Aris
The door slides shut behind us, sealing with a soft hiss that feels incredibly final.
We stand in the small space, looking at each other. The gold light from his markings casts long, dancing shadows across the walls, making everything feel both intimate and surreal.
“I don’t know the steps, or the ritual, or...” I say, the admission coming out quieter than intended.
“I don’t know if there’s a ritual,” he says, his voice a low murmur. “And it doesn’t matter.” He moves closer, slow and deliberate, giving me time to back away if I want to. “Just choice. Intimacy. Trust.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s everything.” He stops just in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating from his skin, but not touching yet. “The bond forms when both people choose connection over isolation. When they’re willing to be completely vulnerable with each other.”
“Completely vulnerable.” I reach up and touch his chest, feeling the frantic, powerful beat of his heart under my palm. “You’re nervous.”
“Yes.”
“Good. Me too.”
His hand covers mine, pressing my palm more firmly against his chest as if to anchor both of us. “We can stop. Any time. If you change your mind...”
I cut him off with a kiss.
It isn’t gentle like before, or desperate like at the relay. It’s an unwavering, resolute action, a statement of fact. This is what I want. This is who I want.
He responds immediately, his surprise melting into a matching fervor.
One hand slides into my hair, tilting my head back, while the other finds my waist, pulling me closer until there’s no space between us—just heat and want and the overwhelming knowledge that this is right.
He answered my kiss, his own demanding and taking and giving all at once.
I open for him, and his tongue sweeps inside, the taste of him flooding my senses—something clean and alien and entirely him.
We break apart, both breathing hard, foreheads resting against each other.
“Still nervous?” I ask, my voice breathy.
“Terrified.” His thumb brushes along my jaw, a feather-light touch that travels down my throat. “And resolute. Both at once.”
“Yeah. Me too.”
My fingers, shaking slightly, find the fasteners on his jacket. He covers my hands with his, stilling them for a moment before taking over.
“Let me.”
With a single, fluid motion, he sheds the jacket and drops it on the chair.
He reaches for mine next, unfastening it slowly, his knuckles brushing against my collarbone as he pushes the fabric off my shoulders.
The touch sends a cascade of heat through me, and the cool air raises goosebumps on my skin.
Or maybe that’s just him—the way he’s looking at me, the way the patterns on his skin ripple with gold light in response to something neither of us is saying out loud.
His voice is low, thick with emotion. “You’re brilliant. Brilliant and brave, choosing this future with me when you could have walked away.”
“There are plenty of reasons to choose you.” I reach up to touch the markings at his temple.
A pulse of gold flickers across his skin under my fingertips, a heartbeat made visible.
Warm. Alive. “You came for me when I was trapped. You fought to stay in control when everything said you couldn’t.
You make terrible jokes about geological formations and explain flower mathematics like it’s romantic. ”
“That is romantic.”
“See? Terrible.” A laugh escapes me, and I find I can’t stop it.
He kisses me again, deeper this time, his hands mapping my body through the thin fabric of my shirt, learning the shape of me, the curve of my waist, the flare of my hips.
Each touch makes me want more, so my own hands begin to explore, sliding under his shirt to feel the heat of his skin, the smooth, hard muscles of his back, the way he tenses when my fingers trace the markings that disappear beneath his collar. Lower.
A low, hungry sound rumbles in his chest, and his hands find the hem of my shirt.
He pulls it over my head and tosses it aside.
His gaze travels down, lingering and appreciative as his markings shimmer.
“Incredible,” he says, his hands covering my breasts, thumbs brushing over the lace of my bra. “So incredible.”
I arch into his touch, needing more. My hands find his shirt and pull it up.
He helps, shedding it quickly until he’s bare from the waist up, and I can see the full, breathtaking extent of his markings—the way they branch and spread across his chest and shoulders before disappearing beneath the waistband of his pants.
“I want to trace every one of these,” I say, running my fingers along the patterns, feeling them warm under my touch. “Learn where they go.”
“Later,” he rasps. “Right now I need you.”
We move toward the bed, each step feeling deliberate and heavy.
My fingers tremble as I unfasten my boots, my movements clumsy with anticipation.
He sees me fumbling and offers a small, reassuring smile that does little to calm the frantic beating of my heart.
He pulls me down onto the mattress and follows, settling his weight over me.
“I plan to distract you more.”
And he does.
His mouth finds the hollow of my throat, the curve of my shoulder, the sensitive spot just below my ear that makes me gasp.
His hands slide behind me to unfasten my bra, tossing it aside before his mouth closes over my breast. In that moment, I stop thinking entirely.
There is only feeling: the heat of his mouth, the gentle scrape of teeth, the way his tongue circles and teases until I’m arching into him, saying his name, begging without words.
