Chapter 14
DARUN
The shrine is a ghost, but it breathes.
Vines choke the stone columns in lazy spirals, curling around faded engravings of Ataxian glyphs that whisper old prayers to old gods no one remembers.
The roof’s half-collapsed, but the inner sanctum still stands—hollow and still and glowing faintly with the soft pulse of bioluminescent crystals embedded in the walls.
Blue, violet, green. Like the inside of some giant’s throat.
It’s the first time in days I can hear my heartbeat without it being drowned by gunfire.
Amy stands near the fountain, her fingers trailing through the thin trickle of water that still bubbles from the cracked mouth of an old stone head.
She leans in, splashes her face. Her hair drips, plastered in dark strands across her cheeks and neck, and the water beads there like tiny glass teeth.
I don’t look away. Can’t.
The shrine smells of wet stone and dying moss. It’s cool here. Quiet. Even the wind outside feels different—less like it wants to strip the skin off your bones, more like it’s just… wind.
I shift my weight against the wall, shoulder aching where the wound still throbs under fresh bandages. The pain is distant, more annoyance than threat now. My rifle’s still nearby, within reach, but I don’t feel the tension pulling at my spine the way it usually does.
She turns to me, dripping. “There’s enough trickle left to fill your canteen, if you’re not too proud to use holy water.”
“Holy water’s just water with delusions,” I grunt, but I step forward anyway.
She grins. “That’s sacrilegious.”
“Only if you believe in things.”
“Do you?”
I stop and look at her.
Then say, “Used to.”
She nods like she gets it. Maybe she does.
I kneel at the edge of the fountain, fill my canteen, then splash water over my face. It’s cold and clean and shocking. It brings me back to the now. When I stand, she’s still watching me.
“I’ve never seen you relax,” she says.
“I’m not.”
“You’re less tense.”
I smirk. “That’s not the same thing.”
She moves to sit on a ledge that might’ve been an altar once. Her legs dangle, boots scuffed, armor straps loose at her sides. Her face looks softer here. In the glow. Less sharp. Less war.
“We’re safe for the night,” she says.
I grunt. “As safe as anywhere can be with ghosts listening.”
She shrugs. “They can listen. I don’t mind.”
She pats the ledge next to her. I hesitate. Then I sit.
There’s a beat of silence. Then another.
Then she says, “You know… I never wanted this. The war. The press corps. The politics. I wanted to be on a stage.”
I glance at her. “You said that before.”
“Yeah. But I never told anyone why.”
She tucks her hair behind her ear, eyes somewhere in the distance. “It wasn’t about the spotlight. Not really. I just wanted to make people feel something. Music does that. When it’s good. When it hurts.”
I listen. I don’t interrupt. Her voice isn’t made for quiet, but she’s using it that way now. Like a weapon wrapped in silk.
“I thought the truth would be louder,” she says. “So I traded strings for stories. And then the stories turned to screams.”
She swallows. “And now I can’t tell where the war ends and I begin.”
My fingers curl around the edge of the stone. “I used to build things.”
She turns. “Yeah?”
“Machines. Starcraft. Got pretty good at it. Before conscription. Before it all burned.”
She watches me like she’s learning my face. “What’d you like about it?”
“The silence,” I say. “The way metal obeys when flesh won’t. You follow the plan, you get a result. No chaos. No screaming.”
She breathes out slow. “Gods, that sounds… peaceful.”
“Yeah,” I say. “It was.”
We fall into a silence that isn’t empty. It’s thick with things unsaid. With breath and pulse and all the electricity hanging in the air like a storm that hasn’t hit yet.
Her knee bumps mine. Just a little.
She doesn’t move it.
Neither do I.
Eventually, she whispers, “You think we get to be anything else after this?”
“What?”
“After the war. You think there’s a version of us that gets out and… doesn’t just survive? That builds ships. Or sings blues in smoke-filled bars?”
I shake my head. “I think that version dies here. So this one gets to live.”
She turns to face me fully. The blue light halos her. I can see the line of her collarbone through the torn seam of her jacket. I can see the blood on her knuckles from patching me up. She’s all sharp edges and soft eyes.
Then she leans in.
It’s not sudden. Not violent. Not the kind of kiss you write a war ballad about.
It’s quiet.
It’s a surrender.
Our mouths meet like they’ve been meaning to. Like the silence had already planned this for us. Her fingers dig into my collar. Mine curl around her ribs. We breathe against each other, and it feels like the first real breath in days.
It doesn’t stop there.
We find the only intact bedroll in the shrine. Lay it out beside the fountain, under the crystal glow. We don’t speak. Words would only tangle it. She pulls her jacket off with shaking fingers. I unstrap my chestplate, wincing. She touches my scarred side like it’s something sacred, not ruined.
My skin, red-scaled and ridged with vakutan markings, glints in the light. She drags her fingers down my chest, reverent. “You’re beautiful,” she murmurs, and it shatters something in me.
Her fingers are human. Soft. But her touch is firm, determined. She kisses my chest, my ribs, trailing fire in her wake.
“Darun…” she breathes, and that sound from her lips is enough to make my cock twitch.
She notices.
I can feel her eyes on me, the flush rising up her throat, and I growl low in my chest. “You sure?” I ask, barely holding back the growl clawing up my throat.
“Don’t make me ask twice,” she says, voice shaking but sure.
I grip her hips, claws careful not to break skin. She straddles me, her pussy already soaked as she grinds slowly against my scales. My cock, thick and ridged, aches with need.
I press my forehead to hers. “I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she whispers. “You couldn’t.”
My hands slide beneath her shirt, peeling it away. Her breasts spill into my palms and I groan, tongue darting out to trace the soft skin before sucking a nipple into my mouth. She gasps, arching into me, fingers clawing at my shoulders.
“Fuck, Darun,” she moans. “I want you inside me.”
That nearly undoes me.
I roll us over gently, my weight braced so I don’t crush her. I slide her pants down, kiss my way over every freckle on her thighs, every scar she’s earned. Her pussy glistens, swollen and aching for me.
“Beautiful,” I rumble.
“Then stop staring and fuck me,” she snaps, and gods, I love her fire.
I lower my head and lick a slow stripe up her slit. She jerks, cries out, fists tightening in my hair. I lap at her pussy, tongue thick and rough, savoring every whimper she makes. I curl a finger into her, then another, stretching her as her legs shake around my shoulders.
When I finally rise over her, my cock resting at her entrance, we’re both trembling.
She nods, wrapping her legs around my waist. “Please.”
I push in—slow, careful, my cock stretching her open inch by inch. Her gasp is guttural, and I still halfway through.
“Too much?”
“No,” she hisses. “More.”
I slide in the rest of the way, buried to the hilt. Her pussy is tight, wet, pulsing around me. We hold still, breathing each other in, hearts pounding like war drums.
Then I move.
Slow at first. Deep. Her moans rise with every thrust, her body arching to meet me. I brace her hips, angle deeper, and she cries out.
“Right there—gods—don’t stop.”
I don’t. I fuck her like I was made for this. Made for her. My scales rasp against her skin but she clings tighter, lips at my throat, murmuring my name like a prayer.
When I feel her tighten, trembling under me, I thrust harder.
She breaks.
Her orgasm hits with a cry, her pussy gripping me like a fist. I growl, losing rhythm, cock throbbing as I cum inside her, heat flooding her as my roar echoes through the shrine.
We collapse together, breathless.
I cradle her against my chest.
The shrine hums softly around us, glowing with the ache of gods long dead. I don’t feel alone.