Page 16 of Fifth (Intergalactic Warriors #5)

“Because you are tired.” He squatted by the flames and set the first strip of Skarrin on a sharpened green stick. Fat began to bead and drip. The smell was strong, metallic at first, then turning toward something that didn’t trigger the body’s revolt. It wasn’t pleasant, but it was edible.

He turned the meat with a patient wrist, keeping his focus on the flame.

Out of the corner of his vision he marked Hannah, chin on her knees, body leaning ever so slightly toward both fire and food.

She fought the compulsion, trying to sit straight as if willpower alone could keep her pride intact.

He recognized the ruse and let it play, feigning ignorance while cataloguing every subtle shift.

The contest between her stubbornness and her hunger lasted only as long as it took one side of meat tochar.

He held the first strip out. “Eat.”

She sniffed. “It smells like a tire.”

“I do not know this word.”

She took the stick, bit, grimaced, and chewed. “You’re not missing anything.” She swallowed. “It’s not awful.” A second bite. “It’s a bit weird.” A third. “I guess it’s fine.”

He cooked another for himself and ate methodically, eyes on the shimmer of heat above the flames.

Grease popped. Embers fell and died. The night shifted from battle to the kind of stillness that let in the pain they’d been ignoring.

Hannah’s shoulders sank as food hit her gut.

Alittle sound escaped her that might’ve been relief or grief orboth.

“More,” he said. He already had the next strip turning.

She lifted a hand to refuse, then stopped. “Yes. Please.” She ate with purpose now, small bites, steady. When she finished the second, he gave her a third. He didn’t eat again until he was certain she could sleep without waking hungry, then he ate to fully restore himself.

Firelight turned the edges of her inky hair copper. When she licked grease from her thumb with a quick flash of tongue, heat rolled through him low and heavy. He adjusted the branch he was using to prop themeat.

“You don’t say much about yourself,” she said suddenly. “Even when I bait you.”

“I am saying enough.”

She huffed. “That isn’t how conversation works.”

“This works.” He turned the meat. “You speak. Ilisten.”

“That isn’t fair.” Her mouth quirked. “But it’s effective.” She looked down at the stick in her hand, then back up at him. “What happens if we get out of this? You said I’m yours. That’s… a lot.”

“It is only truth. Ihave claimed you for my bride.” He lifted the next cooked strip and let it cool a breath before he offered it. “You will not return to the men who sold you. You will not be traded again. You will not be touched by anyone who thinks your body is a price to be haggled.”

Her fingers closed around the food and tightened. For a heartbeat she didn’t speak. Then quietly, “That sounds like a promise.”

“It is.” He shrugged. “It is also a plan.”

“A plan you already made without me.”

“Affirmative.” He met her gaze. “Because I do not leave your safety to chance.”

She stared at him, eyes shining in the firelight, mouth pressed flat as if she were keeping something wild inside her teeth. After a long silence she said, “What if I don’t want to leave Earth?”

“You will choose when the choice is yours to make.” He set another log. Sparks climbed. “Tonight is not that night.”

She breathed out, ajagged sound that made something in his chest loosen. “Okay.” She nodded. “Tonight is for not dying.”

“Affirmative.” He allowed himself the smallest ghost of a smile. “And for eating.”

She lifted the last bite as if to salute him, then popped it into her mouth. Grease shone on her lips. He wanted to bend and taste it there. He fed the fire instead and let the desire burn down into the coals.

For a time neither spoke. The night held only the crackle of flame and the steady sound of her chewing.

Locus let the quiet stretch, studying the manner in which tension had slipped from her shoulders and the way her body leaned unconsciously toward the warmth they had built together.

When the last of the meat was gone, he knew they needed more than food—they needed shelter, aplace to claim against thedark.

He chose a section where the wind ran soft and the ground stayed dry under the map of stars the preserve allowed.

Branches laid against each other made a narrow lean-to that faced the fire.

He used stones to load the base and a woven lattice of smaller sticks to close the worst of the gaps.

