor working through my hands.
? ? ?
DRAZEX
The transport descends through the canyon in a controlled fall, and she sits with her attention fixed on the window, her profile sharp against the orange-red glow of Vahiri's perpetual twilight. She hasn't spoken since we left the compound beyond the bare minimum that courtesy requires. Her spine angles away from mine, every line of her broadcasting rejection in a language I can't pretend to misread.
I built this distance between us.
You're property.
The words echo through my memory with the weight of a blade I drove into both of us. I watched warmth freeze into ice in the span of three syllables. She'd kissed me back. Opened to me, softened against me, let me taste the wanting she'd been hiding. I punished her for it.
My father would be proud. The lesson holds: never let them see what matters to you.
The transport lurches through an air current, and her knee brushes mine. Half a second of contact. Fabric against fabric, and heat rockets through me so fast my fangs ache. Her scent spikes with an answering warmth, that bloom of arousal she hates herself for and I crave like oxygen. She pulls away so fast the motion carries violence.
“The atmosphere at the Bazaar is thinner than in the compound. Take your supplements.”
She turns, and the look she gives me strips paint from metal. “I don't need your concern.”
“It's not concern. It's practicality.” The lie sits bitter on my tongue. “You won't help me if you can't breathe.”
“Then it's fortunate I already took the supplement.”
The silence that follows holds different weight than the silence before. Sharper. She's angry, and the anger has teeth, and those teeth are aimed directly at my throat.
I should be relieved. Anger creates distance. If she hates me, she won't expect softness I can't give. Instead, I track the orange light catching the planes of her face. The stubborn set of her mouth. The dark eyes holding fury and hurt and, underneath both, the shadow of wanting that won't die no matter how thoroughly I tried to kill it.
Her scent fills the enclosed space. A sweetness that makes my cock swell and throb. I shift, grateful for the darkness that hides the evidence of what her proximity does to me.
The canyon rises around us as we descend toward the Bazaar level, and she leans closer to the window, awe bleeding through her armor as Vahiri unfolds before her. The neon lights flicker against the stone, advertisements paint the twilight in shades of blue and purple and bright green. Buildings carved into the living rock jut from the canyon, stacked three and four levels high, connected by fragile bridges.
Her breath catches. Soft, involuntary, and the wonder in it cracks loose in my chest. I've kept her caged, and the cage has boundaries I never considered.
“I expected it to feel hostile. It's beautiful instead,” she says.
“It's both.” I don't mean for the words to sound gentle. They come out that way regardless. “Most dangerous things are.”
She turns from the window and her gaze roams over me. A current passes between us, nothing to do with anger or lust or any of the simpler things I know how to handle. Then her expression hardens, and the moment dissolves into the silence we've been drowning in since dawn.
