Page 13 of Ravaged By the Reaper

AMARA

Isit rigid on the edge of our berth—barely sleeping in this strange cage of metal and soft lights. The cotton sheets swirl around me, clammy with my sweat, scented with faint trace of Earth lavender—but nothing masks the ghosted memory of pain.

My fingertips trace across my own skin, mapping the invisible wounds the memory-creature embedded. Phantom bruises of light, sharp like frostbite. I can still taste the acid tang of stolen memories—memories I didn’t ask for, but that chased me down in my own flesh.

I taste them again now—the steel scent of blood, the tar-thick longing when my parents sold me, that day I became a commodity. I shiver. The Academy was smooth words, cultured halls, contrived intimacy. They taught me to please. But never to belong.

I close my eyes, memory-loop open like a bleed. Gilded halls. Candlelight coaxing performance. Tutor hands guiding speech, posture, promise. “You are a gift,” they said. A commodity presented, packaged. Never a child. Never allowed to love or belong in return.

My breath catches and I swallow hard. Around me, the cabin hums with quiet life-support noise, warm like a heartbeat. Warm except where he sleeps beside me.

He is a wall. A fortress cradled in muscle and bone spurs. Even asleep, he radiates danger—and safety. I can feel that heat pressed against my hip. Steady, protective. Like armor I didn’t know I needed—but don’t know how to ask for.

I think: I’m not ready to be claimed like territory. Not yet.

I keep tracing those phantom scars—reminders that someone ripped pieces of me away. Now someone bruises edges of me with love and claim, but hush—soft claim. That feels different. Unmarked but echoing.

The hum of his breath deepens as he shifts. His dream-furrowed brow, the twitch of muscle beneath skin—those are versions of him not born in war. I study that, tasting each rivet of softness.

I bite my lip, forcing steady.

“I don’t—I’m not ready,” I whisper into the thin air. Words written for him, but they drift.

He wakes with a breath too loud—heat and real. His fingers curl around my ribs, careful. “Amara?” His voice is rumble, sleep and concern.

“I’m fine.” The lie tastes like ash. I sit straighter. “Just... remembering.”

He leans into me, jaw brushing my hair. “You don’t have to remember alone.”

I breathe him in: burned metal, sweat, midnight. “I never do now,” I say.

His arm slides under me, moving me back to lie beside him. Soft trap of his body. I rest against bone and fur, his shoulder against my head.

“Tell me,” he whispers.

“You make me feel... something new,” I murmur. “Like I could belong someplace, not as ornament or diplomat—but as person. With you.”

He doesn’t shift. I feel a plaque of love—or that slow forge of it—cool and steady.

“I belong,” he says, and that tremor laces deeper than armor.

I swallow, trembling.

He sighs, low. And sleep returns—steady rhythm beside me. Breathing echoes, heartbeat hums.

I hold that. In the dark hush, I allow vulnerability to bloom.

I’m not ready to be property. Not yet. But I’m ready to be with him.

Soft, fierce belonging.

And at last, I let my tears fall—not because I’m broken.

But because breakage is healing too.

I sit at the edge of the berth, air thick with the scent of night—cool recirculated breath, Earth lavender still clinging to my wrist, and something heavy beneath it all: tension.

I stare down at the collar—glowing embers of claim—at his name engraved in protective tech. A symbol, yes. Safety, yes. But lately, the weight of it seems to constrict around me. Will I become a trophy? A caveat in battle? A concubine afloat on the Widowmaker?

I push at the words burning in me.

“What happens after the rendezvous?” I ask quietly—voice curled with fire. He’s raking sleep from his chest across from me.

He opens one eye—dark and startled. “We survive.”

I shake my head, frustration trembling in my teeth. “I meant day after that. Do I... stay? Become some ornament? Made safe in your hold?”

His brow furrows, confusion eating at him. “You're not any of that.”

That enrages me more. Because the question stings—like I’m battling to remain whole.

“What I am isn’t your calm down, or your 'safe'. I’m not decoration. I’m not a prize.” I stand, circling him where he lies ragged and tired. “I want... a future that isn’t just ‘with you’. I want influence, decisions, purpose.”

He moves to sit—towering with bone and shadow—but the calm confusion still shades him. “You already—”

I cut him off. “No. You don’t get it. You don’t ‘understand’ why that phrase—even if it’s love—makes me feel small again.”

His fingers tense. I ground my voice. “Learn.”

Silence cracks.

I sit beside him. Flesh pressed to bone spurs. Too much vulnerability, unfiltered.

I sigh. “I’m not rejecting you—tonight or ever. But not this way.”

He looks at me, moonlit face torn between hunger and humility.

“I need a beating heart, not worship.” It trembles out. Jagged. Honest.

He watches. Truly watches, not budget or claim, but presence.

I stand. Turn away. Would he chase? I brace.

He moves slower. Hand to my shoulder. Gentle enough to break me.

“Don’t dare wear that silence on me,” I whisper.

He shifts. My body burns with something fierce, something tender. Exists only between us.

He hushes. Enough.

The night ticks beyond the station’s hum. His silhouette fades into dark, but that hush remains.

I taste rebellion and belonging.

Because tonight—I’m not his “priceless”.

I’m me.

Midnight on the starbase—corridors hum like deep-bass chords—but inside our shared quarters, the air is thick with static tension. I stand at the viewport, knuckles white around cool alloy, stars drifting beyond in placid oblivion.

He locks eyes with me across a breath too slow.

“You think I want obedience?” His voice is rasped granite.

“No,” I whisper, cold smoke in my chest. “I know you do. But that’s not love.”

His jaw tenses. Silence stretches in the steel-scented hush.

There’s no shift—an unspoken dare fills the space.

I flick off the viewport lights. Weight vanishes. Gravity unpins us. The confines of the cabin become our voided arena.

My legs float into his tethered orbit. I pivot, swapping challenge for movement. A zero-G dance ignites—not graceful, but raw.

He lunges, directionless but lethal. I grid my center, pivoting hips, using a half-spin to snag a padded training baton hanging by the wall.

It’s not elegant. It’s breathless urgency.

The pulse of fight is fierce. Sparks of tempers collide, leather and metal brushing as blades collide in heatless air.

Every breath tastes of sharp sweat, recycled oxygen, and fear.

“Imprisoned by words,” I say mid-spin—my voice jagged echo. “I want partnership!”

But he doesn’t parry. He feints, curls me in weightless arcing spin, until I’m skidding along a bulkhead with stars skittering past the windows.

He presses bone spurs into the soft sway of my ribs, a claim against my breath.

I lance a strike—not to wound, but to crack armor. It lands above his forearm, electric in rhythm.

Our blades jostle, sparks flicker, but no metal screams. Just bone and desire and collision in slow-motion blur.

He tries to steady me—with gentle force. My breath shatters. My core hums with protest, and desire, and wild fear.

At an angle of zero inertia, my fist meets his shoulder. Not malicious, but defiant. It echoes like promise.

We float there—silent. Breathing harsh, hearts echoing.

I peel away, weightless, and drift to the cockpit door.

“Space,” I murmur.

He blinks—hurt and storm-tossed—but muscles collapse. A nod, curving apology.

I drift away across the corridor plating. Reed-thin lights trace my path.

In the lounge outside, coffee machine sighs. I collapse to the seat—gravity catching me like shock.

My breath is warm, ragged. Heartbeats crash and echo.

My voice cracks when I let it out.

“I want to belong…” I say, barely a whisper.

Not as a prize or as possession.

But as a partner.

And the rattled registers of love bloom in my chest.