He laughs hollow, warm. “Beginnings only.”
My eyes go soft as I stare at him through the mask, red dust dusting my hair. “Let’s go home.”
He scoops me off my boots, stands like strength is a sculpture with me at its center. “Lead the way, sunshine.”
Miners cheer behind us—hoots echoing like prayer. An older kid taps his helmet, eyes hopeful. “You two saving us are heroes.”
Dayn sets me back on my feet. “Nah—just stubborn.”
I wink, breath rattling. “But metal menacing women. That’s so in my handbook.”
He slips an arm around my waist as we walk back through the grate of dust and dawn. The wind whips Zeyda’s dust around us, but our laughter cracks through the girders like live wire, ringing in the new future we build—one fight at a time, side by side, forever.
The wind howls harder, whipping against the tent, lashing canvas and bone. Sand sifts in from every seam, dusting the cot and our tangled limbs with the same fine grit that coats the backs of our teeth. Outside, the world burns and shifts, a galaxy without mercy. But here—inside this sweltering canvas skin—I’mhis.
Dayn moves beside me, the muscles in his flank tensing as he rolls toward me. His silver-scaled chest brushes mine, slick with sweat, the red patterning across his body glowing dim in the lanternlight, pulsing faintly like a second heartbeat. His third eye—between his brows—opens slowly, glowing a deep garnet hue. Watching me.Allof me.
I shiver.
He feels it.
“You cold?” he rumbles, voice a stormcloud dragging heat behind it.
“No,” I whisper, fingers grazing his side. “Just... overwhelmed.”
He leans in, nuzzling my jaw, his scales dragging soft across my skin. “Then let me take some of that away.”
His kiss isn’t gentle. It never is. But it’sprecise.Commanding. His tongue pushes past my lips, tasting the battle, the sweat, the lust that has been simmering between us since that moment in the smoke. I moan into him, gripping the ridges of his shoulders, pulling him down, down, until his weight crushes me into the cot’s thin padding.
His cock is already hard, pressed between us, thick and hot even through his gear.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs against my mouth, voice like iron dragged through fire.
“I want you,” I say, low. “Right now. Like this. Covered in dust and desperation.”
A deep growl builds in his chest—low, vibrating,Shorcu. He reaches down, and in one fluid movement, rips open the seam of my pants. I gasp, hips lifting, as the desert air slides over my soaked pussy.
“Fucking stars,” he whispers, looking down at me. “You’re already dripping.”
“I’ve been wet since the firefight,” I admit, daring. “Every time I thought we might not make it—every time you dragged me out of the fire—I just kept thinking how good it’d feel when wedid.”
He drops his forehead to mine. “Then you’ll take every inch of me.”
“Make me.”
He pulls back, kneeling between my legs. The lantern flickers as he tears open his own gear—scales flexing, sweat trailing along the grooves of his stomach. When he frees his cock, I feel my breath hitch. It’s long, thick, ridged, dark as obsidian at the tip and glowing faintly along the base with those telltale crimson lines.
I reach down, greedy, and wrap my fingers around the shaft. He grunts, hips twitching.
“I dream about this,” I murmur, stroking slowly. “How you feel. How youstretchme.”
He catches my wrist and pins it beside my head. “Then dream with your body, not your mouth.”
And then—he slides inside.
The stretch burns. He’s so big I almost forget how to breathe. But I take him, inch by aching inch, my pussy parting, clenching,welcoming.When he bottoms out, I cry out—a sound broken by lust and satisfaction.
“Fuck, Dayn,” I gasp. “You fill me—gods, youfill me so full?—”