Chapter 49

CHAPTER 49

ALINA

W hen the only sound left was the remaining sad beeps of the machinery Threxin had all but destroyed, his iron arms finally uncurled from her body and she stumbled forward out of his grasp.

That was when the pain really set in. Maybe it was the shock, or the pressure his arms had been putting on her body to stifle the blood and nerves, but it all came now. Looking down at herself, Alina dared to lift her shirt to expose the skin.

Five pointed gashes trailed red into the bottom of her shirt, red collecting along the waistline of her trousers. On her chest, her shirt had stuck to the bloodied skin. These scratches were longer, and in the back of her mind Alina knew she had to work fast and get them treated. Her mind was oddly calm, but logically she could see this was bad. It was really bad.

When she turned around and looked up at Threxin, his eyes first raked over his handiwork and then his face turned pallid—a color she hadn't seen on him before. Funny, she had almost begun to think uhyre skin never changed color. She'd never seen him pale or blush.

"Alina Argoud," he rattled, staring at her chest. "I…" He dr ove the heel of his palm into his temple. "Call Renza back. He needs to finish this."

"No." Alina stepped toward him. "Threxin… I'm going to transmit, and you're going to feel me. Okay?"

Threxin stood there and stared at the mangled skin he had created, and the horror in his eyes was belied by something else: a primal alien hunger that, even worse, still made Alina's body respond in a way she was definitely not supposed to now. The tightness in the pit of her stomach was entirely misplaced. She was going into shock—that must be why this was happening.

"Yes," Threxin said, ripping his gaze away.

"Close your eyes."

He did, and Alina nudged him gently to sit on the bed with what little strength she had left. She perched on the edge beside him and took a tick to catch her breath and admire the sharp angles of his face, the cyan glow of the tense slits in his skin, ones that were presently closed tight yet vibrating with a longing she knew very well.

She hovered a shaking palm over his left cheek. It took a few seconds to get her head in order to emote to him. She hadn't used that muscle in so long, her NS wasn't used to being called upon by now. What used to come naturally now felt like her physio—forcing an atrophied muscle into action.

But she felt him, radiating warmth against her hand, and she thought she felt the open link inside him too. You could usually tell when an NS comm had hit home—or hit something . And all she had to do was not try too hard. All that was needed, according to Renza's theory, was the truth.

I'm here, she transmitted the thought and the flutter of warmth behind it.

There was no indication that it worked. No indication that he felt her at all. But as she gazed at his face, deathly still in its focus and brow creased in a deep frown, the internal barriers Alina had been holding crumbled. This man—this being —made Alina feel larger than her shell. Something in her grew, pushing at her edges. It would crack her open, and she wouldn't even care. It would reach for him until he met it and took it for his own.

He's mine.

That thought was just for her—she didn't mean to transmit it. But Threxin's brow relaxed, rising in a gesture that hinted at curiosity, and then she felt him coming forward to meet her offering.

I love you. The admission she had so fiercely guarded surged forward unfiltered and found its mark. The raw sensation flooding the link between their minds wasn't fondness. It wasn't even desire. It was a violent crash of souls—their minds building tethers that knotted and cinched as if by primal recognition.

A blush warmed Alina's cheeks. She hadn't intended to reveal so much, but stemming the flow wasn't even an option now. Complete candor was inevitable. And that was the point, wasn't it?

His eyes opened and the blue fire within his gaze was blinding in its intensity. The physical sensation of it was quickly dwarfed by the onslaught of thoughts and emotes that hit her all at once.

None of it was discernible exactly—the constructs coming at her now were distinctly alien. Threxin didn't feel the way she did. His emotive thoughts were sharp, slicing, desperate shards. They were aggressive. Pointed and hungry, painful and yearning. It took her a few ticks to sit back and let herself take them in wholly—to stop trying to parse them and just be a vessel for the onslaught. Only then did the full picture of him grow into something discernible, and Alina realized she'd been crying.

She felt his impulse and mirrored it, vaulting it back over their link. There were so many things they both longed for and so many that they now knew. They needed to get it all out in something physical—something touchable.

Alina was floating, her pain and weakness all but forgotten in the parallel universe of their link. In the back of her mind she knew this was dangerous—she felt the wetness trickling down her thighs, covering her abdomen. But it was just so easy to ignore, especially when Threxin's hands were on her waist. When he sprawled them both on the bed, lifting her with one seamless motion to set her atop his hips. When he was shoving one hand into his medbay trousers, yanking down the waistband, the heat of his erection springing free to press against her thigh.

Her leggings were soon shredded to scraps and hanging from her thighs.

