I think about her accepting them without hesitation. Her smile when she called me a soft touch. The sentence that lodges in my memory like shrapnel:I like strays too, and how she meant it.
The craving has changed shape. Not a threat anymore, not the vulnerability my father warned me about. A different beast. One that lodges into the hollow places I thought were beyond filling. I follow her toward the surface, leaving the hidden places behind.
Chapter Twelve
MAEVE
The medical bay hums with the quiet rhythm of analysis equipment running through the morning's latest samples, and I trace the molecular signature on my display without seeing it. I trace my scar. My thoughts keep drifting to places they have no business going: the weight of Drazex's arms around me, the vibration of his humming through my chest, the way he looked at me when I found his secret hidden in the maintenance tunnels. A male who feeds strays and sings his dead mother's songs and holds me while I sleep, and now the mother of all migraines pound inside my skull.
The door to the medical bay slides open, and my pulse speeds up, warmth flooding my skin. I don't need to turn around to identify who stands in the entrance. The air changes when he enters a room, compression and temperature and a presence that demands acknowledgment.
“The Vorn records arrived. Chade Vorn honored the favor. He's given us his full shipping manifests for the past eighteen months,” Drazex says.
He passes a tablet to me, his fingers brushing mine in the exchange. Electricity rockets through my nerve endings. My stomach tenses and my clit throbs. His nostrils flare. He scents everything, especially things I can't control.
“I'll start the cross-reference.” My tone holds steady through sheer force of will.
He doesn't leave while I work. He positions himself at the adjacent console and pulls up personnel records, the investigation demanding both our attention while our bodies exist in a proximity that burns.
The shipping manifests scroll across my display, thousands of entries of commerce through Vahiri's ports. Searching for anomalies in this volume of data would take weeks without the parameters I've already established. I input the molecular markers, the timeline correlations, the equipment specifications that would explain what killed Torvin and nearly killed Krel.
“There.” I enlarge a cluster of entries that pulse red with correlation hits. “A company called Vexxar Logistics. Four shipments in the past eighteen months, each one arriving within two weeks of an enforcer's death.”
Drazex leans closer to examine the data, his chest nearly brushing my shoulder, his scent wrapping around me in a cloud of mineral warmth and musk underneath. The scent that intensifies when arousal takes hold.
“Vexxar Logistics doesn't exist in the Syndicate registry.” His jaw tightens. “It's a ghost company.”
“Created specifically for these shipments.” I pull up the authorization codes, and cold settles in my stomach when I recognize what I'm seeing. The digital signatures that validate commerce on Vahiri Prime. The credentials that would berequired to create a shell company without triggering oversight. “Drazex. These codes originate from inside House Draven's supply chain.”
The traitor isn't an outsider manipulating House Draven from the shadows. The traitor belongs to Drazex's own house, holds authority within his own organization, and has been systematically murdering his enforcers while he trusted them with access they used to betray him.
A muscle jumps in his jaw. When he speaks, the word comes out clipped.
“My office.”
He's already moving toward the door, but he pauses at the threshold. Waits for me to gather the files. Waits for me.
The words carry command, but the edge beneath them cuts differently than it once did. He's not ordering his property to follow. He's asking his partner to help him understand who is destroying his house from within.
I gather the relevant files and follow him out of the medical bay. His office opens at his palm print, the door sealing behind us. The rust-colored glow from the single window paints everything in shades of dried blood and amber, and he moves to the console built into the canyon stone while I take the seat across from him and go through each code.
I pull up the personnel records we've been building toward all afternoon. “Only three people in House Draven hold the authorization level required to create a shell company like Vexxar Logistics.”
He moves to stand behind me, close enough that his warmth reaches my back. I try to ignore it. Focus on the screen.
“Vezra.” I tap the first file. “Logistics coordinator, fifteen years in. Morath.” The second file. “Runs the pharmaceutical division under your father.” I hesitate before opening the third, already knowing how this one will land. “And Teshra.”
The name drops into silence.
Teshra, who explained the rules on my first night in this compound. Teshra, who manages the private wing where I sleep. Teshra, who has access to my quarters and proximity to everything Drazex values.
“Not Teshra.” His words come out flat, as though he's in denial. “She held me when I was an infant. Stayed after my mother's execution when half the household fled.”
“That was decades ago.” I keep my tone gentle, but I don't back down. “Loyalty erodes. Especially when you've given your life to people who see you as furniture.”
His jaw tightens. He doesn't argue, but his hand hovers over Teshra's file without opening it, and I understand. Some betrayals are too close to examine without flinching.
“Morath.” He pulls up the councilor's record instead. “Thirty years under my father. If he's our traitor...”
