The air of Uruk was thicker than Dubai’s.
Zephyr steadied himself beside the canal, boots sinking slightly into damp clay. His heart still raced from the jump, but his posture was intact. Shoulders squared. Chin aligned. The charcoal shirt stuck lightly to his torso, heat still trapped in the fabric, pulling across muscle built through discipline, not vanity.
His rings caught sunlight.
She studied him from head to toe without a word, then circled him slowly, her gaze never leaving him.
A shout rose from the canal edge. Footsteps approached—fast, heavy. Guards entered the space, weapons visible but not raised. A flicker of instinct tightened in Zephyr’s chest.
The guards stopped immediately when they saw her.
“Commander Ninsara,” one of them said, lowering his gaze.
Ninsara did not turn fully. “State it.”
The guard hesitated. “Foreign presence reported near restricted canal access. Orders were—”
“Whose orders?”
Silence.
The guard did not answer.
Ninsara’s blade stayed sheathed. “Leave.”
They left.
Zephyr watched them go. One command, and they vanished. He understood, quietly, that survival here would not come from strength alone. It would come from proximity.
Then he paused.
Why was he understanding their words?
His eyes widened. He looked at the watch, then at Ninsara.
Up close, Ninsara was formidable. Nearly his height. Her broad shoulders and powerful frame making her presence feel larger than her height alone. Scars along her forearm. Some old and pale while others sharper and newer. Her skin was sun-browned, marked with sweat and desert dust that clung to her collarbone and the hollow of her neck.
Thick hair bound tightly, though loose strands framed a face that was not soft — but striking. Her hips were wide and powerful beneath the armor, her frame built for strength.
“You are not from here,” Ninsara said.
Her accent rolled through the watch in measured cadence.
Zephyr paused. He could understand their language now, but speaking it was another problem entirely.
The watch answered without sound. Words appeared in his mind, already arranged around his intention.
For a heartbeat, he didn’t meet her gaze before forcing himself to. “I’m not,” he replied calmly.
Zephyr spoke after a delay. The words were slightly off in rhythm, as if formed twice before leaving his mouth.
Ninsara noticed immediately. “You speak like someone repeating what he hears.”
He paused again.
She watched it carefully. “That is not how traders speak,” she added. “And not how soldiers lie.”
Behind the composure, Zephyr’s pulse was still recalibrating. The jump had shaken him deeper than he let show.
Ninsara stepped closer. Men in her world were predictable. Fear, pride, aggression, submission.
He showed all of them—yet none fully. That inconsistency unsettled her more.
Her hand rose and gripped his jaw firmly, thumb brushing the edge of his beard. “A man who shapes his face like this,” she murmured, “does not wander without purpose.”
Her touch was firm. Commanding. Yet his breath deepened anyway.
Her thumb traced down the line of his jaw toward his throat, brushing the chain at his collarbone.
She leaned in slightly, inhaling near his neck.
He didn’t move. This wasn’t like the softness of past romances. Not like Elara’s warmth pressing into him in stolen quiet rooms. This was tension edged with threat.
And he liked it.
“You did not run,” she observed.
“I don’t run from intensity,” he answered.
Her lips curved slightly. When Ninsara stepped in again, she didn’t hesitate. She closed it deliberately, watching what it revealed.
The thick plating of armor could not fully hide the outline of her full breasts. Zephyr held still, but his body betrayed him. A visible, involuntary physical response under the pressure of her proximity—subtle, but unmistakable.
Her eyes dropped briefly. Like she was comparing him to every man who had stood too close before a fight.
For a moment, she said nothing. Then her expression hardened. “Strange,” she muttered. “Men ready for death do not carry life in their body like that.”
Her hand lifted again. This time slower.
Not toward his chest. Not toward his face. But toward his lower abdomen. Her fingers stopped just short of contact.
A breath’s distance.
She did not grab. Did not press.
Only hovered close enough that he would feel the heat of her hand through cloth, close enough that any flinch would betray him further.
She held it there for a long moment before she withdrew it.
Her gaze returned to his face immediately, sharper now. “That is not fear,” she said again, firmer this time. “Nor is it readiness.”
A pause.
“Your body answers me.”
Her breath brushed his mouth. His fingers twitched at his sides already halfway to grip her hips, to pull her fully against him. A flicker of an old classroom surfaced. A laugh. A refusal he never forgot.
He let go of the impulse instantly.
She studied him one final second before stepping back. “Come,” she ordered.
As she turned, he followed.
And as he walked behind her through the clay-lined streets of Uruk, Scanning complete the words echoed again in his head. Now the watch was placing an ancient language directly into his thoughts as if it had always known this world awaited him.