19. Naeris
I ran.
I, who never ran from anything in my life—not Sythari priests, not battle, not death itself—ran like a coward down the corridor.
My feet slapped against the deck plating.
My heart hammered so hard I thought it might crack my ribs.
The golden thread between us screamed in protest, pulling taut, begging me to turn around and go back to him.
But I couldn’t.
I reached my quarters, slammed my palm against the panel, and practically fell inside. The door hissed shut behind me, and I leaned back against it, breathless, shaking, tears burning in my eyes.
What have I done?
The kiss replayed in my mind on an endless, merciless loop.
The way Thyros had cupped my face like I was something precious.
The raw hunger in his mouth. The way he had growled my name like a prayer and a curse at the same time.
I had never been kissed like that. Never.
Not by any of the lovers I’d taken after Kael’Varyn freed me.
Those had been releases, quick, fierce, meaningless ways to remind myself I was free. I drank. I fought. I fucked. I lived.
But that kiss…
That kiss had reached inside me and touched something I didn’t even know was still there.
Something fragile and starving and real.
I slid down the door until I was sitting on the floor, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around myself.
A sob tore out of me before I could stop it.
Because the terrifying truth wasn’t the kiss itself.
It was that I no longer knew who I was.
The Sythari had tried to turn me into a vessel.
The rebellion had turned me into a weapon.
I had carved out pieces of myself—sharp, hard, useful pieces—and called them strength.
But Thyros… Thyros looked at me like I was more than any of those things.
Like I was whole. I was terrified that if I let him in, if I let this bond have me, there would be nothing left of the Naeris I had fought so hard to become.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes, trying to stop the tears.
It’s the bond, I told myself. It has to be the bond. This overwhelming need, this ache between my thighs, this terrifying want to go back and beg him to finish what we started against that viewport where anyone could have seen us… it’s the bond. Damn it. It has to be.
But even as I thought it, I knew I was lying to myself.
A fresh wave of tears spilled down my cheeks. I wanted him.
I wanted him, the infuriating, overprotective, darkness-marked male who had torn through an ocean of water and ancient guardians just to reach me. Not the bond. Not the prophecy. Not destiny.
Him.
That brutal truth scared me more than the Sythari or the Harrowed One ever could.
Because if I gave in… if I let myself fall…
what would be left of me when the universe finally demanded its price?
I curled tighter into myself on the floor.
The golden thread still sang between us, warm, patient, unrelenting.
For the first time in my life, I didn’t know if I was strong enough to keep running.
I stayed on the floor, back pressed against the cold door, knees drawn tight to my chest like a child hiding from monsters.
The worst part wasn’t the kiss itself. It was the way my body still burned for him.
The throbbing between my legs refused to fade.
My nipples ached against the fabric of my shirt.
Every breath felt too shallow, too hot. I could still taste him on my lips, dark, masculine, and faintly metallic like starfire and blood.
The golden thread kept pulsing between us, slow and relentless, feeding me echoes of his frustration, his hunger, his need.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to dig deeper, past the desire, past the bond, into whatever was left of me.
Is this real?
No answer came.
Only silence. And the steady, aching throb low in my belly that whispered yes, yes, yes.
How was I supposed to know the difference?
I had spent my whole life learning to distrust anything that felt too good, too easy, too powerful.
The Temple had taught me that desire was a tool.
The rebellion had taught me that wanting anything too much got you killed.
And now this… this ancient, cosmic tether was telling me that the male who made me feel safe and terrified all at once was mine.
Forever.
I couldn’t just go to him and ask him to fuck the ache away like I had with others.
A quick, meaningless release in some dark corner after a battle.
No. Giving myself to Thyros wouldn’t be temporary.
The bond would never let us go. It would sink its hooks into every part of me until I didn’t know where I ended and he began.
I pressed my forehead against my knees, a broken sound escaping my throat.
“Damn you,” I whispered into the empty room. “Damn you and your perfect golden thread and your stupid, beautiful eyes and the way you look at me like I’m the only light you’ve ever seen.”
