“Then lift,” I snap. “Jordan first.”
Jessa’s voice cuts in, fierce. “Evac shuttle inbound. Thirty seconds.”
I glance up through the thinning smoke.
In the sky above the ridge, distant streaks appear—ships dropping in, not ours. Morazin’s people finally found a way to scream, or someone noticed the chaos and came running.
Seconds.
Always seconds.
We haul Jordan onto the evac shuttle. The hatch seals. Engines spool. The shuttle rises hard, vibrating the platform beneath my boots.
Morazin’s screams fade into the corridor.
The live drones still hover, still broadcasting, still capturing every ugly detail.
Good.
Let the galaxy watch criminals do what institutions wouldn’t: take a monster alive and drag him into the light.
I step back, weapon raised, and bark into comms, “All teams—withdraw. Now. We leave nothing but smoke and fear.”
And as we retreat into the service corridors, I keep my eyes on the evac shuttle climbing toward orbit, carrying Jordan’s bleeding body and stubborn soul into my ship’s trauma bay.
Because I didn’t come here to be a hero.
I came here to take what’s mine back.
CHAPTER 19
JORDAN
The first thing I register is cold—not the romantic, clean kind, but the clinical kind that crawls into your bones and tells you you’re not in charge anymore.
Then sound: a steady beep that doesn’t care about my feelings, the soft hiss of pressurized air, the distant bass thrum of a ship’s engines vibrating through metal like a giant’s heartbeat.
Then smell: antiseptic so sharp it makes my eyes water, warmed plastic, and that faint copper note that means my blood is still doing its stupid little job of being inside me… mostly.
I try to move and my ribs light up in protest.
“Ah—” The noise that leaves me is half a grunt, half a curse.
A shadow leans over me and blocks the overhead light.
“Don’t,” a voice says, low and firm.
Lonari.
My brain tries to do too many things at once—relief, rage, adrenaline hangover, the immediate human urge to check the room for threats, the equally immediate human urge to be petty because petty is the only thing holding the panic back.
So what comes out of my mouth is, “Wow. You’re bossy.”
Lonari’s face is close enough that I can see the texture of his scales along his cheekbone, the tiny scars that catch the light like punctuation marks. His eyes are dark, clear, furious and focused in that way that makes me feel like I’m both safer and in more danger.
“Jordan,” he says, voice rough, “you’re bleeding.”
“Yeah,” I croak. “I noticed. Thanks.”
