6. Thyros
The bond hit me like a weapon. I braced one hand against the wall outside my quarters as heat slammed through my body hard enough to momentarily blur my vision. Naeris.
Her soft skin, her sharp little gasps. Her need.
Mine.
The word tore through me so violently, the darkness beneath my skin surged instinctively in response.
I snarled softly and shoved it back.Stars above.
The bond did not care about restraint. Every flicker of emotion rolling through her hit me in brutal flashes: her frustration, her arousal, her fury, and most of all, her resistance to me and the bond.
But underneath it all, one thing had shimmered that made it almost impossible for me to stop—her want.
Raw enough to nearly unravel me.
I dragged a hand through my hair and forced myself to keep walking instead of turning around and marching directly back to where the guards would take her, like some primitive beast answering to instinct alone.
The Harrowed One stirred faintly inside me. Take her.
It surprised me with its nearness and vehemence. He shouldn't even be here, so far from the Abyss. Whenever I went to Auris Prime, he had never followed. Never.
The whisper slid through my skull like black oil.
Claim what is yours.
“No!”
The word came out rough and strangled. A passing Pandraxian guard wisely pretended not to hear me. Good choice. Because right now, I felt one bad decision away from tearing through steel walls just to get back to her.
The worst part?
She was fighting the bond as hard as I was. Neither one of us wanted it. Yet neither one of us could resist.
Stars, I noticed everything. I noticed the way her pulse quickened every time I moved too close. The way her breath caught when I looked at her mouth. The stubborn anger every time her body betrayed her.
And by the Dark Abyss, the scent of her arousal flooding the holding chamber earlier had nearly destroyed what little self-control I still possessed.
I entered my quarters, and the doors sealed heavily behind me. Silence followed. My palace inside Nox Eternum suddenly felt very far away. Strange. For millions of years, I had preferred solitude. Needed it. The vast empty halls. The endless quiet. The distance between myself and everyone else.
Now the silence felt wrong. Because somewhere else on this ship, Naeris existed. And every instinct inside me demanded I go to her. I dropped heavily into one of the chairs overlooking the stars beyond the viewport and closed my eyes briefly. Immediate mistake. The bond surged harder.
A low growl escaped me before I could stop it. The darkness beneath my skin flared gold and crimson.
Mine.
“No,” I repeated harshly.
Because this—this right here—was exactly why I had avoided attachments for millions of years. Need became obsession frighteningly quickly for Arkhevari males. Especially ones like me. The flaw inside me reacted to Naeris like starving fire finding oxygen for the first time. It wanted her.
Possessively.
Absolutely.
Worst of all, some ancient, shattered piece inside my soul already loved her. This wasn't merely an infatuation, nor was it desire, although that was there. Plenty of it. No, mostly it was recognition. As though I had spent endless lifetimes searching for something I no longer remembered losing.
With a low curse, I stalked toward the doors before I could reconsider. I just couldn't be alone right now. Me, the hermit. The one who always preferred being alone to any kind of company.
The corridors outside were quieter than usual, as if others could feel my agitation and chose to stay away. By the time I reached the breakroom, I had almost regained enough control to pass for civilized.
Almost. Zapharos and Dravok both looked up the moment I entered. And by the comet's tail, from the expressions on their faces, I knew what was coming.
Without warning, my brothers turned on me like twin blades.
Zapharos’ golden aura flared, steady but bright with demand. “If she is your Aelyth, we need to know. Now.”
Dravok’s shadows coiled tighter around him, red threads flickering like warning lightning. “You felt it. We all saw it. The bond snapped into place the second you laid eyes on her. Don’t insult us by pretending otherwise.”
I chose silence instead.
Letting it stretch while I felt their minds pressing against mine, probing, testing the walls I had spent centuries fortifying.
I let them hit stone.
Zapharos exhaled sharply.
“Thyros.”
“She is… complicated,” I finally admitted. That was all I was going to give them. Let them stew. I didn't owe them anything.
Dravok laughed, a dark, humorless sound. “Complicated. That’s what you call the female who just looked at you like she wanted to carve your heart out and hand it back still beating?”
