Page 7 of Snared (The Legion: Savage Lands Sector #8)
“Personal space, Phil,” I muttered, untangling myself again.
Phil pouted. If a vine could pout. I didn’t know how this was my life.
And I was…weirdly fine?
Maybe it was the air. Or the vines. Or the slow way Lor looked at me when he thought I wasn’t watching, like I was a puzzle he wasn’t quite sure how to solve—but that he wanted to take apart piece by piece with his teeth.
Which, okay, hot.
The perch he’d built for me was strung between two huge trees, nestled in the crook of their forked trunks. It wasn’t exactly glamping, but it had a moss bed, a woven leaf roof, and actual privacy. Vines draped protectively around the sides, rustling if anything got close.
Like living in a treehouse built by Tarzan and guarded by houseplants with attachment issues.
I wasn’t complaining. Lor hadn’t left my side since we’d met. He hadn’t talked much, either. Mostly just watched. Listened. Scanned the jungle with those golden eyes like he was waiting for something—something dangerous.
I should’ve been scared.
Instead…I was curious.
Also: ravenously horny.
I didn’t want to be. But my brain didn’t care, serving me tidbits of the best orgasms from the dream at the most inopportune times. Like now, as I watched Lor weave thick vines into a defensive latticework around our shelter.
His hands moved with practiced precision, those deadly claws extending just enough to slice through the tougher sections before retracting again. The muscles in his back rippled beneath his bronzed skin, his tail swaying in perfect counterbalance to his movements.
I forced myself to look away, focusing instead on the pile of strange purple fruits he’d gathered earlier. They tasted like a cross between mangoes and blueberries, sweet with a tart finish that made my taste buds dance.
“These are amazing,” I said, juice dribbling down my chin as I bit into another one. “What are they called?”
Lor glanced over his shoulder, his golden eyes reflecting the bioluminescent fungi that had begun to glow as twilight settled over the jungle.
“The jungle calls them life-givers,” he said, his deep voice sending a completely unnecessary shiver down my spine. “They strengthen the neural connection between you and the ecosystem.”
I looked at the half-eaten fruit in my hand with new appreciation. “So they’re like...psychic enhancers?”
“Of a sort.” He turned back to his work, speaking as his hands continued their weaving. “The jungle communicates through biochemical signals. The fruits help your body interpret those signals more clearly.”
“Is that why Phil keeps trying to be my best friend?” I asked, wiggling my toes at the vine that had inched closer to me again.
Lor’s ear twitched—the equivalent of an eye-roll, I was learning. “You shouldn’t name them.”
“Too late. We’ve bonded.”
“So I see.” There was something almost like amusement in his tone, though his face remained impassive. “The vines are an extension of the jungle’s consciousness. They’re drawn to you because you’re...different.”
“Different how?” I licked juice from my fingers, not missing how his eyes tracked the movement before quickly returning to his task.
“You dream with me,” he said simply, as if that explained everything.
And maybe it did. The Unity dream had changed something fundamental between us—and apparently, between me and the jungle too.
Lor finished the latticework and moved to the entrance of our shelter, kneeling to press his palm against the largest tree trunk. His eyes closed, head tilting slightly as if listening to something I couldn’t hear.
“What are you doing?” I asked, crawling closer to watch.
“Asking the jungle to shield us tonight,” he replied without opening his eyes. “The trees can interlock their root systems beneath us, creating a detection grid. Anything larger than a small rodent that approaches will trigger the vines.”
“Like a living alarm system,” I marveled.
He nodded once. “The jungle protects what it values.”
“And it values us?” I asked, unable to keep the skepticism from my voice.
Lor’s eyes opened then, fixing on me with an intensity that made my breath catch. “It values you. It senses what you are to me.”
The implication hung in the humid air between us, heavy with meaning neither of us was quite ready to put into words.
“What am I to you?” I asked anyway, because apparently I had a death wish. Or a life wish. I wasn’t sure anymore.
Lor rose to his full height, towering over me even in the cramped confines of the shelter. “You know what you are.”
I did. Kassari. Fate mate. The words from our shared dream echoed in my mind, impossible to ignore.
“Are there dangers?” I asked instead, changing the subject before I did something stupid like throw myself at him. “Things the jungle can’t protect us from?”
His expression shifted, almost imperceptibly. A tightening around the eyes. A slight flare of his nostrils. He didn’t answer.
