Page 9

I woke with my claws dug deep into the heat shield, my body rigid and aching in ways that would make a Legion medical officer prescribe immediate isolation.

The scent of her—citrus, spice, and the unmistakable musk of arousal—filled my lungs with every desperate breath.

My fate mate had dreamed with me. Had begged me to claim her.

And stars help me, every cell in my body demanded I comply.

“Make me yours,” she’d said in our Unity dream. The echo of her voice still vibrated through my bones, a siren call that threatened to shatter decades of discipline in seconds.

I didn’t dare move. Not with my cock painfully engorged beneath my regulation pants, not with my tail twitching like a live wire seeking a ground.

My fingers flexed, claws retracting with effort.

I needed to get up. To move away. To put distance between us before I did something irreversible.

Like pin her beneath me. Like taste her again, this time in reality instead of dreams. Like sink my teeth into that perfect junction of neck and shoulder where I’d marked her in our shared vision.

Kassari. My fate mate. The most revered bond in Rodinian culture—and I’d found mine in the least convenient location in the galaxy, at the most inconvenient time possible, in the form of a fragile Terran female who had no idea what was happening.

Brilliant work, Reaper. Exemplary mission parameters.

I forced myself to breathe normally, to regain control of my heart rate. The Legion had trained me to withstand torture, to ignore pain, to function despite catastrophic injury. Surely I could manage one small human female and her intoxicating scent.

A merciful interruption came in the form of a loud mechanical clunk from somewhere deep in the shelter’s systems. It was followed by a high-pitched whine that any engineer would recognize as bad news.

I seized the opportunity like a drowning man grabbing a lifeline.

“Environmental controls,” I said, my voice embarrassingly rough. “Stabilizers failing.”

Her brow furrowed, confusion replacing the heat in her eyes. “Is that... dangerous?”

“Yes.” Probably not as dangerous as staying here with her, but she didn’t need to know that. “System needs manual override. I must attend to it.”

I sat up in one fluid motion, keeping my back to her as I fought to calm my rebellious body. My tail, the traitorous appendage, swished behind me with obvious interest. If tails could talk, mine would be shouting obscenities at me for moving away from her.

I’m sorry, but I don’t take orders from my extremities. Not even when they’re technically right.

“Will you be okay here?” I asked, still not turning. “I need to check the auxiliary systems. It may take...time.”

Hours, preferably. Long enough for both our scents to clear from the enclosed space. Long enough for me to remember why seducing a human female during a high-priority Legion mission was a terrible idea.

“I’m fine,” she said, her voice smaller than usual. “Do what you need to do.”

I risked a glance back at her. Mistake. Her hair was tousled from sleep, her cheeks flushed, her lips still parted. She looked exactly like she had in our dream, right after I’d?—

Nope. Not going there.

I stood abruptly, nearly hitting my head on the low ceiling. “Rest,” I ordered, more gruffly than I intended. “The storm has weakened. You need strength for extraction.”

She nodded, pulling the heat shield closer around her slender form. The motion released another wave of her scent, and I nearly stumbled as it hit me. Sweet stars, she smelled like paradise and sin wrapped into one delectable package.

I needed to get out of here before I embarrassed myself.

Or worse, before I gave in to the urge to explain exactly what had happened between us.

To tell her that on my world, what we’d shared was the equivalent of a soul-binding.

That Unity dreams didn’t lie. That we were meant for each other in ways that transcended species and cultures.

That would go over well. “Excuse me, human female I found dying in a desert, but we’re cosmically destined to mate for life.

Please ignore the fact that I look like your planet’s apex predator stuffed into humanoid form.

Also, did I mention the part where we’re locked together during sex?

No? Let me explain while you back away slowly. ”

The mechanical whine increased in pitch, giving me the perfect excuse to flee. “I must go,” I said, already moving toward the door. “Stay. Here.”

I didn’t wait for her response. I couldn’t.

Not when every step away from her felt like tearing something vital from my chest. The Rodinian mating instinct was powerful, overwhelming for those unprepared.

And despite my years of training, despite my reputation as the Legion’s most controlled operative, I was definitely unprepared for Jasmine Navarro.

I palmed the door panel with more force than necessary, slipping into the corridor beyond. The cooler air hit my overheated skin like a blessing, though it did little to calm the fire in my veins. I leaned against the wall, eyes closed, focusing on my breathing.

Get it together, Reaper. You’ve faced down Swarm hives without flinching. You’ve survived planetary bombardment. You’ve infiltrated hostile territories with nothing but your claws and your wits. You can handle one small human female.

Even if she is your fate mate.

Even if she did beg you to claim her in the most explicit terms possible.

Even if your body is currently staging a full-scale rebellion against your orders.

My tail lashed behind me, expressing its profound disagreement with my chosen course of action. My cock remained stubbornly, painfully erect despite my best efforts to think of Legion disciplinary procedures and cold vacuum exposure.

“Not helping,” I muttered to my rebellious appendages.

I pushed away from the wall, straightening my spine. I was Rhaekar Onca, Legion Reaper, scion of House Acinonyx. I had a duty to perform, protocols to follow, a mission to complete.

And if that mission now included protecting my unexpected fate mate from both external threats and my own overwhelming desire to claim her... well, that was just another challenge to overcome.

I headed toward the auxiliary control room, every step an exercise in willpower.

The mechanical problem was real—I could hear the struggling air recyclers from here—but it wasn’t urgent.

Still, it gave me purpose, direction, something to focus on besides the woman I’d left behind on that heat shield.

The woman who, if fate had its way, would eventually be mine in every sense that mattered.

If we both survived long enough for that to happen.

My tail gave one final, disgusted twitch before settling into its usual rhythm behind me. Even it knew when to admit temporary defeat.