When he tore away her shirt it tore a scream from her throat as the fabric peeled all at once from congealing blood, ripping open whatever spots had begun to dry. And though his eyes flashed in that hungry way she'd seen behind the leash of his limiter, not a moment later Threxin drew back, staring as he processed the painful emote she'd let slip through their link. Then his palm was on the side of her neck, his forehead leaning into hers as he flooded her NS with whispers of a soothing presence.

Alina stared as her blood splattered across his chest. Logically, she knew that this was bad… she was still bleeding, a lot. But every other shred of her, body and mind, wanted only to ignore it and be there with him, doing this.

Her brow creased in a pained wince when he rolled them over, placing her on her back. When he brought his mouth to the wound on her stomach, she sucked in a sharp breath, anticipating pain.

There was pain, followed by the gentle wrapping of his mind around her own. She threw her head back into the bed and yanked at the spikes on his scalp as he worked his lips along the gashes he had created, but soon the burn began to fade. She chanced a look down, gasping when she saw the bleeding had all but stopped. Instead, a thick layer of exorin covered each wide gash, seeping into puckered broken skin.

Threxin left a trail of black as he kissed up her ribs and toward the matching wound on her chest. His mouth left trails of fire as he oozed exorin into each clawmark there, lapping it meticulously into the length of each wound with his rough, spiked tongue. Again, the bleeding had stopped, the layer of black coalescing into something almost gel-like as it settled.

I had no idea exorin could do this, she subvocalized without thinking, finding immediate joy in the fact that she could .

Horizontal lines puckered his forehead as he looked up at her, his eyes momentarily so fucking clear in a way she'd never seen them before and his mouth still pressed firmly to her skin.

Me neither.

That clarity burned up in an instant, his expression darkening into something that made her core tighten instinctively. When he entered her with a swift roll of the hips it was unexpected, but her body immediately sparked with the sudden fullness, tightening possessively around him despite the pang of pain as it was forced to stretch. Her mind was ready for it, his intentions clear in the melt with his own. They were already fucking in their souls long before she felt him nudge at her insides, a twitch of the shaft buried inside her sending a lightning spike of pleasure to her brain that was immediately transmitted back to him.

Threxin had lifted his face to her and they watched each other this time, not their bodies, as she took him in spike by bulging spike. She began to move, rolling her hips back at him along his bulging texture. A groan caught first in her throat and cracked out of his, his hips rising to meet her.

She knew he'd feel her now—every move that hurt and every one that felt good, or a combination of both. He felt what he was doing to her, just as she felt his as she squeezed around him. Technicolor bursts of a carnal high colored her thoughts, setting her alight as he burrowed into her pores. Each little hair stood at attention as it was stimulated by his touch and their link.

She sensed his attention wander and only then felt his hand at her chest, pressing firmly to stymie a fresh trickle of blood through the barrier of exorin. She barely even felt it anymore, so impotent was the pain compared to the rest of it all. They were close. She didn't even need to feel or see the exorin leaking between her thighs, sucked by her out of his spikes, to know it.

She took his hand in both of hers and pressed it more tightly against herself, digging her nails into hard planes. Their movements grew haphazard and jerky. She pulled his hand with her as she unfurled beneath him, back arching as pins and needles sprouted along her skin.

Alina only vaguely registered their sounds in the heady pool of their link. The others must be hearing them, but neither of them gave a damn. The bed beneath them had been banging loudly against the wall, and a growl was continuous and escalating in Threxin's chest, punctured only by increasingly desperate cries torn from her own throat with each thrust of his hips.

That last one hit just right, and then she was falling, the orgasm hitting her like a punch in the gut that doubled her over, her cheek coming up to slam into the hard plane of his chest. His hand came up to cup the back of her head, squeezing her against him.

His brain assaulted her with the crazed frenzy of his own impending orgasm as he swelled inside her, stretching her to and past her limits. And then he exploded, heat flooding her insides.

I want to see .

He dug his talons into her roots and peeled her face away from him, tilting her head down.

Watch, female. Watch me claim you.

Alina stared down and saw the outline of him within her abdomen, shifting as he filled her until cum and exorin leaked in rivulets between her legs and melted between them.

"Fuck," she gasped as the fullness of it all drove her over the edge once more, her pussy contracting around him in another set of spasms as her hips ground desperately into his, drinking everything he had to give.

When finally they were spent, Threxin gently peeled himself up and off of her, revealing a giant red bloom on his chest.

Shit.

They were covered in sweat, blood, cum, and exorin. And now that it was over, Alina's vision began to swim, then spin.

"I think I need to…" she began, but didn't get to finish before her head grew heavy and everything went black.