18. Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Eighteen
ZAVIN
Ilook down at Miro, hating that I need to go so soon after… after…
Her slim fingers wrap around my wrist. “I’m coming with you.”
Every instinct rises in immediate protest.
She can barely keep her injured arm still. Blood stains the front of her shirt. She’s exhausted, bruised and one violent struggle away from collapsing. The only thing I want is to take her somewhere safe, lock the door behind us and make certain no one ever lays another hand on her again.
But there is no safe place.
Not while Kazren is still inside this House.
Only now do I take in the space around us. Father’s body still lies where it fell. Resh already has the surviving enforcers organized. The office is quieter now, but only because the battle has moved elsewhere.
Kazren is running. Every moment I waste here gives him another chance to disappear.
“No.”
The word leaves me without thought, driven by the same instinct that made me throw myself between her and my father. The idea of letting her out of my sight now is impossible to accept. I’ve only just got her back.
Miro lifts her chin with that same quiet determination that’s carried her through everything this House has thrown at her. “I’m done being the female everyone leaves behind.”
I open my mouth to argue but she speaks before I can.
“Kazren wanted me because he knew you’d come for me. He played us both.” Her grip tightens around my wrist. “I’m not hiding while you finish this.”
Neither of us says what we’re both thinking. The last locked door hadn’t kept her safe. I’d left believing no one could reach her there, and within minutes she’d been dragged from my quarters and taken to my father. The certainty I’d built my life on had failed us both.
“Besides, I know the Warrens. I know which docks operate outside House records, which checkpoints can be bypassed and which routes disappear into the maintenance network. If Kazren’s running, he’ll head for somewhere he thinks no one else knows about, and… I know where those places are.”
I study her for a long moment before looking towards the surviving enforcers. “Clear the room.”
Resh nods once and begins ushering everyone outside.
No one questions the order. The heavy doors close behind the last male, leaving Father’s office unnaturally quiet.
The metallic scent still hangs thick in the air, but without the shouting and clash of weapons the space feels different now, as though the violence has passed and only the consequences remain.
“How do you know the layout of the Warrens?”
Her lips press together, and her gaze drops to the center of my chest. She shouldn’t know more than the handful of corridors I’ve walked her through, but Miro has never accepted the limits placed in front of her. She’s too intelligent for that. If there’s another path, she’ll find it.
“Miro.”
Her gaze lifts to mine, and I see the decision settle across her face.
“I mapped them.”
I close my eyes for a moment.
“Of course you did.” The answer fits her far too well. “Why?”
She doesn’t answer straight away. Instead, her stare drifts across the room until it catches on Father’s body. She goes perfectly still, the color draining from her face before she forces herself to look away again. A shudder works through her.
She’d survived Helix. She’d survived the Warrens. She’d survived my father’s office. Even the strongest being would carry the weight of today.
Before she can retreat any further into herself, I slide one arm beneath her knees and lift her into my arms. She doesn’t protest. I carry her across the office and settle her carefully onto a couch turned away from the carnage.
Only then do I kneel in front of her, tucking my knuckle beneath her chin until her focus slowly finds mine again.
Her eyes are haunted.
“What did you see?”
“I...” She swallows hard, her voice rough. “I wanted to make sure you came back.” She draws a shaky breath. “Percy still had access to the House surveillance. The night you went to retrieve the node... I followed you through the cameras.”
Understanding settles over me before she says another word.
“I watched you.” Her eyes glisten, but she refuses to look away. “I saw you take that male into the room.”
Fuck.
Every question I’d carried since she’d withdrawn from me answers itself in a single breath. She hadn’t stopped trusting me because I’d failed her. She’d stopped trusting the male she thought she knew.
“I couldn’t make sense of it,” she whispers. “The male who sat beside me and listened to me... who made me feel...” She shakes her head. “He wasn’t the same male I watched execute someone without hesitation.”
She falls silent for a moment, gathering herself.
“I realized how vulnerable I was. If I ever needed to leave...” Her shoulders lift in a helpless shrug. “I needed to know how.”
I don’t interrupt.
