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The subterranean room smells of iron and the oil they use to lubricate their guns. Maggie stands at a metal workbench, her tailored jacket discarded. She strips down a standard-issue human pistol with practiced efficiency, her fingers dark with grease.

I lean against the metal doorframe, crossing my arms over my chest. “Your quartermaster possesses the conversational range of a brick. If you intend to route all my intelligence briefings through him, I will start making up terrifying Ghorvek swarm patterns just to watch his mustache twitch.”

Maggie doesn’t look up. She slides the barrel assembly free and sets it on a stained rag. “Quartermaster Higgins is a decorated veteran. He requires logistical updates, not theatrical performances.”

“I don’t perform.” I push off the doorframe, my boots silent on the concrete as I close the distance. “I educate.”

I stop beside her. The armory is narrow, forcing our shoulders a breath apart. Her scent hits me instantly—her tea, citrus, and the sharp tang of copper solvent. It goes straight to my head, a potent intoxicant that makes my twin hearts thump against my ribs.

She reaches for a cleaning brush, and I catch her hand.

The contact is brief, but a spark of static electricity snaps between our skin, just like in the war room.

Maggie gasps, her head snapping up. Her large blue eyes are wide, the pupils blown dark and round.

I don’t let go immediately, holding her wrist, my thumb resting over her racing pulse.

Avaren biology does not lie. For many rotations, I have engaged in physical intimacy as a tool, a pleasure, a means to an end. It has always been controlled. Instrumental. But this—this clawing, desperate hunger chewing through my self-control—is entirely foreign.

I look at the fierce set of her jaw, the deep-red lipstick, the relentless defiance in her spine.

I haven’t run a medical scan. She refuses to allow it. But my body already knows the answer. Kairen described the pull when he first touched Tara. An instantaneous, undeniable recognition. A gravitational force demanding alignment.

Margaret Elmsleigh is my match.

The realization slams into me like a shockwave of possessive heat.

“You are hovering, Orien.” She yanks her hand free, rubbing the skin where my fingers rested. A dark flush climbs her neck.

“I am assisting.” I clear my throat. “I believe your assembly could be more efficient.”

“I have carried this weapon for two and a half years.” She picks up the rag, scrubbing the oil from her hands with unnecessary force. “I do not require alien instruction on human firearms.”

“You require instruction on accepting help.” I crowd her subtly against the workbench, caging her in with my body. “You bolted from our dinner the moment I mentioned the match test. Why does the concept of a biological equal terrify you, Maggie?”

Her left eyelid twitches. She drops the rag. “I am terrified of losing this war. I am terrified of my soldiers starving. I do not have the bandwidth to entertain your romantic science fiction.”

“It isn’t fiction.” I lean down, my mouth hovering inches from her ear. “And you aren’t terrified of the science. You are terrified of being known.”

She shivers. The microscopic tremble ripples through her shoulders, betraying the iron-clad posture.

“Get out of my armory,” she whispers, refusing to look at me.

“I will see you at the afternoon briefing, Commander.” I step back, granting her the oxygen she desperately needs. “And I expect you to be there in person. Higgins bores me.”

Over the next week, I ensure we are rarely apart.

I insert myself into her guard rotations, walking the perimeter walls while she conducts inspections. I sit opposite her in the mess hall, drinking the terrible, recycled coffee she claims to enjoy, watching her calculate ration distributions. I challenge her tactical assessments, forcing her to engage with me, forcing her to drop the icy detachment and fight back.

And she does. She argues with a brilliant, vicious intellect. She hurls deadpan insults that my nanites struggle to translate into logical Avaren concepts. She refuses to grant me an inch of ground, and with every passing rotation, I fall deeper into the trap she doesn’t even know she set.

Two weeks after Kairen and Tara’s departure, the bunker klaxons scream, the lights turning a pulsing red.

I’m in the command hub, pointing out a flaw in the eastern drone grid, when the ground shudders and concrete dust rains from the ceiling.

Jenkins tears his headset off, his face bloodless. “Breach! Sector Four! The lower ventilation shafts collapsed. We have multiple hostiles inside the perimeter!”

Maggie doesn’t flinch. She draws her primitive pistol in one smooth motion, chambering a round. “Seal the blast doors between Sector Three and Four. Evacuate the lower barracks. Tell the heavy gunners to set a choke point at the main stairwell.”