Or might be the beginning of something worse.
Chapter 5
Astra
The waterin the shower runs cold because I've been standing here long enough to exhaust the heater. My lips still taste like him. Copper and ozone and six years of wanting what I shouldn't want.
I kissed him. Pressed my mouth to his like I was trying to swallow the words he was about to say, like I could silence six years of absence with my teeth. My hand fisted in his shirt, I felt the warmth of his skin through the fabric, felt his heart hammering beneath my palm, felt the exact moment his control snapped and he kissed me back.
I wanted more. That's the part that makes me want to put my fist through the shower wall. I didn't just want the kiss, I wanted his hands on me, wanted him to push me against that wall in my quarters, wanted to find out if his body still remembers mine the way mine apparently remembers his. The wanting was a living thing in my chest, clawing up my throat, and I pulled away before I could let it devour me whole.
And the worst part—the part I can't scrub offno matter how hard I try, is that I still hate him. The hate didn't go anywhere. Didn't soften or transform into something easier. I hate him for leaving me. I hate him for coming back. I hate him for standing at my door at midnight with that photograph in his hands and saying my name like he had any right to it. The fury is a constant hum beneath my ribs, so familiar it's almost comfortable.
All of these things are true simultaneously, and I don't have the space in my head to untangle which one matters most.
I scrub my mouth until my lips are raw. It doesn't help. Nothing helps. The water beats against my shoulders and I count the ways I'm compromised. Forty-seven. No. Fifty-three. I lose track somewhere betweenI let him touch meandI didn't want him to stop.
The shower cuts off. I stand dripping on the tile, staring at nothing.
My quarters smell like gun oil and the recycled nothing of station air. The bed is still made. I didn't sleep. Didn't even try. Just stood at the viewport watching the stars wheel and remembering the taste of his mouth, the way his bioluminescence flared when I kissed him, the sound he made when I pulled away.
I put on my uniform. Piece by piece. Sports bra first, compression layer, tactical pants with the knife pocket at my thigh. The fabric is familiar. Safe. I'm Head of Security. I run this station's defenses. I've killed more people than I've kissed, and the ratio isn't even close.
Last night was an anomaly. A glitch. It won't happen again.
I check myself in the mirror. Red hair pulled back so tight my scalp aches. Green eyes that give away nothing.The scar on my left shoulder visible above the neckline, the burn mark peeking through like a warning.
No sign of last night's weakness.
Good.
The corridoroutside my quarters is empty. Morning cycle just starting, most of the station still sleeping off the night shift. My boots don't make sound on the deck plating. Old habit. Moving quiet, moving careful, always ready for the ambush you don't see coming.
I make it three meters before Talia St. Laurent rounds the corner.
Zane's partner. The former debtor who survived her own captivity, her own transformation, her own impossible choice to stay with a monster. She's carrying coffee. Two cups. One of them is probably for Zane. The other?—
I stop. Turn to face her. Her dark brown eyes are sharp, assessing, missing absolutely nothing. She's been where I am. Owned by a Torrence who can feel everything, who knows every shameful want before you've finished having it. She survived becoming something she didn't recognize. She knows the signs.
"Late night?" Her voice is carefully neutral. Deliberately so. The kind of neutral that says she already knows the answer and is giving me the option to lie about it anyway.
I could. Should, probably. Keep this contained, professional, nobody's business but mine.
Instead, I meet her eyes. One survivor to another.
"Investigation," I say.
The word sits between us. She knows it's not the whole truth. She also knows better than to push.
"Mmm." The sound carries weight. Acknowledgment. Understanding. No judgment, but recognition. She's felt this particular brand of complicated, the man you hate tangled with the man you want. She's lived through the impossible math of choosing a monster while knowing exactly what he is.
That sound. It carries weight. She knows something. Saw something. Or Zane felt something through his connection with Dexter and told her. The brothers are close. Close enough to share emotional frequency across the station when one of them is feeling something strong.
And what I felt last night, when my mouth was on his?—
"He's in the briefing room," Talia says. Offering information I didn't ask for. "Just so you know."
I don't ask how she knows. Doesn't matter. The brothers probably sync their schedules, their operational rhythms, the way they've synced everything else since they learned to walk.
