Chapter 28
She was glad it was her.
The words hit him like a blow to the chest.
He had spent decades expecting nothing but duty and violence and eventual deterioration. And now she lay in his arms, looking at him with eyes that held no fear, and said she was glad.
He had needed this. Needed her. Without her, he would have fallen.
He did not have words for what that meant. His language did not contain them. The translator disc could not bridge the gap between what he felt and what he could express.
So he kissed her instead.
Not like before. Not the desperate, claiming hunger that had consumed them in the clearing. This was slower and gentler. A conversation conducted in touch rather than words.
She responded in kind. Her hands came up to frame his face, fingers tracing the ridges of his brow, the line of his jaw, the scars that mapped his history. Each touch sent warmth cascading through the bond: her curiosity, her tenderness, her desire building slowly beneath the surface.
"Let me," she said against his mouth. "I want to—"
She did not finish the sentence. She did not need to. Through the bond, he felt what she wanted, and the knowing of it made his entire body go taut with anticipation.
She pushed against his chest, and he let her roll him onto his back.
The jungle floor was soft beneath him, loam and leaves, and she rose above him like a vision from the fevered imaginings he had never allowed himself to have.
Morning light caught in her hair, limned her body in gold, and he could not look away.
"Stay still," she said. There was command in her voice.
Every instinct screamed to flip her beneath him, to pin her, to claim. The predator in his bones did not surrender. Did not yield. Did not allow itself to be vulnerable.
He stayed still. Because she had asked him to. Because he wanted to give her this—his submission, his trust, the parts of himself he had never offered anyone.
She explored him. Her hands moved over his chest, his shoulders, the dermal plating that covered his torso.
She traced the seams where armor met skin, found the places where sensation concentrated, learned the geography of his body with methodical attention.
Through the bond, he felt her fascination.
Not revulsion at what he was. Genuine curiosity. Genuine appreciation.
No one had ever touched him like this. No one had ever wanted to.
Her mouth followed her hands. She pressed kisses to his chest, his throat, the ridge of his collarbone.
Her tongue traced a scar that ran from his shoulder to his sternum, and the sensation made him shudder.
His claws extended involuntarily, gouging furrows in the earth beneath him as he fought the urge to grab her, to roll her beneath him, to take.
He stayed still. For her. Only for her.
"You're beautiful," she murmured against his skin. "Do you know that? All these scars, all this—" Her hand spread flat over his chest. "You're beautiful."
The words did not translate. Beauty was not a concept the Kha'Ruun applied to themselves. They were tools and weapons, function given form.
But she looked at him like he was more than that. Like he was worth more than his capacity for destruction.
The crack in his chest widened, and emotion flooded through that he had no name for.
She moved lower.
Her hand found him where he had emerged from his sheath, already hard, already aching, his body responding to her presence with an urgency that bordered on pain.
When her fingers wrapped around him, a sound tore from his throat that was not a word—feral and hungry, the sound of a thing caged too long.
"Show me," she said. "Show me what you like."
He could not think. Could not form coherent instructions. Instead, he let the bond open wider, let her feel what he felt, let his pleasure guide her movements. Her grip tightened, loosened, found a rhythm that made his vision blur.
Then her mouth was on him, and he stopped thinking entirely.
Wet heat and pressure. The impossible softness of her tongue tracing the ridges along his length.
Through the bond, he felt her enjoyment—she liked this, liked the taste of him, liked the power of reducing him to incoherent need.
The knowledge pushed him higher, and the predator in him roared against its restraints.
He gripped her shoulder to stop her before he lost control completely. His claws dimpled her skin, not breaking it, but close.
"Enough," he managed. The word came out guttural, barely language. "I need—"
"I know what you need."
She rose above him. Positioned herself. Sank down onto him in one long, slow movement that made them both gasp.
His control shattered.
His hands found her hips, grip bruising-tight, and the sound that ripped from his chest was pure animal. Not words. Not anything the translator could parse. Raw, savage satisfaction at being inside her, at being claimed by her, at being chosen.
She did not flinch. Through the bond, he felt her answering heat—she liked his ferocity, liked knowing she had broken him loose from the cage he kept locked away from everyone else.
The angle was different like this. She controlled the depth, the pace, the rhythm of their joining. He could only lie beneath her and watch as she took her pleasure from him, her head thrown back, her body moving in waves, her hands braced on his chest for leverage.
She was magnificent.
The thought was the same one he had felt in the clearing, watching her fight. But this was different. This was not violence. This was surrender—his surrender, willing and complete, giving himself over to her in a way he had never given himself to anyone.
His tail coiled around her thigh, pulling her down harder onto him with each movement. Not to restrain. To feel her everywhere he could. To anchor himself to her so completely that the abyss could never pull him back.
"Makrath." His name on her lips, broken and breathless. "I can feel—through the bond, I can feel—"
"Yes." He did not know what she was trying to say, but the answer was yes. To everything. To anything. To whatever she wanted from him, now and always.
Her pace increased. He matched her, thrusting up to meet her, and the feedback through the bond spiraled higher with each movement. Her pleasure and his, braided together, amplifying until he could not tell where he ended and she began.
She came first. He felt it through the bond before he felt it around him—the crest and crash of her orgasm rolling through their shared consciousness like a star igniting.
Then her body clenched around him, and his own release followed, torn from him with a roar that sent birds scattering from the canopy above.
She collapsed onto his chest. He caught her, wrapped his arms around her, held on like she was the only solid thing in a universe trying to tear him apart.
His tail coiled around her legs. His claws retracted so he could stroke her back without cutting her.
Through the bond, he felt her exhaustion, her satisfaction, her bone-deep certainty that this was right.
This. This was what he had been dying without.
He had been so close to falling. So close to becoming the thing that lived in the dark spaces of his mind.
For years he had felt himself slipping, the hunger for violence growing stronger than his ability to contain it.
The civilians at Central Station had been proof.
He had been failing, and he had known it, and he had seen nothing ahead but the inevitable end.
She had changed that. She had looked at the monster and decided he was worth saving.
He was not alone anymore.
The thought should have been simple. Should have been obvious. But he had been alone for so long—decades of purpose without connection, of service without intimacy—that the absence of that aloneness felt like being reborn.
"Stay," he said. The word came out raw, stripped of everything but need. "Stay with me."
She lifted her head. Looked at him with those eyes that held no fear. That had never held fear, not really, not even when she should have been terrified.
"I'm not going anywhere," she said. "That's kind of the point."
He did not understand the humor. But he understood the meaning. Through the bond, he felt her certainty, solid as stone. Her commitment. Her choice.
She had chosen him. Had pulled him back from the abyss and decided to keep him.
He held her tighter, buried his face in her hair, and let himself believe—for the first time in his long, violent existence—that he might deserve to be saved.