Page 7 of Ravaged By the Reaper

AMARA

Iwake to the sensation of something soft under my shoulder—far softer than the steel table, far more reassuring.

My shoulder aches with a deep, raw burn, but the cloth wrapped around it is snug, cooling, familiar.

For a horrifying moment, I’m not sure where I am.

Then the shuttle’s low drone hums through me like a heartbeat, and the memory of the fight crashes back—harder than any blow.

I lift my head, wool-thick, vision smudged around the edges.

The cockpit surrounds me: hard metal, muddled systems screens flickering with static, and the scent of fuel and burnt circuits thick in the air.

My throat tastes copper-rust. I shift—careful not to pull at my shoulder—and realize I’m sitting in a battered pilot seat, harness still latched.

He’s there. Huge. Massive. Bone-spurred.

A living pinnacle of violence waiting to be unleashed.

He’s silent, watching me with something like awe—or whatever his version of awe might be.

I expect claws, I expect teeth, I expect, "You're my prisoner now," or something coolly threatening. But what I see is not jagged promise. It’s concern.

His hand moves, offering me something that should be unremarkable—just a chunk of protein ration molded into the shape of a dense bar.

But in his palm, it seems like the whole universe is contained.

The edges notched where he’s gripped it.

His eyes flicker with careful consideration, as though he's weighing whether it’s safe to feed me or whether I’ll bite him—or spill every drop of blood just by accepting it.

I blink. “Thank—”

My throat cracks. Heat blooms on my cheeks. I attempt to smooth the muscle. “Thanks,” I manage, voice raw, carrying a brittle fragility I don’t like. I force a smile that doesn’t quite reach my eyes, the kind Companions train to perfect, even with their souls bruised.

He watches. Doesn’t move—or pass judgment.

Just waits. I tuck the protein ration gingerly into my palm, afraid to break it.

The ambient red glow of the console lights dances across his scarred features, shifting shadows and hues.

That same ember-hot pull surges in my chest. I try to draw a polite distance between us.

Shift sideways in the seat. Keep my posture calm, collected, Companion-calibrated.

But the heat of him fills the cabin. Closed space.

Shared air. My scent—smoke and iron—mingles with his scent—dry, faintly metallic, like a storm left in the air after it’s gone.

I clear my throat. “I—I didn’t catch your name earlier. You… saved me.” Deserting self-consciousness, I attempt to sound graceful, composed—something that fits me better.

He leans back slightly, arms flexing around the yoke as he exhales. The gesture shifts the console lights, lights up the whites of his eyes, that deep obsidian skin, bone spurs that arc like cruel trophies. He doesn’t answer immediately. I let the silence stretch, humming with tension.

When he finally speaks, his voice is a low rumble, thick with possibility—no echo of brutality, just intent. “Haktron,” he says. “And you’re still breathing.”

I nod. Let out a shaky breath. “Still breathing,” I repeat, softer now. Whether comfort or release, I don’t know.

He stands up from the cockpit seat, huge bulk towering over me.

My body jolts with instinct—my legs still weak, my shoulder throbbing—but he doesn’t tower.

He frames me, close enough to feel the leather of his armor shift, far enough to give space for survival.

Fear flickers in me, but it’s chased from every line of his stance.

He’s not aggressive. He’s gathering himself like tension before a storm cranes forward. Makes space, keeps the air calm.

Every instinct screams to run. Run back to the Academy. Run to safety. But another instinct—the one planted by scars and fire—tells me this is all a beginning. A vow.

I shift to stand. Pain blooms across my shoulder. But I’m upright—legs clumsy, muscles trembling.

He’s suddenly there. No warning. His clawed hand curves into my hair at the nape of my neck—not grabbing, not pulling, just holding with quiet dominance. I freeze in that instant. Heat throbs at the base of my skull.

“Don’t move,” he murmurs. Almost reverent. The press of his palm is not anger. Not coercion. Control runs through bone and muscle, sure and unyielding.

I swallow. The world narrows. Just blood pulsing in my ears, bone throbbing in my shoulder, the hum of shuttle systems, and the low, steady thrum of belonging.

Whispers of doubt crumble. Memories of betrayal slip like shadows in half-light.

He doesn’t tighten his fingers. He doesn’t bark an order. He simply... holds. Like I'm fragile glass and he’s preserving what’s still good.

I don’t break.

I exhale slowly. Find steady breath. I turn my cheek so his fingers graze my neck. I taste smoke in the air, the faint oxidized tang of blood on my tongue.

I should push him away.

That’s what my Companion training slithers into my brain—self-control, measured touch, polite distance. But I don’t. I can’t. Instead, a sharp inhale of breath catches in my throat the moment he releases his hold at the back of my neck, and it tumbles into me like liquid fire.

His eyes narrow, twin embers against the shuttle’s red glow, bone-spurs glinting in the flicker. I taste smoke and slick metal linger in the cockpit air. His breath, heated and tangy with iron, drifts across my cheek, and I feel like every nerve ending in my face is learning to burn.

Before I can catch the flicker of danger, or remind myself that this man is savage and overwhelming, he’s pressing his mouth to mine.

The kiss is not soft. It’s jagged. Rough as broken glass. Claiming. My body jerks—first in shock, then submission. His lips part against my lower lip, teeth grazing in a sharp nip that sends a bolt of pleasure and alarm through me. Sharp. Demanding.

His clawed hand threads deeper through my hair, fingers snaking to grip at my scalp. It’s not violence. It’s command. Possession. It roars in my spine: I own this moment. I own you.

I freeze.

I taste blood—mine, hers?—and fear threads a chilling echo through my bones. Companion logic screams: this is forbidden. This is dangerous. This is surrender.

