Page 23 of Snared (The Legion: Savage Lands Sector #8)

The vines rustled gently overhead, a hush falling over the clearing like the jungle itself was exhaling.

My claws retracted as I sealed the cryopod with a hiss, the fugitive—Vaskari—locked within its containment field, finally neutralized.

My mission was complete. But I couldn’t stop looking at her.

Miri stood at the edge of the moss-covered ridge, her arms crossed over her chest, breathing hard from adrenaline or fear or both.

Her hair was a wild halo, damp with sweat and jungle mist. She looked like something conjured by the wilds—untamed and luminous and mine.

She turned to me, eyebrows lifted. “So… what now?”

I took a slow step forward, then another. I crossed the distance between us and cupped her cheek with one hand, the pad of my thumb brushing away a streak of dirt. “We have an hour.”

Her smile was small. But it reached her eyes.

“An hour before what, exactly?” she asked, leaning into my touch with a trust that made my chest ache.

“Before Legion Command retrieves us. Before Vaskari is transferred to a maximum security detention facility for trial.” I hesitated, then added, “Before we discuss your return to Terra Prime.”

She stiffened slightly beneath my touch. “And the bioweapon?”

“Neutralized.” I glanced back at the smaller containment unit where we’d secured the device Vaskari had planted. Its malignant glow had faded to nothing, the dispersal sequence halted with only minutes to spare. “The Legion’s biosecurity division will dismantle it completely once we’re extracted.”

“So that’s it?” Miri’s eyes searched mine. “Mission accomplished? Back to our regularly scheduled programming?”

I stroked her cheek again, savoring the warmth of her skin against mine. “Not quite that simple.”

The jungle stirred around us, a subtle shift in energy that I’d learned to interpret through months of communion with this sentient ecosystem. Relief. Gratitude. The vines curled closer, Phil extending a tendril to brush affectionately against Miri’s ankle.

“The jungle is celebrating,” I told her, watching her eyes widen slightly. “It recognizes what you did. What we did together.”

“I just helped,” she said, with that self-deprecating shrug humans used to minimize their accomplishments. “You would have figured it out eventually.”

“No.” I gently tilted her face up to mine. “You saw what I couldn’t. You understood the jungle’s warning when I was too focused on conventional tactics. You are the reason we succeeded.”

Her cheeks flushed with color, a human response I’d come to find endearing. “Team effort,” she insisted. “Me, you, Phil, the entire sentient ecosystem.”

I allowed a rare smile to curve my lips. “Legion Command will have questions.”

“About me?”

“About everything. A human traversing an active rift gate. A human forming a neural connection with GL-7’s ecosystem. A human helping to capture one of the Nexus’s most wanted fugitives.” I traced the line of her jaw with my claw, careful not to scratch. “They will want to study you.”

Alarm flashed across her features. “Study? Like... lab tests?”

“No.” I growled the word, the protectiveness in my tone surprising even me. “You are under my protection. My kassari. No one touches you without your permission.”

She relaxed incrementally. “But they’ll want me to go back to Earth.”

It wasn’t a question, but I answered anyway. “Eventually, yes. After debriefing. After ensuring the rift gate is properly secured.”

“And you?” Her voice dropped lower, something vulnerable entering her gaze. “What happens to you after all this?”

I set aside the holo-slate, no longer interested in the blinking notifications from Command. Instead, I placed both hands on her shoulders, feeling the delicate bones beneath my palms, the strength in her small frame.

“I meant what I said before,” I told her, holding her gaze. “I will follow Legion protocol for fate mates. I will escort you home. I will remain on Terra Prime as long as you wish me to stay.”

“As what? My alien boyfriend? My intergalactic roommate?” There was humor in her tone, but uncertainty in her eyes.

“As whatever you need me to be,” I answered honestly. “I can serve as Legion liaison to Terra Prime. Official first contact representative. Or...” I hesitated, searching for the right words.

“Or?” she prompted.

“Or simply yours,” I finished quietly. “In whatever capacity you desire.”

Something softened in her expression. She uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on my chest, fingers curling into the material of my tactical gear.

“I want you to come home with me,” she said, the words simple but weighted with meaning. “Not as a representative or a liaison or whatever official title the Legion gives you. Just as Lor. My Lor.”

My tail curled involuntarily at her words, a physical reaction to the possessive pronoun that pleased something primal inside me. My Lor.

