Page 21 of Silver Slayer

“Loud and clear.” I wiggled my left ear at her.

Brief and unguarded, a throaty chuckle escaped her. “Nothing gets past you.”

Her smile hit me like the first heat of a suns-rise, and I was wholly unprepared for it.I had faced void weavers and Gorken guards and Uri's cruelty, and none of it had undone me the way that single unguarded smile did. My ancillary heart slammed against my ribs like it had somewhere urgent to be.

“I'm not going to turn down food,” she admitted shyly, smoothing a hand over the front of her loose shirt as if needing something to do.

Quin settled onto the floor with the bio-spectral analyzer balanced across her thigh, her pale eyes lifting to find mine with the quiet certainty of someone who had learned to read danger before it moved, and I understood then why my spirit's call had gone unanswered. She saw through the warrior's bearing to the male still haunted by his cage.

I crossed to where Tyrk sat on the floor, bent over the broken console. Its casing had split open, spilling the ship's innards of coiled lengths of tubing that glowed faintly where they had snapped apart, and small dense components scattered across the floor like cracked vertebrae. The Nomadican's claw-tipped fingers moved with surprising dexterity as he worked through the tangle, his brow furrowed in concentration beneath his curved horns.

I crouched beside him. "My spirit mate is hungry," I said, the words feeling strange yet so right on my tongue. "Do you think the food replicator is operational?"

Tyrk's head whipped up, those slitted pupils widening with shock. "Spirit mate?" His hands stilled among the glowing tubing.

I nodded, unable to keep the pride from my voice. "The human female, Quin."

"Does she know what that means?" he asked, keeping his deep voice barely above a whisper.

Heat flushed across my scales. "Her spirit has not answered the call to mine.”

"Humans know nothing of Valosian ways. You will need to explain to her what it means," Tyrk replied, returning to his work with renewed focus. "The galley took heavy damage. I'm working to reroute power to the replicator without leaving us in complete darkness. Here." He gestured to a cluster of conduit. "You can help me. Hold these steady while I splice the connection."

I moved closer and followed his instructions, holding the delicate tubing in place, careful not to damage it further.

"Spirit mate," Tyrk repeated softly, as if tasting the words. "I've seen the shawras on the bonded couples on Valose. The sharing of essence is a most sacred exchange."

"It is," I confirmed, my voice dropping lower. "My sire spoke of it often, though he never found his own before the females perished."

"So your mother was not his fated mate?"

"No. But he didn't love her any less. Up until the suns-rise she went to the Spirits while birthing me; she was everything to him."

Tyrk's hands moved with practiced precision, splicing two hoses together with a tool that sparked briefly. "Nomadicans don't know our mates at first," he said. "Not the way you do." Heflicked me a glance. "We breathe her in. And something in us starts to answer. Her scent stays with us longer than it should." A faint huff of amusement left him. "That's how it begins for us. Not instant. Not certain. But it grows." His expression sobered. "When it does, we court her. If she accepts us, she becomes ours."

"I did not choose this," I confessed. "My spirit chose for me.”

"As a human, she may not have the same visceral reaction toward you as a Valosian female would," Tyrk warned.

"I will let her choose me," I stated, glancing at where Quin sat cross-legged in the spot I once occupied. "That is, if she finds me worthy of her."

"I pray to your Spirits that she does." Tyrk rose and clapped me on the shoulder. "Let's go see if the replicator is working. Otherwise, we will be eating dried rations."

I followed Tyrk through the dimly lit interior of the ship, my gaze lingering on Quin as we passed. She looked up from her device and offered a small smile that sent warmth spreading through my chest. I nodded in return, my hearts thundering with renewed intensity at the simple gesture. After my conversation with Tyrk, I understood now that she must choose me freely. She was not Valosian, not governed by a biological bond. If we were to be together, it would be because she wanted me, not because fate had decided.

The door leading to the corridor had buckled partway open in its frame from the crash, forcing us to turn sideways to squeeze through. The ship groaned around us, metal protesting as it settled. I kept one hand on the wall to steady myself, my scales shifting to match the dull silver of the metal beneath my palm.

"Not much better in here," Tyrk observed as we entered the galley.

The small room was in disarray. Cabinets had slid open; their contents spilled across the floor. The replicator unit sat dark and silent in the corner, its surface cracked from the impact. Tyrk moved to it immediately, his massive hands working the controls with surprising delicacy.

"It's completely dead," he muttered, dragging two fingers across the replicator's panel. The surface stayed dark beneath his touch, not even a flicker of response. "The crash must've burned out the matter conversion matrix when the conduits overloaded. Even with power rerouted to the unit, the internal fabricators aren't responding."

I surveyed the damage, noting the scattered containers and broken storage units. "What about rations?"

"In there," Tyrk said, pointing to a cabinet that had taken the brunt of the impact on one side, its paneling buckled and warped but the door still shut. "If we're lucky, some survived the crash."

I forced the door open with both hands, the frame grinding against itself as it gave way.