It wouldn’t stop rain. It would stop drafts.

He would stop anythingelse.

Hannah crawled in on hands and knees and turned to make space for him. He shifted his body until his back met leafy branches and his front met the warm line of her spine. The shelter forced intimacy. He didn’tmind.

“You’re a furnace,” she murmured, not unpleased.

“You are cold.” His arm closed around her middle, his palm settling low until his forearm caged her hips.

She went still, her breath catching. He didn’t press further.

He simply held, keeping the wall of his body at her back, letting her decide if she would yield to it.

Waiting had become his discipline, the habit of a male who could break worlds but chose restraint for her.

He asked without words, and by holding, he offered his answer.

A long breath left her, and then she eased into him, her body finding its place against his as if the broad wall of his chest had been made for the narrow slope of her shoulder.

The crown of her head fit beneath his jaw, and having her there settled something restless in him.

He lowered his mouth close to her hair, breathing her in, certain he could’ve stayed like that until the stars themselves burnedout.

Her fingers found his forearm where it lay across her. She traced the line of tendon with the pad of her thumb, then the faint scar that crossed his wrist. “Where did you get this one?”

“Training.”

“That sounds like you weren’t supposed to be using real knives in training.”

“The knife was real. The lesson was also real. Both left a mark.”

She smiled against his skin. The next question came softer. “Do you ever want to be… gentle?”

He didn’t answer at once. She shifted as if to fill the silence. He stopped her with a breath. “Affirmative,” he said. “With you.” He turned his face into her hair and let the word live in the space it made. “Only with you.”

Her shoulders shook once. Then he caught it—laughter, soft and startled, not the sob he had braced to hear. Relief slid cold down the back of his neck. He hadn’t wanted to taste her tears tonight. He wanted the heat of her mouth, the curve of her lips answeringhis.

“Say that again,” she whispered.

“Only with you.”

She took his hand and lifted it to her lips. Akiss touched the heel of his palm, then the pad of his thumb, then the scar on his wrist. His body reacted the way it always did with her, fast and absolute. His pulse jumped against her mouth and he didn’t attempt to hideit.

“You will sleep soon,” he said, because he heard the thickness stealing into her voice and knew exhaustion hunting her steps.

“Will you?”

“No.”

“You need to.”

“I do not.”

“You’re impossible.”

“Affirmative.” He tightened his arm around her.

The fire cracked outside, soft, steady. Their breath found a shared rhythm.

The hard edges inside him softened into something he didn’t have a word for.

He knew the feeling. It was the quiet that lived under victory when the substance of a loved one’s heartbeat rested steady against his chest.

Her hand slid beneath his forearm and found the skin of his belly.

Warmth met warmth. The touch wasn’t accidental.

For a moment he simply absorbed it, his breath slowing as he weighed the intent behind her reach.

The shelter closed them in, every pulse point magnified in the silence, and he understood they had shifted into new ground together.

She moved cautiously, as if testing her own intent, and then turned in the narrow space to face him. The shelter was too small to allow distance. Her knee came between his thighs. Her breath struck his mouth. Her eyes searched his like she had a map and was trying to choose aroad.

“What happens to me,” she asked, voice low, “if I live through this and I decide that I want to stay with you?”

He didn’t think or reach for a plan. He reached for truth. “You stay with me.”

“And that’s it?”

“That is everything.” He let his knuckles stroke across her cheekbone. “You will not answer to any voice that is not your own. You will not belong to a man who pays. You will not belong to a crowd that makes wagers. You will belong to yourself. If you choose me, then I will belong to you.”

Her breath caught. “You don’t know me.”

“I know enough.” His thumb traced the corner of her mouth.

“I know you when you are afraid and when you pretend you are not. Iknow you when you think you must be steel and when you allow yourself to be skin. Iknow the way you look at a weapon and decide if it can be turned against the hand that holds it. Iknow the sound you make when you swallow the first clean water after a day of running from death. Iknow the way your body comes to mine even when your pride says it should not.”

