Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
MAEVE
The medical bay hums with the quiet rhythm of analysis equipment running through the morning's latest samples, and I trace the molecular signature on my display without seeing it.
I trace my scar. My thoughts keep drifting to places they have no business going: the weight of Drazex's arms around me, the vibration of his humming through my chest, the way he looked at me when I found his secret hidden in the maintenance tunnels.
A male who feeds strays and sings his dead mother's songs and holds me while I sleep, and now the mother of all migraines pound inside my skull.
The door to the medical bay slides open, and my pulse speeds up, warmth flooding my skin. I don't need to turn around to identify who stands in the entrance. The air changes when he enters a room, compression and temperature and a presence that demands acknowledgment.
“The Vorn records arrived. Chade Vorn honored the favor. He's given us his full shipping manifests for the past eighteen months,” Drazex says.
He passes a tablet to me, his fingers brushing mine in the exchange. Electricity rockets through my nerve endings. My stomach tenses and my clit throbs. His nostrils flare. He scents everything, especially things I can't control.
“I'll start the cross-reference.” My tone holds steady through sheer force of will.
He doesn't leave while I work. He positions himself at the adjacent console and pulls up personnel records, the investigation demanding both our attention while our bodies exist in a proximity that burns.
The shipping manifests scroll across my display, thousands of entries of commerce through Vahiri's ports.
Searching for anomalies in this volume of data would take weeks without the parameters I've already established.
I input the molecular markers, the timeline correlations, the equipment specifications that would explain what killed Torvin and nearly killed Krel.
“There.” I enlarge a cluster of entries that pulse red with correlation hits. “A company called Vexxar Logistics. Four shipments in the past eighteen months, each one arriving within two weeks of an enforcer's death.”
Drazex leans closer to examine the data, his chest nearly brushing my shoulder, his scent wrapping around me in a cloud of mineral warmth and musk underneath. The scent that intensifies when arousal takes hold.
“Vexxar Logistics doesn't exist in the Syndicate registry.” His jaw tightens. “It's a ghost company.”
“Created specifically for these shipments.” I pull up the authorization codes, and cold settles in my stomach when I recognize what I'm seeing.
The digital signatures that validate commerce on Vahiri Prime.
The credentials that would be required to create a shell company without triggering oversight.
“Drazex. These codes originate from inside House Draven's supply chain.”
The traitor isn't an outsider manipulating House Draven from the shadows. The traitor belongs to Drazex's own house, holds authority within his own organization, and has been systematically murdering his enforcers while he trusted them with access they used to betray him.
A muscle jumps in his jaw. When he speaks, the word comes out clipped.
“My office.”
He's already moving toward the door, but he pauses at the threshold. Waits for me to gather the files. Waits for me.
The words carry command, but the edge beneath them cuts differently than it once did. He's not ordering his property to follow. He's asking his partner to help him understand who is destroying his house from within.
I gather the relevant files and follow him out of the medical bay.
His office opens at his palm print, the door sealing behind us.
The rust-colored glow from the single window paints everything in shades of dried blood and amber, and he moves to the console built into the canyon stone while I take the seat across from him and go through each code.
I pull up the personnel records we've been building toward all afternoon. “Only three people in House Draven hold the authorization level required to create a shell company like Vexxar Logistics.”
He moves to stand behind me, close enough that his warmth reaches my back. I try to ignore it. Focus on the screen.
“Vezra.” I tap the first file. “Logistics coordinator, fifteen years in. Morath.” The second file. “Runs the pharmaceutical division under your father.” I hesitate before opening the third, already knowing how this one will land. “And Teshra.”
The name drops into silence.
Teshra, who explained the rules on my first night in this compound. Teshra, who manages the private wing where I sleep. Teshra, who has access to my quarters and proximity to everything Drazex values.
“Not Teshra.” His words come out flat, as though he's in denial. “She held me when I was an infant. Stayed after my mother's execution when half the household fled.”
“That was decades ago.” I keep my tone gentle, but I don't back down. “Loyalty erodes. Especially when you've given your life to people who see you as furniture.”
