Chapter 22
AYLA
The first explosion shakes the floor beneath my feet.
I jolt upright from the velvet armchair near the nursery, heart hammering. Dust rains from the ceiling. A low boom echoes across the estate like a thunderclap wrapped in menace.
Then another. And another.
I stumble to the window and rip the curtains aside.
The sky is on fire.
A sleek black starfighter streaks across the estate, trailing smoke and fire in its wake. The western turret collapses in a heap of molten steel and stone. Pulse blasts slice through the air, slicing hedgerows and solar panels like butter.
And in my chest—something roars.
It’s not panic.
It’s recognition.
“Kallus,” I whisper. My voice breaks on his name.
I don’t think. I run.
Down the corridor, past stunned staff and screaming guards, past Frederick’s office where he shouts into comms that no one’s answering. Good.
The marble stairs blur. My breath hitches. My pulse races.
I fling open the grand double doors.
Smoke pours in. Heat singes my lashes. The front lawn is scorched, cratered, covered in broken weapons and blood. The scent hits me—iron and fire and the sharp ozone tang of a Reaper battle call.
And there—cutting through the smoke like a myth made flesh—is Kallus.
My mate.
His armor glows with the heat of impact. His shoulders rise and fall with the rhythm of a predator mid-hunt. A blade longer than my arm drips with human blood. His fangs gleam. His eyes burn.
“Kallus!” I scream.
He hears me instantly.
His head whips toward me. The rage melts from his face, replaced with something far more dangerous—pure, unfiltered longing.
“Ayla,” he growls.
And then I’m running again.
Toward him. Through smoke, over debris, past a dying guard still clutching his stomach.
I don’t care.
I launch myself into his arms and he catches me with a snarl that’s almost a sob.
“You’re here,” I breathe, burying my face in his neck. “You’re really here.”
“I told you,” he growls, holding me so tightly it hurts. “You are mine. Always.”
His scent overwhelms me—ash and blood and Kallus. My arms wrap around him tighter, like if I let go I’ll wake up and find it was all a dream.
“I never stopped waiting,” I say.
“I never stopped coming.”
Then he sets me down gently, pushes me behind him with one powerful arm, and steps forward.
He raises his hands.
And the estate—my prison, my cage, the place where they tried to make me less than I am—erupts into flame.
The fire is unnatural.
It moves like a living thing, hungry and precise. Pillars crumble. Roofs collapse. The central tower splits down the middle as if cleaved by a god’s hand.
Guards scatter, screaming. Drones fall from the sky, their circuits sizzling. Even the reinforced security gates warp and melt as if the air itself rebels against their presence.
Kallus’s back is straight. His shoulders square.
His voice is thunder:
“No more cages.”
He extends his blade, and it ignites—not with fire, but with light pulled from the stars themselves. A firestorm rises around him, concentric rings of energy pulsing outward like a detonation.
I watch in awe as the estate—the symbol of everything they used to control me—collapses in upon itself.
He doesn’t look back.
Not until the last wall falls.
Only then does he turn to me.
Only then does he smile.
“Ayla,” he murmurs, voice softer now. “I’m taking you home.”
I can’t breathe. Can’t move. All I can do is nod.
Because I am already home.
I don’t look back. Not once. Not even when the estate—my cage—collapses into glowing rubble behind us.
Kallus guides the starfighter with practiced grace, one hand on the controls, the other braced near me, as if still half-expecting someone to try and snatch me away. The cockpit is quiet save for the hum of the engines and the soft crackle of atmospheric drag.
We don’t speak.
Words are fragile things now. Brittle. Too easy to break under the weight of everything we’ve survived. So we sit in silence, steeped in it, breathing it like air.
I can feel him watching me though. In the reflection of the cracked console, in the twitch of his jaw, the way his body never quite relaxes. He’s not letting his guard down until we’re light-years from Earth.
And honestly? I don’t blame him.
The ship groans, rattling slightly as we break through the upper atmosphere. The clouds clear. The stars open their arms.
Only then does he finally speak.
“Medbay.”
I nod, my throat tight. My legs barely work, but I push off the seat and follow him down the corridor. The lights flicker. The ship is old, wounded—just like us.
The medbay’s small. Clean, utilitarian. A Reaper’s design. Everything is functional, but nothing soft. Except him.
He turns to face me, and for a heartbeat, I see something like hesitation flicker in his crimson eyes.
“Sit,” he says softly.
I do.
His hands are calloused, warm, careful. He scans me with a med-tool, murmuring low curses when it beeps red in certain spots. Bruised ribs. Fractured wrist. Faded welts across my back.
He doesn’t say a word. Just breathes—heavy, rough, like the air itself scorches his lungs.
Then he sees the bruises along my thigh.
