Maris
His mouth was on mine and the world narrowed to this: his taste, his heat, the way his scales flashed emerald under my hands.
The kiss deepened. His tongue swept against mine, demanding and desperate. I made a sound I didn’t recognize, raw and hungry.
Years. Years of building walls so high no one could reach me. Of making myself cold because cold meant safe.
Those walls were burning.
He pulled back just enough to speak, his voice a low growl. “More.”
“What?” I was breathless, my hands on his chest.
“Don’t stop.” He kissed me again, harder this time, his grip on my arms possessive. He was the one pushing me back against the cold rock wall, his body caging mine.
“Thoryn, wait.” I tried to create space, to think. The scales under my palms were hot, warring with themselves. Flashing emerald and gray. “You’re bleeding. Infected. You’re probably dying.”
“I know.” His voice was rough. Strained.
“This is insane,” I said, my voice shaking. “You need to rest. I’m... I’m making it worse. The pain—”
“I don’t care.” His eyes were molten and completely focused on me. “I survived eight years of hell for this. For you.” His hand cupped the back of my neck, his claws careful against my skin. “I’m done being careful.”
He kissed me again, a raw, possessive claim.
He was the one who pulled at my shirt, his movements clumsy with urgency. I hissed as the rough fabric dragged across a scrape on my arm I didn’t remember getting.
“Maris—” he started, his hand hesitating.
“No,” I said, my voice mimicking his own intensity, my logic shattering. “You’re right.” I yanked the shirt over my head myself, dropped it on the floor. “I’m done being careful too.”
He looked at me. At my scars. At the way I was trembling.
“I want this,” he said, the words ripped from his throat. “I want you.”
The bond thrummed. I could feel it now. Not just his pain. But him. His want. His need. His absolute certainty that this was right despite the cost.
He bent his head, his mouth finding my jaw. My neck. I moaned, shuddering in his grip.
He yanked his own shirt off, the movement so violent it tore the fabric. He didn’t hiss when it dragged across his shoulder wound. He just threw it aside.
His chest was covered in scales and scars. Old wounds layered over older wounds. Eight years of damage mapped across his body. The bio-sealer on his shoulder looked stark and clinical. The synth-skin on his side was soaked through with blood, the dark stain spreading.
He was falling apart. And he was about to make it worse.
“Thoryn, we should stop,” I whispered, the last piece of my logic fighting back. “We should let you rest.”
“Never.” The word was guttural. “Never.”
His hands found my hips. Pulled me closer. I went, pressing against him, feeling the hard length of him through his pants.
The proximity made his whole body tense. His scales flashed and locked. Flashed and locked. The pattern faster now, more frantic.
“How bad?” I asked against his throat.
“Twenty.”
Twenty on a pain scale that only went to ten. The conditioning screaming at him. The bond war raging.
“You’re still here,” I said, my hands gripping his shoulders.
“Yes.”
“You’re not running.”
“No.”
“Good.” I bit his throat. Not hard. Just enough to make him gasp. “Because I’m not letting you go.”
His gaze was intense. “They can’t make me run.”
I ground against him. Felt him hard and ready beneath me. His head fell back against the wall. The scales on his throat flashed brilliant emerald and stayed.
“Maris.” My name came out broken.
“I’m here.”
I reached between us. Found the fastening on his pants. Got it open. He was hot in my hand, his cock smooth and ridged in ways that made me ache.
I stroked him. Once. Twice. Learning the feel of him again. The weight. The way he pulsed in my grip.
He groaned. The sound raw and desperate. His hips jerked up into my hand.
“Stop,” he said.
“No.”
“I won’t last.”
“I don’t care.” I stroked him again, thumb sliding over the head. He was already slick. “I want you to fall apart for me.”
His claws pricked my hips. “You’re going to kill me.”
“Probably.”
“Worth it.”
I released him long enough to shove my own pants down. The cold air hit my skin and I didn’t care. I was burning. Aching. Years of grief and loneliness and iron control cracking apart under the weight of wanting him.
I straddled his lap. Careful of his wounded side. Positioned myself over him.
The head of his cock pressed against me. Hot. Hard. Right.