His jaw tightens. He doesn't argue, but his hand hovers over Teshra's file without opening it, and I understand. Some betrayals are too close to examine without flinching.
“Morath.” He pulls up the councilor's record instead. “Thirty years under my father. If he's our traitor...”
He doesn't finish. He doesn't need to. Exposing Morath means confronting Lord Vorath. Challenging the authority structure his father built. Possibly triggering open war within the house while enemies circle outside.
“And Vezra?” I ask.
“She has family in the Splits. A brother who owed us money, years back.” He studies her file, and I watch him searching for a reason to suspect her over the other two. Over Teshra. “The debt was cleared, but grudges don't always follow paperwork.”
Drazex tenses when the door chimes. The male who was just leaning toward me disappears behind something harder.
“Enter.”
Samai fills the doorway, all restless energy and sharp edges. His gaze tracks between us, reading everything we thought we'd hidden.
“Brother.” The mocking lilt is there, but something else lurks underneath. “And the medic. Cozy.”
“What do you want, Samai?”
“Father sent me.” Three words, and the temperature in the room drops ten degrees.
Samai's performance falls away. “He's asking questions. Why does the debt contract have access to restricted areas? Why is his heir running an investigation without formal sanction?” His gaze cuts to me.
“Why is she reviewing personnel files that should require his authorization?”
Drazex goes still. “I sanctioned the investigation.”
“The old male sees everything. If he thinks she's made you stupid...” He doesn't finish. The silence finishes for him.
“What did you tell him?”
“Nothing he didn't already know.” Samai moves toward the door, pauses. His lighter eyes find mine, and the mockery has bled away to reveal a warning stripped of performance. “You're trouble, medic. Try not to get my brother killed.”
The door seals behind him. Drazex hasn't moved, his hands white-knuckled on the console edge, every line of his body carved from tension.
“You should return to your quarters.”
Ten minutes ago he was close enough that his breath warmed my skin. Now he's somewhere I can't reach, retreating behind walls I thought we'd started dismantling.
“Running confirms his suspicions.”
“You don't know my father.” His voice scrapes low. “You don't know what he does to threats.”
“Then tell me.”
He turns. The look on his face stops my breath. Fury and fear knotted together, and underneath both, grief.
“My mother tried to sell Syndicate secrets when I was twelve. The Council made us watch her die.” The words come out flat. Rehearsed. Like he's told himself this story so many times it's worn smooth. “Afterward, my father told me love makes you weak. Gives your enemies weapons.”
I wait. There's more. I can see it building behind his eyes.
“Then you walked into my receiving room.” His hands flex at his sides, claws threatening to extend. “And every lesson stopped mattering.”
“I'm not a weakness.”
“To him, you are.” He steps closer, stops himself. “If he sees what you've become to me, he'll use you against me. Or he'll eliminate the threat.”
The confession lands between us, heavier than either of us intended.
He's admitting what we've both been circling for days.
This pull between us, this gravity that bends everything else out of shape.
We've been calling it proximity, necessity, the forced intimacy of shared investigation. We've been lying to ourselves.
Standing here, watching him fight against the words he's already spoken, I realize I don't want to lie anymore.
I’ve held the line for years. Been the steady one while everyone else fell apart.
Hoarded hope in small doses, told myself that wanting things was a luxury I couldn’t afford.
Softness. Being held. Someone to look at me the way he’s looking at me right now.
My life has offered me precious little tenderness and even less love, and I learned early to stop reaching for things that would only be ripped away.
He's reaching for me. Has reached for me since that first night, in every meal he made sure arrived, every threat he deflected, every moment he let me see past the enforcer to the male beneath. I'm tired of pretending I don't want to reach back.
“Then stop protecting me from consequences I've already accepted.” I close the distance he won't. Press my palm flat against his chest, against the double-beat of his hearts.
“I walked into this compound with open eyes.
I will not watch you destroy yourself trying to shield me from a danger I'm already inside.”
His breath catches. Fangs extend, white against charcoal.
“You don't understand what you're asking.”