Chapter 13
An hour later, the campfire popped, sending sparks spiraling into the darkening canyon.
Michelle watched them rise and disappear into the blackness of the sky, tiredness weighing her down like a lead blanket.
Raaze had hunted earlier, so at least her stomach was full for the first time in days.
Zeke’s arm curved around her waist, his thumb tracing lazy patterns against her hip through the leather.
Across the fire, Kraath looked to be asleep leaning against a fallen log and Raaze was sprawled against a boulder, running a whetstone along one of his blades.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape. The rhythmic sound filled the silence between crackling wood.
It was the same blade he’d been working on for ten minutes, even though his claws could probably slice through steel without breaking a sweat.
“Three days in the swamps,” Raaze said suddenly, not looking up. “That’s how long we tracked the Kotanian team during the championship semifinals.”
She shifted against Zeke’s side, trying to find a position that didn’t make her leg throb like a son of a bitch. The legion cast helped, but the bone-deep ache remained. She’d kill for some of those painkillers back at the garrison.
“They thought they were clever, doubling back through their own tracks, laying false trails.” Raaze tested the blade’s edge with his thumb. “But they moved like all Kota do… heavy on their heels, compensating for their bulk. Even in mud three feet deep, the impressions told the story.”
“Did you win?” Michelle asked, more to fill the silence than from real interest.
Raaze’s lips curved in a smile that was all sharp edges. “We crushed them. Forty-three to six. They never saw us coming through the marsh grass.” His gaze lifted to her, red eyes reflecting the firelight. “Though we almost lost when they tried to use their females as bait.”
The whetstone stopped moving.
“Human females are joining the leagues now. Can you imagine?” He laughed.
“Weak little things, barely able to carry the s’krav for ten meters before collapsing.
The human males are disadvantaged enough, but to burden themselves with females they have to protect?
” He shook his head. “It’s like deliberately breaking your own legs before a race. ”
Heat flashed through Michelle’s chest. “Strength isn’t just physical.”
“Out here it is.” Raaze’s eyes narrowed, tracking over her torn pants where the legion cast gleamed. “Your broken leg puts all of us at risk. Slows us down. Forces him—” he jerked his chin at Zeke. “to waste energy on you instead of focusing on real threats."
She forced her chin up to meet his gaze. “I’m still alive, aren’t I?”
Raaze resumed sharpening, the scrape of stone on steel loud in the sudden silence. “Without your protector there, you’d be feral food. Or frozen. Or drowned. Take your pick.”
She turned to Zeke, voice tight. “Is he right? Is that how you feel as well?”
Zeke’s jaw worked, muscle bunching under his skin. The silence stretched, broken only by the fire’s crackle. When he finally met her eyes, his voice was rough.
“You are human. You do need protection.”
Cold shock went through her. She pulled away, the few inches of space suddenly a desperate need. “I survived ferals. A storm. A flood. A broken leg.” Her voice rose with each word. “I left you a trail to follow even while being dragged through the forest.”
“You barely survived.” Zeke’s hand reached for her, then dropped when she shifted further away. “I tracked those ferals and killed them, then the krevasta led us to the cabin. The infection in your leg would have killed you within hours if I hadn’t treated it.”
A sour weight settled in her stomach. The fever. The helplessness of being unconscious. Complete dependence on him… then waking in his arms, warm and safe while the storm raged outside, suddenly felt different.
Not romantic as it had felt before, but helpless.
“So I’m just a burden.” The words came out flat.
Zeke’s hand found her face, fingers gentle but firm under her jaw as he turned her to look at him. “You’re mine to protect. Mine to die for if necessary.”
“I don’t want that.” She jerked away from his touch. “I don’t want to be something you die for. I want to stand beside you, not cowering behind you.”
“That’s not how it works.” His voice carried absolute certainty. “You’re human. I’m Izaean. I’m stronger, faster, designed for combat. It’s my job to keep you safe.”
She gritted her teeth so hard she thought they’d break off. She’d spent decades building her independence after her divorce. Raised two children alone. Run engineering teams on many different planets. She’d carved out her competence with stubborn determination and raw skill.
And now she was being reduced to something fragile.
“This is why I don’t do relationships.” Raaze’s voice cut through the tension, as casual as if he were commenting on the weather.
