Chapter 10 NADINE #2
His gaze lifted—met mine—and for a fraction of a second, something shifted. Not confidence. Calculation. He didn't answer immediately. That bothered me more than a lie would have.
"Right," I muttered.
He stood, shifting uncomfortably. Probably trying not to readjust himself.
That satisfied me more than it should have. "Because a black hole—sorry, a gravitational singularity—apparently has the cognitive capacity to notice people now."
"It isn't—"
"It's mass," I cut in. "Collapsed matter. Curvature of spacetime. It doesn't think, it doesn't plot, and it definitely doesn't hunt." My eyes narrowed. "Unlike you."
His jaw tightened.
"You don't get to rewrite physics because it suits your narrative," I continued, heat rising again. "And you definitely don't get to override my brain and call it protection."
"I did what was necessary."
"That's convenient."
"It's true."
"Is it?" I stepped closer, not backing down, not giving him an inch. "Because from where I'm standing, it looks a lot like you decided you knew better than me and acted accordingly."
"I did know better."
The certainty in his voice hit harder than anything else.
For a second, something cold slid through my anger.
Because part of me—a very small, very unwelcome part—remembered the way it had felt when he'd been inside me.
Inside my brain, I mean. Correcting myself mentally, I felt a flush sneak across my face.
No! Absolutely not. I shoved that thought down hard, anger flaring hotter to burn it out.
"You violated my mind," I confronted him, quieter now, but far more dangerous. "You don't get to dress that up as anything else."
"Speaking of dressing…" He made a point of looking my naked body up and down.
I shook my head, "Na-ah! Here, my eyes are here. You don't get to do this after you left me with nothing."
"By the great Abyss, female," he stomped to the bed and grabbed a sheet. "Cover yourself."
I put my fists against my hips, "Or what?" I challenged.
I knew I was at his mercy, but God help me, I might as well have it out with him now. Here. Do your worst, alien god-demon-devil-whatever you are. I've been kidnapped by aliens, put into a pen like an animal, lived for days in fear, and I'm done.
For a moment, something in his expression… shifted. Not anger. Not quite. Something tighter. Controlled. Then it snapped back into place.
"Enough," his voice was hard. But there was no real force behind it. Not like before.
Interesting. I didn't move. Didn't reach for the sheet.
Didn't even flinch. If anything, I leaned into it, lifting my chin a fraction higher.
He exhaled sharply, as if patience were a resource he was rapidly exhausting.
Then he crossed the distance between us in two strides—too fast, too close—and for a split second, I thought…
I didn't know what I expected. But it wasn't this.
He stopped just short of touching me, tension coiled in every line of him, then—almost abruptly—wrapped the sheet around my shoulders.
Like he was handling something that refused to behave according to expectation.
The fabric settled around me, warm from his grip.
I didn't pull it closed. Instead, I looked up at him. A smirk tugged at my mouth. "My nakedness bothering you?"
His jaw tightened. "No."
Flat. Immediate. Too fast. My smirk widened. "Could've fooled me."
His gaze flicked downward—just once—before snapping back to my face, sharper now. "You misunderstand."
"Do I?" I tilted my head. "Because from where I'm standing, you look very concerned about where I am and am not covered."
"This is not about—" He stopped himself. Reset. "It is inefficient."
I blinked. "Inefficient."
"Yes."
That actually made me laugh. "Wow. That's a new one. My nudity is… what, disrupting your operational capacity?"
"It introduces variables that are unnecessary to the situation."
I stared at him. "You're kidding."
"I am not."
There was no hint of humor in him. None. Just that same rigid control, tightened now, stretched thinner than before. And that… that was interesting. I took a step closer. Just one. He didn't move. But I felt the shift anyway. Subtle. Immediate.
"Variables," I repeated softly. "Like what?"
His eyes narrowed slightly.
"Your species relies heavily on visual stimulus."
"And yours doesn't?"
He paused before muttering, "That is not relevant."
There it was. I smiled, slow and sharp. "It's relevant to me."
Silence stretched between us. Charged. Unsteady in a way it hadn't been before.
I had mercy and pulled the sheet around me, changing the subject. "Tell me, why would the Abyss care about me?"
