Chapter 5 Identity Crisis
Identity Crisis
Rynn
I can still taste her.
Not a memory. A brand.
Her mouth is living under my skin, the slick heat of her tongue sliding against mine, the way she opened for me like surrender and defiance all at once.
My fangs ache with the phantom pressure of wanting to sink into the soft place where her neck meets shoulder and mark her so deep no male in any system would ever mistake who she belongs to.
I am not in the cockpit.
I am crouched in the narrow supply alcove behind the co-pilot station, door locked, lights dimmed to emergency red. My spine is against the bulkhead, forehead pressed to the cold metal like it can cool the furnace roaring in my blood. It can’t.
I can smell her everywhere.
Salt-slick skin. Artificial strawberry clinging to pink strands of hair.
And beneath it, heavier, filthier, the thick, wet scent of her core still clinging to my thigh where I ground against her like an animal in rut.
My cock jerks at the memory, already painfully hard again, as if the frantic, shameful release I just tore from myself ten minutes ago never happened.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
Thirty years of iron discipline, gone. Obliterated by eight hours of her body curled into mine and five minutes of her hand wrapped around me, stroking once, twice, like she was claiming me instead of the other way around.
I should have fucked her.
I should have rolled her beneath me, spread those strong thighs, and driven into her so deep she felt me for days. I should have filled her until my scent was branded into her bloodstream and every breath she took reminded her body who it opened for.
The thought alone drags a growl out of my chest that rattles the plating under my skin. The vibration is agony now, an angry, subsonic demand for completion, for the slick clutch of her body, for the moment her core spasms around me and she screams my name like a prayer.
I shove my hand back into my trousers because I have no choice.
This isn’t indulgence. It’s triage.
My cock is slick from the last time, swollen and hypersensitive. One stroke and my hips punch forward involuntarily, chasing friction. I bite down on my own forearm to muffle the snarl that wants to rip free.
I close my eyes and she’s there instantly.
Polly on her back, shirt rucked up, breasts spilling free, nipples dark and tight from my mouth.
Polly’s thighs wrapped around my hips, heels digging into the small of my back, urging me deeper.
Polly’s core dripping down my balls while I fuck her raw, while I pump her full until she’s swollen with me, until the bond snaps into place and the entire universe knows she is mine mine mine.
The fantasy is so vivid I can feel her.
The clutch of wet heat, the way she’d arch and sob when I hit that spot inside her that makes her lose language. I can hear the broken sound she made when I pinched her nipple, the way her slick coated my fingers when I almost, almost slid them inside her before Zip’s voice ruined everything.
My fist moves faster, punishing.
I imagine pinning her wrists above her head with one hand while I fuck her with the other, forcing her to take three fingers, then four, stretching her open for me.
I imagine the moment I replace them with my cock, the way she’d flutter and fight and then yield, the way her eyes would go wide and glassy when I bottomed out inside her.
I come again, harder than the first time, hips snapping, seed streaking my stomach and dripping over my knuckles. I don’t bother stifling the groan this time; it tears out of me like a wound. My fangs punch through my lower lip, copper flooding my tongue, mixing with the ghost-taste of her.
It still isn’t enough.
I slump against the wall, panting, waiting for the clarity that usually follows.
It does not come.
The biological imperative has dulled, but the hunger remains. The need to protect her, to possess her, to stand between her and the void—it is not just hormonal. It is structural. It has rewritten my DNA.
I adjust my clothes, washing my hands with the fiercely efficient sonic-scrubber, trying to scour away the evidence of my loss of control. I straighten my jacket. I force the mask of the Valorian Heir back onto my face, though it feels ill-fitting now. Tighter than before.
The hunger is worse now, sharpened, focused. It has a name and a face and a reckless, perfect mouth that called me Lord Broody while I was two seconds from mounting her against the bulkhead.
I step back into the cockpit.
She knows the second I walk in.
Her shoulders stiffen; her scent spikes, sweet and startled. She doesn’t look at me, but the flush racing up her throat is unmistakable. She can smell it on me: sex and desperation and the fact that I just jerked off twice thinking about ruining her.
I deserve the shame. I savor it.
