Chapter 10 - Kallus
KALLUS
We’re suspended in the void above a pocked moonlet — one of the smaller fractures of rock that circles the gas giant Tyrannus like ash caught in a dying star’s gravity. The Relentless hangs in orbit with sleek menace, black hull bowed against the swirling violet storms below.
The alert blares — not urgent, but enough to puncture the silence of my quarterdeck like a blade through silk.
A message flashes on the targeting array:
Incoming transmission — Reaper Contact.
My claws flex beneath me as I key it open.
It’s short. Two words and coordinates:
IHC patrol. Earth fleet.
Near Tyrannus trajectory.
My breath seizes.
IHC.
Not rumors anymore.
Not whispers on trader nets.
They’re out here. Hunting.
And they’re looking.
For us.
For her.
Ayla.
The humming in my spine abruptly turns to ice.
I should be processing this strategically. Logically. As a captain. A warlord. A predator should.
But all I hear is the threat to her.
Brom is beside me before I even think to move.
His face is grim, scarred under lights that blink like pulsebeats. “This is a warning shot,” he says.
“More than a warning,” I growl. “They’re not just patrolling. They know we exist. They know where we are.”
He rubs a hand across his jaw, brow furrowed. “I say we duck into the shadow of Tyrannus, jettison the human —”
“What?” I cut in, voice more a roar than a question. “You want to dump my mate on a frozen rock and pray she survives until we return?”
Brom flinches — maybe he didn’t expect that. But he recovers before I even finish my thought. “It’s tactical, Kallus. She’s a liability on the battlefield —”
“She’s not a liability,” I snap, teeth bared.
“She’s human —”
“She’s mine!” I bellow.
The word leaves me like blood in a storm. Hot. Unthinking. Absolute.
And there it is — the truth I’ve been trying to skirt around like a blade at my throat.
Ayla isn’t just someone to protect. She isn’t just a soft thing in a galaxy that eats soft things for breakfast.
She’s mine.
Not in that possession-eerily possessive sense the other Reapers think with — not a trophy, not a slave, not a token.
My mate.
The realization doesn’t just settle in my heart — it stakes it.
I lean so close to Brom he can feel the heat radiating off my armor plating. The air between us crackles like shattered plasma.
“Let me make this perfectly clear,” I growl, voice low and dipped in starvation. “I will not sacrifice her. I will not jettison her to a rock with no atmosphere and hope she survives. I will not abandon her for anything, anyone, or any so-called ‘tactical advantage.’”
My claws twitch — bone spurs glinting — not in threat to him, but in warning to the universe.
Brom doesn’t blink, but his voice shakes just slightly. “Captain — they’re Earth forces. They’re hitting planets, intercepting fleets. If we engage, it’s war. Full-scale. Against the IHC and every faction that dares side with them.”
I step back, breath storming in my chest, and turn my gaze to the viewport.
Below, Tyrannus gleams — savage rains spiraling like battle flags unfurled in lightning. But above that tempest lies a cosmic truth:
No matter who comes for us — for her — we will meet them.
I feel her presence like a burr beneath my skin. Like a heartbeat in the dark.
I don’t know if the universe is ready for a Reaper who fights for love.
But gods damn if I’m not about to find out.
I pivot back to Brom with a grim, iron grin.
“She’s mine. And I don’t care if we have to fight the galaxy for her.”
There’s a moment of silence — thick, charged, like the seconds before a nova explodes.
Then Brom nods.
Slow.
Respectfully.
Because even a seasoned second-in-command knows when the commander has spoken the final law.
The clan gathers in the great hull chamber, the one we only open when the stars themselves deserve to witness our rites.
No glowing screens, no digital interfaces—just bone, steel, and the silence of space pressing in around us.
The feast fires burn blue-white in gravity-caught braziers, casting wild shadows across armored chests and scarred faces.
They’re all here. Every captain, every blood-sworn, every Reaper with fire still in their bones. They’ve come because I called them. And they’ve come because they know something’s changed.
I stand at the head of the chamber on the raised platform, Ayla by my side.
She wears what I gave her—a sleeveless leather tunic lined with the thread of ancestral bone, her collar polished bright, the ceremonial dagger strapped to her thigh. Her hair is down, curling in wild golden waves that make her look like a storm in human skin.
She’s nervous. I can smell it—sweet and sharp and alluring.
But she doesn’t flinch. She holds her chin up, eyes scanning the crowd like she’s weighing them all and daring them to weigh her back.
My warriors feast on raw meat and honeyfire, drink thick black marrow-wine, roar with laughter and slap each other bloody. But their eyes keep flicking back to her. Curious. Wary. Some jealous.
Good.
I raise my clawed hand and the room stills.
“This is Ayla Verne,” I say. No yelling needed. My voice cuts through the chamber like a blade. “She is not cargo. She is not spoil. She is mine.”
A few murmurs ripple—some doubt, some intrigue.
I bare my teeth. “She is clan. You will honor her as you honor me. And if anyone thinks to challenge that—step forward.”
Silence.
Then one voice, deep and scarred. “Does she bleed with us?”
It’s Jarn, the oldest among us, one of the last to wear the bone mask in battle. He rises from his crouch, long limbs unfolding, eyes like flint.
“She will,” I say.
Ayla stiffens, and I glance down.
“It’s a rite,” I murmur. “You will be marked. Not hurt.”
Her throat works, then she nods.
So we begin.
The bloodfire is brought out—a living flame contained in a bone basin. It hisses when touched by Reaper flesh, branding the chosen with a sigil older than our species’ memory.
Ayla steps forward. She looks at the fire. Then at me.
“I trust you,” she whispers.
I hand her the blade. A curved crescent of bone and obsidian. “Draw your blood. One cut. Here.” I guide her hand to the inside of her forearm.
She doesn’t hesitate.
The blood beads bright red, startling against her pale skin. She holds it over the basin. The fire roars as it drinks.
The clan shouts approval, the sound deafening.
Then the bone-song begins.
They howl in harmony, their voices low and droning, rising like thunder from deep in their chests. It’s the song of mates—of the Ishani, the First Bonded. It hasn’t been sung since before I was born.
I see the way Ayla shivers, not from fear—but from recognition. Something primal stirs behind her eyes, some ancient thread inside her quivering like a string plucked by fate.
And in her scent—so faint I almost miss it—something shifts.
Life.
It’s too early to be sure. But my instincts rarely lie.
She’s carrying my child.
I say nothing.
Not yet.
I just pull her to my side, my arm locking across her shoulders as the bone-song crescendos. Around us, the clan beats fists against the floor in rhythm.
She presses into me, trembling, breath catching in her throat.
I lower my mouth to her ear and whisper, “You’ve been accepted.”
She turns her face into my chest.
And doesn’t let go.