Chapter 13
KAELION
I touched her. I shouldn’t have touched her…but I did.
Just a flick, but I need to be honest with myself about why I did that.
I think about lunch for hours afterward, as Solvi goes to her room to draw…as I sit down and try to go over some of the data from Lyn’s research station. I want to focus only on the analytics, on cross-referencing them with her report from the clinic.
But I flicked her.
And she…I saw it.
I saw the way she sucked in a breath, how her lips parted and flushed, how her pupils dilated. I smelled her arousal. She was so beautiful—
She was—she is, and probably always has been—beautiful.
And…yes, she is objectively, physically attractive, for a human. She is not of my own species, but she is lovely—with a slender waist, generous hips, a pointed chin and button nose. Her hair is a cloud of chestnut curls, her skin the deep, radiant hue of nebular dust in the Rift Veil. She’s—
I stop mid-thought.
Take a deep breath.
This is wrong.
And it isn’t even truly the point, because what really entices me about Lyn Walker isn’t her beauty; it’s her mind.
She is brilliant. Stubborn, reckless, infuriating—but brilliant.
She doesn’t wait for permission, doesn’t treat carefully.
She takes well-established theories apart as if she doesn’t give a damn whose toes she steps on, then she remakes them.
Her report on her own diagnostic anomalies reads like she wrote it in one sitting and didn’t revise it at all—which means it’s clumsy, disorganized, and still better than ninety percent of what I’ve seen from researchers three times her age.
I shouldn’t be thinking about that either.
Not how her curiosity winds through every clever observation…how I can picture her face when she makes a breakthrough.
How I can hear the sound she made when I touched her.
My comm chimes and I let out an annoyed growl, glancing down at the screen. It’s Shahar—calling for an update on Solvi, as she does every night in the summer. I accept the video link, and Shahar’s face appears a moment later.
She smiles. “Hi, Kaelion.”
“Shahar,” I say, leaning back at the desk in my home office. “I trust you’ve settled in again okay?”
“I miss our girl, but I know she’s having a great time,” Shahar says. “Is she awake?”
“Let me see…”
I stand, taking my comm with me as I go down the hall to check on Solvi.
Her door is cracked just enough for me to peek in without disturbing her, and I find her curled up on the floor with her drawing tablet and a stylus, scribbling away.
There’s a set of panels in full color on the screen—a comic of her very own, it appears.
She has a set of headphones on, and she doesn’t see me, her feet wiggling to the music.
“She’s working on another masterpiece,” I say, turning the comm slightly so Shahar can see.
Shahar laughs. “Looks like she’s in the zone.”
“She is,” I reply. “Do you want me to get her?”
“No, no—don’t interrupt her. Just tell her I love her and I’ll call again tomorrow. How’s everything else?”
I sigh again, a little too loudly.
Even though we were never really a couple…she knows me too well.
“Everything is fine,” I mutter.
She laughs out loud, shaking her head. In the background, I see Wulfric pass behind her wearing nothing but a pair of loose black pants. I wonder if he did it on purpose to show me just what kind of specimen he is.
“Why are you laughing?” I snap.
“Because I’m sure you didn’t cross any professional boundaries today,” she replies.
I grumble. “Solvi told you.”
“About lunch? Yes.” Shahar cocks her head, tendrils twitching. “Our little blossom is convinced that you’ve fallen head over heels in love with our subordinate.”
“And I tried to explain to her how inappropriate that would be.”
“She does not care.”
“I’m aware.”
Shahar hums. “And what about you?”
“What about me?”
She peers at me, eyes narrowed. “How do you feel about it? Kae…something is going on. I can see it in your eyes, even now.”
I look away. I always do, when she starts talking like this.
“It’s irrelevant,” I say, turning back toward my office. “Whatever I feel—or don’t—isn’t the point.”
Shahar is frowning, clearly skeptical. “There's something you're not telling me.”
I groan. “Shahar—”
“Tell me,” she says. “Please? I can tell it's killing you.”
I pause.
Look back toward the door to ensure Solvi isn't listening.
