Page 32 of Thexan

Her hand shifted against my chest, no longer testing, no longer uncertain. The contact became intentional, grounded in decision rather than observation.

“You need this to survive,” she said.

“Yes.”

“And if I walk away, you lose control.”

“Yes.”

She exhaled slowly, her focus dropping briefly to where we were still connected, then returning to my face.

“This isn’t just your problem,” she said.

I could only agree.

She moved closer then, not abruptly, not driven by impulse, but with a measured certainty that carried more weight than hesitation ever could.

“Then stop treating it like it is,” she said.

The alignment responded immediately, the instability within my system shifting under the change in proximity, not resolving, but intensifying differently—focused, directed, no longer diffuse.

I did not stop her I did not stop her or attempt to move away. Brin had made her choice.

“This completes the bond,” I said, one final time. “There will be no reversal.”

“I’m not asking for one.”

Her hand slid from my chest to my shoulder, steadying herself as she closed the remaining distance between us, her gaze fixed on mine, clear, aware, and entirely without uncertainty.

“Then don’t hold back,” she said.

Chapter Nine

Brynn

For a moment, I didn’t move.

I understood what he was asking too well—and all at once.

This wasn’t just about keeping him alive or even just about the bond.

This would tie me to him in a way that couldn’t be undone. Not when this was over, when the threat passed, and the world outside this room returned to something resembling normal.

There would be no stepping back from this.

No separating what I was now from what I had been before.

I had known him for hours.

Hours.

I didn’t know where he came from beyond what he’d told me. I didn’t know what his life had been before he reached my door. I didn’t know what he would be like once the immediate danger passed, or what it would mean to exist beside him when survival was no longer the only thing driving us forward.

What I did know was this—it was neither chance nor accident that he had come to me.

He had held on long enough to reach this place, this room, this moment.

And from the second I touched him, something in me had responded in a way I couldn’t explain, couldn’t dismiss, and couldn’t pretend wasn’t real.