Protocol Eclipse means every corridor is now a kill chute.
Silver gas hissing from the vents. Ultraviolet floodlights that burn wolf eyes blind. Automated turrets dropping from the ceiling like steel vultures.
We are out of time and out of corridor.
Kade shoulders us into an abandoned medical bay, slams the door, rips a titanium gurney across it as a barricade.
The room is dark except for the moon bleeding through a cracked observation window.
His chest timer is gone, but the new gold text still burns:
BOUND BY ROOT USER – R. VOSS STATUS: UNBREAKABLE
He stares at it like it's written in acid.
Outside, Bastian's voice loops over the speakers, silky and insane:
"Attention all viewers. Emergency bonus round. The hunter and the glitch have formed an unsanctioned bond. Termination bounty now five hundred million alive, one billion dead. Happy hunting."
Kade's claws punch straight through the gurney metal.
"They'll flood this room in ninety seconds," he growls. "Only one way to make the bond legal in the system."
I already know.
My pulse is a war drum.
The only way to lock a mate bond so deep the moon itself can't auction it off is a completed claim. Blood, bite, sex, soul. All four. In that order.
I laugh (short, sharp, terrified).
"Of course. Even my revolution comes with paperwork."
Kade turns.
Moonlight slices across his face. For the first time I see the boy under the killer: exhausted, furious, starving.
"I hate this," he says, voice shredded. "I hate that the only way to keep you alive is to put my mark on you."
I step closer.
My bare toes touch his boots.
"I hate it more," I whisper. "But I'm fresh out of choices, hunter. And you're fresh out of time."
His hands hover an inch from my hips (afraid to touch, afraid not to).
I make the choice for him.
I fist his vest, yank him down, and bite his lower lip until I taste copper.
He groans like I just stabbed him.
Then his control snaps.
He lifts me onto the nearest exam table, metal cold against my thighs. My silk slip rips like tissue.
His mouth finds the place where the collar used to be (smooth skin now, but he kisses it like it still burns).
I arch so hard the table screeches.
His claws rake down my sides (not breaking skin, just reminding me they can).
"Tell me to stop," he rasps against my throat. "Say it and I walk away."
I tangle fingers in his hair and drag his head back so our eyes lock.
"If you stop, I'll kill you myself."
Something feral and relieved flashes across his face.
He bites.
Not gentle. Not romantic. Fangs sink into the soft spot between neck and shoulder (deep, deliberate, permanent).
My vision whites out.
The bond detonates like a supernova in my ribs.
I feel him (every scar, every death, every night he slept with his mother's heart in a jar).
He feels me (every electroshock, every corpse I wheeled, every second I smiled while bleeding).
We scream into each other's mouths.
Blood floods my tongue (his and mine, indistinguishable).
He rips his own throat open with a claw, presses the wound to my lips.
I drink.
The system screams with us.
Every screen in the facility glitches, then displays the same message in burning gold:
BOND REGISTERED – MERCER / VOSS CLASSIFICATION: DEVOURER-CLASS AUCTION STATUS: DELETED MOON AUTHORITY: OVERRIDDEN
The turrets outside power down mid-fire.
Silver gas reverses, sucked back into the vents.
Bastian's voice cuts to static.
Kade is shaking.
So am I.
He's still inside the bite, fangs locked, body pinning me to the table.
I can feel his heartbeat through the bond (terrified, triumphant, home).
He pulls back just enough to speak, lips red.
"I told you I'd be the one to kill you one day."
I lick his blood off my bottom lip.
"Get in line."
His laugh is broken glass and relief.
Then he kisses me properly (slow, filthy, claiming every corner of my mouth like he's mapping territory).
When we finally break apart, the observation window shows the moon outside has a new crack (straight through the center, bleeding light).
Kade rests his forehead against mine.
"Five hundred million people just watched me claim the Root User on every screen on Earth."
I grin against his mouth.
"Good. Let them see what happens when you try to auction what's mine."
His arms tighten until my ribs creak.
"Say that again."
I bite his jaw.
"Mine."
He growls so deep the table vibrates.
Outside, the first wave of bounty hunters reaches the door.
Kade lifts me off the table like I weigh nothing, sets me on my feet.
My slip is in shreds. His vest is claws and blood.
We look like the end of the world had sex and won.
I crack my neck.
"Ready to go kill a god, mate?"
He flashes fangs (mine now, forever).
"Born ready, glitch."
The door explodes inward.
We step through the smoke together.
A single holo-screen survives the chaos, floating in the corridor like a ghost.
Bastian Crowe's face, pale and smiling too wide.
"Congratulations on the mating, pets. You've just upgraded yourselves to priority one extinction targets. See you at moonfall."
The screen shatters under Kade's fist.
I lace my fingers through his bloody ones.
"Let him come," I say.
Above us, the moon bleeds brighter.
And for the first time in my life, I'm not afraid of anything under it.