Chapter 14
TAKHISS
The bond doesn’t quiet. It claws at me, gnawing from the inside like a second heart trying to beat its own rhythm beneath my sternum.
I feel her even when she’s not near. Her scent, like ozone and electricity.
The sound of her voice echoing in my skull.
Every glance she gives me lights my nerves like fire circuits.
I want her.
I ache.
But I wait.
Because this isn’t just about the bond anymore. This isn’t chemical programming or ancient instincts. It’s not even jalshagar, not just that. This is something else. Something deeper.
Choice.
And she hasn’t made hers yet.
So I move. I train. I scavenge the wreckage for parts that might matter.
I slam my fists into the ship’s twisted bulkhead until my knuckles split and the ache distracts me.
I run diagnostics. Patch power conduits.
I bleed where she won’t see, scrub it off before she can ask questions.
I hide my hunger because she’s earned her space.
But every time she walks past me, the bond thrums louder. Hotter. Like it knows what I want before I do. Like it’s daring me to act.
I don’t.
Not until she touches me.
It’s nothing. A routine injury. A torn scale along my left pectoral, cracked where I braced the generator wrong. She sees it when I strip out of my upper armor to cool off. I’m not even paying attention—too busy rerouting a coolant line with one half-dead multitool.
“You idiot,” she says.
Her voice is soft. Irritated. Fond.
I turn my head, and there she is—kneeling beside me with a dermal patch in her hand. Her fingers hover near my chest, hesitant for just a breath. Then she presses the patch to the cracked scale, and my whole body flinches.
Not from pain.
From heat.
“Hold still,” she mutters.
“Hard to do when you’re poking broken bone.”
“You have a pain tolerance like a mutant grizzly,” she says, eyes narrowing. “You’re fine.”
I laugh. Out loud.
It rumbles up from somewhere deep, foreign. Raw. I don’t remember the last time I laughed. Not a smirk. Not a sneer. A real, startled, full-bodied laugh.
She freezes.
Like she’s never heard that sound before.
Maybe she hasn’t.
Not from me.
Her eyes flick to my mouth, then back to my chest. She blinks hard and pulls away. Doesn’t say anything else. Just turns and walks to the other end of the chamber and starts fiddling with a damaged comm panel like her life depends on it.
We don’t speak for hours after.
Just orbit each other. Moving in sync. Sharing breath and silence.
That night, she dozes off first.
I sit in the dark, back against the wall, eyes on the glow of the makeshift heat coil. The hum of machinery soothes the edge off my thoughts, but not enough. The bond is loud tonight. Too loud.
I dream about her.
Not naked. Not spread beneath me. Not begging.
Just her.
Laughing. Strong. Angry. Hands stained with grease. Fire in her eyes. Alive in a way I didn’t know I needed.
I wake up to the sound of her breathing.
She’s not asleep anymore.
She’s watching me.
Curled in a nest of wires and thermal wraps, arms around her knees. Her chin rests against them. Her eyes find mine through the dim, and something flickers there. Not softness. Not fear. Hunger.
Not just for food.
For something real.
Her lips part like she’s about to speak.
I catch her scent. She’s not hiding it. She doesn’t look away.
She holds my gaze.
The bond pulses.
I feel it in my teeth.