But temporary was the operative word. Because one thing was certain—this conversation wasn’t over. It was merely postponed.

And when it resumed, I had no idea what I would say. Or if words

The heat flare had passed during the night, leaving the air thick and the sands eerily quiet.

I stepped outside at first light, my senses immediately cataloging the changed environment—radiation levels down, temperature stabilized, storm debris scattered like forgotten toys across the dunes.

Perfect calm after perfect chaos. Exactly like my internal state after sharing that dream with Jas.

On the outside? Professional. Composed. Ready for duty.

On the inside? A complete disaster of primal urges and inappropriate fantasies about a human woman who had no idea she’d accidentally stumbled into being my cosmic soulmate.

I’d left her sleeping, curled into the warmth I’d vacated. She’d murmured something unintelligible when I’d extricated myself from our shared heat mat, her small hand reaching briefly before finding my pillow instead. The sight had nearly broken my resolve to check the perimeter. Nearly.

The silence of The Burn pressed against my ears, making me listen harder for threats that might be lurking beneath the deceptive calm.

My tail flicked once—an unconscious tell that I’d long ago given up trying to control.

It had a mind of its own, especially around Jas.

Three separate attempts to coil around her waist last night.

Embarrassing. I was a trained Reaper, not some hormone-addled cub with his first crush.

Yet here I was, thinking about her scent rather than focusing on the half-buried perimeter sensors blinking lazily under a thin film of red dust. I knelt to check the western unit, my fingers brushing over the sand-etched alloy. No power. No signal. No surprise.

“Fantastic,” I muttered to the empty desert. My superior hearing confirmed that Jas was still asleep inside—her heartbeat steady and slow, her breathing deep. Good. I needed time to compose myself after what we’d shared. After feeling her body against mine, her dream-self begging me to claim her.

Not helpful, brain. Focus on the dead tech.

The flare had likely fried every exposed component across Base D-7’s sprawl. The good news: no signs of immediate danger. The bad news? The communications relay was toast. I’d have to dig out the secondary panel, reroute the charge coils, and pray to the stars nothing had surged past the breakers.

And all this while pretending I hadn’t just experienced the most intense Unity dream of my life with a woman who probably thought I was a hallucination brought on by heat stroke. Perfect.

I stood and turned toward the distant dunes, watching the horizon ripple like a mirage. But this was no illusion. Beneath the surface, something pulsed—deep, steady, and ancient. Swarm tech.

I could feel it again, that low thrum beneath my boots, the way it had hummed to life in pockets ever since Jas arrived. As if her presence had stirred something slumbering. Maybe it was coincidence. Maybe it was the buried hive-mind recognizing someone it didn’t catalog as Legion.

Or maybe the universe had a sick sense of humor, sending my fate mate to the one place in the galaxy guaranteed to complicate our bonding with deadly alien tech and Legion protocols that would have her memory wiped if I didn’t figure something out fast.

I growled low in my throat, the sound rumbling up from my chest without conscious thought.

A group of small reptilian scavengers that had been cautiously approaching scattered at the noise, skittering back beneath the shelter of a nearby rock formation.

I hadn’t even noticed them. My situational awareness was shot to hell, and all because a small human female with a smart mouth and eyes like the depths of space had stumbled through a portal and straight into my fate.

What was I supposed to tell Command? “Sorry sir, can’t let you erase her memories because we shared an ancient Rodinian mating dream and I’m pretty sure I’ll go insane if you take her away from me now”? That would go over brilliantly.

I paced along the perimeter, checking each sensor and making mental notes of the repairs needed. Work. Focus on work. Not on how her skin had felt against mine, or how she’d moaned my name in her sleep, or how the scent of her arousal had nearly driven me feral.

The sand shifted beneath my boots, revealing more damaged tech—a communications array half-melted by the heat flare. I crouched to examine it, running a diagnostic with my wrist scanner. Complete failure. Parts might be salvageable, but I’d need to extract the core processor from beneath the?—

The ground beneath me trembled, just slightly. Barely perceptible to human senses, but my enhanced perception caught it instantly. I froze, extending my claws instinctively as I pressed my palm flat against the sand.

There it was again. A pulse. Like a heartbeat, but wrong—mechanical, precise. Swarm tech awakening.

I closed my eyes, focusing on the sensation. The vibration was stronger than yesterday. Closer to the surface. Almost as if it were...growing toward us.

Well, that wasn’t ominous at all.

The Swarm had been dormant for years, the remaining tech sealed away in underground bunkers after the war. Nothing should be active, especially not responding to surface stimuli. Yet here it was, pulsing beneath my hand like a technological tumor that had sensed new prey.

New prey named Jasmine.

I straightened, scanning the horizon with narrowed eyes.

The twin suns were climbing higher, their combined heat already making the air shimmer.

In a few hours, the surface temperature would be lethal to humans again.

I needed to fix the communications relay, report the Swarm activity, and keep Jas safe until extraction.

All while pretending I wasn’t completely, utterly compromised by feelings that had no place in a Reaper’s mission parameters.

My tail lashed behind me, betraying my agitation. The sensation of the tech beneath the surface made my fur stand on end, my instincts screaming danger in a way they hadn’t since the war. Whatever was happening, it was escalating. And it seemed to be focused on our shelter—on Jas.

I growled again, this time embracing the primal sound. Let the tech hear it. Let it know that between it and my fate mate stood a very pissed off Rodinian with absolutely no patience left for universe-ending threats.

“Try it,” I muttered to the sand, to the buried tech, to whatever intelligence might be stirring below. “Just try to get to her.”

The desert offered no reply, just that steady, ominous pulse beneath the surface. I turned back toward the shelter, my decision made. I had two missions now: fix the communications to get us off this hellscape, and protect the human female inside that bunker with every fiber of my being.

Legion protocol could go to hell.