Page 237 of Claimed By the Condemned Alien

“I know.”

“I will not ask you to stay.”

“I know that too.”

His tail lay still behind him. “Then I have nothing left to offer except truth.”

“Start there.”

“I want you. I love you. I do not know which parts of my body were engineered to recognize yours, but I know the decisions I made when recognition hurt. I know I would rather lose you than keep you without choice. I know that if you leave, I will help repair the ship that carries you.”

Kesta’s throat tightened. The empire had tried to make love into a control system. Dreven’s answer had not been to insist their feelings were pure; he had made departure possible and then left the door open long enough for Kesta to decide whether to walk through it.

“My turn,” she said. “I want you. I love you. I may still leave this planet one day. I may testify, hunt the people who built Helix, or drag every surviving woman out of their files. Staying with you cannot mean surrendering those possibilities.”

“It will not.”

“I will not belong to you.”

“No.”

“You may belong with me.”

His breath stopped. Kesta stepped close enough to feel his heat. “I choose you, Dreven. The claim and the pair-response have nothing to do with it. You.” Dreven’s throat worked. “And the bond?”

Kesta had expected the question. What came instead of fear was a calm certainty she had never felt inside a Helix chamber. “If there is a bond our bodies can make without the claim, without a machine completing it for us, I choose that too.”

“It may be permanent.”

“Permanence is not ownership.”

“It will let us sense one another.”

“Not command one another?”

“Never.”

“Then yes. The bond too.”

He did not touch her.

“May I?” he asked.

“Yes.”

His hands settled at her waist. His tail curled around her calf without closing. Kesta reached for one black horn and waited until he nodded before tracing its heated ridge. The bond response woke. This time no screen or band named and measured it, and no command completed it. They negotiated every step.

His fangs at her throat only after she asked. Her hand guiding his tail only after he told her what the touch meant. His body powerful enough to frighten her and controlled enough that fear never became the price of desire. Kesta took her time because time itself had been stolen from them too often.

She learned the difference between the smooth heat at the base of his horns and the ridged sensitivity near their tips. She traced the scaled line along his ribs, pausing at every imperial scar until he told her which touches grounded and which pulled him too close to old restraints. His tail moved around her with deliberate care, never closing until she asked for the pressure.

Dreven learned her with the same attention. He did not treat permission once given as permanent. Each new touch carried a question in his voice or his stillness. When sensation overwhelmed her and she went quiet, he stopped completely.

“Kesta.”

“I am here.”

“Do you want more?”