Chapter 10
TATEK
What just happened between us doesn’t feel like a breach.
It feels like returning.
Every breath I take still tastes of her. The warmth of her body presses into mine like a brand. My senses won’t stop cataloging her—skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat, scent, breath, sound.
I am not built for this.
But the bond doesn’t care how I was built.
My arms are still around her. She lies curled against my chest, one leg tangled with mine, her cheek resting just below my collarbone. Her fingers twitch in sleep, delicate and unconscious, like even in rest she’s reaching for something.
No one has ever touched me like this.
Not without caution.
Not without fear.
Not her.
Mara’s hand had found the skin behind my ear as we moved—her fingers brushing that place where the neural web connects most closely to the spinal root. A sacred contact among my people. Only ever allowed in ritual. In full bond.
She didn’t know.
Or maybe she did.
And she did it anyway.
I had shuddered beneath her touch, the reaction tearing through me like lightning down a copper line. Not from stimulation.
From recognition.
She touched me like she knew what I was. Not the soldier. Not the weapon. But the man.
When she whispered my name in the dark, it didn’t sound like a name anymore.
It sounded like ceremony.
She kissed me like a challenge.
I met her like a vow.
No part of me held back. No faltering. No panic.
I chose this.
I chose her.
The moment I felt her hand tremble in mine, the moment she said she wanted me, it was like something ancient inside me opened. Something I didn’t know I’d locked. And now I can’t close it again.
The sex was fire and storm. But not chaos.
It was worship.
I remember every second.
The way she arched under me, mouth open on a gasp as I filled her inch by inch, our bodies fitting together like we’d been carved for it. I’d held her hips, guiding her, grounding her, resisting the urge to lose control too fast. Her pussy was slick and hot and so damn tight I nearly saw stars.
And when she looked up at me—flushed and wild and beautiful—I felt the bond snap into place like a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding my whole life.
She is the first thing in the universe that has ever felt real.
My hands had memorized her, dragging across her ribs, cupping her breast, stroking the curve of her ass while she rode me like she was taking back her body, her power, her choice.
And when I flipped her beneath me, pinning her down, thrusting into her deep and slow—watching her mouth drop open as she moaned my name—I knew I’d never forget the shape of that sound.
She came around me hard, shuddering like the moment broke her open, and I followed on a growl I barely recognized as mine. Every pulse of release felt like giving something away I wasn’t meant to share.
And I’d do it again.
Over and over and over.
I shift slightly.
Her breath hitches and then settles again.
She’s still asleep. Deep, slow sleep. Trusting.
That’s the part I can’t process.
She trusts me.
Her hand curls against my chest, palm over my heart. She doesn’t pull away, even in rest. Her breathing syncs with mine like we’ve done this a hundred times, not just once. Like her body remembers me. Like her soul does too.
I tilt my head and look at her—really look.
Her hair is a mess of dark tangles on my shoulder. A faint sheen of sweat glistens along her neck. Her lashes twitch in REM sleep. Her lips are parted slightly, still swollen from where I kissed her too hard and too long and not nearly enough.
I want to kiss her again.
Wake her just to feel her mouth on mine.
But I don’t.
She needs the rest.
I’ll keep watch.
Like always.
I adjust the blanket—hers now, because I ran hot and she’d shivered slightly before she drifted off. I tuck it up over her back, trailing my fingers down her spine before pulling my hand away before it becomes a temptation again.
I let my head rest back against the wall.
For the first time in months—years—my body is relaxed.
But my mind…
My mind is burning.
This bond isn’t theoretical anymore.
It’s real.
It’s in my blood, my bones, my breath.
There’s no protocol for this.
No evacuation plan for wanting someone so badly you forget you were made to live without.
She stirs again. Shifts closer. Her thigh presses between mine, hand tightening just slightly like she senses the shift in my thoughts.
I close my eyes.
And for one fragile, impossible moment—I let myself believe we’ll make it.
That there’s a version of the future where we’re not hunted. Where I don’t have to run or hide or fight anyone just to keep her.
That maybe, just maybe, I can belong to something beyond duty.
That she could be that something.
I barely register the ping.
My comm is buried under my gear, somewhere in the pile we stripped from each other in our rush.
The chime is low, encrypted.
It shouldn’t break me.
But it does.
I reach out slowly, carefully, so I don’t wake her, and pull the comm device free.
The screen glows cold blue.
One message.
Alliance code.
Level 5 override.
“Prepare for extraction. She’s compromised.”
I stare at it.
My blood runs ice cold.
I read it again.
I don’t breathe.
Then I delete it.
No hesitation.
I wipe the transmission log, run a silent diagnostic for trace signatures, and kill the comm’s power core before it can ping again.
I sit there, numb, holding her in my arms, while my world shifts again beneath me.
Because it doesn’t matter who sent that message.
It doesn’t matter if it’s true.
She’s not compromised.
They are.
Because if they think I’ll leave her now, if they think this bond is something they can command me to sever, they have no idea what I’ve become.
What we’ve become.
I press my lips to her forehead.
She sighs in her sleep, leaning into the touch.
I swallow hard.
They won’t take her from me.
Not now.
Not ever.
Even if it costs me everything.