He moves to the other breast and gives it the same lavish attention while his hand slides down my stomach, pausing at the fastening of my pants. His eyes ask the question his mouth does not, a silent request for permission.
“Yes,” I breathe, my hand covering his, pressing it down. “Please. Yes.”
He unfastens them and slides them down my legs, taking my underwear with them until I’m bare beneath him. His gaze travels down my body, taking in every detail, and his markings flared with a brilliant gold.
“Your turn,” I manage, reaching for his pants.
He helps, shedding them quickly. He is magnificent, his arousal obvious and impressive, slightly intimidating in the way alien anatomy sometimes is. It’s different from human, but not wrong. It’s just him.
I pull him down for a deep kiss. “Touch me.”
His hand slides between my thighs, finding me wet and ready.
His fingers explore, learning what I like, what makes me gasp and I grip his shoulders and say his name like a prayer.
He slides one finger inside, then two, crooking them just right until pleasure spikes through me—sharp, demanding, building toward something I can already feel approaching.
“Not yet,” I manage. “I want you inside me when I come.”
He groans, removing his hand to position himself between my thighs. The blunt head of him presses against my entrance. Hot. Hard. Perfect. “Ready?”
“Yes.”
He pushes inside, slow and careful, giving me time to adjust to the stretch, the fullness, the absolutely perfect feeling of him filling me completely. We both freeze, breathing hard, just processing the connection.
“Okay?” he asks, his voice a strained whisper.
“More than okay.” I wrap my legs around his hips, pulling him deeper. “Move. Please, move.”
He does. He pulls back and pushes in, setting a rhythm that builds slowly, each thrust deeper, harder, more assured than the last. I move with him, meeting each push, finding the angle that makes pleasure spike through both of us, the rhythm that makes him say my name and makes me dig my nails into his shoulders.
The pleasure climbs, sharp and demanding. I can feel it in him too—not just see it in his face or hear it in the sounds he makes, but actually feel it through our growing connection, his pleasure mixing with mine until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.
“Aris,” he says—a warning, a question, a plea. “I’m close.”
“Me too. Don’t stop. Please don’t stop.”
He reaches between us, his thumb finding the bundle of nerves that makes me cry out. He circles it in time with his thrusts, building the pleasure higher and higher, until I’m teetering on the edge of something huge.
“Now,” he says, his voice a command. “Come with me now.”
The pleasure peaks, crashing over both of us at once. And in that moment, something slots into place.
The bond.
It snaps closed. Complete. Permanent. Irreversible. His memories brush against mine—not words, not images, but the emotional shape of them. A lifetime of restraint unraveling in a single, breathtaking second.
His emotions flood into me: fear, hope, fierce protectiveness, and so much love it almost hurts.
Mine flood into him: determination, wonder, trust, and a love that matches his, answers it, completes it.
Through our new link, I can feel his awe, and beneath it, a flare of defiance.
The voice of every instructor I ever had screams in my memory, I feel him think.
A chorus of disapproval. But it’s too late. And I don’t care.
We stay like that for a long time, breathing hard, clinging to each other as we process what just happened.
“Your thoughts...” I whisper. “They brush against mine, like wind through leaves.”
“You’re everywhere,” he says, his voice shaky with awe. “In my head. In my heart. Everywhere.”
I send a wave of calm through the bond, a deliberate test of this new connection.
He relaxes against me, a contented sigh escaping him. “That’s incredible.”
“Yeah. It is.”
We separate slowly, reluctantly. He rolls onto his back and pulls me against his side, my head fitting perfectly on his shoulder, my hand resting on his chest, feeling his heartbeat gradually slow to a steady rhythm.
His markings settle into a soft, steady gold, brighter than I’ve ever seen them, but calm. Content.
“This is strange,” I say into his shoulder.
“Good strange?”
“Yeah. Good strange.”
Through the bond, I can feel his amusement, his contentment, and the deep, unshakable rightness of the choice we’ve made.
On the nightstand, my datapad shows the colony’s power status at thirty-five percent and climbing steadily.
It’s just past midnight. Christmas Day. Fitting, for it to happen now—the day the lights came back on for the whole colony.
.. and for us. We did what we came to do.
“We should sleep,” Tynrax says, his fingers tracing lazy patterns on my shoulder. “Actually sleep. In an actual bed.”
“Revolutionary concept.”
“I’m full of good ideas.”
“That’s debatable.”
But I’m already drifting, the deep exhaustion finally catching up with me, feeling safer and warmer than I ever have before. Connected to someone in ways I never imagined possible. His emotions hum through the bond—peaceful, content.
Home.