12. Draevik #3
Patience was never my expertise. My fingers dig into the flesh of her hips, hard enough to leave bruises on her fragile human skin.
My combat matrix immediately registers a "sub-optimal biological state" in my mark, compelling an agonizing recalibration.
I loosen my grip to preserve the operational integrity of the marker, smoothing my thumbs over the marks I just made. She catches my hesitation.
"Don't," she warns roughly. "Don't you dare start treating me like glass, Draevik. Not now."
The demand shatters my control entirely.
I haul her against me and stand, her legs wrapping around my waist. The shift in angle makes her cry out—a sharp, bitten-off sound that travels across the bond like a nerve pulling tight.
I carry her to the wall. The bioluminescent veins tremble against her back as I press her into them, and the ship shudders—a low, harmonic tremor that rolls through the Sanctum like distant thunder.
Virex Prime reacts to us. To the bond. To the heat between our bodies.
"The ship," she gasps, her eyes widening as the intense amethyst surges around us.
"Ignore it," I growl, though I cannot ignore it myself. The walls are emitting brighter than I have seen in centuries. The ship wakes from a state far deeper than stasis, tapping into a source I struggle to label.
I move inside her with a deliberate, grinding force.
She locks her ankles behind my back and arches into me, her spine curving away from the wall.
Every thrust drags a sound from her that I want to catalog, to memorize, to replay across the centuries ahead.
She is vocal and fierce. She meets every roll of my hips with her own answering pressure, her body a counterweight to mine, and the friction between us builds until the boundary between command and surrender dissolves.
I shift her again—onto her side on the dais, one leg over my arm, the angle deep enough that her breath comes in short, shallow bursts.
The silver scar shows clearly, the faint blue shade of the Weave still quivering beneath the healed skin.
My mark. My medicine. My mistake nearly cost me the only thing I want to keep.
“Draevik—” The name splinters, a sharp, crystalline snap that leaves the thought hanging in the air like glass shards. She reaches back, her fingers finding my neck, pulling me close until my mouth is against her shoulder. "I can't—I'm going to?—"
"Let go," I command, the words a rough scrape against her skin. "I will catch you."
The second climax hits us with a sudden, blinding explosion of sensation.
I hold her to me as we fall back onto the dais, our bodies slick with sweat and cooling gel.
The sedative from the Weave, combined with the sudden drop in adrenaline and the sheer physical exhaustion of our union, finally begins to take hold of her.
Her movements were sluggish, her eyes growing heavy.
Pulling out gently, the wet friction makes her shiver.
Because the dais is the heart of my power and now her sanctuary, I refuse to move her from it, instead sweeping her into my arms to adjust our position on the sleeping dais within the Sanctum.
I make a mental note to initialize a full reclamation cycle later—the ship will need to be cleansed, and we both need to be washed of the blood and the sweat—but right now, all she needs is rest.
I lay her down on the soft bio-mat of the sleeping dais, pulling the thermal cover over her. She is small, warm, and entirely mine. I kiss the back of her head, my hand resting protectively over the silver scar on her wrist.
"Draevik." Her voice escapes as a drowsy, strained murmur, the sedative and the sheer adrenaline crash pulling her violently under.
"I am here."
She offers neither a quip nor a threat. Her brow furrows tight with conflict as she breathes raggedly, fighting the tether that strips her autonomy chemically.
Her hands remain balled into loose, exhausted fists.
She turns her face away from me, burrowing into the thermal cover as if trying to hide from the reality of what her own biology just forced her to endure.
"Sleep." My thumb gently traces the silver line on her wrist.
As Nyra’s breathing finally evens out into the heavy cycle of forced unconsciousness, I watch the stars on the holographic map. The engines burn with a new intensity, fueled by a reason to remain that has transformed a drifting ghost into a man possessed.
I lay there for a long time, watching the way the light of my skin reflects in her dark hair. Finding a reason to remain changes everything, and letting go becomes impossible.
I close my eyes, the exhaustion finally catching up to me. As I drift off, our bond hums at full strength, her signature finally syncing with mine. We are moving deeper into the void, but fear has no hold on where we are going. Only one certainty remains: she belongs exactly where she is.
Virex Prime drifts forward, silent and deadly, yet in the Sanctum, nothing matters beyond the heat we share and the rhythm of hearts beating in perfect unison. I have found my reason to live, and her name is Nyra.
As I lay her down one last time, my own hands finally still, I know that whatever happens next, we are no longer drifting. We are bound.