Chapter Ten
Rhazek
Seryn enters Elara’s quarters carrying her scanner.
Nima follows her, looking apologetic.
Elara has pulled her underclothes back on and sits on the bed wrapped in a blanket, hair loose around her shoulders, mouth swollen from mine, one hand resting in my palm.
I release her hand.
I stand.
Seryn crouches beside the bed and waits for Elara to open her hand.
Elara opens her hand. Gold-white lines reach from the mark toward her wrist, then fade.
Seryn takes her hand carefully, clinical and gentle in equal measure. The scanner hums above her palm. Symbols climb its glass face in tight columns.
“What is it?” Elara asks.
“A bond marker,” Seryn says. “In bonded Dravari pairs, visible resonance points sometimes appear after significant reciprocal intimacy.”
“It does not mean you are mated, and I see no sign of pregnancy. Your body is responding to Rhazek’s.”
“Is he responding more or less than I am?”
Seryn exhales. “His response is stronger.”
Elara studies me, and I recognize the responsibility settling on her. As if my pain is another task being placed in her hands.
“Stable for now,” Seryn says.
“How do we stop it from getting worse?”
Seryn’s gaze moves between us. “Distance may slow the response.”
Elara draws the blanket tighter. “How much distance?”
“We do not know yet.”
“What about transfer?” I ask.
Elara’s head snaps toward me.
“Which transfer?” she asks.
I keep my gaze on Seryn. Looking at Elara may undo me.
“A neutral medical sanctuary,” I say. “Far from Nyxaran jurisdiction. Far from Sarkan’s known routes. Staffed by oath-bound healers with no Dravari bloodline authority.”
Seryn says carefully, “We have not fully assessed whether—”
“Prepare options,” I tell her.
Elara stands.
The blanket falls to the bed.
She is dressed in the soft black underclothes The Black Star provided, one shoulder bare where the neckline has slipped, hair wild, palm glowing faintly at her side.
“When did you decide that?”
“I have not decided,” I say.
She steps closer. “You absolutely decided. You just put prettier manners on it.”
“I am arranging a place where you might be safer.”
“Far from you?” she asks.
“Yes.”
Her eyes flash. “You’re deciding I need to be shipped away after I let you touch me.”
“No,” I say. “That is not why.”
“I don’t regret any of it. I need to make leaving possible before I stop trusting myself to offer it.”
She breathes through her nose, then looks up. “You’re scared.”
“And because you’re scared, you’re doing the warlord thing where you turn fear into logistics.”
Her eyes stay on mine. “But you don’t get to make leaving feel like rejection before I’ve even had a chance to choose it.”
“I would not ask you to stay,” I say.
“I know. That’s part of the problem.”
“You make me feel safe and terrified at the same time.”
I remember the nursery doors sealing after my mother’s last stillborn child, my father putting his fist through black glass without a sound. I have no defense against her saying she feels safe with me.
Seryn steps forward. “Both of you are overtired and bond-reactive.”
Elara turns on her. “I swear to God, if you medicalize this whole fight, I will throw your scanner.”
“Maybe nobody decides tonight?” Nima says.
Elara’s gaze returns to me. “Can you do that?”
“I can arrange transfer options without forcing one.”
Her mouth tightens. “That is not what I asked.”
“Can you,” she asks, “stay in the not knowing with me for one night without trying to solve me?”
I have waited out sieges and endured nine days in a frozen trench with a blade through my thigh. This uncertainty offers nothing I know how to fight.
“Yes,” I say.
“I should go,” I say.
Elara’s expression shutters.
“Not to decide anything. To rest.”
Elara hugs herself. Then she drops her arms.
“Then touch me again,” she says. “Once. Not a future. Not a transfer. Now.”
Seryn makes a sound of professional suffering. “I am leaving. Nima, hallway.”
The door shuts.
Elara pulls me down by the shoulders. Her mouth is still swollen from earlier; the kiss is messy and angry, all teeth and leftover argument. I answer her with my mouth because she asked for now, not a future, and I will not spend this on speeches.
She draws me back to the bed. The blanket bunches under her hips. She guides my mouth along her throat, then lower, impatient when I linger at the hollow above her heart. I give her that much anyway. Her pulse kicks against my lips.
“Not worship,” she says, breathless. “You don’t get to turn this into an apology.”
I hook the underclothes aside. She is already wet. The scent of her hits the bond like a blade turned sideways, and the pain under my sternum changes shape. I lick into her in one long stroke. Her hips jerk off the bed. I catch them and hold her there, careful of bruises, not careful of pride.
She fists my braids. Metal rings bite my scalp. I find the swollen peak with my tongue and stay on it until her thighs shake against my horns. She tries to stay quiet and fails. The sound she makes is furious and grateful in the same breath.
When I suck, she comes on my tongue with my name swallowed half-whole, body bowing, marked palm slamming against the mattress. Gold flares through the lines in her hand and answers in my throat.
I stay until she shoves at my shoulder, oversensitive, still angry, still here.
I rise. She gets her hand inside my trousers before I have my balance and works me with no patience at all. I am already close. The bond makes it worse. She is slick on my mouth and ruthless with her fist, and I have to lock my claws into the bedding so I will not mark her.
“Look at me,” she says.
I do. Her eyes are bright and unsoftened. She is still angry about the transfer; this settles nothing.