“The technology that hurt her,” I say carefully. “It…causes her to have an arousal reaction to me.”
Shahar’s brows shoot up.
“Don't laugh,” I warn.
She glues her mouth shut.
“This condition, to me, is coercive,” I go on. “It gives me even more power over her than I had before. I am…capable of making her feel things.”
“Sexual things,” Shahar confirms.
I nod.
“Well, Kae,” she says with a sly smile. “I can guarantee your capabilities in the bedroom aren't a result of a lab accident.”
I scowl, but she’s already laughing, shoulders shaking.
“Shahar.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, breathless. “Truly. But Kaelion, listen to yourself. You’re acting like you programmed her. Like you’re some kind of villain in one of Solvi’s comics. What happened was an accident.”
“That doesn’t change the outcome.”
“You’re so serious,” she says. “Sometimes I think if you just…enjoyed yourself for once—”
“Says the woman who is marrying the most serious man in the galaxy,” I mutter, then raise my voice slightly. “I know you’re listening, Wulfric!”
He grunts in response, somewhere in the background.
“He would come over to say hello, but he is not wearing a scrap of clothing right now,” Shahar says with a smug smile. “Can’t imagine you lounging around in the nude.”
“You don’t know what I do in my private time.”
“Yes I do,” she shoots back. “You read articles and review data, fully clothed.”
I scowl.
She’s right.
“You need to stop tormenting me,” I mutter.
“Then stop acting like you’re cursed,” she replies. “You’re not cursed, Kaelion—you’re complicated. You’ve always been complicated.”
I glance down, running my thumb along the edge of the desk. “It isn’t just the lab accident. It’s the dynamic. I’m her supervisor. And I…”
I’ve had these thoughts before and never acknowledged them. Never accepted them. Never admitted that our minds already see each other, know each other, that there’s a deep, mutual admiration I cannot deny.
“You look like you’re having deep thoughts and don’t want to say them out loud,” she says.
I huff. “Don’t you have a Skoll to be riding right now?”
Shahar lets out a loud laugh, and I even hear a chuckle from Wulfric in the background.
“She does!” Wulfric shouts.
Shahar shakes her head. “Good night, Kaelion. Think about what I said.”
“Good night, Shahar—and you too, Wulfric.”
The screen goes dark. Silence settles in the room.
I sit there for a moment, staring at my reflection in the blank monitor. My tendrils shift slowly, restlessly, the way they do when I’m agitated or overly stimulated. I breathe out through my nose.
Think about what she said.
I already am. That’s the problem.
Lyn Walker is under my skin in a way no one else has been in years—decades, maybe. And it isn’t just the aftermath of the lab accident. I know it. I think I’ve known it for a long time. I don’t look at her and see a student. I see a woman who fascinates me. A woman who challenges me.
I want her.
And that’s what terrifies me most.
Because wanting her is easy. It’s the next part that’s difficult.
I stand from the desk, stretch out my shoulders, and glance toward Solvi’s door one more time. She’s probably still sketching, lost in her comic world. I won’t bother her. Not tonight.
Instead, I walk to the kitchen and fill a water bulb, trying to force my thoughts back into order. Back into neat, safe categories where nothing risks implosion.
Lyn is my subordinate. That is the line.
She is also a brilliant mind. That is the truth.
She is reacting to me in ways that are…biologically conditioned. That is the problem.
But the desire I feel?
That’s mine. Entirely mine. And it existed before the accident.
I close my eyes, letting the water cool the back of my throat, hoping it’ll calm me.
It doesn’t.
Because I can still hear the soft, strangled sound she made when I flicked her shoulder.
I can still see the flutter of her eyelashes, the way she clenched her thighs together under the table.
I can still feel the heat of her body beside mine.
I can still remember the way she admitted—reluctantly, beautifully—that it wasn’t just about touch.
That it was me. Only me.
Those words have branded themselves into my brain.
I lean forward against the countertop, breathing through my nose.
I won’t touch her again.
I can’t.
But I don’t know how I’m going to survive wanting to.