Page 14 of Bride of the Enemy Alien

“I felt it. In the floor first, then the sand. The same wrong rhythm from the thing under the City. It was softer outside, but it answered the wreck.”

Rhazek stares at me like I’ve become a problem he didn’t want and can’t ignore.

Excellent. Feelings mutual, buddy.

“Can your enemies track that sensitivity?” Adran asks, leaning forward.

Shock cuts through the heat. His face gives away the rest before he says it.

“I’m standing right here.”

“I’m aware,” Adran says.

“No,” I say. “You’re calculating.”

Quiet tension settles over the table. Adran’s eyes harden, but Rosalind speaks before he can.

“Kessa is not a sensor, a sample, or a tool.”

“Nor did I say she was,” Adran says.

“No,” Ila says under her breath. “You implied it with posture.”

I press my lips together. Rhazek watches Ila with open curiosity. If we survive whatever this is I may need to warn him that Ila bites without moving her mouth.

“He needs rest,” Merra says, finishing binding his side with rough, efficient strips.

“He needs answers pulled from him,” Syin says.

“Pull too hard and you’ll have a corpse with secrets,” Merra snaps.

“I will risk it,” Syin says.

“I won’t. Corpses make terrible patients,” Merra answers.

“Enough,” Rosalind says.

No one speaks. The only sound is that of uneven breathing and the twitching of Zmaj tails across the stone floor.

Rhazek sets both hands on the table. The gesture is slow. Careful. Maybe so no one mistakes it for attack. Maybe because he has less strength left than he wants us to know.

“The first hunters will not come as an army,” he says. “They will come as listeners. Small ships. Hidden relays. Bought eyes. They will look for heat signatures, active resonance, Zmaj movement, human settlements, hybrid blood, old ruins, and panic.”

Hunters is not a people name. It’s a shape.

“Panic?” Virn asks.

“Panic opens doors faster than blades.” I hate him again for being right. Rhazek continues. “When they confirm Tajss has epis growing, Krix will be only the first mouth. Others will come. Slavers. Buyers. Old war houses. Factions that still remember what your planet was worth before it burned.”

The words settle over us like ash. Not if. When.

Visidion steps closer to the table. His voice is controlled, but something ancient and wounded lives beneath it.

“You said Arcan sent you. Why did he not come himself?”

Rhazek’s jaw tightens as he presses his hands flat against the table.

“Arcan arriving here would prove what he has spent years denying.”