Tears slipped down my cheeks again. I wanted him so badly it hurt. Not just my body. My soul. The part of me that had been hollow for years suddenly felt seen. Known.
I knew that if I went to him now, if I let him touch me again, I wouldn’t be able to walk away afterward. Yet I still didn’t know if the woman who wanted him so desperately was really me… or just the bond wearing my face.
I stayed on the floor a long time, listening to the ship’s quiet hum and the frantic beat of my own heart, cursing the universe, the bond, and the infuriating male who had somehow become the center of both.
At least the ship was big. For the next couple of days, I avoided Thyros. Not that I didn’t feel him. No, that would have been an impossible mercy.
The golden thread between us remained a constant presence at the edge of my awareness, warm and unrelenting.
Sometimes it pulsed with his frustration.
Sometimes with a possessive hunger that made my cheeks heat even when I was alone.
At night, when I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I felt his loneliness like a deep vibration in my bones.
What was worse was that, beneath it all, I could feel love.
Impossible love. Impossible because we had barely known each other for a handful of days.
Impossible because he was an ancient warrior forged in darkness, and I was a former rebel who had spent most of her life trusting no one.
Impossible because my entire existence had taught me that anything this powerful came with a price.
Still, the feeling was there, steady and undeniable.
Not the frantic heat of lust, though there was certainly enough of that to keep me awake at night. Not the relentless pull of the bond, urging me toward him with ancient certainty. No, something deeper.
A quiet, bone-deep recognition that when Thyros looked at me, some fractured part of me settled into place. That his pain mattered to me. That his happiness mattered to me. That the thought of him facing his endless darkness alone made my chest ache in a way I could no longer dismiss.
My heart, traitorous thing that it was, kept insisting that what I felt was real. It tried to reason that perhaps it had not begun when we met. That perhaps some part of us had been finding our way back to each other for millions of years.
Which made me distrust my feelings even more. Because they felt… ancient. As if some part of him had loved me for far longer than either of us understood.
It terrified me.
And it made me ache.
So, I did what I had never done with a challenge before. I avoided him.
I skipped communal meals. Took odd hours in the gym. Buried myself in old Earth records and whatever scraps of information Dravok shared about Ashera and Caelor. I told myself I needed time to think.
Only at night, in the dark, did I allow myself to face the truth: I was afraid.
Afraid that if Thyros touched me again, I would stop resisting.
Afraid that if I gave him my body, my heart would follow.
Afraid that I would wake up one morning and discover the fierce, stubborn woman I had fought so hard to become had dissolved into destiny.
On the third day, I wandered into the main breakroom in search of caffeine and solitude.
I found Ella and Nadine instead. Ella sat curled in one of the padded chairs, a steaming mug clasped between both hands.
Her red-brown hair was piled into a messy knot, and she wore a soft sweater that somehow made her look as comforting as the smell of fresh bread.
Nadine stood at the counter, assembling what appeared to be an alarming quantity of fruit, yogurt, and nutritional supplements with scientific precision.
Both looked up when I entered. Ella’s face lit immediately. “Naeris!”
The warmth in her voice made something inside me soften. For all the chaos of the past week, these women had become an unexpected anchor.
Nadine glanced over her shoulder, taking in my expression with unnerving accuracy.
“You look sleep-deprived,” she observed. “And emotionally conflicted.”
I stopped in the doorway.
Ella shot her a look. “Nadine.”
“What?” Nadine set down her spoon. “It’s an objective assessment.”
Despite myself, I laughed. The sound felt rusty, but real.
Ella patted the seat beside her. “Come sit with us.”
I hesitated only a moment before crossing the room. The three of us settled together in the quiet hum of the breakroom, the kind of ordinary moment that felt almost miraculous considering the cosmic insanity surrounding us.
For a while, we spoke of harmless things, the appalling state of Pandraxian coffee, the fact that Zapharos apparently did not understand the concept of taking a day off.
The stubbornness of the men's belief that they were gods.
Here, Nadine and Ella argued good naturedly with each other, making me laugh now and then.