Vakutans don’t have fates. Not anymore. The war burned that superstition out of us.
But I can’t shake the feeling that something in the ship, in my blood, in the very marrow of this cursed metal,knows her.
And my hearts—both of them—won’t stop pounding.
The smell of her clings to everything now.
The air. The walls. Me.
It’s subtle at first—faint and floral, like the kind of thing soft-skinned people wear to disguise that they’re made of blood and salt. But here, in this stale metal tomb, it’s sharp enough to cutthrough recycled air and rust. I can taste it on the back of my tongue when I breathe.
And it does something to me I don’t like.
Not fear. Not quite anger, either. Something worse. Somethingalive.
I shouldn’t notice it. Shouldn’t care. I’ve lived surrounded by rot and machine oil for half a century. Nothing has smelled like her in decades. Maybe that’s why it gets to me. She doesn’t belong here. None of her does.
She laughs again—low, soft, alive—and I feel the sound in my chest before I hear it in my ears. I don’t even know what she’s laughing at. Probably that droid of hers, Reflector, the jittering idiot. Or maybe me.
Her laugh makes the ship sound less dead. That bothers me more than it should.
I’m standing a few corridors away from the safe zone, back turned to her, watching an old surveillance panel sputter to life. I’ve rerouted what little power I can from the Hulk’s secondary grid, enough to get eyes on Meyer’s people. The screens flicker in a patchwork of green and gray. Static cuts through half the feed. I can still see movement—heat signatures crawling through the corridors like disease.
Meyer and his pack.
They’re hunting.
And they’re getting closer.
I clench my jaw, fighting the instinct to crush the console. My claws twitch against the metal, scraping deep gouges into the side. The hum of the Hulk answers back—like it feels what I feel. The ship doesn’t like being trespassed. It reacts, sometimes. It’s almost… aware. But it needs a guide, a trigger, someone to speak to it in the language of power and pain.
That used to be me.
Now I’m not sure who’s steering whom.
I pull the camera feed tighter. Meyer’s heat signature is unmistakable—lean, tall, moving with purpose. The Frayvoyan—Bokis—is with him, chattering, nervous, his fur slick with sweat. The cyborg, Lor, moves like a shadow at their flank, quiet and precise. Snarl glides behind them, wings tucked tight, eyes always moving. They’re methodical. They know they’ve lost one of their own, but they’re not retreating. They want control of the ship, and they’ll kill to get it.
“Idiots,” I mutter. “This place will eat you alive.”
“What was that?” her voice calls from behind me.
I stiffen. I didn’t mean to say that aloud.
She’s standing in the doorway now—bare feet against the cold floor, still wearing the torn remnants of that ridiculous influencer outfit, purple streaks of hair falling into her face. She looks smaller than before. But not weak. Just… real.
“You should be resting,” I say.
“Yeah, well, I can’t sleep in a murder ship,” she answers. “Sue me.”
I turn back to the monitor. “You shouldn’t be here.”
“Technically, you shouldn’t either,” she fires back.
I almost smile. Almost.
Then her scent hits me again—faint, electric, maddening—and the thought dies in my throat. My pulse spikes, and for the first time in years, I’mawareof it. Of heat crawling up the back of my neck. Of muscles tightening in a way that has nothing to do with combat.
This is wrong. Dangerous. I survived half a century by shutting out every weakness. And this woman? Sheisweakness. Wrapped in nerve and warmth and sound.
