Page 25 of Deserted

I turned my head, breaking the moment like a snapped tension wire.

He eased back immediately, his weight lifting from me without a word, but his breathing matched mine—rough and a little too eager. The loss of his heat felt like a physical ache.

We stood. Dusted off. Said nothing.

But the air between us? Crackling like a live wire dipped in gasoline.

“Your skills are... adequate,” he finally said, his voice still rough around the edges.

“High praise,” I managed, trying to sound normal and not like I was contemplating tackling him back into the sand. “Same time tomorrow?”

His eyes met mine, that golden gaze holding secrets I was increasingly desperate to unravel. “If you wish.”

“I do.”

The simple affirmation hung between us, weighted with meaning neither of us was ready to acknowledge.

We walked back to the bunker in silence, the heat of the twin suns nothing compared to the heat building between us. And I had a feeling the next round wouldn’t just be about combat training.

It would be about the truth we were both circling—about Unity dreams, about fate mates, about why I couldn’t stop thinking about his hands on my body and his teeth at my throat.

About why, despite all logic and reason, despite the danger surrounding us, despite everything... I wanted him.

And I was increasingly certain he wanted me too.

10 /RHAEKAR

The recycler wheezedlike it was on its last breath, which wasn’t far from the truth. Three days of operating beyond capacity had worn down its filtration system to dangerous levels. I crouched beside the humming machine, tools spread at my feet in a half-circle of organized chaos, while Jas leaned over my shoulder with all the patience of a sand viper. Which was to say: none.

“Should it be sparking like that?” she asked, chewing on her bottom lip. Distracting.

“It always sparks,” I lied. It didn’t. But she didn’t need more reasons to doubt the integrity of this shelter.

I adjusted a cracked intake valve, then used a plasma solder to fuse the breach. The faint scent of ozone hissed into the air, followed by a blessed quiet.

It worked.

“That’s not ominous at all,” she muttered, folding her arms. “You sure this thing won’t melt us in our sleep?”

“Seventy percent.”

“Comforting.”

I stood, wiping grit off my hands as I turned to face her—and promptly forgot every thought I’d just had.

The wind had picked up, lifting the edge of her tunic and carrying her scent directly to me. Soft, electric, unmistakably hers.

My kassari.

I’d been trying to ignore the bond pulling tight between us—tried to treat her like an unexpected assignment. A mission, not a mate.

But every moment with her made that lie harder to live in.

I’d slept maybe two hours in the past three days. Deliberately. Sleeping meant dreaming, and dreaming meant Unity, and Unity meant sharing that charged mental space where my defenses crumbled and my nature—my true nature—emerged in all its feral glory. The memory of her writhing beneath me, begging me to claim her, to mark her, to make her mine... it was torture.

Beautiful, exquisite torture.

So I fixed things instead. The recycler. The perimeter sensors. The communications array. Anything to keep my hands busy and my mind occupied. Anything to exhaust my body enough that when sleep finally claimed me, it would be too deep for dreams.

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