Chapter 2
THE SHIP trembled around Emmy, a low hum in its core that pulsed through the floor and into her bones.
She stood at the edge of the observation port while stars poured past like a river of living light.
They were not still, not really. Each pinprick shifted in almost imperceptible ways, as if breathing.
The Valenmark at her wrist glowed faintly, its pulse matching her own.
Apex had not spoken since sealing the cockpit door. He moved with quiet authority born of repetition, hands gliding over a compact navigation array, fingers brushing holographic bands of light that responded to his touch like trained animals. Every motion was deliberate. Powerful. Effortless.
Dangerous.
She should have been afraid of him. He was alien, half shadow and half bronze, his skin carrying a faint inner luminescence that made him seem carved from starlight.
His hair was short and silver-white and two narrow blue stripes marked his left temple, a pattern she did not yet understand.
His eyes were amethyst, bright and cold, catching the faint light like fractured gems.
When he turned his head, she caught the flash of gold on his canines, a glint that reminded her how easily he could tear through steel.
Even the ceremonial jacket he wore failed to soften the impression of size and power.
The fabric strained across shoulders made for war.
Every time those strange violet eyes met hers, the Valenmark at her wrist came alive, heat spiraling through her blood until she had to look away.
She was not afraid of him. Okay, yes, she was. But she was more afraid of the heat.
He had taken her from Aram Voss only hours earlier.
Or maybe longer. Time lost edges in the dark between stars.
She remembered the way Apex’s voice had sounded when he told her to hold tight, the shock of his hand closing over hers, the burn that followed when the Valenmark etched itself into her skin.
A bond. A binding. Something she did not understand and could not peel away.
When his fingers brushed hers, the mark woke like a spark touching dry tinder and answered to his pulse.
He spoke at last. “You should rest.” His voice came as a low vibration that settled under her ribs. “We will reach the outer drift soon.”
“I’m not tired.” She kept her eyes on the stars, unwilling to give him more than the outline of her face.
He crossed the small space between pilot seat and bulkhead, the cabin no larger than a studio apartment from back home. One sleeping shelf. One narrow galley drawer. Two emergency harnesses. No crew. Nothing extra. The ship was built for speed and survival, not comfort.
“You are human,” he said. “You tire.”
“And you’re what exactly?” She turned then, chin lifted. “You don’t?”
His mouth curved, a ghost of a smile that never reached his eyes. “Vettian. And we have longer endurance than humans.”
“Longer is doing a lot of work in that sentence. It doesn’t mean endless.”
He didn’t answer. He stepped closer instead, and the Valenmark flared in response, answering something in him she didn’t want to name. The air between them thickened. The soft hum of the ship deepened until it seemed to echo the rhythm under her skin. She should have stepped away. She didn’t.
He stopped an arm’s length from her, close enough that the heat of his body reached her skin. His scent was clean and sharp, like rain-struck stone after lightning.
“The Valenmark reacts to proximity,” he said, voice low.
“The closer we stand, the stronger its signal. The Valenmark is not designed for long distance. Separation for too long causes pain, like a muscle tearing against its own nerve. The field between us demands closeness, constant calibration, or it burns both hosts.”
The mark burned brighter, bright as banked coals pushed to flame. It climbed through her veins, not pain, not exactly, an ache that turned into wanting. She didn’t have a name for the rest, but it rippled beneath the surface, gnawing at her in a way she’d never experienced before.
“I didn’t agree to this.” The admission slipped out rougher than she intended.
“You did not have to.” His gaze didn’t move from her face. “It chose.”
She laughed, a sharp sound in the small cabin. “Maybe it chose badly.”
“Valenmarks do not err.”
“Then maybe we erred.”
She stepped back, breaking the line of heat. The glow at her wrist dimmed but didn’t vanish. It settled into her skin like a second heartbeat. He let her retreat. His gaze tracked the movement, unreadable as the dark beyond the port.
She watched the stars again because looking at him was dangerous. More than dangerous. Filled with emotions she refused to analyze. “Tell me what it is,” she said. “Not a myth. The truth.”
“It is a bond,” he said. “Permanent. Eternal. It forms only when genomic complement is exact and the field conditions align.”
She frowned. “That sounds like gibberish. Put it in human terms.”
