Chapter 16
KELSEA
Roja’s room feels like the inside of a weapon—cold metal ribs, low light humming from old filaments, corners too tight for comfort.
And still, I don’t move. I sit on his narrow cot, one leg folded beneath me, watching him as he pulls his shirt back over his head with a stiffness that says everything his mouth won’t.
The silence stretches between us like a frayed wire. He doesn’t know what to do with it, and neither do I.
I hold the scarf in my lap. The one he gave me weeks ago. The one I used to practice with until my hands blistered. I run it through my fingers like it might give me the words I’m choking on.
He glances over. “You should sleep.”
I shake my head. “Not yet.”
He lowers himself to the foot of the bed, close but not touching. “You’re not safe here,” he says after a while. “Jark’s getting hotter by the hour.”
“You think I don’t know that?”
“I think you pretend you don’t care.”
I shoot him a look. “And you pretend you’re not still one wrong step away from snapping someone’s neck.”
His jaw tightens. “That was another life.”
“No,” I say quietly. “It’s still there. Just like mine.”
The silence returns, heavier this time.
I glance down at the scarf. “I used to sleep with a knife under my pillow. Still do, most nights.”
“I know.”
“Do you?” I look up. “Do you know what it’s like, wondering if every knock at the door is the one that ends it?”
“Yes,” he says, so softly I barely hear it.
I set the scarf aside. My palms are damp.
“I can’t keep doing this,” I say. “The pretending. The mask. The fear.”
Roja leans forward, elbows on his knees. “Then don’t.”
I stare at him.
He lifts his eyes, and for once, there’s no shield between us. No shadows. Just a man with too many ghosts and not enough time to bury them.
“I’m not good at soft things,” he murmurs. “I never learned how to be close without breaking everything I touch.”
“I’m not asking for a fairytale.”
“What are you asking for?”
“Just… take the armor off. For one night. Let me see you.”
He doesn’t answer, but his throat bobs as he swallows hard.
I stand and close the space between us, then reach for the hem of his shirt. He catches my hand.
“You sure?”
“No,” I say. “But I’m here anyway.”
He lets go.
I lift the shirt over his head slowly, letting my hands memorize the rough skin, the scars. There’s one over his ribs that curves like a question mark.
“What did this?” I ask, brushing it with my fingers.
“Acid shrapnel. Black sector riot. Took two pints of synth-blood and half a rib.”
I don’t flinch. I just nod.
“Can I…?” I gesture to his shoulder.
He turns so I can see the brand beneath his collarbone. An old Coalition mark, faded but unmistakable.
“I didn’t choose it,” he says.
“I didn’t choose mine either.”
I slide the strap of my top down and show him the burn across my shoulder blade. “They left it as a reminder. Told me if I ever came back, they’d finish it.”
Roja lifts his hand but doesn’t touch. “May I?”
I nod.
His fingers trace the edge of the scar like he’s trying to learn the language of my pain.
“I used to think scars made you weaker,” he says. “Now I think they just mean you survived the worst someone could do to you.”
I exhale a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
We don’t speak after that. Not for a long time. We move to the bed, slow and cautious. Not desperate, not frantic. Just… deliberate.
He doesn’t try to control anything. He lets me guide the pace, the rhythm. His hands stay open. His mouth murmurs my name like it’s a question he’s never dared ask before.
And I answer.
But I don’t stop there.
My hands find the seams of his pants and undo them, the heavy fabric falling away from his scaled hips.
He’s already hard, thick, and alien in a way that makes my breath catch.
His cock is ridged, like everything about him is built for war—even this.
It pulses faintly, a deep shade of green flushed to a darker hue with need.
I trail a finger along one of the veins, and Roja’s breath stutters, his claws flexing into the mattress.
“You okay?” I whisper.
“I’ve imagined this,” he says, voice gravelly. “But it didn’t come close.”
I press a kiss to his abdomen, feeling the tension in him, the restraint. “Then let me show you how real it can feel.”
I let my fingers explore first, learning the lines of him, the strange warmth of his skin, hotter than a human’s, with a faint, musky spice in his scent. My mouth follows—slow kisses along his hipbone, then lower, until he shudders under my touch.
When I take him into my mouth, his entire body jerks.
“K-Kelsea—” His voice breaks, and he grips the sheets rather than me, like he’s afraid of holding too tight. “Fuck—don’t stop.”
I don’t. I savor the weight of him, the alien texture that isn’t so different where it matters. His hips buck, but he doesn’t push. Just feels. Just lets go.
He comes with a low, snarling groan, his thighs trembling, his claws tearing faint lines into the mattress.
I pull back slowly, watching the rise and fall of his chest, the way his red eyes glow faintly in the dark.
“Your turn,” he says, voice hoarse.
I lie back, heart thudding.
