Chapter 35
LIORA
The moment the reception doors close behind us, I don’t even pretend to be civilized anymore.
I grab Gyon by the collar of his ceremonial plating, yank him down to my mouth, and kiss him like I’ve been starving for years—which, honestly, I have.
The noise of the gala fades into static behind us: clinking glasses, polite laughter, the nonsensical murmur of reporters trying to get B-roll. None of it touches me.
Only he does.
“Liora,” he growls against my lips, voice already slipping into that low, dangerous rumble that hits me behind the knees. “If you keep looking at me like that, I will carry you out of here over my shoulder.”
“Then don’t make me look at you,” I whisper, dragging him backward into the dressing suite and slamming the door shut with my heel.
He barely has time to breathe before I shove him back against the wall.
He laughs—one sharp exhale of disbelief and desire. “This is how you wish to begin our first night as bonded?”
“Shut up,” I mutter, already fumbling with the decorative straps on my bodice. “Or help.”
His hands are on me instantly, large and burning hot through the thin layers, tracing the curve of my waist like he’s reacquainting himself with territory he has a lifetime claim to.
He mutters something filthy and reverent in Reaper-speak, something that makes my stomach drop and heat bloom between my ribs.
I look up at him, breathless. “Translate.”
“It loses meaning in your tongue,” he says—then leans in, lips brushing my ear. “But the closest phrase would be: this woman is the axis of my existence, and the gods envy me for touching her.”
“Oh,” I whisper, and the word crumbles in my mouth.
His jacket falls first. Then mine.
He lifts me easily—always so damn effortlessly—and lays me down on the softest part of the bed, like I’m something fragile. But he knows better.
I’m not fragile.
Not with him.
I tug at his braid, undoing it with shaking fingers. He watches me, eyes molten, every breath a thread between us.
“Touch me like you mean it,” I whisper.
“I always do.”
His hands move over me—slow, reverent, mapping every inch of skin like it’s sacred ground. My pulse races. My breath catches. Every place he touches burns in the best way, like his fingers rewrite what I thought was possible.
We don’t speak much after that.
There’s just breath.
And skin.
And the rustle of fabric falling away.
When he leans over me, braced on those powerful arms, bone spurs catching the light, eyes locked on mine—I forget everything else. There is no war. No fame. No fear. Just this moment.
Just us.
His throbbing cock hovers over my quivering entrance. I reach out and stroke the protruding spurs on the crown, and a white pearl appears. He pushes his way in, and I gasp as he fills every inch of my pussy. His spurs flex in and out like a nestling cat’s claws. It’s perfect.
“Liora,” he says, like it’s the first time. Like it means more now than ever before.
I arch into him, feeling his weight, his heat, the slow press of his devotion. We move together, not with urgency, but with something deeper—like we’re stitching together all the broken pieces we never had time to fix.
His lips find mine again—softer this time. Slower.
He’s not rushing.
He’s remembering.
And so am I.
Every kiss is a thread. Every breath a promise. Every sigh a surrender.
We don’t chase the high.
We fall into it, together.
And when I come apart beneath him, it’s not about climax. It’s about connection. About letting someone see every shattered piece of you—and still choosing to stay.
His claws skim my back in careful, practiced arcs. He’s gentle with them now, something that still surprises me. Three years ago he used to touch me like he was afraid I’d break. Now he touches me like he’d break himself first.
“Liora,” he murmurs again, softer this time. “Look at me.”
I do.
His eyes are molten—gold and amber and something deeper under it all, something soft that he still doesn’t know how to name.
His breathing stutters when my bodice loosens, the fabric parting enough for his thumb to sweep over bare skin.
Every brush of his fingers feels like ignition, like I’ve been flammable the entire night and only needed this spark.
“You are…” he starts, then stops like the words fail him.
“Yours,” I say for him.
His eyes flicker. “Yes.”
He lifts me before I can form another reply, hands firm beneath my thighs, my breath catching as he pins me gently against the dressing-room wall.
My skirt pools and rustles around us. His forehead comes to rest against mine, breaths mingling, the whole world narrowing to two hearts thundering in the same rhythm.
“I have imagined this,” he confesses. “Every night since the Maze. But imagination is weak. You are—”
“Real,” I whisper.
His thumb traces my bottom lip. “More than real.”
I kiss him again, slow this time. Savored. My fingers thread into the short dark strands of his hair; his hands anchor me, strong but careful. He kisses like he fights—strategic, consuming, intensely present—but tonight there’s something else underneath it. Devotion, maybe. Hunger sharpened by awe.
We break only when we both run out of air, foreheads still touching.
“I want…” I begin, but the rest collapses into a shaky exhale.
He brushes my cheek with the back of one claw, feather-light. “Tell me.”
“I want tonight to be ours,” I say. “No cameras. No drones. No crew. Just—us.”
His voice roughens. “You will have that.”
His hands slide down my sides, slow enough to make my breath hitch. Not teasing—worshiping. Memorizing. Relearning the map of me like he’s afraid the lines have changed.
“You’re being gentle,” I rasp, both surprised and undone by it.
He huffs a laugh against my shoulder. “I can be gentle.”
“I know,” I whisper back, curling closer. “But it scares me more than the other thing.”
His head lifts, eyes searching mine. “Why?”
“Because gentleness means you love me.”
He doesn’t breathe for a long moment.
Then, quietly—almost reverently—he says, “I do.”
My throat tightens. “Say it again.”
“I love you,” he murmurs, each word deliberate and steady, like he’s hammering a vow into the bones of the universe. “I love you, Liora. With every breath I take. With every breath I will ever take.”
I grab his face in both hands and kiss him so hard he groans into my mouth.
