10. Chapter Ten #2
“If they altered this record afterward, they had to know it existed beforehand.” He reaches past me and taps a different authorization group.
His arm crosses in front of me and he’s close enough that his warmth radiating off his skin, smell the cedar and spice of him, see exactly where the bronze scaling of his forearm shifts to the softer skin at his wrist.
By the time I look back at the screen, I’ve completely missed whatever point he was making.
Annoyed, I retrace the authorization chain from the beginning and run straight into the same dead end we’ve been hitting all afternoon. Every trail ends with evidence of the cleanup and none of the person doing it.
I drum two fingers against the desk. “We’re approaching this from the wrong direction.” I pull up a fresh workspace. If I keep my attention on the screen and off Zavin, maybe I can think more clearly. “We need to stop chasing them and give them something new to touch instead.”
Zavin’s eyes narrow as he turns his burning focus to me. “How so?”
“We build false intelligence. Seed information through controlled channels, but we give each channel a different version. Different details. Different access paths. Something valuable enough that the mole can’t ignore it.”
He watches me instead of the screen and I keep my focus locked onto the projection.
“If they take the bait,” I say, already building the framework in my head, “then they identify themselves for us.”
For a moment he says nothing. I make the mistake of looking at him as a slow smile spreads across his full lips. “You’re good at this, Miro.”
Three years at Helix and nobody ever said it without wanting something in return.
They called me valuable. Called me an asset.
Every compliment came attached to a contract, a nondisclosure agreement, or a reminder of who owned the servers I worked on.
They loved my pattern recognition right up until it started pointing at things I wasn’t supposed to see.
Then they sent someone to solve the problem three blocks from my apartment.
The bronze scales at his temples catch the light from Percy’s display.
His gaze doesn’t leave mine. I look for the familiar layers underneath it, the things he usually keeps hidden behind jokes and easy confidence.
They’re gone. Or maybe they’re still there and I’m too distracted to find them. Either way, he’s unreadable.
“I’ve never met anyone like you.” His voice is rough. Stripped of its usual polish. His focus stays on mine, searching. As though the answer he’s looking for is somewhere behind my eyes.
He reaches out. Slow. Deliberate, and tucks his knuckles under my chin.
Two fingers under my chin. Bronze scales cool against my skin. A touch so light I could break it by breathing wrong. He tips my face up toward his, unhurried, certain. The deadly tips of his claws are still visible, but his knuckles are smooth scales, warm, and they slide like velvet.
I am held in suspension. I could pull away, but I don’t move. I barely breathe.
His weight shifts forward, his shoulders lowering, and the space between us compresses by degrees. Those slit pupils are fixed, unblinking, as though if he closes his eyes for even a fraction of a second, I might be gone when he opens them again.
His lips brush mine. The first contact is barely pressure. A question, not a demand. His mouth is soft. Softer than anything about him should be. The scales at the corner of his lips are smooth. The warmth of his breath ghosts across my upper lip before he settles in, still gentle, still asking.
My spine unknots one vertebra at a time, a slow unclenching I didn’t know I was braced against. The tension I’ve been holding in my jaw releases.
I reach up and wrap my hands around his neck.
My palms press against the sides of his throat where the scales are smooth and flat and warm.
I slide my grip higher, into the hair at his nape, and the strands are silk through my fingers.
I cross my wrists behind his neck, lock my grip, and pull him closer.
His mouth opens against mine. His tongue slides along the seam of my lips. The heat of his mouth fills mine. His tongue moves inside with a slow, careful pressure, and I feel the faint scrape of his fangs. Not enough to cut. Enough to know they’re there.
He draws me to him. One arm bands across my lower back, and the weight of it is solid and unyielding.
His forearm spans the width of my spine.
His torso is smooth under my forearms, solid muscles beneath the thin fabric.
His breathing rises and falls against my ribs, slower than mine, deeper than mine.
I’m losing myself to this kiss. My thoughts thin out. I stop tracking the seconds. The exits disappear with them. All that’s left is the pressure of his mouth, the sound he makes, and the way his arm tightens around me like I’m something he won’t let go of.
His other arm comes around my shoulders.
Both arms lock behind me now. My own arms are still wound around his neck, and inside the cage of his grip, I’m small.
His biceps press against my sides. The muscle there is dense and thick and tensed.
He’s so much bigger than me. My head tilts back to meet his mouth and my neck is bared and my throat is exposed and I know that his jaw could crush my windpipe.
His hands could snap my spine. Those claws could open me from sternum to hip.
All that power, housed in one body, wrapped around mine, and I wouldn’t stand a chance. I couldn’t fight him off.
I couldn’t get away.
He could do anything to me and…
And I’m… I’m not safe here. I’m nothing here.
Sethrak saw me. Helix saw me. I’m in the deep warrens of House Sethrak without a way off planet.
And I know things now. Things that are private and will need to remain a secret.
I’m nothing here. A speck of meaningless flesh. No one would know if my existence was snuffed out. No one would bat an eye, and the male in my arms holds all the power.
Even if this kiss isn’t a lie. Even if he means it. Even if everything in his face right now is real.
The outcome is the same.
I pull back. Drop my eyes to his chest. If I look at him I’ll see whatever he’s feeling and I’ll want to take it back and I can’t take it back. I need the wall. I need the exit.
“We can’t do this.” My voice comes out hoarse. “Whatever this is between us, it can’t happen. This was a terrible mistake.”
His scales rise and fall under his breathing. I make myself keep talking.
“You don’t have to kiss me to get me to work for you. I’m not that type of worker.”
The weight of his stare lands on me. His muscles lock and then he takes his arms off from around me. The space where his body was goes cold.
He stands. I keep my stare on my hands in my lap.
My lips are throbbing. I press them together and the ache sharpens.
The words I want to say to him crowd my throat, but I choke them back down.
I’m nothing if not realistic. He has all the power.
The only leverage I have is not to complicate anything between us.
I have to survive. I have to get back to my parents.
Against every instinct, I glance up.
The line of his jaw shifts. Just for a second. Something crosses his face—hurt, maybe. Then it’s gone. His mask slides back into place like it never left.
“I want the distribution channels set up before the end of the day.” Even. Professional. Empty. “Don’t sleep until it’s done.”
He picks up his jacket. Doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t pause. Closes the door behind him—quiet, deliberate. And gone.