Following Karun came easily at first. We snacked on berries and spoke quietly as we hiked along through the vegetation. We discovered more and more plant life than I had thought possible for Vaxivia. The sun was heavily filtered through the narrower stretches, the air colder and heavier.

As the day wore on, Karun seemed to spring back from the hits he had taken and his pace grew incrementally faster. It bothered me to admit it, but the scabbed wounds at my back were aching and I felt my energy waning. As it did, I felt Karun’s core stone warm slightly.

So strange, this connection or ‘link’, as he had called it. We were both treading on unknown grown in so many ways.

Even besides the influence of my family, who were staunchly independent and self-sustaining folk, I didn’t trust others easily. Everyone on Vaxivia had some kind of skeleton in their closet. It was a harsh planet full of people who led harsh lives. We were realists—it was just bred into me.

Yet with Karun, it felt easy, natural even, to trust, to be vulnerable. I didn’t need to understand the science or the history of the thing when I felt it so viscerally. I knew that I was somehow connected to this remarkable man, and I realized, then, that I never wanted that connection to end.

As I started to ponder what a future with Karun might look like, he turned to me. My cheeks flushed, and I wondered, momentarily, if linking meant he could read my mind.

He smiled. “What has you blushing so?”

Relieved, I realized he wasn’t getting the mental images of the two of us with little dragon babies running around that had errantly flitted through my mind.

“It’s nothing. I think I’m just starting to wear down a little,” I said, not lying but omitting the embarrassing vignette I had mentally concocted.

“Shall we rest?” He looked concerned.

“No, no, I’ll tell you if I need a break.”

He looked at me dubiously. “I don’t believe that you would tell me if one of your feet were falling off.”

Karun located a slight recess in the rock wall and headed for it.

“Here, sit down. I’ll get you some water.”

I didn’t argue. Ordinarily, I would never have admitted such a moment of weakness, but for once, it felt rather lovely having someone care for me.

He returned speedily with a large leaf scooped heavily with water.

He brought it to my lips and ordered, “Drink. You look dehydrated.”

I took several big gulps then retorted, “Maybe because someone wore me out last night.”

“You don’t sound displeased about that,” he quipped.

“Oh, trust me, I’m not,” I said, licking the water off my lips.

“Careful, that sounds an awful lot like an invitation to do it again,” he said, his silver eyes flashing with desire.

“Oh, it definitely is.”

Dropping the leaf between us, he crushed his mouth to mine. The taste of berries still clung to his lips as I traced them with my tongue.

I felt heat pool low in my belly as he turned and put his mouth to work at my neck.

“I want you. Here. Now,” I whispered.

“You’re a greedy little human, aren’t you?” He laughed.

“So greedy,” I agreed.

“Mmm, I shall enjoy appeasing your greed later,” he said, pulling away and standing us both up. “We need to save that energy for the hike ahead.”

I grumbled in resigned agreement. “Fine, but I’m going to hold you to that later.”

“Please do,” he said right as he copped a feel of my bottom.

Forcing myself to tamp down the arousal building up, I trudged on.

Our progress was slowing, and I knew it was my fault. Karun didn’t say anything about it, but not for the first time since I had met him, I resented my weaker human form.

Every hour or so, he would seek out some small shelter in the vegetation or the rocks for me to rest and he’d scrounge up different berries or fruits for us.

Darkness began to descend in the crag. We were so far down that it fell much sooner than it likely would on the surface. There was no streaking luminescent orange as the suns set. It was far more sudden and cold than I would have liked.

With the encroaching cold, our pace slowed even more. I began to worry in earnest that we might become sitting ducks.

“Can Infernians see well in the dark?” I asked.

Karun looked back at me. “Yes, extremely well, but not as well as a Dragselian.”

That reassured me, but only somewhat. I nodded but said nothing, growing nervous.

He must have sensed my increasing apprehension.

“Don’t worry, we are probably safer now than we were earlier.”

That made little sense. “How do you figure that?”

“Recall that Infernians biomanipulated their DNA to adjust to the volcanic turbulence of Infernis. Their forms are not suited for the cold.”

“Then why did they attack our camp and the clinic at night?” I persisted.

“They likely had a base nearby that they could easily retreat to. They will not have come unprepared. They may have portable thermogenerators like the sort your militia supplied us with, but it is not likely that our demonic stalker is moving such equipment around, not while he is tracking us.”

He walked beside me now, holding my hand, sharing his warmth. The simple contact was intimate and wonderful.