I sank down.
The stretch was immediate and overwhelming. Too much. Not enough. He filled me completely, the ridges on his shaft dragging against every nerve, sending sparks up my spine.
We both froze.
His scales exploded into emerald. Not flickering. Not fighting. Just pure, vivid, bonded color flooding across his entire body like someone had flipped a switch.
The thrum became a roar.
“Gods,” he said. Or tried to say. The word came out mangled, barely human.
I couldn’t speak at all. The sensation was too much. The physical fullness combined with something else. Something deeper. The bond completing itself, reaching across the gap the Consortium had carved into him.
His hands gripped my hips. Hard. His claws pricked my skin, just this side of breaking it.
“Move,” he said. “Please. I need—”
I moved.
Lifted up. Sank back down. Slow. Deliberate. Taking him to the hilt.
His whole body shuddered. The emerald held. Blazing. Beautiful.
The roar in my head grew louder. I felt the feedback loop starting. My pleasure echoing into him. His pleasure echoing back. Building on itself.
I set a rhythm. Slow at first. Rising and falling. Learning him again. The angle. The depth. The way his ridges caught and dragged.
He couldn’t thrust. The wounds prevented it. So I did all the work, and the control was intoxicating. Watching him pinned beneath me, unable to do anything but take what I gave him.
His breathing went ragged. “Faster.”
“No.”
“Maris—”
“My pace.” I circled my hips. Ground down. His cock hit something inside me that made me gasp. “My rules.”
He made a sound that might have been a laugh or a sob. “You’re killing me.”
“Good.”
I leaned forward. Braced my hands on the wall beside his head. Changed the angle. Rolled my hips.
The new position let me take him deeper. Let the ridges on his shaft drag across different nerves. Let me control every inch of the friction.
His head fell back. The cords in his neck stood out. His scales rippled, wave after wave of emerald racing across his body.
“Look at me,” I said.
He did. His eyes were unfocused. Desperate.
“I’m here,” I said. “I’m real. This is real.”
“I know.”
“Say it.”
“You’re real.” His voice cracked. “We’re real. The bond is real.”
I kissed him. Hard. Demanding. Took his mouth the way I was taking his body.
He kissed back with everything he had. His tongue swept against mine. His teeth caught my lower lip, careful despite the sharp points.
I started moving faster. Chasing the building heat in my core. The pressure coiling tighter with every movement.
The bond roared. I felt his pleasure as my own. Felt the way I gripped him. Felt the heat and the friction and the overwhelming rightness of being connected.
The feedback loop intensified. Every sensation doubled. My pleasure became his became mine again.
“I can feel you,” he gasped against my mouth. “Gods, I can feel what I’m doing to you.”
“Good.”
“It’s too much.”
“It’s not enough.”
I rode him harder. Faster. Taking what I needed. What we both needed.
His hands moved from my hips to my breasts and as his thumbs found my nipples and I gasped.
“Perfect,” he said. “You’re perfect.”
“I’m not—”
“You are.” His hands found my breasts again. Skin on skin this time. His palms were rough with scales, the texture sending new sparks through me. “You’re mine and you’re perfect.”
He bent his head. Took my nipple in his mouth. Sucked hard.
I cried out. Ground down on him. The dual sensation of his mouth on my breast and his cock inside me was overwhelming.
He switched to the other breast. Laved it with his tongue. Scraped his teeth carefully across the sensitive flesh.
I was close. So close. The heat building into something sharp and desperate.
“Thoryn—”
“I know.” His voice was wrecked. “I can feel it. Feel how close you are.”
“Come with me.”
“I will.” His hand slid between us. Found my clit. “Together.”
He circled the bundle of nerves. Once. Twice. The pressure perfect.
I shattered.
The orgasm ripped through me. White-hot and devastating. I felt it echo through the bond. Felt him feel it. Felt the feedback loop spiral out of control.
He came with a roar. His whole body locked. The emerald blazed so bright it hurt to look at. His cock pulsed inside me, hot and perfect, wave after wave.
And the bond completed.
I felt it. A snap. A lock. A door slamming open. The sudden, overwhelming presence of him in my head.