But my body rebels. The cold armor of training melts. I gasp again—this time, without protest. Lips parting, and for the first time, I'm aware of how dry they feel, hot with adrenaline and something sharper—want.

My hands are at my sides. I’m still trembling.

He doesn’t let up. The kiss deepens. Tongue meets tongue in a fierce, unsettling dance.

My senses spin: I taste him—sharp and ancient.

Smell him—the scent of storm and burned circuits and something primal that I can’t name.

I feel the press of his bones hidden beneath skin and armor—hard, protective.

Every instinct I’ve cultivated screams at me to pull back. To fold under. But another set of instincts—so old I don't even recognize them as mine—shatter those illusions and claim me.

I moan, surprised by the sound, the surrender. His hand tightens in my hair, not hurting, but anchoring me to this moment, to him. I let my head fall backward, giving into the pull of him.

He pulls back slightly, breath ragged, nostrils flared, a beast triumphing. The look in his eyes is not soft. It's not tender. It’s mine. A wordless vow. I shiver under the intensity.

“I…” My voice cracks. “I…” Another moan escapes before I can tame it. Heat floods me. The coolness of the shuttle’s metal walls presses against my back. My knees are shaky, but I don’t slide down.

He lowers his forehead to mine. “Don’t,” he whispers into the echo of my heartbeat. “Don’t run.”

My eyes search his. Wide, disbelieving. My chest tightens. There’s a grounding pain at my collar, in my shoulder, in my bruised pride.

“I—didn’t—”

He presses a finger to my lips. Sharp, surprisingly gentle. “You didn’t have to.”

He lets me breathe then. Enough to let me know that I can.

We stand suspended, heartbeat sparking heartbeat. Every breath is tremor. The world beyond the cockpit—shuttle hum, alarms, distant chaos—is erased from me.

My hands drift up, instinctively tracing the edge of his cloak, brushing against bone spurs, skin scarred and cold under fingers. I feel memory uncoiling inside me, something deeper than fear, not fear—want.

It’s so wrong, but not. It's not seduction. It's claim. It's connection.

And I let it happen.

“Why?” My whisper is ragged.

“Because you’re mine,” he replies, voice low as gravel.

That claim still makes heat spread down my limbs. But something deep in me flares: not as prisoner. As partner.

I press forward anyway. Not to seize control. To rest in the claim of him.

He kisses me again.

Harder. Deeper. Scorching. And this time, I will this moment into being.

My life’s always been about precision: calculated glances, measured words, performance perfected down to a hair’s breadth. Everything is polished. Everything is under control.

And this is chaos. Wild. Messy. Glorious and terrifying.

He presses me back into the shuttle’s wall.

It’s cold metal against my spine, but I feel nothing but heat—raw, percussive heat coursing through my veins.

His hands grip the front of my gown, fingers undoing buttons with deliberate force, as if each release strips a layer of the world I understood before him.

His breath is hot against my ear, electric with purpose. I hear rivets pop in protest. The shuttle hums with residual energy, lights flicker red, and I taste ozone and adrenaline. Every sense is alight.

I should be afraid. Or at least tremble. But I’m not. Not even close.

The fear has been replaced by something far darker. Need—sharp, fierce, alive.

He kisses me, not gentle. Magnetic. Like he's erasing all hesitation with teeth and tongue and desperation.

His lips track fire down the line of my jaw, into the hollow of my collarbone, and I melt. My pulse races; there’s metal taste in the air, hot and coppery, mixing with my sweat. My gown gives way under his hands, cloth rustling in slow-motion ecstasy.

The scent of him invades me—smoke and steel, bone sap and faint blood-metal. Somehow familiar, like belonging pressed into memory before I was born.

He shifts, hips pressing warmer, harder. I feel the bulk of him. Not gentle. But intentional. Dominant. And that burn, that fierce ident, lodges in my chest.

“Inferno…” I whisper, breathless, more to myself than him.

He doesn’t smile. His jaw tightens. He blesses me with a smile that’s more claim than pleasure. His teeth catch my lower lip. I do not pull away. I raise trembling fingers, trace the scar through his armor, feel the warmth beneath.

He whispers something ragged. Then his body presses into mine, and I feel the weight of wings, claws, everything that should break me but doesn’t.

I break.

I let him.

“Then…” I gasp, voice choking, heart beating too fast for words. “Take me.”

That’s it. No offer. Not seduction. Not bargaining. Just surrender.

He answers with his lips, crushing them to mine. Rough. Devouring. Claiming. Not asking. Not waiting.

I taste him, iron and fire. My knees threaten to buckle, but he steadies me with one arm around my waist, thick with scarred muscle.

I’m not afraid. The world narrows—just us, pulse to pulse, breath to breath.

He moves against me with fierce precision. His lips leave mine, trail fire down to the dip of my throat. Then my chest. Every inch of skin he covers ignites.

The shuttle lights flare, flicker fire beams across his face. Shadows dance over ridge and bone. He’s not beautiful. He’s brutal. But in the glimpse of flicker-light, he’s perfect.

I gasp again, sound strangled. My hands find his hips. Every moment is a magnesium spark in my gut.

He kisses down so slowly I swear time stops. My fingers dig into his armor. My breath trembles—caught in the gap between fear and want.

I moan.

It spills out. Part surrender, part invocation. I dare not be ashamed. He meets it with hands sliding down, breath deeper. His presence is everything I thought I wanted, and more.

I let him lead us into a dark spiral of heat and claim.

And beneath the violence, the hunger... there’s something tender stirring. Not softness. Recognition.

We are fire. We are chaos born into order.

And in his arms, I find something real—not calculation, not performance. Something dangerous and unbreakable.

I moan again, softer. I whisper what I already am: “Mine.”