Her eyes were heavy-lidded, her lips parted. She nodded once, a quick jerk of her chin that was all the encouragement I needed.
I pressed my mouth to her core, my tongue parting her folds in a long, slow stroke that made her cry out. Her taste exploded across my senses—sweet and musky and perfect. I growledagainst her, the vibration making her legs tremble. My hands gripped her thighs, supporting her as I feasted.
“Oh god,” she gasped, her hips rolling against my mouth. “Lor?—”
Hearing my name on her lips sent a fresh surge of hunger through me. I redoubled my efforts, licking and sucking at her sensitive flesh, learning what made her moan, what made her fingers tighten in my hair to the point of pain.
Her climax built quickly, her body tensing, her breath coming in short, sharp pants. When she broke, it was with a cry that echoed through the jungle, her thighs clamping around my head as pleasure wracked her frame.
I eased her through it, gentling my touch but not stopping, prolonging her pleasure until she tugged at my hair, pulling me up to face her.
“Come here,” she demanded, her voice husky with satisfaction.
I rose to my full height, towering over her small frame. She didn’t seem intimidated by the difference. Instead, her hands moved to my chest, exploring the patterns of my markings with curious fingers.
“You’re beautiful,” she said, almost to herself. Then, meeting my eyes, “I want to feel you.”
I couldn’t speak. The need was too great, the hunger too overwhelming. I lifted her, her weight nothing to me, and brought her to a bed of soft moss that hadn’t been there moments before. The dream shaped itself to our needs, to our desires.
I laid her down, my body covering hers, careful to keep most of my weight on my forearms. Her legs parted, cradling me between them, and the heat of her against my aching cock nearly undid me.
“Yes,” she whispered, her hands finding my shoulders, her nails digging in. “Please, Lor.”
I positioned myself at her entrance, the head of my cock nudging against her slick heat. The effort it took not to thrust home in one savage stroke was monumental. Instead, I entered her slowly, inch by torturous inch, watching her face for any sign of discomfort.
There was none. Only wonder, and pleasure, and a growing need that matched my own. When I was fully seated within her, we both groaned, the sensation of completeness overwhelming.
“Mine,” I growled again, and this time, when I bit gently at the juncture of her neck and shoulder, she arched beneath me, her inner muscles clenching around my cock in a way that made stars burst behind my eyes.
“Yours,” she agreed, and then her mouth found my own shoulder, her blunt human teeth closing on my flesh in a claiming bite of her own.
The Unity dream surged around us, binding us tighter, deeper, as we moved together in an ancient rhythm. Each thrust brought us closer, not just physically but spiritually, our essences mingling in the space between worlds.
When release finally claimed us, it was simultaneous and shattering. I roared my completion as she cried out beneath me, our bodies locked together in perfect synchronicity.
In the aftermath, as we lay tangled together in the heart of the jungle, I knew with bone-deep certainty: I would find her in the waking world. And when I did, nothing in the universe would separate us again.
***
I woke with a growl lodged in my throat and my cock hard enough to split stone. My tail had wrapped tight around my thigh, seeking pressure, as if it could find her by instinct alone. The Unity dream still clung to me like a second skin, her scentembedded in my senses though she wasn’t physically present. Miri. The name pulsed through me with each heartbeat. She was real, and she was here—somewhere in my jungle. The primal part of me knew this with absolute certainty.
The primitive shelter I’d constructed in the upper canopy was bathed in the golden-green light of early morning. Filtered sunlight penetrated the dense foliage, creating patterns across my skin that mimicked the dappled markings Miri had traced with such fascination in our shared dream. The memory made my fangs ache.
I rose in a single fluid movement, stretching my body to its full height. My muscles protested after three cycles of minimal rest. The fugitive I’d been tracking had proven more elusive than anticipated, leading me deeper into the heart of GL-7’s sentient jungle than any other quarry before.
The thought of the fugitive—a Cydarian weapons smuggler who’d crashed on the planet two weeks prior—brought a momentary focus back to my mission. I was a Legion Reaper. I had a duty. But that duty suddenly felt hollow compared to the pull of my fate mate.
I crouched at the edge of my platform, surveying the living world below. GL-7 was unique among the charted planets—a sentient ecosystem that had evolved collective consciousness through its intricate root system. The jungle wasn’t just alive; it was aware. Thinking. Remembering. When Legion scientists had discovered this forty cycles ago, they’d immediately established research outposts to study it.
And when those outposts were abandoned after the Helixian incursion, Reapers like me were stationed to ensure the technology left behind didn’t fall into enemy hands.
The jungle floor pulsed with life three hundred feet below. Bioluminescent fungi crept along massive tree trunks, feeding on decaying matter and converting it to light. Carnivorous vines—bright crimson against the dominant emerald foliage—sensed movement and heat, their sensitive tendrils poised to strike at any prey unfortunate enough to trigger their reflexes.
Those same vines had nearly claimed me when I first arrived. Now, they recognized my scent, my heat signature. I had become part of the jungle’s consciousness—not prey, not quite symbiote, but something the massive organism had categorized as “other-but-safe.”
It was this connection that had allowed me to track the Cydarian for so long without losing his trail completely. The jungle shared its knowledge with me, not in words or images, but in sensations and impressions that my Rodinian senses could interpret.
I pressed my palm flat against the rough bark of the massive tree that supported my shelter. Closing my eyes, I pushed my consciousness outward, seeking that familiar connection.
