Chapter 26
HRASK
The basin doesn’t quiet down when the last of them drops.
It shifts.
The air still churns thick with heat and the copper tang of blood, but the movement changes from active threat to something quieter, more watchful, like the rest of whatever nests here has registered the disruption and decided to wait instead of rush.
I track the edges of the rock formation with my weapon still raised, sweeping slow, controlled arcs, listening past the wind for anything that doesn’t belong.
“Stay behind me,” I mutter, not looking back at her yet.
“I’m not dead weight,” Jolie shoots back, her voice rough but steady enough to tell me she’s still upright.
“I didn’t say you were,” I reply, shifting my stance to cover the widest opening. “I said stay behind me until I decide we’re not about to get jumped again.”
There’s a scrape of movement behind me, fabric shifting against rock, and I catch the sound of her adjusting her footing.
“You always this bossy when you show up late?” she mutters.
“Only when I walk into a nest and find you bleeding all over it,” I shoot back, my tone dry even as I keep scanning.
The silence that follows isn’t empty. It’s loaded with everything we didn’t say before she walked away from me back there, everything that sat unresolved and sharp between us.
I push it down for now, because the terrain hasn’t cleared yet, and neither of us makes it out of here if I let that take priority.
“Give me a second,” I say, lowering my weapon just slightly as I shift position toward a narrower section of rock. “I want higher ground and fewer angles.”
I move along the edge of the basin, stepping over the carcass of one of the creatures without looking at it, my focus locked on structure instead of aftermath.
A cluster of jagged rock juts upward near the inner curve of the basin, forming a partial wall that blocks line of sight from one side while funneling approach from the other.
“That’ll do,” I mutter, climbing up the uneven surface, testing each hold before committing my weight.
“Where are you going?” Jolie calls, her voice sharper now.
“Making sure we don’t get surrounded again,” I reply, pulling myself up onto the ledge. “Stay where you are until I say otherwise.”
“I’m not—”
“Jolie,” I cut in, my voice dropping just enough to stop her mid-argument. “Work with me here.”
The silence stretches just long enough for me to know she’s still thinking about pushing it, and then I hear her exhale, rough and controlled.
“Fine,” she mutters. “You’ve got thirty seconds before I start ignoring you again.”
“Generous,” I say, scanning the perimeter from the higher vantage.
The wind moves differently up here, cutting across the ridge in sharper bursts, carrying scent farther and faster, and I use it, letting it tell me what’s still out there. Nothing immediate shifts toward us, no sudden movement, no tightening pattern like before, but I don’t trust the quiet.
“You always attract the worst possible situations,” I call down to her, more to keep her talking than anything else.
“Yeah, well,” she shoots back, “you always show up in the middle of them, so maybe we’re both the problem.”
“Just my luck,” I mutter, dropping back down from the ledge once I’m satisfied we’re not about to get rushed again.
I land lighter than I expect, knees bending to absorb the impact, and I turn toward her fully for the first time since I got here.
She looks worse.
Not just surface-level worse.
Her stance is off, her weight favoring one side more than she’s letting on, and the blood along her ribs has dried in uneven streaks that tell me it hasn’t stopped completely.
Her face is set, eyes sharp in that way she gets when she’s forcing herself to stay functional past the point she should’ve stopped.
“Now that we’re finally safe, or as safe as you can get in this desert…”
I rummage around inside of my pack and pull out a silver cylinder filled with a tiny amount of liquid.
“What’s that?” she asks suspiciously.
“Regnerative serum,” I reply. “It wil fix those ribs right up in mere seconds.”
“Oh, like a dermal regenerator?” she asks, eyes hopeful. ‘I’m functional but I’m in a lot of pain to be honest.”
I can’t help but wince, a white hot sympathy knife cutting through my belly.
“It’s better than a dermal regenerator, it will repair deep tissue as well,” I reply. “The Coalition cares more about its troops than the Alliance does, I suppose.”
“Less propaganda, more medical treatment,” she hisses through clenched teeth.
I stab the needle into her side, near the injury. Jolie gasps at the initial injection, but soon her eyes flutter closed and a relieved sigh goes through her.
“Thank you,” she says, touching her side gingerly, then harder when she realizes it’s almost completely healed. “That’s good stuff. What’s in it, nanintes?”
“Some, but the active ingredient is Grolgath plasma,” I reply.
“Grolgath…plasma?” she says, cocking an eyebrow.
“Indeed. Don’t tell me you object to having a little Grolgath inside of you.”
A grin flashes over her face.
“I wouldn’t say it’s just a little…”
Her grip lingers for a second before she lets go, and the contact stays longer than it should, something tightening in the space between us that has nothing to do with the situation.
The moment shifts before either of us names it.
It’s there in the way her grip tightens on my jacket—not for balance, not for stability, but for control. It’s there in the way she steps into me instead of away, closing the last fraction of distance like she’s done pretending it exists at all.
“You don’t get to disappear on me like that again,” she says, low, steady, but threaded with something that isn’t just anger anymore.
“Then don’t give me the option,” I answer, the words rougher than I intend, dragged out of somewhere deeper than strategy or control.
Her breath catches—not soft, not delicate, but sharp, like something inside her just snapped into alignment—and then she pulls me down to her.
The kiss hits hard.
Not tentative. Not exploratory. There’s nothing careful about it—her mouth crashes into mine with all the force she didn’t spend on words, all the heat she held back out here and refused to show.
