Chapter 23
JILLIAN
Something wakes me.
Not a noise. Not really. More like a shift in the air pressure. A tug, faint but insistent, at the base of my spine.
I sit up slowly, pushing my hair out of my eyes. The dome is quiet—just the usual soft hum of the environmental seal and the gentle wheeze of the air filter laboring through Purgonis’ chemically-bruised night. My bunk creaks beneath me. The others are asleep, or pretending to be.
I don’t check the time. Doesn’t matter. The nights here stretch long and strange, like everything on this planet.
What does matter is the way my chest tightens when I glance at the far end of the dome and see the faint shimmer of moonlight through the plastic viewport. And the silhouette standing in it.
Him.
My breath catches. I rise without thinking, bare feet barely making a sound against the metal floor. I pull on a coat—light, useless against the elements but good enough for decency—and slip through the door.
The rain is soft. Not a downpour, not a drizzle. Just that steady, persistent kind of rain that feels like it’s been falling forever and might never stop. It beads and clings to everything—the cracked domes, the blackened soil, the skeletal remains of old survey rigs. And him.
Maug stands with his back to me. Not moving. Not speaking. Just standing.
He’s bare-chested, arms at his sides, shoulders slack.
Water slides down his body in rivulets, soaking the coarse black hair that covers his frame.
His back is a map of old scars and fresh ones—the long, crisscrossing lines of past battles, raised and gleaming in the moonlight.
The curve of his horns glints silver. His breath curls faintly in the air, steam rising from skin that always seems just a few degrees too warm.
He looks like a war god cast in obsidian.
He looks… alone.
I don’t call out. Don’t make a sound.
I just walk.
The earth squelches beneath my feet, cold and wet. My coat clings to me almost instantly, rain soaking through the thin material. My hair hangs limp around my face. None of it matters. The moment I’m beside him, everything else falls away.
We don’t speak.
He doesn’t look at me at first. Doesn’t react. But I feel the flicker in his breath. The way his fingers twitch at his sides, barely perceptible. The way he knows I’m here.
We stand like that for a while—two figures against the broken horizon, alone but not alone. The silence between us isn’t heavy. It’s not awkward. It just is. Steady. Present.
The moonlight catches on the ridgelines far beyond camp. The crystal vents pulse faintly. The rain traces patterns over the world, and it feels, just for this moment, like Purgonis itself is holding its breath.
He turns.
Slowly. Like the moment is sacred.
His eyes find mine.
Gold, burning low and deep like coals under ash. They search me, not with suspicion, but with something older. Heavier. Like he’s trying to decide if I’m real or another punishment sent to haunt him.
I don't look away.
My chest rises and falls, heartbeat slow but steady. I feel raw. Unfiltered. Like every breath between us could shift the axis of the world. I want to reach out, but I don’t. I don’t want to break the stillness, not yet.
He speaks first. His voice is gravel and wind and regret.
“You shouldn’t be out here.”
I smile, soft. “Neither should you.”
He huffs, barely more than a breath. “Rain doesn't bother me.”
“Doesn’t bother me either.”
He arches a brow. “You’re shivering.”
“I’m stubborn.”
His mouth twitches—just the barest suggestion of a smile. It vanishes as fast as it comes.
“I couldn’t sleep,” he says after a beat. “I kept seeing them. The marines. Carson. Their blood on my hands. Whether I spilled it or not.”
I nod slowly. “I see them too.”
“I’m not sure if that makes it better.”
I take a step closer. “I think it means we’re still human.”
He flinches at that. Just a little. “You are.”
“You’re more human than half the people I know,” I say, and I mean it. “You care. You ache. You carry your guilt like it’s stitched to your bones.”
He looks down at me then. Really looks. His brows knit together, the rain sliding off his lashes.
“I don’t want to care,” he says.
“I know.”
“I want to go back to hiding.”
“I know that too.”
“But I can't. Not anymore.”
I step forward again, close enough that I can feel his heat radiating through the damp air. I reach up, fingertips brushing the edge of a scar across his chest.
“Then don’t.”
He stills under my touch like he’s afraid to breathe.
“You think I don’t see you,” I whisper. “But I do. Not just the fighter. Not the exile. Not the monster everyone thinks you are. I see the man who carries grief like a sword, who stayed when he should’ve run.
The man who pulled me from fire. Who held me when I shook. Who listens when no one else does.”
