This wasn't that. This wasn't arousal alone.
My body had reacted, yes—heart rate spike, breath disruption, warmth, heightened sensitivity—but that wasn't the core of it. That wasn't the center.
The center was… internal. Like something deep inside me had recognized an alignment. Not attraction. Not lust. Resonance. That was the word that made my stomach twist.
Resonance implied two systems oscillating at compatible frequencies. Mutual amplification. Feedback loops.
No.
No, that wasn't possible either.
I pressed my palms against my sternum, grounding myself in pressure, in bone, in something solid and human.
I wanted more. That thought flashed through me like a heated bolt. Following on its tail end was the admission that I didn't just want more of his touch. I wanted him. His presence. His attention. His certainty. The way the chaos inside me had stilled for that one impossible moment. That wasn't just a sexual response. Sex didn't rewrite your internal baseline. It didn't realign your sense of self.
This did.
Which meant—I sucked in a sharp breath—whateverthiswas, it hadn't come from him. It had come from insideme. That thought was more terrifying than the Abyss. Because if my own mind—myownbody—could decide that something impossible made sense… then what else was I capable of accepting?
I curled forward, arms wrapped around myself, trying to breathe through the shaking. Skin didn't change. That was a fact. Minds didn't bond. That was a fact. Maps didn't write themselves. That was a fact. Gods didn't exist. That was a fact. Too. No matter what others said. It was logically impossible.
I repeated it like an incantation.
Like science could still save me. The light beneath my skin pulsed once, faint and patient, as if waiting for me to catch up. Or taunting me.
I snapped. That was the only word for it. I crossed the room and punched the wall—once, twice—then hissed and shook myhand because, apparently, physics still applied even when my entire reality didn't. I grabbed a pillow and pummeled it as if it had personally betrayed me, screaming into the fabric until my throat burned and the sound came out broken.
"Impossible," I told the empty room. "All of this is impossible."
It didn't care.
I stumbled to the window and braced my hands against the transparent alloy, staring out at the stars streaking past, cold and distant andwrong. My world—Earth, science, rules, causality—felt like it had been flipped inside out and shaken until nothing recognizable remained. My reflection stared back at me in the glass.
I froze when I saw the markings. They were clearer now, faintly luminous even without the heightened charge from earlier. Delicate lines traced my collarbone, spilled down my arms in precise arcs, intersecting and branching with an elegance that made my chest ache. They weren't decorative. They weren't random.
They were… familiar.
My heart slammed.
"Oh my god," I whispered. "Whatisthat?"
I dropped the sheet without thinking. My breath was coming fast as I stared down at myself in disbelief. Across my ribs and sternum, a constellation bloomed, subtle, but unmistakable.
A configuration I had spent years studying.
"No," I breathed. "No, no, no?—"
I spun and ran for the door.
"Dravok!" I pounded on it with my fist. "Dravok, open this door! You infuriating, arrogant—open it!"
Nothing.
"Dravok!"
The door slid open.
He stood there, instantly alert. "What—are you okay?"
