I don’t hesitate.
CHAPTER 4
ISOLDE
I’m not sure how but I get back up on my feet.
My legs are shaking, blood is running hot down my temple, and my left arm feels like it’s trying to detach from my body just to get away from all this. But I’m standing. Somehow. Breathing in these sharp, chemical-tinged gulps while my pulse jackhammers in my ears.
And he’s there. Right in front of me.
The thing—no, theman—who tore through One Horn like he was made of wet paper.
He doesn’t speak. Doesn’t growl. Doesn’t snarl or monologue like a bad holovid villain.
He just...looksat me.
And there’s something in that look that makes me wanna sit down and cry and laugh and scream all at once. Like I’ve been flipped upside down, and the floor’s become the ceiling.
Golden eyes. Sharp. Intense. Alive in a way nothing else on this ship has been. He watches me like I’m important. Like I matter.
Like I belong to him.
That should scare me.
It should terrify me, actually.
But weirdly—it doesn’t.
Instead, I wipe blood off my cheek with the back of my hand, raise my chin like I’ve still got glitter on my skin and three million followers watching.
“You gonna kill me too?” I say.
My voice comes out hoarse. Raw. Less like a taunt, more like a dare I barely mean.
He blinks slowly, like he’s trying to understand what I just said. Like I’m the one who doesn’t make sense.
And then—he moves.
Not fast, not threatening. Just... efficient. Careful.
He steps forward, crouches, and without a single word—scoops me up.
I yelp, loud and undignified. My body tenses in pure reflex, like I’m about to be dropped into a meat grinder. “Whoa—HEY! What—what the hell—put me?—!”
But I don’t finish the sentence.
Because he doesn’t drop me. He holds me. One arm under my knees, the other braced around my back, claws careful not to dig in, scaled chest solid and warm under my cheek. And just like that, I’m airborne. Carried. Cradled like something worth saving.
This monster—this beast from some pre-collapse war story—is carrying me like I weigh nothing at all. Like I’m precious.
My brain’s screaming at me to fight, to thrash, to scramble free. But my body... my body just sags. Exhaustion crashes into me like a wave breaking against stone. And some twisted, tired part of me?
It’s relieved.
I let my head drop against his shoulder. Smell him—metal and dust and something spicy underneath. Like ozone and dried herbs. Not pleasant exactly, but not repulsive either. Justreal.Like he belongs to this place. Like he’spartof it.
He moves through the ship like he knows it better than his own breath.