He moves over me like a storm, slow but inevitable. His fingers slide beneath the band of my pants, dragging them down, revealing inch by inch until I’m bare beneath him. His gaze roams, hungry and reverent all at once.
“You’re so small,” he murmurs, his hand cupping my hip. “So fucking strong.”
His fingers find my pussy, already slick. He groans at the feel of it. “Gods, Kelsea…”
His mouth follows, and when he puts his tongue on me—thicker, hotter than any human—I gasp aloud, hips lifting.
“Yes—oh, fuck—Roja—”
He growls into me, lapping slow, deliberate strokes that build heat in my belly like a fuse burning down. His claws are careful, but his tongue isn’t gentle. It’s demanding, and I give, moaning louder with each wave of pleasure.
I come against his mouth, legs trembling, thighs tight around his head. He doesn’t stop until I’m twitching, over-sensitive and breathless.
Then he moves up, lining himself against me.
“I won’t fit,” he mutters. “Not all at once.”
“Then do it slow,” I whisper. “I want to feel it all.”
He nods, pressing forward—careful, patient. My body stretches, stings, then opens. I cry out, but not in pain. It’s too much. It’s perfect.
He slides deeper, inch by inch, until he’s seated fully inside me. My pussy clenches around him, and Roja groans into my neck.
“Fuck, you’re tight.”
“Move,” I whisper. “Please.”
He does.
Every thrust is slow, controlled. He kisses me when he moves, one hand behind my head, the other gripping my thigh. His cock fills me completely, dragging against every nerve ending until I’m lost in it—lost in him.
“I’ve never—” he pants. “Not like this.”
“Me neither.”
We fuck like we’re memorizing each other. Every motion is a vow. Every gasp a confession. I come again, nails digging into his back, crying his name.
He follows, body shaking, mouth buried in my shoulder as he spills inside me.
Afterward, I curl into his side, my fingers playing with the rough hairs on his chest. He smells like ozone and steel and something faintly smoky, like scorched wires.
“You could’ve lied,” I murmur.
“About what?”
“About what you used to be. The enforcement. The bodies.”
“I didn’t want to.”
“Why not?”
“Because I want you to know the whole of me. Even the broken parts.”
I glance up. “Then you should know I’ve killed, too. More than once.”
He nods like he’s always known.
“It doesn’t scare you?”
“No,” he says. “Because I know the reasons matter. And I trust yours.”
My throat tightens.
“I’ve never had that before.”
“You do now.”
I rest my forehead against his chest and close my eyes. For the first time in months, maybe years, I let myself fall asleep without the blade under my pillow. Just the beat of his heart beneath my cheek.
And in the quiet that follows, I think maybe—just maybe—I’ve found something I wasn’t supposed to have.
Peace. Even if only for tonight.
Later, the light filtering in through Roja’s half-covered window is the kind that doesn’t know what time it wants to be. Pale gray, soft. Like the world’s holding its breath outside while I try to remember what it feels like not to run.
My head’s still on his chest. His heartbeat is steady, slow. The rhythm’s different than mine, deeper, like a drumbeat under a lullaby. I breathe in time with it, just to see if I can. It’s the first time in forever I don’t jolt awake with my fingers curled around a weapon.
His arm’s wrapped around my back, hand resting just above my hip. Not possessive—more like he forgot to let go.
I should move. I should pull away before it all gets too heavy. But I don’t. Not this time.
Instead, I lift my chin and look at him.
He’s already watching me. Of course he is. That unreadable face, like stone softened by sea wind. His eyes flicker over mine, down to my mouth, then back.
“Morning,” I say, voice thick with sleep.
“Still early.”
I nod. My fingers find the old scar under his collarbone again, just lightly tracing.
“Did you sleep?” I ask.
His eyes soften a little. “Some.”
“You snore.”
“I don’t.”
I smirk. “You do. Like a bear.”
He grunts, lips twitching.
We fall quiet again, but it’s not tense. It’s just full.
His chest rises under my cheek. “You okay?”
“No.”
He waits.
“But I’m here,” I add. “And I’m not scared. Not right now.”
His hand slides up to my back, thumb brushing bare skin. “Good.”
I want to tell him I feel safe. That I haven’t in so long I forgot what it meant. That maybe I’m afraid of how badly I want this to last. But instead, I just press my palm flat against his chest, feel his heartbeat again.
“Roja,” I whisper.
He doesn’t answer, just shifts to meet my eyes.
I don’t say the words. I don’t have to. He sees them. I see the answer in the way he tightens his hold on me, like he’s anchoring us both.
Don’t let me go.
He nods, once. The smallest motion. But it means everything.
I close my eyes, breathe him in—metal, heat, a whisper of ash and citrus. I bury my face in his skin and let the quiet hold me together.