PROLOGUE
She'd let it go too long this time. Rey knew from the moment they entered the airspace of Galactic City. For once, she didn't resent relinquishing control to the automatic navigation; punching in the destination, she curled into the chair, her arms locked around her knees.
Sinking into the chair with her eyes fluttered shut, Rey inhaled slowly through her nose, desperately trying to find a cool tranquil center inside her. The peace of meditation eluded her though, with the ragged cadence of her own breathing alarming her.
A trickle sweat ran down her neck and Rey rubbed at it irritably. The hard touch of her hand against her flushed skin felt so good, but it wasn't enough. The blazing sun of Jakku had never left her so simmering and restless as the heat now racing through her body.
"Rey? Are you going to make it? It's not too late to go back. If you've changed your mind…" Jess's voice called from the rear of the small ship. The black-haired pilot lay in her bunk, pale and weary beneath the thin blanket. Rey heard the tremor in her friend's voice, and the distress of another pulled her from her daze.
Jess had more time left than Rey did, but not that much. She'd seen Jess grinning and relaxed after skirmishing with First Order TIE fighters. She was the youngest and the toughest member of Blue squadron, without a doubt. But the Resistance pilot had been shaking by the time she finished her shift in the cockpit, on their way to Coruscant.
They had to make it. After coming all this way, making all their plans…this was supposed to be the solution to her problem. Supposed to make the hunger go away, make the dreams stop. Get him out.
"Yes," Rey replied, her eyes opening. "It is too late. We're not going back."
She unfolded her legs and reached for the panel. Shaking off the haze of heat, she swallowed and gripped the lever.
"I can't go back."
Chapter I
The dreams began after they returned to D'Qar.
She had thought that finding the last Jedi on Ahch-To would be the end of her difficulties, but as it turned out, the peaceful sage she'd been seeking didn't exist. In his place, she found a tired old Alpha with a puckish sense of humor that surfaced at the oddest times.
She discovered Luke Skywalker standing atop a cliff, peering at her inscrutably. The lightsaber extended in her hand was acknowledged only with a silent shake of his head. Puzzled, Rey fumbled out an explanation of how she'd found it in a trunk at Maz Kanata's place.
Luke's grim eyes regarded the weapon before rising to meet hers. "I'd rather have the hand back. Did you find that?"
"What?"
A wry smile slid over his lips, and Rey saw light come into his blue eyes.
"Never mind. I've grown used to this one. You hold onto that 'saber."
"But it's yours," she frowned. Her arm fell to her side. "My name is Rey. I came to bring you home. They need you. General Organa- the Resistance- a lot's happened. I'm not sure where to start."
"The beginning is usually a good place," the Jedi said. He turned to gaze out at the ocean, and the lines of his face softened. "We're going to sit down in my hut and have some tea. You can tell me about yourself, Rey. And then you'll tell me about the last days of my old friend, Han."
A lump grew in her throat. "I'll try."
Luke nodded. "And then. Then we can talk about going home."
"You're a real pain in the ass, you know that?" General Organa's words welcomed them as they stepped off the ramp of the Millenium Falcon, into the Resistance base.
Luke grinned and wrapped his sister in a tight embrace. "I missed you too, Leia."
When the general pulled back, her eyes were wet. "Don't go soft just yet. Rey needs a teacher."
Standing aside with Chewbacca, Rey jumped a little to hear herself brought into the moment.
Luke glanced her way and nodded. "We've already begun. You do still have a way of collecting extraordinary people."
"Keeps things lively. Doesn't she need to make her own lightsaber?" Leia's eyebrows rose.
"Eventually. But I don't need this one anymore. And Rey can handle it."
Rey shifted uncomfortably, and Chewie patted her shoulder, growling with approval. Her lessons aboard the ship on their way back to D'Qar had been going well, with Rey showing increased control in her use of the Force. For the most part anyway.