Ella stepped closer, and her green-gold eyes shone soft with understanding that somehow made it worse. “Thyros… if she’s your Aelyth?—”
“I didn’t ask for this,” I cut in, sharper than I intended. The words tasted like ash. “I was not made for balance. I was forged in the wound itself. Whatever she is, she deserves better than a death-bringer who was never meant to have a mate.”
Nadine crossed her arms, studying me with that sharp astrophysicist gaze that missed nothing. “You’re scared.”
I narrowed my eyes but didn’t deny it.
Ella tilted her head. “She knows about Ashera and Caelor…”
I turned to her, grasping for anything that wasn’t the relentless pull still clawing behind my ribs. “You’re the archaeologist. Tell me where she came from. How does a human speak our language in a form older than the Collapse?”
Ella shrugged helplessly, a small, rueful smile tugging at her lips.
“I have no idea. Aliens were never really popular on Earth. Especially not in the scientific community. They liked their neat little boxes, dinosaurs, evolution, climate data. The idea that we might have been… seeded? Or harvested?” She shook her head.
“That would’ve gotten you laughed out of every university on the planet. ”
Nadine snorted, leaning against the wall. “Oh yeah. I can just imagine the peer-review comments. Extra-terrestrial influence on human development? Please resubmit with actual evidence, Doctor Phillips. Meanwhile, we’re standing here talking to literal gods who were born inside a black hole.”
Ashley, who had been quietly observing from the side with crossed arms, let out a short laugh.
“From a military standpoint? We spent decades training to fight human enemies on Earth. Then the Cryons showed up, and suddenly we’re playing nice with green-skinned emperors and shadow gods.
The scientific community can choke on their old textbooks.
Reality didn’t wait for their approval.”
The females' easy banter drifted around me, but my mind had already slipped its leash. Naeris.
The way she moved, unbelievably graceful even in defiance, every step controlled, every shift of her body screamed of trained lethality wrapped in curves.
The dark braid that swung against her back.
The faint scar beneath her right eye that only made her sharper.
The way her gaze had locked with mine, like a challenge and a promise at the same time.
No other female had ever lingered, nor I with them. The Abyss had always called me back, cold, familiar, and honest in its hunger.
But Naeris…
She was fire in the wound. Light that refused to be swallowed. And the flaw inside me—the restless heat I had carried since my forging—roared awake at the mere thought of her. It wanted to claim. To mark. To wrap her in crimson and gold until the universe itself understood she was mine.
I clenched my jaw until it ached. Unworthy.
The word echoed like a death knell. I was the Executioner.
The last, creation born in fracture. If Ashera and Caelor fled to Earth, then by her own admission about her special gifts, I had no doubt that she carried echoes of Ashera herself.
What right did I have to drag something that pure into my darkness?
Zapharos’ voice pulled me back, quieter now. “Brother.”
I met his gaze. For once, the Praetor of War looked almost… understanding.
“We will not force this,” he promised. “But if she is your Aelyth, the bond will not be denied forever. You know that.”
I did. I had seen it happen with both of my brothers. A fact that terrified me more than any battlefield I had ever walked or any execution I was ever forced to perform. For the first time in my long, fractured existence, I wanted something I was terrified I would destroy.
Xandros entered the breakroom, and from the way he zeroed in on our table, he’d undoubtedly been looking for us.
His voice was clipped with command. “Now what? Our… guest is secured. We need to get more information from her.”
Ella answered before any of us could. “Give her time to adjust, Commander. She just went from… whatever she was doing guarding prisoners to alien gods. Let her breathe.”
Zapharos nodded once. “Tomorrow, we go down to Earth. Ella, you said you had sites you want to examine?”
Ella’s eyes lit with that archaeologist fire I had come to recognize. “The oldest ones I can think of—Gobekli Tepe, and maybe the submerged structures off India or Japan. Places where the timelines already don’t make sense according to human history.”
Nadine shook her head immediately. “Whatever we’re looking for has to be older than that. Much older. We need a baseline. We need to talk to Naeris, establish when her ancestors were taken, and from where.”
Ashley agreed. “Smart. Timeline and geography first. Why don’t you go talk to her, Ella? Woman to woman. She might open up more to you.”
“Not alone,” Zapharos cut in instantly, his golden aura flaring with protective instinct.
Ella rolled her eyes. “She’s not going to hurt me, Zaph.”
“I’m not going to bet your life on that,” he countered in a tone that didn't leave room for negotiation.