10. Gnash
GNASH
The Blood Hall detonates into noise the instant the words leave my mouth.
"My jalshagar."
The declaration crashes through the chamber harder than any threat I have delivered all year.
Warriors surge to their feet, hammering fists against tables hard enough to rattle cups and plates.
Several elders begin shouting blessings over one another so loudly that nobody can understand a single word.
The musicians abandon whatever ceremonial progression they had been attempting and simply join the uproar.
Firelight dances across armor, bone spurs, raised blades, and grinning faces while the sound rolls through the hall in wave after wave.
Most of it barely registers.
Ursa stands below the high table with her green eyes fixed on mine, and the bond is tearing through every wall I have spent a lifetime building.
Her emotions strike me with startling clarity.
I feel her shock, her determination, and her fear, but beneath all of them lies something stronger.
She refuses to surrender to any of those feelings, and that stubborn resilience reaches me as clearly as everything else.
The connection does not feel like obedience. It feels like awareness. Her emotions crash against mine while my own answer in kind, creating a dizzying exchange that leaves me briefly understanding why ancient Ishani records described jalshagar bonds as forces capable of surviving natural disasters.
Across the high table, Gobold looks like somebody has informed him the station is secretly alive.
"You have got to be kidding me."
Wilcox drags one hand down her face.
"No," she says. "Unfortunately, I do not think anybody is kidding."
Theryki remains seated, but the careful smile she wears no longer looks diplomatic. There is a sharpness to it now that makes several nearby officials visibly uneasy.
"Oh, this is fascinating."
Skahar points his staff at her.
"Do not say fascinating."
"Why not?"
"Because every time you say fascinating, governments catch fire."
Her smile widens while the old man groans in despair.
Under normal circumstances I would enjoy the exchange. At the moment, however, my attention remains fixed on the woman standing below me.
The bond surges again, carrying fragments of memory with it.
Smoke and fire rush through my mind. I see a terrified girl clutching a recording device while artillery tears apart her city.
The memory strikes me with enough force to make my chest ache.
Another follows immediately afterward. I glimpse a newsroom, feel Dawson's contempt, see a transport approaching Guyver Station, and sense countless hours spent researching me.
The realization that accompanies those memories lands strangely.
Most people investigate me because they want leverage, weakness, scandal, fear, or advantage. They study the legend, the threat, or the political figure. Ursa came looking for the truth behind all of it, and that distinction matters far more than I would have expected.
I descend from the high table.
The hall quiets gradually as I move. Reapers continue celebrating, but their attention sharpens. Every eye follows the distance closing between us.
When I stop in front of her, the bond surges once more.
Up close, I notice details that somehow escaped me before.
She smells faintly of spice from the feast mixed with station air and whatever soap she uses.
Her pulse races beneath the skin of her throat.
A thin cut remains visible on the back of her hand where the skitterling caught her earlier.
Firelight turns her hair into polished copper.
She looks overwhelmed, but she also looks stubborn enough to challenge a warship through sheer force of will. The combination should not be attractive. Unfortunately, it is.
"Ursa."
My voice sounds rough.
Her throat moves before she answers.
"Gnash."
The sound of my name in her voice sends another pulse through the bond.
The connection floods me with another wave of shared awareness.
I feel her struggling to remain calm, trying to stay upright beneath the weight of the moment, and grappling with the realization that her life has just changed forever.
I feel the pressure of every camera in the room because she feels it.
When I open my eyes again, she is still looking directly at me.
She is not looking at my armor, my title, or my reputation. She is looking at me, and suddenly the rest of the room feels irrelevant.
"Come with me."
The words emerge more quietly than I intended.
For a moment she says nothing. The bond carries impressions rather than language. I sense uncertainty, curiosity, alarm, attraction, and determination all tangled together while logic and emotion wage a fierce battle inside her mind.
I see the galaxy in her eyes. I can’t wait another moment. Without thought or preamble, I snatch her off the floor and throw her over my shoulder.
“Gnash!” she cries. “What are you doing?”
“Taking what’s mine,” I growl as she squirms about on my shoulder.
“Oh!” her voice is high and sharp, and not what I would consider displeased. “You--you can’t just haul me off like this!”
“I seem to be managing just fine.”
The security doors seal behind us, muting the roar of the feast into distant thunder.
Cool station air greets us in the corridor beyond. The deck hums beneath my boots while white utility lights replace the flickering firelight of the hall. Somewhere overhead, ventilation systems murmur through the walls.
By the time we reach my private quarters, the station feels strangely distant.
The guards outside the entrance stare openly. I ignore them and continue through the door.
Silence settles across the room once it seals behind us.
The hum of Guyver Station remains present beneath the floor, but compared to the feast it feels almost peaceful. I lower Ursa carefully until her boots touch the deck.
She doesn’t draw away from me, one hand resting on my chest, right over my thudding heart. Her eyes match my gaze spark for spark. I feel as if I have fallen into those gorgeous eyes, and will never find my way out again.
The viewport beyond my desk reveals docking lanes crowded with ships. Running lights drift through darkness while cargo traffic continues its endless cycle.
Outside this room, politics are already mutating into chaos. Inside it, neither of us seems eager to discuss governments.