That damned remote. Much to the Jedi's delight, Chewie dug up an old training remote that Luke had used with Obi-Wan Kenobi decades ago. Luke tinkered with it, repairing the emitter, while reminiscing about his old master "Ben" as he called him. ("He'd have liked you," Luke told her. When she asked why, he just shrugged and resumed wearing that annoyingly calm smile.) As naturally as handling the lightsaber had come to her on Starkiller when she faced Kylo Ren, stopping the blasts of the training remote with a lightsaber was another matter. The remote stung her so many times, she tried to hide the thing by stuffing it into the ship's garbage chute as soon as Luke went to sleep. In the morning, it was back, hovering outside her bunk as Skywalker huddled in his robes nearby, drinking a cup of tea.
"We've kept you from your wife too long. Her latest message was...quite insistent, I'm told. She misses you," Leia said to Chewie. "Thank you for staying by his side all these years." She didn't have to say who the he was in this instance. Her sorrow for her lost husband was written in her eyes.
"When Rey needs a co-pilot, I'll be there," Chewie replied in Shyriiwook. Leia's forehead wrinkled as she tried to understand. His growls slowed. "I'm sorry about the boy. When he was young, I held him up…I am sorry."
"Ahhh," Leia's eyes darted to Rey. "Did you catch any of that?"
"If we need him for the Millenium Falcon, he'll come back." Rey slid an arm around Chewbacca and squeezed. She couldn't think of a way to convey the rest of Chewie's message about the general's son. The boy who had once been her son, Rey amended to herself. But he's gone now. I think- for a moment there when Han touched him, I saw Ben Solo, felt something shake in the Force, something lift- but that's over.
She felt a dull ache settle in her chest, and a flash of guilt, the same one that had plagued her since Starkiller Base.
Leia didn't appear to notice anything was amiss. She shook the Wookiee's hand gratefully as he departed to find his shuttle home, and turned to catch her brother up on the Resistance's current operation.
Luke and Leia strolled into the headquarters in sync, and trailing behind them, Rey saw the resemblance in the Alpha Skywalker twins. Their physical similarity wasn't strong but the strength with which they carried themselves, the sureness and the set of their shoulders marked them as kin. She saw that same powerful carriage in Kylo Ren when he confronted her and Finn in the forest, the same grace when he slashed with his lightsaber. But while the twins' strength was restrained, there was no leash on Kylo Ren's power. He poured fury into his talent, and the aggression showed with every swing. She was still in awe at how he'd fought even after a bowcaster shot that should've killed him, and would have killed almost any other human.
Their duel in the snow haunted in her ways she couldn't explain to Luke when she recounted the last few months of her life, back on Ahch-To.
In ways she didn't want to explain, if she were being entirely honest with herself.
When the dreams began soon after her return to D'Qar, long nights filled with dark eyes and a potent Alpha scent, Rey wasn't even surprised.
The dreams always started in the same place:
A grey sky sunset, on the high dune just beyond Rey's AT-AT on Jakku, the place she would wander to when she was feeling the loneliest and wanted to remind herself of how large and full of possibility the galaxy was. Where she could see for miles if anyone was coming for her.
"The high ground, that's smart. Safer." From behind, his arms slide around her middle and his scent is suddenly everywhere. The indefinable lush aroma that made her mouth water and her thighs squeeze together.
"Not safe from you," Rey replies, covering his pale hands with her own. His lips nuzzle the nape of her neck, and she shivers, though the day's heat hasn't faded yet.
"Were you waiting for me?" His grip strengthens and she feels breathless, hauled against the warmth and hardness of his body.
"No, I wasn't." Her mouth curves upward with the lie. "I was looking at the stars."
His large hands spin her around until her nose bumps against his chest. She laughs and his fingers capture her chin, forcing her to look up and face him, face whose arms she stands in.
Kylo Ren traces her full bottom lip with his thumb, while his other arm seals her tight to him once more.
"I could show you the stars." His brown eyes follow the path of his finger against her lips. "I could show you everything you ever wanted to know."
