Page 19 of Silver Slayer

The larger creature reacted instantly, abandoning its kill with a violent lunge toward the intruder. The two collided in a frenzy of snapping mandibles and clawed limbs, fighting over the remaining carcasses as the ridge erupted into a brutal clash of tearing flesh and cracking exoskeleton.

“They will stay until the food is gone, or until something larger drives them away,” Vala stated grimly.

“Larger?” Mara joined us, sucking back a breath. “How could there be anything larger than that prehistoric centipede?”

“That thing is bigger than a bus,” Brooke whispered. “Where has it been hiding this whole time?”

“Underground,” I said quietly, my eyes fixed on the shifting earth beneath the creatures. “We’ve felt tremors before, subtle ones. I thought it was the terrain settling or something moving at a distance. But something that size…” I swallowed hard. “It makes more sense. It’s been beneath us the whole time.”

“We wait here until sunrise,” Vala said with certainty. “We already know the safest time to travel is at first light.”

“Probably best to stay quiet until they leave,” Tyrk added. “No need to draw attention to ourselves.”

No one argued. The creatures outside would tear us apart as easily as they dismembered the void weavers, perhaps more so, given our softer flesh and smaller size.

We settled into silence. Not the comfortable kind, but the kind with teeth, where every small sound outside reminded youexactly how fragile the metal walls around you really were. I found a place to sit and told myself I wasn’t watching Vennox cross to the far side of the ship. Told myself the distance didn’t register. Told myself a lot of things in the next few seconds, none of which were particularly convincing.

Time dragged.

Outside, the feeding continued. The massive centipede claimed the bulk of the carcasses while the smaller predator darted in and out, snapping at whatever scraps it could steal. They clashed again and again, a brutal contest of speed against size, and the sounds of it, wet and relentless, kept finding their way through the broken viewport no matter how hard I tried to tune them out.

So far, we weren’t interesting enough to matter. But I’d learned enough about this world to know that could change the second the food ran out.

Inside the wreck, we spread out as best we could in the cramped space, each of us settling into our own pocket of uneasy stillness. Mara stayed at Brunnex’s side, one hand resting lightly against his shoulder as she kept watch over him. At the far back of the ship, just inside a broken doorway that led to another section, Vala stood close to Ruze, their voices low and indistinct.

I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but Ruze’s jaw had gone tight, his expression locked in the way of someone who’d just been told to keep waiting when he was already out of patience. His mate. Had to be. Even across the ship, the tension rolling off him was readable.

Tyrk had claimed a spot near the ruined command console, cross-legged on the floor, methodically picking through exposedcircuitry like the planet-sized nightmare outside was someone else’s problem. Brooke had settled beside Truxxet, their heads bent together, her voice low against his deeper one.

And then there was me.

I’d chosen my spot deliberately. Put real estate between myself and the one person in this wreck who seemed determined to close it, telling myself it was the right call.No complications. No attachments. Not here, not on a planet actively trying to kill us, and not with an alien male I didn’t know. Whatever I felt when I looked at Vennox wasn’t real. It was proximity, adrenaline, and the fact that he kept putting himself between me and things with too many legs.

Still… My gaze drifted across the ship despite myself, landing on him where he sat apart from the others, methodically cleaning his blade with a strip of cloth.

The slow, deliberate motion of his hands should have been calming. Instead, it awakened a feeling I couldn't quite name.

Before I could talk myself out of it, I pushed to my feet and crossed the space between us. When I reached him, he didn’t look up. The cloth moved steadily over the blade, his attention fixed on the task with rigid concentration.

“How are your wounds?” I asked quietly.

“Fine.” The single word came rough and carefully restrained.

“About earlier… I didn’t mean?—“

“You did nothing wrong.” He cut me off softly, though his hand tightened briefly around the blade before going still.

Then, slowly, his gaze came up to meet mine, and whatever I’d been about to say dissolved. That intensity was still there, not dimmed, not gone. Just held back, like a door he’d decided not to open.

“I was taught,” he said, each word measured and careful, “that finding one’s spirit mate would be the greatest joy a male could know.” His gaze dropped back to the blade. “No one spoke of this difficulty.”

The question was already forming on my tongue,What exactly was a spirit mate?When movement caught my eye through the broken viewport.

The massive centipede creature suddenly rose up, its segmented body coiling like a spring, before launching itself high into the air. For a terrifying moment, it seemed to hang suspended against the dual suns, one burning white-gold and the other a deeper amber, casting a monstrous shadow across the clearing.

Then it dove off the ridge, into the clearing, straight toward us.

The ground detonated beneath my feet as the creature burrowed into the earth, its armored tail cracking against the underside of the ship on its way down. The vessel lurched hard to one side. Metal screamed. My boots lost the floor entirely, and I was already falling, arms out, nothing to grab?—