Chapter Ten

Raxon

The swirling tides of subspace faded into the background as our joining reached its blazing apex. Sutton cried out against my lips, back arching in a perfect bow as rapture blazed across her delicate features. She clung to me with desperate abandon, fingernails scoring lines of delicious fire along my battle-roughened pelt with each thrust of my cock into her sweet depths.

I snarled her name—a guttural vocalization of pure possession that resonated from the deepest wellsprings of my soul. In that moment, she was mine in every way that mattered. Bound to me by oaths and impulses more profound than the cosmic laws that shaped existence itself.

Witnessing her orgasm unleashed my own, demolishing the last remnants of my self-control. I buried myself to the hilt, letting my seed pulse deep within her molten depths as I claimed her fully as my mate. Our essences intertwined, blazing together into a singular union that would endure long after these mortal vessels turned to stardust.

We clung to each other as the carnal storm passed, bodies slicked with the mingled musk of our mating. Sutton trembled against me, eyes slightly unfocused in the hazy afterglow as her chest heaved with each ragged inhalation. She looked so painfully delicate in that moment, so fragile and ephemeral that it made my throat tighten with a fierce sort of protectiveness.

Slowly, reverently, I lowered her to the deck and simply held her against the solid strength of my frame. My arms refused to fully relinquish their embrace, every primal instinct roaring at me to keep her sheltered and secure in the protective circle of my body.

She was mine now, in the most fundamental way imaginable. The thought should have terrified me with its immensity, the sheer enormity of the path we"d crossed over together. But instead, I felt only a sense of... rightness. As if some profound cosmic certainty had finally clicked into place, realigning the very universe around the blazing truth now seared into my soul.

This slight, deceptively fragile human female was my mate. My partner against the vast, churning tides of existence itself. Bound to me by oaths and impulses more sacred than the laws and traditions I"d devoted my life to upholding.

My rough tongue rasped against her brow in an unbidden gesture of tenderness. Sutton"s breath caught, those huge, expressive eyes finding mine as a kaleidoscope of unnameable emotions flickered across her features.

"You are mine now," I found myself rumbling, the words ringing with the solemn weight of a vow sworn before the blazing brilliance of a thousand suns. "Bound to me for eternity, our souls intertwined in a way that transcends these mortal vessels."

I cradled her face in one calloused paw, marveling at the softness of her flushed skin, the delicate strength blazing behind those shining eyes. Part of me still couldn"t fathom the enormity of the path we"d set our feet upon. But the greater part—the primal essence of my very being—recognized her as its perfect counterpart. The blazing flame to guide me through whatever mind-bending wonders or soul-shattering terrors awaited us in the great cosmic blackness.

Sutton held my gaze, seemingly struggling to find words of her own. Then, with a slight tremble, she drifted closer until our brows touched in an intimate joining that transcended the physical.

"I"m yours," she breathed at last, each syllable ringing with the certainty of a blood-vow sworn across the cosmos. "Now and forever, Raxon. Through whatever awaits us out there in the stars, whatever trials or wonders... I"ll face them all at your side as your mate. Your partner. Your... your everything."

Those simple words reverberated straight down to my core, unleashing a rumbling purr of primal satisfaction. I nuzzled against the slick, sensitized curve of her neck, letting her addictive musk and the thundering rhythm of her pulse surround me.

"And I am yours, little mate," I rasped against her flushed skin, letting the weight of my vow resonate between us. "Bound to you by the most sacred oaths, by the very fire that stokes the stars themselves and gives life to this vast cosmos we traverse."

Sutton shivered at the profound weight of my words, but did not look away. If anything, her gaze seemed to burn even brighter, shining with unnameable emotions that resonated straight down to my soul.

She understood, I realized with a sense of primal satisfaction. Understood the enormity of the path we"d set our feet upon together, the profundity of the bond now blazing between us. And despite the madness of it all, the sheer enormity of the revelations and mind-bending journeys awaiting us out there in the great cosmic blackness... she wouldn"t have it any other way.

A low, rumbling purr built in my chest as that core truth blazed to life between us. Then, with a sense of masculine satisfaction and that same primal hunger that had first ignited our joining, I captured Sutton"s lips in another searing kiss.

I would face down the entire galaxy itself to keep Sutton safe, to ensure that the brilliant flame now blazing within me never flickered or dimmed.

I would…

The blaring wail of proximity alerts shattered the intimate stillness. I flinched violently, instincts screaming as years of combat discipline flooded back in an instant. Sutton gasped, clinging to me as the shuttle"s outer hull shuddered with the first impacts of weapons fire.

"Status!" I roared, disentangling myself from her with brutal efficiency as I sprang for the controls. Tactical displays flickered to life, revealing the silhouette of a single hostile craft bearing down on us from the chaos of subspace.

"Incoming vessel registers as Arudian design," the navcom blared in a cold, clinical tone utterly at odds with the heated aftermath of our joining. "Weapons charged and target lock confirmed. They are firing."

I snarled a blistering curse, claws raking across the helm controls as I angled the shuttle into an evasive corkscrew. More impacts hammered the outer hull, proximity alarms shrilling as the overstressed shielding wavered and faltered.

"Raxon!" Sutton"s panicked cry barely registered over the cacophony of combat klaxons. "What"s happening? Who"s attacking us?"

"The slaver filth," I spat, jamming a fresh power cell into the main weapons array with a vicious twist. "He must have tagged you with a locator beacon before we got you off his ship."

A cold knot of dread formed in the pit of my stomach even as the words left my muzzle. Of course, the vile scum would have taken precautions against losing such a valuable "commodity" as Sutton. I was a fool for not anticipating some kind of treacherous contingency like this!