“Percy and I mapped every maintenance tunnel, every unregistered dock, every transport route that bypassed House checkpoints. Every way off Vahiri we could find.” Her focus drops to our joined hands. “Just in case.”
The words don’t hurt the way I expect them to.
Smart people prepare for the worst. Miro has survived because she never stopped planning for the day everything fell apart. I can’t fault her for that. I’d shown her something no human should ever have witnessed, then left her alone to make sense of it. Of course she’d built herself an escape.
What I can’t reconcile is why she never used it.
I step closer and draw her gently into my arms. She stiffens for the briefest moment before melting against me, the tension slowly leaving her body as I hold her close.
“You found every way off this planet,” I murmur. “You memorized every escape.” I tighten my arms around her, still struggling to understand it myself. “But you stayed.”
Her forehead rests against my chest as she lets out a slow, weary breath.
“I tracked you because I wanted to make sure you came back.”
This House raised me to walk into the rooms no one else would enter.
Every mission carried the same unspoken expectation.
If I survived, there would be another. If I didn’t, another Underlord would take my place.
No one waited to see whether I returned.
No one cared enough to follow my footsteps through the House.
She did. I rest my cheek lightly against her hair, my palm moving slowly up and down her back. “When you followed me through the security feed, did Percy record the audio as well?”
She stiffens almost imperceptibly before giving a small shake of her head. “No. Percy only intercepted the vision.”
A weight I hadn’t realized I was still carrying settles heavily inside me. Of course she had been afraid.
She’d watched me walk a male into a room and execute him in cold blood.
She’d seen the gun. The body. The way I’d walked back out again without hesitation.
Without the conversation beforehand, without Tevan’s confession, without knowing he’d already sold her to Kazren, there was only one conclusion she could have reached.
And yet she still stayed. For me.
I lift my hand and gently brush my thumb beneath her split lip.
“The male you watched me kill was called Tevan. He handled information for the House. Nothing important enough to draw attention to himself.” My voice is steady, but only because I’ve spent a lifetime learning how to hold it there.
“When he discovered who you were, he sold everything to Kazren. Your name. Where you were staying. That you were helping me investigate the breaches.”
Her grip curls tighter around my jacket.
“I caught him once before. I warned him that if he ever betrayed the House again, there wouldn’t be another chance.” I draw a slow breath, the memory still as sharp now as it had been standing over him. “Then he threatened you.”
Her beautiful human gaze finds mine, bright with unshed tears.
“I didn’t kill him because he betrayed me.” I meet her stare, needing her to understand the difference. “I killed him because he’d already decided your life was worth selling.”
She doesn’t answer straight away. Her attention moves slowly over my face, lingering as though she’s seeing me differently. The tight line of her mouth eases. The crease that’s lived between her brows since the night I returned from Tevan’s execution slowly disappears.
“I didn’t understand then,” she says, “but I do now.”
She reaches up, hesitating only for a moment before resting her palm against my cheek. The touch is light, almost tentative, but she doesn’t pull away.
“I’ve been trying to make sense of the male I met...” Her thumb brushes slowly across my skin. “...and the male I saw that night.”
“And?”
A tired smile touches her lips.
“They’re the same male.”
The last of the doubt I’ve been carrying quietly falls away.
“You could have thrown me into a cell the moment you realized I’d infiltrated the House,” she says quietly. “Instead you protected me when you didn’t have to. You risked everything to keep me alive.”
She holds my gaze without wavering.
“You were saving me.”
The words settle somewhere so deep inside me I know they’ll never leave.
“And I’ll keep saving you.” My palm slides to the back of her neck, my thumb brushing slowly beneath her ear. “No matter who stands in my way. No matter what it costs.”
I brush my mouth over hers as carefully as I can. Her grip tightens in the front of my jacket, bunching the blood-soaked fabric between them as she rises onto her toes to meet me again.
A slow breath leaves her against my mouth. Relief settles through me with every heartbeat.
I cup the back of her head, keeping my claws sheathed as I slide my fingers carefully through the tangled strands of her hair.
She leans into the touch without hesitation, and that simple act almost undoes me more completely than anything that’s happened today.
Hours ago she’d been planning how to escape me.
Now she’s trusting me with every fragile piece of herself.