He banked, adjusting his trajectory, and she saw his face for the first time. Even at a distance, she could read the joy there, the relief, the desperate longing that matched her own.
He’s really here. He’s really mine.
The thought shattered something inside her—some final resistance, some last holdout of doubt. She’d given up everything for him. Her career. Her home. Her carefully constructed life. And in this moment, watching him soar towards her against a sky painted in shades of fire and gold, she knew with absolute certainty that she would do it again.
A thousand times. A million times. Forever.
He landed in a swirl of dust, his wings folding back as his feet touched the ground. For a moment, they just stared at each other—two people from different worlds, different times, different species, bound together by something stronger than any of those differences.
“Alina.” Her name was a prayer on his lips.
“Rhyx.”
And then she was in his arms, and nothing else mattered.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
She was in his arms.
Rhyx pulled Alina against his chest, breathing in the scent of her—that warm, human fragrance mixed with something uniquely her that had become more essential to him than air. Three days. Three endless, agonizing days of waiting, of pacing Jeb and Mattie’s small habitat like a caged predator, of staring at the horizon and willing her to appear.
Never again, he vowed silently. We will never be apart again.
“Rhyx.” Her voice was muffled against his shoulder, her arms wound tight around his neck. “I missed you. I missed you so much.”
“Three days.” The words came out rough, scraping past the tightness in his throat. “It felt like three centuries.”
She laughed—a watery sound, half sob and half joy—and pulled back just enough to look up at him. Her brown eyes were bright with tears, her cheeks flushed, her hair escaping its practical bun in golden wisps that caught the dying light. She was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
“I know. Every minute felt like an hour.” Her hands moved to cup his face, her thumbs tracing the angular lines of his jaw. “But I’m here now. We’re together.”
“Together,” he echoed, the word a promise.
He kissed her.
The contact sent fire racing through his veins, igniting every nerve ending, awakening hungers he’d barely learned to name. Her lips parted beneath his, soft and yielding, and he deepened the kiss with a groan that rumbled from somewhere deep in his chest. She tasted like home. Like belonging. Like everything he’d been searching for through millennia of darkness.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, and he responded by lifting her off her feet. She gasped against his mouth, her legs wrapping instinctively around his waist, and the movement pressed her body flush against his in ways that made coherent thought impossible.
“Inside,” she breathed between kisses. “The shelter?—”
He was already moving, carrying her towards the portable habitat she’d erected. The structure was small, barely large enough for two, but it would serve their purposes. All he needed was privacy and her.
The shelter’s door sealed behind them, cutting off the thin Martian wind. Inside, the space was warm—heated by portable units that hummed softly in the gathering darkness. A sleeping platform dominated one corner, covered in thermal blankets. Basic. Functional. Perfect.
Rhyx set her down gently, but she didn’t release her grip on him. Instead, she pulled him down with her, drawing him ontothe platform until they lay tangled together, her smaller frame fitting against his as if they’d been designed to interlock.
“I need you.” Her voice was breathless, urgent. “Please, Rhyx. I’ve needed you for three days.”
The words shattered whatever restraint he’d been maintaining.
He kissed her again, harder this time, claiming her mouth with an intensity that left them both gasping. His hands found the fastenings of her suit—those practical, frustrating garments humans wore—and began working them free. She helped him, fingers fumbling with clasps and seals, both of them desperate to remove the barriers between them.
Skin. Warm, smooth, impossibly soft human skin beneath his palms. He groaned at the contact, his scales prickling with sensation where their bodies touched. She was so different from him—so delicate, so vulnerable—and yet there was strength in her too. He could feel it in the way she arched into his touch, demanding rather than submitting.
“You are so beautiful,” he murmured against her throat. “My mate. My Alina.”
“Yours,” she agreed, the word a sigh of surrender. “Always yours.”