“Sensor sweep clear on vector seven-seven,” I manage, voice gravel and smoke. “Asteroid belt will mask us for thirty minutes.”
“Copy,” she says, too calm. Her fingers fly over the controls, but I see the way her thighs press together under the console.
I see the pulse hammering at the base of her throat where I want my mouth.
Her voice is professional, focused, but there is a flush high on her cheekbones that has nothing to do with the ambient temperature.
She knows what I did.
She knows I’m still hard.
And when she finally glances at me, eyes dark, lips swollen like she’s been biting them, I know she’s wet again too.
Good.
Because the next time I touch her, I won’t stop at almost.
Next time I’ll be inside her so deep she’ll taste me when she breathes.
Next time I’ll give her every filthy thing I just imagined and more.
And she’ll beg for it.
“Zip, how’s our power signature?” she asks, studiously avoiding my gaze.
“RUNNING SILENT AND LOVELY, CAPTAIN. WE’RE PRACTICALLY INVISIBLE UNLESS THEY GET CLOSE ENOUGH TO READ OUR REGISTRATION.”
“Good.” She taps a command into the console.
“I ran a spectral analysis on the Echo Seven-Delta scan while you were... checking supplies.” She glances at me then, her eyes dark and knowing, before looking back at the screen.
“That signature doesn’t belong to corporate security or pirates.
Those are heavy cruisers. Military configuration. ”
She hits a button, bringing up a holographic display of the three ships hunting us.
“That’s a black-ops configuration, Rynn.
Specifically, the Meridian Consortium’s special acquisition division.
Diplomats don’t get hunted by kill-squads.
Even wealthy ones.” She spins her chair to face me fully.
“So we aren’t going to the drop-off. It’s compromised.
If they have ships here, they have agents waiting at Helios. It’s a trap.”
My heart hammers against my ribs, a slow, heavy rhythm. She is brilliant. Reckless, infuriating, and brilliant.
“You’re right,” I admit quietly.
“I know I’m right. What I don’t know is why.” She gestures to the viewport, to the asteroid field shielding us. “You told me that you’re the target. That I should give you up. Why? What makes one diplomat worth three cruisers?”
I look at her. Really look at her. The messy pink hair, the grease smudge on her cheek, the fierce intelligence in her eyes. I just spilled my own seed in a supply closet because the thought of her was too much to bear. I owe her the truth.
Slowly, I reach into my jacket. I bypass the crystal case initially and reach for the inner pocket, pulling out the object I haven’t worn since leaving the Valorian estate.
I hold it out to her.
It is a heavy ring, forged from dark Aethel-steel, set with a shifting amber stone that matches my eyes. The crest of the Golden Wyvern is etched into the metal.
Polly stares at it. Her breath hitches.
“That’s a House signet,” she whispers. She looks up at me, her eyes widening as the pieces click into place. “The crest... that’s the ruling line. You’re not just a diplomat.”
“No,” I admit, the weight of the confession settling on my shoulders. “I am not.”
“Who are you?”
“I am Rynn Valorian-kai-Kyreth,” I say, the formal titles tasting like ash in my mouth. “Heir to House Valorian. First of the Bloodline. Guardian of the Aethel Reserves.”
She stares at me, stunned. The silence stretches, thick and heavy.
“You’re the Heir,” she says flatly. “I slept in a bunk with the Heir to House Valorian.”
“And you called him Lord Broody,” Zip interjects helpfully.
I sigh, pinching the bridge of my nose. “Yes, thank you, Zip. The nickname has been noted. Repeatedly.”
“Just ensuring the records are accurate!” Zip adds cheerfully.
Polly ignores the AI, standing up and pacing the small space of the cockpit. “One of the oldest families in the Sector. And you hired me for a triple-rate courier run?”
“Discretion was paramount.”
“Discretion? You brought a planetary war to my doorstep!” She spins on me, fury radiating off her. “Do you have any idea what happens if anything happens to you on my watch? I don’t just lose my license, Rynn. I get executed for negligence of a high-value asset!”
“That is why I told you to surrender me,” I point out.
“Don’t you dare go back to that.” She points a finger at me. “So that’s it? They want you because you’re the Heir? Hostage leverage against your father?”
