Kaelen’s POV

"The scent’s strongest over here!"

Alistair’s voice rang out from Chamber Five. Finnian jumped in right after, "Same here."

"What the hell are you two getting at?!" Barrett’s tone turned deadly. I could hear it - this wasn’t just surprise about Elara maybe having powers. Something else lurked beneath their words.

Ice crept into Barrett’s voice as he spoke, hostility bleeding through toward both Alistair and Finnian.

"That surveillance camera still functional?" Alistair glanced toward Finnian.

Finnian got it instantly. He shuffled to his ward’s corner, stretching his neck to peek at Chamber Seven’s ceiling. "It’s dead!"

"General Barrett, why so jumpy? I’m just asking questions. The Valerion Empire dumped us all here, one by one. And where’s ’here’ exactly? The Voidferal Feral Territory - a hellhole males flee from and females can’t even enter. So what was the Empire thinking, tossing us into this wasteland? We all know the answer.

"Now suddenly there’s this female - gorgeous beyond belief, maybe packing wood power that hasn’t surfaced in decades upon decades. Why would someone like her turn up here?"

Dead silence blanketed the ward after Alistair finished.

"But..." I started, uncertain.

"We’re all trapped here. What’s worth scheming over?"

"The Valerion Empire’s politics are a nightmare. Even written off, our identities carry weight, and our connections back home are still wrapped up in that mess. Don’t forget about the guy in Chamber Three..." Alistair’s voice sliced through from Chamber Five.

Look, we all thought Elara was amazing - sweet, caring, the whole package. But it felt off. A female with powers unseen for decades upon decades? Drop-dead gorgeous, full of life, practically divine? Her appearing here randomly? No matter how you spun it, something stank.

Barrett let out a harsh laugh.

"What’s amusing?" Julian had stayed quiet until now, clearly not buying Alistair’s conspiracy theory.

"If someone wanted us eliminated, they’d have done it long ago," Julian asked. "Why wait until we’d been decaying here for years, then send Elara - the first living person we’d encountered in forever?"

When Julian posed that question, Finnian and the rest of us tuned in, ears pricked. Yeah, it seemed weird. But something - call it gut instinct - whispered that Elara wasn’t trouble.

Barrett replied, "I’m laughing at how Commander Alistair adores playing conspiracy nut."

"Nothing wrong with caution—"

"Unnecessary." Barrett sliced Alistair off.

"Meaning what?"

We finally pieced it together. Barrett had been weirdly protective of Elara from day one. Did he have inside information?

"Simple. She’s here for me." Pride colored Barrett’s voice, almost cocky.

"For you?" Alistair stretched the words, dripping skepticism.

"Exactly. Because I’m her destined mate. She traveled all this distance to find me!"

Boom.

Actually, that tracked.

But you could practically hear hearts cracking in every ward. We’d all received our assignments the same day. So while someone else’s fated mate had actually appeared for him... where were ours?

"You’re lying. No way Elara’s your mate."

I was first to shoot down the notion. I had been getting royal treatment for days. No female would treat me that sweetly if she already belonged to someone.

"Talk’s cheap. Got evidence?" Julian’s voice stayed flat.

"General Barrett’s obviously been so blinded by a few home-cooked meals he’s lost his grip on reality."

Alistair really doubled down on the negativity. Compared to accepting Elara as Barrett’s mate, he found it easier to believe she had ulterior motives. Classic "if I can’t have her, no one can" mentality.

"They confiscated all our communicators. So how do you know she’s your mate?" Finnian kept his voice steady, but he voiced what everyone wanted answered.

Including me, honestly.

"The matching marks on both of us are identical. Isn’t that evidence enough?"

Actually, thinking about it, Barrett probably owed that clumsy robot gratitude - the one that had accidentally tugged Elara’s hair. Without that incident, he never would’ve discovered the system had paired him with someone so stunning. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

As he spoke, Barrett activated his ability and transmitted the mark on his wrist to every ward via radio waves...

I stared in total disbelief.

——

Julian froze, equally shell-shocked.

Dorian, freshly awakened, blinked in bewilderment. Then his eyes expanded in understanding. The mark matched his own exactly.

Someone needed to explain what was happening.

Alistair gaped, completely floored. After the initial shock faded, he spiraled into self-hatred and regret. Because Elara disliked him. Because he’d actually doubted her.

He was such a jackass.

Finnian was equally floored. He’d figured the system had randomly matched him with some unknown person... but it had been Elara the entire time.