Chapter 1

Jaela

It’s barely 0600 and my caf is already cold, which tells you just how well this day is going.

The kinetic rehab wing hums like a nest of hornets, all buzzing medtech and testosterone. Overhead, the anti-grav track squeals as a rig repositions itself three millimeters to the left for no reason whatsoever except to screw with my sanity. My patient of the morning—a Sergeant Kael with a jaw like a back alley bruiser and the attitude to match—is glowering at me like I just slapped his mama.

“I said I don’t want the damn limb.”

I crouch beside him, adjust the neural tether around his shoulder, and give him my best tight-lipped smile. The kind that says I’ve been doing this longer than you’ve had the prosthetic.

“And I said this isn't a build-a-body workshop, Sarge. It's your new leg. You're either going to walk with it or I’ll drag you to group therapy so they can do their crying circle about resistance to change.”

He snarls, flexes the golden alloy limb. The servos whine in protest.

We’re on round three of this dance. I’m already two steps ahead, tweaking settings with one hand while spooning caf into my mouth with the other. The bitter tang cuts through the antiseptic bite of the room, doing absolutely jack to improve my mood.

Behind me, the door hisses open. I don’t look up. Probably Jenkins with another broken neural net from that clumsy-ass nurse who keeps mistaking spinal cords for USB ports.

But then the air changes. Like a drop in pressure. A silence with weight.

“Code Black inbound,” someone whispers.

My hand freezes mid-air. Code Black is for veterans with catastrophic limb loss—Alliance-level clearances. The kind of patients who come in on grav-stretchers, sealed in trauma pods, their bodies held together by hope and proprietary polymers. I rise, setting down my caf.

“Where’s the intake?”

“Bay Six,” the nurse says, eyes too wide.

I stride toward the observation deck, pushing through the sluggish current of orderlies and rubberneckers. The big talk is that this one’s not just any vet—he’s a Vakutan war hero. One of the golden-scale giants bred for front-line brutality. The kind who don’t go down easy. Which makes me wonder just how badly he had to be wrecked to end up here.

Outside the reinforced window, the shuttle lands with a bone-shaking thunk. The tarmac shimmers, and not just from heat. The ramp lowers. A grav-stretcher hovers out, flanked by four guards in Alliance black. Then I see him.

Even unconscious, he’s massive.

Golden scales catch the light, marred by lacerations, soot, and cybernetic ports. His remaining eye—glowing, red, predatory—is shut tight, but everything about his frame screams restrained danger. Like a bomb wrapped in gauze.

My throat tightens. Not fear. Just… impact.

He’s missing a leg. An arm. Half his face is wrapped in medfoam. I catalog the damage clinically, but there’s something under it—something primal.

They roll him past the window and that’s when it happens. His eye cracks open, just a sliver.

And it lands on me.

Red meets green, and for a second, I’m caught in it. Trapped. He shouldn’t be conscious, shouldn’t be looking at me, but there’s a flicker of something there—recognition? Amusement? A warning?

Then it’s gone. His eyelid drags closed. I exhale like I’ve been holding my breath through the entire damn war.

I turn to leave—get my head back in the game—but then I hear it.

A low, guttural rumble from the trauma bay.

“…Jaela…”

My name. Growled like a curse. Or a prayer.

My skin goes tight. Nobody’s called me that in a voice like that.

Nobody who shouldn’t even know me.

And now I’m definitely awake.

“Absolutely not,” I say before the words are even all the way out of Commander Rolth’s mouth.

He’s got that I’m-tired-of-your-shit face on—the one with the deep crease between his brows and that little twitch in his left eyelid that means he’s deciding whether I’m worth the paperwork. Again.

“I’m not asking, Stonmer. It’s already assigned.”

“I specialize in post-limb loss psychokinetics, not babysitting homicidal alien POWs.”

“Alliance war hero,” Rolth corrects sharply. “And he’s not a prisoner. He’s flagged for PTSD risk, not criminal containment.”

“Oh good,” I deadpan. “So just a casual risk of being folded in half like a paper crane. Excellent.”

