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The recycler wheezed like it was on its last breath, which wasn’t far from the truth.

Three days of operating beyond capacity had worn down its filtration system to dangerous levels.

I crouched beside the humming machine, tools spread at my feet in a half-circle of organized chaos, while Jas leaned over my shoulder with all the patience of a sand viper. Which was to say: none.

“Should it be sparking like that?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip. Distracting.

“It always sparks,” I lied. It didn’t. But she didn’t need more reasons to doubt the integrity of this shelter.

I adjusted a cracked intake valve, then used a plasma solder to fuse the breach. The faint scent of ozone hissed into the air, followed by a blessed quiet.

It worked.

“That’s not ominous at all,” she muttered, folding her arms. “You sure this thing won’t melt us in our sleep?”

“Seventy percent.”

“Comforting.”

I stood, wiping grit off my hands as I turned to face her—and promptly forgot every thought I’d just had.

The wind had picked up, lifting the edge of her tunic and carrying her scent directly to me. Soft, electric, unmistakably hers.

My kassari.

I’d been trying to ignore the bond pulling tight between us—tried to treat her like an unexpected assignment. A mission, not a mate.

But every moment with her made that lie harder to live in.

I’d slept maybe two hours in the past three days.

Deliberately. Sleeping meant dreaming, and dreaming meant Unity, and Unity meant sharing that charged mental space where my defenses crumbled and my nature—my true nature—emerged in all its feral glory.

The memory of her writhing beneath me, begging me to claim her, to mark her, to make her mine. .. it was torture.

Beautiful, exquisite torture.

So I fixed things instead. The recycler. The perimeter sensors. The communications array. Anything to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied. Anything to exhaust my body enough that when sleep finally claimed me, it would be too deep for dreams.

It hadn’t worked yet.

“You look terrible,” she said, reaching up to brush something from my face. Her fingers grazed my cheek, and I flinched like she’d burned me. “When’s the last time you slept?”

“Reapers require minimal rest.”

She gave me a look that said she wasn’t buying it. “Uh-huh. And I’m the Queen of England.”

I blinked, momentarily confused. “You are not royalty.”

That earned me a laugh—a quick, bright sound that sent warmth spiraling through my chest. I cataloged it instantly, adding it to my growing collection of her reactions. My tail flicked with pleasure before I could stop it.

“It’s an expression, Fuzzball.” She moved past me to check the now-silent recycler. “It means I don’t believe you.”

The nickname should have irritated me. No one in the Legion would dare address a Reaper with such familiarity. But from her lips, it sounded like an endearment. Like something intimate. Private.

Mine.

I shook my head, forcing my thoughts back to the task at hand. “The communications array still needs calibration,” I said, keeping my voice level. “I’ll need to check the exterior components.”

“Again? You were just out there three hours ago.”

“The sand shifts. Components become exposed. Buried.”

It wasn’t a complete lie. The sand did shift. But I needed distance. Space to breathe air that wasn’t saturated with her scent. Time to reinforce my crumbling resolve.

“I could help,” she offered, and the genuine willingness in her voice nearly broke me. “I’m good with my hands.”

Don’t think about her hands. Don’t think about her hands on you. Don’t think about her hands on?—

“You should rest,” I managed, my voice rougher than intended. “Conserve energy.”

“For what? More sitting around while you pretend I don’t exist?” Her frustration was palpable, her scent sharpening with it. “I’m going stir-crazy in here, Rhaekar.”

The way she said my name—slightly accented, with a soft roll of the ‘r’—sent heat straight to my core. It took every ounce of my training not to react visibly.

Instead, I moved to the equipment locker, retrieving my tools with mechanical precision. “There is the sand-pulse rifle,” I said, nodding toward the weapon I’d shown her how to use yesterday. “You can practice disassembly and cleaning.”

Her eyes lit up at the suggestion. Despite everything, I found myself smiling internally at her eagerness to learn, to adapt, to survive.

I’d shown her how to wield the sand-pulse rifle. She’d insisted. “If something comes after me, I’m not going down with just sass and sarcasm.” Her words. I’d admired her grip, her stance, the way she absorbed information like a sponge. Terrans were fragile, yes. But Jas was not weak.

She’d been a natural with the weapon—quicker to adapt than some Legion recruits I’d trained.

