“You don’t have to say it back,” I said. “I just needed you to know.”
“Kallum.”
“I’ve spent my life being invisible. Disappearing. Not letting anyone close enough to matter.” I touched her face. Traced the line of her cheekbone. “You saw me anyway. You saw through all of it. And I don’t want to be invisible anymore. Not to you.”
She kissed me.
Soft at first. Then deeper. Her hands in my hair, her body pressed against mine, her mouth saying everything words couldn’t. When she pulled back, her eyes were wet.
“I love you too,” she said. “I think I have since you turned your back on me that first day. Since you trusted me not to shoot you.”
“That was either trust or stupidity.”
“Maybe both.” She smiled. “Ask me.”
“Ask you what?”
“You know what.” Her hand found mine. Squeezed. “I’ve seen the others. Tamsin. Bronwen. Sabine. I know what comes next.”
My heart was pounding. Loud enough that she had to hear it.
“The claiming,” I said.
“Yes.”
“It’s permanent. It will change you. My sigils on your skin. My DNA in your blood. You won’t be fully human anymore.”
“I know.”
“You’d be bound to me. Forever. There’s no undoing it.”
“I know.” She leaned closer. Her forehead touched mine. “Ask me, Kallum.”
I’d been trained to disappear. To leave no trace. To pass through the world like a ghost, touching nothing, being touched by nothing.
This was the opposite of everything I’d ever learned.
“Will you let me claim you?” My voice was rough. Barely recognizable. “Will you be mine?”
Her smile was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
“Yes.”
ANHARA
Yes.
The word hung between us. Simple. Final. Everything.
Kallum’s eyes went dark. That predator stillness I’d learned to recognize, the one that meant he was holding himself back by threads. His hand was still on my face, fingers trembling.
“Not here,” he said. His voice was rough. “Not in the medical bay.”
“Then take me somewhere else.”
He stood slowly, testing his body. The wound in his side was closed, pink and healing. He was still weak, but he was standing. Reaching for my hand.
The corridor was quiet. Late cycle. Most of the crew asleep or pretending to be. Our footsteps and nothing else.
