9. Naeris
The small shuttle sliced through Earth’s atmosphere, its viewport filled with a swirling blue-and-white marble that grew larger and more impossibly real with every heartbeat.
I stood near the front, one hand braced on the overhead rail, the other clenched at my side.
My crew—Rylan, Jax, and Marek—sat strapped in behind me; their presence gave me a small, familiar anchor in all this strangeness.
Ella, Nadine, and Ashley were practically vibrating with anticipation. Ella kept pressing her palms to the cool viewport glass like she could reach through and touch the planet already. “We’re going home,” she whispered, half-laughing, half-reverent. “After everything… we’re actually going home.”
Nadine’s voice was softer but no less charged. “It's so surreal. I never thought I'd come back.”
Ashley wasn't quite as excited as the others. She muttered to Xandros, “I just hope General Martinez doesn't find out I'm here. I'm sure as hellfire he'll rope me into some meetings.”
I imagined the General she mentioned used to be her boss or something.
But I didn't ask. I said nothing. I couldn’t.
Because the moment the shuttle’s landing skids kissed the atmosphere, something inside me sang.
The resonance hit my bones like a tuning fork.
This was home. Not the temple corridors of the Sythari or the hidden rebel outposts where I’d spent the last five years of my life.
This. The blue curve of the planet, the pull in my blood, the way every cell in my body seemed to recognize the gravity, the air, the very spin of the world beneath us.
This was where Ashera’s line had first drawn breath.
Where I was supposed to have been born. Where I belonged.
A strange, nagging whisper brushed the edge of my mind—a feeling of something being off, not being quite right—but I shoved it aside. Not now. Not when every nerve was alive with possibility.
A wall of heat moved in behind me. Thyros.
“Pretty little planet,” he murmured, far too close for my comfort. His breath brushed the shell of my ear. “I imagine this must feel quite profound for you, little rebel. Returning to the cradle of your blood after so long.”
Before I could answer, his arm slid around my shoulders, heavy, possessive, pulling me back against the solid wall of his chest. The golden thread between us exploded into liquid fire.
For one treacherous heartbeat, it felt good.
Too good. The now familiar heat flooded through me, raced down my spine, and pooled low in my belly.
A slick, aching warmth bloomed between my thighs, sudden and humiliating.
The bond didn’t just pull, it sang, promising pleasure and safety and something far more dangerous if I just leaned into him.
My body wanted to melt back against all that hard muscle and let the fire take me.
No.
I whirled on him instantly, shoving his arm off with enough force to make my shoulder burn. “Don’t touch me.”
Thyros’ crimson-gold eyes gleamed with dark amusement, but he didn’t step back. The bastard looked almost pleased by my reaction, as if he could smell exactly how badly my body had betrayed me.
Behind me, Rylan shifted in his seat, that cocky drawl dripping with challenge.
“Easy there, golden boy.” He leaned back. “She's with us.”
Thyros didn't move.
“And unless I missed something, that means she's under my protection.”
“Rylan,” I warned through gritted teeth.
“What? Somebody has to keep the oversized glowstick honest.”
Thyros' smile vanished.
“Besides,” Rylan continued, apparently deciding death sounded fun today, “she liked me first.”
The temperature plummeted. Thyros' crimson-gold aura flared violently, casting harsh shadows across the walls. For the first time, he looked away from me and directly at Rylan. Whatever expression crossed the Arkhevari's face must have made Rylan realize his mistake, and he shifted uneasily.
“You are confusing tolerance with weakness,” Thyros responded softly. Rylan opened his mouth. Thyros cut him off. “And protection with possession.”
The cabin fell silent, but Thyros wasn’t done. “I have no desire to own her.”
His gaze flicked briefly toward me. The look hit harder than any touch.
“But make no mistake, human.” His voice lowered into something ancient and dangerous. “If she calls, I will come. If she falls, I will catch her. If she is threatened, I will stand between her and whatever seeks to harm her.”
A slow smile curved his mouth. “And if she ever actually liked you, I suspect the universe forgot to inform her.”
Several rebels snorted. Rylan scowled. “Commander?—”
I finally whipped around, pinning both males with a glare sharp enough to draw blood. “That is enough.”
