Page 88 of Reaper Said Mine

“It makes me look soft.”

“No. It makes you look responsible.”

“Responsibility is less frightening.”

“To idiots, maybe.”

I look down at her. “You think I should let the galaxy see this.”

“I think the galaxy already sees what powerful people profit from showing. You can either let your enemies define every act of mercy as weakness, or you can stop helping them lie.”

The answer irritates me because it is too clean and too true. “You always speak as though truth wins by existing.”

Her expression tightens, and I know I have touched an old wound before she says a word.

“No,” she replies. “I speak like someone who knows truth has to be dragged into the light while it bites.”

The market noise seems to dull around us, though nothing quiets. A vendor calls prices. A child laughs. Metal wheels rattle over deck seams. Yet the air between Ursa and me narrows until I can feel the heat rising from her skin, smell bitter caf on her breath, and hear the soft shift of fabric as her fingers fall away from my sleeve.

I want to kiss her.

The thought is not gentle. It arrives with claws, hunger, and the remembered shock of claiming her before the feast. It is followed immediately by a second thought, colder and harder: every watching eye in this market would carry the story to every faction on the station before the next docking cycle. Some would smile. Some would scheme. Some would sharpen knives.

Ursa sees enough of my expression to understand something. Her cheeks warm, but she does not retreat.

“Professional boundaries,” she says.

“Terrible things.”

“Necessary things.”

“Also terrible.”

Her mouth twitches. “I’m glad we can establish common ground.”

A comm chime burns against my wrist before I can answer. I lift it and find Theryki’s insignia pulsing with elegant impatience. Of course. The Coalition ambassador has the gift of arriving in any moment like poison poured into wine.

I decline the request.

Ursa notices. “Important?”

“Annoying.”

“That is not the same thing.”

“With Theryki, it often is.”

She studies me. “You’re avoiding a meeting?”

“I am delaying a performance.”

“Because of me?”

“Yes.”

Her face changes, professional irritation and personal warmth colliding. “Gnash.”

“I have delegated.”