This was it. He was going to kill me. The realization came with strange clarity, and with it, a grief deeper than fear.Oh, Dravok, I thought desperately.When you come back to yourself—my vision dimmed at the edges—this is going to destroy you.
That was my only fear. Not dying. Not the pain. But what it would do to him to wake up and realize he'd killed the one person who mattered to him.
"Oh, Dravok," I whispered, voice breaking. "No."
Somewhere far away, Xandros's voice thundered. "Shoot! Don't kill him!"
The words barely reached me. Everything was narrowing now, darkness closing in; not the abyss's, but my own. As my hands fell from his wrists, one final thought burned bright and clear:I love you.
They stunned him.I know that because someone told me later. At the time, all I remembered was the sound—sharp, wrong, echoing through the cavern like thunder hitting stone—then weightlessness. Or maybe it was the opposite. Maybe it was the moment when everything became too heavy to hold.
Xandros lifted me off the ground. I remember that much. I remember the way his arms locked around me, solid and unyielding. I remember Ashley's voice somewhere close, urgent, saying my name over and over, like repetition alone could keep me tethered to consciousness. I remember thinking—not clearly, not fully—that Dravok was still reaching for me even as the darkness swallowed the edges of my vision.
Darkness followed until I woke up on a couch that was too clean to be comforting. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic andozone, the kind of scent that clung to places where damage had been repaired but not erased. A low hum vibrated through the floor, ship engines, steady and controlled. Alive.
That was my first realization. The second came slower. Dravok was gone. The pain hit before the memory did. It wasn't my throat, though that ached faintly, a distant soreness that I barely registered. A healing wand lay discarded on the table beside me, its soft glow already dimming. Whatever damage had been done was gone.
But my chest, my chest felt like it had collapsed inward, like something essential had been torn loose and left a hollow behind. It hurt to breathe. Not because of pressure or bruising. Because ofabsence.
I sucked in a shallow breath and immediately regretted it. The ache sharpened, radiating outward from my sternum, deep and relentless. The bond was still there. I could feel it fluttering, barely clinging to life. That was somehow worse. It hadn't snapped. It hadn't vanished. But it felt… distant. Muted. Like a star whose light was still reaching me long after it had already burned out.
Loss without closure.
I turned my head slightly and saw Xandros pacing the length of the room. Back and forth. Back and forth. He wasn't wearing armor now, just a dark uniform stretched tight across a body that had clearly been designed for command and war. His hands flexed at his sides, and his jaw was clenched so hard I could see the muscle jumping.
Ashley stood near the viewport. She kept her arms folded, her gaze fixed on the stars outside as if she were daring them to make sense. I swallowed. Every movement felt like an effort.
"Dravok?" I croaked. The sound barely made it out of my throat.
Ashley turned first. She crossed the room in two strides and knelt beside me. Her hand felt warm and steady against mine.
"You're safe," she assured me softly. "You're on the ship."
Xandros stopped pacing. His silence told me everything else.
"Where is he?" I whispered.
Xandros answered this time. "Contained."
The word landed like a blow.
"Contained how?"
He hesitated.
Ashley squeezed my hand. "They stunned him," she said gently. "Multiple times. He didn't… react the way a human would."
Of course, he didn't.
"He's in a high-security cell," Xandros added. "No guards. Only observation drones. His mind—whatever he can do with it—it's too dangerous to risk proximity."
I closed my eyes. Of course, he was too dangerous. He could invade other people's minds. Alter them. The image of him—golden, calm, laughing quietly at something I'd said—rose unbidden. Then shattered.
"He was going to kill me," I whispered.
Neither of them contradicted me.
Their silence hurt more than a knife going through my heart would have. My chest tightened, grief and understanding colliding in a way that made me dizzy. On an intellectual level, I knew what that meant. Whatever had happened to Dravok—whatever had reached into him and twisted him—had turned him into something unstable. Something lethal. Something that even Xandros, Superior Commander of the Imperial Forces, was afraid to keep on his ship. On an intellectual level, I understood that.