He hesitated, studying her. “There are no human terms for the Valenmark,” he admitted.
Then, softer, as if simplifying the concept cost him something: “It chooses only when two beings are perfectly matched. When all the conditions that govern life—mind, body, spirit—fit. It binds what should not fit and makes it whole.”
“So, it’s a leash.”
He met her eyes and didn’t flinch. “It is not a leash. It is a seal.”
She frowned, testing each word. “Seal. That sounds like a prison, or a brand.” She dropped her gaze to her wrist. “It looks like a brand.”
“No,” he said quietly, voice a shade deeper. “A seal protects what lies within it. It does not chain or brand. It preserves.”
“Between us,” she pressed, trying to find footing in language that kept slipping through her fingers.
“Affirmative. Between us. Around us. Through us.” He paused, searching her face. “It means no other can interfere with what is made.”
Her mouth went dry. “Why me?” The words came small and raw. “There were lots of other women Voss was auctioning off. Why not them?”
He looked away for the first time, his jaw flexing. The silence stretched until it became an ache. “Because the Valenmark chose you.”
“That isn’t an answer,” she whispered, frustration rising to cover the fear. “That’s fate, or magic, or something else you don’t want to explain.”
Apex turned back to her, expression unreadable.
“You are correct. There is no single answer. There is resonance. There is balance. There is instinct that crosses species and time. That is what I mean when I say you are a perfect match. The Valenmark does not search for reason. It searches for truth.”
She shook her head. “That sounds like the kind of thing people say when they don’t have to live with the consequences.”
His eyes softened, amethyst burning low in the dim light. “Then let me say it in a way you will understand. I do not know why it chose you, only that it did. And now that it has, neither of us can undo it.”
“You don’t know me.” The protest sounded thin even to her.
“I do not need to.” His voice roughened. “The mark is not random. It is older than my people. Older than yours. It is more rare than the most precious jewel. It does not mistake.”
The pulse under her skin throbbed harder, sending a shiver of warmth spiraling up her arm into her chest. When she looked back, his pupils had widened until the metallic rims were only a thin ring of light.
The cabin became charged, the way the world becomes a breath before storm wind hits a field and sets it running.
“You don’t get to tell me what it means,” she whispered.
“I am not telling you what to think.” He stepped closer again, slow enough to give her a chance to move. “I am telling you what is.” He was close enough now that when he spoke, his breath brushed her cheek. “You feel it. Do not deny it.”
She swallowed. “You’re very sure of yourself.”
“No.” His reply was quiet. “I am sure of you.”
Heat climbed her throat. His eyes dipped once to her mouth and lifted again. The space between them turned molten. She raised her hand to her wrist without thinking, and his fingers closed over her fingers before she reached the mark.
The contact struck like a spark against metal. Light flared under their joined hands. Energy tore through her so suddenly that her knees went loose. He reached with his other hand, steadying her waist.
“Breathe,” he said.
“I am breathing.” It came out as a lie. She dragged air into her lungs and braced.
“It is the mark.” His hand stayed at her waist. “It is aligning our rhythms.”
“Aligning us?” Her voice shook and made her angry. “What are we, binary stars?”
“Something more volatile.” His mouth moved as if a real smile might escape. It did not. The constraint he kept on himself was a kind of armor.
“You enjoy this.”
He shook his head. “I endure it,” he said. “Barely.”
They stood like that until the heat ebbed into a steady throb.
The Valenmark adjusted to the rhythm of their hearts.
She studied his face, searching for softness and finding none.
There was only the clean planes of a warrior’s face honed by discipline.
His skin caught the faintest reflection of cabin light across the hard line of his cheekbones, the suggestion of muscle beneath.
It was all solid, unyielding power—not beauty carved from light, but from endurance.
He was impossible and arresting and not safe to look at for too long.
“What happens if I break it?” she asked.
“You cannot.”
“Everything breaks.”
“Not this. You could cut flesh and burn skin. You could destroy your body. The pattern would remain. It is written into you now. Encoded.”
“Encoded,” she repeated, still uncertain what any of it meant. “You mean encoded into my DNA? My cells?”
“Affirmative.” His tone softened slightly. “The mark rewrites small pieces of what you are.”
She blinked at him, a flicker of unease tightening her stomach. “So, it’s alive?”