I could still feel Emma’s hands on my horns, the sensual and arousing sensation of her on me.
I could still smell her femininity.
I breathed her in and felt sad when I had to exhale.
Our last moments together before the end.
And what a final moment.
It’d been everything I’d hoped fated mates were capable of—at least, with their clothes still on.
I smiled at the memory of us fighting in the hollow deck, each of us smothered head to toe with Shadow mud, and finally gazing out the observation window at the blinking stars in the velvet night.
The good stuff, before it had gone wrong.
I should have been honest with her from the start.
I should have told her everything and let the chips fall where they may.
Maybe she would have taken a different path otherwise.
It would be a regret I would carry for the rest of my life.
In the mirror, staring back at me, was the Shadow version of myself.
Iav.
At least he hadn’t got his hands on her.
At least he had failed to claim her too.
And anything was better than the fate that awaited her in that situation.
Right now, she would be hurtling through space toward her homeworld, back to the life she had occupied before we gatecrashed her so unexpectedly.
I may no longer be a part of her life but that didn’t mean others couldn’t be.
She could be happy and have a full life.
Thump.
I pressed a hand to my chest.
It was probably the thought of her and all the regrets I had associated with her that I felt that phantom tug now.
It seemed so small, distant, and weak.
I had to remind myself it wasn’t due to her being so far from me but because the bond had been Severed.
We were no longer joined on a deeper level.
She could be in the next room and the sensation would be the same.
Although I hated losing it, I clung to it as if nurturing a tender flame.
A single spark, a single breath of wind, could blow it out for good.
Maybe it would torture me in the years to come but I liked clutching it close.
I would remember her always.
And this dying ember would be my bond to that part of my past.
The bond between us might have perished but the bond to my memories still existed.
Nobody could take those from me.
I reached for a paper towel and wiped my hands and face dry.
I tossed the towel in the bin and observed the walls.
They no longer spun on their axis.
I took my hands from the tabletop and approached the door.
It hissed open.
I stepped through the doorway.
And that’s when I felt it.
A return of that throb in my heart.
Heartburn?
I leaned against the door frame, my hand pressed to my chest where I’d felt the pulse.
Or had I only imagined it?
The Surgeon had said there would be phantom sensations for a while.
It was probably another of those.
I shoved off the door frame and approached the elevator.
I would tidy up the systems so I could hand the ship back to my father.
Throb.
I stumbled and caught myself on the wall.
I was too slow and banged my chin against it.
There it was again, another throb, stronger this time.
I shook my head.
The Surgeon told me this would happen.
He told me I would feel these niggling phantom pains.
Then why was my stomach twisting?
Why did my heart beat faster in an irregular rhythm?
I wiped a hand over my brow and found my fingertips soaked with a cold sweat.
Was it a belated response to the Procedure?
Or was it something more?
My instincts screamed at me that it was something else.
But what?
Something about the pulse didn’t feel right.
It felt natural, not a phantom.
Or was I feeling what countless others had before me?
“Computer,” I said. “Prepare the medical bay.”
“For what purpose?” Computer said.
I walked as fast as my legs could carry me down the hall, feeling along the walls with my hands like a blind man.
“Scans,” I said. “I want to scan myself for the bond.”
“I don’t think that’s such a good idea, sir—”
“I need to see it,” I barked. “I need to see it for myself.”
Computer didn’t respond for a moment.
Finally, he said:
“The Surgeon said there would be—”
“I know what he said!” I snapped. “But I’m telling you, something doesn’t feel right. It’s something deeper. As if… As if…”
As if she were still linked to me.
I shook my head, realizing how crazy I sounded.
The Surgeon had already warned me about these phantom feelings.
They were normal, to be expected.
“Forget it,” I said. “I’m just… not used to the lack of control.”
Computer was silent for a long moment as I turned to return to my room.
I could prep the ship later, or not at all.
At this point, I could care less.
“I think a scan would be okay,” Computer said. “It won’t do any harm and can only help alleviate your concerns.”
I smiled despite myself.
“You think?”
“I don’t think, sir. I compute.”
“Have you begun to develop emotions, Computer?”
“Not emotions. But maybe simulations of them. I’m preparing the scanners now.”
I turned a corner and approached the medical bay at the end.
“Increase light strength slowly.”
“Light intensity increased by fifty percent,” Computer said. “The scanner is in the corner.”
Our scanners were far less sophisticated than those of the Surgeon but enough to detect my bond.
If they found nothing, it meant the bond had been Severed.
Then I would just have to accept this was my new reality.
I stumbled into the chair and the doors slid shut behind me.
“Conducting scans now,” Computer said.
The chair spun around slowly.
I felt the familiar prickle of goosebumps as the stream of electricity passed through my body.
The chair completed three revolutions before the scan was complete.
“Processing data now,” Computer said.
“Bring the results up on this monitor,” I said, turning the monitor screen attached to the chair toward me.
The difference in quality between the scanning systems was striking.
The multiple layers that made up my physical system were built one at a time and at a slow speed.
The image was far less clear than
