30. Josie
JOSIE
I stumble off the ramp of the shuttle into a swirling haze of red dust, the air tasting like rust and regret. My lungs protest—the heaviness feels personal, like the planet itself is inhaling me. I yank off my visor and cough, drawing in lungs-full of grit.
Dayn ducks outside to steady me, arms firm around my waist. The heat of his body against me is softer than a promise. “Jess, breathe slower,” he murmurs, pressing a filter mask into my hand.
I slap it to my face like a lifeline. “This planet’s trying to exfoliate my lungs,” I wheeze, pulling in filtered breaths like precious gold.
He rolls his eyes but keeps the mask in place. “Welcome to Zeyda 9. Don’t breathe the fashion.”
The colony lies ahead: a sprawl of ramshackle domes and rusted mining rigs, all coated in a matte crimson that makes everything look abandoned—or cursed.
Miners in worn suits emerge from a gate, gaunt, haunted shadows in the dusty noon.
One of them raises a gauntleted hand, dirty smile flickering under the dust.
“We’re the ones who sent the beacon,” he says, voice low and frantic. “Didn't think anyone’d come.”
I let out a breath so slow it hurts. “We came. Now talk.”
Inside the main hub, the walls vibrate with the hum of dormant machines. The power’s fluctuating—lights flicker like heartbeat stutters. Every dust mote glows in the harsh overhead artificial lights.
A tired engineer woman gestures at the console. “They left the tech. Vortaxian autos still dig, still haul—but recently… they’ve started killing. Sleeper guards, we call ‘em.”
I glance at Dayn, nerves knotting into resolve behind the mask. “Sleeper guards?”
He nods, jaw tense. “Robots with kill-switch codes.”
My fingers itch to dance across exposed wiring. “Show me.”
The engineer leads us to a ventilation shaft—barely big enough for Dayn, but I patient-dance inside with him behind me. The metal cage is coated in red grit, slick and alive.
He signals me forward, and I grip a dusty ladder rung. I glimpse the convective hum of sand blowing through the shaft’s slats.
That’s when the first mechanical arm lunges around a corner—thick, serrated mandible edges flexing in challenge. My scream echoes like a violin in a tomb.
I spin, gritting my teeth. “I swear to every star, if one more robot tries to grope me?—”
Dayn slices through it mid-lunge—knife flashing, pow-pow metallic blade severing circuits. Sparks cascade like fireworks meeting soot. The arm twitches on the floor, dead.
I exhale loud enough to blow the dust off my mask. “Is that foreplay?”
He plants his blade on his shoulder, white-knuckle breath steady. “Just warm-up.”
We reach the central tower—an angular spider of metal, 40 meters tall, with pylons and cables hanging like vines.
The wind gusts into the colony, whipping around us. Our masks constrict with each breath. I cling to a grated catwalk, gripping a dusty cable. My boots echo across metal snaps.
Dayn hooks his belt to the railing. “Ladies first?”
“Nah—I’m climbing to install the jamming override, then I’ll... you know.” I flash a grin.
He arches an eyebrow, grins back. “Keep that polish even after dust.”
Up the last rung, I stand at the AI control terminal, flicking switches that hum with malicious code—voices buried deep inside metal walls babbling Vortaxian syntax. My fingers race over Holopad; circuits respond with brief red flickers.
A surge slams the console. Software defenses ignite, and walls resonate with grinding servo motors. We feel it before we see it: autoguard legs trundling up behind me.
“Dayn!” I hiss, stepping aside as twin robotic legs pound the floor.
He roars, rushing beside me—knife flicking across panels. Sparks, screams, clashing metal. The mechguard collapses, spraying dust red as blood onto my boots and launder.
I jab the pad. The AI core pulses erratic, flickers, then coughs—lights slow, warping to a slow cadence, then shudder to silence. A deep sigh hiss ripples across systems—like the planet just exhaled relief.
I lean into Dayn’s arms, clumsily hugging him. “Think—I’ll be able to scrub this dust off my lungs?”
He presses a chin kiss atop my mask. “Only if the next assault is over water.”
I wipe red grit across his shoulder. “That was foreplay, right?”
He laughs hollow, warm. “Beginnings only.”
My eyes go soft as I stare at him through the mask, red dust dusting my hair. “Let’s go home.”
He scoops me off my boots, stands like strength is a sculpture with me at its center. “Lead the way, sunshine.”
Miners cheer behind us—hoots echoing like prayer. An older kid taps his helmet, eyes hopeful. “You two saving us are heroes.”
Dayn sets me back on my feet. “Nah—just stubborn.”
I wink, breath rattling. “But metal menacing women. That’s so in my handbook.”
He slips an arm around my waist as we walk back through the grate of dust and dawn. The wind whips Zeyda’s dust around us, but our laughter cracks through the girders like live wire, ringing in the new future we build—one fight at a time, side by side, forever.
The wind howls harder, whipping against the tent, lashing canvas and bone.
Sand sifts in from every seam, dusting the cot and our tangled limbs with the same fine grit that coats the backs of our teeth.
Outside, the world burns and shifts, a galaxy without mercy.