We went on like that for a few more hours, skirting along the bank hand in hand until finally, we came to the widest stretch we had seen yet.

There were several small groves of tall trees with thin, winding branches covered in massive flat, shiny green leaves.

Karun tucked against the rock wall.

“We have gone far enough, I think,” he said, and I inwardly sighed in relief.

“He is not likely to follow us, but it would be unwise to risk a fire,” he said, looking at me apologetically.

“You’re right . . . but I’m sure we can find other ways to keep each other warm,” I said saucily.

He gathered several fronds of the flat leaves and piled them up to buffer the hard, rocky dirt of the ground.

I sank down and rolled my neck, popping the tension out of my joints.

Unexpectedly, he came up behind me and his warm, heavy hands worked gently at the muscles of my neck and shoulders. Carefully, he avoided the gashes between my shoulder blades.

“Mmm, that feels so good,” I mumbled appreciatively.

“I did promise you I would appease you, did I not?”

He slid his hands down to my breasts, caressed them through my tank top, and bent his mouth to my neck as his hands slid down past the waistline of my pants.

I let my head sink back against his shoulder and enjoyed what he was offering.

His hands were firm, and the slight friction as he rubbed and caressed the exterior of my womanhood with his palm while entering and stroking me with his long, thick fingers brought my breath in shorter and shorter bursts.

I moaned and gripped his thighs on either side of me, needing more.

He got the message. He moved so swiftly that I barely registered the movement.

Setting his lips again to my throat, he slid me backward, beneath the sensual weight of him. His wet mouth drew circles against my throat.

Finding the fasteners of my pants, he slid them free and brought my tank up, exposing me to him. His head dipped down to where my breasts were heaving with the unsteady breath of my arousal.

He sucked and nibbled at the taut peaks and then slid his attention even lower down, licking past my navel. Drawing wet circles on my inner thighs, he finally found my entrance with his mouth.

Slowly, he traced a warm, wet line along my cleft, then covered my mound with his lips and gently sucked. As his tongue laved at my center, massaging and stroking unrelentingly, I felt the tension in me coil tighter and tighter.

My hands found purchase in his long silvery hair as he gripped my naked thighs and continued his sweet torture.

When his tongue zeroed in on the tight nucleus of my desire, he brought one hand up and used his fingers again to penetrate and stroke me, in time to the rhythm of his tongue.

Ready to shatter, I arched, every muscle clenched in anticipation of sweet release. I looked down at him to see his silver gaze watching the pleasure on my face.

The connection burned me, and I came. My body shook as I felt the fracturing release, strobes of light and color in my mind’s eye.

Before my vision had cleared from the explosion of sensation, I felt him enter me. His fingers paled in comparison to the blissful fullness of his manhood.

“Is your greed appeased?” he asked, cupping my breast possessively.

“No,” I said, smiling as I challenged him.

“Good.”

Withdrawing from me, he turned me over, skillfully supporting my weight as I leaned forward onto my forearms.

I couldn’t see him, but as his hands came forward and cupped my chest again. I felt him nudge my legs apart and enter me as my body gripped him like a glove.

Stroking with careful purpose, he found just the right angle until I was panting heavily again. He released my chest and brought his hands to my hips, where he moved me in time to the cadence he was setting.

I whimpered in delight at the glorious sensation of his hard girth pumping into me. Then he brought one hand up to my neck and gripped my hair, not hard, but firmly.

It was sensual torture and I couldn’t take any more. It felt like he grew, the fit of our bodies getting tighter. The sensual friction built up until, overcome, he growled and thrust harder, faster, and I felt the zip of connection as we both came together. I was blinded by the sheer overload of sensation.

We were hot, our hearts racing as we lay together under a foreign canopy. Neither of us spoke for a long time until a question arose in my mind.

“Karun?”

“Hmm?” he replied languidly.

“What normally happens when two people link?”

“There is typically a formal ceremony preceded by an isolation period where the couple enters a specialized chamber. A device called a—” he began.

“No, I don’t need to know the process. I mean, what are the implications?” I asked, wanting to be more specific but not knowing how to.

“Linking is far different from anything Earth humans engage in.”

“Yeah, you can say that again,” I said, smiling.

“I suppose you might relate it closest to marriage. It is a connection of life forces. To my people, it is a solemn and permanent thing, which is why it is not done lightly or hastily.” He paused. “I know neither of us was given a choice in this. If you should decide it is not what you want, I will understand . . .”

I heard the vulnerability in his voice and I knew the answer.

“I do want it. Do you?”

Over the next several hours, he showed me all the delicious ways in which he did.