Her smaller hands had struggled with the trigger mechanism, designed for larger Rodinian fingers, but she’d compensated with determination.

And when she’d hit the target dead center on her third attempt, the flash of triumph in her eyes had made my chest swell with pride.

Pride. In a human female I’d known for less than a week. Who happened to be my cosmic fate mate. Who had no idea what that meant.

This situation was beyond salvageable.

“Fine,” she said, pulling me back to the present. “I’ll clean the gun. You go play in the sand. But when you come back, we’re having a real conversation.”

I tilted my head, considering her. “About?”

“About why you keep avoiding me. About those dreams we shared. About whatever a ‘kassari’ is.” She stepped closer, invading my space with a boldness that both impressed and alarmed me. “About why you look at me like you want to devour me, then act like I’m radioactive waste.”

My pulse quickened, hammering against my ribs. She remembered the word—kassari. Of course she did. The Unity bond was strong between us, stronger than any I’d heard described. And now she wanted answers I wasn’t sure I could give.

How did you explain to a human that fate had chosen her for a mate? That on my world, what we’d shared was sacred? That every instinct in my body screamed to claim her, mark her, protect her?

That I was terrified she would reject me once she understood what it meant?

“We will discuss it,” I conceded, stepping around her toward the door. “When I return.”

“Promise?”

The word hung between us, weighted with meaning beyond its simple syllables. A promise, to a Rodinian, was binding. Sacred. Especially between potential mates.

Did she know that? Could she possibly understand the significance of what she asked?

Probably not. But I answered anyway, my voice dropping to a rumble that betrayed more than I intended.

“I promise.”

She nodded, satisfied for now, and moved toward the weapons locker. I watched her for a moment longer than necessary, memorizing the lines of her body, the confident set of her shoulders, the way her dark hair caught the light.

Then I turned and escaped to the desert before I could do something foolish—like pull her against me and breathe in her scent until it was permanently etched in my memory. Or press my mouth to hers and taste the warmth I’d been dreaming of for days.

Or tell her the truth: that I was already hers, completely and irrevocably, whether she accepted it or not.

I had a duty to the Legion. A mission to complete. A human to protect—not just from the Swarm, but from myself and the overwhelming nature of a bond she hadn’t asked for and might not want.

So I would fix the communications array. I would secure our extraction. I would ignore the burning in my blood that demanded I claim what fate had given me.

And then, when we were safe, when she had choices beyond the desperate survival of two beings trapped in a hostile environment... then I would tell her everything.

And pray to the stars she didn’t walk away.

That night, I was sitting on my usual mat, cross-legged, trying to meditate the edge off my instincts when she crossed the room.

No words. No preamble. She crawled into my lap like she belonged there.

My heart thundered once—then went still.

My body recognized what my mind was still fighting—the inevitability of us.

“Your fur is so soft,” she murmured, fingertips brushing the thick ruff on my chest where my tunic lay open.

“It’s utilitarian,” I said, voice too low, too rough. A pathetic attempt at deflection.

She smiled. “Sure, big guy. Utilitarian. That’s why I want to roll around in it like it’s a five-star mattress.”

My claws bit into the mat beneath me.

Do not pounce.

But when her hand slid up to my neck, fingers threading into the sensitive fur just below my ears, I almost growled.

I let her touch, let her explore, as I gripped the mat beneath me and chanted battle mantras in my head to keep from flipping her over and worshipping every inch of her body with my mouth.

“Is this okay?” she asked, whisper-soft.

“Yes.” My voice broke around the word. “You lead, Jas.”

Her eyes glowed in the low light of the bunker, fierce and bright.

And when she kissed me—slow, sure, with heat behind it—I didn’t think.

I responded, my mouth opening under hers as a rumble of pleasure built in my chest. She tasted like the desert night—warm, mysterious, intoxicating.

My hands moved of their own accord, one sliding around her waist while the other cradled the back of her head, holding her to me as the kiss deepened.

Her tongue slid against mine, tentative at first, then bolder as I responded. She shifted in my lap, pressing herself closer, and the friction nearly undid me. I could feel her heartbeat, the heat of her through the thin fabric of her clothing, the trembling in her limbs that matched my own.

I broke the kiss before I could lose all control, pressing my forehead to hers as we both caught our breath.

“Wait,” I managed, though every cell in my body screamed against the word. “Jas, you don’t understand what this means.”