The world around me spins. I reach for the wall and strong arms scoop me up before I can fall. Zavin gathers me against the broad warmth of his chest, one arm beneath my knees, the other cradling my back as though I weigh nothing at all. His grip is careful despite his own injuries, holding me with impossible gentleness.
“I’ve got you,” he murmurs, tightening his arms around me.
I sigh, clutch Percy against my chest and let my head settle beneath Zavin’s chin, closing my eyes as he carries me.
I lose all sense of where we are.
The corridors blur into the steady rhythm of his footsteps and the quiet rise and fall of his breathing beneath my cheek. His arms never shift beneath my weight, never loosen, holding me with an effortless certainty that lets me stop thinking for the first time in... I don’t even know how long. I breathe him in instead. Warm scales. Gunpowder.Beneath the blood lingers the warm scent of his skin. His masculine scent that has become as familiar to me as my own.
Somewhere behind us, House Sethrak keeps moving. Orders will be given. Bodies carried away. Floors scrubbed clean until no trace remains of the blood spilled tonight. Tomorrow the House will wake to a new lord and continue as though nothing has changed.
Everything has changed.
The thought settles quietly inside me as I listen to the steady beat of his hearts. This world is still brutal. It always will be. Vahiri hasn’t become kinder because one tyrant is dead. There will always be Houses hungry for power and people willing to destroy others to claim it.
But somehow, in the middle of all that brutality, Zavin and I found something gentle.
We built it one quiet conversation at a time. One shared meal. One impossible act of trust after another. Piece by fragile piece, we’d carved out a place where neither of us had to become the worst thing our worlds demanded.
I came to House Sethrak searching for a way off this planet. Every corridor I walked, every system I cracked and every map Percy and I built ended with the same question.
How do I escape?
There’s only one answer to that question now. I don’t want to leave. Not because there’s nowhere else to go. Because wherever Zavin is... that’s where I want to be.
If I’d asked him to find me a way off Vahiri tomorrow, he would have. He’d have put every resource House Sethrak possessed behind getting me safely away from this planet.
And my parents. This is the first time in two years remembering them hasn’t come wrapped in guilt. I can open the channel now.
I can tell them I’m alive.
A door hisses open somewhere nearby before Zavin’s voice rumbles softly above me. “We’re back.”
His quarters stretch out before us exactly as I’d first found them. The broken furniture is gone. Fresh cushions sit neatly across the sofa, every shard of glass swept away, every trace of violence erased as though Father’s enforcers had never forced their way inside. Only the faint scent of industrial cleaner lingers.
I frown up at Zavin. “How...?”
The corner of his mouth lifts just enough that I know he already understands the question. “I called it in.”
I search his face, trying to work out when he’d possibly found the time. We’d barely left the maintenance bay before he’d carried me here. “You called someone to clean your quarters?”
“I sent a message before we went to stop Kazren.” His thumb strokes across my side. “I wasn’t bringing you back to blood and broken furniture.”
His amber eyes hold mine. “There wasn’t another ending to tonight. Not one where I walked back into these rooms without you. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Miro. If protecting you means fighting every day for the rest of my life… Then I’ll do it. Willingly.”
I lift my hand to his cheek, my fingertips sliding over the warm scales of his jaw. They come away streaked with blood. His or Kazren’s, I honestly couldn’t say anymore. He leans into my touch with a quiet sound that melts something deep inside me.
Then I close the distance between us, pressing my lips to his because there aren’t words big enough for what he’s just given me. Safety. A future. Himself.
His mouth is warm, and softer than it has any right to be. His lips part when mine do, a slow invitation rather than a demand. His hand comes up to cradle the back of my head, claws threading carefully through my hair. I taste salt and copper on his lips — blood and sweat and the long, punishing hours of this night — and underneath it, him.
His thumb traces the curve of my skull, back and forth, a rhythm that says I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, take what you need. So I do. I kiss him until the shaking in my hands stills and the tightness in my chest loosens and the only thing I can feel is his mouth moving against mine like a promise he intends to keep.
When we finally part, he rests his forehead against mine for a long, quiet moment before a soft chuckle escapes him.
“As much as I’d like to keep doing that...” His gaze lingers over the blood drying across my skin before returning to my face. The corner of his mouth softens. “I think we should clean you up.”
Before I can answer, he slides one arm beneath my knees and the other around my back, lifting me effortlessly against his chest. I wrap an arm around his neck and let my head settle beneath his chin while he carries me through the apartment. The bathroom door hisses open ahead of us, releasing a cloud of warm air scented faintly with citrus cleanser and steam.
