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Then she said, “No bond.”

I looked down.

Her eyes were closed.

“No bond,” I agreed.

“Tonight was ours,” she murmured, her voice thick and drifting toward sleep. Her fingers absently traced the line of my lowest rib.

“Yes,” I said, my own voice lower than I intended.

She shifted slightly, her cheek warm against my shoulder. “Not biology.”

I turned my head to look at her. The dim light caught the silver tracks of dried sweat at her temple. “Not decided by biology,” I clarified softly.

One eye cracked open, fixing me with a hazy but sharp look. “Better,” she insisted, her breath ghosting across my skin.

A corner of my mouth lifted almost imperceptibly. “It was more accurate.”

Her eyebrow arched. “You’re agreeing suspiciously easily.” The words slurred slightly with exhaustion.

“You are correct,” I conceded, watching the way her lashes fluttered against her cheek.

She huffed a quiet laugh. “That must be painful.”

“It is survivable,” I said, and felt rather than saw her smile against my shoulder before she settled fully into sleep, her hand going slack over my ribs.

I lay awake studying the cracks in the ceiling, counting the slow rhythm of her breathing against the faster beat of my own heart.

Something inside me felt unfamiliar—not peace, because I no longer knew what peace felt like.

Maybe satisfaction.

Maybe fear.

Possibly both, and no way to tell which was which.

Talia had chosen me.

Temporarily.

Freely.

And I had wanted something badly enough to accept it, which should not have felt dangerous.

It did.

Her breathing deepened into the slow, even rhythm of sleep.

I held still, my arm numb beneath her, until I was certain.

Then I began the careful extraction—first my shoulder, then my arm, sliding out from under the weight of her head without shifting the mattress.

She made a soft, questioning sound in her throat but didn’t wake.

I pulled on my trousers and padded barefoot into the common room.

The portable terminal sat dark on the low table where I’d left it.