“Then that is what I shall be,” I promised.

The jungle pulsed around us, the bioluminescent flora brightening in response to our exchange. Phil extended further, wrapping gently around both our ankles, connecting us physically as our bond connected us spiritually.

“Will the jungle be okay?” Miri asked, glancing around at the living network that had become her ally. “Without you here to protect it?”

“The jungle protected itself long before I arrived,” I told her. “And after Vaskari’s capture, Legion Command will increase security here. There will be others like me. Perhaps not as...personally invested in its wellbeing, but trained to respect and preserve it.”

She nodded, then looked back at the cryopod where Vaskari lay in suspended animation. “He really thought he could control all this. Harvest it. Own it.”

“Many have tried,” I said, following her gaze. “All have failed.”

“Good.” Her expression hardened momentarily, then softened as she turned back to me. “So...fifty minutes now?”

I checked the holo-slate’s timer. “Forty-seven.”

“And what exactly does a Legion Reaper do with forty-seven minutes of downtime after completing a mission?” Her smile turned mischievous, a hint of heat entering her gaze.

My body responded instantly to the implication in her voice, my temperature rising, my senses sharpening to focus entirely on her. The scent of her—adrenaline and victory and desire—filled my lungs, making my pulse quicken.

“Traditionally,” I said, keeping my voice deliberately level despite the fire building in my veins, “mission completion is followed by mission report preparation.”

She arched an eyebrow. “Sounds boring.”

“Exceedingly,” I agreed, stepping closer until our bodies nearly touched. “I find I prefer Terran traditions in this instance.”

“And what tradition would that be?”

“I believe you call it the ‘victory kiss’.”

Her laugh was bright and sudden, cutting through the jungle’s reverent hush. “That’s not a tradition.”

“Then perhaps,” I murmured, lowering my head until my breath mingled with hers, “we should create one of our own.”

The vines curled overhead, creating a canopy of privacy around us as the jungle itself seemed to hold its breath in anticipation. Forty-seven minutes. Not nearly enough time for all I wanted to show her, to tell her, to be with her.

But it was a start.

I kissed her. Not like before, not with the hunger that had driven me for days, but with something else—something older. Deeper. My mouth met hers with reverence, a promise sealed in every breath. Her hands curled in the straps of my tactical harness, pulling me closer, grounding me.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I whispered into her hair. “You were never meant to fight that battle.”

“I wasn’t alone,” she said simply. “The jungle was with me. You were with me.”

I scooped her up into my arms, ignoring the soft laugh she gave in protest, and carried her back toward the moss perch the vines had softened for us once before. They stirred now, gentle and welcome, parting leaves and weaving shade overhead like a canopy of green silk.

“I need to feel you,” I said hoarsely. “Not just in my dreams.”

She pressed her forehead to mine, her eyes shining. “Then take your time. We’ve earned it.”

And I did.

I laid her down with infinite care, as if she were made of the most delicate crystal.

The moss beneath us was warm and yielding, cradling her body in emerald softness.

Around us, the jungle dimmed its glow, providing a cocoon of privacy while maintaining just enough bioluminescent light to illuminate the curves of her face, the shine in her eyes.

“Let me see you,” I murmured, my fingers finding the fastenings of her makeshift garments. “All of you.”

She nodded, lifting slightly to help me.

I peeled away each layer slowly, savoring the gradual revelation of her skin—golden in the jungle’s soft light, marked here and there with faint scratches and bruises from our recent battle.

Each mark made my chest tighten with a mixture of pride and protectiveness.

She had fought alongside me. Had risked herself for this world, for me.

When she lay bare before me, I simply looked.

Drank in the sight of her. The soft curves that contrasted so beautifully with my own harder planes.

The delicate architecture of her collarbones.

The gentle rise and fall of her breasts with each breath.

The constellation of subtle marks that made her uniquely Miri.

“Your turn,” she whispered, reaching for the clasps of my tactical gear.

I allowed her to undress me, her nimble fingers making quick work of the unfamiliar fastenings.

Each piece she removed felt like shedding more than just clothing—it was armor, duty, the weight of my mission falling away until I was just Lor.

Not a Legion Reaper. Not a sentinel of GL-7. Just a male with his mate.

When we were both bare, skin to skin in the warm jungle air, I lowered myself beside her, propped on one elbow to gaze down at her face.