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Her eyes soften for a fraction of a second before the walls come back up, but it’s enough. Enough to know that beneath her armor, she’s as drawn to me as I am to her.”
For a moment that stretches into eternity, we stand connected, not touching yet linked. Her eyes search mine, and I see the battle waging within her, the struggle between duty and desire.
Then, as if a silent truce is reached, she leans in, her lips inches from mine. The world narrows to the two of us, suspended in this fragile moment. Time stops. The air is thick with the heady anticipation of what comes next.
And in that heartbeat, I know—whatever secrets she’s hiding, whatever mysteries this ship holds—I’m in too deep to turn back now.
“I’m losing control…” I admit, more to myself than to her. “Of the situation, of myself. But I can’t seem to care.”
“You think you’re the only one?” Her voice trembles.
The vulnerability in her tone catches me off guard. For once, she’s not the unyielding Chief Engineer or the mysterious woman hiding secrets. She’s just Cordelia—a person as conflicted and confused as I am.
I reach out, touching her face. Her breath hitches as my fingers graze her cheek.
“I don’t know what this is between us… But it’s real. I’ve never experienced anything so real.”
Her lips part as if to respond, but no words come out. The tension between us tightens like a coiled spring ready to snap.
We’re so close that I can see every detail of her face—the flecks of green in her blue eyes, the way her lips tremble ever so slightly. My heart pounds in my chest as I lean in.
But just as our lips are about to meet, my phone rings shrilly in my pocket. The sound shatters the moment like glass hitting concrete.
Cordelia steps back quickly, the spell broken between us. Frustration surges through me as I fumble for my phone.
“Hold on.” Turning away from her, I swear softly under my breath.
“Take your call. I have to report to the captain.”
And before I can turn back to ask her to stay, she’s gone.
Chapter Four
Cordelia Marin
Apounding on my door yanks me from the haze of sleep. The knock is frantic, not the kind to ignore. I stumble out of bed, wrenching open the door to find Zara, her face pale and eyes wide.
“Cor, Jake Gordon is gone. And his cabin mate. Their cabin... it’s not right. They’re both Orca shifters. Jake’s bunkmate, he’s new this cruise. Shit. I don’t remember his name. I haven’t even met him yet.”
“Slow down, Zara. What do you mean, gone? Even if he needed to go off ship out into the Inner Passage to shift, his bio monitor would give the bridge his position so that we can bring him back onboard.”
“Gone means not on the ship and no biometric signal. Vanished.”
We rush down the narrow corridor, the ship’s gentle sway doing nothing to calm my nerves. Zara and I burst into Jake’s cabin. The room is a mess—sheets tangled on the floor; personal items scattered everywhere. The air feels wrong, thick with an unspoken dread.
Zara kneels by the bed, fingers tracing a jagged tear in the fabric. “There was a struggle.”
I look around, desperate for some clue, something that tells me Jake just left in a hurry and not... I can’t even finish the thought. My gaze lands on a faint shimmer near the window—an aura of magic dissipating.
“Zara, look here. Is this blood?”
She looks at the wall, where I’m pointing and picks up a small item from nearby on the floor, holding it up for me to see. “This is what’s left of a bio monitor implant.” She grabs a cracked pair of eye glasses from the floor and uses the lens to peer at the tiny metal tube. “This belonged to the new guy. I remember recording the serial number—it has my Dad’s birthdate in it.”
Captain Voss strides in. She scans the room with a critical eye before joining me in time to hear Zara’s discovery.
“How? The implant is subdermal.”
“It was removed deliberately. By whom, I have no idea.” Zara hands the damaged implant to the captain. “I don’t believe any crewman would voluntarily remove the implant. My bio monitoring technology allows us to man this ship and experience the human world.”
