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Rylos lifted his head. His pupils had swallowed most of the red. His thumb was resting one centimeter below my breast, and I could feel exactly how much of him remained pressed between my thighs.

“He knows,” I said.

“Talon notices everything. We were never a challenge.”

“Were?”

His gaze dropped to my mouth. “This is not finished.”

“Good. I dislike abandoned operations.”

He kissed me once more, shorter and somehow worse, a promise delivered with teeth. Then he put me back in my chair, righted the fallen slates, and rehearsed the security-level-five junction in a voice that betrayed nothing. His fangs remained visibly descended for the next forty minutes.

RYLOS

At morning watch, day five of the burn, I ended her guard detail and shut down the audio and visual feeds from her quarters. I sent confirmation to her terminal so she could check it herself. In the duty log, I called it mission staffing.

“Mission staffing,” Talon said, reading the log over my shoulder in the corridor.

“The plan depends on her. Keeping a guard outside her door buys us nothing now, and I need Kallum on mission prep. She has the freedom of the ship. Her quarters should have been private before this.”

“All true.” He signed off on it without a flicker. “None of it is why.”

He was gone before I could decide whether answering would make it worse. It would have.

Kallum was on the last watch. He gathered his kit, checked that the compartment feed showed OFF, and left for mission prep with a nod. He had routes to clear. I had one fewer excuse to know where Lika was every moment.

The ship was in mission rhythm. Brevan ran the delegation through interview drills at 0700, grudges rehearsed until even Zarek could produce the Ministry of Adjustments with genuine loathing.

Kallum walked everyone’s kit twice. Anhara and Bronwen inventoried the med stores; Carys and Flinx timed camera windows against Sabine’s model until the timings agreed. I moved through it signing decisions and very deliberately did not go near the guest corridor.

I found the training bay empty at midmorning and used it the way I always use it before a job, running the route in my body, corridor by corridor, until the turns lived in muscle instead of memory. Kallum had drilled the same route at dawn; the mats still held the marks of it.

Forty minutes in, I was working the pivot at the security-level-five junction when the hatch cycled. She came in wearing borrowed training grays, sleeves shoved up, hair bound back. She stopped at the edge of the mat to watch.

“My shadow’s gone,” she said.

“Streamlining.”

“Streamlining.” She repeated the word and gave me a look that said she did not believe it. Then she stepped out of her boots. “Spar with me.”

“No.”

“That was fast.”

“You’re mission-essential tomorrow. I don’t want you hurt in training.”

“I’ve fought exactly once in six years, on the Virelle, and you saw all of it. Tomorrow I walk into a building that will kill me by hand if the plan slips, next to people who train together daily.” She came onto the mat anyway, rolling her wrists loose.

“You need to know whether I can handle myself if the plan fails. So find out. Zarek would hold back. You won’t.”

“And,” she added, with the smallest tilt of her head toward the comm panel, “you already pulled my guard. Streamline the rest of the way.”

I should have named the other reason it was a bad idea. Instead, I pretended it wasn’t there and stepped onto the mat anyway.

“Points on control,” I said. “First to four.”

She opened with a Conclave close-protection entry, turning my wrist toward the joint. I stepped outside it, caught her elbow, and held her where one more inch would put her on the mat.