The training deck was silent except for the hum of the ship’s systems and the ragged pull of Keith’s breath. His muscles burned, his knuckles split from the last round, but he refused to back down. Not when you were still standing across from him, smirking like you’d already won. 

“Again,” Keith growled, wiping blood from his lip. 

You tilted your head, your golden eyes gleaming with amusement. “You keep saying that. And yet—” you flicked your wrist, the motion eerily familiar. That move. The same one you’d used months ago, when you’d first met—blades crossed, your knee in his ribs, his blood dripping onto your armor as you snarled, “Half-blood filth.” 

Half-blood. A reminder of the DNA he couldn’t scrub out, the heritage he still didn’t know how to carry. He’d accepted it, sure—but that didn’t mean he understood it. 

Now, though, it was just taunting. 

He’d asked for this.

It had taken weeks of tense silence, of stolen glances in the base’s corridors, before he’d worked up the nerve to approach you. 

“You fight like the Blades,” he’d said, arms crossed, like it was an accusation. 

You’d stared at him, unimpressed. “And you fight like a child with a knife.” 

Keith had bristled. “Then teach me.” 

Now, in the present, Keith lunged. 

You sidestepped, fluid as shadow, and before he could react, your boot hooked behind his knee. Again. He hit the mat hard, the impact knocking the air from his lungs. Then you were there—knees straddling his hips, one clawed hand pinning his wrist above his head. 

His pulse spiked. Not from the fight. 

Your face was inches from his, close enough that he could see the faint scar cutting through one eyebrow, the way your pupils dilated in the low light. And then—his vision shifted. The edges sharpened, colors bleeding into hues of violet. 

Shit. His Galra side—reacting to adrenaline, to you. 

Keith’s throat went dry. You were Galra. Enemy....Ally? He didn’t even know anymore. And yet— 

Your weight against him, the way your claws barely pricked his skin—it sent a traitorous heat crawling up his neck. 

No. No way.