The words settle in my chest like hot iron. I blink, hard. I taste the smoke-tinge of night air in my throat. I breathe it out slow.
I turn, reach up, brush the pad of my thumb against his lower lip. His skin is cold, firm. Rough ridges of bone-plate under the soft flesh. He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just holds still — like the world waiting for something to shift.
“Show me all of you again,” I murmur.
CHAPTER 16
VOKAR
The moment the door seals, the world shrinks to the size of this room—this bed—this woman.
Freya stands under the low red emergency light, all soft curves and quiet fire, and something in me tightens. She is so small she shouldn’t look real. Five-foot-one, barely over a hundred pounds, a slip of human vulnerability wrapped in golden hair and pale skin. Fragile by every measure.
Except she isn’t.
She looks at me like she expects me to touch her. Like she wants me to.
My claws twitch.
I step closer.
The bone-plates along my shoulders shift as I roll them back, the weight of war sliding off me. My voice comes out low, almost reverent. “Your body speaks,” I murmur, cupping her jaw with one enormous hand. “I’m listening.”
Her breath hitches. The smallest sound. A soft flutter.
But her eyes stay steady—green, bright, fearless.
My thumb traces the line of her jaw. Her skin is warm, impossibly soft. Her pulse thrums under my fingertips, quick and light, like a trapped bird. My other hand drifts downward—neck, collarbone, shoulder. I touch her like she’s something carved from light rather than flesh.
She lifts her hand, lays it flat over the bone spur at my wrist. My skin there is cold, hardened. She doesn’t flinch. She presses harder.
“Then hear this,” she whispers.
My chest tightens. Something ancient in me stirs.
I gather her gently, lifting her as if she weighs nothing—and to me, she barely does. She melts into me, wrapping tiny limbs around my massive frame, hips pressing into mine.
Our lips meet—slow, controlled. A test. A question. A promise.
Her pussy presses against the ridges of my abdomen, heat seeping through her thin uniform pants, and my cock surges to life instantly, throbbing against the seam of my trousers. I swallow a growl into her mouth.
She tastes like fearlessness.
She tastes like want.
I ease us toward the berth, lowering her carefully. The mattress is thin, the sheets rough, but she doesn’t seem to care. She reaches up, fingertips brushing the sharp ridges of my cheekbones.
“Take this off,” she breathes.
I shed my layers. Bone plates unclasp. Cloth falls away. I become larger without the armor—more monstrous, more myself.
Her breath catches at the sight of me naked. Not in fear. In hunger.
Her hands move first—not mine. She lifts her shirt, pulling it over her head in one swift motion, exposing pale skin that glows under the red light. Her breasts rise with her breath—small, soft, perfect.
I exhale her name. “Freya…”
She crawls into my lap, straddling me. Her thighs barely span my hips. Her fingers trace the outer ridge of a spur on my bicep. “Touch me, Vokar.”