"I'd rather figure it out for myself," Rey says, and realizes the sun has gone down, leaving them in starless night. Her arms are empty and cold, and she falls to her knees, panicked and grasping handfuls of cooling sand.
"Wait! I didn't mean-"
"Shhhh. You're not alone." He's there again, kneeling; his arms wrap around Rey and swing her around to lay her before him. She feels fabric beneath her back, her palms, her bare thighs, and it's then she realizes her clothes have disappeared in the darkness. She recognizes the rich black fabric beneath her body and sliding between her fingers now- it's his outer robe.
He doesn't need it, or anything else as he crawls between her thighs as nude as she is. The kiss begins at her throat, with his black hair tickling the sensitive skin of her cheek. Her laughs turn to moans as the kiss flows down to her collarbone, his lips dotting the path. By the time his teeth lock around her nipples, each thoroughly taken in turn, Rey's nails have dug into his shoulders, marking him with crescent moons. His eyes never leave hers as his fingers explore between her legs, spreading her wetness as the long kiss lingers lower, past her navel.
When Kylo's kiss finds her open and ready for him, juices flowing, Rey is past shame. Her knees fall apart and she demands with her fists in his hair, her hips rising to meet his chin, his mouth. With every tug, his tongue presses harder, lapping up the taste of her, letting her soak him until he's drowning in her.
"Please," she breaks. "I need more. It's not enough."
He rises over her, his broad shoulders heaving, and she shivers. She's too hot, she can't stand it. She drags Kylo down to her, sliding her hand between their bodies to grasp him. "I need you."
"You need my cock," he murmurs, rutting his thickness against her. "My Omega."
"Yes," Rey moans, burning with it. "Now." She squirms against him, nudging his cock against her entrance. "Do it."
"Tell me," he demands; but the softness in his eyes makes it almost a plea. "My Omega."
"Omega, yes," Rey says, wrapping her arms around his neck and kissing him between every word. "I'm your Omega. I'm yours."
Triumph covers his face, and the sensation of being overwhelmingly filled rushes over Rey as he thrusts into her.
Yours….
Rey awoke with a hot flood of shame; there was no slow call to awareness but an instant understanding of how bad – or how good, rather- the dream had been this time.
Her body ached, her nipples throbbed, and her panties were soaked through to her sleeping pants. She laid in bed for a half hour, waiting for the fire in her core to die down before she gave up.
Slipping under her covers, her hands dipped into her underwear to find her clit tender and ready. Rey worked her wrists into exhaustion with three orgasms, but in the end, she was never able to come without remembering brown eyes, or the scent of a particular Alpha.
Weeks of frenzied dreams and the madness hadn't ended. Instead of fading with time, the scent only grew stronger and her nights more restless.
How many more nights can I take? Rey thought.
In the morning, she resolved to find a way to take control of the situation before the wildness of heat took it from her.
Halfway across the galaxy, Kylo Ren lay awake on his hard mattress, having long given up on sleep for the cycle. He was always restless this part of the year; his time was coming, only a few weeks remained by his estimate, but he usually had a better handle on it. He might be Alpha but he was a Knight of Ren, he had more discipline than that, despite what some thought. Working on completing his training with Snoke, he should be getting better, not more out of control.
Something had changed, and he had a suspicion of what it was.
Kylo idly traced the rough line slashing diagonally down his face; a memento of a girl he'd underestimated. She was formidable and in his arrogance, he'd been defeated. He wouldn't make that mistake next time. He'd healed from the devastating bowcaster blast, and was in the best shape of his life.
When he hunted down the rebels and tore apart the Resistance, he'd start with her.
A vision of hazel eyes gazing up at him with wonder and need flew into his mind. His heart beat faster, and his mind filled with the half-remembered image of a nude woman wrapped in his black robe. He couldn't see her face, but he smelled her scent, like salt, wind and sand, and a hint of something fresh and green. Kylo Ren sat up in bed and swore.
He would hunt the scavenger down.
He would do whatever it took to make the damned dreams stop.