Epilogue
Noomi
I wake up to the feel of warm Felaxian hands mapping the curve of my waist and the sound of Ober’s purr rumbling against my back.
Outside our quarters aboard the Starbound, Junction One’s morning shift change creates a familiar hum of activity, but inside our private sanctuary, time moves differently.
“Morning, security consultant,” I murmur, stretching against him like the cat he resembles. His enhanced body heat seeps through me, chasing away the last vestiges of sleep and replacing them with something much more interesting.
“Morning, lead courier,” he replies, his mouth finding that spot behind my ear that makes me shiver. “Sleep well?”
“Until someone started wandering hands at oh-dark-thirty,” I accuse, but I’m arching into his touch rather than pulling away. After a year together, we’ve perfected the art of lazy morning intimacy.
“My hands weren’t wandering,” he protests with wounded innocence, his tail snaking around my thigh to prove his point. “They were conducting a very thorough security assessment.”
“And what did your assessment conclude?”
His laugh is pure sin. “That my mate is severely under-protected and requires immediate attention.”
I turn in his arms to face him, taking in the sight of sleep-mussed hair and amber eyes still warm with dreams. A year of legitimate work has been good to him—the constant tension he used to carry has eased, replaced by the confident satisfaction of a man who’s found his place in the universe.
The scar above his left eyebrow, a souvenir from our Christmas adventure, has faded to a thin silver line that I trace with my fingertip. He catches my hand and presses it flat against his chest, where I can feel his twin hearts beating in the steady rhythm that’s become my favorite lullaby.
“Your mate,” I say, enjoying the way the word makes his pupils dilate slightly, “has a supply run to Kepler-442b today. High priority medical supplies for the colony there.”
“Your mate,” he counters, his voice dropping to that possessive register that makes my toes curl, “is assigned as security for that exact mission. Funny how that works out.”
It’s not funny at all—it’s carefully orchestrated.
In the year since we joined OOPs officially, we’ve become the go-to team for missions that require both courier expertise and tactical knowledge.
Mother claims it’s purely professional efficiency, but I’ve seen her small smile when she assigns us together.
I suspect our success rate has less to do with our individual skills and more to do with the way we’ve learned to work as a unit.
Like how Ober anticipates my flight patterns well enough to calculate weapons trajectories without conscious thought.
Or how I can read his tactical assessments in the shift of his shoulders and adjust our approach before he even speaks.
We’ve become something more effective together than we ever were apart.
“Must be fate,” I say solemnly.
“Must be Mother knowing exactly what she’s doing,” he replies, then rolls us over so I’m pinned beneath him, his weight a delicious pressure against my chest. “But we don’t have to leave for three hours.”
“Three hours,” I repeat thoughtfully, my hands already working at the fastenings of his sleep shirt. The fabric is soft against my palms, worn from countless mornings exactly like this one. “Whatever will we do with all that time?”
“I have some ideas,” he says, his voice dropping to that register that makes my insides clench with anticipation. “Starting with a very thorough pre-mission briefing.”
“What kind of briefing?” I ask, though I’m already breathless from the way his hands are exploring places that have nothing to do with mission parameters.
“The kind that requires complete attention to detail,” he murmurs against my throat, his fangs grazing my pulse point in a way that makes me arch beneath him. “Careful assessment of all potential... vulnerabilities.”
His tail joins the exploration, trailing up my inner thigh with deliberate slowness.
After a year of discovery, I know exactly what that appendage is capable of—the precision, the strength, the way it can support my weight or hold me exactly where he wants me.
It’s become one of my favorite things about Felaxian biology.
“Vulnerabilities?” I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders as he finds exactly the right spot. “I don’t have vulnerabilities.”
“You have at least twelve that I’ve identified,” he says with scientific precision, even as his touch makes my thoughts scatter like startled birds. “Would you like a demonstration?”
Before I can answer, his mouth is on mine, hot and demanding and tasting like home. A year of this, and I still feel that spark of electricity every time he kisses me, still get that flutter of surprise that this incredible man chose me. Chose us.
His hands map territories they know by heart now, but the familiarity only makes it better.