“All this emotional trall, these expectations and hurt feelings. Too complicated.” He examined his blade in the firelight.
“I prefer killing things. Much simpler. You know where you stand with violence.”
“Shut the draanth up,” Zeke growled, but the damage was done.
She leaned back against the rock behind her. The few inches between them might as well have been light-years. The comfortable intimacy from earlier, pressed against his side, his arm around her, felt like it belonged to different people.
The memory of his touch, his possessive gaze, felt different now. What had thrilled her, that fierce certainty, now felt like a brand. She hadn’t been a partner.
She’d been a prize.
He watched her with unblinking yellow eyes. In his world, keeping something precious safe was the highest expression of care.
But she had never wanted to be precious.
She’d wanted to be loved. There was a difference.
Her engineering teams hadn’t respected her because she was protected or special.
They’d respected her because she could diagnose a failing fusion reactor by sound alone, because she’d pulled twelve-hour shifts alongside them during critical repairs, and because she’d earned her position through skill and determination.
Here, none of that mattered. Here, she was just another fragile human who needed protection.
The legion cast on her leg pulsed with warmth.
She closed her eyes, exhaustion pulling at her bones.
“I survived twenty years in deep space engineering,” she said quietly, not opening her eyes. “Fifteen of those as department head. You know what the casualty rate is for deep space construction?”
No one answered.
“Thirty percent first year. Sixty percent by year five. I’ve seen fusion cores breach, hull decompressions, cascade failures that turned entire sections into molten slag.” She opened her eyes, staring into the fire. “I didn’t survive by being kept safe. I survived by being good at my job.”
“This isn’t a construction site,” Zeke said, his voice low. “This is Parac’Norr. Everything here wants to kill you.”
“Everything everywhere wants to kill humans. Including deep space.” She slid a glance sideways at him. “We’re not the apex predators. We’re not the strongest or fastest. We survive by being smart, adaptable, and working together. Not by being kept like pets.”
Zeke’s jaw was a knot of muscle. He opened his mouth, then snapped it shut, his hands clenching into fists on his knees. Then he growled in frustration, shaking his head.
“You’re mine,” he finally bit out.
There it was. That word that had thrilled her just hours ago, that had made her feel claimed and wanted.
Now it felt like a cage.
Pulling her knees to her chest, she wrapped her arms around them despite the protest from her injured leg.
The fire popped again, sending more sparks into the darkness. She watched them rise, bright for an instant before the night swallowed them whole.
Scrape. Scrape. Scrape.
The whetstone scraped against steel as Raaze went back to sharpening his blade, the rhythmic sound filling the silence. Zeke sat perfectly still beside her, close enough to touch, but the distance between them felt like the void of space.
He saw her as his to keep safe.
And she just wanted to be seen.
He couldn’t sleep.
Michelle’s weight against Zeke’s chest should’ve been perfect—her head tucked under his chin, one small hand curled against his ribs.
But every breath she took reminded him how badly he’d draanthed up.
She trusted him enough to sleep in his arms while pissed at him, and that trust hurt worse than he’d expected.
His legion pulsed through his blood, restless as hell. The symbiont didn’t like her being upset either. Its usual contentment had turned into this thrumming thing that made his chest tight.
Great. Even his parasite had opinions about his love life.
He replayed their conversation for the hundredth time, each word scraping at him. She was human, that was just fact. And humans were smaller, more fragile.... they needed protection. But the way her face had shut down when he’d said it, the way she’d pulled away from his touch...
Trall.
He breathed in the scent of her hair, careful not to wake her.
The familiar smell grounded him even as his thoughts spiraled.
He should’ve explained better. Should’ve told her that her needing protection wasn’t a weakness to him, that it satisfied some bone-deep instinct he hadn’t known existed until he’d met her.
The way she fit against him, the way his body moved between her and threats without thinking, the fierce satisfaction of keeping her safe… all of it felt right.
But he hadn’t said any of that. He’d just stated facts like she was some tactical assessment instead of the female who’d changed everything.
Movement across the dying fire caught his attention. Kraath sat against a boulder, dark eyes reflecting the red-orange embers. The garrison commander’s usual rigid posture had softened, shoulders hunched forward.