Chapter 7 The Green Eyed Noble
The Green Eyed Noble
Rynn
I am vibrating myself apart.
It is not a metaphor. The dermal resonance that began as a low hum in the hangar—the moment that grease-stained human put his hands on her—has evolved from a subsonic irritation into a tectonic grinding that feels like my ribs are trying to separate from my sternum.
I am alone in the Pink Slip’s small common area, but the space feels suffocatingly tight.
The air recycler hums a pathetic, rattling rhythm that is entirely out of sync with the vibration in my chest, creating a dissonance that makes my teeth ache.
My core temperature has spiked to levels that would send a human into organ failure.
The air around me is warping, shimmering with heat waves that distort the edges of the battered metal table I’m currently gripping.
I look down at my hands. They are unrecognizable.
The micro-scales beneath my skin—usually dormant, invisible armor woven into my DNA for survival on the harsh plains of Valoria Prime—have flared wide open.
They catch the dim emergency lighting, shimmering with an iridescent, violent gold, grinding against the fine fabric of my shirt like sandpaper.
Every breath I take scrapes the sensitive dermis against the Aethel-weave, a friction that should be painful but instead feels like a maddening itch I cannot scratch.
Control, I command myself. You are the Heir. You are civilization. You do not unravel because a smuggler touched your pilot.
My body laughs at me. It screams.
It wants blood. Specifically, it wants the blood of the mechanic who dared to put his hands on what the Aethel-bond has decided is mine.
I squeeze the edge of the table. The steel groans, high and shrill, and then buckles under my fingers like warm wax.
I stare at the deformation in the metal—the imprint of my own hand crushed into the alloy.
I pick up a heavy spanner I found on the bench, needing something, anything, to ground the energy before I tear the ship apart.
It heats instantly in my grip. Cherry red. Then white hot. The handle warps, drooping like wet clay, unable to withstand the thermal output of a Valorian male in the throes of a mating rage.
I drop it. It clatters to the deck, hissing as it scorches the floorplate, leaving a black scar on the metal.
This is what I am. Not a Lord. Not a diplomat. A weapon wrapped in silk. A monster that my family dresses up in tailored suits and pretends is safe for polite society.
Dangerous. Unstable. Feral.
I pace to the far wall. Four steps. Turn. Four steps. Turn. The confined space is a cage, and I am the beast pacing the perimeter.
With every turn, the image flashes in my mind: Jax’s arm around her shoulders.
His easy, arrogant grin. The way he smelled—like cheap engine oil and history.
He has a past with her. He has memories of her laughing in a bunk that I don’t have.
He knows the taste of her skin. He knows the sound of her breath when she sleeps.
And she let him touch her. She leaned into him. She called me cargo to protect him.
Cargo.
The word echoes in the silence, louder than the resonance. It is a precise, surgical strike to the one vulnerability I cannot shield.
A roar builds in my throat, choking me. I slam my fist against the bulkhead. The ship shudders, the vibration traveling through the hull plates, likely alerting Zip that his passenger has finally lost his mind.
The door hisses open.
I don’t turn around. I can’t. If I look at her right now, with my pupils blown black and my fangs aching to mark something, I will not be able to stop. I will destroy the fragile truce we have built. I will confirm every terrifying thing she suspects about me.
“So,” her voice cuts through the thrumming air, sharp and defiant, though I can hear the tremor underneath. “Zip says you’re bending the furniture. And my heat sensors are redlining in this sector.”
She steps inside. The door seals behind her.
And then her scent hits me.
It sucks the air out of the room then it washes over me—the metallic tang of the ship, the sharp spike of her adrenaline, the underlying sweetness of her skin that smells like strawberries and ozone. It is the most intoxicating thing I have ever smelled. But layered over it, suffocating it, is him.
Engine grease. Cheap spice-liquor. The musk of another male.
My vision floods with red. The growl rips out of me before I can stifle it. It vibrates the deck plates, a low, menacing rumble that no human throat could produce.
“Leave,” I rasp. My voice is wrecked—gravel and smoke.
“No.”
“Polly, get out. Now.” I turn slowly, forcing my movements to be rigid, mechanical, fighting the urge to cross the room in a blur of motion. “I am not... safe.”