He knows exactly how to touch me to make me gasp, exactly where to press to make me arch, exactly what combination of pressure and movement will have me pleading his name.
And I know his responses just as well—the way his breathing changes when I trail my fingers along the scaling at his ribs, the sound he makes when I bite down gently on his lower lip, the way his control frays when I whisper his name in just the right tone.
“Still think you don’t have vulnerabilities?” he asks against my breast, his voice smug with satisfaction as I tremble beneath him.
“Maybe one or two,” I concede breathlessly, then flip us over with a move I learned from watching him fight. The bed on the Starbound is bigger than what we had on the Shadowhawk, but we still end up tangled together in the center, gravity and desire pulling us into each other’s orbit.
Now it’s my turn to explore, to map the lines of muscle and alien grace that I’ve memorized over countless nights like this. His skin tastes like salt and spice and something uniquely him, and when I trace the scaling along his ribs with my tongue, he makes a sound that’s purely animal.
The muscle is more pronounced than it was a year ago—apparently contentment makes Felaxian biology more vibrant.
The patterns shift color slightly with his emotions, deepening to rich amber when he’s aroused, silvering when he’s completely relaxed.
I’ve become an expert in reading his moods through the subtle changes in his alien features.
“Noomi,” he growls, his control fraying in the most delicious way as my hands work their way lower.
“Yes?” I ask innocently, even as my hand wraps around him, stroking with the kind of deliberate attention he showed me moments ago.
He’s already hard and ready, his alien anatomy as fascinating now as it was the first time.
The ridges along his length create incredible friction, and after a year of practice, I know exactly how to use them to drive him wild.
“I want—” His words cut off in a hiss as I lean down to replace my hand with my mouth, taking him deep and savoring the way his tail lashes restlessly against the sheets. “I want to skip the briefing and move directly to the hands-on training.”
“Hands-on training sounds very... educational,” I agree, releasing him with deliberate slowness before shifting to straddle his hips. The position brings us deliciously close, and I can feel his tail wrapping around my waist, steadying me, claiming me, making sure I’m exactly where he wants me.
“Very educational,” he confirms, his hands coming up to frame my hips as I settle against him. “Though I should warn you, this particular curriculum tends to be... intensive.”
“I think I can handle intensive,” I tell him, then sink down slowly, taking him into my body with the kind of deliberate control that makes his amber eyes go dark with need.
The feeling of being joined with him never gets old.
If anything, it gets better—more natural, more right, more like finding the missing piece of myself I never knew was gone.
His alien anatomy fits me perfectly, those ridges along his length creating friction that makes me see stars, while his enhanced body heat seems to reach every nerve ending at once.
“Perfect,” he breathes, his voice rough with want as I begin to move. “You’re perfect.”
“We’re perfect,” I correct, finding the rhythm that makes us both gasp. “Together, we’re perfect.”
His hands guide my movements while his tail provides counterpoint, the scaled appendage trailing across my skin with maddening precision.
After a year, we’ve learned each other’s bodies like favorite songs, knowing exactly when to build and when to release, when to tease and when to give in completely.
I lean forward, changing the angle in a way that makes him curse in three languages, and his hands tighten on my hips with just enough force to remind me of his enhanced strength.
The careful control he maintains, the way he holds back enough to never hurt me while still letting me feel his power—it’s intoxicating.
“Love you,” I gasp as the tension builds between us, as his clever fingers find the bundle of nerves that makes me tremble. “Love you so much.”
“Love you too,” he growls, then sits up to capture my mouth with his, kissing me as we move together toward something that feels like flying. “My mate. My partner. My everything.”
The endearments push me over the edge, pleasure crashing through me in waves that leave me shaking in his arms. He follows immediately after, his roar of completion muffled against my throat as he fills me with liquid heat, his tail tightening around my waist like he’s afraid I might disappear.
We stay locked together for long moments afterward, both breathing hard, both reluctant to break the connection that feels like the most natural thing in the universe. His purr starts up again, a rumble I feel as much as hear, and I realize this sound has become the soundtrack to my happiness.