“That is part of it.”
“What’s the other part?”
I reach back into my jacket and pull out the crystal case. I open it, revealing the Aethel shard inside. It hums in the presence of my bio-signature, glowing with a soft, pulsing light.
I look at the crystal, seeing my own reflection in its facets—tired, hungry, desperate.
“This crystal,” I say softly, “is native to my lands. It powers our technology. It contains the data that secures my family’s future.”
I run my thumb over the faceted edge.
“The Meridian Consortium does not just want land, Polly. They deal in weapons tech. Bio-augmentation.” I look down at my hands—the hands that nearly crushed her in their need, the hands that hide strength far beyond human limits.
“My people... especially the Valorian bloodline... we are not just stronger or faster. Our genetic structure is unique. Adaptable.”
She stops pacing. “Adaptable how?”
“Compatible,” I say, the word heavy. “Our DNA can bond with almost any other species to enhance their traits. Meridian has been trying to synthesize a super-soldier serum for decades. They have failed because the synthetic compounds degrade.”
Her face pales. “They need a source.”
“They need a live subject,” I correct. “A pure-blood Valorian with active Aethel markers. They don’t want to ransom me, Polly. They want to harvest me.”
The horror on her face cuts me deeper than any blade. She looks at me not as a man, or even as a client, but as a victim. A piece of meat waiting for the butcher.
“That’s why you have the enhanced senses,” she whispers. “The heat. The strength. It’s all... harvestable?”
“To them, yes. I am not a person. I am a patented ingredient.”
I stand up, unable to bear the look in her eyes any longer. I move to the viewport, staring out at the spinning rocks.
“The data in this crystal,” I tap the case, “is locked behind a bio-wall that requires a level of biological intensity I have never achieved. It was designed for warriors in a blood-rage, not diplomats. That is why I must go to Helios—they have amplifiers. Machines that can force my biology to the breaking point to simulate the necessary frequency. If I don’t get there.
.. the lock degrades, and the data is lost.”
I turn back to her.
“But Helios is a trap. You are right. Which means I have no way to open this, and no way to escape... And if they catch us,” I say, my voice low, “they will kill you immediately. You are a witness. That is why you must leave me at Kepler. Drop me at the neutral station. I will surrender to the authorities there.”
It is a lie. Meridian owns half the authorities at Kepler. If I surrender, I disappear within the hour. But it will get her clear.
I wait for her to agree. To realize that the danger is too great.
I feel her hand on my arm. It is not gentle. She grips my bicep, forcing me to turn around.
“You think you’re noble,” she says, her voice shaking with anger. “Lying to me like that.”
“I am trying to save your life.”
“You’re trying to get yourself killed.” She steps closer, invading my space again. The scent of her—fear mixed with the lingering traces of our night together—hits me hard.
“Listen to me, Your Highness,” she snaps. “We aren’t going to Kepler.”
“Then where are we going?”
“The Fringe,” she says, a dangerous light entering her eyes. “My turf. There’s an old fueling outpost in the Zater Reach. No sensors, no STI patrols, and definitely no Meridian jurisdiction. But we can’t make it there in this condition. We need parts.”
“Polly, the Fringe is lawless. It is dangerous.”
“So is sleeping next to me,” she counters, her voice dropping. “But you seemed willing enough to risk that.”
My breath catches. She knows. She knows exactly how close I am to breaking.
“You are...” I shake my head, unable to find the words. “You are going to get us both killed.”
“Maybe.” She releases my arm and steps back to the pilot’s seat, dropping into it with a fluid grace that makes my chest ache. “But at least we’ll die free. I’m setting a course for Junker’s Rest. It’s a scrap station. I know a guy there who can fix the stealth drive.”
She glances back at me, her eyes softening just a fraction.
“Strap in, Lord Broody. We’re going off the map.”
I strap in, the signet ring heavy in my pocket. My earlier release in the alcove still burns, but underneath it, there is something else.
Admiration.
She knows what I am—a target, a danger, a walking biological weapon—and she does not run. She changes the playing field.
For the first time in my life, the weight of my duty feels a little lighter.
But the hunger... the hunger is worse than ever. Because now I know exactly what kind of queen she would make.