His jaw locks.
His voice drops into something that vibrates through the room.
“She is my jalshagar.”
The word hits the air like a detonation.
The bond locks.
Fully.
Completely.
Overwhelming and incandescent and absolute, flooding my nervous system with heat and clarity and a bone-deep sense of rightness that makes my knees finally give out as my entire body recalibrates around the truth of it.
I catch myself on his armor.
He doesn’t move.
The room goes dead quiet.
Someone drops a weapon.
The bald one stares at Tur like he just invoked a god.
“Reaper bonding protocol,” one of the men whispers hoarsely. “That’s— that’s not supposed to be real.”
“It’s real,” Tur says flatly.
I lift my head.
Look at the syndicate leadership that thought they owned my life.
“This is not ownership,” I say, my voice carrying in the sudden, stunned silence. “This is consent made loud enough that your bullshit can hear it.”
Some of them step back.
Others raise their weapons higher.
One of them fires.
The shot goes wide.
Everything breaks.
Tur moves.
Not fast.
Inevitable.
He steps into the gunfire like it’s rain.
Spurs carve through armor.
Plasma scorches walls inches from my face.
Screams explode in all directions.
