“That sounds perfect,” she whispered.
They made love slowly that night, a reaffirmation of the connection between them that transcended physical pleasure. When they finally slept, wrapped in each other’s arms with Adjar’s wings spread over them like a blanket, she felt something she hadn’t experienced in years.
Peace.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The warm air pressed against Adjar’s skin like a fever. He lay motionless in the darkness, Jaz tucked against his side, her breathing slow and even. His wings were spread over them both—a protective canopy that should have brought comfort but instead felt like a trap. The room was too small. The walls too close. And the temperature…
Wrong. Everything about this place is wrong.
His body understood polar cold. The sharp bite of arctic wind, the crystalline silence of deep ice, and the way frost formed patterns that whispered secrets to those who knew how to read them. His scales were designed to conduct and retain heat with brutal efficiency, to thrive in environments that would kill lesser creatures within minutes.
This warmth made him feel like he was suffocating.
He turned his head fractionally, listening to the sounds of the settlement beyond their quarters. Footsteps in a distant corridor. The hum of environmental systems cycling throughtheir endless work. And somewhere, too close for comfort, the unmistakable presence of another male.
Rhyx.
His claws extended involuntarily, scratching against the bedding. He had thought that his reaction to the other male had eased. Rhyx had his own mate, he had shown no interest in Jaz, and they had spent most of the day discussing alliance and cooperation. But now that Jaz was asleep—vulnerable—the ancient programming buried in his bones was reasserting itself.
Another male. In my territory. Near my mate.
He forced his claws to retract. Forced his breathing to remain steady. Forced himself to lie still when every fiber of his being wanted to challenge.
This is not my territory,he reminded himself.I am a guest here. Rhyx is an ally, not a threat. Control yourself.
The self-admonishment helped, marginally. But sleep remained elusive.
Instead, he found his thoughts drifting to the conversation they’d had earlier. The emergence sites. GenCon’s potential ability to trigger awakening events. The possibility that others were waiting beneath the Martian surface—more fragments of a civilization he barely remembered.
He should want to find them. He should want to stay here, in this settlement where information flowed freely and allies gathered. Rhyx understood things about their shared past that Adjar’s fragmented memories couldn’t provide. Alina had scientific knowledge that could help them understand what was happening to Mars. R-339 and his cyborg network offeredprotection and resources beyond anything he could secure alone.
Staying here was the logical choice. The strategic choice.
And yet the polar ice called to him like a song he’d forgotten the words to but still knew by heart. The vast white expanses. The crushing silence. The way sound traveled differently through frozen air, carrying information across impossible distances. That was his territory—not this cramped settlement with its recycled air and artificial warmth and too many bodies pressed too close together.
Jaz will want to stay,he thought. She was practical, his mate. She would see the value in remaining close to their allies, in building the network they needed to protect themselves and others. She would recognize that her mining claim was gone, her equipment destroyed, and her carefully constructed independence shattered beyond repair.
She would want to rebuild. And rebuilding meant staying here, where the resources were.
He stared at the ceiling and tried to imagine adapting to this place. Learning to tolerate the warmth, the dryness, and the constant presence of other beings. Perhaps he could adjust his internal temperature regulation, force his body to accept conditions it found inherently hostile. Perhaps the discomfort would fade with time, the way his initial hostility towards Rhyx had softened into something approaching respect.
Perhaps.
Or perhaps he would slowly go mad, his instincts warring endlessly with the demands of civilization, until he became a danger to the very mate he was trying to protect. Thethought sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with temperature.
She shifted beside him as her breathing changed, the rhythm of sleep giving way to something more alert, more conscious. She was awake.
He remained still, not wanting to disturb her if she was simply adjusting position before falling back into slumber. But she remained awake and eventually her voice came through the darkness—soft, barely more than a whisper.
“You’re not sleeping.”
It wasn’t a question.
“No,” he admitted.
She turned in his arms, her face finding his in the dim light filtering through the window. Her amber eyes were luminous in the darkness, watching him with an intensity that made his chest ache.