Chapter 24
MARA
The room feels smaller now.
Not physically—nothing’s shifted in the walls or structure—but in the way places change when the people in them have been scraped out. Emptied. The air carries that taste: stale, metallic, too clean. Like it’s been sterilized of us.
Like we were never here.
But my body remembers. Every angle. Every breath.
I sink down into the corner where the light once pooled soft and gold during off-cycle hours, back against the wall where Tatek kissed me for the first time.
That kiss—cautious, reverent—like he was asking for permission just to believe in something again.
Now, all I have is this cold stretch of panel behind me and the echo of that moment, still stitched into my skin.
I let my fingers ghost across the floor. The dust clings to my fingertips. There’s a scuffed patch near the baseboard—where my boot had slammed once during an argument. He’d just raised a brow and said, “That your version of punctuation?”
I almost smile.
Almost.
But my throat tightens instead.
There’s no furniture left. No evidence we ever shared this space. The bedding’s gone. His spare boots. The worn-down training mat. Gone.
Stripped like we were contamination.
I draw my knees up, arms curling around them. The chill creeps through my jumpsuit, but I don’t move. Let it settle. Let it numb.
I close my eyes.
Try to hold on to the sound of his voice.
The door doesn’t hiss so much as breathe open.
Soft. Controlled.
I don’t look.
But I know.
I know it’s him.
I feel it in the static shift of the air, in the way my lungs expand—too full, like they’ve been waiting to exhale since I was taken.
Boots whisper against the floor.
He walks slow, deliberate. Each step a question.
I keep my head down. Don’t move. Don’t speak.
Because if I do, the moment might break.
His weight lowers beside me.
A soft exhale. His shoulder brushes mine, warm even through fabric.
His hand finds mine.
Not forceful. Not trembling.
Just... there.
Solid. Anchoring.
Like he’s saying, I’m here. I found you. You’re still mine.
My fingers tighten around his. Just enough to feel the bones under the skin. His knuckles are rough. There’s a nick across his thumb, fresh. I wonder if it’s from Serat. From the seal. From tearing the world open to get back to me.
He says nothing.
Doesn’t need to.
I turn my face toward him, eyes finding his.
He’s bruised. Blood shadows one temple. His jaw’s swollen, probably from a punch he didn’t duck fast enough.
But his eyes—
Steady.
Storm-dark and burning.
I study him like he’s a prayer I forgot the words to.
And then I speak.
Quiet. Raw.
“I didn’t know what a future looked like. Until you.”
His breath catches. Just a fraction.
Then he shifts.
His hand moves from mine to my face, fingers trailing across my cheekbone with a touch so gentle it unravels something deep in my chest. His palm cups my jaw, thumb brushing under my eye like he’s mapping every line, every shadow time carved into me.
Like I’m sacred.
He leans closer, forehead nearly touching mine.
The silence stretches. Not awkward. Not uncertain.
Just full.
Of everything we haven’t said. Everything we still don’t need to.
Then, voice low, steady:
“Then let’s build one.”
\His lips meet mine and it’s an eruption. Not chaos, or destruction, but an emotional font of pent up feelings exploding forth. There’s nothing left to prove, this is a celebration. A revelation.
There’s less clothes between us. Somehow we wind up in the bedroom. I don’t move.
I just sit there—naked but unshivering—back against the wall where everything started. My pulse is still thudding in my throat from the words we just said. The weight of them. The truth of them.
Tatek’s watching me like I’m light and he’s been in the dark too long.
He crosses the room in two steps. No hesitation now. His jacket hits the floor first, followed by his shirt, dragged up over his head in one fluid motion. The scars on his chest are stark in the low light, a brutal map of survival—but gods, he is beautiful.
My breath catches.
He kneels in front of me and cups my face like I’m something sacred. Something fragile. I lean into it, just slightly, and he groans—like that tiny movement broke him.
“I need you,” he says, voice hoarse.
I nod. “Then have me.”
The kiss he gives me isn’t soft.
It’s consuming.
His mouth crashes into mine, hot and rough, tongue sweeping deep as his hands slide down my sides. He doesn’t ask permission again. He knows it. Feels it. My thighs part for him instinctively, welcoming the weight of him between them.
“Tatek—”
“Shh.”
He shifts, pressing me down onto the floor. The warmth of him covers me. The hardness of him presses thick and urgent against my inner thigh. I reach for him, wrap my fingers around his cock, and he chokes on a curse.
“Fuck, Mara—”
“You’re shaking,” I whisper.
“So are you.”
His hand moves to my breast, thumb brushing over my nipple until it pebbles under his touch. He lowers his mouth, tongue circling, teasing, then sucking until I arch into him with a sound that could crack glass.
“Stars, you’re perfect,” he mutters against my skin.
I moan and guide him lower. My legs part wider, inviting. His hand finds me there—slick and swollen—and he groans, fingers sliding through my folds before slipping one inside.
“Already so wet for me,” he growls.
I gasp. “More.”
He obliges.
One finger becomes two. He fucks me with them slowly, deliberately, curling until my hips jerk and my breath goes ragged. I’m already spiraling. Already on fire.
“Need you,” I gasp. “Now.”
He rises above me, eyes wild, and lines himself up.
Then—he slides in.
Thick. Deep. Filling.
I cry out—sharp and broken.
He stills, buried to the hilt.
“Mara,” he breathes. “You feel like fucking heaven.”
“Move.”
He does.
