If the traitor understands what happened in this room, they'll understand I can be used against him. The thought propels me upright. I reach for my clothing, pulling on pants and shirt with fingers that want to tremble. The emergency lights continue their pulse, red-black-red-black, and the wail has faded to a distant drone that tells me the crisis is elsewhere in the compound.
I should stay. He told me to stay.
The sound of footsteps in the corridor stops me cold. I freeze, one boot half-laced, my breath caught in my throat. These footsteps are deliberate. Measured. Spaced too evenly, too carefully. The pace of someone who doesn't want to be heard.
Then they stop outside the door.
Chapter Thirteen
DRAZEX
Her taste still coats my tongue when the alert sounds. Sweetness and salt and the particular warmth that belongs only to her, and I am halfway down the corridor before my body stops vibrating with the need to turn back.
I force myself to keep moving, force my legs to carry me toward the crisis instead of back to the warmth of my bed where my Chosen lies with my musk layered into every inch of her skin. Every Draveki I pass will recognize the unmistakable signature of claiming before I speak a single word.
I have marked her. She belongs to me. Let every male in this territory recognize that touching her means death.
She is mine.Mine.
There is danger in that satisfaction. I have handed my enemies a weapon they did not possess an hour ago. Maeve Vance was debt collateral. Now she is leverage. She can be used to exploit me and I made her that way willingly.
I should curse myself for the weakness that made me take what the contract already gave me the right to claim. Instead, the memory of her body yielding to mine, of her arousal blooming into unmistakable heat, of the sounds she made when my knot locked us together sends fresh fire through my blood.
Emergency lighting bathes the corridors in crimson, and my senses strain in two directions. Ahead, the acrid tang of plasma discharge and burnt flesh grows stronger with each step. Behind me, the ghost of her warmth lingers on my skin. I go on. I need to contain whatever is happening here to keep her safe.
The medical wing's doors slide open to controlled pandemonium. Veth barks orders at two junior medics while an enforcer lies bleeding on the central table, his skin torn open by plasma fire that carved a trench across his ribs. Kash. One of my senior patrol leaders, a male I have known since we trained together as adolescents. His eyes are glassy with shock, his breathing shallow and fast.
“Report.” The command snaps through the noise, and Veth's head jerks toward me.
“Ambush in Sector Seven, my lord. Three assailants, plasma weapons. Kash took a direct hit but retreated. He called it in before losing consciousness.” Veth presses a coagulant patch against the worst of the damage. “He'll survive, but it's close.”
Three assailants. The pattern shifts in my mind, reshaping itself. The previous attacks looked random: a transport malfunction, a poison engineered to mimic natural causes, a plasma shot during a collection run that external enemies could have explained. This is different. This is an open assault inside our own territory on a patrol route that should have been secure.
“Was there a witness?” I drag my attention to the male bleeding on the table.
“One of the maintenance staff.” Veth nods toward a corner where a young Draveki female sits wrapped in a shock blanket.“She was running a late shift when she heard the plasma fire. Saw a figure fleeing the scene.”
I cross the medical bay in four strides and crouch beside the witness, keeping my tone low enough to avoid terrifying her further. “Tell me what you saw.”
She flinches at my proximity, pulling the shock blanket tighter around her shoulders. “I was running maintenance on the ventilation shafts.” Her words come in fragments, broken by fear and adrenaline. “The plasma fire started, and I hid behind the conduit housing. Then the shooting stopped, and I saw... I saw someone running.”
“Describe them.”
Her gaze drops to the floor, unable to hold mine. “House Draven colors. The uniform, I mean. I could see that much.” She swallows hard, her fingers twisting in the blanket's edge. “Average height. Female. Athletic build. She moved fast though, too fast for me to see a face.”
“Direction?”
“Away from where the enforcer fell. Toward the access tunnels.” She risks a glance at my face and looks away again.
I rise to my full height, and she shrinks deeper into her chair.
Average height. Possibly female. Athletic build. House Draven colors. That narrows it down to half my staff.
“Wait.” The word escapes her in a rush, her hand lifting as though to stop me from leaving. “There was one thing. I almost forgot because it happened so fast, but when she turned.” The maintenance worker's fingers rise to cup her own throat, tracing a line from jaw to collarbone. “A scar. Pale against her skin. It caught the light for a second as she turned.”
The air empties from my lungs.
I know of only one female with a scar on her throat who wears House Draven colors. Who has an athletic build. Who has accessto private records and spaces and who can go wherever she pleases because she's been here for so long.
