Chapter 7 DRAVOK #2
I felt the heat of her fury like a physical force. She was far more dangerous than she realized.
"I can't," I replied, keeping my tone level. "The Abyss noticed you. It isn't safe for you to remain on that ship."
Incredulity won the battle over anger for a moment.
"The Abyss noticed me?" she repeated in a rising voice, adding a singsong I didn't like.
"It's a fucking black hole." She took another step closer.
"A gravitational singularity. An extreme curvature of spacetime.
It doesn't notice anything. It doesn't think, it doesn't plot, it doesn't kidnap people.
" Her jaw tightened, and her finger rose, pointing at me. "Unlike you."
The words landed harder than her earlier accusation. But I didn't allow it to show. "You felt it."
"I felt gravitational distortion," she snapped. "And atmospheric pressure shifts. And whatever exotic radiation field your people still don't fully understand. That's not sentience. That's physics."
Why was this female so stubborn? Why couldn't she see or admit that there was more to the Dark Abyss than she allowed? I leaned forward, hovering above her, using my height to tower and, yes, intimidate her. "You were being registered."
"It's not a surveillance system!" she shot back. "It's a collapsed star! It doesn't have intent. It doesn't care."
"It doesn't need to care." I cried, exasperated. This female was the most stubborn, infuriating being—her eyes flashed.
"That's not how anything works."
"It is," I spat. "Here." She had no idea about the things happening inside the Dark Abyss; nobody did. Nobody knew about the war Sapharos was fighting every day to keep the Mmuhr'Rhongs at bay.
She shook her head, pacing, throwing dark glances at me. "You don't get to rewrite cosmology because it suits your narrative."
"And you don't get to ignore a predator because it offends your equations."
That stopped her—for half a second.
"A predator requires cognition," she lectured, her voice lower now, but no less sharp. "A singularity consumes because of mass, not malice. It doesn't select targets."
"It selected you." I clarified. Pinning her with my gaze. A flicker of fear crossed her eyes, but it wasn't of what she should be afraid of. She was worried about me hurting her.
Her hands spread in exasperation. "You abducted me. You overrode my neural autonomy. And now you're blaming a black hole."
"I removed you because you were becoming visible to something that does not distinguish between observer and substrate."
"That's word salad," she snapped.
"It's the truth."
She stared at me like she wanted to hit me. I almost wished she would.
"You don't get to decide what's too dangerous for me," she said finally. "You don't get to hijack my mind because you're afraid of your own mythology."
That flustered me. "I'm not afraid."
"No?" Her laugh was brittle. "Then why are you controlling variables instead of explaining them?"
This female! I was about to throw my hands up into the air. "That's what I'm trying to do."
"That's what every tyrant says."
I blinked. Tyrant? How did we get from… this to… tyrant?
Silence fell between us—tight, charged.
"You think I'm fragile," she continued. "That I need protecting from a phenomenon I've studied my entire life."
"You are not fragile," I shook my head. "You are exposed."
Her eyes narrowed. "To what?"
And there it was—the line she stubbornly refused to cross. I held her gaze. "To the part of it that is not physics."
She shook her head again, furious and unconvinced. "It's all physics," she insisted, and I let out a huff. We had another stare-off until she hissed, "Let me go. Right now."
"I can't do that." I shook my head and repeated, "The Abyss noticed you; it's too dangerous for you to remain on that ship."
Her hands curled into fists. "You were in my mind!"
I inclined my head slightly. "It's a remarkable place."
That earned me a sound somewhere between a snarl and a laugh. "You think this is funny?"
"I think," I said, letting my gaze linger just long enough to unnerve her, "that you're far more interesting when you're furious." I tilted my head, "Do you really think I'm sexy?"
"You!" She mumbled something unintelligible that I didn't quite catch before she shoved at my chest. Hard. I didn't move.
"Do you really think I'm going to just—what—accept this?" she demanded. "That I'll follow you because you decided it was necessary?"
"No," I admitted. "I think you'll fight me every step of the way."
Her eyes flashed. "You got that right."
I felt the pull tighten, dangerous and intoxicating, the urge to close the distance, to pin her there, press her against the wall, kiss, and silence the fire with force. It took every shred of discipline I had not to give in to it.
This wasn't going anywhere. I knew that.
She was too enraged to argue logically right now.
There was only one thing for me to do. With a sigh, I picked her up and hoisted her over my shoulder.
Her protests echoed down the corridor as she landed blow after blow against me wherever she could reach.
She pulled my hair, hit me in the kidney, basically anything she could reach without remorse.
"You're enjoying this!" she accused.
"Immensely," I admitted. I knew it was wrong, but feeling her soft flesh pressed against me did things to me I'd rather not analyze right now. I'm not proud of manhandling her the way I did, but our argument wasn't going anywhere, and I still had a ship I needed to get out into space.
I carried her into the nearest cabin and set her down just long enough to guide her inside, sealing the door with a command pulse that locked it instantly.
"This isn't over," she yelled through the closed door.
"No," I agreed. "It isn't."
I turned away before the pull convinced me to do something irrevocable and irresponsible, like kiss her.
The emperor had told me to leave at first light. I left immediately.
On the Pandraxian bridge, minds bent easily, crews already inclined to obey nudged just enough to smooth the departure. The ship disengaged, and engines hummed as we slipped free of the dock without ceremony.
I had faced the fall of the Khar'eth Veil alone. Walked unseen through the Abyss itself. Dismantled empires from the inside out. None of it compares to this.
Behind a sealed door, Nadine Phillips burned with defiance.
Ahead of me lay Nythor, the Abyss, and truths best left buried.
This was the most dangerous mission of my existence.
Yet all I could think about was conquering Nadine. The most challenging of all of them.