Each thrust is slow, powerful, grinding me into the floor. My nails dig into his back, marking him. He buries his face in my neck, biting lightly as he picks up speed, each motion deeper, rougher, driving me closer to the edge.
“Mine,” he snarls.
“Yes,” I gasp.
“Say it.”
“I’m yours.”
He slams into me, again and again, until I shatter—legs locking, body convulsing around him with a cry that echoes off the walls.
He follows with a shout, pulsing deep inside me as he thrusts through it, milking every last wave.
When it’s done, he doesn’t pull away.
He shifts to the side, cradling me against his chest, still inside me. Neither of us speaks. Our breathing is the only sound, ragged and slowly syncing. I drag my fingers across his spine, feeling each muscle twitch in response—his body still strung tight with aftershocks.
His hand strokes down my thigh, then back up to the curve of my hip. His touch is reverent, almost hesitant now, like he’s still convincing himself this is real. I kiss his shoulder—soft, open-mouthed. He shivers.
“You okay?” he murmurs.
I nod, words still stuck somewhere in my chest.
His fingers comb through my hair, slow and soothing. “Did I hurt you?”
I laugh, breathless. “You wrecked me. In the best possible way.”
A slow smile spreads across his face. He shifts beneath me, pulling out with a groan that punches low through my gut. I’m sore. Already. But I don’t move. I don’t want distance.
Not yet.
Maybe not ever.
He cups my face again, thumb brushing my lower lip. “You were... everything.”
“So were you.”
We lie there a while longer. I trace his collarbone with one finger. He skims circles along my waist. The quiet is thick, but not heavy.
It’s peace.
And gods, I didn’t know how much I needed that.
Eventually, he shifts, rolling us gently so I’m under him again. He kisses my throat, my chest, lower. When his mouth finds me, I gasp—sensitive, overstimulated—but he’s patient. Tender. His tongue is slow and deliberate, working me open again until I’m panting and gripping his hair.
“Tatek—”
He hums against me, the vibration tightening every muscle.
When he slides two fingers inside, my back arches off the floor. I’m dripping, still wrecked from before, but my body responds like it’s never been touched.
He watches me come undone again, eyes burning with something more than lust.
Devotion.
When I come again, it’s with a cry torn from somewhere deep. He swallows it all. Rides the wave with me.
I’m shaking when he crawls back up and kisses me. He doesn’t ask for anything in return.
He doesn’t have to.
I reach down and take him in hand again, already hard. I stroke him slow, watching his face as his jaw clenches, breath hitches, control frays.
He groans, head dropping to my shoulder. “You’ll kill me.”
“You’ll die happy.”
He laughs, breathless.
And then we’re tangled again, bodies moving with instinct and trust. The second time is slower. Sweeter. Less about the fire and more about the burn after.
Afterward, he gathers me close, one hand tracing lazy patterns down my back.
I bury my face in his neck and whisper, “Don’t ever leave me.”
His voice rumbles in my ear. “Not possible.”
We fall asleep like that.
Still connected.
Still whole.
Later, we lie together. His heartbeat is steady beneath my cheek.
Slow. Anchored. The kind of rhythm that doesn’t race with fear or adrenaline. Just... is.
My fingers curl into the edge of his ribs, the skin there warm and smooth, rising and falling with every breath he takes.
One of his hands rests between my shoulder blades, broad and sure, stroking lazy, absent patterns down my spine.
He does it like he isn’t even aware of it.
Like his body just knows mine needs the contact to stay grounded.
We’re tangled together, limbs heavy, breath slower now. Not asleep. Not yet. Just... hovering on the edge of it.
Wrapped in the silence we built with our bodies.
There’s no mission in the air tonight.
No echoes of Obol code humming through the walls. No backchannel pings. No voices on the comms reminding us what we owe.
Just the sound of his breath in the dark and the occasional creak of the old paneling adjusting to our weight on the floor.
I shift slightly, just enough to draw in closer. His arm tightens instinctively, and the stubble on his jaw brushes against my temple as he dips his head to press a kiss to my hair.
I close my eyes and breathe him in.
Salt. Sweat. That faint trace of oil and iron that clings to every soldier long after they’ve put down the weapon.
But under it—him.
Tatek.
The scent of someone who has held me through storms and fire and memory loss and pain. Who came for me when he didn’t have to. Who keeps showing up, no matter how hard I push.
I press my lips to the center of his chest, right where his heart is.
“Still awake?” I whisper.
A soft hum rumbles against my cheek. “Wouldn’t dream of sleeping through this.”
I smile.
My voice is smaller when I speak again. “Feels like a dream.”
His hand pauses, then resumes its motion along my back. “It’s not.”
“How do you know?”
He shifts a little so he can look down at me. “Because you’re here. And I’ve never once been lucky enough to dream that right.”
My throat tightens.
I kiss his skin again, then lay my head back down.
There’s no light in the room. No glowstrips. No ambient systems hum. Just darkness and body heat and this small space we’ve claimed for ourselves in a universe that tried to write us out.
I let one of my legs slip between his.
He doesn’t say anything, just lets me get comfortable.
Lets me feel safe.
We stay like that for a long time.
Wrapped up in each other.
Finally, he breaks the silence.
“We’ll have to leave this place eventually.”
I nod, not lifting my head. “I know.”
“But not tonight.”
“No,” I whisper. “Not tonight.”
He exhales. “Good.”
I think I fall asleep like that—his breath in my hair, his fingers tracing peace into my spine.
And for the first time in a long, long time—
I don’t wake up afraid.