Chapter 4 #2
“I grew up in a test tube.” The words came easier than I expected.
I’d told this story before—to my mates, to Mwe, to the Assembly when they needed to understand what the demihumans had survived.
But saying it here, in the dark, to someone whose pain matched my own.
.. it felt different. “I was an experiment. A failed one, according to my creators. They kept me in white rooms with padded walls. Strapped me to tables and cut me open to see what was inside. Used instruments that—”
My throat tightened. Some memories refused to soften, no matter how much time had passed.
“I was helpless,” I continued, forcing the words out before the silence filled with everything I didn’t want to admit. “Completely helpless. And I hated it. I hated them.” My hands curled into fists against my thighs. “And ultimately, I hated myself for not being strong enough to stop it.”
Ryzen didn’t move. He didn’t blink.
But the daggers drifted lower, as if his control—frayed, shredded—was still listening.
“They took your brother,” I said. “The Verya. And they severed your bond. Ripped out something that was part of you.”
My chest hurt in sympathy, sharp and useless.
“I can feel it, Ryzen. Your phantom pain.”
His runes flared, then dimmed. His jaw worked, muscle tightening beneath pale skin.
“You feel it?” The question broke on the edges.
“Through our thread.” I lifted my hand toward his, slow enough that he could pull away if he needed to. Slow enough that my intent stayed clear. “It’s thin, but it’s there. It’s been there since you reached for me—”
I hesitated, searching for the right words. “It’s… faint. Like a brush at the edge of my mental shields. A constant awareness. It doesn’t anchor or claim—it lingers. Keeps touching. Keeps reaching.”
My fingers finally found his. Cold. Too cold. As if the warmth of him had leaked away along with something far more vital. “It’s been there since our lesson,” I continued softly. “Since our kiss. Ever since you reached for me.”
“When I was dying.” His voice broke on the word. “I reached for you when I was dying. Across the entire galaxy. I didn’t even know your name—and I reached for you like you were the only thing that could save me.”
I tightened my grip just enough to let him feel I was real. Still here. “Why?”
“I don’t know.” His gaze dropped to our joined hands—my rich golden-brown skin against his pale fingers. “The Fates. The Stars. Whatever forces decide our lives before we’re born. I don’t know why I found you, Selena. I just know that I did.”
The moment our skin fully touched, something shifted—subtle, unmistakable. His attention snapped to my hand, hovering near his now, as if he could feel it too.
“I reached for you like you were the only thing that could save me.”
Heat bloomed in my chest—not the warmth of desire, but something deeper.
Almost like instinct. The golden light of my aura flared, visible even in the dim room, washing over our joined hands like sunrise breaking through storm clouds.
The Oetsae symbiont inside me stirred, recognizing something in him that called to me in ways I didn’t fully understand.
Through the thin thread between us, I felt his chaos… shift.
Not vanish. Not heal. But quiet—like a scream turning into a harsh, broken breath. The void where his twin had been didn’t close, but it stopped widening. His runes steadied into a rhythm that finally resembled a heartbeat—stable but not his normal.
Still wounded.
Still raw.
But not bleeding out into nothing.
The daggers settled into a gentler orbit.
Still lethal. Still there.
Controlled, for the first time since his brother’s disappearance.
His eyes met mine—no longer empty. Haunted, yes. Grief-stricken. But present in a way they hadn’t been before. Like I’d reached into the void, pulled him back to the surface and didn’t know whether to fight it or cling.
The bridge between us held. Not a mate bond. I knew what those felt like—intention and emotion locking into permanence, undeniable and absolute. This was something else.
I didn’t answer him with words.
I opened myself instead.
Carefully—because I knew the difference. My mates lived inside my mental shields, anchored deep, doors flung wide and locked behind them. What I did now was different. There was no door here. No invitation inward.
I reached along the outer edge of my shields, found the faint, yearning thread he’d been brushing against since our lesson—since his kiss—and wrapped it gently, deliberately, around my own defenses. Not consuming it. Not pulling him in.
Tying him there.
His thread shuddered the instant it touched mine, desperate and fragile, holding itself together through sheer will. I felt his relief crash through the connection like a sob he hadn’t allowed himself to make. Felt the way he clung without meaning to.