His gaze sharpened. "That," he said, "is something I need to talk to you about."
Of course it was.
"But," he added, "I need you to keep an open mind."
I rolled my eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn't stick. I turned away so he wouldn't see it, muttering internally, Yeah, open mind my ass. I've opened my mind already, look how that turned out.
The thought sobered me. Because… yes. I had.
I had started to look at things differently.
He might be pushing it, but… I had to consider that my Earth mind just might be out of its depths here a bit.
I mean, a cascading shower on a spaceship?
Look at the screens. Two were still hovering by my palmtop, where I hadn't shut them down.
Space was passing by through the viewing window.
And the list only went on from there. So maybe, just maybe, I ought to hear him out.
I exhaled, let my shoulders drop, and forced the fight to bleed out of me just enough to let reason back in.
With deliberate composure, I moved to the seating area and sat down primly, folding my hands in my lap like a woman attending an unwanted lecture.
"All right," I said. "I'm listening."
He studied me for a moment, suspicious, clearly aware that my compliance was provisional at best. Then he straightened, expression shifting into something more serious.
"What do you know," he asked, "about Aelyth?"
I blinked. "Ae—what?"
The word meant nothing to me. Wait, wasn't that what he had called me when he stroked my face? For some reason, the word deeply unsettled me. And judging by the look in his eyes, it didn't seem to sit right with him either.
Dravok didn't answer right away. He watched me the way one might watch a volatile equation, carefully, aware that the slightest misstep could cause it to blow apart.
"An Aelyth," he sighed at last, "is not a mate. Not in the way your species understands it."
Mate? I resisted the urge to laugh. Was he inferring…
I felt small, tiny particles of sweat built under my armpits.
Great, just great. I just showered. I took a steadying breath to keep my flaring temper under control.
"I don't know anything about an Aelyth," I informed him flatly.
"So, if this is important—and I'm guessing it is—you're going to have to start at the beginning. "
Dravok studied me for a long moment, as if deciding how much truth I could withstand without rejecting it outright.
"Before the Fall," he began, "Arkhevari were not solitary."
I resisted the urge to ask about the Fall but made a mental note to come back to it.
"We were formed in pairs," he continued. "Not just lovers. Not just mates. Counterweights."
I frowned. "Counterweights to what?"
"To ourselves."
He spoke as if this were obvious, as if the concept of balance were a physical law rather than a philosophical one.
In my mind, something clicked into place, not belief, but pattern.
Yin and yang. Not opposites. Complements.
Forces that defined one another by interaction, not conflict.
Dravok explained that Arkhevari consciousness had once been distributed across two minds, bound into a single functional unit.
One anchored creation, expansion, possibility, and the other anchored restraint, dissolution, consequence.
Together, they made something stable enough to shape stars without collapsing under the weight of their own influence.
"We were whole. Not because we were powerful, but because we were aligned."
"And the Aelyth?" I asked.
"The Aelyth is the missing half," he replied. "The stabilizing echo. The part that remembers what the other forgets."
His words made my pulse stutter. I felt a faint echo deep inside.
.. my being. I refused to call it a soul.
I didn't believe in life after life. Death was it.
Period. No second chances, no rebirth, no angel chorus.
Nothing. Yet… in that moment, something stirred inside me that could very well be called a soul.
Very carefully, I said, "So this isn't… destiny; it's system restoration. "
The distinction was very important to me. And when he said, "Yes." I felt a small weight fall off me. My muscles loosened just a fraction. I exhaled slowly. That framing helped. A lot.
He continued, "After the Fall, when we fractured—when creation outpaced balance, and the Abyss could no longer compensate—the bonds shattered. Not destroyed. Displaced. The Arkhevari survived as singular entities, still ancient, still dangerous, but operating without their counterweights."
I nodded. Phrased like that, I could understand. Power without feedback. I knew what that did to systems.
"Without an Aelyth," he went on, "we drifted. Some toward conquest. Some toward withdrawal. Some—like Nythor—toward obsession."
I thought again of Nythor's fractured thoughts, the rambling that only made sense once structure was applied.
"So an Aelyth doesn't make you stronger," I concluded. "It makes you… coherent."
Dravok's gaze sharpened. "Something like that."