Electricity bolted around Rayne in a spiderweb of deadly light, striking the remaining bidders.

Gorgeous lethality.

Nox watched from backstage where he kept the children safe and the auctioneer squirming on the floor. Rayne’s heart was broken. He could tell by the slug of their shared pulse. How could she not be?

As the smell of cooked meat filled the club, Nox smiled down at the little redheaded girl and the brunette boy who held her hand. He said, “You’re safe now. The nice woman put the bad people away.”

The children exchanged glances before the little girl ran up and hugged Nox’s knee. He patted her head and tried to keep it together as their sniffles formed a chorus of broken children.

Those people deserved worse than the death Rayne had given them.

In the front, Rayne called, “Elden, please.”

A conduit formed on the stage. Burdened with this ugly reality, Rayne moved toward it slowly. “Nox?”

“C’mon. We’ll take you somewhere safe.”

The brunette boy asked, “Will the grownups hurt us there?”

In better light, Nox made out the boy’s black eye. Nox was reminded of the first time he and Xelan had brought Korac to their chambers. The scars all over him… stripping naked for inspection…

After swallowing, Nox said, “If another person lays a hand on you, you’ll be the last thing they touch.”

Something in the way he said it convinced the children to follow him to the conduit. Dragging the auctioneer behind him, Nox took a second to look Rayne over. Their shared heart was recovering, but the scar was lasting.

As if she’d heard his thoughts, Rayne nodded and lied, “I’m all right. Let’s get out of this place. Did you—Oh, great. You kept the auctioneer.” She put her face in the female Caprent’s line of sight and said, “You and I have so much to talk about.”

The deadly promise in her words thrilled Nox, but he could process it later. For now, they needed to discern where Elden’s conduit led them—

Pil’s Children’s Sanctuary

Elden was curiously precise, and it was in the middle of the night, providing them some cover.

“Thank goodness,” Rayne muttered before kneeling to speak to the little ones. “In there, they can take care of you and help you find your parents. Tell them to contact Co-Emperor Xelan. Send the word ‘Superman’ along. He’ll help.”

Nox smiled as Rayne ruffled the little girl’s hair. The child looked uncertain at first, what with Rayne being covered in a rainbow of blood, but eventually she beamed with a missing tooth and hugged Rayne’s neck.

The brunette boy with the black eye tugged on Nox’s hand, and when he looked down, the boy said, “Thank you, mister.”

Behind them, the auctioneer mumbled incoherently, still recovering from the broken trachea. Still, it was all enough to make Nox smile at the boy. “Take care of each other.”

The rest of the children swarmed them in hugs, and he smiled over at Rayne, who looked better than even five minutes ago. Both their hearts felt lighter.

As the children ran into the orphanage, Nox pulled the auctioneer into a nearby alley. Rayne wasted no time in punching through the female Caprent’s back and ripping out her nacre. Rayne swallowed the amber pearl before saying, “We should have what we need. Elden, can you please—”

A conduit opened to Thailea’s forest.

“Thank you,” Rayne said as she waved for Nox to follow.

He held up a finger. “You go first. I’ll be right behind you.”

She quirked a curious brow at Nox, but left to seek her own sanctuary. Out of her sight, Nox slit the Caprent’s throat and used the green blood to leave a message in the style of the Shadow for the dawn.

Elden kindly kept the conduit open until Nox stepped through and outside the treeloft. Rayne waited for him with a wilted smile so they could enter their home together. She limped in, not from an injury—her nacre had healed any sustained—but from weariness. The most powerful warrior in the galaxy was bone tired.

Nox felt it in their pulse as he followed her around the corner. Pressed with the need to revitalize her, he said, “It was a magnificent battle.”

In the kitchen, Rayne let out an incredulous laugh as she let her hair down. Busy removing braids, she said, “You were fantastic. The stopping power—I’m too small to pull off punches like yours. I mean, sure, I can punch through someone’s face, but you rattle their entire skeleton.” She gave a little hiccup and hid the tears he could smell from the salt.

Compliments were new to Nox, and compliments from Rayne were more valuable to him than Aegis ore was to the empire. Especially amid all her gentle sobs with her back to him. Nox worried Rayne regretted the mercy she’d shown the fighters and Dagger in the vice arena and for shunning her killer instincts.

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Nox had embraced his long ago to the detriment of his sanity. His brother—the Icarus who’d taught Rayne so much in life—would applaud her restraint tonight even though the people they’d spared were affiliated with child trafficking. Where was the balance between Nox and Xelan, and how did Rayne find it?

Into the silence of her suppressed weeping, Nox said, “You’re more than a Weapon, Rayne. You’ll find your way—”

She whirled and faced him with glassy reddened eyes and a rosiness to her nose and cheeks, clearly upset. Rayne stared up at Nox, searching his expression, before asking, “Will you wash the blood off of me?” Without waiting for his response, Rayne lifted her soiled top, turning her back before he glimpsed her breasts. She let the shirt fall to the floor and started stripping off her pants as she walked into the shower.

This was not an invitation. Nox recognized it for what it was: a cry for help, for comfort. And he would not take advantage of Rayne. No matter how tempting it seemed.

Nox cursed himself as he stripped out of his shirt, kicked off his pants and boots, and followed her into the spray. Rayne’s back was to him again. She was hugging herself while the water soaked her hair, and a spectrum of color washed down the drain. Her soft cries and increasingly jarring shudders racked Nox’s conscience. So vulnerable, so beautiful, and not his.

