Chapter 6
ARIA
ATyphon-class windstorm is a beast. That’s what they say in the manuals.
What they don’t tell you is how it feels—how it creeps into your teeth like grit and makes the walls moan like something alive.
I’m crawling belly-flat through a shaft barely wider than my shoulders, auxiliary cable looped awkwardly over one arm, while the sirens scream bloody murder overhead.
Red emergency lights strobe every few feet, making shadows pulse like they’re breathing.
My skin sticks to the metal. My coveralls are soaked through with sweat and Rhavadaz’s red dust. I can feel my heartbeat in the backs of my knees.
But I keep moving. We need power rerouted to the eastern stabilizers, or we lose comms. And if we lose comms during a gamma flare? Game over. Instant microwave dinner.
I reach the last relay box and jam the cable into place with a satisfying click. A faint whirr signals a restored power loop. I sigh, dragging myself out of the tunnel into the main mech bay.
And there he is.
Of course.
Naull.
Lounging on a supply crate like it’s a throne and he’s the scaly king of jackasses. Shirtless, obviously, his red scales gleaming under the flickering lights. There’s soot smeared across one shoulder. His legs are spread wide, boots planted like he owns the damn floor.
“Storm’s just foreplay,” he says, voice low and smug.
I shoot him a glare as I straighten up, brushing grime off my arms. “You’re not funny.”
“I’m a little funny,” he says with a wink.
I make a noise in my throat that’s somewhere between a groan and a death threat. Then the overheads flicker. Once. Twice.
And the sound of klaxons cuts through the hangar like a blade.
“Warning. Wind spike detected. Bulkhead lockdown initiated.”
The massive steel doors at both ends of the hangar begin to groan shut.
My stomach drops. “Wait, what? No no no—”
I bolt for the access panel, slamming my hand against the override. It flashes red. The terminal buzzes at me like a smug little gremlin.
“System lockdown in progress,” it chirps.
The last bulkhead slams shut with a seismic clang.
I whirl around to find Naull still perched on his crate, looking thoroughly amused.
“Well,” he says, grinning. “Looks like it’s just you, me, and eight hours of foreplay.”
I swear to every engineering god that ever existed, I am going to strangle him with a power cable.
The mech bay is cavernous, but now it feels tight. The kind of tight that makes your chest ache just from breathing. There’s a fine vibration in the floor, the kind that says the storm outside is licking the ceiling like a hungry thing. Dust drifts in lazy spirals from the rafters.
I stalk past Naull without a word, heading for the maintenance console by Whiplash. He follows. Of course he does. Like a shadow with biceps.
“Did you know the last Typhon-class cracked Base Theta’s roof?” I mutter.
“Did you know I once rode out a Typhon on the outside of a mech?” he replies.
“Did you know I don’t care?”
He chuckles. “You’re so mean when you’re turned on.”
I stop dead in my tracks. Spin to face him.
“Excuse me?”
He shrugs one shoulder, all golden-eyed arrogance. “You’ve been twitchy since the Meld. Can’t stop thinking about me.”
“That’s not how neural entanglement works,” I snap.
“No, but this is,” he says, stepping closer.
Too close.
Suddenly his heat is washing over me again—scales radiating warmth like sun-soaked stone. I can smell metal and sweat and something uniquely Naull. It hits me like a damn memory.
I hold my ground.
“You think you’re the only one feeling things?” I say, voice low.
His eyes narrow, but not with anger.
Curiosity.
Maybe even hope.
“You gonna admit it?” he asks.
I shake my head. “No. But I’m not running either.”
His smile spreads slow and dangerous. “That’s a start.”
We settle into an uneasy truce after that. He stays on his side of the bay—mostly. I run diagnostics on Whiplash’s leg actuators. The storm rages louder. At one point, a support strut somewhere deep in the walls creaks loud enough to make me flinch.
“You scared?” he calls over his shoulder.
“Of structural collapse? Yes. Of you? Never.”
“You should be.”
“Why? Gonna lecture me about torque sensors again?”
“No,” he says, and when I glance over, he’s watching me with something darker in his eyes. “Because I’m not good at sitting still.”
An hour passes.
Then two.
The lights dim as the emergency grid activates to conserve energy. The air gets warmer, heavier. I strip off the outer layer of my coveralls, left in a black tank that sticks to my back with sweat.
Naull watches, eyes tracking every movement. I pretend not to notice. I fail.
“I can feel your ego from here,” I mutter.
“You love it.”
“You wish.”
He stands and stretches, cracking his neck. His tail flicks once behind him, and I hate that I know that means he’s antsy.
“This storm’s not dying down anytime soon,” he says.
I glance at the display. “Six more hours.”
“Gonna be a long night.”
“You volunteering for patrol duty?”
“Not unless it involves patrolling you.”
I throw a wrench at him. He catches it with one hand, grinning.
Eventually, I sit on the floor, back against a support beam. I’m too tired to pace. Too wired to sleep. Naull sits across from me, close enough that our knees almost touch.
“You ever get tired of pretending?” I ask softly.
He tilts his head. “Pretending what?”
“That none of this scares you. The war. The meld. Me.”
He doesn’t answer right away.
Then, finally: “It doesn’t scare me. It wrecks me.”
The honesty hits me like a gut punch.
“I’m always halfway to losing control when you’re near,” he says. “But it’s not fear. It’s want.”
The air between us thickens. Something sharp and molten and inevitable coils around my ribs.
“You’re not my type,” I say.
He leans in, voice like gravel and honey. “Then why do you keep staring at my mouth?”
That’s when I crack.
Just a little.
“I don’t want to want you,” I whisper. “You make everything harder.”
“Good,” he says. “Means you’re alive.”
And then he leans in—slow, like he’s giving me time to stop him.
I don’t.
