Chapter 33 Vrok
VROK
The cabin door opens without a sound.
I know it’s her before I turn. The bond doesn’t flare this time. It settles—like a weight finding its rightful place in the center of my chest.
Roxy steps inside and seals the hatch behind her. No hesitation. No theatrics. Her hair’s still damp from the rinse, curling slightly at the ends, and she’s changed into clean clothes that cling in places she doesn’t seem aware of. She doesn’t look shaken.
She looks decided.
I rise slowly from the command chair. “You alright?”
She doesn’t answer immediately. She walks toward me instead, boots soft against the deck plating, eyes steady and bright in the low light.
When she stops in front of me, she doesn’t fold her arms. Doesn’t brace. Doesn’t posture.
“I’m choosing you,” she says.
The words hit harder than any punch I’ve taken in the last week.
I search her face automatically for strain, coercion, fear. “Roxy—”
“No.” She lifts a hand. Not to silence me. Just to hold the moment steady. “Let me finish.”
I close my mouth.
She exhales once, slow. “I read the records. I went through Vakutan biology, culture, the whole terrifying ‘permanent tether’ thing.”
I wince faintly. “That’s one translation.”
“It’s accurate enough.” Her mouth twitches. “Here’s what I need you to hear. I’m not choosing you because fate shoved me into it. I’m not choosing you because some ancient alien neurochemical cocktail hijacked my brain.”
She steps closer.
“I’m choosing you because I already have. Over and over again. I walked into Marj’s compound. I followed you into deserts and gunfire and orbit. I slept beside you when it would’ve been easier not to.”
Her hand presses flat against my chest.
“I want partnership,” she says quietly. “Not ownership. Not martyrdom. Not destiny.”
The heat under her palm is unbearable. I force myself to stay still.
“You understand what this means,” I say carefully. “Once we stop resisting it, the bond stabilizes. It doesn’t weaken. It doesn’t… loosen.”
“I know.”
“And if you wake up one day and decide you made a mistake—”
“Then that’s my mistake to live with.”
I swallow.
“Vakutan pairs don’t separate,” I say. “It’s not cultural stubbornness. It’s physiological. If one leaves, the other—”
“Declines,” she finishes. “I read that too.”
The silence stretches between us, thick and charged.
“This is your last chance,” I say. My voice comes out rougher than I intend. “If you want the transport, the new identity, I’ll see you protected. I won’t fight you on it.”
She studies me.
Then she does something that nearly unravels me.
She smiles.
“Vrok,” she murmurs, stepping even closer until there’s barely air between us, “if I wanted to run, I would’ve done it before I walked back in here.”
Her fingers curl into my shirt.
“You don’t get to offer me escape like it’s mercy. I’m not trapped.”
Her voice drops lower.
“I’m choosing to stay.”
The bond shifts.
Not violently. Not like before. It spreads outward from where she’s touching me, warm and steady, like molten metal poured into a mold and finally allowed to set.
I close my eyes for a moment.
“Say it again,” I murmur.
She rolls her eyes slightly but obliges. “I choose you.”
The restraint I’ve held for weeks—months—fractures.
But I don’t move until she does.
She rises onto her toes and kisses me.
Not tentative.
Not testing.
Her mouth presses to mine with intention, and I feel the difference instantly. There’s no uncertainty in it. No searching.
She opens for me, and I taste her fully—clean soap and heat and something uniquely hers that makes my head spin. My hands hover at her waist for half a breath, then settle there, fingers splaying carefully over the curve of her hips.
“Too much?” I murmur against her mouth.
“Don’t you dare go careful on me now,” she breathes back.
A low laugh rumbles out of me. “Careful is all I know how to be with you.”
“Then unlearn it.”
Her hand slides up my chest, over my shoulder, fingers tangling in my hair at the nape of my neck. She pulls me down to her and deepens the kiss herself, her tongue sliding against mine with a boldness that steals the air from my lungs.
The bond hums—no longer erratic. No longer flaring and collapsing. It feels… aligned.
She breaks the kiss just long enough to tug my shirt up and over my head. Her eyes drag over my chest, over the scars and ridges and muscle, slow and deliberate.
“Still choosing you,” she murmurs.
My throat tightens.
I step forward, guiding her backward until her hips meet the edge of the command console. I don’t pin her there. I don’t trap.
I wait.
She hooks her thumbs into the waistband of her pants and pushes them down herself.
My breath leaves me in a harsh exhale.
“Roxy—”
“You said no secrets,” she reminds me. “No half measures.”
She steps out of the fabric and reaches for me again, pressing her body against mine, skin to skin. She’s warm. Softer than anything in this cold steel cabin. My hands settle at her waist again, sliding slowly upward over her ribs, feeling every subtle tremor under my palms.
“You’re sure,” I say one last time.
She cups my jaw and looks me dead in the eye.
“Yes.”
That’s all it takes.
I kiss her again, slower now, deeper. My hands move with deliberate care, sliding down her back, tracing the curve of her spine, memorizing the feel of her as if I hadn’t already done it a hundred times in restraint. She arches into me, breath catching as I trail my mouth down her throat.
“You feel it?” I murmur against her skin.
“Yes,” she whispers. “It’s steady now.”
I sink to my knees in front of her.
Her breath hitches.
“Vrok—”
“I’m choosing life,” I say quietly, looking up at her. “Not death. Not sacrifice.”
Her fingers tighten in my hair.
“Then show me.”
I kiss the inside of her thigh first, slow and unhurried. Her skin is warm and smooth under my mouth, and she shivers when my tongue traces higher, teasing but not yet touching where she needs me most.
“You don’t get to be the only one who decides how this goes,” she murmurs.
I smile against her skin. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”
When I finally press my mouth to her, she gasps sharply, hips jerking. I hold her steady, hands firm on her thighs as my tongue moves with patience and precision, learning her again now that the restraint is gone.
She tastes like heat and salt and something that makes my chest ache with it.
“Gods,” she breathes, fingers digging into my shoulders. “Don’t stop.”
I don’t.
I take my time, building her slowly, deliberately, until her thighs tremble and her voice goes ragged. When she comes, it’s not frantic—it’s deep and consuming, her body bowing over mine as the bond pulses warm and bright between us.
I rise and lift her onto the console. This time, when I press into her, there’s no hesitation left in me. No fear of taking too much.
But I still move slow.
Not because I’m holding back.
Because I want her to feel every inch.
She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me closer, and when I thrust fully inside her, the bond locks into place with a quiet, resonant certainty that steals my breath.
There’s no spike.
No chaos.
Just alignment.
She meets me thrust for thrust, equal and fierce, her nails dragging down my back as she laughs breathlessly against my mouth.
“I love you,” she whispers between kisses.
“I love you, too,” I answer.