Captive And Claimed On Vexar – 6 – Zola Vale

The purple was gone, replaced by the even glow of a system at rest. The purr rumbled against my spine. Continuous. A sound produced by a physiology that had gotten what it needed and was broadcasting satisfaction through every available channel. I lay in the dark and listened to his body tell me what his words would not, and the engineer in me logged the data while the rest of me did something I hadn’t done in a long time.

I rested. Twelve days ago, I didn’t know this station existed or his name. The speed of it should have terrified me. Some part of my brain, the part that ran calculations and demanded evidence before committing to conclusions, was waving flags I couldn’t quite read in the dark. But the rest of me was quiet for the first time in twelve days, and the quiet was worth more than caution. “The bond is in Phase Three now,” I said.

My voice was quiet in the dark. “The Grounding. That’s what that was.” “Yes.” His voice against my hair. The sub-harmonics were absent. Soft. The voice of a male who had stopped controlling his output. “I can feel you. Not your thoughts. But something.” “Emotional resonance. The bond carries it. It will stabilize over time.”

I was quiet for a moment. His hand was still on my sternum, and his heartbeat reached me through his palm. Slower than a human heart. Heavier. “When we take down Corsine,” I said, “and we get a signal to the GA, and your sister is safe, and the trafficking ring is exposed… what happens to us?” His arm tightened around me. Fractionally. The scales along his ribs flared blue, then dimmed.

“I do not know.” The honest answer. The one that cost him. “The bond is permanent. The compatibility is genuine. What we choose to build on that foundation is not something the ancient scanner can dictate.” “So we decide.” “We decide.” “Then walk me through Phase Four,” I said. “If we ever chose it. What does the Claiming actually involve?” “The old rite. Scenting, so each carries the other’s chemical signature. Marking, an exchange of bites at the bond points.” His voice stayed level. The purr underneath it did not.

“It is not taken. It is offered, and answered. Both partners mark. Both partners claim. My people built a ceremony around consent long before anyone built one around war.” “Huh.” I filed it the way I filed load-bearing schematics. “Your people would hate Corsine.” “More than there are words for. In any language, the Bead carries.” I pressed my hand over his on my sternum.

My fingers barely covered the width of his palm. The heat of him radiated through my back, my ribs, the length of my body where it fit against his. Tomorrow I will return to the Hub. I would continue mapping the maintenance tunnels connecting to the Communication Tower’s power grid.

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author. No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

1kitap1.com/en Get the free prequel to the Bonded by the Star-Gene series. When a massive alien bounty hunter captures runaway data-runner Maya Priori, she should be just another live bounty. Then one touch ignites the Star-Gene bond. Now Tyrok must choose between delivering his captive to the Consortium… or claiming the human woman his instincts will destroy anything to protect. Get it free here: https://BookHip.com/GTNGDZN 1kitap1.com/en CHAPTER 1: THE ARRIVAL POV: Kira | Day 1 The transport shuddered twice before it docked, and I knew from the sound alone that the coupling mechanism was fifteen years past its service life.

Metal grinding against metal. A hydraulic seal hissing where it shouldn’t hiss. The kind of noise that told an engineer the station on the other side of that airlock wasn’t maintained so much as kept from dying. My wrists ached inside the transit cuffs, and the woman chained to the bench across from me had stopped breathing loud enough for me to hear, which meant she’d either passed out or gone so deep into shock that her body had decided consciousness was optional.

I counted the bolts on the airlock door. Fourteen visible. Two missing from the lower left corner, replaced with what looked like welded patches. Sloppy work. If the pressure differential shifted by more than six percent, those patches would pop like bottle caps. This was what my brain did when everything else in me wanted to scream.

It counted. It measured. It cataloged failure points and structural weaknesses with the cool detachment of someone who’d spent eleven years taking machines apart and putting them back together. It was the only thing I had left that was mine, that nobody had managed to strip from me during eight months of hearings, a rigged tribunal, and a transport ride that had lasted six days in a hold that smelled of vomit and recycled fear.

The airlock groaned open. The air hit me first. Cold, metallic, carrying the flat chemical bite of scrubbed atmosphere. No natural air recycling here, no plant-based filtration. Pure mechanical.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 6283d1f5ae762ba0
• File Extension: .pdf
• File Size: 1,038,433 bytes (0.99 MB)
• Title: –
• Author: Unknown
• Pages: 124
• Language: English (en)

Reading & Word Statistics

• Estimated Reading Time: 200.31 minutes
• Total Words: 40,063
• Total Characters: 232,605
• Average Words per Page: 323.09
• Average Characters per Page: 1875.85

Most Frequent Words

against (160), one (148), bond (125), every (112), like (108), something (98), three (97), body (89), back (89), said (80), station (78), eyes (74), hands (73), skin (72), corsine (72), pressed (71), between (70), days (69), still (69), system (67), two (67), scales (67), behind (65), kira (64), way (62), room (61), chest (61), enough (59), held (58), years (57), first (55), i’d (55), felt (55), around (54), hand (54), voice (51), across (50), didn’t (50), data (50), corridor (49), wall (49), without (48), human (48), looked (48), moved (48), door (47), fingers (47), dark (47), sound (46), sat (46), made (46), along (46), corsine’s (46), metal (45), air (45), face (43), hub (42), someone (41), heat (41), raeth (40), everything (39), processing (39), light (39), time (38), inside (37), four (37), toward (37), beneath (37), floor (36), blue (35), walls (35), pain (35), cell (35), claws (35), mine (34), pulled (34), consortium (33), stone (33), prisoners (33), built (33), species (33), woman (32), work (32), since (32), now (31), day (31), told (31), station’s (31), turned (31), found (31), zethrani (31), response (31), left (30), flat (30), guard (30), reached (30), needed (30), used (30), stopped (29), six (29).

PDF Download