I come against her wrist, forehead on her shoulder, a broken sound I do not recognize as mine. Heat spills over her hand. My second heart slams so hard the room tilts. I hold still until the shaking passes.
She wipes her hand on the blanket, unrepentant.
“Fine,” she says. “Now you can go be noble in the corridor.”
I fasten my trousers, then open the door.
I turn back to Elara. “I swear I will not arrange your future while you sleep.”
She nods.
I pull on my tunic and leave.
The corridor outside is colder.
Nima returns to Elara. Seryn stops me in the hall.
The door closes behind us.
Pain cuts under my sternum.
I inhale sharply.
The hallway tilts for half a breath.
I put one hand to the wall.
The Black Star answers instantly, gold veins brightening under my palm.
“Distance response?” Seryn asks. I nod.
“We will monitor it.”
The door behind us opens.
Nima pokes her head out.
“Elara says Rhazek should go rest.”
I turn away from the door.
The pain under my sternum deepens as I walk down the corridor, following every breath.
Jorren waits outside my quarters.
My quarters are larger than Elara’s but colder, carved into the forward command spine of The Black Star. Black stone, living metal, weapons wall, sleeping platform I rarely use, viewing glass facing whatever direction the ship has decided matters.
Jorren follows me inside. “Seryn told me not to let you make decisions.”
I move to the weapons wall and begin removing blades from my belt.
The fourth blade catches because my hand is shaking.
His gaze follows the tremor. “The ship has routed half Elara’s comfort systems through your command grid. She keeps asking whether to match your room temperature to hers.”
“Disconnect those controls,” I tell the ship.
The bond pain tightens suddenly.
I grip the edge of the weapons rack.
“Rhazek Vonn’s biometrics unstable,” The Black Star says.
The pain recedes by a fraction, leaving heat in its place. My throat markings flare bright enough to reflect in the glass.
“Elara?”
I turn to the wall display. “Show Elara’s vitals.”
Seryn’s voice comes through the speaker instead. “No.”
Seryn continues, “I knew you would ask, so I had The Black Star route the request through me.”
“I am her protection authority.”
“You are currently the reason her privacy is in danger.”
“She is stable and with Nima. That is all you need.”
The transmission cuts.
I move away from the weapons wall before I damage it.
I pace. Jorren stays near the door.
Every instinct seeks Elara’s direction. My body knows where she is even when I cannot hear or smell her.
“Call sanctuary options,” I tell the wall.
Jorren curses. “Rhazek.”
“I need to know what can be offered.”
“You swore.”
“Research is not arranging her future.”
“Then wait until she wakes,” he says. The wall remains blank.
I touch the control manually.
The controls will not respond. My own ship refuses me.
I turn back to the glass.
“Elara has had enough people make her responsible for their survival,” I tell him. “Mine will not be added.”
The Black Star’s alert cuts through the room.
“Protected lifeform Elara Quinn: acute distress.”
Jorren catches my shoulder as I turn toward the door.
“Heart rhythm irregular. Temperature rising. Neurological bond activity elevated. Patient upright. Patient refusing assistance.”
“Seryn?” I demand.
“In transit.”
“Nima?”
“With patient.”
The ship opens an emergency audio channel. Elara makes a small, painful sound.
I pull free, and Jorren follows me.
The door opens before I reach it.
The Black Star drops the corridor lift directly outside my quarters, overriding normal routing. Jorren and I enter. The lift falls hard enough that gravity bites.
Seryn’s voice cuts through my comm. “Rhazek, do not enter unless she asks.”
The lift doors open.
I smell Elara’s pain and heat before I see her.
Her quarters are open. Nima stands just inside, pale and frightened. Seryn rushes from the opposite corridor with her medical case. Two guards remain back, visibly fighting the instinct to crowd the doorway.
Elara is on the floor beside the bed, one hand braced against the mattress, the other pressed to her sternum. Her hair falls around her face. The mark in her palm burns bright enough to cast gold across her throat.
She looks up when she sees me.
“I told them not to call you,” she says.
Seryn pushes past me. “Move back.”
I move.
Elara holds out her marked hand to Seryn.
The scanner activates.
Its light sweeps over Elara’s chest, throat, palm.
The readings burst across the device too fast for me to parse.
Seryn’s face changes.
Seryn compares our marks. “Distance response.”
Elara’s hand presses harder to her sternum. “It feels like… I don’t know. Like something is pulling under my ribs.”
Elara reaches toward me, her hand trembling.
“Come here,” she says.
I cross the room and kneel beside her.
I take her offered hand.
The pain in my chest eases. A harsh breath leaves me as Elara bows her forehead over our joined hands.
Seryn watches the scanner. “Heart rhythm settling. Temperature dropping.”
Elara’s shoulders shake with a laugh that is not entirely laughter. “Great. I’m medically codependent.”
Seryn lowers her voice.
“We’ll treat the distance response. For now, stay close.”
“Give us room,” Seryn tells Jorren. He withdraws; Nima stays.
The mark in Elara’s palm dims from star-bright to soft gold.
Seryn pauses with the scanner. “I need to check whether the remaining compounds have affected your hormones.”
Elara nods. Seryn angles the scanner toward her abdomen.
Elara stares at her. “Pregnancy?”
“That is not what I was looking for.”
Seryn repeats the scan. The color leaves her face.
Beneath its gold light, somewhere inside Elara’s body, a second rhythm flickers. Tiny. Impossible. Then gone.