“I am standing.”
“You’re doing it aggressively.”
One heavy brow rises.
That shouldn’t be attractive either. It is. Because apparently I’ve suffered enough in this life, so the universe decided to start making it funny.
I set the crowbar down with more force than necessary and pry the lid open with both hands. The board tears free. Inside the crate are three wrapped bundles of iron fittings, a coil of wire, and—thank every god anyone’s ever invented—two small sacks of dried grain that I’d been hoping hadn’t been spoiled by damp.
“Finally,” I mutter.
I crouch to inspect the grain. It’s dry. Still good. Relief loosens something in my chest.
Food has become one of those things I can’t stop inventorying, no matter how much better my situation is than it used to be. There are habits this place carves into you and leaves there. I know exactly how much cured meat is hanging in the rear room, how many jars of roots I traded for two days ago, how much lamp oil is left, how many clean bandages are rolled up in the cupboard, how long I can keep everyone fed if the next supply run goes badly.
I used to count other things.
Hours on site. Shifts. Pay packets. How many days Thomas had been sober. How many drinks in he was when his voice changed and I knew I’d better say less. How many bruises a shirt could cover.
Now I count weapons, food, and exits.
Progress, I suppose.
Varek crouches beside me before I can stop him. The movement is smooth for a male his size, graceful in a way that still catches me off-guard. Nyxerians are built like warriors from a fever dream—too big, too strong, too fast—and yet they move with this horrible elegance that makes you understand exactly why so many species here fear them.
Also why some Glowranth want to own them.
My mouth hardens at the thought.
Varek reaches for the grain sack, and I slap his hand away on instinct, my dark skin brushing his—purple shifting under thelight like oil on water, as always—as the contact cracks through me.
Pain lances up my arm and across my chest, piercing and electric, gone almost as quickly as it comes but vicious enough to steal my breath. Varek goes still beside me. Not just still but locked.
His breath halts abruptly enough that I hear it. For a second, I think it’s just the bond—just the same jolt that ripped through me. But then his jaw locks like he’s forcing something down.
Pain?
No. No way.
If that were true, he wouldn’t be standing. I shove the thought away before it can take shape, the bond biting.
That’s the part no one warns you about. Or maybe they do, and I wasn’t listening because I’d already decided I wanted no part of any of it.
The first bond had formed when Varek killed Thomas.
Saved me, some would say. Claimed me,some of the old texts would probably call it. Bound our fates together in blood and protection and whatever ancient magic or biology or curse makes mates out of strangers.
I didn’t ask for it.
Then weeks ago, when we were escaping after all the chaos at the citadel, a guard took aim at Varek from the wall. I saw the arrow nock, saw death lining itself up neatly with his heart, and I threw before I even thought. My dagger went into the guard’s throat. Varek lived.
And the second bond forged.
That one hurt worse.
Apparently saving each other is romantic in the most deranged way imaginable.
Varek’s gaze settles on me. “You are in pain.”