She doesn’t run. Because she is insane. Because she is the most reckless, infuriating creature in the galaxy. She stands there, arms crossed over her chest, chin lifted in that stubborn angle that makes me want to bite the soft line of her throat and drink her courage.
She looks at me—really looks at me. She sees the flared scales shimmering on my neck, jagged and gold. She sees the black pits of my eyes where the amber has been swallowed by the void. She sees the heat waves rolling off my shoulders, blurring the air around me.
She glances at the melted spanner on the floor, seeing the scorched metal. Then back to me. Her throat works as she swallows.
“You scared Jax,” she says, her voice steady, though I can hear the rapid flutter of her heart. Thump-thump-thump. It beats like a frantic bird against her ribs, calling to the predator in me. “You scared me.”
“Good.” I take a step toward her. The air between us crackles, static electricity jumping across the gap, snapping against my skin. “You should be scared. Do you know how close I came to tearing his arm off? Do you know what it took to stop?”
“You were jealous.”
“I was homicidal!” I roar, the sound slamming into the walls, too big for this small room. “He touched you! He put his hands on you like he had the right. Like he knew you.”
“He’s a friend, Rynn! He hugged me! That’s what friends do in the Fringe!”
“He smelled like he wanted to breed with you!”
The words hang in the air, crude and base and utterly humiliating. This is not how a Valorian Lord speaks. This is how a beast speaks. It is the truth stripped of all diplomacy.
Polly’s mouth falls open slightly. A flush rises up her neck—not fear, I realize with a jolt that sends fresh heat to my groin. Arousal. My bluntness didn’t repel her; it sparked something. Her pupils dilate, eating the brown of her eyes until they mirror my own hunger.
“Is that what this is?” Her voice drops, breathless. She uncrosses her arms, her hands hanging loose at her sides, twitching as if she wants to reach out. “Biology? Some alien instinct you can’t control?”
“It is everything.” I stalk toward her, driving her back step by step until her shoulders hit the bulkhead.
I don’t touch her—I don’t dare—but I box her in, slamming my hands against the wall on either side of her head.
The metal dents under my palms, the heat of my skin leaving searing marks on the gray paint.
I lean down, my face inches from hers, letting her feel the furnace heat radiating from my skin.
I can see the sweat beading on her upper lip from the ambient temperature of my rage.
I can smell the shift in her pheromones—the fear dissolving into a sharp, wet desire that smells like rain on hot stone.
“I am a Valorian Heir,” I whisper, the words vibrating through her bones. “My bloodline was bred for two things: war and preservation. We are possessive. We are territorial. We do not share resources. And we never share mates.”
“I’m not your mate,” she whispers. But her voice lacks conviction. It trembles. Her scent has shifted completely now. The smell of the mechanic is fading, burned away by my proximity, replaced by the scent of her own need. It calls to me, beckoning the monster closer.
“Tell my DNA that,” I snarl, leaning in until my nose brushes hers.
“Because ever since I woke up in that bunk with you, every cell in my body has rewritten itself with your genetic code as the primary imperative. I look at you, and I do not see a pilot. I see the only thing in the universe that matters. I see mine.”
She shivers, a full-body tremor that I feel against my own chest, even without touching. But then her eyes flash with that spark of defiance I fell for. She pushes back, not physically, but with words.
“Is that right?” She lifts her chin, exposing her throat. A taunt. An offering. “Because back in the hangar, you didn’t look at me like I mattered. You looked at me like I’d just stabbed you in the back.”
I flinch. The anger drains away, leaving only the raw, bleeding wound beneath. The fire dampens, leaving cold ash.
“You called me cargo,” I say. The words come out quiet. Broken. “To him. You looked me in the eye and called me a job.”
“I lied to save your life, Rynn!”
“I know that!” I pull back, pacing away from her because being close to her while this hurts so much is agony. “Logically, I know that. But logic has nothing to do with this.”
I turn back to her, stripping away the last of my defenses. I let her see the exhaustion, the pain, the crushing weight of existing as a symbol instead of a soul.
Do you know what that word does to me?” I ask, my voice shaking. “Do you have any idea what it feels like to be what I am? I have spent thirty years being a product. A bloodline. A set of harvestable organs and adaptable DNA for the highest bidder.”
I walk back to her, slow this time. Exposed.