Page 15 of Ravaged By the Reaper

AMARA

The afterglow keeps me light—floating, unmoored, like I’ve shed centuries of armor and stepped into bone-bright truth.

I feel both fragile and feral: more exposed, more real than I’ve ever allowed myself to be.

Because last night wasn't possession—it was partnership.

Shared breath, shared skin, shared surrender and simultaneous ownership.

I saw him vulnerable—for a split second, his fangs soft, his spurs gentle, not weapons but stories.

I should be terrified by how much I feel. Love is war without strategy. It latches onto your bones and doesn’t let go. Yet here I am, wrapped in the soft ache of what could be. That’s not weakness—it’s awakening.

So I do something I haven’t done since I came to Grolgath Prime: I let myself feel. I dress finally, tracing the collar’s smooth metal, feeling gratitude pulse beneath it.

Then I reach for the holonet console—light flickers in pale glyphemes—and I read.

My breath tugs jagged.

A Coalition-wide bulletin—my face pressed across holo-panels in every rim-lit feed. Malem’s voice in cold print: Amara Destrier, declared rogue agent. Coalition bounty issued. High-value. Dead or alive. They drone: “Last seen aboard cloaked Reaper shuttle.”

I hold the console until sparks of noise crackle in my fingers. Sweat beads. The room tastes of copper dread. The holo-glass distorts, but I can’t look away. My image: hunted.

My heart hammers wide. The promise of love burns against the shadow of war.

A memory bleeds through: my parents’ faces, smooth and flat, as they signed contracts binding me yet stripping me bare. Now—this. I’m hunted, not worth paid but dangerous.

I taste betrayal and fear in equal measure.

Then I picture Haktron. The way he kneels before me, earning—not demanding. How his arm felt when she pressed into him.

He’s behind me before I even sense it, heavy presence warm in the doorway.

“Situation?” His voice is low-fire, calm-precise.

I hold the holo up. The light washes over his bone-rendered face.

He reads. Fists clench. I feel metal teeth of tension snap.

“They want my death,” I whisper, voice brittle in space.

Malem’s words echo: rogue. Spy. Prize.

He doesn’t say it’s wrong. He says, “They want you.”

I turn. Fear blooms as relief etches across my ribs.

“Not a prize,” I breathe. “Not a trophy.”

He steps forward. Sweep of muscles behind midnight hide. “Then I won’t let them take you.”

His promise isn’t quiet. It’s thunder.

But I’m not his to protect—I’m neither ornament nor mark. I raise my voice—quivering but fierce. “I’m not! But I will stand with you. Not behind you. Beside.”

He nods once, slow, iron-true.

Outside, Gamma base continues its pulse. But inside, the ground collapses and reforms.

I lean into him, collar’s glow between us. Fear still pulses—foes closing, salvation precarious.

But here, now—chosen.

The glow from control panels bleeds across the wide berth — gentle blue, nocturnal promise. I lie draped above him, contours of his chest rising under my palm, warmth spreading like wildfire through me. The seconds drift heavy-soft around us, saturated with unsaid confessions.

I don’t mention what Malem labeled me. I don’t look at his reflection in the viewport — hunted, rogue, fugitive.

Not tonight. I rest my cheek on his clavicle, hearing the rush of blood like distant drums. He breathes slow, deep, the kind of breathing that anchors a restless storm.

My fingers inch upward, tracing a scar that maps his spine — not jagged, more like smooth, carved road.

A place he’s hard, sharp, built to dominate — and yet gently held beneath my caution.

He shifts — eyes opening, half-lidded dawn, confusion sketched in his frown. I lift, hovering just above zero gravity, silk sheets pooling between us like water glass — weightless.

No games tonight.

I whisper, “Not another fight.”

His eyes track mine, uncertain, angel-meets-predator confusion.

I stroke his jaw—callused bone under silk-black hair with red streaks, shadow dancing across the jagged lines of bone spurs trailing down his neck.

I taste him there: sharp iron, smoldering fire, and breath softer than I’ve ever known.

My fingers trace the contours of his spurs, mapping the terrain of his trophies like sacred scripture.

“Always wondered what these lines mean,” I murmur. “Stories… trophies?”

His breath thickens. No answer is needed. I press a gentle kiss along the ridge—a reverent gesture charged with all I feel.

“Do you know how I see you?”

I pause, retreating just enough to taste the air again. The hum of the station's systems becomes tender, the metallic taste fading.

I shift down, curling into his ribs. My fingertips trace the hardened muscle and callused planes of his arms—scars and battle-flares mapping his history. “I don’t want to be taken,” I whisper, voice raw with want. “I want to be chosen. Always.”

He inhales sharply—caught between devotion and desire. It’s a truth neither said, but both felt.

With determined grace, I rise and settle above him. My silk dress drifts as though in zero-G, weightless fluid. When I touch him, it’s neither challenge nor seduction—but belonging.

I move intentionally, each breath and shift synching with his. His body responds—tremors of muscle beneath my palm, breath hitching in his throat as I slide down the valley of his chest, lingering at each bone spike, feeling the hum beneath skin.

His eyes flutter closed. A raw moan cracks free—guttural and wordless—revealing the depth of what he feels. I follow each tremor, riding the waves of his surrender.

We breathe as one, bound not by dominance but by shared pulse. His voice, when it comes, is a reverent whisper: “Everything you are, I want.”

I glide until friction births the elegant collapse—no roaring crescendo, just gentle unraveling. We crest together, breathless, silent, whole.

We drift back, breath sticky with dogged promise. His hold is warm, grounded, fueled by tenderness—not possession.

I lay across his chest, forehead pressed to bone and muscle that’s now sanctuary. Words catch in me, unfinished—but the beat of his pulse whispers belonging.

For the first time, I’m not just chosen. I belong.

We linger amid the station’s quiet heartbeat, tender and exhausted. I drift over his scars, fingers trembling from what just unfolded.

I need to tell him. But words feel shallow. So I just breathe him in: salt and smoke, steel and quiet devotion.

I press a kiss to his clavicle. “I need to tell you something,” I murmur.

His breath pauses, steady as promise.

“There’s a price on my head,” I confess. “Malem’s declared me rogue. High-value bounty.”

The cabin falls still. Outside, the station continues its indifferent hum—but inside, we are more than a sanctuary. We are choice and belonging, tethered beyond fear.

I turn my head to catch his gaze. His eyes are glowing coals in starlight shadows.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he asks, voice low-boned in our hush.

I swallow. “Because I needed clarity in your arms first. Stability. You first.”

He presses his arm under my head. “Everything else—death, bounty, siege—they’ll come. But tonight, you’re mine.”

He doesn’t roar. He doesn’t rage. He only pulls me nearer. His breath brushes heated promise across my forehead.

A tear slips. “It’s not you,” I whisper. “It’s not your fight.”

He presses a finger to my lips. “It is now.”

The tremor in his voice is different from fury. It’s reverent. Hard-earned.

I close my eyes, letting his constancy chase the fear away—for now.