Page 49

But the pressure kept building.

Too many eyes.

Too many comm clicks.

The air getting thicker with threat.

Halfway to the docking bay, someone stepped into our path.

A human male. Tall. Thin. Face mostly shadowed under a hood.

“Nyla.”

Soft. Familiar. The kind of familiar that made my blood run hot.

She froze.

Every muscle in her body going rigid. I felt the change like it was my own tension, my own fear.

My instincts flared like fire across my nerves. Protective. Possessive. Dangerous.

I grabbed her arm, feeling her pulse race under my fingers. “Not now.”

But the man stepped closer, and something in his movement set off every warning I had. “Nyla, wait. I didn’t think it was really you—”

Her voice was like a blade. Sharp enough to draw blood. “You don’t know me.”

But I heard what she wasn’t saying. What she couldn’t say. This man was from before. From when she ran.

He blinked, stunned. “Nyla—”

I didn’t wait.

Didn’t think.

Just moved.

One strike to the gut, a twist, then his back slammed into the beam with a hollow crack. Clean. Efficient. But not lethal. Though every instinct screamed to make it so. To eliminate anyone who made her voice sound like that.

A few heads turned. One shouted.

The crowd shifted like a living thing, predatory interest turning to threat.

Then came the whine of a weapon powering up. The sound cut through the station noise like a warning bell.

I didn’t stop to check where it was coming from.

I grabbed her wrist, feeling her pulse hammer against my fingers.

“Run.”

She moved with me like we’d done this a thousand times. Like her body knew mine, trusted mine, despite everything telling her not to.

We hit the dock at full speed.

Shouts behind us. Someone fired. A bolt skimmed the edge of the ramp, close enough that I felt the heat of it.

Nyla jumped first, sliding onto the deck with a grace that shouldn’t have been distracting in a firefight. Her hands hit the hatch controls mid-roll, movements precise despite the chaos.