She hated how much comfort she took from it.
Her pulse fluttered as she breathed him in—the cold steel of his armor, the faint electrical tang of Vykan tech, and beneath it something warmer, darker, masculine. Primal. She swore she could smell it through the barriers he kept between them. And the scent—it did something to her.
Heat curled through her again, vivid and insistent. Her breath hitched. Her nipples tightened beneath the silken fabric of her garment, and between her legs a slow, deep ache spread outward, molten and impossible to ignore.
Shit.
His body tensed under hers—just barely—and she felt the change like a spark.
“Well,” she managed, struggling to reclaim some semblance of control. “After everything that happened—after all you did to me—sleeping deeply was probably the only thing I could do.”
“You were stabilizing,” he said. “Your body adjusts more quickly than I anticipated.”
She didn’t miss the pride he didn’t quite hide.
Her thoughts spun, chaotic and relentless. Whatever this connection was, whatever he had done by leaving her then returning—her entire body had revolted at his absence.That isn’t normal. That shouldn’t happen.
And yet, now that he was here, she felt… steady. As if standing too close to a cliff had finally resolved into firm ground beneath her feet.
This terrified her more than anything.
“So,” she asked quietly, “what happens now? Do we keep doing this? Do we keep… attuning?”
The word felt foreign, uneasy on her tongue, but she already knew the answer. They had passed some invisible threshold. There was no going back, for either of them. Whatever had dragged her from Earth had spiraled into something far larger, far stranger, far more binding than she could let herself fully consider.
Earth felt distant now, like a memory fading around the edges.
Her apartment, her routines, her father. Even Daniel Li.
It all felt muted.
Grey.
This is insane.
How can my entire world be gone—and I don’t care as much as I should?
She shoved the thought aside. Focus.
“They promised I could return to Earth,” she said, her voice gaining strength. “And I’m going to hold you to that. I can’t just… stay locked up here. I won’t.”
She lifted her gaze to the glowing red slits of his helm. “If you expect me to cooperate, then you’re going to have to teach me. About this world. About you. About what’s happening to me.”
Her tone sharpened, her chin lifting. “If I’m treated like a pampered captive, I will fight you every step of the way. And eventually, I will hate you.”
Her heart hammered at her own boldness—but she didn’t look away. She wanted him to see it. All of it. The strength. The defiance. The truth.
His grip around her shifted, no tighter, no looser—just different. She felt the subtle change, the approval threaded through it like a dark current.
“I will teach you,” he said, voice low and taut with something that wasn’t purely control. “Anything you ask.”
She swallowed. Something inside her—a soft, traitorous warmth—uncoiled. She looked up, breath unsteady, and whispered the thing that had burned in her mind since she woke.
“Take it off.”
His helm angled. “This?”
“Yes,” she said. “The mask. If your venom won’t kill me… then why keep it on?”
