Lily froze.
“WHAT? No! Nononono. I just wanted to ask where the space station was.”
“Do not worry,” Khar said calmly. “It was creative swearing.”
Conversation between Khar and Lily a few chrono-cycles earlier
Khar returned to his quarters on the station for a change of clothes, a quick shower, and every calorie sphere he owned. On the way, he placed an order to replace Lily’s torn uniform. In fact, he ordered several. They would be needed.
If the exhaustion caused by imprinting had not crushed him so completely, he doubted he could have stopped after a single round with Lily.
She had seemed satisfied, but the worry still gnawed at him. Under normal circumstances, he could have spent the entire night pleasing her without effort. The developmental phase, however, had overruled everything else.
Khar shook his head sharply. He could not allow doubt to bury him. He would show Lily that he was capable of far more.
Under ordinary conditions, the presence of a third phase would have troubled him. There was not supposed to be one. Now, he clearly was in it. Even so, he had no capacity left to dwell on the anomaly.
Every thought revolved around Lily. His own condition was secondary.
The Divani had abandoned the last institutional forms of religion centuries ago, choosing the supremacy of scienceinstead. Still, Khar had studied the belief systems of other species. It was necessary when facing opponents whose lives were governed by imagined gods and rigid decrees. Their psychology produced choices entirely unlike his own. He pitied those who would rather end their lives than disappoint a so-called higher master.
And yet Khar had been illuminated.
He bathed in a new kind of devotion, one whose object was, unmistakably, Lily.
Everything had shifted. What once mattered had shrunk into something mundane and negligible. Even the smallest act done in Lily’s interest filled him with quiet satisfaction.
Khar was no uneducated brute. From birth, he had been exceptional, and the Divani colonies had given him the finest education available. Physical dominance alone was useless. Only a trained, calculating strategist could command others and survive.
And Khar had been observing Lily for a long time. If he was honest, since the very first moment he had seen her. Over time, it had become increasingly clear what she wanted. Not what she allowed herself to admit, but what she desired on a visceral level.
Khar had decided that he would become whatever she needed.
He wanted Lily. And becoming what she desired was not a sacrifice.
Above all, Lily wanted safety. Whether that need stemmed from being torn from her homeworld or had always been part of her, Khar ensured that he never abused her trust.
She was also exceptionally intelligent, the kind of mind that demanded stimulation or quickly grew bored. That meant he needed to challenge her. He could not collapse at her feet too easily, or the tension between them would dissolve before any real foundation formed.
Her relationship with sex was conflicted. Desire influenced many of her decisions, yet she hesitated to fully claim it. Khar would gladly take on part of that control, setting the rhythm of their intimacy so Lily could surrender to pleasure without having to steer it herself. She would resist those limits, of course. That resistance was simply another source of excitement.
The most beautiful part of it all was this: if Khar’s understanding of Lily was correct, then not only was he perfect for her, but it was almost as if she had been shaped for him. His temperament, his motivations, his entire life path formed an alloy with this astonishing creature that he would never have dared imagine.
Until last night, all of it had been speculation.
When Lily gave her consent, there was no turning back. Khar had to commit fully to his chosen strategy. A thousand battles had trained him to make swift, decisive choices, yet he had never felt the stakes so sharply defined. A fight without risk was nothing but slaughter. He chose courage.
And he was rewarded when he saw the unfiltered desire in Lily’s eyes as he took control.
He had been right. By the Cradle of the Universe, he had been right.
Khar grinned the entire way back to his quarters. Victory had never tasted so sweet.
For a moment, he had almost faltered when Lily threw his own words back at him and suggested there might not be a next time. He had nearly dropped to his knees and begged her forgiveness. Instead, he forced his fear aside and returned to what he knew worked.
Lily had reacted exactly as she had the first time he confronted her with his dominance: with unmistakable anticipation.
Once inside, he stripped and stepped under the shower, cleansing himself and finally examining his body in full light for the first time since the night before. He had grown used tothe glossy black of his skin, but the night had brought further changes. Along the length of his shaft, small ridges had formed. At the base, precisely where Lily’s pleasure center would meet him, two horn-shaped protrusions had appeared. They were positioned to massage her gently with every thrust. Their shape even echoed the horns on his brow.
