Varek didn’t just kill him. He tore him apart.
The Nyxerian instincts had taken over completely—protective fury, mate-bond instincts snapping into place the moment he’d seen Thomas trying to strangle me.
Thomas had died screaming, and I had lost my mind.
Not from grief. Not entirely. But from shock and terror. From the sheer animal horror of watching a creature tear my husband to pieces in front of me.
I’d thrown myself at Varek like an idiot. Punching, clawing, screaming things I don’t even remember saying.
He hadn’t fought back. He’d just taken it until exhaustion and oxygen deprivation finally caught up with me and the world went black.
When I woke up, I’d been cradled against the broad chest of a giant monster warrior, being carried deeper into a world that had already destroyed everything I thought I understood about reality.
I let out a long breath and open my eyes again, running my fingers once again over the scar left behind from that day.
Ten years.
Ten years since that moment. And somehow… despite everything… my life now is better than it ever was back on Earth.
The thought sinks slowly in my mind. It’s strange and so fucking complicated. But true. Because Thomas had been a very special kind of brutal piece of shit. And for the first time in my life, I haven’t been living under someone’s shadow.
The warehouse is quiet. Morning light has begun creeping through the high windows, turning the dust-filled air pale gold.
I straighten and grab a shirt from the back of the chair. The day is starting. People will come by the warehouse soon.
There’s food to prepare, supplies to sort, routes to check, and work to do. And if I keep moving, I won’t have to think too hard about the fact that the bond in my chest feels strangely hollow this morning.
Or about the Nyxerian commander who walked out of my life less than twelve hours ago.
By the time the sun begins bleeding properly through the upper windows of the warehouse, I’ve shaken the worst of the nightmare out of my system.
Admittedly, not entirely. Those sorts of memories don’t disappear just because the morning comes, but routine helps.
Routine is survival in Terrafeara.
I pull on my boots, shrug into a worn leather jacket, and move through the warehouse with the practiced rhythm of someone who’s performed the same motions hundreds of times. The place is still half shadowed, the big open space quiet except for the faint creaking sounds of someone shifting in the loft above.
A couple of the residents we’re sheltering here are early risers. I keep my movements quiet anyway.
First thing I do is check the supplies.
The habit is automatic now. Shelves along the back wall hold jars of dried roots, bundles of cured meat, sacks of grain stacked carefully to keep them off the damp stone floor. I run a hand along the nearest stack, checking the seals.
Still dry.
Good.
The two sacks we hauled in yesterday morning sit where I left them, tied and waiting to be portioned out later.
Food’s never something I take for granted anymore. Ten years in this world will teach you that.
I move to the worktable and start assembling what I’ll need for the morning—tool roll, a handful of metal fasteners, a coil of thin wire, two small oil tins. My fingers move easily through the routine, muscle memory from a lifetime of fixing machines and broken equipment.
Funny thing about Terrafeara. The world itself runs on strange energy and alien materials I still don’t fully understand. But fortunately for me, humans have been dragged here through the rifts for decades. And wherever humans go, they bring their junk with them.
Engines, locks, generators, broken plumbing. Metal gates that weren’t built to survive a world with different gravity andhumidity and weather that sometimes rains glowing spores instead of water.
Most of it eventually stops working, which is where I come in.
