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The console chimes. A soft, melodic sequence of notes fills the sterile room.

Lirael turns around. Her silver-flecked indigo eyes are bright, a wide, unrestrained smile breaking across her face.

“Match confirmed.”

The breath punches out of my lungs. The crushing weight on my chest dissolves into thin air, leaving behind a dizzying rush of pure adrenaline.

I don’t even get the chance to speak.

Orien moves.

He ignores the scientists. He ignores decorum. His large hands frame my face, his long fingers tangling in the hair at the nape of my neck. Then he tilts my head up and crashes his mouth down on mine.

The kiss is devastating. It is a deep, possessive claim that strips away the last lingering remnants of my fortress. I open my mouth, meeting the sweep of his tongue, practically tasting the relief pouring out of him. The heat of his body swallows the chill of the laboratory.

I grip the waist of his dark trousers, holding on for dear life. My toes curl inside my sensible leather shoes.

He pulls back a fraction of an inch, his chest heaving, his amber eyes burning.

“Mine,” he breathes against my lips.

“Yours,” I whisper back.

The heavy, fur-lined blankets of Orien’s bed are pushed entirely off the mattress, discarded somewhere on the stone floor.

I brace my forearms against the headboard, my knees sunk deep into the plush mattress. Behind me, Orien grips my hips, his long fingers pressing into my skin to anchor me against the brutal, relentless drive of his body.

He pulls back and thrusts forward, burying the thick, ridged length of his shaft deep inside me.

A ragged gasp tears from my throat, my spine bowing. The friction is incredible, the textured ridges dragging over my inner walls with each thrust. The glowing orange neural filaments along his body cast a molten, flickering light against the dark wood of the headboard.

We’ve spent the last three days systematically destroying the remaining walls between us. Without the icy barriers, without the constant tactical deflections, the sheer magnitude of our compatibility is terrifying. We barely leave this room.

But we have talked.

I have questioned Lirael about human-Avaren pregnancy with the same ruthless thoroughness I apply to military planning. Gestation. Physical risks. Nanite monitoring. Every possible complication. I made my decision hours ago, while fully dressed and entirely sober.

I simply haven’t told Orien yet.

He slides his hands around my waist, his broad palms caressing my flat stomach.

“I want to disable the nanite block,” he rasps, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin at the nape of my neck.

My breath stalls in my lungs.

“I want to breed you, Maggie,” he continues, his voice a dark rumble that sends a shock wave of heat straight to my core. He rolls his hips, grinding the thickest part of his anatomy directly against my G-spot. “I want you round with my child. I want to fuck you exactly like this, with my hands wrapped around your swollen belly, knowing you carry my heir.”

The filthy, primal possessiveness of his words should terrify me. I am a commander. A woman who built an empire in a bunker, who hoarded control as if it were the only oxygen left on a dying planet. A pregnancy right now defies all logic. Earth is still a graveyard. The Ghorvek still roam the ashes.

But I have considered the logic. I have cataloged the dangers and weighed them against the possibility of a future I never expected to have.

The image he paints—big with his child, anchored to him, creating a future instead of merely surviving the present—floods my veins with desperate arousal.

“Do it,” I demand, bucking back against his thighs. “Give it to me.”

Orien goes completely still inside me.

“Do not answer with my cock inside you unless you mean it,” he growls, every muscle in his body trembling with restraint.