20
Isan didn’t look at Emily.His gaze stayed locked on the massive, snarling warrior shielding her.The pod was cramped, little more than a glass coffin, and the air recyclers buzzed harshly, setting her teeth on edge.Raaevik’s back was a tense, scarred barrier, claws bared and flashing beneath cycling blue lights.
“You can put them away,” Isan said softly.It wasn’t a command, more an...invitation.“The beast served its purpose, brother.You are safe here.”
Raaevik’s shoulders jerked, and the vicious rumble in his chest caught on a sharp intake of breath.She braced for the lunge.In the short time she'd known him, she’d never seen Raaevik back down...not from guards, not Thyaar, not the Emperor.If he had a death wish, he was in the right place.
But Raaevik didn’t attack.
The claws retracted, but not fully.They stopped at maybe an inch, still curved and dark and very much present.But the killing edge was gone.He lowered his arms, shoulders shifting.Not relaxed, never that, but the coiled readiness became more watchful...wary.Reaching out, she grabbed the back of his belt, grounding herself in the solid heat of him.
“You feel it, don’t you?”Isan took a slow step forward.“That rage in your blood.The urges you thought were madness.”
Raaevik didn't answer.The quiet stretched.
“You’re not mad, Raaevik, but I know why you might think that.I thought that when it happened to me.But you’re not...you're Izaean."Isan's voice dropped, quiet and certain."The black armor.The rage.It’s all part of what you are.Whatweare."His mouth twisted."The Empire calls it a defect...a mutation.They're wrong about a lot of things."
Holy shit.
She stared at Raaevik’s broad back.So that was it.That was what lay under all that iron-plated self-control.The reason he never relaxed or dropped his guard.He hadn't been holding himself together...he'd been holding somethingback.
She moved around to his side so she could see his face.His expression was cracked open, raw and unguarded, and something in his eyes kicked the breath right out of her lungs.
“The pathogen,” Raaevik rasped, gesturing at her.“Why didn’t it kill me?I’m K’Saan blood, way back when.”
Isan kept his hands loose at his sides and his stance steady, giving Raaevik nothing to react to.
“Because Izaean physiology is dominant.The K’Saan blood in your veins is too distant, and by the looks of it, the pathogen can’t take hold in an Izaean host.It just doesn’t recognize you as a target.”
She stopped breathing.Her brain stalled, skipping like a scratched record as the words hit home.
He wasn’t going to die.
The tension holding her together snapped.Her knees gave out, and if she hadn’t already been sitting on the floor of the pod, she would have collapsed.He turned to her then.Not to Isan, not to the door.Toher.
She pressed both hands flat against his chest.Hot skin.Hard muscle.The wildly hammering pulse thudding against her palms.A living, breathing rhythm.
He was alive.The pathogen hadn’t touched him.Every gasp, every jerk she’d expected hadn’t come.He’d survived.A sharp laugh tore out of her throat, sounding half like a sob.
“You’re alive,” she whispered, her hands fanning out over the broad expanse of his chest.“You absolute fucking idiot, you’re alive.”
Yanking her closer, he buried his face in her hair and exhaled a long, shaky breath.
“I’m here,” he murmured into her hair.“I’m here,kelarris.”
“Isan.”Daaynal’s voice came through the pod comms unit.“Will all Izaean be shielded from this weapon?”
Isan turned to look at the emperor through the glass wall of the pod.Lifting a hand, he gestured at himself.
“My K’Saan genetics are more recent than the sub-commander’s,” he said, raising an eyebrow.“If the pathogen could latch onto an Izaean, I’d be a corpse on the floor.”
Well, damn.She bit back her grin.It was hard to argue with a living, breathing control group.Outside the pod, the warriors had frozen, waiting for their Emperor’s verdict.
Daaynal stepped up to the glass.
He looked like shit.Tired.No, not tired...truly worn down.For a second, as he looked at Raaevik, something crossed his face.In an instant, she recognised what it was...That room on Devan Station.The woman in the stasis pod.He knew what loss looked like.
“Emily Evans.Given the circumstances, I formally withdraw my claim over you,” he said.His voice was steady.Not resigned.Deliberate.A man setting something down he'd been carrying because he'd found where it actually belonged.“As Emperor of the Lathar, I release you from the mate match.You are no longer bound to me.”