"Brace yourself!" I roared over the shriek of stressed bulkheads as I brought the shuttle"s meager armaments online. Jagged lances of ruby light lashed back at our attacker, scoring angry contrails across their forward shielding.

But even as the first salvo raked them, the Arudian vessel unleashed another blistering barrage. Explosions blossomed across the viewport, punching through our failing shields in a starburst of detonations that shook the entire craft like a rabid targ.

I fought the bucking controls with everything I had, jaw clenched so hard the bones creaked as I willed the shuttle to hold together. This could not be how it ended, not after Sutton and I had claimed our bond. Not when the blazing truth of our union had only just ignited!

I would not allow it, by the raging firestorm at the core of existence! If it cost me every last, bloody breath in my body, I would ensure Sutton"s survival. She would live to face another dawn, even if I had to tear this cosmos asunder with my bare claws to make it so!

Snarling a wordless vow, I rerouted every scrap of auxiliary power to the forward shielding, desperate to keep our attacker"s next salvo from vaporizing us outright. The shuttle"s overstressed systems whined in protest, conduits sparking and overloading as the last dregs of the reactor output channeled into the single, overtaxed deflector array.

Sutton cried out, shielding her face as a fresh detonation rocked the cabin. Shrapnel and debris pelted the viewports, spiderwebbing the armored transparisteel in a thousand fracture lines. But the reinforced shielding held, if only for a few precious seconds longer.

"Hang on!" I roared over the shriek of combat klaxons. "I"m going to buy us an opening—you"ll need to make for the escape pods while I distract this filth!"

"What?" Sutton"s eyes went wide with panic, her slight frame dwarfed by the crash harness strapping her into the co-pilot"s station. "No, Raxon! I"m not leaving you!"

"You don"t have a choice!" The words tore from my throat in a furious snarl, more harsh and guttural than I"d intended. "This shuttle is dead in the void. Our only chance is to abandon it before we"re blasted into so much cosmic detritus!"

Sutton opened her mouth, perhaps to protest further. But another bone-jarring impact cut off whatever argument she might have made. The entire shuttle bucked and heaved, atmosphere venting in a tornadic rush as the rear compartments depressurized.

I had mere moments to act before the slaver"s next salvo punched through and atomized us. Instincts took over, honed by a thousand combat drops and hair"s-breadth brushes with oblivion. With a flick of my wrist, I armed the shuttle"s sole remaining countermeasure—a single, short-burn missile packed with enough explosive fury to level a small settlement.

Not much in the grand scheme of the armaments arrayed against us. But if I timed the launch just right, played this final gambit with all the cold precision that had kept me alive on a hundred suicide runs just like this one...

"Firing missile!" I barked, bracing myself against the control panels as the launcher cycled up to full power. "Launching in three... two..."

The deafening roar of the missile"s drivecore spooling up drowned out my words. I watched the tactical display as the single projectile streaked away from the crippled shuttle, lancing out towards the silhouette of the Arudian craft with unerring accuracy.

For a split second, I thought I"d misjudged the timing. That the missile would detonate too early, or burn itself out before reaching its intended target. But then the proximity alarm blared with fresh intensity, and the Arudian ship"s forward shielding blazed to incandescent life.

My lips peeled back in a ferocious grin as the missile detonated with the fury of a newborn sun. The shockwave hammered the shuttle"s battered hull, rattling every bulkhead and conduit until I tasted blood from biting clean through my tongue. But I barely noticed the pain, so focused was I on the tactical display and the spreading corona of the explosion.

The Arudian craft staggered, its powerful shielding buckling beneath the concentrated onslaught. Debris and twisted wreckage pelted their outer hull in a deadly hailstorm, punching through the weakened deflector arrays in a thousand places.

A cold knot formed in the pit of my stomach as the implications sank in. With their power distribution offline and containment fields failing, the ship"s antimatter reactor would destabilize within seconds. And at this range, the ensuing detonation would vaporize what little remained of the shuttle"s armored hull, Sutton and I, along with it.

Time seemed to slow to a viscous crawl as the tactical evaluations flickered through my mind"s eye. There was no way to avert the impending disaster, no heroic gambit or desperate maneuver that could salvage victory from the jaws of this defeat.

All I could do was make sure Sutton survived the cataclysm somehow. Even if it cost me everything, I would not allow the brilliant flame of her spirit to be extinguished here in the endless night, so far from the warmth and hope she deserved.

I pivoted towards her, mouth opening, to bark out a final order to abandon the shuttle. But the words shriveled on my tongue as I beheld her expression—not one of panic or fear as I"d expected, but that same blazing determination that had first awoken the primal essence slumbering in my soul.

"No," she bit out, each syllable crisp and laced with a core of adamant steel. "We face this together, Raxon. As mates, as partners against whatever fresh terrors await us in that endless dark."

I blinked, taken aback by the sheer intensity blazing behind her gaze. Part of me wanted to roar in denial, to physically drag her to the escape pods if need be and force her to abandon this doomed craft.

But a greater part of me, that primal essence that had awoken and blazed to brilliant life the moment I claimed her as my mate, knew the truth. Sutton was bound to me on a level that transcended these mortal vessels, destined to face whatever mind-bending wonders or soul-shattering terrors as one.

Even if it meant our oblivion here in the endless night, our essences would remain intertwined for all eternity. Twining together in a brilliant union to blaze forth once more, a newborn star to cut through the darkness of a reality realigned around the truth of our bond.

So I simply nodded, letting the weight of that profound acceptance resonate between us. If this was to be our end, our mortal flames extinguished in a blaze of fury, then so be it. We would face it as mates, as partners against the vast, churning tides of existence itself.

"Very well, little mate," I rumbled, the endearment seeming to resonate with the weight of a thousand cosmic truths given breath. "Then we will face this storm together."