It’s anger and relief and something more dangerous braided together, and I meet it without hesitation, one hand sliding to her back as she presses closer, demanding more.
“You’re impossible,” she breathes against my mouth, but it’s not a complaint. Not anymore.
“You keep saying that,” I murmur back, my voice lower now, dragged down by the way she’s gripping me like she’s not letting go this time.
“Because it’s true,” she shoots back, but the edge is gone, replaced by something hotter, sharper, something that coils low and tight between us.
The world narrows.
The wind still moves across the basin, the heat still clings to the rock, the scent of blood and dust still hangs in the air—but it all fades just enough to make this sharper, more immediate.
Every point of contact burns hotter, every breath feels heavier, like the air itself thickened just to hold us here.
“You shouldn’t be doing this right now,” I say, even as my hand tightens at her back, pulling her closer instead of pushing her away.
“Then stop me,” she challenges.
I don’t.
I don’t even try.
Instead, I take control of the kiss this time—slower, deeper, more deliberate—my grip shifting as she moves with me without hesitation. Her body fits against mine fully now, no guarded angles, no held-back tension, just heat and intent and the raw edge of everything we didn’t say before this.
Her hand slides up into my hair, fingers tightening, anchoring me there.
“Don’t you dare pull back now,” she breathes.
“Wasn’t planning to,” I answer.
The shift is immediate.
Everything that sat unresolved between us—every argument, every almost, every moment we stopped short—collapses into something physical, something that doesn’t leave room for distance or second-guessing.
My hand moves higher along her back, firm now, pulling her flush against me as she leans in harder, her breath uneven for reasons that have nothing to do with the fight anymore.
“Tell me to stop,” I say quietly, even as I don’t loosen my hold.
She lets out a breathless sound—half laugh, half something else entirely—and shakes her head once, her forehead brushing mine.
“Not a chance,” she says.
That’s all it takes.
The restraint snaps.
I pull her in harder, lifting her just enough that she reacts instantly, her arms locking around me, her body aligning with mine without hesitation. The movement draws a sharp inhale from her—this time not pain, just the suddenness of it—and the sound goes straight through me.
My cock throbs with urgent need. I love the taste of her skin. Her hands knead my chest as I hold her close.
“Got you,” I mutter, adjusting my grip as she settles against me.
“Yeah,” she breathes, her voice rough now, her head tipping back slightly as she exhales. “You do.”
The admission lands heavier than it should.
Her hand slides back to my neck, fingers tightening again, pulling me down, and the kiss turns deeper, slower, charged with something that isn’t just urgency anymore. It’s need—sharp, immediate, undeniable—threaded through with the awareness that we almost didn’t get here at all.
Our uniforms are stripped away in a frantic hustle. The sight of her naked body sends a bolt of ligthing through my brain down to the tip of my rod.
“By Ataxia, you are perfection,” I grow, sliding my scaled hand over the curve of her hip. Her skin is something I can never tire of feeling against me.
“Thanks,” she gasps between heavy pants. Her hand finds my cock and grips it, our eyes locking. She teases me with her pseudo dominant gaze. In response I grab her wrists and pin her down beneath me.
“Oh god, yes,” she moans, hooking one leg over the back of my calf, as if trying to draw me more on top of her. I oblige, getting closer until the head of my cock presses against her wide open, glistening pussy.
I slide slowliy inside of her, gasping at how good it feels, how right and natural. Her pussy spams as if trying to draw me in even deeper. I take her lips as I enter her fully. She moans into my mouth. I release her wrists and we roll about in a sea of molten embrace and volcanic kisses.
Worried that the sharp desert stones might pierce her lovelyi skin, I roll over until she’s on top. My hands slide up her sides and knead her soft breasts, claws tweaking her nipples much to her delight. Her face is crossed with a look of pleasure tempered by desire for more.
Our bodies move together, her hiups swirling like the sea at storm. I sit up until I can embrace her, my cock nestling deeper inside. I bury my face between her breasts, lips and tongue teasing and suckling.
“Oh god, oh god,” she groans. “I’m going to--going to--”
“Cum for me, my sweet,” I gasp through gritted teeth.
She throws her head back and her raw scream tears across the desert. A scream born neither of pain nor fear, but sheer ecstasy.
Every shift of contact sparks, every breath drags, every second stretches tighter as the world presses in at the edges, reminding me exactly where we are—and how little time we might actually have.
I keep thrusting, long, full strokes, struggling not to release. I stand up, her body soft and wonderful against me. Her legs wrap around my body and we come together, our mutual cries of passion joining the cacophony of night insects and the ever blowing wind.
“Jolie,” I gasp, strokign my palm down the back of her head. “My Jolie…”
“Yes, Hrask,” she pants, head buried in my neck. “Yes, I’m yours.”
I lower her slowly, deliberately, making sure she’s steady before I let go, my hands lingering just long enough to feel her shift back onto her own footing.
“You good enough to move?” I ask.
She huffs out a breath, something like a tired, half-wild laugh slipping through as she straightens.
“Define good,” she says. “My ribs only ache a little, but now my legs are like rubber. Not that I'm complaining.”
I grin, and we kiss once more, a long, lingering moment where everything vanishes but the two of us. It doesn't last, but for those brief moments I think I can see paradise.
“We need to go,” she says.
“I know.” I shake my head once, adjusting my grip on my weapon as I turn toward the edge of the basin. “Stay close.”
“Not going anywhere,” she shoots back.
.