A seal snapped into place—not a bond, not a claim. A permanent line along the outside of my shields. Close enough to feel. Close enough to reach. Like a telepathic bridge that would never fully fade.
A lifeline.
His breath hitched.
His eyes met mine—no longer empty. Still haunted. Still fractured. But present in a way they hadn’t been before, as if I’d reached into the void and hauled him back to the surface, and now neither of us knew whether to fight the pull or cling to it.
“You shouldn’t have done that.” His voice was raw, stripped of every defense. “Now I can feel you too.”
The connection held.
It would complicate everything. I knew that—and yet, I didn’t regret it.
“Good,” I said softly, refusing to let go of his hand. “Then you know I mean it when I say you’re not alone.”
His fingers tightened around mine—brief, desperate. Like he’d just remembered how to hold on.
“It won’t be simple,” he murmured. “This connection. Your mates—”
“Will have questions,” I said gently. “Concerns. Opinions.” A faint smile curved my lips, fragile at the edges. Some more than others. “But they know me. They know I can’t watch someone drown when I have the power to reach them.”
His gaze searched my face, disbelief and something like hope tangled together.
“Even when helping someone makes everything more complicated?”
I squeezed his hand, anchoring him there—with me.
“Especially then.”
Ryzen’s laugh was broken. Brief. But real—and that felt like a small victory.
“The Verya won’t stop,” he said, and his voice steadied as the runes found their rhythm. “They’ve been tracking you since they discovered what you are. A genetic anomaly. A bridge between species.”
A chill ran along my spine. Intellectually, I’d known. Celyze’s vision. Kaede’s explanation. The warnings stacked like stones on my chest.
Hearing it from Ryzen—someone who’d grown up under Verya rule, who knew their patience and cruelty like muscle memory—made the threat solid.
Not future tense.
Now.
“They want you,” he said, quieter. “Whatever the Stars made you—whatever you can do—they want it.”
My hand went to my belly before my mind could catch up. Instinct. Protection. The weight of everything I had to lose.
“I know,” I said. “Kaede told me.”
“And you’re still here. Kneeling in front of a broken male whose species ruled the galaxy that enslaved your ancestors.” His eyes searched my face, looking for something I couldn’t name. “Why?”
“Because you reached for me when you were dying. Because you found me when you needed an anchor.” I held his stare, repeating my explanation, trying to get him to understand. “And because I know what it feels like to lose everything and have no one reach back.”
Silence stretched between us—not the crushing void of before, but something softer. The quiet that came after a storm passed.
Then Ryzen stilled.
The spirit dagger hovering at my throat slid away at his unspoken command, drifting back into the loose orbit around him.
His hands closed around my arms—firm, steady—and he drew me up from where I knelt at his feet, one hand still braced instinctively over my stomach.
The other daggers parted as he guided me past them, clearing a path without a single sharp edge turned toward me.
He steered me to the bench beneath the viewport and eased me down, careful, deliberate, as if he were afraid of breaking something precious.
Only once I was settled did he speak, his voice carrying the steel I’d heard before—the same resolve that had built sanctuaries for refugees and defied the empire that shaped him.
“He’s alive.” The words came out like a vow. “Xenak. They wouldn’t kill him. He’s too valuable.”
My breath caught. “You can still feel him?”
“Not through the bond.” His jaw tightened.
“That’s—” He swallowed hard, and grief tore through our connection like a blade between ribs.
“That’s gone. Severed. It’s like losing a limb and still feeling the phantom pain.
I wake up reaching for him and find only silence.
” His hands flexed, white-knuckled with restraint.
“But I know my brother. I know how the Verya think. They don’t waste resources. They don’t destroy what they can use.”
“So Xenak is…”
“Bait.” The word landed hard.
“They’re using him to draw me out.” His runes pulsed brighter, and his spirit daggers resumed their orbit—not chaotic now, but precise.
Controlled. Weapons aligning for war. “The Verya have been patient for millennia. They built their empire by outthinking every opponent, by playing games that span generations. If they severed our bond instead of killing him outright, it’s because they want something. ”
“You,” I said.