Resigned, he grabbed a soap pod and lathered it before taking controlled steps toward Rayne. At Nox’s approach, she held her breath. He wondered what she must be thinking. Was she thinking this would be it? The moment. It certainly would explain why his heart was pounding harder than during the fight.

Rayne watched him over her shoulder as Nox lifted her hair and swept it to the font. He gingerly scrubbed a patch of blood on her back, and she gasped with the contact. Blood and other things were caked all over Rayne’s skin, but Nox was only willing to get the hard to reach places, trying with everything in him to ignore the perfect definition to her shoulders, lower back, and lower still. Rayne certainly kept herself fit, and every brush of his fingers against her skin was soft.

Nox washed everything away from the Icarean script on her back, once off limits to him, and considered lingering to wash away the rest. But her eyes…

Thousands of years ago, Nox had looked into those eyes in Cascading light and lusted after the vulnerability in them. Faced with the real thing, he was utterly disarmed.

Unwilling to elicit more from this than Rayne was ready to give, Nox kissed the top of her head, noting she closed her eyes to soak it in. With that, he abandoned her for his side of the shower.

Too much.

Nox couldn’t hide Rayne’s effect on him, as it was terribly obvious and slightly unwelcome. Frustrating, even. Not to mention his scent mingled with the shower’s steam.

Scrub, rinse, and get out—

“I meant it.”

Nox paused, washing his hair, frozen. Was Rayne referring to—

“About us together. I meant it.”

Clarity.

Rayne’s voice wavered slightly, but not with the weight of her conscience. Honeysuckle explained the arrhythmia.

Before Nox could respond, Rayne left the shower, feet padding further away. So she didn’t regret saying it or feeling it, but still she kept her distance. He’d respect it, of course, confused signals and all.

Forever.

Nox could wait forever for Rayne to find her resolve or let him go. Until then, he’d finish his shower, slip into some soft sleep pants, and get a good night’s rest to calm the churning fire left inside after touching Rayne’s skin, smelling her scent, and reveling in her trust. Sleep, and tackle the day tomorrow—

He rounded the corner to find Rayne sitting cross-legged on the couch—Nox’s bed—researching through some tablets. She glanced up, back down, did a double-take, and stared.

This was another compliment. Nox couldn’t help but languish in his effect on her while shirtless. After all, a light blush befitted Rayne’s creamy complexion. And she was commandeering his bed. He folded his arms and quirked a brow at her.

Rayne’s expression blossomed into a sweet smile, absent of her earlier turmoil. Mercurial and so similar to Xelan. Perhaps she’d inherited some of his malady. She said, “You look great, and you also look ready for bed.”

So did Rayne, in a cropped, over-sized shirt and rolled-up pajama shorts. Long toned legs, mid-riff, and no bra—Was Rayne trying to sexually frustrate Nox?

He snorted at her response and plopped his ass in the nearest armchair. Head propped in his hand as he said, “Well, your majesty. What have you got there?”

Again came the eager smile before Rayne explained, “I’m cross-referencing the auctioneer’s memory banks with Razor’s dossier and imperial reports for any traces of Celindria’s involvement in the ring. It’s possible this was simply leftover shit from Gait, but I doubt her hands are entirely clean of it.”

“Stunning and intelligent. How have I ever resisted you?” If Rayne can toss out casual compliments, so could Nox. This wasn’t flirting.

This was not flirting.

At the deepening of her blush, Nox went back on task. “Have you found anything so far?”

Rayne nodded while saying, “Yup. I think Celindria is gathering an army through volition, but I’m not sure of the mechanism. After Xelan told me his Verse, there was an imperial decree for volition vaccinations. Mandatory and all, but there are some protests from small groups on each planet. I think that’s her ‘in,’ but I’d just discovered it when you came in. Can I have some more time?”

Nox glanced at where Rayne’s top had slanted and exposed her shoulder on one side. Her thick hair was still wet from the shower and slicked with sleh oil. Rather than asking to comb it, he offered, “Take all the time you need. I’ll clean our gear in the meantime.”

“Thanks, Nox.”

The weight of how she said it…

“You’re welcome, Rayne.”

Heading for the kitchen, Nox left her to it while he cleaned belts, daggers—Was there a point in cleaning her clothes if she could absorb them? And did she ever need to clean Night Killer? He’d ask later. It was a few hours before he turned the corner into the living room again.

Rayne was asleep in Nox’s bed.

Curled on her side, her black lashes were a stark contrast against her pale cheeks. Every soft breath was precious. Nox grabbed a blanket and covered Rayne before laying another one and some pillows on the floor for himself.

This close to her, Nox couldn’t sleep. So he laid there and contemplated their mission.

Celindria believed he and she were the Eternal Bind, and she had threatened to build another of him. What would she do if she ever learned he was alive—

Rayne’s face appeared above him over the cushions. “Whatchu doing down there?”

The truth was ugly, so instead, Nox offered, “Counting the constellations backwards by ten.”

“Ew math.” Rayne snickered.

“It’s a pastime I taught Xelan. We used to name them by every twelfth letter in our alphabet.” Nox stared up at Rayne, asking, “Did you find the couch to your liking?”

Rayne smiled, got up, and laid her blanket over Nox before saying, “Almost as much as the company. Good night, Nox.” With the goofy smile on her face, she climbed the stairs and waved.

Madly in love with her, Nox called, “Good night, Rayne.”

Onto tomorrow, and another million ways she’d send their heart racing.