I finish documenting the treatment for one of the compound guards. Minor laceration, nothing that required more than dermal adhesive and a reminder to watch where he steps during training exercises. He thanks me by name before he leaves, meeting my eyes without the wariness that marked every interaction during my first weeks here. No sidelong glances at the human female who shouldn't have authority over Draveki flesh. The shift registers in my chest, warm and unfamiliar, evidence of a transformation I'm still learning to trust.
The soreness between my thighs reminds me exactly how I belong.
I press two fingers to the claiming marks on my throat, that tender constellation of bruises his mouth renewed this morning before he left for council meetings. An ache spreads from the contact. Heat hooks behind my navel at the memory of his silver eyes going dark as he pinned me to the mattress. Three nights in his bed, and my body has learned a new language. One written in teeth and want and the press of his hands against my skin.
House Draven functions differently now. The fear that saturated these corridors lifts by degrees, replaced by purpose that doesn't reek of terror. Drazex leads with the same intensity his father wielded, but cruelty has no place in the structure his son is building. Staff members no longer freeze when they hear approaching footsteps. The enforcers stand straighter, training harder, serving a lord who values their lives instead of spending them. Samai prowls the edges of the new order, all restless energy and sharp observations, the unpredictable brother finding his place in a house that has room for both sons.
Vorath remains in the cage. The same cage that held me, that held his son's strays. Now it contains the male who built it, and I've heard the guards rotate shifts to avoid being assigned to his alcove. No one speaks of when he might be released. The silence says enough.
I trace the scar on my forearm as the door chimes. I snap toward the entrance before the visitor announces himself. Some instincts never fade.
Tomás stands in the threshold. He looks different. Cleaner, certainly. The tremors that wracked his body during our first conversation in the holding cell have stilled. The hollows beneath his eyes remain, but they carry the shadows of recovery rather than the gaunt urgency of addiction. Someone has outfitted him in compound clothes, practical fabric inHouse Draven colors, and he wears them without the hunched discomfort I expected.
“Mae.” The syllable cracks, and he clears his throat before continuing. “Can we talk?”
I set aside the inventory tablet and gesture toward the chairs arranged for patients who need rest between treatments. He crosses the distance one deliberate footfall at a time, lowering himself into the nearest seat the way a male lowers himself onto a blade.
Silence stretches between us. The hum of medical equipment fills the space where words should live.
“I've been working.” He speaks to his hands, fingers laced tight in his lap. “Kitchen rotation, mostly. Supply runs when they need extra hands. They don't trust me with anything important, but they're letting me contribute.”
“I heard.”
His head lifts, surprise flickering across features that share our mother's cheekbones. “You've been checking on me?”
“Teshra mentioned you haven't caused any trouble.” The deflection tastes familiar, a shield I've wielded since childhood.
His jaw firms. His shoulders draw back. A gravity I've never seen ages his face into someone unfamiliar.
“I've been thinking,” he says. “About what you did for me. What it cost.”
I press my thumb against my scar. “Tomás, we don't need to revisit this.”
“We do.” The words emerge steady. Certain. “You sold yourself into service because I couldn't stop making choices that hurt us both. You paid for my mistakes while I sat in comfortable quarters and ate their food and waited for you to fix everything. Because that's what you do. That's what you've always done.”
The truth lands beneath my ribs and lodges there. He knows what he does. What he’d done. I sit and wait for him to keep speaking because there’s nothing I can say to that.
“I spoke with Drazex.” Tomás meets my eyes, and a male sits before me now instead of the boy I’ve run after for so many years. “The debt transfers to me. My labor, my time, my responsibility. Your contract ends today.”
The words refuse to resolve into meaning. “What?”
“You’re free.” He leans forward, intensity burning in eyes that have stopped avoiding mine. “Actually free. No debt, no obligation, no contract tying you to House Draven or anyone else.” He unclenches his fists, spreading his palms open on his knees. “If you choose to stay with him, I wanted it to be a choice.”
The gift detonates behind my sternum. Not freedom from Drazex. Freedom of choice. The last coercion stripped away, the final chain dissolved. Whatever I do now, I do without the weight of his debt pressing against my shoulders.
“You don't have to do this.” The protest emerges, muscle memory from years of solving problems he created. “I've already made my peace with being here. Drazex would release me from the contract if I asked.”
“I know.” Tomás nods, and the certainty in his face splinters through defenses I forgot I was holding. “That's why I have to do this. Because you stopped asking a long time ago. Because you would have stayed forever without ever making him void that paperwork, because the contract stopped mattering to you but it never stopped mattering to me.”
I trace my scar. Trembling spreads through me and won't stop.
“You’re my sister.” His words break, and the boy surfaces for half a breath before the male pulls him back down. “You’ve been saving me since we were children. Watched Mom die because we couldn’t afford medicine, and swore you’d never let money stop you from protecting people again. Crossed three star systemsto trade yourself for my life.” He swallows hard. “I can’t undo everything I’ve done, but I can take responsibility for my own choices, finally, and let you make yours without any of my garbage weighing them down.”
Silence pools between us. The medical bay hums its quiet song.
“Okay.” The word emerges small. Accepting.
Tomás releases a breath that shudders through his whole body. “Yeah?”
