Chapter 14 Tur
TUR
The supply corridor is barely wide enough for two people to pass without brushing shoulders, a low-ceilinged ferrocrete throat that smells like damp metal, industrial cleaner, and old heat baked into the walls by decades of unregulated power conduits humming behind them.
We’re halfway through it when my implant screams.
Not a polite warning.
Not a soft threat ping.
A full, predatory spike that hits my nervous system like a blade shoved under my ribs.
“Down,” I bark, already turning toward Kimberly.
The first shot cracks past where her head was half a second ago and blows a fist-sized crater into the wall behind us, pulverized concrete spraying into the air like shrapnel snow.
She drops hard.
I pivot on instinct and take the plasma round meant for her straight through my left shoulder.
The impact detonates white-hot.
It’s not pain at first.
It’s absence.
A dead, empty shock where my arm used to be attached to my body, followed by a delayed tidal wave of agony so intense my vision collapses into a red tunnel.
I snarl.
Not human.
Not controlled.
The jalshagar surges like a star going supernova inside my rib cage.
Kill.
Annihilate.
Erase.
My weapon is in my hand before I consciously register drawing it.
The second attacker steps into view at the far end of the corridor.
I put a round through his face.
The third one barely has time to scream.
Everything narrows into heat and recoil and bone-deep violence, my body moving faster than my mind, my mind trying desperately to catch up with the feral thing I keep in a cage and just lost hold of.
The flashbang detonates behind us.
The blast wave slams into my back and throws me into the wall hard enough to crack tile.
My ears ring.
My shoulder burns.
My vision stutters.
I kill the fourth one without remembering how.
Then there is silence.
Except for my breathing.
Except for my pulse.
Except for the animal roar in my skull that does not want to stop.
“Tur.”
Her voice cuts through the red.
“Tur.”
Hands grab my face.
Warm.
Human.
Shaking.
“Look at me,” Kimberly says fiercely, her palms pressed flat against my cheeks, thumbs digging into my jaw hard enough to hurt. “Stay with me. Choose me.”
I try to look at her.
I can’t.
My vision keeps sliding off her face like oil on glass.
“I need you here,” she says, her voice breaking and not breaking at the same time. “Not out there. Not in whatever hell they built inside your head. Here. With me.”
My knees hit the floor.
I don’t remember falling.
My hands are shaking so hard my weapon clatters out of my grip and skids down the corridor.
“Tur,” she says again, softer now but no less unyielding. “Breathe with me.”
I drag air into my lungs.
It hurts.
Everything hurts.
“Good,” she murmurs. “Again.”
I breathe.
Again.
Again.
The red recedes.
The jalshagar coils back down out of my throat and spine and jaw, not gone, not asleep, just… contained.
My vision clears enough to lock onto her eyes.
Dark.
Bright.
Terrified.
Unflinching.
“Don’t go away from me like that,” she whispers.
“I almost killed everyone,” I rasp.
“You didn’t,” she snaps. “You stopped. That matters.”
My hands are still trembling.
My shoulder is bleeding badly.
The corridor stinks of burned flesh and ozone and fear.
“Are you hit,” I demand, my voice suddenly rough with something that isn’t rage.
She shakes her head.
“No. You took it for me.”
“Shit.”
She swallows hard.
“Tur,” she says quietly. “We need to talk right now. Out loud. With actual words.”
I nod once.
Sharp.
Barely contained.
“Consent,” she says, her forehead still pressed to mine. “I am choosing closeness with you right now. Not because I’m scared. Not because your instincts are losing their shit. Because I want to. Because it helps you stay here. Do you understand that.”
“Yes,” I breathe.
“I need to hear you say you’re choosing it too,” she continues, her voice shaking now. “Not because the bond is screaming. Not because you’re in kill mode. Because you want me here.”
My throat tightens painfully.
“I choose you,” I say hoarsely. “I want you here. With me. Like this.”
“Good,” she whispers. “Then stay.”
I press my forehead harder against hers.
The jalshagar does something strange.
It doesn’t spike.
It doesn’t roar.
It… settles.
Floods my system with heat and clarity instead of annihilation.
My breathing evens out.
My hands stop shaking.
“I’ve got you,” she murmurs. “You’re not alone in this.”
We don’t move for a long moment.
Just breathe.
Just exist.
Then I force myself to stand, my shoulder screaming in protest.
