His teeth maintain perfect pressure on my throat, marking me with bruises that will last for days—weeks—forever. Claiming me in ways that transcend the physical and bleed into the spiritual.
Through our bond, I feel the exact moment when temporary entanglement transforms into permanent connection. Like a circuit completing. Like two separate systems becoming one integrated whole.
The universe explodes into colors I’ve never seen before—synesthesia so intense I can taste starlight and hear the texture of his skin against mine. For a moment that lasts forever, we exist as one entity suspended in space and time and something beyond both.
Then, gradually, reality reasserts itself.
The cockpit. The controls. The steady hum of engines maintaining our course through open space.
Silence crashes into us, louder than the alarms.
I slump forward over the controls, my lungs heaving, sweat dripping from my nose onto the glass of the display. My legs are trembling so violently I can feel the vibrations in the floor plates.
Inside me, he pulses—once, twice, three times—spilling final aftershocks of heat that seem to fuse my spine to his. His teeth release my throat with careful precision, his forked tongue immediately lapping at the claiming marks with soothing attention.
I look at my hands still gripping the controls. They are steady.
I flew us through hell while being claimed by an alien warlord, and I didn’t scratch the paint.
A hysterical laugh bubbles up in my throat, escapes as something between triumph and disbelief.
I feel the bite marks on my neck throbbing in time with my heartbeat, a stinging reminder that I am not just a Safety Inspector anymore. I am something else. Something dangerous. Something claimed and claiming in equal measure.
Crash slips from inside me carefully, leaving trails of cooling evidence—slowly, making me whimper at the loss—and the sound of his heavy breathing fills the small space. His hands steady me as my knees threaten to give out, supporting my weight while I remember how to breathe properly.
“Pursuit vessel unable to navigate cluster,” KiKi announces cheerfully, oblivious to the fact that her pilot just experienced a religious awakening while flying combat maneuvers. “Estimated gain: one hour, forty-three minutes. Excellent flying, Zola!”
“Thanks,” I manage hoarsely, my voice wrecked from screaming orders and pleasure in equal measure.
Behind me, Crash trembles with overwhelming emotions flooding the bond—love, gratitude, fierce possessive satisfaction. And underneath it all, bone-deep terror that I’ll regret what just happened.
I turn in his arms, cupping his face with barely-steady hands, and kiss him with all the certainty I feel through our connection.
“Best navigation assist I’ve ever experienced,” I tell him, watching relief crash through his expression like a tidal wave.
His laugh is half-sob, raw and honest. “You’re insane.”
“I’m practical.” I wince as the claiming bite makes itself known with a sharp throb. “And I need the medical kit. Claiming marks require proper aftercare.”
“They require follow-up claiming,” he corrects with surprising tenderness, already reaching for supplies. “We only completed the bonding bite. There’s still consummation acknowledgment and formal declaration—”
“We’ll get to that. After we finish escaping Thek-Ka and maybe find somewhere with actual beds instead of pilot seats.”
I take the antiseptic wipes from him, cleaning the marks with clinical precision despite hands that still shake with aftershocks.
Through our shared awareness, his emotions bloom bright enough to be almost painful—gratitude and wonder and fierce protective love that makes my chest tight.
He pulls me against his chest, and we stand there in the cramped cockpit—bonded mates who just survived impossible odds through skill, trust, and spectacularly inappropriate timing.
“So,” he says eventually, his voice carrying that rough edge that means he’s trying not to laugh or cry or possibly both. “About that formal consummation acknowledgment—”
I kiss him to shut him up, and feel his delighted laughter wrap around me like physical warmth.
Some operational parameters are worth breaking. Some protocols need updating to account for alien biology and biochemical bonds and falling in love while flying through asteroid fields.
I’ll write the new safety guidelines later.
Right now, I just want to stand here with my mate and marvel at the fact that we’re both still breathing.
