"Draevik!" I scream as I throw my shoulder against the heated door. The pain transforms into a dull roar, but I don't care. "Draevik, listen to me!"
The mark is wide open, a raw nerve laid bare. His mind proves to be a storm.
I scramble to my feet, my dark hair falling out of its knot and sticking to my sweat-drenched skin. I glance down at my hands—calloused and scarred, the hands of a survivor. They are the only tools I have left.
Stretching my mind into the void, I search for the warm thread of the mark. It’s frayed, tremoring with a resonance that hurts to touch. I grab onto it with everything I am. I become it. I pour every memory of the last few days into that thread—the way his hand felt on mine, the scent of the reclamation chamber, the weight of his gaze when he looked at me.
Stay,I project into the void.Stay with me.
The energy in the corridor shifts. The light dims for a heartbeat, flickering like a dying candle. The door to the bridge groans, the metal cooling just enough to crack open.
Wedging my fingers into the scorching gap, I ignore the blistering heat and pull. I pull until my muscles ache, until the gap is wide enough for me to squeeze through.
The air outside the bridge doors is thick, heavy with a charge that makes the small hairs on my arms stand straight up. Every breath feels like swallowing hot lead, the scent of melting alloy and ancient dust clogging my throat. I lean my back against the shuddering bulkhead, the metal trembling with a violence thatmirrors the tempest inside my own chest. I’ve lived my whole life running from storms, but this is the first time I’ve walked directly into the eye of one.
My hands are slick with sweat. The solitude I have carried for a lifetime has finally ignited, filling me with a fierce, burning need for change.
I focus on the bridge doors again. They are massive, scarred by time and the recent surge of energy that fused them shut. The vivid indigo leaking through the seams is so bright it leaves streaks of purple in my vision. I can feel him—distant, immense—a towering, ash-colored shadow drowning in a sea of his own fire. He’s scared. The great Commander, the man who woke up and demanded the stars, is terrified of the monster he’s becoming.
Choosing him is about the future. It’s about the look in his eyes when the fire fades and the way the ship feels when we’re both at the helm.
My trembling fingers extend to brush the heated surface of the door. The mark blares in response, a surge of warmth that spreads through my arm and settles in my heart. The tether is taut, pulling me forward with a force that’s impossible to resist.
"I'm here, Draevik," I murmur, unfaltering against the mechanical chaos and the roar of the ship's engines. "I'm staying."
I seize the lip of the fused metal, my muscles coiling with a strength I was unaware I possessed. I'm ready to fight. I'm ready to be the grounding wire for his storm. I’m ready to choose us.
I think only of the man behind this door and the life we’re going to take back from the dark.
I’m coming for you, Draevik. Hold on. Just hold on.
CHAPTER 28
DRAEVIK
Screaming at the ancient processors, my fingers dig into the heated alloy console while the violet fire in my veins mimics the erratic reactor. I feel the void of the bridge like an ache in my center. The space where my claim should be emerges as a hollow cavity, a raw wound in my psyche that bleeds static.
"Nyra," I growl. Her name rattles against my teeth like a curse.
I prepared for this. I primed theVesper-3myself, carving out a path through the debris so she could vanish into the black. Born from the stasis of empires and holding the rank of Commander of the Hegemony, I refuse to let the last spark of my control burn out in this supernova. I will hold this ship together until my marrow turns to ash, giving her every second she needs to reach theVesper-3and disappear.
The secondary power relays explode above me. White-hot sparks rain down, singeing my hair and biting into my skin. I ignore the sting. My focus remains locked on the internal sensors, watching the tiny blip of the shuttle. It stays stationary.
"Go," I snarl at the empty air.
My vision fractures. A flood of history—my own grief, the faces of a thousand dead soldiers, the crushing silence of the stasis gel—threatens to pull me under. I catch myself staring at the ceiling of that chamber, watching the cold take me while I refuse to close my eyes. I haunt a galaxy that forgot my name, bearing a solitude that strikes my soul with kinetic force.
Then, the mark flares.
It begins as a pinprick of warmth against the freezing tide of my power. It expands into a golden thread, moving with a speed that cuts through the roar of the ship's reactors. I feel a presence—a stubborn, scrap-rat will that refuses to be extinguished.
The bridge doors groan. The sound of metal screaming against metal echoes through the chamber, a deep bass-note groan that emerges even as the seals remain fused. I sense her. She is right outside, her fingers digging into the scorched gap I left behind.
"I'm here, Drae." The words settle into the chaos like a heavy anchor, tearing through the noise of the reactor and the ghosts of my past. It's a name only she uses, a sharp reminder affirming the living man I have become. "I'm staying."
The words hit me harder than a hull breach. I roar in frustration and relief, my muscles coiling as I fight the urge to sprint toward her. "Nyra, get to the shuttle! The window is closing!"
"The window is gone," she yells back.