Her eyes shone. She lifted her chin and closed the last inch between them.

The kiss began carefully and turned greedy in a breath.

He tasted smoke and salt and the iron ghost of the day on her tongue.

He groaned and answered with the full potency of his mouth, the promise he’d been holding back since he first put his body between hers and a blade.

She pressed closer, arching into him, heat rolling off her in waves that matched his own. His hand slid beneath her halter and found warm skin, the swell of her breast filling his palm. She trembled, not with fear but with hunger, and pressed harder against him as if daring him to takemore.

Her nipple peaked against his thumb and he rolled it gently, drawing a sound from her throat that arrowed down his spine and shattered his control. He caught her mouth again, deep and unrestrained, his tongue sweeping hers, his body grinding against the soft cradle of herhips.

She clutched at his shoulders, nails biting into damp skin, pulling him down as if she would have him cover her right there. His mouth trailed from her lips to her jaw, to the hollow beneath her ear, tasting her with a need that raged closer and closer to breaking point.

His hand slid lower, cupping the curve of her hip, then squeezing the firm flesh of her backside, dragging her harder against the rigid length straining the thin cloth at his loins. She gasped and arched into him, her thigh sliding high until it pressed against his arousal.

He groaned and thrust once against her, raw and instinctive, the sound of their ragged breaths filling the narrow space.

His mouth claimed hers again, tongue plunging, while his free hand slipped to the soft inside of her thigh and edged upward into the heat of her core, damp against his fingers.

She whimpered, hips rocking, her body already begging to be taken, and he was seconds from tearing the cloth aside and driving into her when—

“Wait.” The word tore out of her on a gasp. She didn’t pull away. She held him tighter for a heartbeat as if to make the stop hurt less. “Not here. Please.”

He froze where he was, nose tucked into her hair, mouth open on skin that tasted of water and smoke. Every part of him wanted to push. None of him did. He lifted his head and met her eyes in the muted light.

“I will wait,” he said. His voice had rough edges that he didn’t attempt to smooth. Truth didn’t need polish.

Her palm cupped his cheek. “You make me feel safe.”

“Good.” He eased her onto her side again and settled behind her, the line of his body fitting to the line of hers like two pieces made for one shape.

His arousal pressed hot against the curve of her backside.

He didn’t hide it, nor did he move against her.

He breathed. He held. He let the ache be a reminder that he was alive.

Her hand found his where it lay across her waist and threaded their fingers. For several breaths they did nothing but be a shape together.

“You will tell me,” he said into her hair, “when you are ready.”

“Yes.” Her voice was thick with sleep. “Trust me. You’ll know.”

“I already do.”

She laughed softly and surrendered to the pull that had been trying to take her since they left the water.

Sleep slid over her in warm waves. The tiny muscles in her back softened.

The last of the tension in her shoulders melted into his chest. Her breath evened and then deepened, asteady thread winding itself around hisribs.

He didn’t sleep. He listened. The fire talked in small crackles. The wind moved the tops of the trees and left the ground alone. Abeetle clicked and went quiet. The preserve had the stillness of a held breath.

He thought about what would happen if they survived.

He pictured a ship’s corridor with lighting faint because she said it was kinder to the eyes.

He pictured a bed with clean sheets and the way she’d push him onto his back with laughter in her mouth and victory on her tongue.

He pictured her asleep on his chest without dirt in her hair.

He pictured his hand opening a door and letting her choose which way to walk through it.

Want rose like a tide. He let it come. He let itgo.

The sound came as a change in the pattern. Asmall metal touch laid against another. Afaint click that didn’t belong to bugs or branches or the sigh of a banked fire. His eyes opened. The world narrowed.

A man crouched at the edge of the light.

He wore dark fabric rubbed to a dull sheen by use.

He rolled heel to toe with the care of someone who’d hunted more than he’d worked.

The barrel in his hands caught a lick of firelight and held it like a bad idea.

He kept the gun low for the approach and lifted it as he sighted.