“Gnash,” she says in a trembling voice. “What are you going to do?”
I can’t hold back any longer. The ripe red plumpness of her lips demands a taste. I crush her mouth with my kiss, one hand going to the back of her head, the other the small of her back.
Her lithe body stiffens against my own in surprise, but then melts into liquid submission. She kneads the muscle on my chest like an affectionate earth cat. Her moans are devoured by my kisses as I bask in the glory of her taste.
We come up for air, gazes meeting as we heave warring breaths into the cool air of my quarters. Her nails dig into my flesh, and I take that as my cue to ravish her neck with kisses and the occasional nibble.
Her guttural groan accompanies her body clasping itself against my own, unmindful of my spurs. The slight sound of fabric tearing ever so slightly sets something off in me. I thrust her away from me for a moment, long enough to grab the shoulders of her garment.
With one hard downward jerk, I rip the cloth right from her torso. Ursa’s mouth flies open, her eyes wide and shining. The beauty of her full, naked breasts is too much for me and I bury my face between them, exploring the sublime softness with lips, teeth, and tongue.
I tower over her, so I sink to one knee to make it easier to ravish her breasts.
Even kneeling I’m still a bit larger, and bend my neck and back to my visceral predations.
Her hands go to my scalp, fingers splayed between my spurs as she crushes me to her chest with an embrace both seeking pleasure and comfort.
Comfort. Something women have never sought in my arms. Something I find I have no qualms about granting. Yet my need, my primal desire, flares within me and I bodily tackle her onto my bed.
“Aaaah!” she cries as I tear her trousers away, shredding the cloth and leaving a red line of blood along her hip. I put my hands on her thighs and lock gazes with her.
“I must taste you.”
Her eyes squeeze shut until they are mere slits, and her whole body shudders. I thrust her legs apart and stare with open avarice at the soft folds of her body. The aroma of her aroused pussy hits my nostrils. My heart thuds like a war drum in my chest. I must have her, now.
I bury my face between her legs and dip my tongue into the groove between her quivering labia. Her taste fills my senses, fueling my desire like a thermonuclear reactor. I slip my tongue in deep, showing her that even that part of me has spurs in the best possible way.
“Gnash!” she cries, her hands twisting in my hair like she’s trying to pull it out. “I’m--god!”
I suckle on her shivering clit, growling like a dining jungle predator as her juices spill down my throat. Ursa’s sharp cry splits the air, and her body jerks and flops about beneath my own like she’s being inundated with lighting.
But I don’t let go, I don’t let up. I continue to lick, to taste, to suck the rose petals of her succulent skin. She can’t get away, not with my hands holding her hips firmly in check.
At last she unleashes a deluge of her sweet juice right into my face. I drink heartily, a warmth spreading in my chest as I watch her writhe in pleasure. I’ve never felt such warmth before after making a woman die a little death. Only a smug sense of self satisfaction. This is…different.
And so much more satisfying.
“Gnash,” she gasps, naked breasts glistening with beads of perspiration. “Good god, Gnash, I…should I say thanks, I needed that?”
She laughs, with an edge of anxiety. I can see it in her eyes. She wonders if I will use and discard her like all the others.
“It is I who should thank you, my jalshagar,” I rumble. “For finding me, and showing me that I’d only been seeing half the galaxy.”
Her lovely face twists into an almost pained expression.
“That was…sweet,” she says, incredulous at the words coming out of her own mouth. “I have to admit that this is not how I expected Reaper Sex to be.”
“Oh?” I ask, still tasting and smelling her aroma. I’d been doused with it after all. “What were you expecting?”
“Less you going down on me, more whips and chains, I guess,” she replies with a soft laugh. “Not that I’m complaining. You’ve been surprising me from the very start.”
Ursa glances around the room.
"This is where the terrifying warlord lives?"
A desk occupies one corner. Weapons line a wall beside shelves of books. The cracked ceramic cup still sits exactly where I left it.
"My reputation suffers from accuracy problems."
Her gaze lands on the cup.
"That thing looks tragic."
"It survived my first command."
"It looks like it lost."
"It won."
She laughs, and the sound fills the room.
Outside, Guyver Station continues turning through the Badlands. Inside, the bond feels calmer than before. It has not weakened. It simply feels settled, as though it has finally stopped demanding attention and begun listening alongside us.
Ursa tilts her head back.
"You know something?"
"What?"
"I still need that interview."
I laugh, and the sound echoes softly through the room.
Of all the things she could have said, that somehow feels the most like her.
"You crossed the Badlands, survived the Blood Feast, challenged me in front of half the sector, and became my jalshagar."
"Correct."
"You are relentless."
"I've been told that."
I slide an arm around her shoulders.
"You can have the interview."
Her eyes brighten.
"Really?"
"You can ask me anything."
The journalist inside her immediately awakens. I can practically see the questions forming behind her eyes.
"Anything?"
"Anything."
She smiles.
The expression settles somewhere deep inside me.
The future does not feel like something I must carry alone. Whatever chaos waits beyond this room can wait until tomorrow.
Tonight she stays, and for reasons I am only beginning to understand, that feels like the most important victory of my life.