“You make me sound noble.”
“You are. You just forgot.”
His eyes close. His jaw clenches. I feel the muscles under my palm tighten and release.
And then he leans forward, just enough that our foreheads touch. Rain slides between us, over us, through us.
I let my hand slide up to his cheek. He turns into the touch like a starving thing.
“You scare me,” he whispers.
“I scare you?”
“Because I feel peace when I’m near you. And peace feels like a lie.”
My throat tightens. “It’s not. Not this time.”
We stay like that for what feels like forever. The wind howls through the vents. The rain dances on the dome. The stars hide, shy behind the magnetic clouds.
But we stand.
Together.
And when he finally wraps his arms around me—gently, reverently—it doesn’t feel like surrender.
It feels like beginning.
The air between us crackles like a live wire.
I don’t know who moves first—maybe we both do—but I step forward, and my hand finds its way to the center of his chest. My palm presses against him, against that wall of muscle and heat and ancient, aching silence.
His skin is rougher than a human’s, thicker, warmer, threaded with a deep strength that feels earned.
There’s coarse, dark hair beneath my fingers, and when I press harder, I feel the way his body reacts instantly—how his breath stutters, how his chest expands under my touch like I’ve struck something vital.
His heart hammers beneath my skin like it’s trying to break free.
I look up, and his eyes—those impossibly golden eyes—hold me in place. They’re wide, unsure, but hungry. So damn hungry. Not predatory. Not cruel. Just starving in a way that makes my chest ache.
And I realize, with a clarity that slices through every layer of doubt, that I’m not scared of him.
I’m scared of how much I want him.
“Do you want me to stop?” I whisper, barely breathing, my fingers curling reflexively into the fur at his chest, grounding myself in him.
His jaw tightens. His horns tilt slightly forward, a subtle shift that feels instinctive, animal. His voice is rough, gravel dragged across stone. “Never.”
And then we’re kissing.
It’s awkward at first. Tentative. Hesitant.
His mouth is warm and dry, his lips pressing to mine like he’s afraid of doing it wrong.
Like he’s afraid I’ll shatter if he applies too much pressure.
There’s a second where our teeth bump, where his breath stutters against my cheek, and I feel the hesitation rolling off him in waves.
So I lean in harder.
I kiss him like I mean it.
My fingers dig into his shoulders—broad, solid, furred and powerful—and something inside him snaps.
The kiss deepens. Opens. Unleashes.
He groans low in his throat, a sound that vibrates through his chest and into mine, and his arms come around me like instinct finally wins over fear.
He pulls me closer like the world might vanish if he lets go.
His claws skim down my spine, the blunt edges barely brushing the fabric of my coat, sending a shiver straight through me.
“Jillian,” he breathes, like the name is a confession.
We stumble backward, lips still locked, and he catches us before we can fall.
Effortlessly. Reverently. He lifts me off the ground like I weigh nothing, my stomach flipping as my boots leave the rock.
I gasp into his mouth, arms winding around his neck, fingers tangling in the thick hair at the base of his horns.
My legs hook around his waist without thinking, my body already responding to his like it’s always known where it belongs.
He freezes for half a heartbeat.
“Is this—” His voice cracks. “Is this okay?”
I pull back just enough to look at him, my forehead resting against his. “Yes. Gods, yes.”
That’s all it takes.
He carries me across the camp—past the low-burning fire, past overturned gear crates, past the dome where everyone sleeps—into the shadowed alcove beneath the outcrop where we first met in the rain.
The stone is still warm from the day, the air damp and mineral-heavy.
There’s a pile of emergency blankets there, half-forgotten, half-soaked, but it doesn’t matter.
He lays me down like I’m the most fragile thing he’s ever touched.
The firelight flickers nearby, casting copper shadows across his face, his chest, his hands as they hover—hesitate—then finally settle on my waist. His expression is fierce and vulnerable all at once, like he’s standing on the edge of something he can’t take back.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” he admits, voice low, ashamed.
I reach up, cup his broad cheek, my thumb brushing the edge of his jaw. “Neither do I. But we’ll figure it out.”
Something in his eyes softens. Breaks open.
He lowers himself over me, slow and deliberate, like every second is sacred.
His weight settles carefully between my thighs, supported by his arms so he doesn’t crush me.
His mouth meets mine again, and this time it’s different—deeper.
