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“If this goes bad, I won’t let them take you.”

Daven looked at him sideways.

For one hard second, neither of them joked.

Then Daven bared his teeth. “I’d be offended if you did.”

Another burst tore through the chamber, close enough to make the crate jump between them.

They were too close now. Too many.

Power pressed through the open structure, wild enough that if he let it out here, he could rip the platform open or send the chemical tanks up with it. It made his fingers flex. It made his palm heat.

“Fuck,” he muttered, forcing it back down.

If this went bad here, in this fucking sky prison, the bond would go quiet and Ryneth would be waiting for someone who would never return.

Silver eyes. That sharp mouth. The way Ryneth looked at him like he saw straight through the title, the power, all of it.

There was still so much he hadn’t said. So much he still wanted.

He couldn’t die here. Not before Ryneth knew. Not before he got back to him.

Daven’s eyes snapped open. The pressure in the air had changed.

A deep thunder rolled through the clouds above the platform as dark shapes moved through the storm above the outer ring. More followed.

Something was dropping through the storm, fast.

Then he saw the black and gold.

They came down in formation through the open industrial lanes, fast and controlled through the rain.

Daven let out a short laugh under his breath. “Perfect timing.”

Across the production floor, the Attica rebels froze for half a second, their white masks turning upward.

Then alarms erupted across the facility. Red lights flared to life along the outer ring of the platform, warning signals flashing through the storm.

Ropes dropped from above. Black and gold uniforms flashed against the storm light as Luminary soldiers descended onto the platform. Some of them were familiar faces from the academy.

The Luminary.

29

RYNETH

The storm transport tore through the cloud layer. Lightning flashed across the hull as the pilot fought the wind. The platform appeared below them in violent bursts of white light, metal corridors and spinning turbines cutting through the storm while gunfire stitched across the structure.

Ryneth had already been told twice to stay back.

The first breach team had already gone in without him, led by Moargan.

Too exposed, they’d said. Too unstable. Too dangerous in a live strike.

Moargan had taken one look at him before the hatch sealed and ordered him into the second transport. Daven wasn’t there, which meant Moargan wasn’t about to let his cousin’s mate get shot on his watch.

As if Ryneth had ever been good at that.