His lips brush mine like a spark touches dry tinder.
And the world tilts.
It’s not a kiss.
Not yet.
It’s a promise.
One I might just break every rule I’ve made to keep.
With the comms down and everyone else sealed into other quadrants, it’s just the two of us—two emergency cots, one ration pack, a backup power cell flickering like a drunk firefly, and the soft, menacing hum of Whiplash cycling through a full recharge.
I pretend it’s fine. I pretend this is routine, like being locked in a pressure-sealed mech bay with Naull of all people isn’t the most dangerous situation I’ve been in all day.
I bury myself in work, curling my spine against a diagnostic pad and tapping commands into the portable relay panel. One of the servo stabilizers is lagging again, probably fried from the kaiju’s electromagnetic pulse, but the problem is fixable. Logical. Machine logic I can handle.
What I can’t handle is the looming.
Naull has no concept of space. Of silence. Of peace. He moves around me like an oversized jungle cat with no claws but a lot of opinions.
“You’re slouching again,” he says.
I don’t even look up. “Because I’m working.”
“Poor posture leads to long-term spinal degradation.”
“You learned that from a cartoon, didn’t you?”
“No,” he says, pausing long enough to smirk, “from the human anatomy files I downloaded when I realized I liked watching you bend over.”
I groan and almost short the data line with the force of my eye roll.
“Here,” he says, reaching around me with a fusion clamp I didn’t ask for, didn’t need, and now can’t ignore. His arm brushes mine—scales warm like river stones, the texture somehow both rough and hypnotic.
“You’re in my light,” I snap.
“You’re in denial.”
“About what?”
“That you like me.”
I whip my head around, glaring. “I barely tolerate you.”
He leans in, and the smile that curls his lips is all teeth and mischief. “Your pulse just spiked.”
“I hate that you can tell.”
“I love that I can tell.”
I shift away, clamping down on my reaction, but it’s no use. My skin still tingles where he brushed me. My breath still catches every time he gets too close. And worst of all? He knows. He knows and he’s not even being smug about it anymore. Not really.
Just there, radiating heat and ridiculous charm and this awful, terrible… patience.
“I’m trying to focus,” I mutter, mostly to myself.
Naull flops down onto the floor beside me, arms behind his head, tail flicking lazily. “On what? The same servo you’ve reset three times?”
“Because someone keeps interrupting me.”
“You can’t tell me you don’t feel it.”
My fingers freeze above the tablet.
He’s watching me again, eyes glowing in the dark like banked embers. Not leering. Not teasing. Just… watching. Waiting.
“The storm will pass,” I say flatly, deflecting.
“I’m not talking about the storm.”
Of course he’s not.
A tremor rolls through the floor like a belly-deep growl, rattling shelves and making one of the tool crates topple from its perch. I yelp as it falls toward me—but Naull’s already moving. One long arm snakes out, palm open, catching the crate like it weighs nothing.
His body curves protectively over mine.
Instinct. No hesitation.
I stare up at him, breath caught in my throat, as he blinks down at me with something feral behind his eyes. Not hunger. Not lust.
Concern.
Real and raw and terrifying.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
I nod.
He doesn’t move.
Neither do I.
The air between us sizzles like static. His chest rises and falls, just inches from mine. I feel the heat of his skin, the faint scent of ozone and salt and something like copper and cinnamon.
It hits me somewhere low and deep.
I swallow hard.
“Thanks,” I say quietly.
He backs off with a grunt, setting the crate aside like it didn’t almost crush my skull. But he doesn’t go far. He stays close.
Too close.
I hate that I don’t tell him to leave.
Hours pass. Or maybe minutes. Time slips weird inside a lockdown. We snack on the ration bar—dried protein squares that taste like despair and peanut butter. Naull makes jokes. I pretend not to laugh.
Eventually, I sit down on one of the cots, legs dangling. My muscles ache. My brain’s fried. The diagnostics are looping and there’s nothing left to do but wait.
Naull sprawls across the other cot like he’s in a luxury suite.
“This remind you of your academy days?” he asks.
I glance at him. “I didn’t dorm. Commuted from home.”
“Bet you were the shy nerd in the back row.”
“Try front row. Top of the class.”
“Oh, definitely a nerd.”
I throw a pillow at him.
He catches it and smirks. “Didn’t deny the shy part.”
“I’m not shy.”
He stands and crosses the room in two strides. Stands in front of me, hands on his hips.
“Prove it.”
I blink. “What?”
“Prove you’re not shy.”
“Naull—”
“You talk big. You fight bigger. But every time I get close, you flinch. Every time we sync, I feel you lock the door behind your eyes.”
“That’s not shyness,” I say, rising to face him. “That’s survival.”
He looks down at me, eyes serious now. “You don’t have to survive me.”
And for some reason… that unravels me faster than any flirtation.
“I don’t know what to do with you,” I admit. “You’re not a variable I planned for.”
“Good,” he murmurs. “You shouldn’t have to plan everything.”
“I like plans.”
“I like you.”
He says it so simply. So easily.
I step back.
He doesn’t chase.
Just watches.
“I’m scared,” I say.
“Of me?”
“Of this. Of feeling anything in the middle of all this chaos. It’s stupid.”
He steps closer.
Not too close.
“Then let’s be stupid together.”
My laugh breaks through, soft and shaky. “You’re not going to kiss me, are you?”
“Not unless you ask.”
I raise an eyebrow. “Since when do you wait for permission?”
He smiles. “Since it mattered.”
And just like that… everything shifts.
The room, the storm, the silence—all of it recedes.
It’s just us.
I reach up.
Not much.
Just enough to brush my fingers against his jaw.
Rough and warm and steady.
His breath hitches.
“Okay,” I whisper.
“Okay?” he repeats.
And I nod.
“Okay.”