Rolth leans forward, hands steepled like a therapist about to tell me I have unresolved father issues. “This Vakutan—Kyldak—isn’t like the others. You know what that means.”

“Let me guess: he’s special. Exceptionally dangerous. Incredibly traumatized. And you’re handing him over to me with all the enthusiasm of a man tossing raw steak into a bear enclosure.”

“Your words, not mine.”

I huff, crossing my arms. The office smells like sterile desperation and overused recirc air. Rolth’s coffee is too strong; it punches through my sinuses like a sledgehammer. “Fine. But if he bites me, I’m getting hazard pay and a bottle of something expensive.”

“No biting,” he says. “He’s barely conscious. You’ll be easing him out of sedation in ninety.”

“Lovely. Wake the dragon.”

The lights in Bay Six are dimmed to reduce neural overload, but it doesn’t make the place feel any less ominous. The air in here is thick with the scent of medfoam, scorched metal, and something darker—old blood and burned ozone. It clings to my skin, metallic and bitter.

Kyldak lies in the center of the room like a fallen god, surrounded by beeping monitors and IV lines that pump a cocktail of sedatives and regeneration accelerants into his wrecked body. His golden scales are dulled, cracked in places like dried lava. The missing limb ports are covered in shimmering cyber sheaths, interfaces waiting to be activated.

I stand at the edge of his medbed, looking down at him.

“Alright, Goldilocks,” I murmur, reaching for the neural reactivation pad. “Let’s see what kind of monster you really are.”

The system whirs to life. His vitals spike. His remaining eye twitches.

He’s awake.

His chest heaves like he’s surfacing from deep water. The red eye snaps open, wide, wild. He jerks, tries to sit, snarls—a low, guttural sound that shakes through the room like a warning tremor before a quake.

“Easy,” I say, lifting my hands, keeping my tone dry. “You’ve had some work done. Try not to snap the cables.”

He lunges.

Or tries to. His limbs don’t respond the way he wants. The cybernetic leg twitches. The arm—missing. The eye—burns into me.

“Where—what is this?” His voice is rough gravel, shaking with fury. “Where is my arm?”

“Gone,” I say bluntly. “Blew off in your shuttle explosion. Same with the leg. And part of your face, but hey, you’ve still got your charming personality.”

He snarls again. “You mock me.”

“Not yet,” I shoot back. “You’re just catching the baseline sarcasm I use to survive twenty-hour shifts and war vets who think rage is a substitute for recovery.”

His eye narrows. “You pity me.”

“Nope. You’d have to be pitiful for that.”

His jaw works. His breath comes fast, raw. He’s processing. Not just the situation, but me. And I can feel it—that weight, the full force of his attention.

“I should crush you,” he growls.

“Give it a few weeks. We’ll start with sitting up.”

He freezes.

It’s not the threat that gets him—it’s the challenge. The insult to his pride.

I tilt my head. “Go on then. Sit.”

He glares like he wants to set me on fire with his brain.

“Your core’s still got muscle. The implant ports are integrated with an auto-stabilizing prosthetic matrix. It’s painful. It’s humiliating. And you’re gonna do it anyway because I said so.”

His breathing slows. Fury crackles off him like static. But beneath it, I see it—just a flicker.

Shame.

The kind that cuts deeper than shrapnel. The kind that says I was strong once and now I don’t know who the hell I am.

“Fine,” he spits.

I take a step back, arms crossed. “Show me.”

He grunts. Growls. His abs flex, scales catching the dim light. The motion is jerky at first—like someone trying to remember how to move in a dream—but then the prosthetic leg anchors, and he starts to lift.

His jaw clenches. Sweat beads on his temple. The neural nodes behind his ear flash red, signaling a feedback surge. He doesn’t stop.

I don’t speak. I don’t help.

I just watch.

He sits. Fully upright.

The bed creaks under the shift of weight. His breaths are ragged, his hands—what’s left of them—tremble.

And then he looks at me.

Like he’s etching my face into his memory, one slow line at a time.

I raise a brow. “Congratulations. You didn’t explode.”

“Yet,” he rasps.

I smirk. “Get used to my face, Kyldak. You’re stuck with it.”