“Lor?” I pressed. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“Rest,” he said, deflecting with a grace that would have impressed me if it hadn’t been so frustrating. “The journey tomorrow will be challenging.”
I watched as he moved to the outer edge of the shelter, positioning himself like a sentinel between me and whatever dangers lurked in the darkening jungle. His body was tense, alert, every line of him radiating protective intensity.
“You’re not going to sleep?” I asked, though I already knew the answer.
“I will rest when it’s safe.” He glanced back at me. “The jungle will warn me if anything approaches.”
I wanted to argue, to demand answers about what had him so on edge. But exhaustion was creeping over me, the strange fruits and the day’s exertions taking their toll.
I stretched out on the moss bed, softer than any mattress I’d ever owned. Phil coiled protectively near my feet, joined by two smaller vines that draped themselves across the edge of the sleeping platform like living guardrails.
“Goodnight, Phil,” I murmured, my eyelids growing heavy. “Keep the creepy crawlies away.”
Phil rippled in what I chose to interpret as agreement. Through half-closed eyes, I watched Lor’s silhouette against the night sky, his tail moving in slow, hypnotic sweeps.
The last thing I saw before sleep claimed me was his head turning, those predator eyes reflecting the bioluminescent glow as he watched over me.
And the last thing I felt was anticipation—deep, primal, and undeniable—for the dream I knew was coming.
I dreamed of him again. Lor.
His tongue, hot and slow, dragging down the inside of my thigh.
His claws scraping gently over my hips. His tail wrapping around me like silk and heat and *claiming*.
His body—hard, golden, striped in shadows—pressing me into glowing moss as he groaned into my mouth like I was his first and last taste of anything sweet.
But this wasn’t just memory. This was now. This was happening again.
The Unity dream pulled me under like a riptide, dragging me into a world where only sensation existed. I found myself standing in a clearing bathed in moonlight, the jungle around us pulsing with bioluminescence that matched the rhythm of my heart.
And there he was. Waiting.
Lor stood at the edge of the clearing, his golden eyes glowing in the darkness. Gone was the careful restraint he showed in the waking world. Here, in this space between reality and fantasy, he was all predator. All hunger. All mine.
“Kassari,” he growled, the word rumbling from his chest like thunder.
I should have been afraid. Should have been intimidated by the raw power radiating from him, the deadly claws that now extended fully from his fingertips, the fangs that gleamed in the moonlight as he stalked toward me.
Instead, I felt myself moving to meet him, drawn by a force as inevitable as gravity.
“Lor,” I whispered, his name a prayer and permission all at once.
We collided like stars, his mouth crashing down on mine with a ferocity that stole my breath. His hands—those deadly, gentle hands—cradled my face with exquisite care even as his body pressed against mine with urgent need.
I tasted wildness on his tongue, something primal and ancient that called to something equally primal in me. My fingers dug into the corded muscles of his shoulders, nails scoring his skin as he deepened the kiss, claiming my mouth with a thoroughness that left me gasping.
When he finally pulled back, his pupils had dilated to dark pools rimmed with gold. “Let me taste you,” he growled, his voice so deep it vibrated through my bones. “All of you.”
“Yes,” I breathed, the word barely formed before he was moving, lifting me as if I weighed nothing and laying me down on a bed of glowing moss that seemed to have materialized specifically for this purpose.
His tongue—that incredible, devastating tongue—traced the line of my jaw, the curve of my neck, the hollow of my throat. I arched into the contact, a whimper escaping me as I felt the rough texture of it against my skin.
Unlike a human tongue, Lor’s was textured with tiny ridges that caught against my sensitive flesh, creating friction that sent sparks dancing along my nerve endings.
He worked his way down my body with agonizing slowness, those ridges scraping deliciously over my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, the sensitive peaks of my nipples.
“Your taste,” he murmured against my skin, “intoxicating.”
His hands slid beneath me, lifting my hips as his mouth continued its downward journey. The night air was warm against my bare skin—when had I lost my clothes? Did it matter?—but his breath was hotter, raising goosebumps wherever it touched.
I writhed beneath him, desperate for more contact, more pressure, more *him*. But his strength was absolute, his control unbreakable. He would take me apart at his pace, not mine.
A whisper of movement caught my attention—vines, sliding through the moss toward us. Not Phil—these were different, darker, with a purple-blue luminescence that pulsed in time with my racing heart.