The Alien Cowboy’s Fated Mate Bonus Scene

“Everything’s quieter,” she says. “Like the mountain isn’t warning us anymore.”

I slip my hand around her waist, pulling her closer. “Maybe it doesn’t need to.”

She laughs softly, leaning into me. Her fingers drift over my chest where the glyphs lie hidden beneath my shirt. Even through the fabric I feel the warmth of her touch, the way the marks respond to her without flaring.

Stabilized.

That’s what Mags called it.

But the word never felt big enough.

Josephine tilts her head back to look at me. “You’re thinking too hard again.”

“Am not.”

“You get that crease right here.” She taps the line between my brows.

I catch her hand before she can pull it away, pressing a kiss to her knuckles.

“Just making sure you’re still real,” I say.

She raises an eyebrow. “Real as they come. I’ve survived alien hunters, a resonance event, and your stubborn cowboy moods.”

“Barely.”

“Barely?” she scoffs.

I grin. “You did fall for me.”

She rolls her eyes, but the smile that follows is warm and slow. The kind that settles deep in my chest where the hum lives now.

Her gaze drifts toward the open barn doors behind us. The same place where everything nearly ended. And where everything changed.

“Funny,” she murmurs.

“What is?”

“That place used to scare me.”

I follow her eyes.

“Now?” I ask.

Her fingers slide into mine. “Now it feels like a beginning.”

Something tight in my chest loosens. This is what I’ve always wanted. I just never dared hope for it.

Desire blossoms between us. Hers, by the look of her mischievous grin. Mine following close behind, because I can no longer separate it.

I don’t ever want to. Because I can’t get enough.

My hand slides beneath the hem of her shirt, warm and sure, like I’m measuring the shape of every promise we’ve made to each other.

Josephine laughs softly against my mouth. “Ash… we’re outside.”

“Good,” I murmur. “The mountain ought to know what it started.”

“Ash… my grandparents,” she warns.

My thumb brushes over her nipple before I can stop myself, feeling the same electric shiver slide down my back. It settles, a pressure at the base of my spine that she senses, too. Her pupils blow wide, lips parting.

“You’re doing it again,” she says, lips falling open, eyes rolling back in her head as anticipation rolls through me. My mind’s already jumping ahead to everything I’m going to do to her.

Her fingers curl in my collar, hips moving incrementally, as she shifts toward me, covering my mouth ravenously.

We don’t break until we have to, both gasping for a breathless moment.

“Thought you were worried about being seen?” I tease, fingers tracing her hip.

A puff of air escapes her. “Take me somewhere we can be alone, Cowboy.”

She doesn’t have to ask twice. I pull her into my arms without thinking, lifting her clean off the ground. Josephine laughs, the sound bright against the quiet ranch.

“Ash!”

“What?”

“You can’t just—”

“I can,” I say, carrying her toward the barn. “Turns out stabilization didn’t take away my strength.”

“Oh good,” she teases. “I was worried about that.” It comes out sarcastic.

The barn smells like hay and warm cedar. The lantern inside throws long shadows across the rafters, the same beams that watched us fight, fall, and finally choose each other.

I set her down near the stall door, but my hands linger at her waist.

Josephine looks up at me, breath catching just a little.

The hum stirs again—not wild, not desperate.

Just alive.

“This better?” I murmur, brushing my thumb along her jaw.

Her eyes soften. “Yes. Now where were we?”

I kiss her then—slow and deep, like we’ve got all the time the mountain can give us. Her body shivers against as me as my mind unwraps around her. Promises written in pulse and sensation.

“Yes,” she pants, though I’m barely touching her. “Please.”

I can feel her ache, the heat curling low. Hungry for me. It sets my blood ablaze.

I slide a hand between her thighs, and her breath shudders against my neck. Fire swirls around us as I give her the friction she needs.

It’s not enough.

I thumb her jeans open, finding her wet heat.

“God,” we say at the same time as I slide inside, fingers going to the spot where she needs me.

“Gonna bond you hard, Starlight.”

“Please,” she gasps, pushing my shirt off my shoulders. It pools in the straw at our feet.

I nuzzle her neck, teasing her with my tongue. Then I nip at her playfully, sucking a love bite just below her collarbone.

“Mating aggression, marking,” she murmurs. “Mmm… common in some species.” She gasps.

“Still studying me?” I growl against her collarbone, stroking her again, feeling her tighten around me… so close to breaking my legs shake.

“Gonna wreck you. Then I’ll do it again,” I warn.

“Same.”

She steps out of her boots and jeans. Mine bunch at my ankles as I lift her in one swift move. Her ankles lock above my ass as I slip inside, body already reacting to her velvety wetness. When we lock together, reform the bond, the fireworks burn inside now.

Shared need, shared pleasure.

Shielded from detection but still vibrating with the range.

She grips me to the point of pain, unraveling around me with a sharp cry. I thrust into her one last time, hot waves of need filling her. Mine.

Forever mine.

I lean her against the stall door carefully, forehead resting against hers, catching my breath with her. Trying to steady the shake in my thighs.

Her hands are still tangled in my hair, her hot breath on my chest as she presses kisses against the pulse of my neck. I’ve never felt so loved. Or so complete. It still puts a dangerous sting behind my eyes.

Outside, the wind moves through the pines. Inside the barn, the hum settles around us.

Steady.

Enduring.

For the first time in my life, the mountain doesn’t feel like a place I survived.

It feels like home.

And somewhere between us—where Josephine now rests a hand over her stomach,—something new may already be listening to the mountain.

The Starborn Range keeps its secrets.

For now.

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