Not his thoughts. Not his words. Just him. His essence. His determination and pain and love and stubbornness and the absolute bedrock certainty that I was his and he was mine.
Connected.
The roar wasn’t just in my head anymore. It was in his too. The same frequency. The same signal. Synchronized.
I collapsed against his chest. Careful of his wounds. Breathing hard. Shaking.
His arms came around me. Gentle despite the claws. Protective despite the pain he had to be in.
The bond hummed. Steady now. Not roaring. Just present. A constant thread connecting us.
I waited for the pain to slam back into him. For the conditioning to reassert itself. For the gray to flood back over the emerald.
It didn’t.
The emerald held. Muted. Softer than the blazing color during our joining. But there. Real. Permanent.
“How bad?” I asked against his chest.
“Six.”
Six. Down from twenty. Down from the impossible numbers he’d been hitting.
“The bond pain?”
“Muted.” He sounded dazed. Awed. “It’s not gone. But it’s not screaming anymore. It’s just... an ache. Not a fresh wound.”
I pulled back to look at him. His scales were still emerald. Not pure. Streaks of gray remained, like scars across the color. Battle damage from eight years of war.
But the war was over.
The conditioning had lost.
“We did it,” I said.
“You did it.” His hand came up to cup my face. His thumb traced my cheekbone. “Your half of the bond broke their conditioning. The healthy part overwhelmed the damaged part.”
“Our bond.”
“Yes.” He smiled. Small. Exhausted. Real. “Ours.”
I should move. Should check his wounds. Should assess the damage from what we’d just done.
I didn’t move.
I stayed pressed against him, his cock softening inside me, his scales warm against my skin. The bond hummed between us. Steady. Sure. Right.
“I can feel you,” I said. “In my head. Not your thoughts. Just... you.”
“Same.” His hand moved to the back of my neck. Held me close. “You’re a constant presence.”
“Is it awful?”
“No.” He kissed my forehead. “It’s home.”
The word landed. Home. I’d built an empire. A cantina. A network. All of it designed to fill the hole he’d left.
None of it had worked.
Because home wasn’t a place. It was him.
I finally pulled away. Climbed off him carefully. Found my pants. Started dressing.
He watched me. “What are you thinking?”
“That we need to move.”
“Mm.”
The part of my brain that ran logistics was already making lists. Cataloging problems. Running numbers.
Problem one: We were still trapped on The Quarry. Vashil still wanted us dead. The Consortium still wanted us captured.
Problem two: We only had two of the three data caches. Cache three was in The Fortress. The most secure location I’d ever built. Which was now the most dangerous place on this station.
Problem three: Thoryn was still bleeding. Still infected. Still on a clock. The bond healing had bought us time, but it hadn’t fixed the physical damage.
I pulled out my datapad. Called up the schematics. The Fortress was twelve levels up. Three checkpoints between here and there. Vashil would have it locked down tight.
But I knew this station. Every tunnel. Every vent. Every forgotten maintenance shaft.
And now I had something Vashil didn’t expect.
A fully bonded Tamzari who’d just broken eight years of Consortium conditioning through spite and sex.
“We hit The Fortress,” I said. “Get cache three. Then we go straight to my hidden hangar and steal my ship.”
“Simple.”
“It’s a terrible plan.”
“I know.” He stood. Winced. Started pulling his shirt back on. Blood had soaked through the synth-skin on his side, spreading in a dark stain. “I like your terrible plans.”
I checked the security feed on my datapad. The patrols were still sweeping the upper levels. We had maybe three hours before they worked their way down to our section.
Three hours to rest. To let him stabilize as much as possible. To prepare for the stupidest, most dangerous smash-and-grab of my career.
Three hours before we walked back into the heart of my empire and tried to take it back.
“Thoryn.”
“Mm?”
“If this goes wrong—”
“It won’t.”
“But if it does—”
“Then we go down fighting.” He crossed to me. Pulled me close. Careful of his wounds. “Together.”
The bond hummed its agreement.
Now it was our turn.
I pulled up the schematic for The Fortress. Started marking paths. Identifying weak points. Building the plan.
The Smuggler Queen was back. And she had work to do.