He freezes.
“Kallus?” I whisper, but he doesn’t answer. His hands tighten into fists at his sides.
His voice is low. Deadly. “Who.”
I shake my head. “It doesn’t matter now.”
His jaw flexes. His fangs glint. His whole body shakes.
“It matters to me.”
I swallow hard. Tears prick my eyes. “They kept me from you. Frederick. My father. The IHC. They said you were dead.”
His eyes snap to mine.
“I was.”
I gasp.
“But I clawed my way out,” he growls. “For you.”
The tears spill then, hot and fast, and I cover my face with my hands. “I thought I was going crazy. Every night, I dreamed you were alive. I heard your voice in my sleep. I felt you—”
“I was there,” he says, softer now. “I heard you.”
My breath catches.
He kneels in front of me, cupping my face with both hands. “When I was dying, floating in the void... I heard your voice. That’s what pulled me back.”
I press my forehead to his. “You saved me.”
“No,” he whispers. “You saved me first.”
We stay like that, wrapped in each other, until the stars cradle us once more.
It happens in the quiet between stars.
After all the fire and fury, it’s this—just the two of us in the medbay’s hush, the soft whir of old machines, and the steady thump of his heart—that shatters me.
I reach for him first.
His eyes widen for a second, surprise flickering across that lethal, beautiful face. But then I’m kissing him—hard, desperate, like air’s been rationed and he’s the last breath I’ll ever take. His mouth opens beneath mine, answering with equal hunger.
There’s nothing gentle about it.
The kiss is feral, molten, full of teeth and growls. My fingers tangle in his long white hair, thick and wild as a storm. His claws rake down my back, slicing my shirt like tissue. His armor clatters to the floor, piece by piece, forgotten. We don’t need words. Not now.
He reaches for rope.
“No,” I pant, straddling him on the narrow cot, pressing my thighs around his waist. “Not this time. I need to move. I need to feel everything.”
His eyes darken, pupils flaring wide. “As you wish.”
Then I ride him like I’m chasing vengeance.
His cock slides into me in one hard thrust, and I scream—raw, exultant.
The width of him, the ridged bone spurs along the shaft—every thrust rips pleasure from me like a holy thing.
My pussy clenches, desperate to hold all of him.
I gasp as the spurs drag along my inner walls, lighting me up from the inside.
“Kallus—” I cry out, nails digging into his shoulders.
His hands clamp around my hips, lifting me and slamming me down again, forcing me to take every inch. “That’s it,” he growls. “Take it all. You were made for this. For me.”
“Yes,” I moan, tossing my head back. “Always.”
The cot rocks beneath us, squealing against the metal floor. I ride him hard, wild, sweat dripping between my breasts, hair flying. He’s a beast under me—growling, panting, eyes glowing like twin stars—but he lets me lead. He lets me take what I need.
My orgasm slams into me like a comet. I scream his name as I convulse around his cock, riding him through the aftershocks.
But I’m not done.
I lean down, panting, licking the salt off his throat, and whisper, “Again.”
He flips me before I finish the word, pins me beneath him. “Greedy girl.”
His cock slides back in, deeper now, hitting a spot that makes me sob.
His pace is brutal. Rhythmic. Perfect.
“Mine,” he snarls against my neck.
“Yours,” I gasp. “Yours.”
The spurs drive me crazy. Each drag, each push, each pulse sends me higher. I claw at his back, his waist, his ass—anything to anchor myself as he wrecks me.
We fuck like the galaxy is ending. Like we’re burning in the center of a collapsing star. His cock pounds into me until I can’t breathe, until the next orgasm crashes over me like a tsunami.
“Gonna come inside you,” he growls.
“Do it,” I whisper. “Breed me. Fill me. Fuck—”
He slams in, buries deep, and groans—long, low, and primal—as he spills inside me, cock jerking with every pulse. I feel it flood me, feel the heat fill my womb. I sob through it, clutching him tighter.
For a long moment, we just lie there.
Our breaths tangled. Our bodies marked with love and war.
Then I lift my head.
“Kallus,” I whisper, voice hoarse. “You have a daughter.”
He stiffens.
“They took her,” I say. “They hid her from you. From me. She’s ours, and we have to get her back.”
He goes deathly still. His jaw tightens. For a second, I wonder if I’ve broken him.
Then—
A slow smile.
It starts in his eyes. A wicked gleam. Then it spreads to his mouth, a curl of fangs and fury, equal parts happiness and sadistic glee.
“They dared,” he growls. “They dared take what is mine.”
He sits up, pulls me into his lap, his voice vibrating through me like a battle drum.
“Nothing will stop us,” he says, “from taking her back.”
And I believe him.
Because I’ve seen what happens when you try to cage a god.