More certain. I feel him learning me. Listening to every sound I make, every shift of my hips, every tremble of my fingers.
Clothes come off piece by piece.
My coat first, shrugged from my shoulders, then my shirt, his massive hands swallowing fabric as he peels it away. My skin prickles as cool air hits it, my nipples tightening instantly. His breath catches when he sees me, really sees me, bare from the waist up.
“Beautiful,” he murmurs, reverent.
I laugh softly, breathless. “You should see yourself.”
His belt comes next, then the loose wrap he wears across his waist. When it falls away, my breath stutters.
He’s unmistakably alien. His body is massive, thickly muscled, furred along his shoulders and thighs, his cock heavy and long, darker than human skin and already hard, flushed deep with arousal.
There’s a faint ridge along its length, a subtle flare at the head that makes my mouth go dry just looking at it.
He sees my stare and stiffens. “If this is wrong—”
“It’s not,” I interrupt, reaching between us, wrapping my fingers around him.
He gasps.
The sound is raw, unfiltered, and it sends a pulse straight through my pussy. He’s hot in my hand, impossibly solid, and when I stroke him, his hips jerk forward with a strangled groan.
“Jillian—gods—”
I smile, slow and wicked. “Feels good?”
“Yes,” he grits out. “Too good.”
I slide my hand back to his chest, guiding him down. “Then touch me.”
He does.
His fingers brush over my stomach, my ribs, my breasts, mapping me like he’s committing every inch to memory. When his thumb finally drags over my nipple, I cry out, arching into his touch. He watches my reaction closely, fascinated, and does it again, firmer this time.
“Like this?” he asks.
“Yes. Don’t stop.”
His confidence grows with every sound I make. His hand slips lower, over my hip, down between my thighs. When his fingers find my pussy, already slick and aching, he sucks in a sharp breath.
“So wet,” he murmurs, awed.
“For you,” I whisper.
When he enters me, it’s like being split open and made whole in the same breath.
We both gasp. My fingers clutch at his back, nails digging into the fur along his shoulders. He shudders against me, holding perfectly still, his cock buried deep, his breath coming in harsh bursts.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” he says, strained.
I wrap my arms tighter around him. “You’re not. Move. Please.”
He does as I ask.
Slow at first. Careful. Every thrust measured, every roll of his hips controlled. The stretch is intense, delicious, and I meet him instinctively, my body welcoming his like it was built for this. Heat coils low in my belly, building fast.
“That sound,” he groans as I whimper. “You make that sound again—”
I do, louder this time, as he thrusts deeper, harder. The rhythm builds, friction turning into fire. Rain begins to hiss against the rocks again, the fire crackling nearby, but the world narrows until it’s just us.
He kisses every place I didn’t know needed it—my throat, my collarbone, the hollow between my ribs. My legs wrap tighter around his waist, hips moving in sync, chasing that edge.
“Maug,” I cry, the name tearing from my lips. “Don’t stop—please—”
His control finally snaps.
He thrusts hard, deep, his cock dragging perfectly against that spot inside me that makes my vision white out. I come apart with a sob, my pussy clenching around him as pleasure crashes through me, sharp and overwhelming.
He follows moments later with a strangled groan pressed into my neck, his entire body trembling as he spills inside me, warmth flooding me as he collapses forward, shaking.
And then we’re still.
The only sounds are our breathing, the rain, the wind sighing across the rocks.
He rolls carefully onto his side, one massive arm dragging me against his chest like he can’t bear to let me go. I rest my head there, listening to the thunder of his heart slowly steadying.
His fingers curl into my hair.
He says nothing.
But he trembles.
Not from cold. Not from weakness.
From something deeper.
I lift my head, study his face. His eyes are closed, brows drawn tight, like he’s bracing for some inevitable crash.
“You okay?” I ask softly.
He doesn’t answer right away.
When he finally speaks, his voice is a whisper wrapped in gravel. “You didn’t run.”
I stroke his chest. “I wasn’t going to.”
“You should have.”
I lift myself onto my elbow and kiss the edge of his jaw. “I didn’t want to.”
He opens his eyes then, and I swear the world tilts. There’s fear there. Awe. Hunger. And something I’m afraid to name.
“I’m still scared,” he admits.
“Me too.”
“But I’m not letting you go.”
I smile. “Good.”
Because I’m not letting go either.