But here—inside this sweltering canvas skin—I’m his.
Dayn moves beside me, the muscles in his flank tensing as he rolls toward me.
His silver-scaled chest brushes mine, slick with sweat, the red patterning across his body glowing dim in the lanternlight, pulsing faintly like a second heartbeat.
His third eye—between his brows—opens slowly, glowing a deep garnet hue. Watching me. All of me.
I shiver.
He feels it.
“You cold?” he rumbles, voice a stormcloud dragging heat behind it.
“No,” I whisper, fingers grazing his side. “Just... overwhelmed.”
He leans in, nuzzling my jaw, his scales dragging soft across my skin. “Then let me take some of that away.”
His kiss isn’t gentle. It never is. But it’s precise.
Commanding. His tongue pushes past my lips, tasting the battle, the sweat, the lust that has been simmering between us since that moment in the smoke.
I moan into him, gripping the ridges of his shoulders, pulling him down, down, until his weight crushes me into the cot’s thin padding.
His cock is already hard, pressed between us, thick and hot even through his gear.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs against my mouth, voice like iron dragged through fire.
“I want you,” I say, low. “Right now. Like this. Covered in dust and desperation.”
A deep growl builds in his chest—low, vibrating, Shorcu . He reaches down, and in one fluid movement, rips open the seam of my pants. I gasp, hips lifting, as the desert air slides over my soaked pussy.
“Fucking stars,” he whispers, looking down at me. “You’re already dripping.”
“I’ve been wet since the firefight,” I admit, daring. “Every time I thought we might not make it—every time you dragged me out of the fire—I just kept thinking how good it’d feel when we did .”
He drops his forehead to mine. “Then you’ll take every inch of me.”
“Make me.”
He pulls back, kneeling between my legs.
The lantern flickers as he tears open his own gear—scales flexing, sweat trailing along the grooves of his stomach.
When he frees his cock, I feel my breath hitch.
It’s long, thick, ridged, dark as obsidian at the tip and glowing faintly along the base with those telltale crimson lines.
I reach down, greedy, and wrap my fingers around the shaft. He grunts, hips twitching.
“I dream about this,” I murmur, stroking slowly. “How you feel. How you stretch me.”
He catches my wrist and pins it beside my head. “Then dream with your body, not your mouth.”
And then—he slides inside.
The stretch burns. He’s so big I almost forget how to breathe. But I take him, inch by aching inch, my pussy parting, clenching, welcoming. When he bottoms out, I cry out—a sound broken by lust and satisfaction.
“Fuck, Dayn,” I gasp. “You fill me—gods, you fill me so full ? — ”
His hand closes over my throat, thumb brushing gently beneath my jaw—not choking, just claiming . “Mine,” he rasps. “You’re fucking mine. ”
“Yes,” I whimper. “I always was.”
He starts to move.
Long, deep thrusts. The ridges along his cock drag against every sensitive inch inside me, the curve of his tip hitting that place that makes my toes curl. His hips grind against my clit with every motion, and soon my cries mix with the wind howling outside.
“Say it,” he demands, thrusting harder. “Say you want to break for me.”
“I do —I do—please, keep fucking me—don’t stop?—”
His pace picks up, slamming into me, the cot creaking, the storm outside screaming. I claw at his back, feel his scales ripple under my nails. My pussy clenches tighter, slick and soaking, and I feel myself right there, teetering on the edge.
He lowers his head, tongue flicking over my nipple, then sucking it deep into his mouth. My back arches off the cot. Pleasure rockets through me.
“I’m coming—fuck, I’m gonna?—”
“Come,” he growls against my skin. “Come all over my cock.”
And I do. I shatter—body convulsing, a scream tearing from my throat. My pussy clenches hard, waves of orgasm crashing through me, each one dragging me deeper into him.
But Dayn doesn’t stop.
He flips me over like I weigh nothing, dragging my hips up, pressing my cheek into the cot.
“Again,” he commands, thrusting back inside from behind. “You can come again.”
My breath stutters, tears prickling the corners of my eyes. His cock hits deeper from this angle, his ridged shaft stroking against every oversensitive nerve. I sob, moan, beg.
He grabs my hair, pulling just enough to make my spine arch, and pounds into me harder.
“Take it,” he snarls. “All of it.”
I scream as another orgasm rips through me—shattering and raw, leaving me shaking.
Then his rhythm falters. His growls grow louder, deeper. He thrusts hard, slams home—and roars as he spills into me. Thick, hot, filling. He keeps moving through it, grinding deep, like he wants to stay there forever.
We collapse together, panting, tangled, ruined.
The storm outside roars louder, but it’s distant now. Like the war is something happening in another lifetime.
I curl into his chest, still shivering, muscles twitching from release. His hand strokes my back, claws gentle now, soothing.
“You didn’t break,” he murmurs.
“No,” I whisper, exhausted. “You fucked me into becoming. ”
And in the middle of chaos, with grit in my hair and his come still dripping from between my legs, I know one thing with absolute certainty:
This is our peace. This storm. This love.
This war, and everything we make from it.