Page 104 of Tracked and Taken

Kesh’s canines — I see it in the change at his upper lip — begin to drop.

Involuntary.

He did not choose to.

His body did.

His silver eyes go to me in the way I have, in the last five days, watched Tael’s silver eyes go to me when he was about to put his mouth on me.

It is not, on Kesh, the same.

It is the same biology in the wrong male.

“Torres.”

“Don’t move.”

“The compound is — I cannot stop the drop, Torres. My body is going to move whether I want it to move or not. The peak is two minutes away. At peak I will cover the distance between us and my canines will set the mark. The compound overrides the discipline. I told you.”

“Don’t move, Kesh.”

“I can’t, Torres. Mira is my true bond, but Tael must be punished. Feel MY pain.”

He takes a third step forward.

Two meters.

Another slam at the door. The frame warps a quarter-inch. Tael’s breathing through the speaker at a register I have, in the last ten minutes, stopped being able to name.

“Nat — hold — I am almost through—“

My pulse in my throat.

SENTRY, tight: “Natalie. Your biometric profile is approaching the threshold I am not calibrated to manage. Please hold.”

“Copy, SENTRY.”

The compound on my skin. My body wants to walk toward the male in front of me and let him do what his body is going to do. The want is not my want. The want is the compound. I can feel the want not belonging to me.

The knowing does not stop the wanting.

It is the worst thing my body has ever done.

I raise the scalpel.

Kesh sees it. His sidearm comes up. The canines are down now — visible at his lip, longer than a healthy Draelith’s because the surrounding tissue has receded.

He takes a fourth step.

One and a half meters.

“Don’t, Torres. You will not reach me before I reach you. The compound is weighting you. Your reflexes are at seventy percent. Your aim is at sixty.”

He is right.

My hand with the scalpel is, by my sense of it, slower than my hand was in the upstairs chamber. The warmth is pulling at my muscles. My body is being asked to welcome him and to resist the welcoming at the same time.

A fourth slam at the door.