“Yes.” His gaze locked onto mine, the emptiness gone—replaced by something sharper. More dangerous. The fire I’d seen before. “And you. They’re coming for you next, Selena. Whatever you are—whatever the Stars made you—the Verya want it.” His voice dropped, heavy with certainty. “They want you.”
The room tilted, just slightly. A moment of vertigo, like my body had tried to reject the truth on reflex.
I’d known this, intellectually. Had heard Celyze’s prophecy, felt the weight of it pressing against my future like a psydagger waiting to fall.
But hearing it from Ryzen—from someone who’d grown up under Verya rule, who knew their methods, their patience, their cruelty, who had watched them conquer an entire galaxy—made it real in a way nothing else had.
Failed Experiment. Specimen. Nestqueen. Beacon…
Not titles I’d asked for. Not a crown I’d wanted—but mine to hold.
“Then we face them together.” The words came out steady. Certain. “Whatever they want, whatever they’re planning, we don’t let them divide us. We don’t let them pick us off one by one.”
Ryzen stared at me for a long moment. The thread between us hummed with his surprise. His hope. His desperate, fragile belief that maybe the future wasn’t that dark.
He watched me for a long moment, something unguarded slipping through his expression—like the grief had finally loosened its grip just enough for the man underneath to surface.
“You’re… remarkable,” he said at last, and the words sounded like they surprised him as much as they did me. “Do you know that?”
Heat crept into my cheeks, sharp and unwelcome. “I’m tired,” I said quietly. “I’m pregnant. And I’m terrified the galaxy will burn before my daughter ever takes her first breath.”
He took my hand.
This time his grip didn’t tremble. Firm. Steady. The void inside him hadn’t healed—grief didn’t vanish like a switch flipped—but the hemorrhaging had slowed. The worst of it had stopped. For now, that was enough.
“I won’t let them touch you,” Ryzen said. No theatrics. No volume. A promise forged from something harder than hope. “I won’t let my people—”
“No.” I cut in gently.
His brow furrowed, confused.
“The refugees are your people,” I said. “Not the Verya tearing through our galaxy.” I squeezed his fingers, grounding us both. “What your species does doesn’t define who you are. Q had to learn that. Kaede did too.” I held his gaze. “Now it’s your turn.”
Something shifted in him—not breaking, but opening.
“I’ll protect you,” he said again, softer this time. “With everything I have.”
“I know.” The truth of it settled warm in my chest. “And we’ll save your brother. We’ll get Xenak back.”
His jaw tightened. Pain sharpened his voice. “You can’t promise that. You’ve never dealt with the Verya. You don’t know how they twist things. How they use people.”
His gaze flicked briefly to my stomach.
“You already carry too much.”
I didn’t pull away.
“That doesn’t mean I won’t try,” I said. “They have my people too, Ryzen. They’re hunting my signature.” My voice steadied into the composure the title of Beacon demanded of me. “They’re coming for my family.”
The thread between us pulsed—warm, steady, alive. Not a demand. Not a claim. Just presence. The first spark of hope after endless dark.
His spirit daggers settled into smooth, controlled patterns around him—ready, but no longer wild. His runes burned with renewed purpose, chaos giving way to intent. And through the bridge we’d bound along my shields, I felt him reaching for something he’d thought was gone forever.
Connection.
Family.
A reason to survive.
The thread hummed between us, quiet and constant. A reminder that neither of us would face what was coming alone.
I didn’t know what this would mean for my mates, for my clan, for the constellation I’d built so carefully around my heart. Those were questions for another day. Another time. Another stolen breath of peace before the universe demanded more.
For now, this was enough.
One broken soul reaching for help from another.
One more thread woven into the web holding my world together.
My clan waited—my mates, my cubs, the family I’d carved out of nothing when the universe had given me every reason to believe I deserved nothing at all.
And somewhere beyond the stars, enemies gathered. Quaww fire eating through Aldawi borders. Verya minds turning toward me, sharp and hungry, like predators scenting blood.
Two wars.
One convergence point.
Me.
They were coming.
And so was I.