Arvid
SEVEN
She pushed herself out of the chair for the third time in an hour and resumed pacing.
The pyrestone floors radiated warmth beneath her feet, but the heat did nothing to ease the cold knot of anger in her chest. Cevryn's measured voice echoed in her memory, each carefully chosen word designed to undermine her presence here.
The way he'd spoken reminded her too much of Colonel Martinez and the tribunal panel—men in positions of power who viewed her as a problem to be managed rather than a solution to be utilized.
Supervision.
The word tasted bitter. Three years since her discharge, three years of building something on her own terms, and here she was again—deemed untrustworthy by men who prioritized procedure over lives.
She stopped at the windows, pressing her palms against the glass as she stared out at the medical district in the distance.
Somewhere in those buildings, Essin lay in a hospital bed, too weak to shift into her dragon form.
Somewhere, other patients she hadn't met yet were fighting a disease that Dorn and his team couldn't identify after four months of trying.
Four months.
The timeline gnawed at her. On Earth, she'd helped contain outbreaks in half that time, working with limited resources in active conflict zones.
Here, with advanced facilities and dedicated healers, they were still grasping for answers.
Either Ash Fever was more complex than anything she'd encountered, or they were missing something fundamental.
Without Dorn's compiled data, she had only observations.
The disease wasn't airborne—that eliminated several transmission vectors.
Contact didn't spread it either, which ruled out surface contamination.
Organ failure suggested systemic toxicity rather than infectious agents, but the pattern of spread indicated environmental exposure rather than genetic predisposition.
I don't have enough information.
The thought made her want to punch something. Every minute spent waiting felt like failure. She'd traveled through a wormhole to an alien planet to help dragon shifters she'd never heard of yesterday, and now she was trapped in a guest room until tomorrow.
Her reflection stared back from the darkening window—her skin flushed with frustration, and her dark hair slightly disheveled from running her hands through it.
The scar through her right eyebrow caught the lamplight, a permanent reminder of the last time she'd trusted institutional authority to prioritize lives over politics.
That tribunal had been different, though.
Martinez and his panel had questioned her judgment, her loyalty, her fitness for command.
They'd painted her as reckless, insubordinate, a liability.
But underneath their accusations had been genuine disappointment—men who'd believed in her until she'd forced them to choose between her and the system that defined them.
Cevryn felt different. Colder. More calculating. When he'd suggested sending her back to Earth, there had been no disappointment in his pale eyes. Only strategic assessment, as though she were a chess piece he was deciding whether to sacrifice.
Stop thinking about it.
But her mind refused to cooperate, because thinking about Cevryn meant thinking about the council meeting, and thinking about the council meeting meant remembering the moment Calix had said she would stay.
The absolute certainty in his voice, the way his jaw had tightened when Cevryn pushed back, the flash of something almost protective in those green eyes.
Heat flared in her chest at the memory. Not gratitude—she didn't need rescuing. But something deeper and more complicated. The recognition that he'd risked political capital to defend her, that he'd chosen her expertise over council approval despite barely knowing her.
She turned from the windows, agitation spiking higher.
This was exactly the kind of thinking she needed to avoid.
Calix Silvanus was a king, an Alpha dragon shifter, and her temporary employer.
The fact that something electric happened whenever they were near each other was irrelevant.
The way her pulse had quickened when he'd smiled during their walk to the medical facilities was a distraction she couldn't afford.
The way something inside her seemed to settle whenever he was nearby was definitely not worth examining.
She resumed pacing, her bare feet silent on the warm stone.
The guest suite was easily twice the size of her entire apartment back on Earth, furnished with pieces that looked ancient and priceless.
Under normal circumstances, she might have appreciated the craftsmanship, the way volcanic heat kept the space perfectly warm, and the view of Ashvorn's lights beginning to twinkle in the distance.
But nothing about this situation was normal.
Her stomach chose that moment to remind her that she'd barely eaten. The food Calix had promised should have arrived by now. Or maybe she'd been too distracted to hear the knock on the door when it came.
Stubborn. Maggie's voice echoed in her mind. You get stubborn when you're feeling vulnerable, Arvid.
"I'm not feeling vulnerable," she said aloud, then immediately felt ridiculous for talking to herself in an alien king's guest room.
But the words rang hollow. Because underneath the frustration and the professional urgency was something that felt suspiciously like fear. Not of Ash Fever—she'd faced worse diseases in worse conditions. Not of dragon shifters or alien worlds or political complications.
Fear of the way Calix looked at her. Like she mattered beyond her expertise. Like her presence here meant something more than medical consultation.
Fear of the way she'd started looking back at him.
She'd spent years building walls, constructing a life small enough to control completely. Safe relationships, manageable risks, no emotional entanglements that could compromise her judgment or leave her vulnerable. It was a good life. A productive life.
A lonely life.
But loneliness was predictable. And Calix Silvanus was the opposite of predictable.
He was authority incarnate, a man accustomed to being obeyed without question.
Everything about him should have triggered her carefully cultivated wariness of powerful men.
Instead, something inside her kept insisting he was different.
Dangerous thinking.
She stopped pacing abruptly, decision crystallizing with military precision.
She needed clarification about her restrictions, about this supervision arrangement, about whether Tal was expected to shadow her every movement.
Those were legitimate professional concerns that required immediate resolution.
The fact that seeking those answers meant finding Calix was purely coincidental. And the fact that her pulse immediately quickened at the prospect was obviously irrelevant.
She grabbed her shoes from beside the bed, slipping them on with practiced efficiency.
The corridor outside her door stretched in both directions, lit by the same warm glow that seemed to permeate all of Ashspire.
She'd paid attention during their earlier walk through the estate, noting the layout with the same instinctive awareness that had kept her alive in conflict zones.
She moved through Ashspire's corridors with quiet confidence, her footsteps muffled by thick rugs.
The estate felt different at night—larger somehow, full of shadows and the whisper of volcanic heat through ancient stone.
Portraits of previous Silvanus rulers watched her pass, their painted eyes seeming to track her movement through their domain.
Eleven generations of kings. The weight of that history pressed against her consciousness.
This wasn't just a house—it was a dynasty made manifest.
Ashspire's main floor yielded nothing but empty rooms and echoing silence.
Arvid moved through the grand spaces with growing frustration, checking the library, the formal dining room, even what appeared to be a war room lined with territorial maps.
All vacant. The estate felt like a museum—beautiful, ancient, and utterly devoid of life.
The second floor proved equally fruitless.
Guest suites, sitting rooms, and what looked like administrative offices stretched down long corridors lit by the same warm glow that permeated the entire estate.
Each empty room reinforced the growing realization of just how alone Calix was in this massive space.
Where is he?
She paused at the base of the final staircase, one that led to the uppermost level.
Logic suggested the third floor would house the king's private chambers, but approaching uninvited felt like crossing a line she wasn't sure she had permission to cross.
Then again, she'd already wandered through two floors of his home without explicit invitation.
What was one more level?
The stairs curved upward, each step carved from the same dark stone that formed Ashspire's foundation. As she climbed, the air grew warmer, carrying scents of spice, rain, and something distinctly masculine that made her heart race despite her best efforts to ignore it.
The staircase opened directly into an enormous space that stretched across the entire upper level of the estate. No doors. No formal entrance announcing the king's private domain. Just an immediate transition from stairwell to living space that felt both intimate and overwhelming.