“We need to get out of here,” I say.
She nods.
We limp back through three corridors and two maintenance ladders, bloodied and half-deaf and alive.
The safehouse bathroom smells like antiseptic and iron and the cheap industrial soap I buy in bulk because it doesn’t leave a scent trail.
I sit on the closed toilet lid while Kimberly cleans my wound with hands that are steadier than mine have ever been.
“You should be unconscious right now,” she mutters.
“I’m difficult to kill.”
“I’m going to add that to your dating profile.”
I huff a weak laugh.
She tapes a compression seal over the burn.
My arm is numb and on fire at the same time.
She steps back.
“You okay,” I ask quietly.
She hesitates.
Then shakes her head.
“No.”
I nod.
“Me neither.”
The silence between us feels heavy and strange and charged.
She doesn’t leave.
Neither do I.
“I’m going to say something,” she says quietly. “And you’re not allowed to freak out.”
I snort.
“That’s a deeply irresponsible thing to promise.”
She steps closer.
Slow.
Deliberate.
“I’m choosing you again,” she says. “Not because of the bond. Not because of the ambush. Because I want you.”
My pulse jumps.
Hard.
“Kimberly—”
“Do you want me,” she interrupts. “Right now. Like this. No panic. No instinct. No obligation.”
I swallow.
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I want you,” I whisper.
She exhales shakily and steps into my space.
We don’t rush.
We don’t collide.
She lifts her hands to my chest and feels my heartbeat under her palms.
“You’re shaking again,” she murmurs.
“Not from fear.”
Her mouth curves faintly.
“Good.”
She kisses me.
Slow.
Hot.
Deliberate.
Not like a prize.
Not like a goddamn coping mechanism.
Like a woman choosing a man who almost broke the world for her and didn’t.
My hands come up to her waist, careful, reverent, my palms hot against the curve of her hips.
She makes a small sound into my mouth that goes straight to my cock.
I groan.
“Too much,” I murmur.
She shakes her head.
“Not enough.”
She straddles my lap, my injured shoulder forgotten between us, my cock already hard and aching against her inner thigh.
“Tell me to stop,” I say.
“I’m not going to,” she whispers.
“Tell me if you change your mind.”
“I won’t.”
She grinds down once, slow and deliberate.
“Jesus,” I breathe.
She kisses my jaw.
My throat.
My pulse.
I undo her jacket.
My hands shake.
Her shirt comes off.
Her bra follows.
My breath leaves my body in one broken sound.
“Fuck,” I whisper.
She laughs softly.
“Still got it.”
I touch her breasts like they’re sacred.
Because they are.
She arches into it, gasping.
“Oh—Tur—”
Her hands go to my belt.
My cock is heavy and throbbing and leaking.
She frees me.
Her eyes drop.
She inhales sharply.
“Stars,” she murmurs. “You’re big.”
A weak huff of laughter leaves me.
“I have been told.”
She guides me to her entrance.
Pauses.
Looks up at me.
“Still choosing me,” she asks.
“Yes.”
“Still choosing you,” she replies.
Then she sinks down onto my cock.
Slow.
Deep.
I groan like it physically hurts.
She stretches around me, wet and hot and impossibly tight.
“Holy shit,” she gasps.
I still.
Forehead to hers.
“Too much.”
“No,” she pants. “Perfect. Move.”
I do.
Slow.
Controlled.
Devastating.
She cries out.
Clutches my shoulders.
“Tur—oh my god—”
Her pussy clenches around me like it’s learned my shape already.
I thrust deeper.
Harder.
My injured shoulder screams.
I don’t care.
“You feel incredible,” I growl. “So warm. So tight.”
She laughs breathlessly.
“That’s one way to flatter a girl.”
“I’m not flattering you,” I snap. “I’m being honest.”
She wraps her legs around my waist.
Pulls me in deeper.
“Don’t stop.”
“I wasn’t planning to.”
The rhythm builds.
Our breathing goes ragged.
The bathroom fills with the sounds of skin on skin and broken moans and the wet slide of my cock inside her.
“I’m close,” she gasps.
“Come for me,” I growl.
She shatters around me with a sob, her pussy clenching so hard it almost pulls me over the edge with her.
I thrust deep and come with a broken snarl, spilling into her, my forehead dropping to her shoulder.
We stay like that.
Tangled.
Trembling.
Eventually she slides off my lap and leans into my chest.