Everything after that blurs into heat and closeness and the kind of urgency that’s been simmering under our skin for years.
He lays me down on the chaise, slow and careful, as if the moment itself is fragile.
His hands move over me with a reverence that makes my eyes sting.
He kisses my neck, my shoulder, the soft stretch of skin above my hip—every touch an apology, a promise, a confession.
“Liora,” he breathes, like my name is the prayer and he’s the worshiper.
I drag him down to me, wrapping myself around him, pulling him into my heat, into my heartbeat, into the place where all my fear dissolves and all my want sharpens.
“Don’t be gentle,” I whisper against his jaw.
He shudders. “Say that again.”
“Don’t be gentle.”
A low, devastating sound tears out of him. “I will be what you need.”
“I need you,” I breathe. “All of you.”
And then—
The world goes molten.
I don’t remember the precise order of things after that.
Just sensations. His mouth on my throat, my fingers digging into his back, our breaths tangling, the dressing-room lights blurring into golden haze.
Laughing. Whispering each other’s names.
Breaking apart and coming back together with a magnetic inevitability.
At one point I’m above him, his hands gripping my waist, eyes locked on mine like he’s witnessing something holy. At another, he’s braced above me, murmuring in Reaper, voice rough and trembling with everything he feels. There’s heat and tenderness and a hunger so fierce it borders on worship.
We don’t rush. We don’t hurry. The world can end outside that door and we wouldn’t notice.
When it’s over, when my pulse steadies and the room stops tilting, he pulls me against his chest, one large hand cradling the back of my head.
“You didn’t promise anything,” I murmur.
“I didn’t need to,” he says. “You already know.”
I do.
I always have.
And in the quiet after, when the world is soft and golden and kind—I let myself believe.
Maybe this is what home really feels like.
Not walls. Not territory.
Just the right person.
The right touch.
The right yes.
“You are my home,” he murmurs into my hair.
I laugh, breathless and exhausted. “That’s funny. I was just thinking the same thing.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Good.”
We come down from the high. The dressing-room lights glow muted—lamps rather than neon.
The hum of the induction cools. My skin still flickers with heat, sweat tracing rivulets down the back of my neck, past the strap of my bodice.
Gyon’s armor jacket lies tossed on a chair nearby, metal cool but still warm under my palm where I brushed it.
I feel the ridges. The weight of his past. But right now he is here: warm, alive, his breath fluttering against my ear.
I collapse against his chest, fully and utterly.
Arms thrown over his shoulders, legs tangled with his.
He wraps his arms around me—one strong hand pressed flat across my back, the other cradling the back of my head.
His breath comes in deep rasps, the scent of leather and ozone and something indescribably his flooding my senses.
“Liora,” he says softly, voice husky. He murmurs something else—in Reaper tongue. I don’t understand the words but I feel the meaning. Something like… You are mine always.
I don’t correct him. I don’t reply. I just close my eyes and listen to his heartbeat—steady, powerful, a drum in the quiet. I feel it against the side of my face, in the cradle of my ear. I rest my cheek there, the silk of my gown shifting under him, sweat cooling into goose-flesh.
My own breath comes in ragged gasps. My chest rises and falls under his hand. Sweat beads on his brow. A strand of his hair sticks to the side of my lip. I lift a finger and brush it away gently. He stills.
“Hey,” I whisper, voice trembling. “You’re real.”
He gives me a small, tired grin. “And you’re mine.”
I taste the faint tang of copper in the air—either from the overhead lights or my own blood pounding in my ears. My heart—I swear—it could break out of my ribs. It could kill me and still leave me alive.
For the first time in years, maybe ever, I’m not afraid of tomorrow.
I press my lips to his chestplate—not the jewelry, not the ceremony props, but the actual worn metal beneath his jacket. I trace the scar-covered plate with my cheek. “Thank you,” I whisper. “For staying.”
He lifts his head and pulls me up enough to look at me. His hair damp, several days’ stubble along his jaw catching the low light like a shadow-scythe.
“I was never leaving,” he says simply. “You—us—are worth every planet I crossed.”
My eyes burn. I swallow hard. “I believed you.” A pause. “I believe you.”
He nods, then kisses me. The kiss is slow, deliberate—painful and perfect. When he lifts me gently and lays me down on the chaise, the room tilts with desire and relief. But I don’t focus on the future or the headlines or the IHC. I focus on this: his warmth. My surrender. Our home.
We lie side by side, sweat-slick and spent. I run my fingers through his damp hair. “Gyon?”
He looks at me. “Yes.”
“Can we… just stay here a minute? No talk of contracts or clearance or press or citizenship.”
He smiles, touches the side of my face. “Yes. We can.”
The moment stretches. The faint hum of the air-con, the scent of our mingled sweat and his armor polish, the low night-buzz of the studio lot drifting in through the vent—all of it forms the soundtrack of this small victory.
I breathe in deep, tongues past lips dry from talking, from emotion, from laughter and pain. I exhale.
“Pepper is upstairs,” I say eventually. “I want her to wake up safe.”
He shifts, wraps one arm around me. “She will. With us.”
I rest my head on his shoulder. He kisses the top of my head. “Liora… we’re home.”
And for the first time in years, I don’t doubt him. Not for a second.
I close my eyes and melt into him, the afterglow wrapping around us like warm silk.
For the first time in three years—maybe ever—I feel whole.
And tomorrow, the galaxy will come for us with questions and headlines and opinions.
But tonight?
Tonight I am Liora.
Wife of a Reaper.
Mother of a miracle.
Loved.
And I sleep in the arms of the man who crossed star systems to kiss me again.