My voice cracked like a whip through the cabin. “Thyros, you will keep your hands and your threats to yourself. Rylan, if you provoke him again, I will personally stun you and leave you on this shuttle.”
Neither male looked particularly repentant.
“We are not doing this. Not here. Not when we are about to set foot on the most important ground any of us will ever touch.” My gaze swept over both of them. “Save your dick-measuring contest for after we survive whatever is waiting down there.”
Rylan sank back with a sullen mutter. Thyros’ burning gaze stayed locked on me, the golden thread still pulled tight between us, daring me to acknowledge the wetness still throbbing between my thighs and the way my pulse hammered in my throat.
I turned away before either of them could see how badly it affected me.
Ella cleared her throat, clearly trying to steer us back to safer ground.
She tapped the holomap floating above her wrist unit.
“We’re heading for the ancient plateau region, roughly where the modern Black Sea and Mediterranean will one day meet, but two and a half million years ago it was a vast, elevated highland.
Fertile river valleys, natural defensive ridges, fresh water, and the perfect crossroads for early migration routes.
If Ashera seeded her people anywhere, it was there.
The cradle. The single most likely center from which her descendants first spread outward across the continents before the Sythari harvesting forced them to scatter and hide.
Every myth we have—Atlantis echoes, golden ages, sky-descended teachers—points back to a place exactly like this. ”
Nadine leaned forward, eyes bright. “And the resonance scans light up like a beacon. If there’s anything left of the original civilization, any artifact, any echo of Ashera’s work… it’s going to be right under our feet.”
Ashley nodded. “We hit the ground running. Grid search, layered scans, the works. This could be the find of the millennium.”
I felt the shuttle begin its final descent, the vibration shifting as we pierced the lower atmosphere.
The nagging whisper in the back of my mind flickered again—something about the resonance, something that didn’t quite fit—but the bone-deep rightness of standing on this world drowned it out.
This was home. Whatever waited on that lost plateau, I was going to face it with my crew, these strange new allies, and the infuriating, magnetic male whose presence I could feel like a second heartbeat.
The landing struts touched down with a soft jolt.
My boots would be the first Sythari-descended feet to touch this ground in two and a half million years. I took a slow, steady breath.
“Gear up,” I ordered in a steady voice despite the storm inside me. “We’re going to find out what our ancestors really left behind.”
The shuttle ramp hissed open, and the first true breath of Earth filled my lungs.
It tasted like wild grass, salty air, and something ancient I couldn’t name.
My boots hit the dirt, and the resonance slammed into me so hard my knees nearly buckled.
This wasn’t just ground. It was blood memory.
Every cell in my body recognized the spin of the planet, the exact pull of its gravity, the way the air moved across my skin like it had been waiting for me for two and a half million years.
Home.
The word rang through me like a struck bell. But right behind it, that same nagging whisper returned: something is off, something that didn’t quite fit the harmony. I shoved it down again. Not now.
“Fan out,” Xandros ordered. “Perimeter first. Full sensor net.”
Half a dozen Pandraxian soldiers in matte-black combat armor poured down the ramp behind him, hands hovering near the blasters by their sides.
They moved like they expected the ground itself to attack.
Ashley fell in beside Xandros instantly, the two of them already syncing like they’d trained together for years.
“Overlay the resonance grid from the ship,” Ashley directed, tapping commands into her wrist unit. “Layer it with thermal, magnetic, and quantum echo scans. I want every anomaly flagged in real time.”
Xandros gave her a sharp, approving nod. “You heard the Commander. Triangulate on the beacon flare. Weapons hot but with safeties on, we’re not here to start a war with the dirt.”
The soldiers spread out in precise formation, planting small silver drones that rose into the air and began sweeping low over the plateau in overlapping arcs. Blue holographic grids flickered to life across the grass and stone, painting the ground in shifting layers of data.
I was wondering what enemy they expected. From all their accounts, the Cryons were long gone, and the Pandraxians were the liberators of Earth. But I bit the question back, just nodded at my men to be extra vigilant and ready. Maybe there was some wildlife out here that could turn hostile.