She lets out a sharp, fractured cry, and the reluctance in her eyes melts as a rising, intoxicating pleasure takes hold despite her intention.
"Draevik," she gasps, her voice softening into something desperate. She stops fighting and arches her spine, pushing her hips up to meet my downward stroke. She is succumbing to it, her body blossoming under the sheer intensity of the connection.
I increase the pace, my movements becoming a blur of kinetic force. She braces her good palm and pushes back against me, trying to reclaim some fraction of leverage. But theWeave’s numbing sedative wars with the blinding rush of her adrenaline, and her resistance crumbles. The raw intensity of the bond drags her under, sweeping away her defenses until she can do nothing but gasp as the mark demands her absolute surrender. She cannot escape the current.
Recognizing the escalating risk of my own frenzy, I grip her hips firmly, rolling her over and pulling her flush against my chest instead, enforcing complete physical dominance.
The sight of her arching back, the silver scar on her wrist sparkling in the dim light, is more than I can bear. I enter her from behind, my hands gripping her hips.
"You understand? Mine," I breathe harshly against her ear, the words a vow.
She can't even respond, her voice breaks into a series of high, frantic whimpers as I drive into her. Each thrust shifts into a claim. I feel her climax hit—a violent tremor that ripples through her and into me. Her pussy spasms around my cock, the tight walls squeezing me with an intensity that finally breaks my control.
I roar, a sound of pure, unadulterated release that echoes through the halls. I fill her, releasing a hot, drumming torrent.
I stay deep within her as the tremors subside. Her heart comes out as a frantic drum against my chest. TheWeavein her system radiates a faint blue luminescence that matches the timing of my own heartbeats.
"Draevik." The address lacks all structural tension, collapsing into a soft, dry whisper that barely maintains enough momentum to reach my sensors. She reaches back, her fingers brushing the side of my face.
I lean just enough to meet her eyes, my hands still holding her hips. I shift her beneath me again, my movements unhasty and heavy. I'm not finished with her. I lift her, settling her on my lap as I sit back on the dais. She straddles me, her arms wrapping around my neck.
"Again." The word carries a sudden, heavy momentum, surging through the space like a returning tide and displacing the uncertainty that had been lingering in the air.
I enter her from below, an unrushed, heavy slide that makes her eyes roll back in pleasure. This time, there is no rush. I move with a frequent, grinding tempo.
"Do you feel that, Nyra?" I whisper against her ear, my teeth grazing the lobe. "That is the ship recognizing its mistress."
"I feel... everything," she sobs, her head falling onto my shoulder as she rides the waves I'm creating.
I drive upward, my cock hitting her with a force that makes the air leave her lungs. She gasps, her nails raking down my chest, leaving pale lines across the veins that heal almost as fast as she draws them. The pain is exquisite. I want more of it. I want every mark she is willing to give me.
She sets the pace now, rolling her hips in a long-winded, devastating circle that makes the muscles in my abdomen clench. I try to thrust upward, to take back the tempo, and she presses her good hand flat against my sternum—right over the mark—and pushes me back down.
"Wait," she breathes.
Patience was never my expertise. My fingers dig into the flesh of her hips, hard enough to leave bruises on her fragile human skin. My combat matrix immediately registers a "sub-optimal biological state" in my mark, compelling an agonizing recalibration. I loosen my grip to preserve the operational integrity of the marker, smoothing my thumbs over the marks I just made. She catches my hesitation.
"Don't," she warns roughly. "Don't you dare start treating me like glass, Draevik. Not now."
The demand shatters my control entirely. I haul her against me and stand, her legs wrapping around my waist. The shift in angle makes her cry out—a sharp, bitten-off sound that travels across the bond like a nerve pulling tight. I carry her to the wall. The bioluminescent veins tremble against her back as I press her into them, and the ship shudders—a low, harmonic tremor that rolls through the Sanctum like distant thunder.Virex Primereacts to us. To the bond. To the heat between our bodies.
"The ship," she gasps, her eyes widening as the intense amethyst surges around us.
"Ignore it," I growl, though I cannot ignore it myself. The walls are emitting brighter than I have seen in centuries. The ship wakes from a state far deeper than stasis, tapping into a source I struggle to label.
I move inside her with a deliberate, grinding force. She locks her ankles behind my back and arches into me, her spine curving away from the wall. Every thrust drags a sound from her that I want to catalog, to memorize, to replay across the centuries ahead. She is vocal and fierce. She meets every roll of my hips with her own answering pressure, her body a counterweight to mine, and the friction between us builds until the boundary between command and surrender dissolves.
I shift her again—onto her side on the dais, one leg over my arm, the angle deep enough that her breath comes in short, shallow bursts. The silver scar shows clearly, the faint blue shade of theWeavestill quivering beneath the healed skin. My mark. My medicine. My mistake nearly cost me the only thing I want to keep.
“Draevik—” The name splinters, a sharp, crystalline snap that leaves the thought hanging in the air like glass shards. She reaches back, her fingers finding my neck, pulling me close until my mouth is against her shoulder. "I can't—I'm going to?—"
"Let go," I command, the words a rough scrape against her skin. "I will catch you."
The second climax hits us with a sudden, blinding explosion of sensation. I hold her to me as we fall back onto the dais, our bodies slick with sweat and cooling gel. The sedative from theWeave, combined with the sudden drop in adrenaline and the sheer physical exhaustion of our union, finally begins to take hold of her. Her movements were sluggish, her eyes growing heavy.
Pulling out gently, the wet friction makes her shiver. Because the dais is the heart of my power and now her sanctuary, I refuse to move her from it, instead sweeping her into my arms to adjust our position on the sleeping dais within the Sanctum. I make a mental note to initialize a full reclamation cycle later—the ship will need to be cleansed, and we both need to be washed of the blood and the sweat—but right now, all she needs is rest.
I lay her down on the soft bio-mat of the sleeping dais, pulling the thermal cover over her. She is small, warm, and entirely mine. I kiss the back of her head, my hand resting protectively over the silver scar on her wrist.