Page 45 of Ravaged By the Reaper

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—corridorshum 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.