Chapter 14 · The Blood-Stained Vault

"Step back, Mara. Now."

Dax's hand clamped around my wrist. Hard. Not a guide—a warning. He shoved me behind him just as the iron doors of the Blacktide vault groaned open. A gust of air hit us, smelling of old copper and ozone.

"I can handle myself," I hissed, wrenching my arm away. "Since when do you care where I'm standing?"

"Since I realized you're the one who usually puts a knife in my ribs," he shot back. He didn't even look at me. His eyes were locked on the dark. "Stay. Put."

Nessa was already at the console, fingers blurring across the holographic interface. Her face was ghost-pale under the blue light. "I'm in. But Dax... this isn't just alarms. It's a bio-purge. Trip the wrong sequence and the room floods with neurotoxin in four seconds. We all die. Happy?"

"Just open the damn thing, Nessa," Dax said. Low. Dangerous.

He didn't move an inch. He was a human shield between me and the void. I stepped closer, my shoulder brushing the leather of his jacket. He was rigid—a coiled spring.